There were three things the Resvelds could not tolerate. First, they'd outlawed sloppery over a decade before the last wash, but even more offensive were those who dressed in gaudy sweeps of fabrics and jewels. The last, and most atrocious, is a creature's tendency to laziness.
Fortunately, Haja didn't care that she was all three.
In a fit, which wasn't too uncommon for her, Haja had ripped through nearly all of her gowns. Ruined fabrics of gold and grey littered her room at the top floor of the east wing. Resveld colors in a Resveld's home deep in the heart of the Resveld capital.
A merchant's daughter could surely afford to replace them all, but there was still a fuss to be had by both Haja's father and handmaid.
"What will you wear?"
"Who will see you now that you'll be forced to dress in rags?" Her father's question implied she'd bother to wear them at all, and she scoffed. "Oh, you wont get any more out of me, young lady."
"She is no lady," said her handmaid, all five feet of her red and fuming.
In cases like these, Haja found it best to let the whole argument rise to climax and come to resolution without her offering a single word in the matter. For sixteen minutes she'd let the fire rage, and at the end it would be her father's solution to end the feud.
"Put her in the pinks downstairs. She can go around looking like a child since she insists on acting like one," he said, slamming the door to her room behind him and leaving the handmaid to arrange the rest.
Proud of her new victory, Haja made a lap skipping around the bed. "Pinks! He thinks it is childish to be pink? His whole face is pink!" And at that she was rolling, her laugh bringing only sighs and shakes from the woman doomed to attend to her until she was married.
"You ought not to--"
Both the laughter and the scold were cut short by the harsh sound of announcement bells. Only important decrees and wartime updates were reason enough to inspire the bells to be sounded. It took only a look between them before both women scrambled to the window overlooking the square.
Listening, Haja gripped one tense hand over her other. There has only been one other announcement important enough for an entire city assembly, and that had been on Haja's fourth birthday when the treaty with Maladrins was expanded to include any kingdoms north or south, even minor ones.
"And let it be known that first scouts have confirmed the existence of such a city. The Washed City. The first magical city. Its walls, roads, and plazas untouched by time. The whole of it has survived the ocean's time for five hundred years, and now it stands we must claim Elantris for the great Resveld Kingdom."
With anxiety in her face, the handmaid could not bring herself to comment, but knew by her look that Haja would have something to say about it that she wouldn't like.
"Oh, I am totally going."