The mistress of the house was more petite than her friend, and the pale blue cloth poured brilliantly across her mocha-colored skin. She was slight and young but was usually so busy strangers could see the muscles under her dress and an expression that sorely demanded no one get near her. A little niece from another plantation had ventured up to her once and tugged her skirt in one of those ferociously busy moments.
Her mother had assured her daughter later the fine white lines that had come in as scars on her cheek would only accent her beauty. But the mistress of the Obnixele Plantation said nothing to the girl at all.
She had a few friends, though, even if her own sisters were afraid to have their children near her. Of course, her own daughter admired her and considered her flaws merely specks of rough diamonds she would polish in her own personality. But the Obnixele lady had gathered a few good companions through her brief years as mistress.
There was the mistress from the plantation beside Obnixele, Plantation Little Orange Blossom most often shortened just down to Plantation Orange. The mistress there was young as well and facing the same adulterous husbands and mulatto children destined to be working the fields one day . These mixed children were noticeable beyond words. Shorter yet still floppy ears with darker skin that didn't shimmer in the moonlight. Taller than an elf but much smaller than a human. Both the mistresses of Orange and Obnixele were too young to see these half-elvish, half-human children in the fields, even if their husbands may not have been.
Orange was even younger than Obnixele - indeed, a few years younger. But her husband was nearly a decade and a half older than her. She was his second wife.
The first had died in childbirth and was buried under a weeping willow that swayed in the wind like a woman neglected.
Sometimes, like now in this moment, the two women arranged a meeting so they could drink pale red wine still twinkling with sugar and comment about the direction of their future between sips and stares at the busy plantation.
Obnixele's cotton fields drifted behind the house, to the north, so they could not see the workers, just the darkly silver-skinned men and women who worked the stables and tended the livestock. These slaves had more clothes on, leather garments to protect against stray kicks and heat from the smithy. They kept their hair much further back than the field workers, pulled back in neat little buns regardless of gender.
The only stableboy who defied the tradition was Better, who had big black eyes and a sly smile famous on the plantation. He never showed his teeth, only smiled wide, crinkling down his eyes and ears in this roguish expression elvish girls swooned over. He kept his white hair at his shoulders tied back in a pony tail held away from his face by twine. Stray strands breathed into his face with the wind and when he toiled most roughly at his tasks.
He was trotting along one of the plantation mares - a darling thing recently acquired for the petite elvish overseer who monitored at night - when Obnixele and Orange spotted him hazily in the noonday sun. Obnixele sipped on her wine and sighed, running her fingers over the last bits of her black hair covering her chest. Orange, however, was nowhere near as laid-back: she leaned forward in her chair, placing her glass down, and tilted her head, following Better with her eyes.
Without warning the other plantation mistress, Orange stood up gracefully and walked over to the railing, giving a rather lady-like semi-shout to get Better's attention. He turned instantly, his silver equine-styled ears perking high at the noise. He saw the mistress and smiled his devilish, humble smile. Handing off the mare to another elf, he came to the railing and stared up, all huge black eyes and delightfully interested expression.
"Yes, sen-yoria?" Better asked quietly. He used the familiar mangled version of "senora" and the elvish word for authority "arhia" that most plantation elves spoke to the mistress of the house. The two words sounded terribly beautiful when spoken as Better did.
Orange kept her black hair back in a wide African ivory clip, denying any girlish twirling or sexual tossing, but she had enough sensual curve about her shoulders and exposed throat she could captivate any man. "Tell me, elf, do you like Lady Obnixele?"
Better's eyes glistened once. "Yes, sen-yoria."
"Do you think she works hard for you?" Orange asked in a playful jest, looking back at her friend. The mistress was watching the exchange carefully, having put her wine glass down in a gentle manner. It was at odds with the mildly stressed expression crossing her face. Orange didn't notice or didn't care as she persisted. "Do you think she works hard, elf?"
The elvish slave nodded firmly. His gaze slanted to Obnixele sitting higher up on the veranda. "Yes, sen-yoria. She works very hard for us."
Orange's lips quirked into a smirk. "And do you think she's pretty?"
At the statement, Obnixele startled out of her composure completely. One hand clutched the small chair's white arm, and her pale blue dress shifted as she nearly stood up to snatch the other woman back on the porch. "Menlina! Don't ask him that -"
Better, however, answered promptly, his black eyes never leaving his mistress's. "Yes, sen-yoria. She is very pretty."
Orange produced her white, lacy fan in time to giggle behind it. Further back on the veranda, Obnixele went still, her eyes somewhere between her friend and her slave and the blue sky.
The mistress from the other plantation, still behind her fancy imported fan, smiled in a particularly amused, malicious way. "You know you could be hanged for saying something like that, elf. Right now, right away."
Better did not look at her and instead bowed in the style of a Southern Spanish gentleman, perfectly copied as if he was one of the masters or their sons. Orange momentarily was taken aback by the gesture, forced to think about her own husband as the elf bowed. Obnixele raised her chin and settled her vision on her slave.
"I would rather die than lie about my mistress's beauty, sen-yoria."
Just as Orange stifled a gasp, Obnixele firmly stood up from her chair.
"You may go back to work, Better," she said cleanly. The elf rose his eyes to hers and smiled that low, long smile that had made him famous with the female slaves. The plantation mistress watched him silently as he returned to his mare with a mixture of a soldierly step and a gentleman's walk in his gait.
As Orange turned to look at her friend, Obnixele was already inches away from her. Her black hair had swept slightly into her pretty face, but her angry dark eyes were unavoidable and easily seen. The younger woman had no room to step back as she was pressed against the railing.
Obnixele's voice rolled out boiling and clear. Her promixity was as dangerous as her tone; they were nearly bosom to bosom, their noses inches away from each other. At her side, her hand shook in barely restrained rage. To her dear friend, she simply but scathingly warned, "You speak a word of this... I will claw out your eyes."
After a few more seconds of pinning the woman in place with her eyes and physical presence, Lady Obnixele moved into the house, leaving the beautiful door somewhat open. Her friend stayed at the railing for a moment, glanced at the elves training and grooming the horses, and scurried inside, preferring familiar, dangerous company than a strange culture she found unbearably incomprehensible.
