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The first time Ingrid Brandl Galatea visits Adrestia, the grand star of the Imperial Opera spills wine down her mother’s nicest dress.
Ingrid had spent the evening tucked in a far opera box, patient and hungry and politely gripping the hand of a man who would otherwise stray his palm to untoward places. From Ingrid’s perch above the symphony, Dorothea Arnault had sparkled like the falling star she was fated to be. She glinted and gleamed within a thousand tiny embroidered gemstones until it looked as if she might burst into flames.
In the dark halls of stage left, in some cluttered closet of an entertainment parlor Ingrid can see that each gem has been crafted of cut glass. There are unpressed creases in Dorothea’s cheap, satin costume dress. Her makeup is caked so thick it cracks at the edges. Her red lips are too bright, too wet, for her pale, powdered skin. The pair of them shimmer like fresh blood on Faerghan snow. She hums through a smile as she skims a hand up the chest of the man beside her. The man who had pressed his own hands over Ingrid’s body all evening. The man that escorted Ingrid to the opera in the first place.
Herr Theodoric Ernst is thoroughly distracted by the starlet’s attention. He is also drunk. He does not acknowledge Ingrid’s awkward tolerance of him any further. He does not notice when Dorothea’s subtle, teasing fingertips run down his arm to tip his wine goblet back.
Plum liquid pours into Ingrid’s lap. It spreads like a woundstain across her dress, slipping into the tiny, permanent cracks of lace and silk. Ingrid stumbles to a stand with a shocked scoff, but it’s too late: the wine runs in rivets down her great skirts, absorbed by the reams of fabric before it ever touches the floor.
Ingrid is about to open her mouth to berate the actress, but she is beaten to the punch by a laugh—as soft as bells, so pretty it is difficult to call mocking.
“Look at you,” Dorothea tells Herr Ernst, merchant of questionable reputation, with a doting shake of her head. “Look at what you’ve done! I remember you holding your liquor better than this.”
The merchant laughs too, pawing at Dorothea’s hands when she lifts a wine bottle over his head to toy with his intended refill. Ingrid stands silent with uncertain fury. Forgotten, in the little backstage lounge. Herr Ernst had been invited personally into its alcoves. His was not the only room tucked behind the sets and props and costumes. The parlors must exist for the entertainment of the opera’s richest patrons once the curtains had closed and the more respectable showgoers had left. They were no place for proper noble ladies from far-off northern countries.
Dorothea presses a single fingertip to the man’s nose, and bops it. He falls backwards with a great show, and both of them burst into a fit of childish giggles.
“Excuse me,” Ingrid interjects, gesturing towards her dress.
The merchant spares her a glance. His attention returns to Dorothea a mere moment later. “My apologies,” he tells his favorite songstress.
“Nonsense,” Dorothea replies with a wave of her hand. “An accident, surely. Come here, you poor drunken thing.”
Ingrid’s brow is heavy. “Mister Ernst,” she states, with a cutting edge.
He has buried his nose into the dropped-collar of feathers at Dorothea’s shoulder. He inhales, and preens, “You’ve always brought out the worst in me, Miss Arnault.”
It is as if he has become completely blind to Ingrid in the proximity of a bright star. Ingrid is—not jealous, not of his affections, nor the touch she has avoided all night. She does, however, feel a pinprick of annoyance in her chest at the sight of how easily he has become undone beneath Dorothea Arnault’s touch. The songstress holds no fear for him. Her every movement is that of a puppet-master.
“Excuse me,” Ingrid repeats, at either of them.
The merchant does not remove himself from the breast of the opera star nor her feathers. Dorothea, to Ingrid’s surprise, rolls her eyes. She takes the arm not currently crushed between the man and the couch and holds up a single finger at Ingrid. One moment, she implies between her flashed gesture and unappreciative expression.
Dorothea’s lips reform a smile. “Why don’t we find you a bed,” she coos, softly. “You can’t be expected to walk home like this.”
“No,” the merchant replies, mouth muffled with feathers. He wraps an arm around Dorothea’s waist. “No. No, no, I brought a carriage. I have to escort the ice queen back to her quarters in town.”
Ingrid’s teeth grit.
Dorothea has the nerve to hold up a finger at her again. One moment, she signals. Patronizing. As if Ingrid is some young child, quick to temper.
“Delilah,” Dorothea calls. It is loud enough to be heard beyond the curtain that separates them from the rest of the world. There is a pad of feet from down the hall. Another young songstress, one of the chorus girls, perks her head from behind heavy velvet. “Why don’t you show the great Herr Ernst a warm bed, hm?”
