Day Thirty Two : Pointillistic

Pointillistic 

Definition

1 : composed of many discrete details or parts

2 : of, relating to, or characteristic of pointillism or pointillists

In the late 19th century, Neo-Impressionists discovered that contrasting dots of color applied
side by side would blend together and be perceived as a luminous whole when seen from a distance.
With this knowledge, they developed the technique of pointillism, also known as divisionism. By the
1920s, the adjective pointillistic was being used as a word describing something having many details
or parts, such as an argument or musical composition;

The dress fit perfectly, its smooth metal gears flowing perfectly through each other, cleverly rotating
each delicate (looking at least - the metal itself was pretty indestructible. Thank the Creator - otherwise
your innards would soon be splattered across the nearest scone, no different that the organic, hand
made, ridiculously expensive artisan jam the duchess insisted upon at every tea party she attended)
piece of plating to reveal the weaponry beneath. 

Rotating blades, battering rams, small missiles and cannons - all par the course. The bustle even
concealed a small rocket launcher, to be used only in the most extreme of situations of course. 

I smiled and used the controls, cleverly concealed in the fingertips and palm of my long, bullet, poison
and flame proof full length gloves to swish the heavy skirt. The motors embedded in the hem (even as
light as the engineers could make it, there was no way I was moving this outfit with my own strength)
whirred to life, smoothly moving the skirt across the floor, just as I instructed. 

I smiled even wider. It was perfect.

“Lorenzo, you have outdone yourself.” I purred at my chief engineer. “It is a masterpiece.”

Lorenzo, a pure pussycat in my well trained grip, a complete terror to his own apprentices, beamed at
me, pleased at my pleasure.

“For you ma’am, the world.” he said graciously. “Please take note of the enamel around the bodice. We
have tempered it so it should glow green in the vicinity of poison.”

“Lorenzo, most of the ladies there will be armed with poison. Poison will probably be in my general
vicinity for the entire length of the party, meaning  i will also be glowing green for the length of it.
Poison is still, for some reason, a popular choice of weapon. Why i don’t know when cannons are so
much more fun.”

“Elegance, ma’am?” Lorenzo shrugged. 

“I have had elegance enough to last a lifetime - more than a lifetime.” I retorted. “No, give me
explosions, loud noises and mess. Excitement and danger! I am tired of my gilded cage.”

Ignoring my inelegant outburst (such as all men did when we did not fit their expectations of a lady) he
said, if it had just occurred to him, “the emergency exit from the dress is still the same my lady should
any serious incident occur. Just point your left arm straight up and touch your middle finger and ring
finger to your thumb.”

“I know, I know.” I said impatiently.

“It is important ma’am. I would not like you to lose your wits, become trapped within my
mechaniapparel and suffer death, or worse, deformities!”

“Wouldn’t want me to loose my pretty face, it is my moneymaker after all.” I said sarcastically.

“Exactly.” he agreed, without a trace of it. 

You could go off people, you know. 

But he had done a spectacular job of the dress and good engineers were getting harder and harder to
come by now that many women had tied the best ones into exclusive contracts to serve them and only
them. 

To steal an engineer from another woman was currently one of the worst crimes you could commit in
high society - the cut direct was immediately enforced and the criminal would find herself excluded
from every social event in town. It was far less of a scandal to steal another’s husband - as long as
they returned them in the morning, everything was just peachy. Who could care less about a husband
once they’d settled your bills?

But an engineer, an engineer mattered more than anything. Without a decent engineer, there was no
way you could safely participate in the Tea Parties. If your dress wasn’t up to snuff - if it failed the
safety checks and looked, dare I say it, unfashionable then you were forbidden to attend. Only those
dressed to the nines and dressed for war could attend. 

In this stuffy, rule bound society where women were only ever supposed to be pretty ornaments for the
men (and Creator help any of those who were either not pretty, not pleasing or simply too strong willed
. If you weren’t picked, off to the work houses you went. Only the sparkling precious ones were allowed
to remain under the caveat that they were precious sparkling ones at all times who knew what was
expected of them. Elegance, daintiness, making your husband shine and obeying him in all things.
Being a lady twenty four seven.) the Tea Parties were the only place the gloves ever (figuratively) came
off. 

The Tea Parties had originally come about in the now legendary Whist Party when the Duke, a traditionalist
to the core, had loudly and seemingly unendingly wittered on about how women were unsuitable for
combat, were soft and fluffy things unable to say boo to a goose that sort of thing. While the rest of us
where there pasting simpering smiles on our faces to cover up our gritted teeth, the Duchess interjected
and said that, if the Duke really wanted to know, most social gatherings of women tended to be absolutely
savage battlegrounds. 

