Chapter Four
Taking the fact that we were being picked up by carriage as a sign of the dinner being reasonably formal Miri and I decided to take the opportunity to ‘dress’ for the event.
The ritual preservation spells I had placed upon the one dress each one of us owned, had kept them both clean and reasonably unwrinkled in the bottom of our saddle bags was still intact. However, but both needed to aired out to get rid of the wet leather smell (ritual magic isn’t one of my strengths).
The plan started to slip off the Old Empire Road, when Sariel became involved.
“You have dresses but what about everything else?” she asked.
“What everything else?” I asked with a level of innocence that had to be heard to be believe.
“Makeup, hairstyle, jewelry, shoes… You two don’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about do you?” the Fey asked.
“We have a clue,” replied Miri “Its just we’ve never really had an opportunity to exploit them.”
“Until now that is! I’ve been sitting on my hands regarding your potential, but no more! Now it’s time for a MAKEOVER,” Sariel said excitedly.
Maybe it was the effects of the feeding or that Miri was, in part, Elven but she was swept up by Sariel’s sudden mood change and readily agreed. I was, on the other hand, apprehensive. While I deal with the ebbs and flows of magic and combat easily, in personal affairs I tend to be more conservative. In part that’s because being a wild mage already instills enough chaos in my life. The other part comes from being raised by a group of Dwarves who instilled a heavy dose of Dwarven morality and traditional values. But I could also tell that this was something that Miri really wanted to do and it is not often that my lover really got excited about anything, so I agreed.
I started to regret that decision when Sariel used the magic locked into her left arm’s tattoo and gemstones to open that magical portal of hers and she pulled out another sack. Inside this sack were two square boxes a foot aside. In one was a collection of paints, powders and brushes that even I knew were makeup. The other box contained half a dozen different hair brushes along with a whole bunch of things I didn’t recognize.
Sariel started the ordeal by insisting that we rewashed our hair (we’d only washed it the night before why it needed to be washed again was beyond me) the Fey then set about, with far too much pleasure if you ask me, brushing braiding and in my case curling our hair.
“What about your hair?” I asked Sariel when she tied yet another lock of my hair up with a strip of cloth which she claimed would ‘make my hair naturally curly for days’.
“Oh, that’s easy,” she replied and then with a single command word and a flick of her head her dull blonde hair became a cascade of golden tresses that reached down to her hips; and if that wasn’t enough makeup suddenly appeared on her face making her eyelashes double in size, her lips become red highlighted to pink, and her cheeks a lovely rouge.
Riley squawked in surprise and Miri and I were so stunned that neither of us had time to feel at all jealous.
“If you can do that, why do you have all that,” stuttered Miri pointing at the two cases.
“I’m going to want to change things at some point,” Sariel answered as she approached Miri with a torture device disguised and as a hair brush.
Okay I might be exaggerating a bit about the brush but you have to keep in mind Miri and I grew up during the madness. While I was more fortunate than Miri being raised by Dwarves in Berg Provinz; neither of us had much time or instructors on what Riley often referred to as the ‘feminine arts’. Oh, we both went through our ‘independent’ phase which is why both of us had a fair bit of body art, and the less said about ‘mixed drinks’ the better, but Sariel’s makeover was a new experience for both of us.
But I couldn’t argue with the results of the first phase. When Sariel was finished she produced a silvered mirror and I got my first look at her work. The volume of my hair had more than doubled; with the normal straight strands having been replaced with a cascade of silvery grey locks that reached down to between my shoulder blades. My grey eyes that always seemed to disappear into the general form of my face, were now surrounded by supporting lines of eye makeup, making them stand out.
