“Mhm,” Evie mumbled, smiling at her work.
The rarest and most expensive jewel she’d thought to be a rumor. It made sense why many didn’t believe they existed if they were hiding here in the Greywood. “Remarkable,” was all Orelia could think to say.
“I know you are. Now, let’s get you dressed!”
Orelia eagerly followed the pixie into a stony alcove that looked as if it had been frozen mid-destruction.
“We haven’t had a visitor in a long time, but I can make you something out of this,” Evie said as she picked through a few pieces of thin linen dyed in various natural shades of green. “Take your clothes off.”
She said the words so casually that Orelia found herself not being embarrassed at the request. The version of her that tried to hide herself under long skirts and sleeved shirts back home to avoid attention in the brothel didn’t have to worry about such things deep in the forest.
Orelia set her boots and socks by her pack before slipping out of her shirt and pants. The stones were cool on her bare feet as she peeked out from the alcove.
Evie glanced at her. “All of it.”
Orelia instinctively covered her breasts, but the urge to conceal herself quickly vanished, as there was no reason to be shy in nature’s sanctuary. She removed all her undergarments and stood naked in the glow of the dying sun.
Evie constructed a garment of linen, woven grasses, and leaves, wrapping them around Orelia’s body. The leaves were smooth on her skin, somehow still alive despite having been plucked from the ground.
A necklace made of tiny white bones and small bird skulls clinked together as Evie looped it over Orelia’s head. “For good luck,” the pixie said with a grin.
When she was finished, Evie motioned to a standing mirror with a giant diagonal crack in the glass. “What do you think?”
Orelia padded over to the mirror, and her mouth fell open. Evie had wound the vines to sit with the natural curve of her waist. The linen crisscrossed her breasts and wrapped around her ample hips, leaving her sides exposed. The leaf-and-linen skirt stopped just below her buttocks with leaves dangling at varying heights, brushing the middle of her thighs that had become toned and strong.
The pixie added two twisted vine bands around her upper arms, each holding a fire opal the size of a bruno egg. Her skin was practically glowing from the cosmetics and the days in the sun, and her hair was adorned in such beauty, emphasizing the loose waves of her deep auburn hair that fell just past her shoulders. “Evie . . .this is . . .”
The pixie sat on her shoulder and smiled at Orelia in the mirror. “Just bringing out your natural beauty.”
Orelia beamed, looking at Evie in the mirror. “Thank you. I’ve never met someone as kind-hearted and lovely as you.”
Evie waved her off. “Ah, it’s nothing.”
She’d never felt so beautiful in such exposing clothing. Orelia lifted the hem of the short skirt. “I’ve always wanted to dress more feminine like this. But where I come from, this attire attracts unwanted attention.”
Evie frowned. “You don’t like attention?”
Orelia’s fingers trailed down the strips of fabric covering her breasts. “I do. I mean, who doesn’t? But I used to work in a brothel, and when you dress in a certain way you invite certain types of people who think they can do whatever they want to your body just because of what you’re wearing.”
The pixie set her chin in her palm, perfectly content atop Orelia’s shoulder. “What’s a brothel?”
Her throat went tight. “A place you don’t want to find yourself in.”
The pixie tilted her head, curious, but she didn’t ask Orelia to elaborate. “Well, we don’t do things like that here. Our bodies are a symbol of nature’s power, but power that must be given freely. No one should have a say in what happens to your body but you.”
Orelia’s smile was split in the cracked mirror. Her words came out soft. “I wish the rest of the world thought the way you and I do.”
Evie fluttered off her shoulder and hovered in front of her. Her tiny brows furrowed. “What’s wrong?”
She wasn’t sure what had made her so emotional to make tears burn behind her eyes. “I just want the world to be kinder. I don’t want kindness to be seen as a weakness, but a strength.”
Evie lifted a few of Orelia’s fingers and squeezed them. “Then we will make it kinder, despite the people in these ‘brothels,’ or the fae outside, or anything or anyone else. You arestrong, Orelia. I can sense it.”
She smiled, a tear slipping free.
Evie looked up at the sliver of sky visible through the broken ceiling and grinned. The dark moon had begun its climb, a smaller lavender moon moving in tandem with the larger white one, creating an eclipse. They would move in sync across the sky all night, leaving only a sliver of amethyst light to guide the way. “That’s why we call her ‘Mother’ Moon,” Evie said with reverence in her voice. “Because it is women who know best how to brave the darkness.”
Orelia wiped away another tear. “I’d hug you, but I’m afraid I’d squish you.”
