Death of Boredom V-
Dress Problems- Part 2: The Creation
By Lil Phoenix
Ebiru held up the piece of paper with various sketches on it. They were all different views of her dress and cloak, as they would look when she was done making her dress. She was starting to like her new dress design more and more, as she enjoyed the extra red touches she had to add to make up for not having enough black.
Setting her pencil down, Ebiru searched out some colored pencils and roughly filled it in with color. If you can call red and black "color." Putting the pencils back, she stood up and (while inspecting the sketches) walked over to where Athene and Darker Shadow were sitting. She didn't walk very fast, obviously, cuz it's really hard to walk fast while you're inspecting a sketch. And she'd have been in trouble if she accidentally tripped over Shadow, since she wasn't watching where she was going. When she finally got there, her fellow henchpeople weren't even talking. Or rather, Athene had tried talking to Shadow, but gave up after a few tries. Not very talkative, that one.
Anyways, they both looked up as Ebiru approached. Ebiru twirled her paper around for them to see, and asked, "You like?"
Shadow replied with a "hmph" and, "If it'll get you to go away, then sure, looks great, bye."
Both Ebiru and Athene glared at him, and Ebiru commented rather tersely, "This is my room, you know. Perhaps you should go read somewhere *else*?"
Shadow shrugged, and in reply, gathered up his book and fluffy dog, and left for his room.
Ebiru rolled her eyes and turned back to Athene. "So? Whatcha think?"
Athene took the paper and studied it. "You're a pretty good drawer. Why didn't you draw a head for the poor person, though?" And she handed it back.
Ebiru sighed. "I wasn't drawing for the fun of it, you know. This is my new dress design. You know, so I don't have to wear Finny's Farmgirl Fashion anymore?"
"Oh! Okay," Athene took the drawing again. "Looks nice. But, um... what'd you change?"
Ebiru sighed again. "I added this red border on the cloak, cuz we didn't find enough black, and the pattern doesn't have the exact same cloak design, so I won't have the red ties and the gold clasp, but I have this nifty red neckband that holds it on, instead," as she babbled, Ebiru pointed to the corresponding parts. "Oh, I changed the direction the stripes were going. For like, symbolic importance. Or something. I felt like it. And what else...? Oh yeah, I added more fabric to the dress part so that I could actually walk, possibly even run. I've gotten to like that part about this pitiful outfit," she gestured to the ripped jeans for shorts and long button-down white shirt, with sleeves rolled up, she was wearing.
Athene smirked at the reference to Ebiru's current outfit. They were lucky they hadn't been called upon to attack the Sailor Ronins while Ebiru was having her clothing crisis. Although maybe it would have been a good thing- they would have been laughing so hard that they wouldn't have been able to fight.
***Intermission so I can listen to Bon Jovi's "It's My Life."***(1)
"At least you have shoes now," Athene finally commented.
Ebiru looked down at her feet. "Hn. Yeah. Some lady's awful tennis shoes. Anyways, I guess... I gotta go ask Kasei if there are any sewing rooms in this place."
Again, Athene smirked. The irony of living in a place over 500 years, and still not knowing your way around very well...
* * * * *
Ebiru, for the second time that day (an extremely rare occurrence), stood at the door of Kasei's room, waiting to be noticed, not daring to interrupt her again, as she had risked it once today already.
Finally, Kasei turned around and noticed Ebiru. Stifling a snicker at the site of her clothes, she asked, "Yes?"
"I'm sorry to bother you again, mistress, but is there a sewing room anywhere in this castle?"
Kasei thought for a second, before replying, "Huh. Good question."
Ebiru sighed, exasperated.
"Well, let's go find out." Kasei grabbed Ebiru by the arm and transported them both to some desolate part of the castle. After coughing from all the dust they had stirred up, Ebiru looked around. There were no cobwebs (not even spiders were stupid enough to live there), but there was dust. Lots of dust. And both sorceress and witch had a fine coating of it from simply teleporting over.
"Where," Ebiru coughed, "are we?"
"West wing," Kasei replied casually, walking toward the nearest door. A pattern of swirling dust followed her as she moved. Upon opening the door, Kasei's eyes grew large, her face turned a reddish-pink, and she immediately shut the door again. After murmuring something about, "Forgot about that..." she rushed over to the next door.
