An Introductory Note from the Author: After careful consideration and in response to reader comments, for the sake of clarity I have reverted all characters' names to their cannon versions/spellings regardless of whether that name was historically/geographically common at the time. (For those interested, the originally-conceived tweakings are on my Tumblr account.) The gents tend to refer to one another by surname. Hope this helps!
'Flowers' revealed so far: Iris - Ymir; Peony - Mikasa
Chapter 3: Acts of Commerce
(Annie, Historia)
Anne looked up from wiping up a spill, her blonde hair falling over one eye, to see the Iris – Ymir – sauntering back in the direction of the bar, no doubt with the newcomers' individual orders. She passed her gaze over them, at this distance not able to see much apart from the tops of their heads or, in the case of the three taller ones among them, their collars.
She had to admit a sort of twisted gratefulness at seeing Lord Stohess again, though she'd never admit it. It tapped at her like the pearl earrings he'd gifted her tapped at her neck. He was the only one that had treated her with any real regard or respect – the few times anyone else had given her any attention, it had been crass and quickly-withdrawn, a drunken mistake or what they to be perceived to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Most of the time, it was fine with her.
"Lots of fun to be had there," Ymir said, jerking her head over her shoulder to indicate the booth. She slid back to her the empty tray on which Annie had sent the new Gekkeikan import.
Annie didn't respond, merely folded her rag over on itself and stored it out of sight, and waited. It seemed all she ever did, lately, and couldn't stop the sullenness this caused from mellowing her features night after night.
"Hope you're ready for this," Ymir said and leaned on the bar. She lifted her eyes to the curtained ceiling and recited, "A claret, two whiskies – one straight, one on the rocks – and a brandy, a vodka with a lime wedge, a Black Russian, and a Sidecar."
"Only seven? There's eight of them," Annie said, repeating them back to herself in her head.
"I guess he's happy with the plum wine, though he didn't really seem to have touched that, either."
Annie let out an imperceptible sigh and began plucking glasses from shelves. As always, she poured Lord Stohess' claret first, even though he would receive it at the same time as everyone else. Another habit was to guess whose drink belonged to who and to that end, she wondered about this new group Lord Stohess had brought with him. Unlike other companions he'd arrived with before, these she didn't recognize.
"So who are they?" she asked Ymir. Although not altogether friends with the woman, they'd arrived around the same time and she was useful when it came to gathering information from afar. As she walked down the bar to grab the cognac, she paused to top up the gin of one of her regulars without letting his awfully nasal voice leave his mouth, and carried on.
"Not sure yet, though I'd hazard a guess that the real tall one is someone important. I think I've seen his face in the papers," Ymir smiled in a predatory way. "I didn't see any rings on them. I would've thought at least a couple of them would be…"
Annie finished the two whiskies and the brandy, placing them beside the claret on the tray. The crystal shimmered in the light of the lamps behind her. "A cadre of bachelors, hm. That's bound to get some hearts going. Best warn Historia." She pulled out the vodka.
Ymir frowned and bristled. "She plays. She'd hate that life."
Annie quirked her eyebrows and let that tangent of the conversation be shut down. Ymir was extremely touchy when it came to Christine; while often paired with her for the enjoyment of the men who liked to see two women caress one another, Annie was astute enough to know that it ran much deeper than an act, at least for Ymir. While such inclinations weren't unheard of, Annie wondered if that wasn't why Ymir had been driven here in the first place.
She deftly sliced a lime wedge and hooked it onto the rim of the glass of vodka without having realized she had poured it. Most nights were like that. She moved in a haze. It was the best way to cope, though she never went to the levels of some of the other girls and regularly partook of opium.
Her eyes flickered upward. Ymir was staring contemplatively at the carousel, a scowl on her face. Again, Annie waited.
"What the new girl's name?" Ymir asked eventually. "The one who's already taken on the Salome lead?"
