(2023-05-18) Cinderella, Esq. - Gala Side Story

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Author:	inkie
Summary:	Winnie is whisked away from the gala to swap her stained dress for a makeover and some innocent interrogation by Sintha.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: Ringside Seats

Sintha tows Winnie from the library back out to the entrance hall, cheerfully past the Welcomers standing guard at the foot of the massive double staircase, and up the right-hand side of it. There is a hall, a turn, another hall. There is a slightly bewildering amount of house, decorated in a manner that looks like someone told a designer, “Money, but quietly.” Lots of burnished paneling, pale silk wallpaper, rugs the foot fairly sinks into. More paintings of horses and ships — horses or ships — and more maps.

At a door that looks exactly like the other four doors in this particular hallway, Sintha stops and draws Winnie in. “My dressing room,” she says modestly. “If you want to go behind the screen there to take your dress off, I’ll find you something fresh.”

The screen she indicates is a pretty painted-paper one, songbirds and graceful willow boughs. The room is a variation on the elegance of the halls, but with a more feminine, bohemian slant: the silk wallpaper here is a pale damask rose color, with a subtle pattern of flowering vines; the carpets and paneling are ivory. The furniture is a jumble of pieces, all of them elegant in their way, none of them matching, as though they were acquired in assorted daring nighttime raids on twee antique shops. One wall is hung entirely with mirrors — different mirrors, different shapes and sizes, framed with brass or silver or ivory or wood, creating a disorienting kaleidoscope effect.

There are several dresses already strewn about the place, tossed haphazardly over furniture, and the floor is littered with a slightly-perilous scatter of shoes.

Sintha, having assigned Winnie the task of removing her clothes, is beelining for a wardrobe standing open against the wall. "Oh, I should have asked what shoes you're wearing! Never mind, we'll see about that after. I'm guessing we're of a size, though you're a little shorter, I'm sure if I've got something tea-length it will look —" She prattles away, and clothes rustle diligently.

Winnie clutches onto her dress, that she is still wearing, a little wide eyed, looking even younger than usual, despite the fact that she has almost a decade on the other woman, and mumbles something that sounds like "Okay," which seems reasonable given that she makes her way to screen. "I…I have good shoes on. They're comfortable." Which means they might not be fit for being seen, hidden currently by her dress, but maybe the lawyer has shoes that are both pretty and comfortable.

Doubtful though.

There are rustling noises as Winnie scooches out of her dress. Scooch scooch.

"I just have to decide what color, I want something striking for you, of course, but I know you wouldn't like to flash — what's your shoe size? Oh! Gosh, yes, this one. Oh, Lady Alwynneria. You are going to stun." Rustle rustle.

A dress swooshes over the top of the screen. It is of creamy silk with a sheer black tulle overlay and sleeves, embroidered with black flowers and trailing vines, and a black sash.

"We'll re-do your hair, I think. Are your ears pierced? We may want a touch of rouge with that just so you don't look washed out, but I don't think it will be the case, it's going to be so striking with your coloring! Is it true you helped Duchess Esprit with her guardianships? She speaks glowingly of you, you know!"

"I…what? Oh, uh, seven. No. Um, okay?" Winnie answers the questions in order, as if she was following along, even at the speed. "And yes, I was the one who facilitated the original transference of natural guardianship from those declared legally dead in Lordaeron to the Duchess Esprit's legal guardianship under a trust for legal, medical, and financial decisions up to the age of 18, but I cannot speak of the particulars beyond that." It was like two different people spoke from behind the screen as the rustling sounds intensify.

Rustle. Rustle.

"Seven! Perfect! And that's so clever of you, gosh, brilliant, I just love a brilliant lady. Don't you? And naturally I would never pry into client confidences! As a general point of law, though — if Shay or I were interested in doing the same thing, for example — what's the difference between someone under guardianship and a legal child? Or an heir? Do wards inherit? Oh, these shoes!"

There is a shadow on the other side of the screen as Sintha crosses, and a pair of black kitten heels slides around the screen's edge on the floor.

There's a muffled sound of "mermm?" at the loving brilliant ladies, but the rustling continues, halts, and then more rustling and clomping sounds of shoes being taken off. "Oh. That's a very good question," the lawyer says. "The distinction is a point of law, which can also be a part of the complex nature of becoming responsible for a child who comes from another family than your own. Legal guardianship is not the same as adoption, and sometimes it is the right choice for people, or children." Winnie comes out from behind the screen wearing the dress. She looks very dainty, but the dress is doing a very different thing to the lawyer than her other, older one — she looks youthful rather than childlike, and the lack of contrast of blue with her skin tone has left her looking more ivory-like than sallow. She keeps speaking as she moves into view, her eyes alight with intelligence and expertise.

"Legal guardianship entails the rights to act on behalf of a child who is not part of your birth family, particularly in regards to legal, medical, and financial decisions, but they are not part of any legal obligation in return as either heir or child, and it is usually set to expire at the age of majority. It can be extended past that, to terms that account for changes in circumstances such as marriage or a set age, but requires the full consent of both individuals. Children under the age of majority cannot legally consent, which is what I do as an advocate. It is my job to listen and understand what is in a child's best interests and speak for them within that context; in a lot of ways, guardianship is an extension of that. You become a child's advocate, but it is not the same thing as parenthood through adoption.