When Miri saw the results; her eyes nearly popped out her head. Her reaction gave me the first sense of well ‘girlish pleasure’ that I’ve had in a long time. This pleasure was only magnified when I got a good look at what the Fey had done to her. Due to a constant need for a helmet to keep her alive in combat; Miri’s hair had developed permanent ‘helmet head’ that she had long since tired of trying to fix. Sariel had taken this as a challenge, and had spent the sixty minutes it had taken to curl my hair; brushing out Miri’s. Then deciding that ‘keeping it simple’ was best: Sariel had worked the Daywalker’s hair into a single braid strategically place over her right shoulder. To this Sariel had changed the colour of a single lock of her hair from blood red to jet black. The Fey had then woven that lock through the braid as if it had been a black ribbon on the red background. Sariel had continued the black against red theme to Miri’s makeup creating the Bard’s stereotypical version the vampire vixen that my lover had almost constantly tried to live down, but today seemed willing to ‘embrace’.
As both Miri and I expressed our almost embarrassed pleasure at Sariel’s work; Riley expressed his opinion with a long wolf whistle.
“Riley!” I tried to be cross with him but mostly I was annoyed that I couldn’t figure out how my Raven familiar could whistle without lips (yes, I know ‘magic’, but come on, sometimes you want a more detailed explanation than that.)
“As the only male in the room, I feel it necessary to express my gender’s opinion on your appearances and Sariel’s skill and hard work,” he said loftily. “Especially given what she had to work with.”
It says something about Miri’s skill with throwing weapons that she was able to beam the Raven with a hair brush before he could move out of the way. With a squawk, the familiar quickly flapped behind a pillar and gave Miri an amazing lipless raspberry.
While it appeared that our hair and makeup were a success, and that Sariel was pleased with the results. The same couldn’t be said when she took a good look at our dresses.
“You’re serious? You both packed one dress each and these are what you chose?” she asked incredulous. “I mean I understand you’re both sellswords and you’re often away from the cities but still. Don’t you have any fashion wizards in the Mid Reich?”
“Do you mean someone who designs and creates dresses or someone who actually uses magic to create the dresses?” I asked. One of the things that amaze me about the new world the Red Death had created was that despite people generally hanging onto life with their fingertips, and some new disaster arising every year ready to knock lose our hold; mortals still care about fashion. Not just care, but follow it with a zeal that you have to see to believe. As you can tell from my question, I lacked that zeal.
Sariel pinched the bridge of her nose in the mortal wide sign of a headache coming on. “Right: were meeting with someone who has enough power, money and influence to marshal together a second mercenary company after his first was destroyed. This is someone we want to put your best foot forward for, not to mention showing a bit of growth on your part to get a better deal. Let alone the potential of one or both of you becoming his mistress,” she said taking charge.
“Actually,” started Riley.
“Quiet bird brain: fairy godmother stuff happening right now,” Sariel interrupted. “Well fairy godsister, but you get the idea.”
Surprisingly my familiar did stop talking; and instead he just flew up to the rafters and relaxed waiting for the show.
“Right, now you’re going to see some real magic,” said Sariel as she went to her other box and pulled out a large piece of chock and two bolts of material. Turning back to the both of us, Sariel decided to go with Miri first, largely I imagine bec
ause of the dirty look I was still giving her after that ‘real magic’ remark.
“Miri, take off your clothing and any loose jewelry that you’re wearing. Keep your body piercings though they might prove integral to the design I come up with,” the Fey instructed as she created a chock circle upon the only open piece of wooden floor that remained in the room.
“Design the dress? Sariel I know I’m not an expert at all this but doesn’t that take days to do?” I asked confused.
“So, you don’t have fashion wizards in the Mid Reich then. Very well Sasha you’re about to see some of the very best in ritual magic the Fey Reich has to offer,” Sariel said with a dramatic flair.
Okay now this was starting to make sense. In all three realms, there are fundamentally two types of magic: spell magic and ritual magic. Spell magic is the quick channeling of magic energies, transforming them into physical matter and energy. It results could be mundane as creating a small candle flame, or mending a piece of cloth to as spectacular as a fireball or ripping the earth itself open to swallow an enemy. This kind of magic can only be practiced by those who through accident, circumstance, or luck of birth can channel the magic through themselves.