Annie glanced at the Carousel but couldn't see the new girl anywhere – perhaps there'd been no prompting involved, and Ymir had been thinking about this for a while. Hardly surprising, considering Salome used to be her role. "Mercedes, I think. Spanish, but you know Cyrus – she'll be Arabian or Indian or Egyptian or who knows what else by the time he's done." She started on the Black Russian.
Ymir sneered, huffing. "A Spaniard, huh." She hummed and stretched, making eyes at an older gentleman who passed on his way out of one of the private boudoirs, his tie askew. "We'll see."
Annie found Ymir's bitterness tiresome, and hurried to finish the drinks so she could send her away. When she was done, she carefully slid the tray back to avoid spills. "Salome's not the only act. You'll be fine," she said, as a half-hearted gesture of encouragement. Not so much because she cared about Ymir being usurped, but because acts of support was the commerce among the women in this place.
Ymir responded by pointing a finger in Annie's direction, and tapping her nail on the bar, which Annie had learnt was the best she was going to get from her by way of thanks. Ymir picked up the tray and took her leave. Annie in turn took advantage of the short break in bar traffic to take a sip of her own glass of water, out of habit being sure to place her lips on the exact same spot she'd used before to limit the amount of coral-colored lipstick she left around the rim, somehow feeling as if it would mean less to clean but in truth, hoping that someone would remember her for that – a single kiss. A girlish notion, that she'd know her 'one' by that sign. She tried not to think about it.
"You'd get more tips if you smiled."
Annie put her glass away beneath the bar before turning to the cheery, lazy-sounding female voice. "I could already do with less tips from you, Dasha," she replied, putting a hand on her hip and narrowing her eyes tiredly. "What do you want?"
"Another round of Manhattans, for the Cairo Suite."
"You forgot the tray I sent you with the first time," Annie noticed.
The brunette tottered on her gold-painted heels, contrary to her normal poise. Her costume, styled in the colors of a monarch butterfly – that Annie personally found garish – with scarlet accents, consisted of a bustle and flounces of skirts longer in the back and practically nonexistent in the front to show off her toned legs, and a shimmering orange corset to make the most of her smaller bust trimmed in black feathers to match those decorating her pinned-up hair. Everything seemed in place, but Alexandra's scarlet lipstick was smudged and her brown eyes were red-rimmed. The smell on her told Anne everything she needed to know.
Annie frowned, letting sympathy leak back into her voice, "You should go easy on the opium," she said. Her eyebrows rose. "People get addicted to it, you know."
Sasha made a less than pleasant face and pressed her black-gloved hands on the bar, separating them and sweeping them to either side of her as she stepped close. The double-stranded pearl bracelet on her left wrist scraped across the polished wood. "I'm sorry, I don't remember you being my boss. So how about those stupid Manhattans?"
Although tempted to shove the ice she was procuring down Sasha's corset, Annie resisted. She'd have to talk to her later, when she wasn't moving in a fog.
Historia looked up from powdering her collarbone as the relative hush of the dressing room was disturbed by the door opening. Noise – the laughter of men, drunk and aroused; the jazz musicians warming up the night, skittering footsteps of the other girls – rushed into the small, warm space like water rushing to fill every inch of a glass. Happily it was shut out very quickly.
The younger girl, Georgiana – too young to legally be in an act, in the meantime her understudy of sorts – ran to her. "Lord Stohess is here!" she said excitedly.
Historia smiled, returning her gaze to the brand new electrically-lit mirror she'd rapidly and easily claimed as her own. "How wonderful," she agreed. "It's been at least a couple of months." She replaced her powder puff and began to tease at the golden hair piled high on her head.
"He has quite the group with him," Georgiana confided. "Another seven gentlemen. The shorter one – what is it – Ackerman, of course. But the others I've not seen before. Master Cyrus is asking for the Lord Lieutenant's favorites."
Georgiana plucked the violet orb of Historia's perfume atomizer from the vanity, and Historia tilted her head slightly forward and to the left – obligingly, Georgiana sprayed the lily-scented perfume on Historia's neck and her skin prickled pleasantly and briefly with the sensation before it dried.
