Chapter Text
Iana Magnolia runs down the stairs, nearly tripping over the long red skirt of her dress. Her short legs struggle to keep up with her enthusiasm to reach the ground floor of the manor house of the Magnolia Estate. As she reaches the bottom step she almost loses her footing completely. But she has a good reason to be so eager. Today is her eighth birthday, and her birthday party is starting soon. She was so caught up in getting ready for the event, savoring the process of donning her new dress and shoes that now she is almost late!
She takes a moment to straighten out her dress. She was so happy when she saw it laid out on her dresser today. It’s her favorite color, as red as her eyes, and has fine embroidery like the dresses girls wear to balls in the stories she’s heard. This is her day, and in a dress such as this, with its embroidered roses blooming around the collar and down the front, how could she not be the center of attention?
She straightens up and walks towards the parlor, adopting the ladylike posture trained into her by her etiquette teacher. The sounds of voices and motion issue through the closed parlor door, and she reaches for the door handle. Finding the door unlocked, she opens the door and enters.
Inside the parlor, Iana sees a smattering of young noble daughters like herself scattered across the room. Servants in livery attend to tea fixings set out on the tables of the parlor. There are several steaming teapots painted with dainty pink magnolia blossoms. The tea is accompanied by a plethora of small cakes and sandwiches. She notes with some excitement that her favorite dark chocolate cherry cake is on offer. The cherries topping the cakes glisten invitingly, but she diverts her attention back to the rest of the party. It is unbecoming of a lady to be so motivated by food, she reminds herself, and she wants to appear as respectable as possible today.
All of the party guests are chatting with each other, her sister Konoha at the center, attended by the servant their uncle had bought from the slave markets a little while back. Iana waits to be acknowledged, for them to look at her and wish her a happy birthday, but the conversation continues.
For a long, uncomfortable minute Iana just stands by the door, waiting. Konoha continues to talk with the party guests as Iana’s uncle sits tall and impassive in an armchair near the back of the parlor.
Just when Iana’s mind starts to drift, Konoha turns from the conversation and sees her standing there. Her pink eyes widen and she walks up to Iana, that same young servant hesitantly trailing behind.
“Happy Birthday Iana!”, Konoha says, “Come on in!”
Iana starts slightly, and then replies, “It’s nice to see you Konoha,” trying to wring all traces for terseness from her voice.
Konoha takes Iana’s hands in hers and guides her further into the parlor. The touch of Konoha’s hands on hers is warm and uncomfortable. Iana joins the party guests near the tables where the tea is laid out. The conversation starts again. Iana takes one of the dark chocolate cherry cakes from the table and tries to join the conversation. The rest of the guests acknowledge her briefly, but quickly return to talking to Konoha. No matter how hard she tries to redirect the attention of the guests, everyone and everything at the party seems to be drawn to Konoha, like how plants grow towards the sun.
This is the usual with Konoha, Iana thinks. She draws in all the attention and affection in every room she’s in seemingly without any effort at all. But this is Iana’s birthday, and she is determined to have even a scrap of that attention for herself for once. She gazes across the room in search of some way to get the attention of the group and she spots the polished mahogany surface of the upright piano sat against the back wall of the parlor.
Iana sets her dish down on the table with a clack, cake still uneaten, goes up to her uncle and says, “May I play the piano today? I’ve been practicing quite a lot lately.”
Her uncle gazes down at her, eyes brown and inattentive and he replies, “Yes.”
Iana swiftly walks towards one of the servants and asks, “Will you get the sheet music for that Elderflower sonata I’ve been practicing?”
“Yes Lady Iana,” the servant replies and turns to find the chest where the sheet music is kept.
Iana looks back at the crowd and considers announcing her impromptu performance, but decides not to. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to get a word in edgewise and asking Konoha to announce it is the last thing she wants to do.
Soon enough, the servant returns with the sheet music, sets it on the piano’s music stand and pulls out the piano bench. Iana hops onto the bench, her feet just a hair above the floor. She positions her hands over the keys, the arched hand posture coming naturally after years of piano lessons, and begins to play.
Iana’s focus on the music is all-consuming, determined to not mess up in front of those she wishes to impress. The only thing that penetrates her focus is the rush of satisfaction she feels as she hears the chatter of Konoha and the guests getting quieter. She continues to play, so absorbed that she does not notice the servant turning the pages of the sheet music for her. She plays for a few more minutes and only turns to get off of the piano bench after letting the final whole note of the sonata fade into silence.
Iana gets off the piano bench and turns to face the crowd of guests, curtsying deeply as she soaks in their polite applause. Konoha is smiling radiantly as Iana walks back towards the crowd. She picks up her cake dish as she rejoins the party.