The girl’s eyes alight, then narrow with suspicion. “He came to see you,” she says.
“Yes,” Dorothea says. “I know we’ve had our differences, recently, Delilah. Consider this a truce. I’m sure you’ll be rewarded for your hospitality.”
The girl’s soft dance shoes pad excitedly across the backstage floor, her arms rushing to dip under the merchant’s limbs and support him away. Whatever has been offered to her, the excitement in the girl’s face implies it is positive.
The merchant protests, “I couldn’t possibly—”
“You should,” Dorothea snaps. All is still for a moment. Then, her posture softens. Her demeanor grows warm, again. She looks to Ingrid, though still does not speak to her. “Have you seen the state of your dear lady? No proper noblewoman should have to go through such debasement. I’m going to get your beloved a new dress, hm? An apology, to smooth things over. You go take your rest and let us women take care of this.”
“Oh, yes, please. Allow us,” Delilah chimes in agreement.
Dorothea pauses. Grins. Whispers, loud enough for Ingrid to hear, “We’ll be sure to take our time, if you’d like to take yours.”
Dorothea winks.
“I…” The merchant looks stricken by a holy light. “Of course. Thank you, as always, for a kind welcome Miss Arnault.”
The girl Dorothea called over resumes shuffling him to a stand and away from the couches they lounge upon. “Right this way, ser,” she says, and Ingrid watches her escort be led away by an actress in a thin slip. She knows she should be offended. She knows she should throw a fit. There is some relief, though, as she is deprived of his stifling presence. Her shoulders drop. Her stomach sags against the borrowed dress it has been bound in.
Dorothea places a hand on her lower back and Ingrid’s body once again stiffens. Dorothea whispers, low, breath hot, shiny lips too close to Ingrid’s ear, “Has he hurt you?”
Ingrid snaps her head to Dorothea’s direction. She takes a step back. “Don’t speak as if I didn’t see you tip that wine with your own hand, you—” Ingrid is not used to insults. She searches for words. Settles on, “Harlot.”
Dorothea coughs out a single laugh. If Ingrid’s vocabulary has managed to pierce any piece of her, she shows no injury. “You don’t even know who you’re being courted by, do you?”
“A man of more honor than you.”
“Tough competition,” Dorothea says, sly. “I was not lying about the dress. Let’s get you into something unsoiled, and away from him.”
Ingrid takes another step back. “You’re acting as if you’ve spared me from some ill fate.”
“And if I have?”
Ingrid is not sure how to reply, so she does not. She maintains her distance, and her defensive stance.
Dorothea purses her lips. “If I have, would you want the grim details?”
Ingrid feels herself grow short. “I’d like my escort to be returned to me, and I’d like to go home,” she says.
“You would have never made it home. Not to Galatea.”
Every magnetic spark of charm has been snuffed from Dorothea’s voice. Her tone weighs heavy and precarious over both their heads, an ill-kept chandelier swaying into Ingrid’s side of the room. “...Not with him,” the starlet finishes.
“That’s,” Ingrid starts. “That’s a wild accusation. Unasked for, and unheeded.”
“Our third-best soprano never made it home,” Dorothea says. Her graveness gives way to another wave of false warmth. Her smile returns. “I have no care if you believe me. He’s trouble. We can leave it at that.”
She extends a hand out to Ingrid. Ingrid provides it a wary look-over, unsure of its intent.
“Your dress,” Dorothea prompts.
“...Right,” Ingrid replies. She takes the hand. Dorothea’s fingers are soft in hers, softer than hers. It pulls her onward, towards the exit curtain. Ingrid allows herself to be removed from the parlor and whisked somewhere deeper into the depths of the opera hall's belly. She tries to shake off a creeping sense of dread.
Ingrid sits in her under-shift on the lounge in Dorothea’s dressing room. Her soiled dress has been flung haphazardly over the cushions next to her. It is an older dress, long out of style but the finest from her mother’s closet. It is ruined now. The blotchy syrup of wine has sunk into the fabric and spread to a diluted pink. There is no salvaging it.
“Try this one,” Dorothea says, unfurling a new ream of champagne ruffles, and without even putting it on Ingrid can see it will be the same as the last two. Every dress in Dorothea’s theatrical closet has been tailored to her full figure—and each one falls limp over Ingrid’s narrow hips and pools with loose fabric around her breasts. Ingrid tucks her arms firmer across her chest.
“I will walk out in the dress I arrived in,” Ingrid says. She glances away. “I was already shameless enough to come here with a man of questionable reputation. I am not so proud to worry over a stain.”