Unfortunately, Ebiru had caught a glimpse of what had been in the room. It was a rather clean room, no dust at all, but it was draped in black velvet and covered with pictures of a teenage boy with a long braid. The room was lightly illuminated by candles laid out in a pattern on the floor, obviously enchanted so that they'd never burn out. Ebiru noted that the design on the floor spelled out three letters: D-U-O.
Ebiru shook her head to clear the shocking scene from her mind, and quickly followed Sorceress Kasei to the next room, which, upon opening, revealed a shocking seen of... nothing. Except for a few tumbleweeds blowing across the dusty landscape (er, the floor.) But in the next room, there was absolutely nothing. There's a big difference between nothing and absolutely nothing, you see.
They went on like this for a while, and as they reached the second-to-last door, barely able to breath from exhaustion and the dust they had stirred up, they found a room with a sewing machine. A pitiful, old-fashioned machine it was, but it was something, nonetheless.
As Kasei stood in the doorway, gasping for breath, she commented, "Well, at least," she paused to breathe. "At least it wasn't the last room."
Ebiru had collapsed in a corner, trying to regain her breath. She was too tired to glare.
"I'll leave you to work, then." Kasei teleported out.
Ebiru reluctantly made herself stand up. She was curious about that last door. Stumbling out of the sewing room, she opened the other door. It was extremely dark in there. She cautiously entered, and felt something furry brushing against her. Jerking away, she stood still until her heart stopped pounding. Then she reached out to see what the furry thing was. She caught hold of it, and noted that at least it was not living. Feeling around, she realized it was a fur coat. Stepping further into the darkness, she heard something crunch under her feet. Bending down, she picked it up and felt it. It was in many little pieces, and cold. After holding it for a bit, it turned to water and dripped through her fingers. Ebiru blinked. 'Snow?' Continuing onward, the darkness began to dissipate, and before long, she was standing in a snowy clearing, surrounded by pine trees, and freezing her butt off in the farmgirl outfit, cursing herself for not grabbing one of the coats. In the center of the clearing stood a lampost, and underneath it was a little man holding an umbrella over his head and a small parcel. Problem was, he had goat's legs. She stood staring, and soon the goat-man noticed her.
"'Allo there. I'm Mr. Tumnus," he said cheerfully, with a British accent.
Ebiru immediately dropped to the ground, unconscious. Yep, the witch fainted.
* * * * *
When she awoke, she found herself huddled in a corner in the sewing room. Yes, it was all just a stupid dream sequence. Although an odd one. Dust can do weird things to the brain.
Ebiru wanted to be extremely sure that there were no satyrs in that room, so she tried it again. After walking a few steps into the darkness, she ran into something. At first, she thought it was a wall. After moving her hands around a bit, though, she felt the object shift, and she was soon pushing in to the side, revealing the light from her very own room. Stepping inside, she saw Athene staring at her. She had just pushed open the sliding door of her own closet.
Ebiru stared back, then turned around to walk back through the closet she had just come from, and came back to the dusty hallway. Walking back to her room, she blinked at Athene.
"What wing is this?" she asked meekly.
"Um, east, I think."
Ebiru turned around to stare at her closet, then quickly shut the sliding door. Shaking her head with disbelief, Ebiru flopped onto her bed for a looong nap.
* * * * *
Upon waking up, Ebiru ignored Athene's questions of whether or not she was okay, and stalked over to her closet. When she walked back through, she came back to the dusty hallway. Not a dream this time. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Ebiru sighed, and went back to her room to retrieve that fabric.
Holding up her hand to stop Athene's questions before they even started, Ebiru told her, "Don't ask. I don't know."
Ebiru grabbed the pile of fabric and then went throughout her room collecting the threads, needles, pins, and whatever other odds and ends she had in her room that would be useful for the project. She was usually mending the minor rips and tears in the other villains' clothing (Kasei's spell protected it from anything major), so she had all the supplies she'd need stashed away in her room.
After carrying everything through the closet to the sewing room, Ebiru laid it all out. Eventually, she decided things would go a lot faster if she had help.
When Ebiru returned to her room, Athene looked at her with the same concerned expression. "I need help," was all Ebiru said.
Athene nodded, quickly agreeing. "Yes, you do, very much. I'm glad you've come to this decision. The first step to recovery is realizing you have a problem."
Ebiru blinked, then realized that they weren't on the same subject. "No! I don't need a psychiatrist! I need help making my dress. It'll go a lot faster."
"Oh. Um, okay, sure."
