Chapter 4: Mirror And Books
Green foliage turns yellow. Flowers wilted, birds migrated. Autumn's curtain came too fast, and surrounded Hypatia's garden outside her windows with red golden sparkling under the colder sun.
In this warm golden blanket of autumn, Hypatia's first achievement was accomplished. She almost burst to tears once she could go to the toilet by herself.
'Finally! No more shame!' She said her gratitude to all the Gods above.
The toilet is located outside, ten to fifteen meters from her room. Even though this ancient setting upset her for not providing her with a hygienic proper toilet, she admired the creativity of humans to provide the utmost luxury in this time.
Well, she looks human. Even though there are many trees and flowers she didn't recognise in this world, people here look exactly like homo sapiens on earth.
The toilet here is made of square stone with long holes starting on the upper side across the front part. It is designed for people to squat or sit on the stone to do their business, and also convenient for male to pee at ease. The hole seems to be connected with the sewers.
The square stone is not high, Hypatia didn't need to climb to sit there. The smell is a bit strange, maybe due to many pouches filled with herbs hanging in the four corners.
The basin filled with water and flower petals used to flush the toilet. Hypatia also notices there is one jar filled with oils. Looks like they pour the oils once a day to make sure the human's excretion didn't latch on the passage.
At first, Hypatia felt uncomfortable sitting on the stone. No matter how luxurious they painted the walls around, it still felt weird to place her butt on the stone's surface. Luckily humans really have great ability to adapt. After one week, she got used to it.
The toilet also has holes on the upper side of the wall, to let the sun rays illuminate the room inside, and help to get rid of the smell.
The bathroom is separated from the toilet. It had a luxurious small pool with exquisite paintings covering the original white stone wall. Everytime Hypatia took a bath, the pool was always filled with hot water and flower petals.
Hypatia started to train her skinny legs to walk around and finally allowed to walk in the garden. Her favourite thing to do is sit on the couches under the big tree, looking at her surroundings and thinking what to do next.
She noticed she lives in the small palace, connected with the big palace where her mother and her father lived. Many big pillars and paintings decorate the corridors, all designed so grand and magnificent. Even the ceilings are beautifully carved with ornaments and paintings.
Hypatia really wants to take pictures of these palaces.
After so many months passed, she could guess that the pretty woman is her mother, the middle aged man is her father, and three young men are her brothers. She didn't see her sister though.
Or maybe she was wrong? She might be an orphan who was taken care of by this family. But it did not really fit their super duper nice treatment.
The most important thing, she was glad her life was really comfortable. Food was abundant with plenty of maids to help her around.
She notices there are differences in these people's clothes. Her family will always wear the unilateral earpiece, but only the pretty woman will wear the earpiece with a chain connected to the big jewel. Their clothes are exquisite. And since the weather is getting colder, they also wear some kind of shiny toga across their body. Gold and jewels always wrapped their bodies.
The maid has different structures of clothes. For example, the women who took care of her body before were wearing golden arm bangles on each of their arms. The older woman who slapped her maid was especially wearing two gold arm bangles on her right arm.
Their clothes were big square smooth fabrics tied with colourful ribbons, matching the embroidery on the bottom of their clothes. The fabrics were secured with gold pins on their shoulders. This autumn they are also wearing thick toga across their body, but the material is very crude compared to her family's toga.
The other maids who take care of her daily needs only wear one gold arm bangle, and the clothes didn't have embroidery. Only their clothing ribbon had beautiful embroidery. They also wear golden pins to strap the fabrics on their shoulders. They didn't wear togas, only used longer cloth to cover their arms, double layered, to keep them warm.
Sometimes, Hypatia also notices some maids who walk wearing silver and bronze bangles on their arm, but they never get near her. Hypatia only saw them when she walked to the garden.
All of them will bow at her and stand still, only resuming to move again once she passes through.
Hypatia's clothes herselves are really beautiful, on the same level as the pretty woman, only lacking gold and jewels. Instead of toga, the maid dressed her with a thick robe.
Hypatia also could conduct simple communication with them now. Toilet, food, water, stop, enough, garden, and many more. She still hasn't grasped the language structure. She starts to learn her maid's name, and of course her family's name.
The pretty woman is called Chilonis.
The middle aged man is called Cleombre.
The oldest young man is called Cleomenes.
The second oldest young man was called Cleonymus.