Dorothea is deep in thought. Not quite ignoring Ingrid but preoccupied with her current quest. Soon enough, her face lights up. She throws the peach cascade over her shoulder and turns back to a wall of fabric. She digs deeper into the armoire holding her many costumes.
“Really, Miss Arnault,” Ingrid begins again, but it’s too late. The starlet is already pulling out a new swathe of velvet and white cotton.
“This was my ensemble for Vienna Meridena, Adrestia’s infamous foreign princess,” Dorothea croons with fond nostalgia. She plucks a pair of folded trousers from a drawer. “When Her Highness arrived in Fodlan she disguised herself as a man to obtain a more honest portrait of her future husband and Emperor. A lovely romance. I think we’re reviving it for the winter season.”
The outfit Dorothea props up is not a dress. It is a velvet jacket embroidered with gold tack around the edges and fastens. A loose, white blouse is held beside it, with tanned pants tucked over her arm.
“There,” Dorothea says.
Ingrid hesitates. “I’m not sure I—”
“Jackets and riding pants are trending among the most bold of Adrestia’s socialites, right now. They say it gives a girl a more dauntless appearance.” Dorothea holds the shirt before Ingrid, and shuts an eye for a clearer perspective. “I had to bind my chest for this act, but I think it might fit you perfectly.”
Ingrid tries not to take this as a slight. She is unused to the frivolities of girlhood, as much as her mother and peers might have attempted to engage in them with her. She is unpracticed beneath such attention. Ingrid looks to her soiled dress, and then to the tailored blouse and jacket. Her lashes fall closed, and she sighs: “Fine.”
Dorothea shimmies with delight. “Excellent,” she says. “Do you need help dressing?”
Ingrid’s face falls to a glower. Not at Dorothea. She is not sure for whom her sour face is intended. Herself, maybe. She has gazed at herself from afar all night. “Do I really look so helpless?”
“Noble women come in all streaks,” Dorothea responds, with a demure shrug. “I was half-expecting you to shriek at me about the wine. Thank you for restraining yourself. You’re a patient soul.”
“Galatea is in no place to be shrieking at anyone,” Ingrid states. She stands, taking the offered pants and top. She lingers dumbly in the center of the room. Dorothea smiles at her. It’s a private dressing room, and intended for this very purpose. Dorothea is a woman, too, she reminds herself. A woman of far lower status. It is more than acceptable.
“Thank you,” she says, stiffly.
She turns towards the wall and removes her underdress. It slides over her shoulders with a low rustle. When it is off, she holds the removed fabric against her chest and tries to ignore the possibility of Dorothea staring at her back.
Ingrid has dressed for riding a hundred times before. It is no issue to slip trousers up her legs, nor slide the breezy, white blouse over her torso. Dorothea is correct: it fits her chest like it would fit a man’s, and she pulls the criss-crossed string around the collar-slit until it is tight against her throat.
“Right arm first,” Dorothea notes. She has the jacket spread, angled to assist. Ingrid offers no protest nor comment. She slides her arm into the correct opening, and allows Dorothea to pitch the other into its respective side. Dorothea does up the complex, brass fasteners without Ingrid having to even attempt them.
“Lovely,” Dorothea notes, stepping around Ingrid’s figure to pull at the hem and adjust the way the stiff velvet sits on her shoulders. “Feeling better?”
Ingrid blinks. “I was not feeling poor. I apologize if I came across otherwise.”
“Don’t apologize,” Dorothea says, hands settling on Ingrid’s lapels. She pauses. Her lips are pursed with thought, a jewel tone maroon pout. Ingrid’s eyes fail to stray from her mouth. “You looked rather vacant on the couch. You can be honest: did he hurt you?”
Ingrid has not been hurt. She has, at most, had an uncomfortable trip and a miserable evening. It is her own fault, for agreeing to meet a less than respectable suitor. It is her own fault for not shoving his hands off of her with more force. It is her own fault for allowing him to sit and drink instead of urging him to escort her home. She is fine.
Dorothea’s hand rises to her face. Ingrid feels all at once like a man, like a man might be, caught in her feminine web and urged to empty his mind and his wallet. Truths wretch up Ingrid’s throat.
“—He forced himself on me.” The words spill out all at once, forced from her mouth. She doesn’t mean them. She attempts to stop herself, but can’t. “Tried to. In the carriage here.”
Dorothea nods, once, slow. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“Hardly an attempt. Faerghan women are trained to fight for precisely this reason. I'm trained to…” Dorothea takes Ingrid’s hands into her own. They are warm. She leans close, cautious, and with even, honey-drip movements.
