Then she plopped down on a sun-dappled knoll by the lake’s edge, bag of biscuits at her side. Before bottom smacked the ground, the dirty blue-and-grey tunic and riding breeches bloomed into billowing skirts, silks overlapping in layers like a wind-tousled poppy. She smoothed them into a pillow across her lap, then reached both hands to the back of her head. Her tight braid unraveled into a frizzy red-gold mane that somehow immediately got caught in the corners of her mouth, resulting in several disgusted heartbeats spent spitting it out.
From a tiny reed flask, she tipped a dollop of scented oil on her thumb and rubbed it along the teeth of a carved comb, then began to work through the knots, using a technique of some long standing: pinning individual coils between her fingers to keep from yanking, starting at the tips and working slowly toward the scalp to avoid breaking off the brittle ends. As she combed, she sang, bright and cheerful and a little self-consciously silly:
Pity the fate of a fair young maiden
Wand’ring meadow and wood in fear
Useless of her to expend all her efforts
Or to flee when a shepherd draws near
Late at night as she turns to go home
He who has watched her will then appear
She must succumb to my magical pow’rs!
She cannot hope to keep her flowers
Safe, no matter how hard she try
I’m a great wizard, a wizard am I
I’m a great wizard, a wizard am I
Wand’ring meadow and wood in fear
Useless of her to expend all her efforts
Or to flee when a shepherd draws near
Late at night as she turns to go home
He who has watched her will then appear
She must succumb to my magical pow’rs!
She cannot hope to keep her flowers
Safe, no matter how hard she try
I’m a great wizard, a wizard am I
I’m a great wizard, a wizard am I
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes she ended up eating all the biscuits herself.