Rumours, they spread like wildfire in a drought. {LDOE}

Brandi Moirae
{Weaver of Destinies}
The Iris
“Fashion is as profound and critical a part of the social life of man as sex, and is made up of the same ambivalent mixture of irresistible urges and inevitable taboos.”
When the governor's daughter demanded that clothing be made specifically for her, Brandi was plucked from the junkyard where she mended clothing and transformed them into fashion, and placed in the Iris. Her job is to create Harlow’s wardrobe. She has been provided with only the best equipment and finest fabrics, but, seeing a chance for profit, an entire team and shop as well. One would think that Brandi would be happy here. However, this lifestyle goes against everything her mother taught her. Being an artist herself, Brandi's mother instilled in her a sense of pride and integrity that was now lacking from her work. Brandi now struggles with a decision: Artistic honesty and freedom, or survival?
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I ran my hands through my hair for the thousandth time that night. I was ready to crack my own forehead on the desk in front of me out of pure frustration. In my lap little doodles of clothing and imaginary models glared up at me accusingly. How do you create something for a girl who changes her mind everyday? A loud knock from the door provided momentary relief from my internal torture.
 
“Come in.” I tried readjusting my glasses and smoothing my hair out so that I might not look as frazzled, not that my assistant would care.
“Have you seen this?” she asked, marching in through the glass doorway, waving a piece of paper about.
“What is it?” I held my hand out to receive it. Skimming through what appeared to be another one of those newsletters about the corrupt political regime that lorded over us – this time about one of the politicians “meeting and greeting” with one of the Aphrodite Ltmd. girls – I looked up at my assistant. “This is all really interesting, but why are you showing me this?” I asked, trying not to be rude. “I’ve seen dozens of these before. That’s not your sister, is it?” She snatched the paper quickly out of my hands.
“Of course not,” she replied lowly. “What are you working on?” I raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of topic, wondering why she had even brought the paper to me in the first place. I sighed heavily.
“Harlow.”
“Ah,” she replies sagely, nodding her head. “The newest additions to the Harlow Collection downstairs have been immensely popular. We’ve had inquiries for duplicates,” she reported.
“So have them made.” I folded my knees and braced my feet against the edge of my desk, curling into myself. Everyone except her royal highness liked the clothes I made for her. My assistant took note of what I was saying, why I’ll never know, on her hand held, fingers flying across the touch-screen furiously.
“Your appointments will be here soon,” she continued, checking the day’s schedule from her handheld. My assistant looked at me. “Unless you don’t want to; I can have one of the worker drones do it instead.”
“No, no, I’ll do it,” I answered softly, getting out of my chair. Drones were great for mass production or working with sewing machines, but when it came to personalized service, they became clumsy and easily confused.
“Are you sure?” she asked, trotting out of the office, trailing after me. “Because I could even get Nadira to do them.” My assistant usually meant well, and Nadira, one of the shop clerks, was becoming a rather adept seamstress, but still; I took appointments all the time and paying customers (aka parents) expected me to do the work. Besides, I desperately needed a break from thinking about Harlow for once.
 
She fretted, possibly excuses bubbling forth, as she flitted around behind me on the stairs. Soon enough the shop would be flooded with teenage girls from the suburbs, clenching recent purchases for which they had made an appointment at a later date with me to have their outfits tailored and personalized. It was coming upon the new school semester, after all, and all the little rich kids needed to look their best. I sighed the moment I saw the first wave crash in through the open glass doors, noise exploding into the otherwise quiet and calm shop.
“It’s not too late to go back up the stairs, pack up, and go home,” whispered my assistant. I waved the suggestion off as a few girls caught sight of me.
“BRANDIIIII!” they squealed, waving their store boxes above their heads. I smiled weakly and waved back.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I replied out of the corner of my mouth before descending the rest of the way. “Hello, hello!” I called to them, putting on a faked brilliant smile. “Who’s first?”
My assistant recomposed herself and continued down the steps after me, calling out the name of my first appointment. “Cheri Phobos!”
 
