Scene #5414: The Royal Tailor and Children of Ash

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	Arriving at the visitor's Warpgate to Anor Londo is, in many ways, the complete, polar opposite of going home to the Deep City. Rather than being blanketed in night by fathoms of ocean water and warmed by artificial light, the sun is so clear and bright that the marble and granite almost glow, and almost hot despite the altitude. In place of the shade and shelter of a giant tree, the whole city is built atop a near-perfect circle of impossibly sheer mountains and open to the air, as if the earth were shaped sheerly for the visual effect of unreachability from below. Rather than guarding precious air and habitable space, though, the colossal walls adding further to the exterior height and the fertile valley hidden inside the ring of worked and natural stone, suggests a more basic and practical sense of protection. What someone would need to build a borderline-sky city made of Escher's Gothic Architecture at 5:1 scale to protect from, though, is a good question. Altogether, it is a very different kind atmosphere, but despite its thoroughly more old-school sensibilities, lofty position, and grandiose layout, it is somehow far from unwelcoming. The first sign Septette won't have a tough time with being gawked at comes the moment she has to take the stairs down from the high wall platform and down to the fanciful web of roofs and balconies and buttresses that comprise the city's 'roads'; the same staircase presents her three choices of lane, with the one sporting normally sized steps seeming to be the one last carved. Going past any traffic, it'd be difficult to stand out all too much unless she actively tried. Predominantly, the city's population is human, and of the distinctly high middle ages sort, but the general mosh pit of disparate cultures and lands of origin makes even that a chaotic jumble, not to mention the great numbers of various religious uniforms, before one even begins to consider the wide variety of bizarre flying creatures up above, the assortment of giants both living and magically animated, and the very (very) large knights dressed in identical silver armour at each major junction, just as still and machine-like as Septette can be when she turns off the act. Being the middle of the day, the place is pretty lively, though it still feels kind of 'half-populated'. It seems as if it were designed for more and for bigger. Most likely some culturally accepted or religiously mandated resting time, it's like the whole place is adjourned for lunch hour. The only signs of people still at work are the sprawl of much more 'normal' buildings far, far down below, on the inner mountainside and valley floor (which largely seem to be agriculture and mining), and the construction of an especially large and, oddly, brand new building not far away. So, Septette has a bit of a hike. She's a robot though. She can handle it, surely. Oddly though, it wouldn't be the utterly ridiculously huge palace/citadel/cathedral/fortress at the city's center that she is given directions to, but that new construction, where the crowd starts to thin out and be replaced by the sounds of labour. That appears to be where Priscilla is spending her time, though currently doing little more than standing back and watching a variety of men at work in cooperation with muscular creatures ten times their size, hauling stones, moving scaffolding, and even providing giant hand elevator service.
Septette Arcubielle	Anor Londo's vast vistas of gothic stone leave a deep impression on Septette from the moment she arrives; it reminds her of what the Deep City's surface twin, Armoroad, could resemble if it were built up over thousands of years. Such vast protective measures would be highly valued back home... if only her people had ever had the breathing room to create them. The people, too, are familiar to her in a distant way: if their clothing and armor lacks a precise analogue in Etria, they are at least similar enough to believably come from an undiscovered island-state or forgotten culture. This isn't a place she'd struggle to seem native to, if she kept her eyes dim and her cloak pulled tight. But despite her wonderment, she seems to be in rather a hurry, and doesn't pause to speak to anyone save to briefly ask directions. Where the crowds thin, she breaks out into a strange and loping sprint that human legs can't quite emulate. It's only a few minutes before she reaches Priscilla's designated meeting-place, announcing her presence with a bright ping and a cheery wave of her hand. Septette is dressed well today, but plainly: her shawl is smooth and deep purple instead of the sunbleached lavender and ragged edges of her casual attire, and her hairband bears a single, immaculate white flower with a black stem. A quill pen is tucked behind one silvery ear-fin, and a messy sketchbook is clutched in her other hand- perhaps the little robot's already got ideas of her own. Apart from that and the dark wicker picnic basket on her arm, she's come unadorned and unaccessorized, the better to give a tailor an accurate impression of her daily wear. Her basket is small enough to snugly carry a single person's lunch, but seems charmingly overpacked- enough for two, perhaps? A dual-walled glass amphora pokes out from under the basket's lid at a dangerously jaunty angle, resembling a cross between the functionality of a thermos and the aesthetic of an old wine bottle. An inky black liquid sloshes around inside, filling the empty space in the bottle with cloudy fog, and pinpricks of sidereal light swirl sedately through the substance like a lava lamp as she glances around. It looks like the night sky itself, condensed and decanted. "I do hope I haven't kept you waiting," she offers in a sprightly tone that's just apologetic enough to sound sincere. Her eyes dart over to the construction-work, assessing the men and their craft. Local improvement, done in local style- somewhat unexpected for the head of the Concord if this is important enough for her to take an interest in, but perhaps she's trying to stimulate the economy? "Sometimes it's relaxing to watch industry at work. There's a kind of visceral interest common to humanity in seeing things built up and improved," she remarks while rummaging around in her basket. She pulls out what appear to be... bunches of grapes? No; they're translucent and wet-looking, with green stems. "I've brought some snacks, if you'd care for them. Sea honeydew, to start with: salty-sweet, crunchy like pickles." She tosses the bunch up in the air, so that it reaches its apex precisely at Priscilla's eye level!
