Why, Thank You

The maids work for minutes on end, getting me ready for this party at the Cherrier manor. Putting my makeup on, doing my hair just right, and getting the complicated dress on always seems to take longer than the last time. I’m going to be going to another noble’s house though! So I can’t afford to underdo it!

Even if the noble in question is a Marquis, and Mother is a Duchess, which means they should really be coming to us, I still have to get ready! It takes so long, I nearly fall asleep more than once, but once they are finished I look absolutely beautiful!

I run from that stupid chair and look at myself in the mirror. A super fancy and complicated gray dress, with my hair tied up in a bright yellow ribbon. Normally, I’d scold the maids for how boring the dress looked because of its color, but I think it really makes the yellow pop more! Still can’t quite tell what all that make up was for, but other than that I look really cute!

“Alright! This is fine!” I declare. 

I practice walking around the changing room like a proper lady while looking at me in the mirror. This dress is a whole lot harder to move in than the ones I usually wear, but I should be able to get around in this.

“Alright, so when are we leaving?!” I say.

“Lady Lilith, please keep your voice down for when you’re in the home of Marquis Cherrier. We should be leaving in about half an hour. Let’s go meet up with your parents and siblings, alright?”

“Fine.”

Everyone else was already ready by the time I met up with them at the front doors of the Amber manor. Mother was dressed in a blue and white dress. Father and Brother were both dressed in suits, and I think that Brother had a particularly nice pair of glasses on. Sister had a cheaper orange dress that exposed her shoulders and breasts, which seemed to annoy Mother. She also didn’t have any makeup on, and looked like she would rather be doing anything else.

“Leah, I see that Lilith is finally ready?” Mother said to the maid that had been following me from the changing room.

“Lady Teresa, I didn’t know that we would be leaving so early…” Says the maid.

“We aren’t. I just so happened to wake up early, so I got ready earlier than expected. My husband and Annei don’t take so long to get themselves ready for an outing like this and Hana… is well, Hana.”

“Gee, thanks mom.” says Sister.

“Excuse me, Mother, but does that mean that we’ll be leaving now?” I want to know whether or not I’ll be standing here for another 30 minutes.

“Well, I guess if we’re all ready, it won’t be too bad if we leave now. It would be nice if we were to show up early.”

The ride goes extremely well, with no issues whatsoever. It only takes about 15 minutes before we finally get to the Cherrier manor. We’re welcomed in by the servants and meet with Marquis Cherrier for a brief moment before walking further into the manor.

We all walk into the dining hall. It’s larger than the Amber manor’s dining hall and there are long tables with ornate tablecloths and all sorts of food organized neatly all across the hall. There’s quite a few people all dressed in really fancy clothing all talking to each other already. I suppose Mother’s idea wasn’t a very original one.

“Lilith, Hana, behave yourselves. Your Father and I aren’t going to be able to keep our eyes on you for the entire party.”

“Sure, mom.”

“Of course! I’ll do my best to not bring any shame on the Amber family name!”

“Keep your voice down Lilith. Other than that, good. Now, help yourselves.”

“Yes, Mother.”

As soon as I get permission from Mother I begin walking throughout the hall. I look over at the food, it looks so delicious, and I haven’t had breakfast yet… No, I don’t want to look like a glutton and get accused of being a demon. As long as I keep acting like a proper noble lady, they’ll only have my name to go off on. I’ll wait until I see someone else start eating before I begin.

As I walk, I come across a few children I don’t recognize talking to each other. They seem to be carrying themselves properly enough, so they shouldn’t be too lowly ranked. Perhaps they could be worthy of talking to me?

One of them notices me, and introduces himself. He does the proper greeting in Cralian noble style without any sort of prejudice towards me. I can’t help but think he’s really good at this. I reign in my expectations though. If he acts the same after I introduce myself and he hears my name, then I’ll judge him to be a good boy.

