two
The moment Sulim removed her boots and slipped into house shoes, Lady Jacelah approached.
“There you are.” That was how her mother-in-law always greeted Sulim when she returned from her morning sojourn. “I’ve been looking for you. Do you know what time it is?”
Sulim glanced at the large clock on the foyer wall, its pendulum swinging with such force that she worried it might break off one day. “It’s the same time I always return.”
“You knew we were receiving important guests today.” Jacelah looked her up and down, tsking at Sulim’s choice of tunic and trousers. “For the love of the Void, please go put on a dress and some flats. Or, at least, a blouse.”
“I don’t own any dresses.”
“Graella has something you can wear, surely.”
Graella is two sizes smaller than me. Sonall’s sister was as feminine as it got, too, meaning that every piece she owned would look ridiculous on a tomboy like Sulim. “They’ll be here at noon, right? That gives me ninety minutes to change and comb my hair.”
“You will do more than comb it,” the lady said as Sulim headed for the staircase. “Please. I am politely asking you to look nice for company.”
Sulim said nothing, aside from glancing at her mother-in-law over her shoulder. Yet Jacelah’s desperately pleading look melted one of the frozen cockles of Sulim’s heart. “I will not embarrass you,” Sulim assured her.
She wasn’t going to wear a damn dress, though.
Once safely tucked in her bedroom, which she shared with her husband, Sulim ripped off her tunic and took a bath in the adjacent chamber’s sink.
She spritzed some paus-wood scented perfume under her arms before entering the walk-in closet and searching for something suitable to wear for noble company—because, despite her inability to remember who was coming from the capital, she knew they must be higher nobility.
Which is a feat, since this is one of the noblest families on Arrah.
Usually, other women begged their girls to dress nicely for the Gardiahs.
Someone rapped on the bedroom door before bounding into the room without invitation. Only one woman who wore rustling skirts ever did that, so Sulim didn’t look up from the embroidered sleeve in her hand as that shadowy figure raced toward her.
“What’s this about you borrowing one of my dresses?”
Graella, already decked out with a large ribbon tying back her hair and delicate makeup on her face, didn’t look twice at Sulim in nothing but a bra and trousers.
“Don’t worry. I have three picked out already. Actually, you can have them. They’d look much nicer on your frame and with your dashing hairstyle.”
Sulim dropped the sleeve in her hand before hanging the blouse back up on its rack. Behind her, Graella bumped into her brother’s formalwear that Sonall wore about twice a year.
“You are misinformed.” Sulim plucked a tailored off-white tunic from the end of the row.
It was made from jimmel, a finely woven fabric from the faraway planet of Cachaya, known for its breathable clothing made from their native jungle plants.
Sonall bought this for me when I moved here.
He had taken it upon himself to buy her something from every place he traveled for business, and Sulim had racked up a collection of shirts, hair clasps, and jewelry.
Poor sod had no idea I’d cut off my hair.
“How about this? Will your mother flay me if I wear this for lunch?”
Graella cocked her head, the same black hair as her family sliding to one side. “I don’t know…” She hissed through her teeth. “You know that I love your style, but Mother is…”
“A style tyrant?”
“Mother has a very rigid view of how a lady should dress.”
“Which I do not fall into.”
“You didn’t grow up like we did. And you’re from another planet…”
“But I’m a Federation citizen who was raised by a Lady, which is why your mother remains flummoxed that I don’t know the difference between a thong and swimsuit underwear.”
Graella giggled. “You probably shouldn’t talk like that in front of company.”
“Are you seriously doubting my ability to hold it in?”
Graella’s response came from her perusing the pants farther into the closet.
As her rosy dress brushed against other people’s clothes, she bent down, picking out an unwrinkled pair of trousers to go with the tunic.
“These will accentuate your legs nicely with that. Wear those satin flats, and I’ll grab some jewelry.”
She winked at Sulim as she fluttered by.
“I won’t do you wrong! Oh! By the way!” Graella spun around, hands clasping her skirt. “That bra is perfect!”
Sulim begrudgingly changed after Graella shut the bedroom door, giving her sister-in-law some privacy.
Once she had swapped her riding trousers for the leggings and snatched the satin flats from the top shelf, Sulim tossed the jimmel tunic over her torso and combed her hair in front of the vanity.
Graella returned with a couple of pieces of jewelry for Sulim to borrow, all while complimenting her figure and espousing jealousy that Sulim looked so “fetching” with her short hair and bangs just long enough to wear a wooden Cachayan hair clasp to go with her tunic.