Priscilla	Priscilla is not dressed dramatically differently than she had been the last time she had met Septette. Her official getup serves equally well as a symbol of royalty and the head of the Concord's affluent neo-archaic aesthetic anyways, and it's better for appearances for her authority to seem singular and undivided, rather than two separate obligations. She seems to be, however, fiddling with the pendant that surely must usually be at the end of the slender black chain around her neck, however rarely displayed; some sort of ornate, black wire cage which suspends a blue stone too-much like a deep, vacuous eye, staring off into space. She puts it away at hearing Septette's cheery tones, and turns just in time to have a stalk of fruit lobbed at her, easily picking it out of the air where it hovers in momentary weightlessness. Before she tries one, though, she spends a good several seconds looking the little Yggdroid up and down, seemingly with great approval. "Think nothing of it, Lady Arcubielle. I had cleared mine obligations some time ago, in preparation of thine visit. I had not expected thou to arriveth so well prepared. Truly thine thoughtfulness is a rare quantity amongst others." She then takes a minute to try out one of those 'sea honeydew' things. Her experience with the ocean is minimal in the first place, never mind ocean food. After a couple of seconds of crunching, though, it seems to be to her liking, because she strips off another couple with an appreciative sound (though, as is only polite, she swallows before speaking any further). "I wish it were quite so simple." she responds to the question of industry. "As I am certain thou hath guessed, there is more than enough space yet unused here, in these few short years, that there shouldst be no need for any further construction. What thou see here is less an act of improvement, but of unification; of enshrining the new with the old so that they may not be divided by schisms of legitimacy. It hast been neither simple nor relaxing work, considering those involved. It only proceeds apace now due to the . . . unfortunate death of its chief obstacle." Priscilla frowns, ever so faintly. "Still, I believeth those who wish to be here, thou shalt find to be precisely who thou wouldst wish to see. I chose this place not simply to stare at a facade. It is a fortunate occasion to draw one most suited to thine particular needs." she lets hang a little coyly. "It is well finished enough to venture inside. Come."
Septette Arcubielle	"Forethought is a virtue that Etria breeds into the bones. 'The cost of preparedness- measured now in time, later in blood'," she recites as if from deep memory. "It seems such habits apply even in more peaceful pursuits." Then she shrugs almost sheepishly, to defuse the graveness of the aphorism. Septette snacks on a few sea honeydews as well, but keeps talking even while her mouth is shut: it seems like moving her lips is a formality rather than a prerequisite. "A peculiar thing: the older one becomes, the less time it seems that each day contains. Obligations have a way of metastasizing, and the immortal are not immune to this. I would hate to have kept you waiting for too long, even if you are at leisure; such moments are precious still if unnumbered." She proceeds down the path that Priscilla indicates, keeping pace with the crossbreed with her disproportionately long strides, and a trio of small spherical drones materialize around her that dart around the constructions. They're the picture of curiosity in action, swooping about silently and fixating on anything remotely interesting before moving on- Septette needs to satisfy her inquisitiveness somehow, and it'd be rude to ignore her host! One earfin twitches at the strange mention of a 'chief obstacle' being slain, threatening to dislodge her quill pen from its perch, but she decides not to make anything of it, given Priscilla's expression. "I've already found precisely who I wished to meet here," she replies mischievously. "Or did you mean the other work of art I was hoping to see today?"
