Thu Jan 31, 2013 3:24 pm
Marewin spun away from the unpacked luggage with crimson skirts spread in her hands. "What do you think? With or without the string of pearls?"
"I thought you were after a job." Roswena was making the bed in the small room that they shared. They had moved on from the Broken Dagger after one night for a cheaper dwelling in The Hollows. It was every bit as cheap as the price: a matress with stuffing coming out, a leaking roof, and questionable stains on walls and old sheets.
"What does that mean? You do not like it, Rossy?" Mare pouted at the cracked mirror and smoothed her hands over the dress.
"I like it if you're trying to lure a man to your bed."
"That is not kind!" She sounded tart and offended one moment, then looked over her shoulder with eyes narrow as cats'. "But the Proprietor will be a man, and there is nothing wrong with looking pretty to improve my chances."
"You don't look pretty. You look like a strumpet," Roswena firmly told her. "That dress doesn't even fit your bosom. One breath too deep, and your teats are going to pop out and put out somebody's eye."
Marewin leapt toward the bed with a shriek and snatched up a goosefeather pillow, and for the next while the girls laughed and beat each other until a shower of fluff was all over the bed and the cold, wooden floor. When they finally stopped the combat, one was draped on the bed and the other in a rickety chair.
Roswena picked a feather from her dress. "Besides, you're wrong."
The other girl looked up, flushed and smiling from laughter. "Wrong about what?"
"It's a woman," Roswena announced. So rare was the occassion that she knew more than her friend, it was no wonder she sounded smug.
"Who's a woman?" Marewin looked lost.
"The manager of The Broken Dagger. It's a good thing I was listening to folks talk, don't you think?"
Marewin looked surprised and sat up on the bed. "Really?" She thought it over and then looked disappointedly over at the suitcases. "I guess I better find another dress."
"Good thing I was listening," Roswena was still going on. "Else you would have embarrassed yourself. You ought to thank me, you know."