Mavra Kedrovna is a corpsewitch and nobody knows.
Cursed with the ability to control blood and reanimate corpses into upyrs, she's been confined to a convent alongside other young women for their protection amidst the Happenings; a series of disappe...
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♥ THESE BLOODLESS HEARTS. ii. the dancers and their tailor ——————————————————
Preparations for Kupala Night at Tergrad's theater meant both patience and tensions were to be tested.
The grand stage curtains sewn of red velvet had not stopped swaying since midday. Behind them, tailors like Mavra wove through oiled ropes and around golden tassels to get to and from the dancers perched in the wings.
Mavra pawed through layers upon layers of tulle and stretch lace that had been sewn with her own hand into skirts the shape of down-turned tulips. The dancers complained of their fit, mostly. How they slipped off the waist mid-leap. Or about the ways in which they hugged the hips too high and restrained the flex of the pale thighs beneath.
Whatever concern they had, Mavra addressed it. They'd beckon her forth with curled fingers and she'd appear with her silver needles and satchel of thread. She spun a delicate dance around the troupe of women, back, forward, then around in a whirl to floor where she sat when to adjust the lowest of their hems.
"I heard Nikandr Rokodin himself will attend," said one of soloists Mavra was helping backstage. Her hands pressed into either side of her cinched waist as she waited beneath a dimmed candelabra. Its light showered her braided crown of blonde and made her floral wreath adorned with cool pearls look as if its glimmer was dripping down her forehead.
"Rokodin?" asked another. "At our theater?"
"You didn't hear?" said a third who had just come in after giving corrections about sickled feet. "Kedrovna, my neckline jewels have come loose again."
"One moment."
Mavra had her needle pinched between her teeth. Her cracked hands picked at one of the ribbing reinforcements on the soloist's satin bodice that had broke free. It flexed with every breath at the dancer's rib-cage, the threads of red and black spilling out.
"Kedrovna, the jewels."
"I only have two hands," replied Mavra. She brought in the seams of the soloist's costume with a whip stitch. A tug affirmed her handiwork's strength. "Anya, you are finished. Next?"
The second dancer stepped up onto the fitting block. "My topskirt has come loose from the rest. Now, what is this talk of Rokodin? Who is he?"
"He commands the sect of upyr hunters in the capital," the third told her. "I hear he has particular talents when it comes to corpsewitches."
"What do you mean?"
"He is the only man who catches them with any regularity."
Mavra jerked her hand off the tangle of layers. A blot of red poured out from a prick on her scarred finger. She cursed, for she should have worn a thimble on such a whirlwind of a day.
