The Silver Seamstress

Chapter 1

I am Lily Arianell, a royal seamstress. Nicknamed the Silver Seamstress of Sylvania, I have made many clothes for the royal family, each piece with their own hidden secret and silver symbol representing its wearer. One time, I had a strange assignment to do. It was a little extraordinary and out of the blue. Let me tell you the story of how a silver lily met a golden star.

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I walked into my room, thinking that I would have a calm and peaceful night ahead of me, but instead, I found someone sitting on my bed. The red-headed young man smirked and said, "I was wondering when you'd return." The cool night breeze from the open window ruffled his hair. I could hear the crickets chirping outside. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" I asked calmly, taking in every detail of the room as I spoke.

"I think you know very well what I'm here for and I intend to get it."

I sighed. "I'm very sorry, but could you come back another time when I'm not busy? I'd just returned from a meeting and still have a lot of work to do."

"Come on. You shouldn't act so clueless when we all know perfectly well that you know what I'm talking about."

"Can you please get out before I call the guards?" I asked him politely, pointing to the broken emergency button on the wall. Wait, broken?  Yep, it's been completely destroyed.

I took a moment to calm down and made some calculations in my head, and then said, "Either way, whether you get out or not, I'll still know who you are soon enough."

"What do you mean?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, perplexed.

"Well, we've been talking for 5 minutes, and based on the air quality in here and the wind speed outside, I'd say that the window has been open for about 15 minutes. Now, assuming you opened the window a bit after you came in through the door, since it gets hot in here after 10 minutes and the window's hard to open from the outside, it takes 30 minutes at most to travel from the farthest part of the castle grounds to my room. Even if you came through the window, which is not likely, it would still take about that amount of time to get up here - assuming you're not crippled or anything, of which you definitely are not. In conclusion, I'd say you got here sometime within the hour. Now, all I have to do is ask around if anybody came near this room during the hour." I explained.

As I spoke, the smirk disappeared from his face. "Wow, you're good," he said, getting up from the bed.

"Would that be a good enough reason for you to get out of my room and back to wherever you came from? Like I said before, I still have a lot of work to do tonight and I have a time limit."

"Go on and do whatever it is you need to do. I'm not stopping you," he said, like he owns the place.

"Well, with your presence here, I can't see any way I could focus on my work."

"Why not? Can't focus when someone's watching you?" he teased.

"Exactly. Now, if you may, sir, get out of my sight," I said, gritting my teeth in anger.

"Ooh, getting impatient, aren't we?" he said mockingly. Oh, if only he knew what I would be like when I'm truly angry. "Don't worry, I was just about to leave." Finally! But something was still bugging me.

"Did you truly have a reason to come here or did you just pop by on a whim?"

"Who knows?" he said, smiling mysteriously. Oh, how I want to smack that grin off his face!

"I hope you didn't mess up my stuff while you were here," I said, gesturing towards the adjoining room where I do my work.

"Of course not! Why would I?" he said innocently. I dashed to the door, my heart full of distrust, only to find the room exactly how I left it: my organized chaos. Organized because I know exactly where everything is; chaos because that's what it looks like to everyone else.

I breathed a sigh of relief. But what is he here for then? I turned around to ask him when I saw him standing beside the window. 

"You look like you still have some questions, but I'm going to take my leave now," he said, jumping out the window. I rushed over, only to find him sitting in the tree beside the window. 

"Glad to see you're worried about me, a stranger you'd only just met a few moments ago," he smirked, jumping to the ground as he spoke. "Well, see ya around."

"Shut up," I said under my breath. "At least you're human." 

After he left, I closed my window and collapsed onto my bed, exhausted from all the work I had to do today and the surprise visitor. I took out the hair ties that I wear daily from my hair and put them on my nightstand. As I drew my hand back, it knocked something onto the floor. It was a piece of paper and it said, "Hey, you probably didn't recognize me, but I'm an old friend of yours from a long time ago. I'm glad to see that you're fine and nothing has happened to you. I'll be visiting soon!"

A cryptic message from a weird creep. I sighed, putting the note facedown on my desk and starting to work on my designs for the new clothes I need to create.