To Light A Candle

Kellen headed for the bathroom—he could get his robe while the tub filled. He felt a little better, knowing that Idalia was going to be there, and just as overdressed as he was. He could hardly imagine what she’d look like in high Elven finery.

—«♦«♦»♦»—

AND by dusk, he knew.

Idalia was wearing a dress—Kellen’s first reaction was to laugh, but he didn’t; she would have slain him on the spot—whose main color was the same violet as her eyes.

On second look, there was no reason to laugh. He’d never seen Idalia in a dress before. In fact, after what little she’d told him about her childhood, he’d thought she wouldn’t be caught dead in one, but somehow, it didn’t look… unsuitable. There was nothing ornate or frivolous about it, just clean simple practical lines, as businesslike as a good sword.

But it wasn’t plain, any more than an Elvenware bowl was plain. The shimmering violet silk glowed like glass, as if it were somehow lit from within, and was accented by insets of dark bark-brown velvet almost the color of her hair, velvet that somehow had a furtive, iridescent glimmer of the same violet rippling along the surface of it wherever the light struck it. There were insets along the collar, at the shoulders, and inside the full outer sleeves. She looked—elegant. He hadn’t known she could look elegant.

“I’ll be tripping over my skirts all night,” Idalia muttered, stalking across the room to glare into a mirror, but Kellen knew she wouldn’t. They only seemed to touch the floor, but that was a clever illusion. The hem was actually uneven; it didn’t touch the floor at all, and was several inches shorter in front than in back.

“You’ll be fine,” Kellen said soothingly. “And you look”—he sought for a word that would convey what he thought—“dignified. Amazing, actually.”

“So do you,” Idalia said. She slid a pair of ebony and Elvensilver combs into her hair—her only jewelry—and turned to regard Kellen critically.

He’d been relieved to find that he hadn’t needed help dressing after all. His costume (he really couldn’t think of it any other way) was not very much more elaborate than Idalia’s—and fortunately, the sheer, body-hugging styles that the Elves favored for themselves were nowhere in evidence in Kellen’s own garb.

There were a few notes of the same sea-green that was the accent color for his armor—he guessed he’d better get used to the idea that the Elves thought of it as his official color now—in the very plain heavy silk trousers and long-sleeved tunic that were the bottom layer of his outfit. But over those went a long sleeveless vest that fell to mid-thigh, closed all the way to its high neck by a double row of tiny silver buttons that had taken him ages to do up. It was made of a sheered velvet in a leaf-pattern—parts were sheer, and parts were thick velvet, and Kellen couldn’t quite decide what the color was. Silver? Gold? Brown? All of them?

Eventually he gave up. It looked okay over the green, anyway, making the silk undertunic (where it showed through) shimmer in a silvery—definitely silvery—way.

Over that came a long full-sleeved robe that fell to mid-calf, in a green so dark it was almost black. It was a kind of cloth he’d never seen before, soft like wool, and smooth, but faintly iridescent. It was lined in dull gold satin, and belted with a wide—and very long—sash in a slightly brighter shade of green than the overrobe. That had nearly been his undoing, until Idalia had taken pity on him and showed him how to wrap and tie the sash properly.

Low boots, of a reassuringly normal-looking pale gold calfskin, completed his outfit.

“I don’t look bad,” Kellen agreed. And I don’t feel silly, he realized with relief. Nobody was asking him to wear earrings, braid jewels into his hair, paint his face, or do any of the other things the Elves did when they got themselves done up for some festive occasion. Now, just as long as nobody asked him to make a speech…

“Except for your hair,” Idalia agreed. “Come over here.”

A few minutes with a comb, and Idalia had pulled Kellen’s mop of light-brown curls back into a short twisted braid at the nape of his neck. It felt reassuringly normal—it was the way he wore his hair under his helmet, after all.

“There. Presentable.” She craned around and kissed him lightly on the forehead. “You’ll definitely do. I’ll just get our raincapes and rainshades, and we can be off. Don’t worry—they’re bespelled to keep the rain off—and I actually think it’s slackening a bit this evening. Not stopping, of course, which is just as well,” Idalia said.

“Where are we going?” Kellen asked, thinking to ask for the first time.

“The gardens at the House of Leaf and Star. There’s no other place large enough to accommodate the guest list—and the unicorns will want to be able to listen—from a distance, of course.”

“Outside? In the rain?”

Idalia snickered at Kellen’s expression.