Abbernathy and Magick's End |Trilogy Now Complete!

(25) - When His Stars Dance -

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LEO'S HOME was little more than a shed behind the bakery, one her father had repurposed after selling their house on Manigold Street. After her mother passed, he could no longer argue their need for so much space. 

The downsizing came within a moon. Of course, Leo was not asked her opinion on the matter, nor were her feelings taken into consideration. Because her face had been smoothed of all emotion, her father thought her unbothered by anything and everything. 

When she allowed herself to miss her home - its tangerine trees in the small backyard, its flowerboxes filled with her mother's herbs, the kitchen painted lavender because it had been her mother's favorite color - her blood boiled. The memories of that place, stitched between the wood beams, and ironed into the stonework and window dressings, had been ripped away from her. 

She rolled Millie across floorboards that creaked, in a room that smelled of mold. Where corners dripped with spider webs, and dust motes shimmered in fading bands of golden sunlight. Her room had once served as storage for the bakery's flour and sugar. A year ago, they'd made the switch from burlap to barrel, after a particularly resilient band of mice had chewed through the sacks, coating the floor in white-speckled prints. It was a disaster - the bakery had to be closed for a fortnight, the lost supplies restocked, the storage floor cleaned. 

After that, they kept perishables in the bakery where its more modern make provided better protection from starving rodents. 

Leo could still make out the scuff marks their tiny claws made in their attempt to flee the scene of their crime. 

"I think the white," her chair moaned while Leo pulled on the pleated skirt of an off-white dress. 

"Really?" She frowned, noticing a yellow stain on the hem. "But isn't it too..." Ugly? Try-hard? Not her? 

Leo always chose her dress based on practicality rather than style. As such, her wardrobe was contaminated with boring beiges and frocks, simple tunics with scooped necklines and leather ties. Basic boots with rubber soles, enhanced to withstand immense heat. 

With multiple ovens running in the bakery at a time, and Triad's merciless sun, rubber and softer materials like it, had no problem turning into puddles. Her shoes needed to be impervious to such things, even if she didn't get much use out of them otherwise. 

She released the dress, and flung aside its hanger. "No white." 

A sigh raised out of Mil's speaker. "No white, no brown, no navy. And you have no other colors. Do you plan on wearing anything at all?" 

"Yes." Eyeing the other options in her closet -a tunic so brown and shiny it reminded her of her father's dark, glazed loaves - a pair of trousers  - a moody, stormy blue with patched up knees and fraying stitches- and a skirt - black and to the ankles which would undoubtedly get caught beneath Mil's wheels - Leo spun around, arms crossed. "I just--"

Axion would stand out in his attire. Surely, Axion would stand out regardless of what he wore. His bandages would catch the attention of everyone in attendance, his presence, so reminiscent of the nobility would spark rumors about some lost Triadian lineage, and his affability would have people hovering around him like flies. 

Leo didn't suspect she was capable of causing such a stir, or whipping up such a spectacle, but she did want Axion to notice her. But all she had was drab fashion that had allowed her to go unnoticed throughout the streets of Triad for three and twenty years.

"I have nothing to wear." Her fingers curled around Millie's armrests. 

Outside her window, the first twinkling stars appeared in the sky. She would need to leave soon, in order to meet Axion at their agreed time.