Ritual magic on the other hand requires the use of magical trappings, such as circles, runes, and crystals: chants, songs and sometimes dance are also required. All of which takes time to prepare and preform; at least minutes, often hours and sometimes days in length. The main advantage of ritual magic however is anyone who has the time and patience can learn to cast them successfully. The ritual itself does all the work channeling the magic into a predictable result. What that result is can be as mundane or spectacular as spell magic.
Because of this power, prior to the Red Death, the instruction needed to cast ritual magic was limited to only the Wizard’s Guild; the only organization that rivaled the churches in the Imperium and beyond.
Being a Wild Mage, thank you lightning storm, I came into my magic by accident. So I lack much of the formal training in the basics of magic that is considered a requirement of ritual casting. I can still cast them, with a little help from Riley, but they tend not to last as long or be as powerful as the rituals cast by someone from the Wizard’s Guild.
Glancing down at Sariel’s ritual though I could see that it was even sloppier than what mine usually were: but the power that it channeled. What it lacked in elegance it more than made up for in the amount of magic it could bring into focus. It was clear that Fairy magic theory was going in directions that Mid Reich practitioners hadn’t even considered possible.
Just before she finished the circle Sariel got up and took a critical look at Miri’s now bare physique. Even by human standards, Miri would have been considered muscular, with well-defined shoulders, arms and legs. But by Elven standards she was really brawny; to the point where many of her kindred thought that she had to be half-human. Her lean frame has also meant that some of her womanly features such as breasts are much smaller than even on a ‘normal’ Elf female. I thought she was perfect: but my opinion is biased. Over the layers of muscle Miri had covered herself with over a dozen tattoos of various sizes. Mostly on her arms and thighs but she did have one that covered most of the right side of her rib cage and another on the left collar bone.
As I have said before, tattooing, and other types of body art is common feature among younger sellswords, and like many of female adventurers, Miri has adopted the practice of tattooing the locations where a wound had been severe enough to leave a scar that our current healing could not remove. Apparently while ‘chicks’ may like scars; guys don’t.
In my case, my scars were my tattoos: sort of. When the lightning bolt that made me a wild mage had struck, my body had been covered by a series of burn scars that looked like lightning bolt traveling down my torso and limbs. From what I’ve been told, from other survivors of a lightning strike (though no magical powers were gained in their cases) such scars were not uncommon but they usually faded in a week or two. Mine had been with me for four years and I suspect that I’ll always have them.
“Your assets are amazing Miri,” said Sariel snapping me back to the here and now. “Not what would normally be consider standard for an Elven woman. However, we’re talking about sellswords so standard may not work in this case anyways,” said Sariel who then snapped her fingers and said “Ah I know what will work.”
With that Sariel handed Miri a cotton coloured smock and said, “Here put this on and step into the circle.”
Miri might have been caught up by the Sariel’s enthusiasm but paranoia is pretty standard for anyone hoping to get into their thirties. Before she followed Sariel’s instructions she glanced over to me to see if I had any concerns.
“It’s pretty standard for ritual work. It makes sense that you’d have to be inside the circle first. Otherwise you break the link between the ritual and the magic,” I explained trying to relieve her fears. While I didn’t lie to Miri, truth be told; I wanted to see how this ritual worked. So, I was as interested as Sariel was to get Miri in that circle.
Taking me at my word, Miri stepped into the circle which Sariel closed behind her. Once the circle was completed a smell of burnt air rose and my skin tingled the same way as it did before a big lightning storm. That circle was channeling a lot of power; a lot more power than I’d seen in the rituals created by masters like Keira, let along anything I could do. Despite Miri appearing completely fine inside the circle, my paranoia was starting to kick in.
