Untitled Drabble - I'll get over it, I just need to be dramatic first
Category: Drabbles

“If you’d asked me a week ago if I believed that justice or righteousness would always win out in the end, even when the world seemed to be crashing down, I would have answered with a resounding yes. Now… I find myself unsure that justice ever existed in the first place.”

“Hmm, yes. I’m sure,” the older woman spoke dismissively, but not without concern, “However, I am not sure what that has to do with not having left the estate in a tenday. Now, I am going to make the bed and you can either get up or I will make you into it, my lady.” Lillianna felt the sheets starting to be pulled out from under her, her body sliding down the mattress along with them. With a groan, she rolled off the bed and stumbled to the chair at her vanity, plopping down and laying her head on the countertop. 

The mirror reflected back at her everything she didn’t want to see. Dark circles under her eyes, like the war paint of the world’s most useless soldier after weeks on the front lines. Frizzy hair, a seemingly untameable call back to her youth before she figured out how to actually care for the relentless blonde curls. Lipstick smeared across her cheek that undoubtedly also now stained the linen that the maid was currently stripping from her pillow. She propped head up on her hand, taking another moment to wallow in the pity party she had been throwing herself since the funeral.

“Maybe if I just showed up to our meeting looking like this, Gortash would change his mind,” she mused half-heartedly before taking a wipe from the top of the vanity and attempting to wipe away the day-old makeup, but only managing to smear it more.

“I’m not sure why you refuse him, my lady,” clean sheets rustled as the maid spread them over the mattress, “It’s not like he is unattractive. And with your father gone…”

“You make it sound as though you are trying to get rid of me,” Lillianna smirked at the maid in the reflection of the mirror, but there was genuine annoyance behind the otherwise playful look. As much as she wanted to snap at her or continue to force her to bear witness to her seemingly endless depressive ramblings, as much as she wanted to scream out how Gortash had no interest in her other than as a means to boost his image and produce propaganda; she had an image to maintain. Even in her own home. “Trust me, Ada, that man is more trouble than his looks or money could ever make up for. I’ll be a hag before I marry him.” 

“As glad as I am that you have your sense of humor back, be careful what you wish for,” the maid tucked the blankets as tight under the bed as she could manage, as if trying to make it more difficult for the younger woman to immediately climb back in. 

“Humor? I’m nothing if not serious,” she finally managed to wipe her face clean. She wasn’t quite sure if her bare face was an improvement or not to how it had looked minutes ago. The longer she stared, the harder it was to break eye contact with her own reflection, had her eyes always been such a light shade of blue? Or had the tears simply washed away all the color in her irises.

Most days, looking in the mirror was a chore that brought nothing but self doubt and loathing. She’d apply her makeup in minutes time and then spend the rest of the day relying on others to deliver the ego boost she so desperately needed.  But what was the point in vanity when there was no one to speak her confidence into existence through flattery. No one that mattered, anyways. It was so much easier to just let her own thoughts take over, consume her, until all that existed was-

“My lady, are you listening to me?” Her self-indulgent melancholy would have to wait.

“Of course Ada, I’ve been fixated on every word,” the obvious lie didn’t give the maid pause for a moment.

“Then what is your answer?” Ada raised her eyebrow as if daring Lillianna to lie to her again. What was the last thing she had said, was it about the proposal? Or maybe a retort to her comment about becoming a hag? 

“My answer is this. It is and has always been my answer. Such important life questions cannot be unraveled with a simple yes or no as life itself is not so black and white that it can be easily understood with binary thinking. I will of course need some more time to come to a conclusion, so can you check back in with me this evening?”

“My lady… I asked what you would like for me to prepare for breakfast.”