“Etiquette;”
In the marbled expanse of her bathing chamber, Llewelyn’s voice carried easily into the adjoining parlor and bedroom. She stood before a massive, gold framed mirror mounted on the polished porcelain wall adjacent to the doorway. There, she recited from memory the definitions and rules that had been drilled into her by tutors and instructors over her lifetime.
“The customary code of polite behavior in society or among members of a particular profession or group.”
Llewelyn turned slightly in the glow cast by the faery orbs and candles, checking the symmetry of lines as she painted her customary golden accents over the skin of her two front legs. It was something that she had been doing since she was but a filly, having found the pattern in a tome from her father’s study. As a youth, she had found the solid lines and symmetry both fascinating and comforting, and now the application of the accessory was as much part of Llewelyn as her imperious nature.
“Ladies should walk erect, with dignity, neither trotting nor running, nor dallying; with their eyes hooded and demure.”
Smiling thinly at her reflection, Llewelyn released her telekinetic hold on the mink-hair and cherrywood paintbrush that she had been using and left it, along with the small jar of gold paint, upon the lip of her massive soaking tub. The maids, when they came twenty minutes after the femme left her chambers for the day, would tidy clean the brush for tomorrow and place it in the same position for Llewelyn’s pre-dawn use. Lifting her left front leg and rotating it just enough to see the gilded appliqué shimmer beneath the candlelight, the maiden sighed blissfully and turned toward the arched doorway leading to the sitting room.
Stepping into the chamber, dark hooves pressing into a plush emerald rug, the youthful mare quirked a brow, noting the blaring lack of her most cherished - and most resented - companion. Was he somewhere else in her apartments? He had never been late for their weekly dawn tea before. She cast a glance at the horizon through the windows that lead to her balcony and felt the unfamiliar pinch of worry in her chest - the sky to the east was brightening from black to a slate grey; there wasn’t much time.
Swallowing and pursing her lips, Llewelyn made her way to one of two overstuffed cushions that accompanied a low mahogany table and perched upon it. The lines in her body were tense, where was he? The Lady did not like being saddled with uncertainty, and the sensation felt like oil, thick and slimy, oozing through her veins. Calming breaths did little to soothe her nerves, and rearranging the tea service set for two had begun to feel more like nervous fiddling than anything else.
Releasing the gold-dipped ceramic teapot with a huff, Llewelyn took to murmuring more lines from her etiquette instructors as she waited, hoping that the familiar syllables and rhythmic lines would help calm her near-frantic thoughts.
“A Lady may accept whatever gift from another that may be useful in the care of her person, or may look charming, or may remind her of her companions, providing, however, that in accepting the gift it is clear that she is acting quite without avarice...”
@Mateo eee I’m so excited!