Priscilla	There's no hiding the fact that Septette hit something close to home with her thoughts on age. Priscilla can't help the telltale, resonant sigh of someone who knows what they've just heard all too well. Though perhaps she doesn't electively mingle and micromanage as much as Septette, she is certainly far older, so it doesn't paint a thrilling picture of things changing for the yggdroid any time soon. "Sometimes, I thinketh it strange that we shouldst see eye to eye on such matters." she says as she walks, the irony silently not lost on her, while she goes through a couple more honeydews. "There art perhaps commonalities of culture, but gulfs of age. Commonalities of experience, but gulfs of choice. Commonalities of feeling, but gulfs of race. Is such a thing truly so universal? We art nothing alike, and yet I find mineself so commonly unable to disagree in mine heart whence thou speaketh from thine." To say nothing of preparedness, asides. Nobody with short foresight lasts five seconds in Lordran. The architecture is significantly more complete inside than outside, seemingly having been done almost in reverse; albeit that's a luxury which is easier to accomplish without demands of gas, elecriticty, and such similar wiring. Compared to the fantastic vistas outside, it's still quite plain, and oddly, relatively dark. Whereas every other building seems to be filled with massive windows and skylights, or else large, open arches to let the light of the sun and moon in at all times, either there must be a lot of temporary structure blocking it here, or it is, for some reason, meant to filled entirely with long, grey shadows and half-light. Immediately within, the hounds of honest hard labour just outside dim to only the dullest echoes, and the noise of the city beyond that is swallowed completely. Some exceptionally fine acoustic engineering has even gone into making it so that neither speech nor footsteps really echo around the extremely large halls; an isolating and muting effect that is the opposite of what one usually wants from a place of worship. It seems sensible that it would be unusual, though, given the people that it appears to be for. Even Septette would be able to tell that, the minute the pair reach a little further inside, and she lays eyes on them. In the grey half-light, it is fantastically easy to mistake them for parts of the architecture; as ornate, Gothic statues carved from weathered grey stone, instead of people, like gargoyles to a church tower. Even to her more advanced sensors, they don't register as anything more than rocks. No heartbeat. No breathing. Body temperature the exact same as the surrounding stone. That means she has to survey by eye, the ranks of them seated on the floor, arranged in perfectly semicircular rows that radiate from some irrelevant central point.
Priscilla	They don't really look human. Not anymore, at least. Their frames have wasted away to a point beyond emaciation, as if not only their muscles had disappeared, but their organs as well, leaving only grey, stone-line skin taut over their bones. Their skeletons themselves have obviously deformed as well, to highly variable extents, but all following the same lines: long, flexible necks, stooped backs, digitigrade legs, oddly rotated and disjointed hips, claws for nails and talons for toes, and gnarled, sweeping horns coming from their skulls. Some bear the tiny stubs of tails from the base of their spines, or even the budding impressions of wing joints, albeit more like the mountings of a dragonfly than something mammalian. Their bodies are skeletal, sharply angled, and predictably, completely naked, because there's no way any human clothes would begin to fit. One look is enough to convey the exact impression of peering into the gooey insides of a chrysalis and staring at a half-complete metamorphosis, save for the fact that, for all intents and purposes, they look dead. All of them are identically arranged in something very close to a meditative lotus position, sat atop ancient, frayed rugs, and with nothing but incense and ritual braziers littered around them, like old monks who had petrified on the spot. It seems like a highly, incredulously, preposterously poor place for a picnic, save one thing: There is a living girl, probably human, running around between them with a measuring tape in her fingers. She looks eighteen at most (for whatever it matters here) and has the energy to go with it, hopscotching her way through the crowd to take measurements and scribble them down in a book clutched tightly to her chest. Her own manner of dress is complex, heavy, and almost ostentatious, without quite being exorbitant or gaudy, looking as if she'd spent years agonizing over beautifying the only clothes she could find that wouldn't fall apart on the road. Objectively, one can tell she's wearing some sturdy leather boots, thick skirts, and an apron with light maille in it, but the obviously hand-made alterations and accentuations to every inch of it, often gleaming with bits of silver or splashed with colours of pressed flowers, they'd be forgiven for not noticing. She will have to be forgiven for not noticing Priscilla or Septette entering as well, because she's very deep in the business of muttering and huffing to herself about the deplorable state of ascetic nudity going on and how much trouble it's going to be to sew without any of her favourite colours. "Melfina." Priscilla interrupts, politely as she can, drawing a squeak from the girl who almost trips over another horned statue, waving her arms wildly to stop herself from toppling over onto her face, and accidentally flinging her pen into a far corner. Once she decides she will remain on her feet, she immediately plunges into a steep bow at the waist, staring at the floor in embarrassment. "Pray, a minute of thine time. This is the one I had spoken to thee of. She was thoughtful enough to bring a token of her appreciation."