“Right, first off, the dress,” said the Fey as she made a small jester with her hands. Inside the circle the smock that Miri wore transformed: gaining length and tightly fitting around the Daywalker. When the transformation was done, Miri was wearing an ankle length dress that tightly fitted around her hips and waist. From where I sat I could see that the dress was backless, being held together by a long lace of material that had been tide tightly in such a way that it caused the front of the dress to actually support Miri’s cleavage and giving her the illusion of more than was actually there.
However, what was even more striking was the complete lack of sleeves. Along with most of Miri’s back, her arms and shoulders were completely bare showing off not only the defined muscle but her tattoo work as well.
“So, calf, mid-thigh, or hip?” Sariel asked me with a bored affect that completely contradicted what she had just done. Inside the ritual circle she had just created a dress, granted it was more of a transformation but still it wasn’t an illusion but honest transformation; from a ritual, and as far as she told us; a completely untrained practitioner. I doubt Keira herself could have equaled that feat.
“Sasha: calf, mid-thigh or hip?” Sariel said again when I didn’t reply the first time.
Crashing back to reality I said “Sorry Sariel; calf, mid-thigh, or hip what?”
“How high should the slit be in the dress?” the Fey asked as if the question was the most obvious thing in the world. “Never mind, we’ll try hip first.”
With that a long tear appeared on the right side of Miri’s dress that exposed her entire right leg up to the hip. It was then that I noticed that Miri now wore a pair of ankle high boots with a five centimetre heel, down turned collar and curled toes. Actually I noticed a lot more, because more than just Miri’s leg and foot were exposed when she moved more than a bit.
“Nice to see what is considered decent hasn’t changed much since I was last in the Fey Reich,” commented Riley.
“Too much?” asked Sariel with complete innocence.
“Yes!” Miri and I said in unison.
“Well, let’s try mid-thigh then,” the Fey said nonplussed. Then as if the tear had never existed Miri’s dressed mended itself down to the middle of Miri’s thigh.
“This works for me. I can move well and I’m not showing off things that people shouldn’t be seeing on a regular basis,” Miri said.
I had to agree. Overall the dress was a bit risqué, but I’d seen Elven women wear less,
and compared to some of the cultists I’d seen Miri’s dress was downright conservative.
Excellent now that we have the dress’s shape we only need to decide on the colour,” said Sariel as her right hand started to twirl in a circle. The dress turned the exact same blood red as Miri’s hair.
“Okay no,” Sariel said as soon as the colour registered.
Then the dress turned a bright snow white, which caused both Riley and I to comment, “Virgin white? Miri!”
“Point,” Sariel conceded; and then the colour changes really began. With increasing speed, the dress changed into every colour I’d thought possible and quite a few that I never would have believed existed. There were bright blues, glowing yellows, and deep sea greens. Sariel’s hand spun so quickly that I thought she would break her wrist. Finally, the colour changes stopped and the dress was back to the cotton colour it had started with.
With a large sigh, Sariel said as much to herself as anyone else, “this is what I get with starting with the makeup first,” then to Miri she said, “I’m sorry Miri but there’s only really one colour that going to work given the time we have left.”
With that the dress and shoes turned a deep light stealing black that was so natural given Miri’s hair colouring and makeup that I was surprised it hadn’t been Sariel’s first choice.
As if reading my mind, the Fey said, “Black works with so much that I always like to check everything else first even when it’s obvious.”
Holding up the mirror so that Miri could get some idea of what she was now wearing Sariel asked, “How do you like it?”
“I’m not sure, this is really the first time in years I’ve really played make-believe,” my lover replied. She looked over to me desperate for an opinion that she could trust.
“I think you look gorgeous. It really plays on the sexy vampire trope a bit too much for a regular look; but tonight, I think it’s safe for you to stand out,” I said honestly.
“Oh, don’t worry compared with what you’re going to be wearing Miri, isn’t going to stand out at all,” said Sariel as she approached me with the second smock.