A noble girl around Iana’s age, with indigo eyes, pale blue hair and a bluish-purple dress approaches her. The girl, who Iana recalls being called Megumi Anemone, comes to a stop and says, “That was a wonderful performance Iana!”
Iana graciously replies, “Thank you Megumi.” Finally, her peers are paying attention to her.
Then, Megumi turns to Konoha and asks, “Do you play the piano too?”
“Yes, a bit,” Konoha replies.
“Could you play for us too?” Megumi says.
“No, I can’t possibly,” Konoha replies, somewhat bashful.
All over the party, the noble daughters insist that Konoha play. Iana’s expression becomes stony as the joy she feels at being the center of attention for once drains away with every “Please, Konoha!” and “It’ll be fun” uttered by the guests at her birthday party.
Eventually, Konoha walks toward the upright piano, the sheet music Iana used during her performance still resting on the music stand. With a final cheer of encouragement from the guests, she sits down and begins to play.
The first thing that Iana notices is not how Konoha plays but how everyone reacts. As soon as Konoha begins playing, a worshipful hush descends over the crowd, lasting the entire duration of the performance. Enraptured smiles spread, and by the end even her normally impassive uncle is smiling.
As the final note trails off into the distance, there is enthusiastic applause. This reaction is as distant from the perfunctory applause Iana received as day is from night. As Konoha enters the crowd to receive her congratulations, Iana moves towards the back of the group so that no one will notice her clenched fist and lack of participation in the applause.
As she stands at the back of the crowd and tries to collect herself, something within her snaps and all she can think is why. Why Konoha just had to upstage her, taking the attention and love that she would do anything for like so many times before. Konoha is two years older than most of the party guests. By any logic that should create social distance! But, it is all wiped away by Konoha’s overpowering charisma, charisma that Iana can never seem to equal. Iana considers everything she did to be loved like Konoha, all her efforts to comport herself as a dignified, kind, and gentle lady. Surely, she always thought, surely if she acted with that grace that Konoha seemed to exude as easily as breathing, people would treat her the same way. But despite all her efforts, learning how to dress and walk and talk in the proper way, trying to refine her skills into something worthy of praise, she is treated the same as always.
Iana feels like crying from how unfair it is, but she must keep it in. If she cried, Konoha would probably try to comfort her in her stupid, oblivious way and that is just more than Iana can take right now. As the conversation resumes, centered around Konoha as a matter of course, Iana tries her best to fade into the background, not talking, not crying, staring at the carvings of magnolias on the furniture to have something to look at besides Konoha and the rest, taking careful bites of the dark chocolate cherry cake to distract herself from crying. She should be able to enjoy the taste of the cake, but she cannot register it at all through her anger and sadness.
Iana stays like that for the rest of the party, just trying to keep it together. The bitter silver lining of this whole fiasco, she considers, is that no one is paying enough attention to her to notice her struggle. Time advances with aching slowness, and it feels like she’s been standing around for days instead of hours.
As soon as the partygoers disperse, Iana walks out of the parlor as quickly as she can without attracting attention. She keeps her eyes down as she walks down the hall and up the stairs to her room. If she had to interact with anyone right now she doesn’t know what she’ll do but it probably wouldn't be good.
Iana closes the door to her bedroom so quickly it almost slams and scans the room for any people before collapsing onto the floor, knees sinking into the red, magnolia-patterned carpet covering the floor. She begins to weep, tears flowing hot and fast down her face. For several minutes, she simply cries in desperate angry envy, not thinking, just releasing all the pent-up emotions she was concealing in public.
As her tears begin to slow, Iana sits back against the door and uses the skirt of her dress to dry her eyes. Her experience with Konoha today wasn’t significantly different from how it had always been, she thinks. Konoha would attract all the attention and admiration in every conceivable situation for as long as she could remember and then treat her with that stupid oblivious kindness so that Iana could do nothing but swallow down her own growing resentment.
Iana only coped with it by channeling that resentment into drive to gain that attention and admiration for herself, but if even on her own birthday all that effort still means nothing, what should she do then? She has to admit to herself that what she’s doing isn't working, but what else can she do? She must do something with the blistering resentment and envy that she feels. That she knows for sure. Otherwise, she is certain, one day it will burn her to dust from the inside out. For a long moment, back against the door, she thinks of what she might do and then it occurs to her. If trying to change herself into someone who inspires praise isn’t working, why not just demand praise from people instead? That would certainly be more bearable than this, all the piano practice and the etiquette lessons and the swallowing down of resentment that burns like acid as it goes down her throat.
At this resolution, Iana picks herself up off the ground, walks over to her bed, hops onto it and stretches out. Her bed feels soft and inviting in the way that beds do when one is especially tired. Soon, she falls asleep.