Septette Arcubielle	Septette's face syncs up with her words again mid-sentence as she finishes off a fruit, but her vocalizations don't even hit a hitch- they keep purring in that warm, honeyed tone of hers, edged by that characteristic veil of raw static. "For every second that passes here, ten, a hundred, or a thousand may pass inside my mind. I have had nothing like your time for action, but perhaps something approaching your time for thought and contemplation, despite my relatively recent creation. Given that, I am little surprised that our views on many matters run parallel." As they head deeper inside the cavernous architecture, the robot's resounding footfalls grow quieter and quieter until they seem almost preternaturally softened by the canny engineering. Her eyes and core, by contrast, glow all the brighter in the washed-out shadows until they cast glowing auras of purple and red through the dust and powdered stone in the air, like headlights seen through morning fog. "Perhaps it is less a matter of universal truth, and more a matter of unexpectedly convergent experiences? Age, choices, race- none of these truly determine the nature of a person, and the last least of all. We are both now unique, both created by a god after a fashion, both associated with destruction and death... superficial things, like having skin, may not matter so much," she concludes with a drop of wry humor. On entering the vast chamber, however, even Septette trails off out of reverent fascination. Her drones dematerialize outside and reappear in the chamber, turning their collective attention to surveying the grotesquely-shaped statues at a respectful remove. She steps forward to greet Melfina, then curtsies deeply after the introduction- a courtesy she didn't even afford to Priscilla. A moment's inspection of the little robot's newly unassuming demeanor would reveal why: the gesture is not strictly one of respect or even of politeness, but of reassurance. Performing these all-too-human rituals is how she tells others "fear not"; how she assumes the mien of an ordinary person who only happens to be made of magic and steel. Priscilla, in her view, evidently required no such gesture- a compliment after its own fashion. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Melfina," she responds before pulling off her shawl and laying it flat on the floor. This serves two purposes: it neatly reveals her inhuman form in a casual manner, and it provides the three of them with a large enough picnic blanket! "I am Septette Arcubielle, of the Deep City. I'm told that you are quite a skilled tailor- and your own ensemble makes quite a positive impression. But first, please sit- I've brought some wonderful delicacies."
Septette Arcubielle	The basket opens up to reveal an assortment of unfamiliar, yet mouthwatering pastries and fruits. But by far the most eyecatching refreshment is the insulated bottle full of the night sky, which she pours evenly into a trio of teacups. Fog gathers over the liquid's surface in an imitation of wispy clouds, lending the drink a truly uncanny resemblance. "Vesper tea," she explains, "a traditional delicacy of the Deep City. It reminded people of our beloved constellations, when they were deprived for generations of the sight of the sky." Then she blows the clouds off of her own drink in an imitation of breath, and takes a sip. The deep indigo liquid tastes like a black tea, but deep, rich, and herbal, with undertones of raw vanilla: addictively delicious, but too strong to savor more than a sip at a time. The glowing 'stars' suspended in the liquid are solid, and have a flavor and texture similar to unprocessed honeycomb. Most peculiar of all is the way that the lights seem to naturally arrange themselves into distinct patterns in each cup that prove resilient to stirring. Septette regards her own cup deeply for a moment before deliberately swallowing one of the lights and shaking her head. "If you can make fine clothes even for creatures such as these," she finally says, "then perhaps there is hope for me after all. What say you, tailor?" She stretches her arms out on each side with a gentle and self-conscious smile, revealing skeletal joints and murderously sharpened plates. "Am I yet beyond repair?"