“Stop flirting with me,” Sulim joked, though her deadpan tone always threw off Graella. “Don’t want your brother getting jealous. Actually…” She turned to Graella, who bent to fix some of the errant hairs on Sulim’s head. “Keep flirting. It’s good for him to get jealous.”
Giggling, Graella lightly blew onto Sulim’s scalp before smoothing down another strand of blond hair. “You should wear that ring my brother got you from Yazhen,” she conspiratorially whispered, as if anyone else could hear. “It will tie all of it together.”
“It only fits on my ring finger.”
“Can’t you wear it on your other…” Graella glanced down. “You don’t wear your wedding ring?”
“Not when I’m working, no. Just so we’re clear, neither does your brother. That’s silly.”
“Oh, Mother won’t like that. You must wear it with company over. Don’t want them getting the wrong idea that you’re… never mind.”
“You can say ‘the help’ without offending me. Void knows I get along with them more than anyone besides you.”
“That’s because we were friends long before you met my brother. A dream come true for me is just another day for you, Sulim.”
“Yup. How about that?” Sulim searched her vanity for the rings, including the simple band she wore to represent being a married woman.
She then rooted around for the Yahzenian ring that Sonall had proposed to her with three years ago.
It was so valuable that she kept it under lock and key, because…
well, something had to go in the nice jewelry box she had inherited from her late mother.
If it made it all the way to Arrah in my married life, I might as well put nice and valuable things in it.
From what little Sulim knew about her mother, the late Mrs. di’Graelic would appreciate her daughter having some valuables.
One never knows when shit will go tits up.
They made it to Lady Jacelah’s salon right on time for the guests to arrive.
As Sulim got up from her seat, ignoring her mother-in-law’s judgmental gaze, she half-heartedly greeted Mrs. Cera di’Lim, Jacelah’s childhood friend from the capital city of Dassil.
Not only had Sulim met the woman before, but she had come to the wedding two years ago, where she scoffed at the bride’s hair and slim hips.
“Jacelah,” she had chided her friend at the reception, “how could you let your husband’s only son marry a woman so ill-suited for childbearing?”
If only she knew.
Cera did not have any comments for Sulim, who kept to herself in an armchair while Jacelah and Graella conversed with Cera and her teenage daughter Meri, who also stayed quiet while observing the room—and making constant eye contact with Sulim, as if she were some alien being.
I might as well be. She was the only non-Arrahite, although Sonall assured her that the more years she stayed on the planet, the more acclimated she’d become.
But nothing would stop Sulim from being the farmgirl from Qahrain, one of the Federation's “saddest” planets.
Unlike these people… When Sulim acknowledged she had married up and married well, she couldn’t deny it. She was truly lucky.
Kinda.Somehow.
Tea was served, complete with milk and sweetener that Sulim eschewed every time.
She was the only one who took her tea completely straight, and that included the floral herbal tea that “bloomed” when poured over with water.
None of that was served today, and for good reason—it was out of season, and Jacelah Gardiah would never.
“You won’t believe the hubbub erupting all around the Temple,” Cera said, referring to the primary place of worship in the capital.
While almost every Arrahite was a member of the Temple of the Void, being far out in the countryside didn’t allow for many visits to weekend services or to consult with the nearest priest.
When I got married, they hired the Dassil priest to come all the way out here.
To be fair, priests were at least half-julah, the sorceric class of humans who could teleport at will. Still, priests were busy people.
“There’s always something going on,” Jacelah murmured as she sipped her tea on her chaise lounge. Beside her, Graella offered a napkin when she noticed her mother dripping tea on her dress. “The priest seems like a lovely man, but he struggles to control the mouths in town.”
“Don’t I know it! Jacelah, I live in the thick of it. That’s why it was a very big deal when the latest space cruiser from Yahzen wasn’t hauling goods for trade or supplies for the Temple.”
Sulim’s ears perked up. “A space cruiser from Yahzen?” she said. “A passenger one?”
Cera appeared surprised that Sulim could talk. “Why, yes. A passenger ship. Well, one of those passenger-cargo hybrids. One would assume it was humans returning from a pilgrimage or some other, but that’s not what the rumors say. Believe it or not, some VIPs from the High Temple were on board!”
“Who has any proof of that?” Jacelah leaned forward. “And what would it mean for us?”
“Well!” Cera was in her element, peddling rumors from the capital to her dearest, most affluent friend who lived all the way out in the middle of nowhere.