While I was off doing the Wasteland Waltz there were some great reviews. Thank you, "Guesty," for making me laugh my head off on the day I got around to checking my reviews!
Yeesh, what a year it's been this week! Stay safe y'all; the real world's gotten as scary as the Fate tag on tumblr!
I am quite certain that fashion school is nothing like I wrote it. I'm not sure fashion school is even a thing that actually exists, though there are fashion design classes. (just not at my school.) So I made it up!
150 Vera ~Shadow~
It's the first warm day of spring and my classmates are so stircrazy Miss Nadine has moved the class outside. It is her opinion that whether you want to design clothes or model them, you should know what modeling entails. So she wants to teach us her workout routine, the model walk, and a lot about the dangers of eating disorders. The invention of virtual models means there's less pressure on the human ones to keep an impossible figure, but plenty of them still try.
Now Miss Nadine is just telling funny model stories and as I lounge on the grass with my friends the world is just about perfect.
Beside me Shimmergloom is wearing an expression of pleasant confusion at the strange foibles of Earth people, the look she usually wears in class. She's also doodling crocodile-headed people in her notebook.
Miss Nadine stops mid-story to pull off her wig.
Shimmergloom's jaw drops. I can't help laughing but I do poke her, "Shirley!"
But Miss Nadine is laughing too. Shimmergloom isn't the only student who didn't know that Miss is actually bald. "I have been in ze remission for ten years, but my hair never did come back. It iz no problem for a model since we wear ze wigs so much.
Someone calls out to ask what color her real hair is and she says her wig—which is thick brunette waves—matches the hair she had before she got sick. "But something similar 'appened to my friend Maxine and she had not the excuse of a bald head..." and she's off into another story about wig mishaps. I open my sketchbook. Madame Sophie is judging our sketches tomorrow. My collection is mostly shades of cream and brown, it's not really a spring palette. I'm debating an accent color: definitely not pink, but maybe blue. Or is that one neutral too many? I want to show Madame Sophie my best. She's a tough teacher—and the head of the school and a successful professional designer herself so she knows what she's talking about—and we all dream of impressing her.
There are other classes everyday; we all take math and history and languages as well as all kinds of arts, both fine and performing. You have to know a surprising amount of architecture to make clothes. My sister Twig, who's studying to be a fairy, said my course load sounded 'terminally boring' but I love all of it. And I'm doing well, except on the history since I mostly just know the history of America.
Shimmergloom, who didn't even live on Earth until now, knows no history at all and is solidly flunking that class. She doesn't care. Being Shirley Barrie the modeling student is just a vacation for her before she goes back to being a pirate fairy in the World of Dreams.
I'm trying to study in my room at night when this thought crosses my mind, completely squelching the nice feeling of getting my work done. In this school, in all of Paris maybe, only the two of us know magic is real. We're both from magical realms just visiting Earth.
I hold up my pencil, think what I want it to do, and take my hand away. The pencil floats in the air, spinning a little in the drafts and sparkling faintly purple. Magic. It's so cool, joyful, but magic is also the thing that makes me wonder if anything I do on Earth really matters. I love magic and hate it. I flick the floating pencil and sent it pinwheeling around the room. But class starts early tomorrow so I should pack up my stuff and go to bed.
Madame Sophie woke in the middle of the night. She got up for a drink of water and decided to walk down to the kitchen for it, going through the dorm corridors just in case one of the students was awake. she'd broken up midnight parties and comforted homesick girls often enough before. Tonight she heard nothing indicating trouble and saw no light under doors. The moonlight coming in the windows cast her shadow clear and black on the floor.
"Good morning Mademoiselle Hume, Mademoiselle Barrie." Madame Lily greets us with test scores. I'm doing very well. Shimmergloom isn't, but she's happy with her Cs. I guess they are impressive for someone from another world. Madame Lily is a bit confused at her reaction but nods, "You both did very well in dance. Maybe I should have all my students whacking away at each other with foam swords."
But our report cards are only part of the quarter's grades. The part that really matters for a design student is what Madame Sophie thinks of their sketchbook. I've been working so hard on it, and I know it's good. I've started making some of the pieces, since Shimmergloom doesn't mind standing around letting me fit things on her as long as she can watch TV.
I'm rethinking all my design choices and sketching from sheer nerves while I wait for Madame Sophie to call me in. Shimmergloom took her report card and went off to call her parents. Her father used to live on Earth so he's going to know what grades mean and maybe he'll be mad at how badly she's doing. Or maybe he won't care, because Shimmergloom's just going to grow up to be a pirate.
