58. Fifty-Eight - A Distracted Dressing
Fifty-Eight - A Distracted Dressing
Viggo
I know I’ve kept Ana in the tub for too long when I hear Penny come in. But as she dozes against my chest, I can’t feel bad about it.
It’s her birthday.
I don’t stir her. I watch the door and wait.
And when Penny slips through it, he looks at her with a soft smile.
“It’s time to get ready,” he says, instead of scolding me for being behind schedule.
“Join us,” I say, holding my hand out to him. “They’ll wait.”
“They might wait, but they’ve been working all week on this. And we are not going to keep her from them just because we are selfish.”
“ She is not actually asleep,” Ana says with a little yawn. “But she agrees. We can be selfish tomorrow.”
Acquiescing, I help her stand and Penny wraps her in a towel as she steps out.
Loric is already at the party. Everyone is.
But he laid out our clothes before he left and it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Ana’s have clearly been arranged with a little more attention to detail.
If Penny was older, he might be able to push her backward into the chair and have her dressed and ready in a mere moment. But that is a magic only older elves can access.
Penny only needs to change a few of his things. He’s done first, but I get myself mostly dressed and go to help them both get Ana all tightened and cinched.
The dress is a buttery yellow that fits her perfectly.
Misses Scoggins works magic all her own.
She slips the necklace under the bodice and holds it in place while Penny tightens her laces, and I go to my knees in front of her, slipping her shoes on.
“Behave,” she says, softly, as my hand trails up her leg.
“I will... but only because he’s threatened my life if I don’t.”
Penny snorts from behind her, finishing off the last of her laces. “It wasn’t his life I threatened.
“I told him I’d tie him to the chair for the whole night and only let him watch as I gave you your birthday love.”
She licks her lips and I don’t know if it’s because of that last word, or because she wants to see the picture he’s just painted for her.
“Would you let him touch himself?” she asks, eyes on me as she tips her face toward him.
“Of course not.”
He slips a flower in her hair and then steps away to grab his coat.
He hands me mine too, and I stay back from her as I put it on.
I don’t trust myself to stay on task if I touch her.
Penny has no such worries.
“Everyone is waiting for you.” He kisses her neck and she shivers. “We won’t disappoint them.”
She looks a little rueful, “They’ve been trying to hide their preparations from me, but I already know they’ve done far too much.”
“Nonsense,” I say. “If they wanted to do it, it wasn’t too much.”
Penny takes her hand and tucks it in his arm, leading her down the stairs to Dorrian.
“You look very lovely, flower.” He groans as his face reshapes, his eyes more defined than I have ever seen them. “They don’t deserve you.”
She laughs and shakes her head and then, reworking my earlier sentiment, she says, “If that was true, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Just make sure you keep feeling that way.”
He swings open without us needing to ask him to let us go.
“Oh!” Ana looks out the door, wide eyed and the dark meadow beyond takes my breath away, too.
The lights suspended over the space are Penny’s handiwork. Everything else...
We step through the door and into the meadow and cheers echo into the night as soon as they see her.
Ana is loved.