Chapter 384: An Artist Of Her Craft
The moment Raven had brought in the monster girls, the madam's eyes glimmered with possibilities. Breathless at the sigh of such curvaceous and varied bodies, she wished to touch them bare and feel them against her wrinkled old skin.
'Oh, how I wish you were my daughter! The love of a woman who'd never bore a daughter blossomed in her heart. Envisioning the girls in bridal gowns and the like, she almost hoped she could walk them down the aisle in the most dazzling of dresses.
"By Athenia's grace, what have I been doing sewing clothes for hideous imbeciles?" Those words reached the goddess as the first true prayer to her name and thus came a smile on both the madam's lips and the new god that she'd accepted.
Moving closer to the group, her lips curved in an unshaken smile, the Madam gestured to her workers to close the shop so that their lords could settle in without any disturbance. In the meantime, the Madam grabbed hold of Raven's left hand and brought her closer to her face. Turning her eyes to the lord, she bowed her head before planting a gentle kiss on the back of his firm hand.
"They say monsters are born of corruption, incapable of rational thoughts or beauty, but if this is what it means to be hideous, then by the gods we humans are pretty." Her disjointed flow of words didn't make much sense to most of the monster girls, they simply devised that she was calling humans pretty and monsters hideous and irritations, but the three monarchs and Raven knew, that it wasn't a dig at the monster girls, but at the pettiness of human beings.
"You don't need to bow, I thought I already said that to you," Raven reminded, pulling his hand away.
Taking a step away, still smiling at her lord, the madam clasped her hands and announced excitedly.
"Such modesty will be the bane of your title, my lord. You should be more commanding–" tilting her head to the side, the Madam turned her gaze to the girls. "The other dukes will look down on you otherwise, and the last thing I'd want is for them to touch this pretty group of wildflowers of yours."
"As if that'll happen," stepping forward from the back of the group, Arche leered at the Madam with her many eyes. "They can try, but if they think they are better than him, maybe I should test them the same way I tested him."
"And how did you test him, exactly?" The Madam asked.
"By unleashing an army of a few thousand Arachne soldiers, many of whom were consumed by such horrors, it would haunt their blood until the day they take their own lives from the unhindered mental agony."
"O–oh…" The entire staff froze at her words, even the Mistress was shocked and had no clue how to respond to such a threat. But one thing was for sure, and now she too had realized. "Well then, I doubt you have anything to worry about, but enough talk! Let's get you all measured!"
Without wasting any more time, the girls were brought into a room full of mannequins, wearing lustrous clothes. Every wall was decorated with golden silk cascading down like a waterfall, and every inch of the floor was laden with deep floral patterns inked in dark over a deep maroon carpet.
Clips of silver with flowers of glass stuck through the many wigs on the mannequins and as for the rest of the accessories, there was not a lone repeating pattern.
Each a unique piece of near perfection, lies in wait for the perfect master. Some whispered to the rest like pixies and the others rested in silence knowing their time would never come. The Madam was a cruel mistress, at least to her creations. She weaved clothes of unparalleled awe and none of them in her personal workshop had been adorned by a human much less a monster.
Drawn to a particularly glimmering piece, Maine's hand stretched forward, but before she could touch the silk, the Madam came in with a warning.
"Don't touch anything without asking first, sweethearts," looking at Maine, she remained smiling despite the girl's transgression of what she considered a sacred place. "You may be fickle or strong, but these threads are woven with my love, soul, and magic."
"S-sorry, I just thought it looked pretty…" A bit embarrassed, Maine's expression fouled, but not for long as the Madam moved closer to the dress she was eyeing and picked it off the mannequin herself.
Dusting it with her hands, she ran her fingers through the silk, feeling every weave of thread and feeling within it the memories of her making it.
"An Oceanic blue, it should work well with your dark hair, but unless you're as stiff as a board with that tail, I wouldn't advise you to wear this piece," placing the dress back on the mannequin, the Madam turned around to face the Lamian girl. "But don't be so down, I'll weave one for you in a similar hue. Shouldn't be a problem."
Maine's eyes lit with the words, she wanted to thank the old lady but the Madam began marching forward before she could utter words of thanks. Eventually, the entire group was led into a study filled with sketches of different clothes plastered on the walls. In it lay the Madam's work desk with an empress chair at its head.
"Now then," Taking the measuring tape out of her desk, the Madam spread it in front of the group and asked. "Which one of you sweet daughters is ready to undress first?"
And like always, the thought of having something new and shiny sparked a fight between Mino and Maine. Leaving the others to step forward and get themselves measured first instead. Sitting in a corner, Raven kept an eye on the whole thing, from Madam's precise measurements to her discussion with the girls about their body's special needs.
Coming to Arche, the woman was much in awe of the dress the queen had woven from her own silk. It was tensile beyond any fabric she'd seen and yet felt angelic to the touch. And although she wanted to get some for herself, the Madam didn't push her luck, at least not yet.
"By the…" Moving onto Mino, the Madam's shock knew no bounds. From her massive breasts that weighed a ton and that giant ass of hers that could crush a man, she'd never seen anything like it, and that fact excited her very very much.
Maine's shift from a tail to a pair of legs had just as much of a surprising effect, and so did the sprouting of her wings and other augmentation in her body that she could do thanks to the stuff that she'd eaten.
Last were the centaurians, and although very much unique in their own ways, the only notable feature for the Madam to write down was their lower body and the matureness of their breasts. Not yet mothers, and yet their breasts were tender and more sensitive than the rest, not only that but they also hung lower–almost like a mother with lactating breasts.
"This…will take a while, but I'm gonna assume you need the swimwear first?" Done with the measurements, the Madam confirmed that that's what Raven wanted since the party was headed for the ocean.
"Yeah and if possible I'd like it to be done by this week's end," nodding at Raven's response, the Madam smiled before getting to work.
Raven and the group didn't wait too long in the store after that, they still had to stop by Breanna' and make their way to Rose's farmhouse, after all.