“Greetings, I am Lilith Amber, daughter of Duchess Teresa Amber. Pleased to meet you.” I bow down ever so slightly and gently tug my dress up. As a Cralian noble lady, this is just how I’m meant to introduce myself to people.

The boy though, as well as all of his friends look at me with a look of fear in their eyes. I’m glad I didn’t get all hopeful. It looks like these children need a little talking to as well. I won’t let them hear the end of it.

“The Amber’s demon child…” One of the kids says.

“Ah ha, sorry, but I just remembered there’s something that we all have to do. We’ll be leaving now.” The boy I introduced myself to says. He’s handling himself well, but I can still clearly see that he’s scared of me.

All the children turn around and begin walking away from me, but I grab ahold of the boy’s shirt collar and pull him back towards me. He looks terrified, and all of his friends don’t look any better. They probably weren’t expecting me to do that.

“Hey, you’re the son of an earl, right? I’m the daughter of a duchess, so I outrank you do I not? Don’t you think it’s a bit rude to just walk away from someone higher than you like that?” I ask. He looks too terrified to answer. How dare he?

“Oh no… the demon child got him…”

“Poor guy’s a goner…”

“I certainly don’t envy him. Better him than me…”

All the children behind him keep talking about me like that as if I’m not standing right in front of them all. Not particularly smart are they? So afraid I’m a demon child, yet continue to insult me where I could easily start fighting them right away. I hate them so much, but I have to keep up appearances.

I don’t want to give them any more reasons to be afraid of me, and I can’t afford to cause a scene since I’m supposed to be representing the Amber family. Just what would happen to our family if Lilith Amber started assaulting children in the middle of a party. It couldn’t be anything good. If it wasn’t for that I’d probably take my shoe off right now and start beating them all in the head with it.

“Oh please, I’d never so much as lay a finger on my fellow countryman and noble. I was just a bit offended that you’d turn your back to me right after I introduced myself. If I scared you, I’m really sorry.” I’m not sorry. Not at all. What I did wasn’t nearly enough, but again, appearances are important.

“Ah…right, I’m sorry if I offended you. But it’s really important, so I should really be going…”

I grab a hold of his hand before he can leave.

“Oh don’t be silly. You’re shaking, did me grabbing you really startle you that much? I just couldn’t bear scaring a poor child like that. I’m really sorry, is there anything I could do for you to make it up to you?” I say, rather loudly so that the people around me can hear.

The nobles around me probably don’t know my name yet. Put this idiot into a position where he can’t be rude to me without causing a scene, and make me appear like some sort of kind angel. I’ve gotten quite good at this, with all my experience.

“Oh don’t worry, that won’t be necessary.” Says a very well dressed lady, while splitting the two of us apart.

“Mother… thank you…” Says the boy.

So this is the wife of an earl. Just what is she planning? Does she know my name?

“You don’t need to do anything for this useless son of mine. I’m terribly sorry that he’s worried you.”

“Oh no, I was so upset that I went and grabbed his collar. That isn’t behavior that a noble lady like me should be showing. The fault is all mine.” I’m lying through my teeth here, but it will be better for me if I act like I feel bad.

“Oh you really don’t need to worry about it, sweetie. There are no hard feelings here.”

“Well, I guess if you insist…” I don’t want to do anything to repay him. If his mother is trying to get me not to, I’ll take that out right after I get the fact I’m a good girl across.

“I’m sorry, I don’t believe I’ve ever introduced myself. I’m Ulsa, wife of Earl Salvador Crane.” Here's her introduction. Guess I have to introduce myself now. I really don’t want to but here it goes.

“Lilith Amber, daughter of Duchess Teresa Amber.” I say, following all the etiquette.

Huh? Ulsa’s face didn’t change at all? Everyone else always looks scared or shocked. They always at least flinch, but this woman didn’t react at all?

“Nice to meet you, Lilith. Are you hungry?” Ulsa pulls out some sort of puffy looking bread. “I know there’s all sorts of things to eat here, but I tried baking out for myself recently and I haven’t gotten anybody to taste test it other than family? Would you mind?”

