75 - Chapter LXXV: Pearls on a Lark

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Two hours later.

"No."

"Yes."

She stabbed the scissors into the carpet. "I will...not."

Sabine was completely ignoring her threats. "Reinette, you're wearing it," she said. Still standing in front of her dresser, still putting on red lipstick as though it were far more important than the possibility of being stabbed with scissors. "And before you ask—no, for the last time, it is not 'completely see-through'..."

Liar.

Also to be clear, that was not her question, but for some reason, Sabine was taking her less seriously now that she was lying on a carpet with a bottle in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other.

She'd been happy in her bed. Or at least in control, she thought miserably. Turning onto her side, so she could avoid seeing the dress. Maybe she could make a break for it. Take the veil, cover her hair, and just...stay in her quarters until it grew back.

Or she died.

Sabine capped the lipstick. "Oh for goodness' sake, Reinette, it was a joke."

I am not laughing, she thought, eying the girl with vicious intent. Trying to understand how to she'd gone from having sense to giving Sabine free rein over her appearance. Her inability to remember why sharp objects were not allowed in her quarters causing her to realise just how problematic a situation it would be if they were caught sneaking out of the den.

That same sense of self-preservation prompting her to suggest that perhaps, if they wanted to survive the wrath of a man whose presence in a hallway habitually made servants walk in the other direction, they should just abandon the entire venture. A suggestion which was promptly met by Sabine scoffing in her face and asking if they should also spend the evening immuring themselves behind a wall of self-denial.

Which still would have been safer, she felt like muttering at the child. But Sabine had no concept of safety anymore. Or halting. Rather, it took her less than fifteen minutes to come up with an alternative plan, again forcing her out of bed, sneaking them hallway by hallway to her quarters, sitting her down on a stool...

...and cutting it.

All of it.

Her beautiful...long...dark hair lying on the ground in a chopped-off braid. The sight causing her neck to stiffen, while every silent bone in her body started shrieking.

It was a nightmare.

Or at least a partial nightmare given that she had yet to look in a mirror. Instead, shutting her eyes. Determined to just...bear it. She was a thousand years old...and she'd been bald...and decrepit...

...and it was just hair. Which was an excessively mature way of saying she now felt like a child weeping after her first haircut. And for all the wrong reasons.

No one wore their hair that short. Certainly not since Jacqueline had fallen out of favour. And thanks to twenty-three years of being a fly on the wall, watching the social graces of his den, she could already imagine the consequences of revealing it. The eyes staring at her in judgment. Like they were still living in Victorian times, all the ladies of the den trying to mimic Freyja with her hair...and her dignity...and her 'traditional qualities.'

The thought keeping her eyes shut. Ignoring every snip and slice for twenty minutes. Only knowing it was done when Sabine again kissed her on the top of the head, clapping her hands together as though a masterpiece had been created. Thereby giving her permission to stumble off the stool, go to Sabine's side-table and do what she did best.

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