Monique, an upperclassman and a dorm-neighbor of ours, comes out of Madame Sophie's office clutching her sketchbook. She gives me a strange look, very intense but I'm not sure what she's trying to communicate. I make a questioning face but Monique just says, "You can go in, Vera..."
I hesitate, but Monique is walking away before I can ask if something's up. I open the door to Madame Sophie's office. She's closed the curtains on both windows, leaving the room lit only by her desk lamp even in the middle of the day. Which is weird. "Madame?"
"Mademoiselle Hume, your academic grades are acceptable but your overall score depends on your design work."
My heart jumps to my throat as I hand over my sketchbook. Madame Sophie isn't gentle if she thinks you're bad at something, but she always notices what you do well.
She looks through my sketchbook in total silence. I'm waiting for her to comment—on the first few pages which are just silhouettes and experimental color schemes and some jewelry designs because why not. Then the outfits start coming together and I put them on sketches I've tried to make look like Monique and Shimmergloom because they were in the room when I was sketching. We were doing hairstyling that day, which meant I was drafted to do fancy braids in Monique's hair and try to wrestle Shimmergloom's naturally messy locks into a neat-ish bun. It was really fun, that day, but Madame Sophie doesn't comment on that page either. The next page is when I actually got the assignment for the collection and started actually designing the pieces. Shorts and a long top, pants, dresses. I tried a few variations for different body shapes, but the ones I'm sewing are for Shimmergloom and me since those are the bodies I have handy. I've taped in fabric swatches and photos of the pieces in construction. It's a good sketchbook, I know it is.
"Decevant!" Madame Sophie snaps.
I actually gasp. Disappointing?
Madame Sophie switches to English to better berate me. "Mademoiselle Hume, there is nothing original here! These designs are childish and your color palette is boring! If this is the level of your innovation I'm not sure you belong at this school."
"I tried-" I stop myself. Usually Madame wants to hear our reasoning, but I don't think she does today. Also I might cry and Madame would not be impressed. I can't say anything now. I nod, take back my sketchbook and make my escape from Madame's office.
The next student looks at my sympathetically.
I warn her, "Madame's… in a really bad mood."
I make it back to my room without meeting anyone else's gaze, but there's Shimmergloom looking up from her homework to congratulate me until she sees my face.
"What happened?"
"She hated it! She hated everything!"
"Oh, Vera!"
"She said she wasn't sure I belong in this school!" My voice breaks. I can't cry over this, getting a bad grade is nothing compared to everything else that happened to me in the past year.
"Of course ye belong here! Ye work so hard!"
"But if I don't have any talent..." I cut myself off. Whining at my best friend isn't going to help anything.
Shimmergloom's hand goes to her throat where her little silver bell hangs. Her magic can't help with this. I didn't even think of using mine. I forgot I'm a witch, here in the normal world, I just wanted to make people feel beautiful and maybe I'm no good at that.
Shimmergloom zips out the door and in a minute she's back with Monique and Catherine, our next-dorm neighbors. Neither of them looks happy either. A thought penetrates my despair: did they both get terrible reviews too? That isn't like Madame. She's strict, and she holds us to a high standard, but she isn't cruel. And our neighbors are both great designers. "...did you two get bad grades?"
They both nod, and Monique catches the same thought I'm having. "I wonder if something happened. Maybe Miss Nadine..."
My heart clenches in an entirely new way. Miss Nadine is basically the sweetest person, she's like a kind aunt to all of us.
Shimmergloom looks between us, "Ye think maybe the sickness came back?" She may have been shocked that Miss Nadine has no hair, but Shimmergloom did look up what 'cancer survivor' means.
"We can't just rush and ask her." Says Catherine.
"We can ask politely." Monique is about to graduate so she's known the heads of the school longer than the rest of us.
I see Shimmergloom's hand close over her magical bell. I can't ask, with Monique and Catherine here, if her magic would do any good if Miss Nadine is sick.
We find Miss Nadine in her office grading papers. She looks up at the four of us hovering in her doorway. Her expression is just curiosity, no hint that something terrible has happened. "Everything all right, girls?"
"I guess so."
"Madame wasn't very nice with our grades." Monique offers cautiously.
Nadine chuckles, "Is she ever? Don't look so scared, it'll be fine. She's never really kicked anyone out."
The four of us look at each other. It's clear our terrible guess was wrong… which is good. Except that means Madame Sophie really does hate everything I've created all semester.
Shimmergloom aims her brightest smile at Miss Nadine and tugs me and Monique away. "Let's go get treats, ye all will feel better with a treat!"
She's probably right, and there's a cute cupcakes place nearby that enjoys the custom of all our classmates. It looks like half of them are here either mourning or celebrating. We join the mourning side and eat cake.
