Indigo

XIII

I was awakened early in the morning by a now familiar buzz in my ear.

"Indigo? Wake up, it's me." I groaned and rolled over onto my pillow. "I know you're awake, let me up." Lucas's voice demanded.

"Fine," I half yawned into the mic on the earpiece. A few moments later, the button on the elevator let out an exasperated ding signaling his arrival. Lucas and two others stepped out.

"Who-?" I began. "Indigo, meet Natalie and Kayla. I know you don't like it, but the director's ordered them to help you get ready for our ceremony."

I smirked. "What? They don't trust me to get ready myself?" He looked down at what I was I was wearing. A plain grey v-neck and jogging shorts. I sighed.

"Fair point. Okay, see ya later then?" I replied, embarrassed. "Yep, I'll come back to get you later. See you then." I turned towards the girls.

"So... Hey!" I said, giving in to my inner awkwardness. "What's up?" The girl with auburn hair, Natalie, proceeded to practically drag me up the stairs. The other girl, Kayla, had hair dyed so dark red that it almost looked purple. I guess they might've been nice, but they were much too girly for my taste, they were definitely the type of girls who loved to go shopping and gossip. They ordered me up into my room and in the shower. I took as long as I could in there until the hot water ran cold. Even the freezing liquid was better than the torture of a makeover.

"Hurry up in there!" I heard from the other side of the door. I rushed to rinse the soap out of my hair. I ran out as fast as I could wearing my blue bathrobe. They shoved me into a chair in front of my vanity. They brushed the tangles out of my wet hair and blew it dry. They played around with my layers for a while, debating with each other how my hair should be done. They finally agreed after five minutes of discussing it with one another. They took two strands of hair on each side of my face and french braided to the back of my head where they pulled up the rest of the brown mess into a curled ponytail. I thought maybe they were trying to make me look stronger than I was, maybe it would make me seem more like a leader. Even though they did this, I knew that eventually, someone would see through the mask that they'd put over the scared little girl to the was inside.

They'd finally finished doing my hair and ordered me to get dressed in the clothes that were folded for me on my bed. There were black jeans, a grey shirt, dark brown combat boots, and an army green jacket. When I was finished, they outlined my muddy green eyes with black eyeliner and put on a coat of dark red lipstick. I stood in front of a stand up mirror and my breath hitched in my throat. If they'd been trying to make me look like a completely different person, well they'd certainly succeeded. I was truly impressed, they were miracle workers. I barely recognized myself.

"Beautiful," Natalie breathed, obviously pleased with her complete destruction of a small innocent Amethyst girl.

"Thank you," I spoke so quietly that I wondered if they could even hear me. I was still in awe with what they'd shown me. This was what I could look like if I gave a crap what other people thought? Wow. They then explained that they'd be happy to redo it anytime if I wanted. Yeah, right. I totally wanted that to happen.

"We'l be back around five to get you ready for the banquet." Kayla beamed. Oh, I just can't wait, I thought. I thanked them again, then they packed up their things and directed me down stairs to face Lucas before leaving. He took in my appearance, the no longer matted strands of brown hair and the not baggy clothes that clung to my small frame. I could see that he'd been cleaned up too, but he'd most likely been trusted with getting himself ready. We seemed to match almost exactly. He too, wore an army green jacket with black pants, but with a black shirt and brown biker boots.