Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 258: Dress For Success

“An old medieval custom, that lasted until well into this century in Europe, was in the nature of a nuptial love-potion.

After a wedding feast, members of the village community set water to boil in a pot. Into the pot were thrown, in addition to pepper, garlic, and salt—which are essentially aphrodisiac in character—,less appetizing contributions, such as spiders’ webs and soot. The entire compound was stirred into an unsavory mixture, but both the bride and the groom were required to take at least a mouthful.

In essence, this brew was designed to arouse excitations on the part of the bridal pair, just as Plutarch refers to the bride nibbling fruit before retiring to bed.”

- Harry E. Weddick, Love Potions Through The Ages (1963, 2nd Era)

Enide scratched the back of her neck and kept moving her feet on the pink plush ottoman they were resting on. She couldn’t help it. Thirty minutes of sitting like this, and she was being driven up the wall. From the sterile, clean pink and white room they were in, to the boring fruits and wine that the owners of this wedding dress shop were flinging at the group…

Oh, be quiet, you’ve been at your worst.

Enide startled. The voice was back. Damn it, she tried to shove it out of her head, refocusing on the people around her. The group. And the waiting.

She side-eyed the other girls. They wouldn’t shut up about gossip. If it were a competitive sport, these people here would be top-tier athletes. Still…

Focus on them. Focus what they’re talking about. The voice will go away.

Enide rubbed her eyes.This whole thing was a fever dream. She was used to the smell of burning gas; the heat of her las-rifle on her shoulder. Not this. She tried to relax, despite the giggling of other girls as they talked about who was getting married next, and who was courting whom; even the 'juicy' piece of gossip about one young noble boy visiting them 'after hours' was… well, it was like they were kids. They didn’t have any concept of what it was like out on the road.

Why am I here?

She hadn’t wanted to come. Like most things with this new court life she was adjusting to, it came with the territory of her boyfriend. Evidently, he was to be the ‘best man’ of the groom, Colin. The dour, snotty noble she’d almost punched a couple of times. By some ill twist of fate, that association had landed her here. In a wedding party. Amongst snooty noble women, she had no business being around.

Life was fucking crazy. And damn her boyfriend for not being here with her if she had to suffer—

Boyfriend? Pah. Try again.

The thought came unbidden; it wasn’t hers; Enide shivered as it went through her. She snapped to attention, looking around, as the shiver spread down her spine and a cold flush went straight through her, as if a ghost had seized her by the bones.

Shut up. She screamed in her head.

Of course, the voice didn’t listen. It came from… she wasn’t sure—but maybe the void? She’d been careful lately, using her Talent sparingly as the voice started to appear. She tried to focus on the room once more, to draw herself into the moment. To escape the voice. To escape the memories of the eyes in the void. It hadn’t stopped these last three weeks, that and those eyes—Enide didn’t know how to deal with it. She kept thinking of her uncle. Still withdrawn, even though he was back with the pack. Terrified of everything since his long stint in that cursed lab. Was she going to be like that, too?

Enide shivered and made a fist, trying to psych herself back out of where she was, trying against everything to convince herself that she was not

going crazy.“You alright?” Olivia asked her, and the maid sat with a straight back and a painted smile. She kept the words soft, so that the question went beneath the notice of the other women, who had moved on from discussing the late-night visit to the lack of quality men in the court.

"Just fine," Enide lied, and gave her a fake smile.

“It’s fine not to be. This sort of thing must be tedious for someone who grew up on the outside; you probably think it’s silly.”

Enide glanced at the door leading to the fitting room, where even now Alexandria was being forced into dress after dress. She knew that girl a bit by now. Not that they were really friends yet, but she liked to think that after all the time they'd spent with Colin and Garin, and just talking in the dorm, she had some understanding of the woman.

Out of every girl here, if anyone was more bored and pissed to be here, it’d be Alexandria. She’d gone pale when her mother pulled ten dresses off the rack and demanded she try all of them on. Right now. Her fussy mom was why, even after thirty minutes of waiting, they'd yet to catch even a passing glimpse of the poor redhead.

“Back home, when you wanna tie the knot, you tell the pack. They congratulate you, then bring up a map. Make you and the groom pick a place on it, then you go on a road trip. You get to sightsee there, and uh… party, too. For days. Then that’s it. You’re hitched. Don’t really get the dresses and all… this… seems like a waste of time and money, right?” Enide asked, leaning into the conversation. Maybe it would make that voice disappear for a while. She couldn’t do much about it when she was alone. But it tended to stay away when others were talking to her.

“Believe it or not, some of the noble girls live for this moment. For them, this is everything. They dream of their wedding as little girls. They play pretend; plan out all the details in their journals, just for this day.” Olivia gave a small laugh as Enide’s face contorted in confusion. The woman raised her wine glass and gave her a smile that was much more real this time, instead of the practiced grin of an actress.

"Seems wild. So they get their wedding, and then what?" Enide wiped the shock off her face. A couple of the other girls had stopped their chatter, paying attention to their conversation. Since Enide hadn’t talked much, and they were nosy, of course, they were going to try to dig into her business.

