Talking with him the night before had left her more affirmed in reality. Finally gripping the fact that she was alive and back on his beach. Alive and surrounded by her own people again.
Alive.
It was the first day in a long time when she didn't need to count her every breath. The form not quaking inside her as horribly. As though it had calmed down inside her now that she was home and did not feel the need to burst to the surface at every waking moment.
Excitement and determination filled her bones, and with the anticipation of the meeting looming over her that afternoon, she finally felt like herself.
She just needed her brother.
Sutor positioned Nyssa on a pedestal and began to measure her. She didn't speak much as she did, only humming once in a while. She put her in a linen form to tack with, and as Sutor pulled the fabric snug around her waist and hips, Nyssa paused her.
“Can you… can you not pull it so tight around the top?” she managed to tell her. “Please."
"Leave her growing room, Soot," Nadir called from outside.
Nyssa hadn't realized he was listening in, and she caught Sutor's eye. "Do you have something I can throw at him?" she asked.
Sutor smiled. "His giving you a hard time makes you feel at home," she said, and Nyssa's eyes narrowed. "After all you've been through."
Nyssa's cheeks flushed, and she glanced at the ground. "It really does," she admitted.
Sutor crouched to pin the hem. "I want to apologize for the way I watched you when you first arrived," the seamstress admitted. "I know we all stared at you as though you did not deserve him. But now... I think anyone who does oppose is only jealous. What you did was something no one in our own village would have. It's clear what you mean to him, and that smile is something I have missed seeing on his face."
Nyssa's heart knotted, and Sutor stood again. She came around to Nyssa's front, and she pressed her hands to Nyssa's cheeks. "You choose anything you want," she told her. "Anything. Any fabric. It is yours. After what you've done for us, you deserve it."
Nyssa gritted her teeth to keep emotion back. "Thank you," she managed.
Because hearing it from someone who wasn't Nadir affirmed everything she'd put herself through, and it made looking at the squander of what her body had become a little less disheartening.
Sutor finished pinning the dress and then had her take it off, giving her back a dress she had intended to sell at market, but said she thought it would look prettier on her.
It was a dark green, lightweight linen… The first dress she’d put on since getting back that didn’t fall over her like a sack.
“You should wear green more often,” Sutor told her.
“I keep telling her that,” Nadir called.
Sutor’s hands wrapped around Nyssa’s arms from behind, and she gave a squeeze. “You may come in again, Naddi,” Sutor said.
Nadir threw the door open with little grace, apparently eager to get back inside. But he paused at the door, his eyes traveling over her in such a way that she immediately felt heat creep up her neck and onto her cheeks. She fumbled with the sleeve's hem a moment as Sutor finished laying out some fabrics for her to choose from.
“Hey, Soot—”
“Already leaving,” Sutor said quickly. She began to back out of the room, but not before giving Nyssa a quiet smile.
Nyssa’s breath caught beneath his gaze, and she had to avert her eyes to the table where the fabrics had been lain. “I’m not sure how she expects me to choose,” she uttered, trying desperately to keep her eyes not on him. He still hadn’t moved. “These are all so beautiful,” she continued, running her fingers over a few of them. “What do you think?”
“I think you could wear that potato sack outside and still be the most entrancing being I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”
Her eyes rolled up to his, and she forced a purse on her lips. “That’s three for today. And it's hardly mid-morning.”
“Only three?” he mocked, stepping closer. “I’m losing my touch.”
She chuckled under her breath as he reached her. She forced a touch of the blue velvet beneath her fingers. “If only I had a place to wear such fabrics again.”
“Wear them here,” he said with a shrug.
“I’m not commissioning your seamstress to make me a dress from velvet when I’ve no place to wear it. We have to be practical. This is a war. Velvet dresses are no longer something I should need.”