Priscilla	Priscilla deeply considers those words, clearly rolling the idea of living a life of subjective time, or at least, subjective time backwards from how she knows it, around in her head for a few seconds. She then replies completely obliquely to the subject. "I cannot imagine, then, how thou continue to hold thine interest in conversations." she says, almost blithely. "Perhaps it is so, that we so different from humanity, all like to assumeth ourselves more special and different from one another than we truly art." she then adds, with a little more self-aware humour. As for Melfina, well, 'fearing' seems to be the last thing from her mind when she sees Septette. Fidgeting with her skirts for several seconds as it builds up, she just can't contain the urge to clap her hands to her cheeks and exclaim "Oh my gosh Lady Priscilla she's so /cute/! I-I mean, m'Lord . . ." It's only after her face has turned more or less scarlet that she properly gives Septette a curtsy in return, albeit, it's a much more courtly, and highly exaggerrated one, like her mother had taught her how but then she had never once used it. When Septette gets out her shawl like that, though, Melfina is very quick to push (in the figurative senses, since Septette is too heavy to do much more than fluster and bother and nag) her back a corner and to the left, and quite surprisingly, out into the proper sunlight with an abrupt squeeze through an empty patch in the stone lattice. "Oh oh please please, don't lay it down in there! It's so dusty and foggy and I think I'll go absolutely loopy if I don't take this opportunity for some fresh air! R-respectfully, m'Lady!" Unless there is some objection to getting the grody statue mutants out of sight before choosing to relax (and Priscilla quietly finding it hilarious), it only takes a minute to pick a more scenic spot, where Melfina spends the time Septette takes to get out the basket and pour the tea, staring and prodding at every square inch of her. One gets the sense that, in another time, she might be one of those tech-savvy girls who has to take everything apart on sight. Here, her calling is much more feminine, but no less absorbing for an enthusiastic expert. "If you brought something that lovely all the way here then it just wouldn't do to have it around a bunch of strict ascetics now would it? Ohhh I'd just be imagining their disapproval the entire time and it'd feel so disrespectful and awful! Even though I think they might be asleep. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen the move while I was looking." Finally though, she settles down; shortly after Priscilla has to veil herself down to (roughly) the height of the other two in order to fit through the exit, and joins them. Paying rapt attention, she kneels at the opposite end of the makeshift picnic blanket, and mimics blowing off the clouds and taking a tiny sip of her own. The result somehow seems uncannily comparable to rescuing someone from two years in the wilderness and handing them their first chocolate bar since they disappeared. "W-well, I don't know all that much about machines, never mind golems, so I really wouldn't be the best person to ask about repairing you unless-" Priscilla accidentally interrupts with the flicker of lightning reflexes required to keep her tea in her cup after almost inhaling it at that response. ". . . Oh! Oh oh! Well of course!" Melfina then says a moment later, comprehension lighting up in her eyes, her chest puffing out in confidence. "The Queen personally chose me to oversee the design and master tailoring of all the vestments and uniforms we'd need that weren't in any of the old books! It'd only be an honour to help you!"
Septette Arcubielle	"Cute?" Septette's voice tries to sound confused, but the way her ears perk up and her cooling fan abruptly switches on hint at a kind of deeper flusteredness. Other people aren't supposed to compliment her; that's not how it works! "Well, I suppose that might make three of us," she replies, forcibly wresting back her appearance of composure and simultaneously jabbing at Priscilla with a sly aside glance. It doesn't take much convincing or cajoling to persuade her to move the blanket to the outside balcony, especially when she's informed that the things in there aren't just statues. She seems mortified rather than horrified at the prospect; how rude it'd be to eat in plain view of ascetics of that caliber! But it only takes her a moment to get settled again. Septette regards Priscilla's new height with an approving glance- it'll make the tea last longer, that's for certain- and leans back with her legs crossed, seeming to savor the sunny weather for a moment. She foists a scone-like confection upon the bubbly young lady while she listens, though a light and chiming giggle escapes her at Priscilla's near-catastrophic accident: vespers aren't known to come out of white clothing easily! "Figure of speech; I apologize. It makes sense it wouldn't translate well. 'Send me a mechanic if I'm not beyond repair'; that sort of expression." If one thinks about it for a moment, isn't that rather morbid...? No matter; she shakes her head and smiles good-naturedly between dainty bites of a berry-filled croissant. "Here is my problem in a nutshell, Ms. Melfina: the tailors of my world are unused to working with nonhuman shapes, and rather limited in choice of materials besides. I require an outfit that will be more suitable for formal occasions than my typical cloaks. It need not offer me any protection, but ought to be rather durable itself, as otherwise it could tear apart on contact with my moving parts." "It should also offer-" she partially unfolds a four-foot-long curved blade from her forearm, carefully pointed away from everyone else, before retracting it- "sufficient accommodations for my unusual range of movement. And, lastly, I would prefer that it bear some resemblance to the traditional symbols and fashion of the Deep City. I'm aware it's quite a tall order, but if you could attempt it, I should be very grateful regardless of the result." She pushes a handmade vellum notebook towards Melfina and opens it to a seemingly random page; it shows a variety of hand-drawn symbols and motifs, from a skeletonized golden leaf rendered in filigree, to a delicate black-stemmed flower whose petals are the colors of sunset, to a single white riding glove and a purple cloak that much resembles the one they're sitting on now. "Not all of them, of course- but some reminiscence would be appreciated. You know, to remind me of where I'm from." And when.