The little angel called Cleomidas.
Well.. This makes Hypatia suspect she was an orphan adopted by this family. If she really is their daughter, why does her name was Hypatia instead of Cleopatra?
All these names and their clothes remind Hypatia of ancient Greek and Roman's cultures. If not because of two moons pretty hanging in the sky, and several strange plants, she would be very convinced that she was thrown into the past.
Once again, she was thankful that she was placed into this body instead of servants or slaves. Did they have slaves in this era? Hmm..
The area Hypatia could walk is limited though it expands. Once when she walked in the garden a bit far, she found a big pond filled with colourful fish and beautiful dome structure nearby, she finally found several ladies with similar clothes and jewellery like Chilonis wear.
They are all beautiful, with full figures, plump lips. Their jewels sparkling bright, reflecting afternoon sun rays. Some have blonde hair in several shades, from dark blonde to light blonde. Some have brown hair, two women with black hair. Only one woman has striking red hair.
Her maid several times shook their head and tried to hold her when she wanted to walk this way. Why? Hypatia now seems to know the answer. Hypatia guesses they don't want her to meet these women.
Some women already have traces of time painted on their face, some still young, but no one as young as her. All their clothes and jewellery are dazzling, but none of them as dazzling nor as pretty as Chilonis.
Meeting these ladies makes Hypatia feel she comes to watch Miss Universe with various age versions. Is this.. Cleombre's harem? Why has she never met them before? Where do they live? And why do some still look very young? Fifteen year at most.
They were laughing loudly, chatting with each other. Some play musical instruments shaped like lyra, some are doing embroidery.
When Hypatia walks close, they seem to notice and one by one start to shut their mouth. Silently look at her.
Hypatia blinked. She doesn't know what to do. But no matter where you are, smiling is never wrong. So she smiled brightly. She knows her current body is young. No one will hate a child's smile, right?
One of the middle aged women with light blonde hair who sits under the dome stands up, then walks toward Hypatia. When she stands closer, she stops and bow her head a little bit towards Hypatia. The woman said something Hypatia couldn't understand. She imitates the lady and bow a little too. This makes the women around her gasping and some even put their hands to cover their mouth in surprise.
The maids around Hypatia already bow before the woman and answer her question which Hypatia doesn't understand. The middle aged woman frowned, her face full of concern.
While they exchange questions, Hypatia's eyes wander, and suddenly her eyes brighten.
Some of the ladies held a mirror in their hand! She's dying to see what she looks like, and strangely she didn't find any mirror for many months when she was trapped in this world. She thought this world might not have invented mirrors yet, but she was wrong.
She starts to walk, eagerly wanting to look at her image.
The young lady who held the mirror surprised to see her walking and Hypatia smiled again, pointed at the mirror. The young lady gave her the mirror.
It's a beautiful hand mirror, the handheld made from gold with excellent craftsmanship. The mirror's surface isn't clear like what a modern mirror had, It seems made from a stone smoothly polished until it could reflect the image. The stone is light grey, a little bit silvery. It could reflect the image well even though it is not as good as a cheap modern mirror.
Hypatia looks at her own image. To her surprise, she really looks similar to Cleombre and her brothers, but her eyes are a splitting image of Chilonis. Light green.
Her hair also black like Chilonis. Too bad, her face was nowhere near Chilonis's perfect figure. She's not ugly, but also not stunningly pretty. Hypatia look around her, then look at her reflection in the mirror again.
Among this Miss Universe's contestant, she's the ugliest.
Hypatia sighed. Even after she transmigrated, she still will be an ordinary looking woman in the future.
Right when she wants to give the mirror back to the young lady, her eyes capture the thing laid on the beautiful white stone table behind.
It's a book! Hypatia almost ran after she returned the mirror to its owner. She held the thin leather book with a wood cover in the front and it's back. Each thin leather is held by a thin wooden frame to secure their shape, make it easier to grasp and read. The foreign shape is clearly alphabets to form words and sentences!
They have alphabets and books! She can learn their language better now!
Hypatia is so happy. She spent many weeks wondering why she transmigrated and didn't have any clues. Maybe after she learns the language and the world she lives within, she finally could unlock her next mission and go back to her world!
And what makes her almost burst into tears is that the alphabet seems similar to the modern alphabet with simple strokes, unlike Chinese pinyin or Egypt hieroglyphs.
Thank God!
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