"I'll be up soon," Historia responded, still smiling. "I'm just helping the new girl, what with her first act being tonight. Could use some extra support; you know how it is." She reached forward to the vanity and plucked the pearl and cameo collar necklace from its lacquered surface; she'd removed it earlier to refresh her powder. "Before you go, would you mind terribly?" she brought the collar to her throat and held its ends at the back of her neck, hovering implicitly.
Ever-eager in a way that made Historia both pleased and saddened, Georgiana took hold of the clasps and fastened it for her. Historia looked in the mirror with satisfaction – the gift from Lord Stohess had been in good taste, for it highlighted the prized feature of her graceful, long neck.
"Thank you, Georgie," she said and the girl nodded, leaving the dressing room to return to Master Cyrus. Six newcomers, she repeated to herself. She didn't care much for Captain Ackerman and was fairly certain that title was not accurate, but it mattered little – she'd seen how he often snuck away from Lord Stohess to partake of the same strawberry-blonde every time. But these newcomers…was Ymir already there? No doubt she was. She, too, was one of Lord Stohess' favorites, after all. Maybe he would ask the two of them to kiss for him again.
Historia blushed and quelled the rapid beats of her heart, and turned to her right. Two dressing tables away, the new girl sat silent as one of the costumiers held up yard after yard of near-translucent voile to her copper skin, trying to decide which color suited her best. Knowing how important it was for one's first act, one's first impression, to soar clear and true, Historia rose from her stool and made her way to them. She thought of all the colors the girls closest to her wore, and wouldn't think of stealing theirs. Maybe it was her usual role influencing her, she reflected as she glanced at her old-fashioned, tiny corseted waist and figure-hugging Victorian lines, but despite their world, Historia wanted there to be some relics of propriety down here.
She glanced over the fabrics and the costumier let her. Her fingertips grazed them. "You're the new Salome tonight?" she asked, smiling into the mirror at the girl. She was prettier than Historia had originally given her credit for, now that she had been cleaned up.
"Yes," the girl replied taciturnly. "When I'm not Mercedes." The corners of her full lips, red even without the aid of lipstick, turned downward in a scowl.
Historia understood the undercurrent to her voice. It was difficult to separate one's act and one's person, after a while. She remembered being like this girl – new, determined to have an identity, resistant and in denial of the realities of their life.
Putting away those thoughts, her fingers alighted on a swathe of gold draped over the costumier's arm. She pushed aside the greens and blues and held it to Mercedes' shoulders, humming in satisfaction. "Yes. This one." Smiling more broadly, she leaned over so that her face was close to hers, and looked at them both in the mirror – the classic, delicate, pale English beauty beside the sculpted, exotic Spaniard – and said, "They'll be calling you Lady of Mercies in no time." She gave her arm an encouraging squeeze, and left her.
Out in the dark, cold and narrow hall below the churning of the stage slowly spinning on its axis – the underbelly of her world, which was the underbelly of the outside world, she reflected with irony – Historia stopped and lit a cigarette. However unladylike it apparently was, it calmed her. It seemed to push the usual pressures out of her mind: to perform well, to be the prettiest, to keep Ymir calm or keep everyone calm, for that matter. She started at the sound of footsteps.
Mikasa, the Asian wait-girl, appeared out of the shadows. She frowned. "Those'll kill you, Historia."
Historia rapidly stabbed the cigarette out on the bricks of the wall. "I appreciate your concern, Mikasa, but I'm sure you're wrong." She smiled, returning to her act, pinching her cheeks and she passed on her way to Lord Stohess.
A(nother) Note from the Author: Many thanks to ohtobealady's help with titles and forms of address! Also, I've heard some concern expressed as to not making pairings obvious from the get-go - I'm a firm believer in not spoiling the surprise for my readers if I can avoid it, as I feel it saps some of the enjoyability out of it. I will say this, however - there will be pairings that aren't so surprising, and some that may be! :)