Priscilla	Whilst the Yggdroid and the royal tailor talk, Priscilla can't help but ruminate over her tea. Ever since the Concord came into existence- no, even before that, she had not set aside a single day like this as she once used to. Almost as if making up for the centuries of her life she had perfecting the art of doing nothing, it feels now like she had done nothing but make herself as busy as possible after taking the crown, pushed by the inertia of the effort and accomplishment that went into getting her where she wanted to go, and then carried by a wave of obligations and one-time opportunities ever since. Whether it had been a transformation of character, a new social environment, heavier expectations, better options, or something more subtle since she had taken the Lordsouls for her own, the shift from hundreds of years in the Painted World, to having a significant chunk of the immediate Multiverse in her hands can only strike Priscilla, in this rare moment of spare time, as incredibly sudden. Always having expected interminable centuries of disassociation to cling to her like metaphorical rust, creaking and slowing her down, and preventing her from really going anywhere for a long time, Priscilla only has to look around at where she finds herself now --having exotic tea with a robot from another world, taking time out at the heights of sunny Anor Londo, as a matter of business with a royal tailor who works for her, and beside a bizarre religious construction of her own demand-- to realize that somehow, an incredible amount of change had snuck up on her all at once. It's kind of nice to take an afternoon like this. To do absolutely nothing but watch the cloud, eat scones, drink tea, and listen to people talk. It'd been close to a thousand years since she had.
Priscilla	Meanwhile, Melfina is having a ball. Very quickly, she has a sketchpad of her own, and is furiously scribbling away at it without even looking at it, taking Septette by diction rather than short notes. The Yggdroid has barely finished talking before the girl is illustrating her various joints for future reference with truly alarming speed, jotting measurements and arcs and radii around the scribbled robot arms and legs, and then hastily revising them with the inclusion of the integrated blades (with no small degree of astonishment). Almost like an architect, her preliminaries are more math than fashionable creativity at this stage. Her brows furrow and her lips purse subtly as her quill moves like a sewing machine in of itself, before finally taking a break, and asking brightly: "Do you have any references I could work from?" And Septette does! Wonderful! Within seconds, Melfina is utterly absorbed in the foreign artistic symbology, with the intense gaze of someone with distinctly metropolitan aspirations, still too early into their career to have traveled much. "Ooh some of this is absolutely /lovely/~! Thankfully, I can see quite a few designs that would go well with something loose. Something elegant; and I mean elegant in the /actual/ meaning of the word and not in the way that means 'rich and stuffy'. Too many layers would get ripped to pieces I'm sure, and anything particularly form-fitting would just look ever so strange. Hmm, hmmmmmm, hmmmm . . . well, purple certainly seems to be your colour, so what if I worked in a little-" Melfina then lapses into frenzied muttering for a minute while she gets a few concepts out of her head and to paper first, before finally picking up her tea, taking a single sip and making surprised and delighted little squeal, and then putting it down when she realizes there's no way she can take a proper swallow of something that rich. "I'm sure I can do it! It's a little more complicated than what I'm already up to, but I have confidence that the fundamentals are the same! An irregular body with a hard exterior, non-standard joints and extra limbs; I'm already learning how to account for all these things, though you happen to have them all at once! The vestments I'm designing currently have to account for any one wearer having some combination of them."