(This was extremely true. When you were trapped in such limited society, knowing you’re trapped and
will never get out, wearing a mask that might as well have been welded onto your face, so little were you
allowed to take it off, you tended to be, well, a bit tetchy, a bit short with the other women who, yes, were
also in the same situation as you, but really, things in enclosed spaces fester and tempers that weren’t
allowed to be released in a proactive way (as you had to be a lady at all times and ladies didn’t descend
into hair pulling cat fights)  tended to burn hotter and hotter until the only thing left was to make two
faced pleasant remarks at each other with such vitriol that it felt as if you had both thrown acid in each
other’s face.)

The Duke chuckled and said patronisingly that he would have to disagree. 

With an act of pure bravery that left the rest of us breathless with awe, the duchess disagreed with him
with the most beautiful of smiles. 

Charmed by his wife’s smile, the duke only asked for her to prove it. 

“Well then, my duke, I shall,” Is all she said. 

The Tea Parties were set up the following week. Clearly the duchess had somehow been planning this
for a while (how she had hidden such brilliance from her husband and the bridal candidate officers i do
not know. Had they any idea of her subversive, genius nature i am sure she would have been sent to the
work house immediately, if not straight to the execution ground. They would have found an excuse, they
always do.) Six of us were invited and six (seven including the duchesses personal one) dresses were
provided. We were strapped in, given a brief explanation of the controls and away we went. 

The duchess gave us a brief explanation of the game and we stood around a slightly larger than normal
table (to accommodate the large metal plated skirts of our armour) which had been laid for another tea.
The rules were simple. Instead of using our acid sharpened tongues to laid waste to the other members
of the party, we were to use the weapons in our dresses. Head shots were banned, as was aiming
anywhere that did not look adequately covered by the armour. Body and leg shots were the ones to go
for. The weapons in our outfits were not particularly dangerous as any injury to us would immediately
ensure that the Husbands would ban the game. 

The game began like any other normal Tea Party. Once we felt suitable comfortable, we would begin the
combat.

At this first party, we all twitched a bit uncomfortably. Although we were extremely skilled at bitchiness,
not of us had any experience with actual, physical combat. It seemed a bit too intimidating to be honest.

One of the attendees, a lady that, as far as I knew, no one liked and who constantly talked about how
important her husband was (he wasn’t) and how wonderfully he loved and treated her (he didn’t - the
man went through the new debutantes like they were going out of season) and how much better she was
then everyone else because she was a lady to the core (perhaps - she was definitely the best
brainwashed one out of all of us), opened her mouth and began to say, with a sneer, “Duchess, what a
novel idea, how-”

The duchess shot her in the chest, the blast of it propelling her backwards to collapse like an upturned
tortoise on the floor, gazing bewilderedly at the sudden sky overhead. 

We stared at her, mouths hanging open in an extremely unladylike manner. Quickly coming to my wits I
glanced back at the Duchess, she winked at me as I flung myself under the table for cover as she
opened fire. 

The next few hours were pure chaos. The Husbands, who had at first watched indulgently and then
hurriedly retreated inside when one of our missiles went a little awry at them, had been quite unsure
about the whole thing. But when we ardently and passionately persuaded them that it was the most fun
we could ever imagine having and how grateful we were that they let us play (boy did i have to drag
some pretty far out stuff from my imagination to pull that one off) that they soon convinced themselves it
was just a bit of play acting for the ladies and surely a little bit of harmless exercise and silliness could
do them no harm.

You know, it always struck me as odd that it had never occurred to our instructors that by teaching us
exactly what our Husbands would want to hear also meant that, essentially, they were also teaching us
the way to talk to get them to do exactly what we wanted. 

The Tea Parties became official. Everyone wanted to play. The Duchess became so popular that her
ridiculously expensive artisan jam was willingly stocked at every household and no one even complained
about the price. We would have walked barefoot over broken glass to get  it for her if she asked us to. 

She was our hero. 

I’d asked her once (after a particularly robust Tea Party where one of the guests had concealed a
chainsaw in her bustle and had used it to cut down a rather large tree and turned it into a sort of
fort/sniper's perch, which had led some of the other ladies to band together in an attempt to defeat her.
All in all amazing amounts of fun.) what her plan was. As fun and as liberating as the games were, i
somehow suspected idle entertainment was not her end game.

She turned and gave me the same beautiful smile she had given her husband, all those months ago
when he had asked her to prove that were could be just as strong as men in battle. 

“Revolution of course.”