Cheri Phobos, a small, curly-headed blonde with dark eyes and red cheeks, bounded forward, presenting me with several boxes. I smirked.
“Senior year, right?” I asked, taking the boxes as I guided her to my workroom and dressing rooms.
“Yes! Finally,” the girl grinned wickedly. I had heard from a few other girls that she was trouble, a likely rival to Harlow’s impossible reputation. Drone assistants, waiting patiently in the workroom, directed Cheri to a padded couch; her mother tried to drift in casually, but was promptly told off by her tiny daughter as I tried to remember what the girl had bought. It was funny, I thought as I flicked the white boxes open, how these girls held so much sway over their parents, and yet most of their parents controlled the city – just as the mysterious writers of the circulating pamphlets and newsletters had the politians somewhat at his or her mercy.
“Right,” I said to myself, pulling out a black dress, covered all over with criss-crossing straps and studded with false pearls. “This was a size too big?”
 
It was of course, I had made it for Harlow only three months previous for some banquet she was supposedly attending with her parents but decided days after I had brought it to her that she didn’t want something as “hideous” as it on her body. She tossed it out the window to make a point. Luckily, it had landed in a tree.
 
With Cheri standing on a stool, I flitted about her, pushing Harlow’s taunting face as far back into the recesses in my mind as possible, as I went to work pinning and folding material to make it more form fitting for the smaller girl before me. She talked at length about school, how angry she was that summer was once coming to an end, and this boy she had met one night when she wandered near the Junkyard. She giggled nervously as she told me about him, about her rebellious relationship with him.
“If my parents knew they’d destroy me!” she exclaimed proudly. “Let zombies eat my face or something.” I nodded along and made the correct noises to let her know I was listening, years of practice made these expressions perfected and made it seem as though I was actually paying attention.
Pushing a button concealed in the wall’s smooth, plasticky surface, multiple drawers slid out noiselessly, all containing bits and bobs that I could dig through for accessories. I pulled out a length of black lace and held it up against one of the straps which hung loosely from the dress and Cheri’s skinny body.
“What do you think?” I asked, as we both appraised the addition in the floor to ceiling mirror before us. Cheri’s beady eyes darted up and down, back and forth, trying to make a decision. Her mouth set in a way that told me she wasn’t overly impressed.
“Lace is making a come back,” I told her soothingly. “It’s not just for the girly-girl. Lace can be powerful, and sexy.” Her eyes lit up at those very words. It was strange how I could convince these girls of anything confidently, but Harlow, with a mere withering look, could reduce me to tears. “You know what – I think,” I paused, returning to a different drawer to rummage about as I handed the lace off to a drone, “a little bit of this could add a bit of edginess to the lace – if you’re not happy with it.” Two hours later, Cheri sailed out of the dressing room, a large smile pasted on her face and a large dent in her parents’ banking account for the adjustments and work charges after all three of her outfits had been fitted and personally transformed by me.
 
Twelve girls and twenty promises for tomorrow later, I flopped, exhausted into my office chair, shutting the door lazily with my foot. I tapped the button on my phone, which told me I had sixteen missed calls, fifteen of which were from the Antaeus, one from an unknown caller. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I could just somehow slip back into the Junkyard without anyone noticing. Tell everyone I was dead and just go back to fixing torn worker’s pants and making old blankets into new clothes for birthdays and other celebrations and gifts. Back to my mother.
 
I couldn’t really face her now. Not after three years of going against everything she had taught me about artistic integrity. About pride. I had none now; it was as though I was wh.oring my talents out to the rich and the demanding, to the spoiled and hateful.
 
I was about to continue my own mental abuse when a piece of paper on the edge of my desk caught my eye. I reached out and grabbed it, looking to the large picture I hadn’t noticed before: it was the newsletter my assistant had shown me earlier that day. Ignoring the printed words, I ran my fingers over the black ink and image. The paper felt rough to the touch, as if it had been handmade. The ink sunk into the paper, leaving slight indents as if they had been squeezed into existence. It wasn’t the usual sort of story I had known to be printed in this manner, but none the less it was familiar. I remembered days from the Junkyard when we would all arrive to find the place littered with papers like this one, drifting around in the breeze, rolling about like tumbleweeds in ancient western films. And there would always be one person in the junkyard on those days before everyone else, minding her business as she set about her daily work early, waiting innocently in the mending shack as I came in. Big, blue, innocent eyes.
 
Trudy.
 
I shook my head, dropping the paper to the floor. A small smile wavered across my lips. It was a funny thought. There was no way Trudy – sweet, friendly Trudy – would ever do something like that. It seemed far too against her nature. Not that I was one to judge people concerning such matters.
 
The phone rang, startling me out of my musings. I picked it up without looking at the screen.
“Hullo, Brandi Moirae speaking.”
“You’ve been ignoring my calls, Brandi.”