Iris did not identify a need for clothes because she did not know shame. She was the garden in which shame had found it’s voice, but the blooms had never needed to blush. Their petals were already saturated with unabashed color. Wearing Manon’s form, she’d found no sentimental clothing that made her heart ache. So, she stood nude before him with the happy hum of his blood in her veins. She understood he enjoyed these shapes, her soft skin laid bare, the way her hip would sway when she led him down the hall. Manon had been in his service for quite some time. Perhaps, if Iris had wanted to aspire to be like anyone in his household, it might be that woman.<br/><br/>“I only call your name, Sir.” She said in Manon’s smooth tones with Manon’s precise tongue. Iris stood a little straighter. Manon was an honest girl, frank in most matters. Kedrick had never mentioned such things directly. Manon might have been less forthcoming, but hearing her say it outright felt like a practical extension of her nature. Iris knew it, because Kedrick felt it.<br/><br/>She tipped her head in what was something like the suggestion of a bow—a polite, if curious, mannerism Manon had developed shortly after her arrival. “Shall I go prepare your breakfast?” it was a little of Iris then, like she was eager to show off what she’d learned for him.<br/><br/>He seemed amenable enough to that suggestion, following her out of the room and down the hall. She could feel it when he watched her through his glass pane, and it made Manon’s pale cheeks color with a little rosy enthusiasm.<i>Please, watch me please you</i>. Iris hummed a song the maid liked to clean to, walking with a little bounce on the balls of her feet.<br/><br/>In the kitchen, she was surprisingly competent, despite the delay of rummaging through various drawers to locate the cookware she wanted. It was a small reminder that this novelty had only just entered this home, regardless of how thorough their first encounters had been. Iris seemed to be a quick study, as she referenced no screen for data. She seemed to have settled on a somewhat more complicated recipe, perhaps in an effort to demonstrate the leaps in her skill since yesterday. Iris was nothing if not dutiful.<br/><br/>She made it through a good portion of her preparation without mishap. It was only when she hovered over a pot of boiling water, aiming to poach some eggs, that her plans began to slip. She made a furious little sound, Manon’s voice, when eggshell went with egg into the pot. In her fluster, she reached to pinch the shell from the yolk. She withdrew with a yelp, scalding water punishing her hasty fingertips. The gesture knocked the pot, which clattered and tipped, and sent her stumbling back against the counter behind her. She avoided the boiling water, but lost the eggs and a mess of splashing droplets to the floor.<br/><br/>It was with that same expression of worrisome dread, the one Manon had given him when she’d mangled his toast, that Iris fixed him with then.