Nessa

“If your sisters come to your wedding, my lady, it will only be to murder me."
Azalea slowly stood.
"Well at least they will be there.”
― Heather Dixon, Entwined

“He was shockingly easy to follow. The pressure of his hand, the step of his foot, the angle of his frame... it was like reading his mind. When he leaned right, they turned in perfect unison. He swept her across the gallery in a quick three, a dizzying pace. Gilded frames and glass cases and the window blurred in her vision, and Azalea spun out, her skirts pulling and poofing around her, before he caught her and brought her back into dance position. She could almost hear music playing, swelling inside of her.

Mother had once told her about this perfect twining into one. She called it interweave, and said it was hard to do, for it took the perfect matching of the partners’ strengths to overshadow each other’s weaknesses, meshing into one glorious dance. Azalea felt the giddiness of being locked in not a pairing, but a dance. So starkly different than dancing with Keeper. Never that horrid feeling that she owed him something; no holding her breath, wishing for the dance to end. Now, spinning from Mr. Bradford’s hand, her eyes closed, spinning back and feeling him catch her, she felt the thrill of the dance, of being matched, flow through her.

”Heavens, you’re good!” said Azalea, breathless.

”You’re stupendous,” said Mr. Bradford, just as breathless. “It’s like dancing with a top!”
― Heather Dixon, Entwined

“We can go without dancing and things a little longer."
"Especially since our Great Slipper Scandal quickened the undead and nearly destroyed the palace," said Bramble. "It put us off dancing for at least an hour.”
― Heather Dixon, Entwined

“From a memory deep inside her, so faint it only held sounds and slips of color, a tiny, three-year-old Azalea wailed, "Papa."

"Papa," said Azalea to the lifeless form of the King. The word was so forgein, it choked her throat. "Papa... you can't leave us, Papa... It would be very...out of order-"

Bramble knelt opposite her, grasping the King's bandaged hand.

"She's-she's right, Papa," Bramble stuttered. "We have...rules..."

Clover fell to her knees and pressed her handkerchief to his chest. Blood soaked through.

"Papa," she whispered.

The girls knelt around the King, their skirts spead out like forlorn blossoms, swallowing , and whispering one word.

"Papa."

"Papa."

"Papa.”
― Heather Dixon, Entwined