Scorching
Scorching, Delia thought, didn't even begin to describe how she felt. Both she and her roommate of three years, Cythera of Elden, who had probably been paired with her when they first arrived at the convent because of the alphabetical proximity of their fief names, were sprawled on their beds, hoping to feel a faint breeze from their open window brush across their foreheads, which were damp from sweat.
They were supposed to be attending a dance class right now, but it was simply too hot to think about rolling off their beds, nonetheless hastening down the stuffy corridors to sweat buckets and have sweaty girls stomp on their toes. Besides, it was Cythera's birthday, and she deserved better than a dance class—and certainly better than the handkerchief her parents had sent her as a gift.
"I can't believe my parents sent me a handkerchief with the exact same pattern on it that they did last year." Cythera sighed, twisting the handkerchief around in her hands as if seeking an angle from which to admire it. "And why roses two years in row, anyway? If they're going to give me a bad present, they should at least try to give me something, however small, to like about it."
"Come now, dear," Delia said, her emerald eyes sparking with mischief as she did her best imitation at an admonishing priestess. "I'm sure there are plenty of things to like about that handkerchief."
"Oh, really?" Cythera arched a beautifully plucked eyebrow in challenge. Passing the handkerchief to Delia, she added, "Find some."
"Well, let me think." Delia tapped her lower lip for a minute. Then, putting the handkerchief on her head at a jaunty angle as if it were a fine hat, she continued, "It makes a stylish piece of headgear appropriate for any function. Pull it down over your eyes like so, and it becomes a modest veil any blushing bride would be proud of. Take it off your head, wipe it across your face, and then watch all your sweat miraculously vanish."
"What else does it do?" Cythera asked, smiling slightly as Delia finished demonstrating how to wipe the sweat off a forehead with the handkerchief.
"Why, it becomes a marvelous kite." Completely absorbed in the spirit of the joke now, Delia leaned over on her bed, stuck her arm out of the open window, and dropped the handkerchief.
As the two thirteen-year-olds watched the embroidered fabric sink through the heavy, hot air, Cythera chuckled. "Do you think a handsome knight will come pick up the handkerchief and rescue us from our terrible imprisonment in the Convent of Boredom?"
"Not unless the handsome knight is a lady, as men aren't permitted on the convent grounds." Delia's lips quirked. "I'm afraid that we're trapped here for another two or three years."
"Probably three years with the demerits we'll earn for missing dance class," Cythera said. "I swear it takes about a month's hard work to erase a single demerit, and we'll be lucky to escape with only three demerits for skipping an entire lesson."
"Oh, I'll be most surprised if we get any demerits at all." Delia's lashes fluttered and her mouth twisted into a pout. "I trust that the priestesses will understand your regrettable absence from class when I explain to them that your darling aunt Mildred was suffering through a difficult pregnancy that, by the grace of the Great Mother, she survived and that you were too distraught to attend dance lesson, so naturally I had to remain behind to bathe your face in cold water and hand you smelling salts. Frail creatures that we are, we must try to help one another when we are at our weakest, no?"
"Oh, Delia, you're horrible." Cythera laughed in a way that really meant Delia was wonderful.
"I prefer scorching." Proudly, Delia lifted her chin. "Or on fire."
"You don't even make sense," Cythera managed to choke out through gales of laughter, and Delia thought laughing and crying was really all the same release, so all a friend could do was try to maximize the laughing and minimize the crying.
She hadn't done too badly with that, she decided. After all, with such a lame present, it was remarkable that Cythera had done any laughing at all on her birthday, and her laughter was all thanks to Delia's cleverness. Yes, Delia was scorching and on fire, and she was proud of it.