Truth be told, they didn't matter. None of these women were Knights, from what she could tell. Aside from Olivia and Alexandria, obviously. They didn’t go to war. They just gossiped and preened, and Enide didn't care. But Olivia’s thoughts mattered, especially since by now she considered the girl a friend.

“They have babies. Raise the babies; maybe they manage the estates if their husbands work as Knights or are otherwise too troubled with their courtly duties to see to the affairs of business; some run their own businesses as well. I’ve heard of many girls who begin passion projects that end up raking in more money than the titles and lands that their husbands generate. But a lot of them? It's the wedding and kids they're interested in; it's what they plan and hope for.”

“Isn’t that… sad?” Enide asked.

It wasn’t Olivia who answered her question, but a girl to Enide’s far right with fake-blond hair. “Raising a noble family and seeing to the duties of your estate is more than most could ever hope to accomplish. We were born to bring success to our families and carry on our royal lineage." After saying that, she had the gall to turn her nose up at her and laugh at Enide with pity. "Though I suppose a savage dating another savage might not understand the nobility of duty that comes from our blood."

Enide shot her a look that could kill; from what she remembered of the brief introductions, this girl was one of Alexandria’s cousins.

The girl screwed up her face and pouted at her.

“What, have you nothing to say to that?” she asked.

"Didn't think I'd wanna waste words on a woman who's not going to amount to anything. If all she wants is to uphold her family name, what more than producing heirs are you planning on doing for your family? Useless." Enide shot back, annoyed.

To be honest, sitting here waiting around for Alexandria to walk out in a dress was getting on her nerves. After half an hour without even seeing the redhead, she'd hit her limit.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Why not pick a fight? Sure, conversation had a way of drowning out that voice. But a fight did it better. It made her focus. It made time narrow down into a single moment. And it had been a good long while since she’d had a proper fight.

“Why—“ the woman stood up, her wine glass tipping over and shattering on the floor. Enide joined her, glad to leap to her feet.

Finally, someone to trade some punches with. She felt a smidge bad for starting this… but then again, from what she knew of Alexandria, the girl would be happier being the one fighting than trying on dresses.

That shut the rest of the girls up. Enide rolled her shoulders; she didn’t have a las-rifle, and she wasn’t quite as much of a brute as Erec… But against a soft princess like this, there was no shot in hell she’d lose.

"What, are you angry? Or did you not have any thoughts on what to do in that head of yours? You’re talking to me about legacy and family, like I don’t have one. The Pendragons have wandered the roads for a hundred years, and I’m one of their blood; I’ve earned my place in my family, and every day I know my pa looks at me with joy in his eyes, knowing I’ll do great things. How about you? C’mon, throw a punch. Show us you’re not just talk.”

The girl’s eyes went wide, then they snapped to the other girls around them. Yeah, like Enide thought, she cared more about the perception of the people around them than what Enide was actually saying. Which was why she’d picked the triggers she could. The gears turned in the fake blonde’s head. Then her cheeks flushed. She clenched her fist. She took a brief step forward.

Here we go. Enide braced, prepared for a punch, unable to stop the bit of a smile from popping onto her face. Finally. Something exciting. Something to distract her from that creeping voice leaking in from that other place—finally a fight; bring it. Punch me. C’mon, show me what you’ve got—

The girl suddenly burst into tears and then ran away. Another girl ran off after her a second later, screaming, “Sarah, wait!”

Enide blinked. What was that? She’d been so sure that the girl was about to hit her; everything in her body language screamed it, yet instead, in an instant, she’d deflated and run off. What was wrong with this place? If she'd tried that on the road with her family, she'd have gotten punched. If she’d done it in Vega, someone would’ve jumped her in an alley or slapped her in a casino. One of the tribes? They might’ve even tried stabbing her or something.

But this? Crying?

Enide cast a helpless glance at the rest of the befuddled women, who now scooted away from her and gossiped in barely disguised whispers about her right in front of her face.

Enide froze.

Something was deeply wrong with this courtly society in the Kingdom.

Enide collapsed onto the plush sofa and stared up at the ceiling and at the elaborate green-glassed chandelier that decorated it. It was the one thing in the room that wasn't pink. Enide liked it the best; green had always been the better color.

She was left with a lingering feeling of frustration. It didn’t feel like she won. Even if the other girl had run away. It felt like everything else today; she’d been dragged out of her comfort zone and forced to deal with a reality that failed to respect the world outside of the walls and caverns of this kingdom.

“You’ll have to apologize to her when she gets back. If you want, the two of us can practice what to say,” Olivia offered.

“Why would I need to apologize?”

“To keep the peace. Otherwise, you’ll have made an enemy at court. Which, given the way you and Sir Erec appear to be going, will catch up with you sooner or later.” Olivia’s voice was soft, trying to be gentle with her. It was a little patronizing, but Enide let that go.

“Why would I care to keep the peace? She was rude to me. I was rude back. Didn’t expect her to run off like that. But if she can’t handle what she dishes out, it‘s her problem.”

“What did you expect? You’re scary to someone like her; she tried to put you in your place, and instead you called her useless in front of all of her friends and family… but really, you should learn to make peace, even if you don’t mean it. Trust me, the last thing you want is to make an enemy of someone like that.”

