"You can read my mind?" Pieder gasped, barely audibly, and almost dropped the old woman into the hot pool of water before she was even undressed.
"Careful!" she exclaimed. Then she loosened Pieder's grip on her and took off her night robe with no trace of inhibition or modesty. Pieder knew he ought to blush, but couldn't muster enough emotion to do so.
"Go, prepare breakfast," the Witch ordered. "And you can read my mind as much as I can read yours. Loud and externally directed thoughts -- the sorts of things you would use words to say or noises to express -- can be heard by both of us as though they were in our own heads. Shoo! I can instruct you from anywhere within this house without trouble."
Pieder obeyed.
Days flew by, and as the anxiety potion wore off Pieder found himself capable of living with the Witch without fear of his own accord. Both the Witch and Pieder grew so used to living on the periphery of each others thoughts that as the communication potion faded they agreed to try a spell to bind their minds together for a longer time. The Witch spent weeks constructing potions and steams, salves and bizarre machines. By the time she was prepared to carry out her spell, she and Pieder had been without any direct communication besides writing for more than a week. Writing was very difficult for the Witch to do unassisted, and while she had various magical contraptions to aid her, her favored way of writing was to dictate her words to Pieder. It was almost a year after Pieder had first arrived to live with the Witch, and he had grown fond of his mistress in a strange way, fearing her and loving her both to some extent, but mostly just fascinated utterly by her magic and her wisdom.
DAY 7
Iris watched the Magician as he worked the crowd. She hated these people as much as she loved these parties. Some of the younger guests were interesting, and a few were almost her friends. As much friends as an entertainer and an audience member could be. The Magician insisted that the barriers to friendship that Iris saw were all in her head. But every time Iris watch him work a room, oozing from one patron to the next, it reinforced her suspicion that all relationships formed as part of her job were ultimately fake.
The party was lavishly decorated. Flowers adorned the tables, set in vases of crystal and living wood cleverly intertwined by the best artificers Iskandar had to offer. Two walls, granite perhaps, were covered by thin sheets of water, fountains cleverly made by fanning water out from the system of veins pumping warm (or cool, depending on the season) water through the mansion. At the foot of the fountain was a trough which collected the water once more. Iridescent lights flickered behind the water, the granite covered in potions and pastes created by apothecaries from far and wide. The Magician had organized and maintained much of the magic on display. That meant that Iris knew more than she would like about many elements of the decoration. The fountains that arched water across wide swaths of the ballroom were Iris' to care for. While they glittered in the light of thousands of carefully ensorcelled fireflies and floating globes of many tinted witch light, their beauty constantly reminded Iris that she was here to do a job and not to enjoy herself.
Unbeknownst to her, many in the crowd felt similarly. They were there to make an appearance, to cement a business relationship, to impress a superior. As a ritzy social affair it was work of one kind or another for most of the attendees. But Iris was fifteen and the Magician, her uncle, mentor, and employer, had never thought to inform her of the nature of the engagements they spent much of their lives facilitating.
In addition to caring for the scenery, from the fireflies to the fountains to the flowers, Iris was being paid to work the crowd. She was a paid guest, a party goer who set the mood and identified the guests who were not enjoying themselves. She then found a way to include the discordant notes in the melody (the unhappy guests in the lighthearted party) more completely in the appropriate mood.
At fifteen, Iris had gotten her full height but retained a nymphish lack of curves. Through she fit into gowns designed with an adult's height in mind, gowns made for her had to be altered after their creation in order to fit her flat chest and slender hips without bunching.
Since most clothing, especially the more expensive types, were grown, the were not supposed to have seams except as decorative embellishments. Seams were a sign of low class more stark than an unoriginal design. Iris was learning how to reshape her clothes before they were grown, but her current outfit had had to be taken in by a seamstress. She had been skilled, using the seams for art as much as functionality. But even if others were impressed by the clever craftsmanship of her clothing (and many guests at the event had been) Iris felt self conscious.
Her outfit was a jumpsuit belted tightly about the waist. It had loose legs and sleeves so full that they could almost be wings. The neck was loose about the throat, gathering in layers above Iris' meager breasts. The closure to the jumpsuit was done with tiny golden buttons, and it wound from the left side of her neck, diagonally across her back to her right hip, then spiraled around her right thigh and ended just above her knee. The whole piece was sheer and white with tiny pearls formed within the weave and weft of the fabric. Beneath the jumpsuit, Iris wore a leotard of deep, iridescent blue cut almost severely and with long tight fitting sleeves.
4,604 words out of 50,000 total
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