"Good. You can go ask Shadow, then."
Athene frowned, suddenly realizing that Ebiru hadn't come to her first just because she was closest. She knew the fellow henchgirl hated talking to her brother. Athene sighed and left to ask Darker Shadow.
Smirking slyly, Ebiru waited. Soon, Athene returned, with Shadow in tow. He didn't look happy, but she was surprised Athene had convinced him to come. Ebiru began wondering what tactic had been used against the poor fool.
After shaking her head, Ebiru told them, "Follow me," and started towards the closet.
She paused when she noticed nobody was following her. Athene's concerned expression had returned, and Shadow was looking at his sister with extreme skepticism. "Through your closet?" he growled.
Ebiru nodded. "Just believe me, will ya?" She continued through her closet, and this time, the other henchpeople followed.
When they made it to the dusty hallway, Athene's eyes were wide. "How...?"
Ebiru held up her hand to silence her. "I told you, I don't know."
Shadow was studying their surroundings. "What wing are we in?"
"West, according to Kasei."
Shadow put on his amused grin, dopey thing that it was. However, it's far better than the normal glare. Ebiru smirked and led them into the sewing room to start on the work.
* * * * *
"God, Shadow! How'd you pass Kindergarten?!" Ebiru held up the pattern she had set him to work cutting. The edges were jagged beyond belief.(2) "Athene, can you cut this? You're an artist, you should do a better job."
"Okay then." Athene took the scissors. Ebiru continued the ironing Athene had been doing.
"What am I supposed to do?" Shadow grumbled.
Ebiru looked up at him. "Um..." she looked around, then spotted the sewing machine. "You can start sewing what we've already cut out!" She led him over. "I know you can use a sewing machine," Ebiru added with a sly smirk.
Shadow glared at her, but set to work anyways.
* * * * *
Surprisingly, the dress didn't take more than a day to make. Soon, they were standing over it, inspecting their work.
"Hey, you didn't do a bad job, Shadow," Ebiru commented. Although she expected a glare, she received a small smile... which immediately turned into a glare.
Sighing, Ebiru gathered up the dress and took of towards her room. "Be right back- I'm gonna try this on."
Soon, Ebiru emerged clad in a brand new dress and cloak, that looked exactly like her old one, with minor design changes. "It worked! We did it! Yay!" Ebiru stopped when she got some strange looks from her fellow villains. "Well, you gotta admit, the chances of us pulling this off were pretty slim." After recieving some reluctant nods, she hopped off to her room to look at herself in the mirror some more, and ended up digging out her old black hiking boots, that just happened to go pretty darn well with the outfit.
* * * * *
Some time later, Kasei was passing down the east wing(3), and noticed Ebiru in her room, reading something. After looking over her henchperson's new dress, she decided she liked the small changes that had been made, and that she wouldn't mind a few outfit changes herself.
A few days later, at the next mission meeting, Kasei showed up sporting the same old dress, with a touch of purple fabric added to the sleeves.
The End
Fin
Buh-bye now.
_____________________________________
(1) Don't worry, I'll get rid of the intermission when I put it on the page. (That obviously didn't happen, heh.) Know what? This song reminds me of Duo. And Queen's "One Vision" reminds me of Heero. Er... scratch that. I just listened to the whole thing, and it's not worthy. Gotta find something else. Now... "Silent Running" by Mike and the Mechanics, just guess who that reminds me of... "A Thousand Words" by Savage Garden would work, too. And "Magic Carpet Ride" sorta reminds me of Quatre. Wufei, now... Um... "Eye of the Tiger," by Survivor. And Relena's would be that one (can't remember title!) that goes: "Every step you take, every move you make, I'll be watching you." Zechs... he's deserving of a pretty rocky tune, so let's leave that blank 'til I find one. And I have no clue about Treize... (I'd say "Princes of the Universe" by Queen, but, like "One Vision", they have a gift of ruining good songs at certain points...) Lady Une would be maybe "Hate Your Way" by Nina Gordon. And Dorothy... no idea there either. Maybe "Material Girl"? ::cruel smirk:: These are now my ideas for each person's American image songs (well, 'cept for the ones I said I have no idea on). I do this more often than you may think. ^.^;
(2) Pet peeve o' mine. How hard is it to cut smoothly, huh? Sheesh, stupid people of the world...
(3) Do I seem obsessed with knowing which wing of the castle I'm in? Hm...
