she thrust the bulky package at Jadrie, who needed no second urging to tear off the paper.
But Jadrie's reaction more than made up for the impatience Kira felt, and she giggled along with her twin at Jadrie's round eyes.
'Oh!' Jadrie squealed, shaking out the folds of silk and leaping up to try the dress against herself. 'Oh! It's wonderful, Meri! How did you do it?'
The dress probably would have been scandalous by some standards, with its split skirt for riding astride. Merili had used Jadrie's Shin'a'in costumes and her own festival-dresses as patterns, and come up with a dress that combined recognizable facets of both. It was sewn of the pastel-colored silks thought appropriate for young girls in Rethwellan, but the embroidery on the bodice and hems, though executed in pale hues of blue, pink, green and soft yellow, was recognizably Shin'a'in in pattern and execution. The split skirt was a reasonable substitute for Shin'a'in breeches, the huge, fluttery butterfly sleeves were pure Rethwellan, but the sleeves could be pulled up and held out of the way by an embroidered band passed through them and along the inside of the back of the dress, and the 'skirt' could be gathered at each ankle with separate embroidered bands. The bodice was low enough to satisfy the cravings of a girl wanting to be thought grown-up without being tooo revealing that it would arouse the ire of her mother.
'Here's mine,' Kira said with satisfaction, handing her a neater, smaller package. And Jadrie exclaimed again, to find it contained a pair of soft, sueded ankle-boots, and a belt and sheath for her knife, all beaded with tiny crystal beads and freshwater pearls in the same Shin'a'in patterns as the embroidery of the dress.
'I-I don't know what to say!' Jadrie said, sitting down abruptly, still holding the dress to herself, with the belt and boots in her free hand.
'It was all Kira's idea,' Merili offered, her eyes sparkling with happiness. 'I wanted to do the dress, but she told me it would be stupid to make something you couldn't be yourself in, so Estrel helped me do something that was like your Shin'a'in clothes, and when Kira saw the colors I was doing it in, she got the boots and the belt and did the beading to match.'
'I'm glad you like it,' Kira added softly.
'Like it? I love it! I can't believe you did all this just for me!' Jadrie's face shone with happiness, and she put the dress down long enough in her lap to reach behind her and bring out two packages of her own. Hers were wrapped in the thin paper normally used for embroidery patterns, and Kira knew it was meant for Meri when the packages were opened. 'This one is yours, Kira, and this is yours, Meri. I hope you like your presents half as much as I like mine!'
Meri looked significantly at her twin, and motioned for Kira to open hers first. Nothing loath, Kira removed the paper from her package to disclose a carved box. She opened the lid to find, nestled into the velvet lining, a very different sort of present in the shape of shining steel.
She gasped, hardly able to believe her eyes. Identical except for decoration to a set that Jadrie owned and Kira had lusted after ever since she saw them, it was a set of matching knives. A long-knife, just a scant thumblength from qualifying as a sword, a belt-knife for less lethal use, a set of throwing-knives and arm-sheaths to hold them, and a tiny boot-knife that slipped invisibly into the side of a riding boot. Jadrie's weapons were undecorated except for the Tale'-sedrin emblem of a stooping hawk carved into the hilts, but Kira's were ornamented with inlaid silver wire in an intricate spiral on the hilt, and had garnets inlaid in the pommel-nuts. Kira's throat knotted up, and tears sprang into her eyes, and when she looked up at Jadrie, she was completely unable to say anything.
Jadrie seemed to understand, and chuckled. 'I asked Tarma if I could -- she said you'd earned them. I designed the decoration.'
Now at last it was Meri's turn, as Kira held the precious package to her chest, half afraid they would vanish if she turned them loose. This was more than just a set of weapons -- this was confirmation of her dream, for a set of knives like this, with the addition of a sword, was precisely what a professional bodyguard would sport. So her teacher Tarma agreed with Kira's dream -- and so, presumably, did Kira's parents. There would be no separation from her beloved twin when Meri went to marry the Prince of Jkatha.
Meri's exclamation was as surprised and delighted as Kira's, as she opened her package with far more decorum than Kira had used with hers. Her box would be perfect for storing her embroidery materials, for it was unlined, and it contained fabric. Kira didn't see what it was that merited such delight -- it just looked like white silk to her--
Then Meri took it out of the box, and shook it out -- and out -- and out--
It must have been a dozen ells of silk so thin it was almost transparent, like mist made into fabric.
Then Meri saw what the folded fabric had hidden, and actually wept with joy.
'I can't believe you found it!' she said over and over, fingering the fabric and the embroidery silks of the purest white, a box of tiny freshwater pearls the size of pinheads, and silver thread as supple as the silk. 'I can't believe you found it!'
'Found what?' Kira whispered under her breath to Jadrie, mystified, as Meri picked up each skein of thread and examined every strand with delight.
'It's the makings for a traditional Jkathan royal bridal veil,' Jadrie replied, eyes sparkling. 'The bride's