In the evening, as usual, my sister Twig chats me from her school in the magic dimension. Also as usual all she wants to talk about is magic. Apparently today they started learning to shapeshift, which most fairies can only do a little bit. Twig can turn her ears into furry cat ears but nothing else, which makes her about average in shapeshifting. She does it to show me over video chat, her ears stretching into points and sprouting dark red hair to match the rest of her hair. And now she has cat ears where her normal ears used to be. Twig laughs and rubs her new ears, super proud. I can't bring myself to squelch her mood by describing my day, so I tell her how cool I think her ears are and beg off to finish my math homework before she can start trying to teach me how to do it too.
I love my sister, I can't imagine not talking to her all the time. But I do wish she ever wanted to talk about something else!
There's some delay in posting our grades. Nobody actually says it's because Madame Sophie gave so many people bad grades. It's not normal. She's skipped teaching her classes for a few days, but today she's back. She's closed the curtains on the classroom windows but she's giving a normal lecture on the history of shoes. It's interesting stuff, I like the bit about platform shoes being invented to keep their wearers out of the much back before paved streets were a thing.
Beside me Shimmergloom fidgets and strokes the silver bell she wears around her neck. I want to ask if something's up or if she's just bored. She's not as interested in shoes generally as I am, and I'm not all that interested since I can't make my own shoes. Yet. Leatherworking is on the list of things I want to try, along with felting. I want to make felt hats. Miss Nadine loves the twenties and showed us some adorable hats from that era, shaped felt with feathers…
Shimmergloom pokes me to bring my mind back from the top of fashion to the bottom.
A girl named Liza squints at her notes, reaches out and pushes up a curtain. Sunlight floods in and everybody blinks. Madame Sophie groans and covers her eyes. "Liza, please..." And something's strange.
"Oh! Sorry!" Liza pulls the curtain back into place.
I feel like I saw something weird but I don't know what it was. Just a sense that something was off. Sunlight. What's wrong with Madame? Migraines? Is she sick? But mostly she's just acting mean. Is that a sickness? My first aid certification doesn't cover mysterious things, if this even is a mysterious thing. Since I learned magic is real I have to wonder if everything weird is actually magic. Barely anything on Earth is but Madame did encounter magical things before so maybe she did again.
We have math class, and languages where I practice my patchy French, and lunch break and then arts. Shimmergloom's class of would-be models is studying dance, some kind of simplified ballet without the toes thing. My class of would-be designers is supposed to be sketching them to understand the body in motion. A selection of bodies. Most are the traditional model shape: tall and slim and curveless as boys. In theory the field of modeling is now open to people of all shapes, like Shimmergloom who's shorter and curvier and looks positively elven between two very tall girls. I sketch the whole line of them, poised with arms outstretched, just a few lines for each figure, trying to capture the beauty of them. Shimmergloom holds the pose without wobbling. All her sword fighting with her pirate friends has made her stronger than most of our classmates, if not as graceful.
Monique is sitting on the bench next to me. Her sketching is a whole lot better than mine. She gets up and points at the ground, "Vera, look at their shadows."
I stand, then climb up on the bench for a better view. The dancers' shadows stretch, elongated by the setting sun. They bend and bow in unison. I turn my pencil to use the flat side of the lead to try to catch the darkness of shadows on the grass.
The dance teacher demonstrates a twirl and everyone tries it. Their shadows spin and waver.
Then one of them falls. I'm watching the shadows so I miss the moment when Liza wobbles, steps too far, and topples over. She shrieks and curses in French and sits holding her ankle.
"Liza!"
"Are you all right?"
"It hurts!" Liza curses some more.
The grownups gather, the teacher first then Miss Nadine comes running from the building. Madame Sophie hesitates in the door but Nadine is having none of it. "One of your students is hurt, you can stand the light for a minute!"
So Madame Sophie comes out too. We stay out of the way, I'm so glad this is a normal world where grownups take care of things like they're supposed to.
Nadine is saying, "It's just twisted. Hurts like crazy but you'll be back on your feet soon."
Liza voices some loud complaints.
I glance down at the grass, out of habit. The crowd of teachers makes a big stretched out blob of shadow.
Madame Sophie doesn't have one.
She's shading her eyes against the sunset light, that pools around her feet on all sides.
I gape. Nobody notices with the drama over Liza. Shimmergloom isn't close enough for me to get her attention.
This is magic isn't it? I'm still looking, trying to convince myself I'm really seeing this. Everyone else has a shadow stretched out behind them, but Madame Sophie doesn't.