Septette Arcubielle	The tailor's handwriting catches Septette's attention for a few moments; her gaze traces the movements of Melfina's pen with exacting precision, following each curve of the calligraphy as it races to keep up with her own speech; too elaborate to be shorthand, it must be a literal transcription. Her mind flips the upside-down lettering, engraves each word of the flowing script into memory, and then roughly estimates Melfina's linguistic processing time to match each word with its cognate in her speech. So this one means 'durable', and that one likely means 'contact'... It's a bit of a silly pursuit, of course. Knowing a few dozen words in a single written script of a single world is unlikely to ever be advantageous. But one takes the entertainment where one can. It's still not enough to occupy Septette's full attention. One eye- literally just the one, like a chameleon- slowly drifts over to regard Priscilla's expression. Contemplative, reminiscent... slightly relaxed, as well. It's the look of someone slowly decompressing from long-held responsibilities, if she's not mistaken. Her own emotions don't translate instinctively into expressions, but Septette imagines for a moment that that is how she might look, if all her responsibilities could ever be neatly tied up with a bow.
Septette Arcubielle	Melfina's question about elegance and colors snaps her back to reality- or, rather, to processing reality with the portion of her mind dedicated to acting like a Real Person. She's been talking, true, but translating pre-planned phrases and emotions into proper enunciation and intonation never took much brainpower anyway. "Purple's a good color," she replies in a bright and cheerful tone. "Has connotations of royalty elsewhere, but it never really meant that in Etria. Instead, it meant that one represented Yggdrasil, and by extension the Deep City- worn by the Prince, and by more diplomatically-oriented Yggdroids." It's hard to imagine an android less suited in design to diplomacy, but apparently they existed. "I can't really claim to represent Yggdrasil anymore... but it still represents being an emissary of the Deep City, to me." She arches her back slightly and expands her prehensile ribcage a fraction of an inch, giving an impression of pride. "Now, loose, not too many layers, symbolic but not too ostentatious... I could get behind that." She points out a few other symbols of relevance, as well. Long white gloves signify peaceful intent, as they would be easily stained by blood, but a single white glove indicates caution and reciprocity. A butterfly represents the old royalty, but also growth, metamorphosis, or immortality. Examination of Septette's joints gives a few clues as to how such an outfit could be structured. There are a few places where it could hang from for support and shape: her 'collarbone' just midline of her shoulder joints, where her shawl normally rests; a small crest a fraction of an inch above her hip-joints; a few points on her thighs- these seem like promising candidates, relatively inflexible and with few exposed moving parts to pose a threat to the fabric.
Priscilla	Upon closer examination, staring at Melfina's handwriting really closely, Septette will be able to tell that it really is something special. That is, it's actually too quick and too neat to be possible even for someone who has been writing all their life. It appears to be an incredibly mundane kind of superhumanity, otherwise easily overlooked. Thinking about it, though, wouldn't fingers that ridiculously speedy and precise come in very handy when sewing? "Hmm?" Melfina stops, blinking once as she absorbs the new information. "Wouldn't that be a perfect time to evoke ideas of royalty, though? Speaking for a whole city, or . . . some sort of god, I assume? Isn't that sort of like being a royal ambassador? I'd call that a happy coincidence. Of course, here, the Lineage of Lord Gwyn uses white and gold to evoke the sun, but- hmm, that's actually not a bad idea". Melfina returns to scribbling, and then to sticking her fingers in inadvisable places considering Septette had just shown off all her sharp parts. She seems /very/ confident that she can measure things highly accurately by finger-lengths. Maybe she can? "Ahhh, I almost wish I could have that book for myself." she sighs, wistfully. "The outer rings of Anor Londo get lots of visitors these days, but I rarely get to visit. I wouldn't dare ask something of clearly personal value in exchange, but maybe, could you bring back a couple of the nicer things you can't wear? Th-they'd be highly valuable to my work, of course! A-as reference!" Eventually, Melfina has to start listing materials. She does this largely on her own, with an offhand mention of "Not having to worry about protective qualities does make this a lot easier. We can dispense with rigid plating or insets. Fine pieces woven into the fabric is a huge sink of time and expense, so if you're really okay with an attacker getting to hit your body full force, all the fabric needs to do is not be damaged in the crossfire." She taps her quill to her lower lip a few times, before making some kind of estimate, and then finally having to cough to get Priscilla's attention, who looks up from a half-finished cup of tea as if she had done the closest thing she can to falling asleep. "Yes? . . . Lady Melfina?"
