Liv gave Mai a big smile, letting go of some of her inhibitions. She really did seem nice enough, and she seemed far less… stuffy, for lack of a better term, than the 

And then the older girl asked if she could do Liv’s makeup- and gave a somewhat babbly explanation as to why. Liv couldn’t help but giggle softly- though secretly she was very excited by the proposition. She glanced at Mai again, taking in the perfect red lipstick and killer winged eyeliner- she looked so [i]fierce[/i]. The small girl couldn’t imagine herself done up so dramatically. That was for the gracefully imposing sort like Mai… but it would certainly be a nice change from Aelia’s soft-handed cream and gold and brown and pink. And who knew? Maybe it would turn out that she liked it after all.

“I would like it very much if you did.” She said softly. Then she looked up in confusion at Niklas’s comment. Ship it…? As in, to pack something in a box, have it loaded on a barge, and taken halfway across the world?

“Niklas, I would remind you that I am Lusitanian, not Athenian- we might look similar but our cultures are really quite different. If you wanted to ship something, you should go talk to King Telesphoros of Athens. Last I checked his shipping company was the most reliable in the eastern half of the world.” Again she had a momentary panic for letting her tongue loose, face losing a shade of color and hand tightening on her skirt, though she forced herself to relax. They’d been okay with her forgetting her language temporarily, so they should be okay with her correcting Niklas- I mean it wasn’t like she’d been rude about it or anything, right?

In any case, Fareeha spoke then, mentioning wearing something that no one would expect… which gave Liv an idea. But first, she nodded in agreement to the comment about the fedora. “It is… not really of your style, Niklas… meaning no offense.”  She added, half-absently (though still in the right language). She was mentally rifling through the entire wardrobe that she’d brought, which was a lot more extensive than the two small suitcases would indicate. Perks of being so tiny and wearing flimsy, easily-folded clothing: You could fit a hell of a lot into a relatively little space. 

She had a few proper formal gowns with her. One was pale pink, one pale blue, one white, one dark purple and one deep blue. [i]Something unexpected[/i], Fareeha had said. That threw out the three lighter ones, given that she always wore pastels. The purple one was in a proper Lusitanian style, for all that her mother had deemed it too dark of a color… so that left the blue one, that her mother didn’t even know about, that had been an agreement between Liv and the seamstress that tailored all of Liv’s clothes. Which had an uneven hemline and was a bit too long for her anyway so it would be okay if she was in heels, if she could convince herself of how to wobble around in them, but heels meant she might feel slightly less ridiculous trying to pull off Mai’s look, which meant…

“Mai, if I might ask- and please do not feel you need to agree, I do not mean to inconvenience you at all, but… could you, maybe, help me with my makeup tonight, for the ball? Only if it would not inconvenience you or throw off your own routine, of course…”