A rough push at her back broke her out of her musings.
"What are you doing daydreaming at the doorway, young lady! We do not have the time! Now take this!" Saying this, a short and round woman plopped a large basket as soon as Dali turned around.
The woman then picked up another basket from behing her. Dali has a moment to look at the room behind the threshold-from where she was supposed to have exited-and it was a house. A quaint but cosy house. She had just been in her office!
With the large basket secured at her hips, the woman hurried to get on the road to a destination only she knew of. Dali, still not yet comprehending her situation, followed along.
"Come along, we are already late. I do not understand why you insisted on changing your dress three times! We are only going be be selling today, no time to waste in front of the powder shops you like so much, and certainly no going to try on the new lip colours from the trader. You spent all of your allowings for this month already, and he is far too expensive to visit twice in a month!"
Dali opened her mouth to interject but was promptly cut off, "I know, I know. You have earned that money working for Lord Keith's daughter, but you need to learn how to save. I am your mum and know more than you do about tough times and how useful a saved penny can be!" She exhaled and slowed down to a normal speed, with her rant apparently taking all the excess energy out of her. In a slower, more even tone she continued, "And there is something about that girl that I do not like, I might sound absurd but I want you to be careful. Do you hear me?"
But Dali has already stopped in her tracks. There was only one word she had focused on in her entire speech. What did the woman say she was to her..."Mum?"
The lady- her mum- stopped and turned around to look at her. With her hand still holding the large basket at her waist, she smiled a warm smile at Dali. The smile of a mother. "Yes, dear?"
Dali opened and closed her mouth a few times before shutting it closed. Too overwhelmed with emotions-that seemed distant but familiar, like a memory-to say anything, she stood still. She would have kept standing there for a while more, had the woman in front of her not shifted her basket to her other hip, and extended the arm closest to the shocked girl in the middle of the street.
The girl, Dali, shook herself out of whatever had a hold of her limbs at the moment, and rushed to take the hand offered to her. She didn;t know what it was, it was not like she had not reveived love from Dale's parents. But having her own mum...if this was a dream, she wished it would go on longer.The woman's smile widened and she squeezed the hand she was holding. After a moment she let go only to wrap the arm around her daughter and press her child to her side. Dali adjusted the basket so that it wouldn't fall down, and the duo kept walking to wherever it is they needed to be.
All the while, Dali kept thinking, 'I am clearly in some sort of delusion, maybe a coma? I have longed so much for a parent that I have dreamed a mother here, so maybe a father as well! Do I have siblings? I seem to work for a Lord's daughter, so I have a job, that's good. How old am I? I need to find a mirror, is a mirror even invented in this place?'
The mother and daughter passed a couple of horses attached to a carriage that had stopped in front of a shop. 'The source of the sound of horses!' Dali summarised.
The coachman seemed to be haggling another elder man for a set of colourful bangles made of- clay? glass?
The thing that drew Dali's attention however was the carriage itself, it seemed to be floating off the ground!
She drew to a halt, shocked. The woman- whom her consciousness had somehow created as her mother- stopped as well to see what had captured her daughter's attention. When she directed her gaze to the recipient, her own lifted in recognition.
"Ah! It is a rare treat indeed, that we get to see the Royal carriage. I thought it was any other one and was just about to pass it by! This is the only carriage in this state made out of the Northern Yellow Lancewood. Of course the wood itself isn't yellow! What a silly name. It only appears so in the late afternoon sunlight when the rays dance off the sap these trees produce. In the forests up there, it is magical sight to witness. Or so I hear."
The older woman released a short sigh. Dali looked at her, and for the first time since she had left her office, scrutinised the person she was with.
Her eyes were a warn brown, and her cheeks were round but shapely. She was a little plump, but in the best possible way, so she was as soft on the outside as she seemed on the inside. Her height was similar to her daughter's, as Dali realised.
'So I am short even in my dreams. Great.'
Dali had not felt the love of a parent in a long time. After her parents' death when she was not even 11, she had lived with her uncle, her father's brother. He tried, but couldn't give her a lot of time due to his demanding job. He tried to cut back on the shifts, and move the timings around, but being the security personnel in charge of a very important person does not come with fixed hours. He did his best, and she knew that. She loved him more for it.
And Dale's parents, though they were very important for her, had always been more like her best friends's parents for her to aliken then to her dead parents.
But now, it looked like she had a chance. Even if this was a dream, or a coma, or a hallucination- she didn't care. She had the opportunity to get the love she had longed for since the passing of her parents. After her long life as an adult, when she had all but given up, she finally had a chance to get it.
'Just this once, I will allow myself this just this once' She promised herself.
Right then, the carriage door opened, and out came a foot that was clad in what looked like very expensive boots, and legs covered in the finest of black silk. The figure attached finally emerged.
Her mother gasped and covered her mouth next to her. "Look Alisa! That is the King, King Maxim! Very handsome, as you can see. But very quiet and cold, or so it is said. The poor child, of course he is quiet, to have to witness your own father be murdered the way he did... that is just awful" She tsked in sympathy.
Alisa- Dali?- looked over to the man her mother had pointed out, and sure enough he looked like the King. He was younger than she had thought he would be. Tall and lean, and quietly serveying his surrounding from atop the carriage steps before he finally stepped down. He had a regal air around him, and the people nearest to the carriage seemed to defer instinctively. He took his time, even after he had stepped down, to look around at the people and the market. His sharp grey eyes passed by her mother and her, as they stood with the people who had come to gawk.
Suddenly out of nowhere, three guards-or soldiers what with their uniforms and swords- appeared near the carriage. Where did they even come from?!
The King finally turned to his guards and went into a nearby store. As if a spell had been broken, the whole of the market resumed it's activity. Dali (Alisa?) had not even noticed that everyone had stopped whatever they were doing to take a look at the king.
After a while, the mother-daughter pair too turned away from the carriage, and continued on the journey to sell whatever it was they would be selling- Dali peeked and confirmed it was dairy products like milk, cheese, eggs, and more- to the market.
'This is fine, I have sold stuff before. And it is only a dream, I will be back in no time.'
Yes, she decided she will be just fine.