Drabble:103
POV:Third Person
The morning of Lissa's coronation, Jill had been escorted to the monarch's parlor room for getting her hair and makeup done. There, she found Lissa sipping tea with Princess Szelsky. Both ladies spared her identical nervous smiles before going back to the conversation. Ariana Szelsky had asked Jill to join them, but Jill had politely declined, heading instead for the makeup station that had temporarily been set up in the corner of the room.
While Jill had her hair tamed by a trio of the Court's premier hairdressers, she sifted through fashion magazines and chatted with them. Once they were done, they disappeared, promising to send in her makeup people.
Jill smiled at them, waving till they were gone and then, she glanced around the room. Jill's smile faded when she realized that Princess Szelsky and Lissa's beauticians and secretary had all left the room and it was just her, alone with the monarch-to-be.
Lissa noticed it about the same time and lifted her eyes to meet Jill's. Nervous jade eyes looked onto one another before both of them looked away, feeling uncertain.
After minutes of sitting in awkward silence, Lissa coughed daintily, reclaiming Jill's attention. "I was wondering if you could help me choose my shoes.", she addressed Jill, looking at a spot near Jill's head, not making direct eye-contact. "It's not much, not that it's not important. Because it is. Important, I mean. But they left me all three of these shoes and I couldn't pick, so-"
"I'd love to", Jill cut into Lissa's nervous monologue. "I mean it would be an honour to choose your shoes for you. I mean they're all pretty and you could wear any of them and still carry them off. With that. The dress, I mean. It's lovely." Jill finished lamely, feeling her face heat up.
"Thank you", Lissa smiled warmly at Jill. And Jill smiled back tentatively, meeting her sister's eyes for a moment before looking away again. It might have been a little step but they had made a little progress, Jill thought happily, drifting towards the shoe-boxes. Things were going to change for the better.
Lissa followed her movements for a minute before she sighed softly and turned her attention back to a file in her hands. Lissa wanted things to get better but circumstances were…
That day Jill had chosen shoes for Lissa, shoes the colour of white gold, which though hidden under her floor-length gown, Lissa had worn. When asked by some royal, she even had mentioned that the Dragomir Princess had especially selected them for her.
That day, Jill had made a random comment about liking high-heels and admiring European shoes, when Lissa and she had engaged in some stilted awkward dialogues while waiting in the ante-chamber of the church for the coronation ceremony.
So, she shouldn't have been surprised when shoes by renowned European designers began to find their way to her in Palm Springs. But she was surprised and touched that Lissa had remembered that trivial detail and acted on it. Maybe things would get better between them, once Jill could return to Court. Jill really hoped so. Now all she had to do was to figure out what Lissa liked.
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