“Why, thank you.” I can’t help but say as I take the bread from her. As I eat it, I can’t help but think it’s extremely delicious. “This is amazing!”

“Thank you, Lilith. Here, you must be thirsty after that.” She hands me a glass. “It’s just water, and I haven’t drunk any of it yet.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Crane” I say as I take the glass and drink from it.

“You’re welcome sweetie. See you around. I’ll be talking to my son now.”

“Thank you, miss.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie.” She says, before walking away with her son and the other kids.

What a nice lady! I can work around this! The son was also controlling his fear really well! If I do this right, I could get a really good connection with the Crane family! Woohoo!

I go around for a while longer, and I don’t meet anyone as nice as Ulsa. That isn’t the problem though. The problem is I’m beginning to feel hot. I grab a cheap looking paper fan on the table and start cooling my face down. My makeup that took so long to put on will start to smear if I start sweating, so I need to keep my face cool as well. This dress is feeling really stuffy all of a sudden. When did it get so hot?

No one else appears to be hot. Is it just me? What’s going on? I’m about to start sweating here and everyone else is walking and talking just fine? Is it because they’re more experienced with walking around in the heat than me? No, I walk around in dresses outside all the time, that can’t be it. It’s spring too, it really shouldn’t be hot. I need to see Brother.

I try to look around the crowd for Brother, or even Father but I can’t quite see either of them anywhere. A couple of kids talking with each other flinch when they see me. I just hold the fan up to cover my face and glare at them. That gets them to back off. Hm, that seemed rather effective. Maybe I should walk around with a fan for now on. It’ll be useful for scaring off bugs.

My stomach begins to hurt, and I begin to lose my balance. I grab a hold of one of the food tables so I don’t fall. I’m feeling dizzy and nauseous. I must be sick, that’s probably why I feel so hot. I’m starting to feel like I’m about to throw up, so I should probably get out of here as soon as possible lest I cause a horrible incident for the Amber Family. I really need to find someone from my family. Even Mother or Sister would do, or even one of our servants, I need to find anybody and fast.

The pain is really getting to my stomach though. Oh Gods, it hurts. It really hurts. I notice that I’m gripping onto the table cloth, and I’m slouching down. This is not behavior a lady like me should be showing, but it doesn’t matter. Making the pain any more bearable takes over all my fears of angering Mother. This hurts far too much to be a normal stomach ache. I can’t think of anything that’s hurt me any more than this.

It’s too much. I get down onto the floor and hold onto my stomach. The sweat is pouring off of me. It’s coming out, I can’t help it. I begin to vomit on the floor while I’m laying down, getting it all over my dress. Disgusting, but I’m in too much pain for that to matter. Throwing up like that made the pain go down a bit, but it’s still too much to start walking around.

“Lilith! Lilith, what’s wrong!?” That’s Brother’s voice…

I look up and he’s grabbing ahold of my shoulders, even the one covered in my own vomit. He looks so scared.

“H- help… me…” is all I can say. I want to tell him it isn’t bad enough for him to worry, but the pain makes me say that instead.

He takes a handkerchief and wipes the vomit off of my mouth, then picks me up and starts carrying me across the manor. He spends pretty much all of his time in the library, when did he get so strong?

“Mother! Father! It’s Lilith! We need to get her to a doctor! Now!” I’m facing away from where he’s facing, so I can’t see who he’s talking to. Our parents, I’m assuming.

“Lilith? A doctor? What?” Father’s voice…

“Annei! What did she do? What happened?” Mother’s voice…

“Lilith You OK?” Sister’s voice, much more worried than usual…

“Annei!” Mother’s voice again…

“Enough!” Brother sounds angry? When was the last time I’ve heard him so angry? “Mother, Father, I think that Lilith’s been poisoned! We need a doctor!”

Poison?