“I’m sorry,” Dorothea says again, gazing at her. The expression on her face is not pity, but it could be pity’s kin. It is an honest face that Dorothea presents Ingrid. Maybe the first honest face Ingrid had witnessed from her all night. Her gaze shimmers with a genuine concern that makes Ingrid’s stomach unsettle. She shifts in her stance.
“It’s… quite alright,” Ingrid says. “I can handle myself.”
Dorothea gives her hands a brief, comforting squeeze. She pulls back. A deep instinct in Ingrid lurches. She redoubles her grip on Dorothea. Prevents her from stepping away.
They both grow still.
“Sorry,” Ingrid coughs out, dropping the songstress’ hands. She tucks her own against her stomach in embarrassment.
“No, it’s alright,” Dorothea replies. “I can stay. Why don’t we sit down?”
The lounge couch is as cheap and as baroque as the rest of the opera. It is still the most comfortable chair Ingrid has sat in all night. Dorothea holds her hands. They sit, turned toward one another, and entangle their fingers in heavy silence.
“...You have to be careful,” Dorothea tells her. “Catching a husband is dangerous work. It doesn’t matter how much he has or how much you need, it’s all moot if you’re dead.”
Ingrid is silent. Dorothea runs a thumb over her knuckle.
“Was it so obvious I was on the hunt?” Ingrid asks. Her cheeks are hot, and she hopes it is only in embarrassment.
“We’re the same, me and you. I have a trained eye. To anyone else I’m sure you looked exactly as intended,” Dorothea says, smiles, “beautiful.”
Ingrid takes a deep, terrified breath but does not let go of Dorothea. She thinks something terrible—truly terrible, horrible, as selfish as the man she has loathed all evening—but in the purity of the moment it does not feel as lecherous as it should.
"You can," Dorothea says, simply. "You may."
Dorothea’s eyelashes are long and lowered, and she tilts her head. Ingrid is struck with the thought, no, the realization, that Dorothea somehow knows all the shameful things she has been thinking.
Ingrid leans forward. Dorothea does not pull herself away.
From deep in the heart of the Mittelfrank Opera House, there is a touch of lips, and a bone chilling shriek.
Ingrid’s head pops up at the scream. She looks over her shoulder, at the door, as if she might stare through the walls of the dressing room and find the source of the commotion. Dorothea’s slim fingers and painted nails find the meat of her cheek. They tilt her face back to the glorious sight of a star.
Dorothea says, “Eyes on me.”
Ingrid has no founded protest to such a clear order. Still, she attempts to say, “Did you hear that?”
“Lady Galatea,” Dorothea states, serious, “I am going to need you to play along.”
Time drips slow, and then resumes with a crisp jolt. The door to the dressing room slams open. Ingrid jumps and—at last—finds the strength to pull herself from Dorothea’s soft, enveloping touch. Dorothea is the one who clings to her this time. Dorothea slings a hand around her waist, protective.
“Dorothea, you must—Oh! Sorry!” The unfamiliar chorus girl standing in the doorway looks surprised to see the two of them on the lounge together, but not so shocked she cannot finish her sentence. “Dorothea, you must come quickly. There’s been… There’s been an incident. Maestro Verrice is summoning everyone before the constable arrives.”
Dorothea makes a disapproving noise. “I was actually quite busy in entertaining the noble Lady Galatea. Does this involve me?”
The girl looks nervously over her shoulder, then says in a hushed whisper, “A man is dead.”
Ingrid’s blood runs cold. At her side, Dorothea offers a shocked gasp. “Dead,” she echoes. “Who?”
“Herr Ernst,” the girl says, pressing her hands to her temples with a jittery aura. "He was in Delilah's bed. He started convulsing, lost his stomach, and rolled over while he was atop her. The girls are saying that it was poison. They’re holding Delilah in her room right now—”
She halts herself. She lowers her hands, and snaps her attention upwards. “Lady Galatea. Lady Galatea, you’re here. You—You came here with him, did you not? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I…” She takes a great breath. “Dorothea,” she says. She looks to the lead of her opera company with hope in her eyes. “Dorothea, what do we do?”
Ingrid feels set adrift in a sea of information. Dorothea places a firm, grounding hand on her shoulder.
“First things first, we’re going to avoid a scandal for our noble patron,” Dorothea states. “The opera must remain a place free of whispers for the nobility. Tell Maestro I am sending Lady Galatea off with discretion, and I will be along.”
The girl at the door relaxes with this solution. Ingrid does not.
