[closed] old you in the garbage, new you in display case

[heirring]

WHO: Wysteria and Alexandrie
WHAT: Discussing makeovers for the greater good.
WHEN: Early Cloudreach
WHERE: The del la Fontaine apartments in Hightown.
NOTES: n/a, will add if necessary

Exactly where the rumors had come from or exactly how they'd whispered their way onto Alexandrie's stack of correspondence from this friend or that is even now unclear to Wysteria. In the long run, she's not certain that the semantics of the thing really matter that much when the subject of the rumor is standing right before them.

The Sister in question is a slim girl, both younger and sharper in the face and about the eyes than either of them is. There's a rangy quality to her, a look that speaks to a youth spent on some Rivaini street more than it evokes any glimmer of a soft Orlesian infant, but the resemblance (allegedly, and perhaps Alexandrie has seen the Comte from close enough to confirm) is there even if the temper isn't.

The girl's fidgeting somewhat between them now as Wysteria holds up a series of gowns against her. "I don't know about this color. Alexandrie, would you say the blue and silver, or the green and gold?"

Comments

[coquettish_trees]

“Blue and silver I should think,” Alexandrie replies as she re-enters the room holding a tray. She could have had Marie or Byron bring the tea, but she imagined there would be something calming for the young sister in seeing her hostess not shying away from tending to such tasks. Suddenly being swept up in the trappings of nobility is enough of a change, let her see that not everything needs to become different. “It reminds me of the lovely flowers we saw in the Abbey garden.” She pours the tea, the set the simplest she has, and presses the teacup gently into their charge’s hands. There we are, something warm. That's always comforting.

“Of course I may always send Marie to the market for dusty rose and cream fabrics, if you should wish to remain in the Chantry’s colors if not in the robes themselves. But is it not nice to play about sometimes?”

[heirring]

Wysteria discards the green and gold gown and takes up the blue and silver from the nearby chaise. She holds it up once more to the girl's shoulders, makes a soft noise of approval and then folds it across the back of a convenient chair for future reference.

"I'm sure the silver and blue will be perfectly fine," says Sister (Maybe-)Desmarais as she accepts the teacup.

"Oh, of course." This from Wysteria, halfway through sorting through a pile of delicate shifts and a selection of boned corsets with various patterned fabric. It would be best to find something that matched. Maybe this one with the fine little birds on it? "It's so obvious that you must have more important concerns. The rhe real question is what's to be done with her hair, Alexandrie?"

[coquettish_trees]

"Oh, something simple but lovely, I think. There should be a tray of jewelry—hair combs and such—on the vanity," Alexandrie waves her hand somewhere in its vague direction. She only wears half of it at the most, and vastly prefers gold to silver, but there is a wide selection of both color and metal available for just these occasions. She does so adore dressing up her friends, and generous as she is, she would hardly lend out her favourite sets. What if there were to suddenly be a party?

She raises both eyebrows and hands as she approaches the Sister in a gesture of may I? that she doesn't wait for an answer to, gently arranging the sweep of her hair in a few different ways. She thinks the Sister will be best pleased by something less elaborate, and a woman not entirely removed from self-assurance makes for a better presentation. It will also allow for the shape of her face to draw the eye most. She will do it with the makeup as well, emphasizing with both the similarities between the Sister and the lost Comtesse she had managed to view a painting of. Although they already look as if they could be mother and daughter in truth, when they are done the Comte will without fail see a young echo of his beloved wife.

"There is a set there that matches the dress, is there not?"

[heirring]

Wysteria falls eagerly upon the vanity, picking gently through the tray. It's all a variety of lovely and generally the sort of thing Wysteria prefers to look at rather than wear, but-- "Yes, I believe so. This, I think." And she withdraws a fine silver pin with a delicate little pendant hanging from it and a similarly gossamer necklace of metal and pale stones. Returning to the pair of them, Wysteria holds them first against the dress and then must find them perfectly suitable as she promptly sets the necklace about the young Sister's neck to judge the length even as Alexandrie is turning the girl's thick hair this way and that.

"Have you met the Comte, Lady de la Fontaine?" the girl asks, submitting to the pair of them like a mother dragging children along on her apron strings might. She takes a very careful sip of her tea, doing her best to dodge their eager hands in the process.

"Oh yes," Wysteria all but gushes with enthusiasm. "You must tell us everything you know about him. Is he very tragic? Unspeakably broken up over the loss of his dear wife and child. Once handsome, but grown now to an ashen parody of his former self out of grief, I'm all but certain. How terrible." A pause. Wysteria regards the young lady subject to her draping the necklace about her. "My sincere apologies for your loss, of course. Your poor mother."

"It's fine," says Sister Possibly-Desmarais. "I never knew her."

Which prompts a soft, plaintive noise from Wysteria. Oh, how wonderfully awful!

[coquettish_trees]

Wysteria's choices inspire a pleased noise from Alexandrie.

"You have a fine eye, those shall hardly need adjusting at all." Finally deciding upon a hair placement, she calls for Marie and explains her thoughts in a rapid torrent of Orlesian. She would do it herself, but her maid is more practiced, and one would have to arise very early in the morning indeed to dodge Marie's caretaking. "As to the Comte, you are not too far off, although I should not say 'ashen parody'. By all accounts he was a dashing young man and lucky to have fallen very much in love with the woman his parents chose for him. He was ecstatic to have heard he had a daughter, and grief stricken to have never met you. A much more subdued gentleman sense, and he never even began thinking to remarry. He was entirely overcome when we told him you lived, both with joy and with guilt that he had not looked harder for you." Alexandria looks quite solemn, and her speech is soft. "He would like very much to be your father, and is a bit worried you shall not feel you need one at all."

The question unspoken: and how do you feel?