Miss Teen Actaea

Backstage at the Pageant

After signing in and going backstage, Katharine, Marion and Miao saw the other contestants, all with helpers of their own. Some of her fellow competitors, Katharine had of course met before. Ella, Erin and Tiffany she had encountered before, the same day she and Henry had met, but these others she did not know. Rebecca Abagnale, Lori Canals, Krystal Guo, Concordia Romero, Hayley Sorkin and Athena Marshall she did not know.

While Ella, Erin and Tiffany all scowled at Katharine, Miao and Marion the moment they appeared, Katharine merely turned his gaze away from those three gorgons while Miao stuck out her tongue and Marion simply took Katharine by the arm, leading her over to an unoccupied chair.

Nearly dropping Katharine's dress, Miao exclaimed: "That's disproportionate!"

Miao was a wee, delicate-looking girl of East Asian descent, Hongkonger specifically. She was black-haired and eyed, her short hair in a pair of braided pigtails. She was currently attired in a knee-length, pocketed white dress with puffed shoulders and a red ribbon at the collar. The rest of her attire included white tights, orange shoes that were short and thick and a yellow Alice band. Katharine had met her the day after meeting Henry and already thought of Miao like a younger sister.

"She certainly sounds terrible, though I suppose you and Henry know her well enough." Stated Katharine, removing her sarong and handing it to Marion while Miao helped her into the red gown she had brought. "Better than I do at least, and honestly, from what I've seen she doesn't seem very nice, to put it mildly."

"My dad often talks about how if it is too late to put her in a foster home." Commented Marion as she folded up Katharine's sarong. "He's been to the Caine residence and besides her dad spoiling her and bailing her out of trouble, her parents use her as a tool in their arguments. From what he's been able to find out, that has been going on since basically forever."

Marion was of black, Afghan, Arabic, German and Scottish ancestry. She had neck-length red hair, wore glasses and was wearing a white blouse, a yellow jacket, a knee-length yellow skirt, white tights, orange shoes and a yellow cloche hat with a red band about it, with her build being somewhere between athletic and slender.

Hearing this piece of information, Katharine felt sorry for Ella. Did her begetters even care about their daughter or was she simply a tool to be used in their endless arguments?

Looking over to Ella, Katharine watched as the blonde girl applied her make-up and wondered what was going through her head, wondered if she should approach her, offer a hand in friendship, ask if she wanted to talk about her parents... When Ella turned to head to glare at Katharine, her teal eyes like daggers, she thought maybe such things could wait.

Taking a seat at a vanity, Katharine got to work at applying her make-up. She rarely wore make-up, not really seeing a reason to wear it often. To her thinking, she looked perfectly fine already, what reason did she have to put it on everyday and take it off every night? If she had been very conscious about her image, she would have spent a lot of time on dressing and make-up, but she was perfectly fine without make-up most of the time and she preferred to dress modestly, with the gown she had brought only being for special occasions, such as when she and Henry had gone to the reading at Jekyll Gardens and the trial of Campbell Ward, but when it came to the latter everyone had been fancily dressed for that.

One of the other girls walked over and asked: "Has anyone seen my earrings?"

Katharine looked away from the mirror at her vanity and saw a lean girl of fifteen-years of age. She had neck-length black hair and eyes of the same colour. She had light skin with some Asian features and was wearing a white gown.

"Didn't you leave them at the vanity you had chosen, Krystal?" asked Athena.

"They were they when I was putting my gown on, but when I finished, they were gone!" Krystal exclaimed.