Let The Games Begin.

Breaking Tradition

I can tell that my mother is growing impatient, because she keeps shifting from one foot to the other, and she's biting her nails. A habit she promised me that she stopped ages ago. 

I, however, am prepared to stand here all night if I must. Eventually people will begin to wonder where the heiress is, and why they have been waiting nearly all evening to meet someone who isn't showing up. And then when they glance around the room, they will see me standing, silently near the thrones, surveying the crowd. There are maybe seventy or so people in the room, not including my mother, the hoplites or myself. It would take more than one person to notice me here for the chatter among the crowd to die down quickly. 

I take a deep breath and turn, looking out the tall window behind me. The sun is hovering over the horizon and the banquet celebrating the possibly that I will have chosen a spouse was about to begin. I can tell that the crowd is getting anxious too, because the men are starting to stand around and conversations are dying left and right. Instead of mingling amongst the other nations, they confide in their accompanying entourage. Amongst them, I could hear the occasional "...where is she?..." and "...surely they would have announced her by now...", or "...did she change her mind?..."

We are about fifteen minutes in now, and my mother is about to lose it. She is glancing between the hoplites closest to me, dying to run over to one and tell them to interrupt the crowds growing concerns. You think they'd easily see someone up here in a gown so starkly white that even I had mistaken it for a wedding chiton when Olea pulled it from the armoire. 

Suddenly, I have an idea. I silently slip off of the dais, and go over to my mother.  

     "Mother, I will be right back. Please, please do not break your promise. I have an idea. It might be silly but I'm one hundred percent sure it'll work."

She nods, stepping back behind the curve of the wall and exhales sharply. I dash back to my room, going straight to my dresser, sorting through the little bottles and vials until I find the one that smells the strongest, and the sweetest. Men cannot resist their nose, especially when it leads to either food, or, in this case, a beautiful woman. I give myself a hefty dousing in the fragrant perfume and twirl around, nodding in satisfaction when the room takes on the warm cinnamon and ale scent. I only need enough to be noticable from a distance, not so much that I choke out everyone in the room. 

Quietly leaving the room, and sneaking back down the hall, I peek once more around the corner, my eyebrows furrowing when I see that quite literally everyone somehow still has their backs turned to me. Probably because they've been told that I would be entering from the garden and then come through the crowd to the thrones. However, I'm known to change plans quite frequently. 

Similarly to before, I take my time walking to the dais. But this time, I also hear the last few conversations die off one by one, and cacophony of "sniff sniff sniff" fill the air. When I resume my place in front of the thrones, the men are still chatting amongst themselves, but many of them have stopped and are looking around, trying to find the source of the enchanting scent. Many of them gather around the snack table, trying to see if the kitchen servants had brought out fresh snacks. When one of the young men realizes that the crowd had been misled by their own noses, he turns around and stops dead in his tracks. 

I see him, but I'm not looking at him. I'm looking past him at the man that had smiled at me earlier. He is sitting on the bench outside, in direct view of the dais, fiddling with something in his hands. I shake my head lightly. If my plan of a powerful persona was going to work, I need to stay focused on the crowd before me. 

I turn my gaze back to the young man at the table, who begins to pat the arm of the man beside him, who gives in, finally turning around to see what could be so much more important than the decadent snacks. Following the pointing finger of the young man beside him, they both lay eyes on me. The young men both turn back to the table and began to alert everyone they can reach. Finally, after a full twenty minutes of patiently waiting, leaving, and returning, everyone in the room is aware that I am here. I kept my stance, chest puffed in pride and the gaze of a killer queen, until they disperse evenly around the room, all focused on me. I think they all expected me to speak instantly, because when I didn't, they began to look around curiously, trying to see what- or who- I was waiting for. I must have been staring daggers into the man outside because he suddenly glances up. Seeing that everyone in the room has finally acknowledged me, he stands and slips inside, lingering behind the crowd. He returns to the space where I first saw him in the shadows. At a closer distance, I could see that he had begun whittling something, a stick or small log of some sorts.