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Who knew stuffy rich people had a smell? What that smell was, you weren't entirely sure, but this fucking dinner hall reeked of it. Kind of a mix of mothballs, expensive cheese, and money. It made your stomach turn. And you prided yourself on having a strong digestive system.
The dress you were wearing could also be a contributing factor to the nausea that had trailed after you since you entered this dreaded building.
It wasn't the most hideous thing you'd ever put on your body, let alone the ugliest thing your mother had chosen for you. A champagne-toned number with a knee-length skirt that flared out at the waist, you didn't immediately want to rip it off when you looked in the mirror before you left. The embroidered butterflies at the bottom left you wishing they were at least frogs or something less... delicate, but if that was your biggest complaint, it might be a win.
Or at least a draw, seeing as this should make your mother happy. She couldn't complain about you disregarding her orders (yet again), because you'd taken the high road, so to speak, and actually listened to her.
She could, of course, get pissed for an entirely different reason. You'd arrived at this dinner, full of exclusively first-rate royals, completely plastered. You hadn't exactly planned for that to happen, but your mother wouldn't give a flying shit. She'd take any excuse to make a fool of you.
You could see her, standing across the dining hall next to your dad, talking with the king of the Obsidian Kingdom. Thankfully, it didn't look like she was paying much attention to anything or anyone else but King Lee and his wife. The tendons in your mother's neck kept straining against the slightly wrinkled skin, her telltale sign of stress.
There was a lot of tension - to say the least - between the Moonstone and Obsidian kingdoms. You had learned about the source of the conflict, which started centuries ago, in one of your history courses when you were young. Now, you couldn't really remember much of what you were taught. You knew that it stemmed from disagreements about arranged marriage. Obsidian was very pro arranged marriage, and Moonstone wasn't. This has actually caused a war, and multiple battles in the past. Now, it was still the source of much bad will and skirmishes among the two kingdoms. About a century ago, the kings and queens of both kingdoms had made cross-kingdom marriages illegal. For the most part, people were fine with that. Not many people had friends from the opposing kingdom. Your parents and Minho's parents didn't get along either, and that was putting it lightly.