The genuine glint in Dorothea’s eye has been snuffed when she returns her attention to Ingrid. She says, with the false tone of a true actress, “I am… I have no words, My Lady. We will see you returned to Galatea and your escort’s untimely death silenced. We have weathered such scandals in these halls before. This will not haunt you.”
Ingrid feels the two women in the room awaiting a reaction to the developing situation. Dorothea’s gaze is sharp, and expectant. Play along. Ingrid hears the words echoing in her ears. Ingrid thinks of the light she has been cast in: a noblewoman atop the bed of a starlet, whose male escort has been found dead. It would be the scandal of the decade in Faerghus. It would be at the very least the scandal of the year in all of Fódlan. Faerghan noblewomen do not go to operas and do not wear velvet coats and do not kiss stunning, full-figured actresses in private dressing rooms. Faerghan noblewomen do not get questioned by foreign constables for a murder.
Ingrid has no choice.
She stands—steps away from Dorothea. When she snaps, “What is the meaning of this,” it is not entirely a performance.
The chorus girl jumps. She says, quickly, “We will resolve this. We will, we promise.”
Ingrid narrows her eyes at Dorothea.
Dorothea states, “The opera has a carriage. I will see you home safe.”
Her words are heavy with promise, but Ingrid hears the confession in them. Ingrid realizes, all at once, that she may have been lulled into some grand, premeditated conspiracy. The steps of it click into place like clockwork. She thinks of missing sopranos and horrid merchants. She thinks of opera rivals and twin birds with single stones. She thinks of drunk patrons and seizing deaths and poison, the most feminine of weapons. Ingrid and Dorothea had both drunk from the same wine bottle as Ernst, but he had sipped from his own, separate glass. It must have been—could it have really been? Ingrid does not have the mind for complex detective work. Dorothea does not look like a woman capable of taking a life, but there is a sharpness in her nature that may not be beyond it. Dorothea could have poisoned the glass and then summoned a rival to lure him to a delayed deathbed. Dorothea had assured he had drunk from his glass—and then she had rid herself of the rest of it. Ingrid thinks of tainted wine spilled onto the fabric of her mother’s dress, the last evidence of a wicked plot now set to be whisked away into the night. She thinks of her place in this narrative, the woman who was taking up Dorothea’s attentions when the death occurred, an accessory to—
“Murder,” she states, with a great and startling horror. It rises in her chest. Her hands shake. Her breath comes short.
“The constable will take care of this,” Dorothea informs her, “and he will never know you were even here. We’ll say you went home, and Herr Ernst decided to stay with one of our talents. Don't worry. We are skilled in skirting scandals in these halls.”
The chorus girl nods quickly and repeatedly in agreement. “No one will know! We promise!”
Dorothea takes Ingrid’s hands in hers, again, but they are cold.
She says to a stiff, silent Ingrid: “Let's get you home.”
Ingrid allows herself to be numbly led to a prepared carriage. Opera girls rush around, anxious with spreading gossip that Dorothea assures Ingrid they will keep to their innermost circle. Dorothea offers Ingrid a steady hand as she lifts herself into the carriage, her soiled dress beneath her other arm. Ingrid settles the evidence in her lap. Ingrid shuts her eyes and attempts to ward off the girlish tears that threaten to rise at the conclusion of one of the worst nights of her life.
“You’ll be alright,” Dorothea says. The moon is wide but not bright enough to illuminate the crystals on her dress. Only her eyes catch on the light. Everything else about her is dressed in the black-blue velvet of midnight, as deep and textured as Ingrid’s borrowed jacket.
Ingrid’s lip quivers. “Did you really have to—”
“Yes,” Dorothea says. Her eyes look to the carriage footman, and then back to Ingrid. “Yes, but I did not expect you to be here tonight. I’m sorry.”
“And the girl?” Ingrid asks, “Delilah?”
“I am not a selfless person,” Dorothea says, “only a regretful one.”
Some of the fear in Ingrid’s stomach twists to something sickly and unnamed.
“I can understand that,” Ingrid says, softly, “but I must confess, only a little.”
Dorothea smiles, and Ingrid wonders if this will be the last smile she sees of the lips that she has kissed, and that have kissed her back. The twist in her gut bundles itself into a knot. She feels more tangled in the starlet's web than ever.
Dorothea moves to close the door. “Lady Galatea,” she says, and Ingrid knows it is in departure.
“Goodbye,” Ingrid replies. It sounds hollow to her ears.
“Goodbye, pretty thing,” Dorothea chimes back, a bit falsely, and shuts the carriage tight.
With a click of horses and a silent wave, Ingrid carries forward into the night. No scandal follows.