"It is a very personal decision to make. In the cases of those with complicated situations involving inheritance or titles, but want to provide a safe haven for children who have lost that safe place, it can be the right choice. Wards do not inherit, unless specified by the guardianship itself, and generally speaking, that is not usually the case — in large part because it ends at 18. It does not mean that wards aren't family, outside of the law, any more than adoption automatically creates a sense of family. What a family looks like is different for every person, and every family.

"Some find that guardianship fits a dynamic better, especially when the two people involved are closer in age than a parent and child; it can feel very uncomfortable for a 24-year-old, for example, to adopt a 17-year-old. But that does not change that one of them is still a child who needs protection and a home, and the other wishes to be able to provide it. Older children still benefit significantly from that stability and sense of place, and legal guardianship can be a stepping stone from childhood to adulthood as people grow.

"Do you have any other specific questions I might be able to address?"

"Oh, that's lovely," breathes Sintha, her amber gaze rapturous. Whether she is referring to Winnie in the new dress or to the news about wards not being the same as heirs, we may never know. "Oh my gosh, Lady Alwynneria! And — oh, no, that was quite comprehensive, I am utterly astonished at how knowledgeable you are! I have occasionally considered a 'career' myself" — she says it like that, with audible air quotes, ha ha 'careers' — "but I am sure I could never manage a thing like law, it seems absolutely dizzying. Oh! Here's Milla."

Milla proves to be a lady's maid, a young woman perhaps five years Sintha's junior, with the flaxen blonde braid-crown and rosy complexion of a Swiss Alteraci milkmaid. She is wearing a Fallon-blue dress, tailored flatteringly to her generously soft figure, and a crisp white apron. She smiles shyly at Winnie.

Sintha turns decisively from Milla to Winnie, beaming. "Milla will do your hair. Do you mind ear-drops if they're clips? I know some people find they pinch awfully. I don't think a necklace would do because we ought to leave that lovely neckline open."

Winnie gives Sintha a very cute smile, and then oh — oh h-hello another pretty lady. This is fine. Winnie's fine. She smiles shyly back. "Oh, I don't mind being pinched," she says and then blushes, and backtracks the, "I mean, the ears. It's. It's fine? Sometimes, um. I work with a lot of kids, sometimes they're really little and." Nope, just abandon the whole thing, Winnie. "Okay!" She looks nervous, and touches a hand up to her hair, in a sensible and very plain bun at the nape of her neck.

Sintha blithely doesn't remark the pinching comment, and sails over to a dressing table to pat the chair. "Come and sit! Sit!" She begins rifling through an open and rather overflowing jewelry box at one side of the table, while Milla takes up position dutifully by the chair, still smiling shyly.

Winnie sits, her shoulders a little hunched like she's ready for someone to pinch her.

Milla does not, in fact, pinch Winnie. She moves around quietly to stand behind Winnie, deftly unpins her hair and shakes it out. She begins to brush it vigorously.

Meanwhile, Sintha produces a pair of pearl teardrop clip earrings. "Hmm," she says, looks narrowly from them to Winnie, tips her head from side to side, and lays the earrings on the desk. "I think I might prefer…" She rifles some more. "Milla, do we have the little jet hairpins?"

"Yes, milady," says Milla softly; it doesn't sound like timidity so much as that everything about Milla is just soft.

"Lovely," decides Sintha, and takes from the jewelry box some earrings that look like flowers, fashioned of carved jet petals around a delicate pearl center. "So these, and those."

"Yes, milady," says Milla again tranquilly. She has brushed Winnie's hair, shaken it out and brushed it again to a lovely glossy sheen, and is now doing a loose, Romantic-style French Lordaeronian braid.

Winnie just remains very still while the soft pretty lady brushes her hair and the redacted lady looks for jewelry.

Milla finishes the braid and ties it off neatly with a black ribbon, then reaches past Winnie for a different jewelry box and selects several golden hairpins. She threads these neatly and decoratively into the braid: They are also topped with small carved-jet flowers, these without pearl centers but trailing little garlands of smaller jet beads like vining tendrils. Sintha, meanwhile, leans briskly around in front to clip the jet-and-pearl flowers to Winnie's ears.

She draws back to peer at Winnie's reflection in the dressing-table mirror, and again does the rapturous, "Oh, lovely," breath. Her reflection's saucer-eyed gaze meets Winnie's. "Don't you think? Aren't you lovely?"

Winnie's eyes are also doing the Saucer Thing, partly in fear and partly in the round-eyed look of someone who hasn't really dressed up in two decades, and seeing an odd reflection of a much younger person in the mirror that they'd forgotten used to exist. "Oh, it's very lovely." Wait, that sounds like she just called herself it. No, backspace, backspace. "The dress and the hair." A bit of a blush on her cheeks suggests that Winnie might be able to make her own rouge at least some of the time.

Sintha clasps both of Winnie's shoulders to give her a little affirming squeeze. "You are. Let's rush you back to the gala so everyone can see! Milla, will you take Lady Alwynneria's dress down to the laundry so they can put something on that stain?"

Milla bobs a curtsey and swishes briskly behind the screen to collect the dress as Sintha ushers Winnie from the chair and toward the door.

Winnie allows herself to be ushered, looking a little like she's wondering what happened, and how, and if she is having a very weird, very vivid dream where she might end up naked not that long from now.

(Perhaps, if she's lucky.)