It’s been a rotten day
It’s been another one of those days where nothing goes according to plan, not that she had a plan to start with. But she was still hoping things would go according to some meaningful order. Rhode is beginning to realise that if she doesn’t take her life’s direction into her own hands, someone else will do it for her.
She works as an apprentice at a small tailor shop in town. Her mentor is an old man who is enamoured with magicians. They seem to do nothing wrong in his eyes. No wonders, really. Magicians have been his longest customers, ordering every year hundreds of robes for the Shadow ceremony. Rhode can’t fathom why magicians would spend so much on a robe that will be worn only once.
“Shut up and respect their traditions,” the old tailor keeps saying to her. “Their traditions pay for your food.”
She’s almost slipped a couple of times already, almost screaming back at him that their traditions kill her brother. But she bites her lips and carries on dyeing the soft silk at the back of the shop. This particular batch needs to be pink.
She’s not allowed to sew the robes yet. The tailor claims that she still needs to master the dye before she can be trusted with a needle near the opulent cloth. Rhode suspects that it’s because nobody enjoys the dyeing process. It always leaves your hands tainted for weeks. For someone who hates magicians as much as she does, the stains in the different colours of the magical Lands on her fingertips burn through her heart a little more every day.
Some days, she can ignore it. Some days, she can’t. Today is one of those days. A small black flame appears in between her fingers as she plunges the cloth into the water basin. She’s too angry for words. There’s only fire coming out of her today.