Chapter Eighty-One: Man

“But surely, priestess…”

Magnolia sneers.

“Even if your intention was to copy me, shouldn’t you have made yours a little more decent? Perhaps not copied my size?”

Did…did she alter my dress’s size?

She is smaller than I am, petite with even proportions, while my body has a nasty habit of making garments more provocative than they should be.

My hand reaches for wine or perhaps grape juice from a nearby waiter’s tray, to which I then proceed to spill its cherry-coloured contents on my chest. The liquid drips between my flesh to seep into the gold and stain it hideously.

“I do not think they are the same now; mine bears a cherry mark.”

I utter.

“How can you spill such an expensive beverage that thousands worked hard to make?”

She responds.

One cannot win with her, can they?

“Magnolia.”

Rhett calls warningly, but not enough to establish any boundary, more like, ‘Magnolia, please stop misbehaving on my behalf.’

In the end, it seems all familial bonds but my own are tough to