Priscilla	Despite their relationship, Melfina doesn't seem to be highly conditioned to respond to Priscilla with a lot of formal deference and titular groveling. She gets into it like a low-ranking but valuable member of a company startup might with their relatively progressive CEO. She starts discussing quantities of titanite, which apparently (aside from being very small) are extremely important to mention by number and weight of discrete units, rather than a universal unit of measurement overall. Priscilla more or less only interjects to say that the suggested cost is of little concern to her, then talk to Septette. "It wouldst seemeth mine early assumptions were correct. Lady Melfina is well invested in the task. Out of obligation, I am still owed a second draft of her current work, as it is a priority of mine to deal with . . ." she looks to the odd, acoustically isolated, half-finished church behind them. "Officializing a sect of worship previously unknown to Anor Londo, though long has it existed in the remote parts of Lordran since its abandonment. A sect I am ill-disposed towards expelling from the city, and regretfully stagnated as I previously catered to the egos of the older guard. When said work is to be reviewed, however, I shalt maketh sure of Lady Melfina possessing access to all the needed materials, and a full week of time to her own devices. I wouldst preferreth that thou, Lady Septette, taketh away a work of Anor Londo's craftsmanship that thou wouldst be able to appreciate for a great time, than instead leaving with something quickly made and intended to be replaced." A week isn't quickly made? "Is such agreeable?"
Septette Arcubielle	It doesn't take a lot of imagination for Septette to realize just how impressively suited Melfina's skills are to tailoring- that's the sort of precision and speed she'd expect from, well, a machine! She watches in silent fascination for a moment or two, just long enough to perhaps draw the tailor's notice, before tearing her eyes away. Whatever secrets lie behind that marvelous talent, they won't be decoded simply by staring. "Royalty in my world," she explains after collecting herself, "is nearly always of the figurehead variety. Make public appearances, boost morale, stand around and look pretty and vaguely otherworldly- the Prince of the Deep City was one of a handful of exceptions, for good or ill. To carry myself as a royal would misrepresent my hands-on approach and concrete obligations, I think." "As for Yggdrasil..." Her expression grows a bit faraway, and slightly sour, though whatever enmity is there isn't directed at Melfina in the least. "'God' would not be inaccurate, though I try to discourage the people of my world from thinking of it that way. It did not deserve nor desire worship when it was awake, and still does not now."
Septette Arcubielle	Septette faces the poking and prodding with the unflinching equanimity of someone with little concern for their own comfort. She does her best to make Melfina's efforts easier, moving to open herself up to inspection wherever the young woman's gaze wanders. "White and gold's a good style, you know. Princess Gutrune wore similar, but combined with opalescent gems..." The talk of her notebook, and the wistful sigh that follows, makes the little robot shake her head firmly and push the journal back into Melfina's hands. "No. I don't keep diaries of personal things- no need, if I never forget. I just use that journal to draw things for the benefit of others. Keep it, won't you? I can always get another." She gives her a warm smile, then nods with a sense of finality- seems Septette won't take no for an answer here. The other pages of the journal, when Melfina has a chance to look through them, are filled with hundreds of illustrations in that same overly-precise and realistic style; some colored and shaded, most others monochrome ink. That's for the best, since what little writing is present is in some incomprehensible flowing script. The illustrations seem to concern themselves primarily with vexillology, heraldry, and clothing, including a few of of a pale woman who seems to be royalty. Perhaps she keeps different journals for discrete subjects or fields? Even so, a few illustrations of Yggdroid mechanics and fearsome monsters bleed through, where it seems this journal just happened to be the closest one at hand. Finally, she turns to regard Priscilla again- previously ignored not out of neglect, but respect for her quiet reverie. "I cannot complain about waiting for a gift even if it takes a year to make," she replies brightly, pausing only to finish off her cup of starry tea. "And we both know how quickly the days can pass, Priscilla. As for you, Lady Melfina- I greatly look forward to seeing the results of your craftsmanship, whenever it may come to fruition."