Enide turned her baffled expression to her friend, letting her read all of the doubt and confusion over the event so it was plain for the woman to see.

Olivia gave her a patient, fixed smile.

"You don't believe me," Olivia pointed out.

“Why the hell would I care if she’s my enemy? What’s she going to do? Cry some more if I insult her again? C’mon, there are bigger issues to worry about.”

“Mhmm… let’s explain it this way. Pretend with me, if you will; you are a woman who sits all day at home. Your husband is at work. Even if you have children, you can always hand off your responsibilities to the many maids in your household. You fill your day with luxuries, but otherwise, you’re left with your thoughts. And one particular thought has been with you for months, about a rude woman, who you don’t even believe belongs in the same social sphere as you, who insulted you and made you look pathetic in front of a bunch of your friends. Worse, the story spread, and other women now know about it. You’re left with little recourse. You have to react, you have to do something in response, not just because the humiliation and thoughts are sitting with you every day, but because all of the other girls expect you to. And you have all the time in the world to figure out how to get back at her. You turn all your allies against her. Use them to gossip and turn their friends against her. She has no way to fight back. She knows no one and doesn’t bother going to all the parties and get-togethers to turn the tide against her. She becomes a pariah, and eventually the image spreads from other noble women to common women, who demand that the woman be ostracized, or some other nonsense. Impossible to tell, really, how far a reputational smear campaign will go in the Kingdom given enough free time and impotent hate, especially when championed by a scorned noble woman.” Olivia said all of this quickly and quietly. She was good at keeping the conversation from the rest of the girls.

Given how loud they were ‘whispering’ about Enide, they weren’t really listening anyway. They were already thinking about all of the other people they’d tell about what just happened.

With each growing word, Enide felt a bit of a cold flush in her—picturing that type of woman.

To a T, she’d described the exact picture of how Enide thought Sarah’s life would end up, and connected the dots on how, eventually, that kind of free time and hate would be leveraged against her. And worse… Enide knew now how thoughts could get to you. If you sat with them alone, they would gnaw away at you and your sanity.

The resulting image conjured by the maid was horrifying. Enide’s jaw dropped as she realized she felt a little bit of fear. Just as she was about to speak, as her slow-moving brain was struggling to figure out how to answer, or how she could mend what she'd done, a trumpet blared out and shut everyone up.

It was the call for attention: the bride-to-be was about to make her first appearance.

The herald stood with a proud smile, far too happy to have taken all of their attention. Next to him sat a puffy, slightly out-of-breath older woman with the same shock of red hair as Alexandria. Her mother had finally left the back room, and based on the gleam in her eye, she was excited to show them what all the waiting had been for.

“Come on out, dear, show them all,” she called, grinning.

“Mom—relax, please. No need for a show. We should’ve shown them the other dresses, too. What a waste of time,” Alexandria complained as she stomped out. After half an hour of nonstop trying on dresses, out of the view of everyone else and dealing with what seemed like an overbearing mother, Enide didn’t blame her… but…

Holy shit.

Alexandria stopped in her tracks, freezing like a mutant deer as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. She saw herself.

All of them saw her.

The white dress was perfect. The color was that of snow, not the roadside snow that picked up dirt and waste scraps Enide was used to seeing most of the winter. But rather, that pure snow. The type of snow she’d only seen as a kid, when they went really far north, and it’d fallen the night before. The dress ran just to her ankles, showing off crystal-like shoes that echoed the refined elegance of the rest of the dress. With every movement, Alexandria was like a work of art; her red hair was a fire, lit upon the base of elegance that was her wedding gown. A vision of beauty that confused the mind and took the breath away.

The wedding party was silent. Staring.

The bride-to-be had no words; she couldn’t look away from the dress. And why should she?

It was perfect.

You’ve worn many like that, some fancier. But really, is there ever anything more beautiful than a woman on her wedding day? The dress doesn’t matter.

The voice slipped through her head, and try as she might to cling to her sanity and ignore the confusion of the words. Of the soft longing in them—and the reactive jealousy in her, she could not.

When? When had she worn dresses like that? Was this insanity, or… the feelings that came with it were even more? Enide squinted her eyes. If she gave it the space to grow, it would spread like a rot in the mind.

Fight it. Ignore it. Focus.

The only thing that brought her away from that scary place was letting her gaze fix on the bride. That was enough to distract her.

"Beautiful," she whispered, her thoughts echoed by the many women around. Alexandria didn’t move from her spot; she didn’t have to. She, like all of them, knew this was it. Her mother paid for the dress on the spot, and when Alexandria did manage to tear herself from the mirror, they moved on to the rest of the evening, enjoying the 'bridal shower.'

Somewhere in the after-party, Enide swore she'd find a way to apologize to Sarah, even if she didn't mean it. After all, there were only five days left before this sudden whirlwind of a wedding, and Enide understood that there was far too many wedding problems to solve—logistics, planning, catering. For this, she just felt grateful to be along the ride and have a nice view of an inevitable shitshow. She only hoped the distraction would keep the voice at bay.