(@secret-engima yo I think I might have accidentally written Ardyn a Hand. So, feel free to adopt?)
Penelopeia Lazarus (just call her Penny for Ramuh’s sake) never thought she’d actually get to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps.
The Burning forced them - the few who survived - from their homes, and in Insomnia, everything was so expensive that the Clan couldn’t afford to continue their traditional weaving. Not when money was so scarce in Little Galahd.
At twenty years old, Penny had just finished her apprenticeship under her grandmother, had just presented the intricately woven bolt of fabric in shimmering blues and golds to the Clan Weavers for her mastery project.
The fabric is the only reminder Penny has of her grandmother now. The only reminder of her village’s Weavers.
There hasn’t been a new Weaver since Penny passed her test.
Penny tried. She’d opened a business with two of her Clan, a small tailoring business that could hopefully weave on the side, but they could barely turn a profit. No one in Little Galahd could afford to have their clothing tailored, and the large retail chains that set up just outside Little Galahd set their prices so low that it was simply cheaper to buy new when the low quality fabrics inevitably tore, rather than try to mend it.
Even the sudden windfall from Axis (Mela’s second cousin and Mela was STILL ticked off at him for not telling everyone he’d adopted the king’s eldest and unknown son) bringing his new outfits to them instead of the royal tailors wasn’t enough.
Three years on, and Penny knew there was no way to keep the business open. It felt like losing part of her home all over again.
She’d thought about joining the Kingsglaive - they always needed more recruits, and being a Weaver didn’t mean Penny wasn’t as good at her Clan Dance than any other Lazarus - despite not particularly wanting to go fight for a king she wasn’t loyal to. King Regis wasn’t her Chief.
But the pay was good, and Penny had bills.
She didn’t expect an Insomnian noble to walk into her tiny shop. Oh, the woman was discreet, but Penny knew custom work when she saw it and the woman’s casual outfit was still leagues above what anyone in Little Galahd could afford.
Penny didn’t expect much honestly. Even though the woman brought a handful of items for tailoring - including a gorgeous jacket that might actually give Penny a proper challenge - and surprised Penny when she didn’t try to argue the quoted price, Penny doubted it would be anything more than a one-off thing.
The woman - who’d only given her name as Juno and Penny near smacked herself for not paying more attention to noble names - turned out to be Juno Amicitia, Lord Clarus’ wife and Axis’ new step-mother (Penny was going to help Mela throttle Axis for not warning them, Ramuh damn it). And a month after Juno picked up Penny’s work, she came back. But not with clothing.
A job offer. As a royal tailor.
Penny wondered if the world had turned upside down when she wasn’t looking.
Of course it wasn’t that simple. She had to complete a couple years as an apprentice before she would be promoted to an actual royal tailor, but frankly Penny didn’t care. Even the apprentice pay was better than what she made now, enough that she might be able to start weaving again as a hobby in the next three years.
Penny might have to make something nice for Axis as a thank you.
Ardyn Izunia was a menace.
If it weren’t for the fact the man was the uncle of Axis’ Prince and a staunch ally to the Galahdian refugees, Penny would be sorely tempted to give into the urge to stab the man with a pin. Or twelve.
She wasn’t the only apprentice, but she was the only Galahdian on staff, which meant she got to assigned to Ardyn because no one else wanted to deal with the Niflheim Chancellor.
Frankly, Penny cared less about the man’s position than the fact that he was a grade-A asshole.
And then someone turned Ardyn into a goose.
Penny was going to murder Nyx and Crowe. Slowly. With a bolt pin.
It took all of two hours and one glimpse of the bane of her existence running by with that thrice cursed hat on his back to decide that she refused to deal with this. Ardyn was bad enough normally. She had no desire to get caught up in his shenanigans now that he was a goose.
So she did the only thing she knew that might appease him into leaving her alone.
She made him a hat. A tiny, ugly replica of his usual ugly hat to wear while wreaking utter havoc around the Citadel.
(Watching the chaos from the sidelines, Penny did have to admit that Ardyn’s asshole mischief was hysterical.)
How that led to Ardyn deciding he liked her and taking him on as his personal tailor, Penny didn’t know. But since she was no longer on the receiving end of his personal brand of mischief, and could actually argue him into three layers and only one wacky pattern, Penny chalked it up to Shiva’s humor and focused on getting her personal royal to at least consent to color combinations that wouldn’t make every Galahdian cringe.
Ardyn deciding that he liked her weaving and then paying her to make him clothing from scratch... well, Penny would never admit it, but that plus the fact that he had her help plan out various outfits for maximum Statement (whatever said statement was) is what finally made her decide that while an asshole, Ardyn was her asshole.
She still put green in all his outfits though. That man needed a warning label.
