Ball Gown

Chapter 5

"Celia. You ok?" Noah greeted me of all people. I didn't know what to do. Should I answer or leave him feeling bad?

I scoffed and sniffed, "No."

We both stood there staring at the ground. Wow! New record we haven't fought when standing in the same room for 15 seconds.

"Celia, your mother would like to see you," the queen and the king (or aunt and uncle) walked into the hallway from the library.

"Ok," I walked into the library and they closed the door behind me. I saw my mother in the same chair as she was about an hour ago.

"Celia, please sit down," 

I sat down quickly and blurted out, "So what now?"

"Well, I talked it over with Debbie and Caspian. They said we can continue living here and everything would be provided as before, but since we lost a lot in this last war that your....father died in we are low on funds. There is a large kingdom in the north that we have contact with and we are requesting a treaty. With this treaty we will never be able to attack them and they will never be able to attack us. The only problem is the king and queen must remain here to deal with very, very important issues here. So we have decided that you and Noah will be riding down there together to sign the treaty."

"What?!? Why can't he go down by himself?"

~Outside the library~

"...She is so annoying. Why would we have to go together?"

"Because you need to find a spouse and she is the only girl you know."

"I know Anna, Celia's friend." Wow! That sounded pathetic.

"And we told them a couple would be coming to sign the treaty. That couple was supposed to be us in a few months, but this is urgent." My mom started talking, now it was going to be a fight.

"Why can't you choose a village couple?"

~Inside the library~

"The king and queen must know the couple. And there has to be two people from here to sign. They are apparently very serious with their treaties. There will also be their annual carnival happening, so you can have fun watching plays and seeing weird people."

"Wait! How long are we staying there?"

"Only for a month." She said nonchalantly.

"A month with that," I nearly yelled referring to Noah.

"Yes and then when you sign the very important treaty, you can come back and everything will go back to normal."

"Other than the fact that my dad will be dead!" A touchy subject brought up, but we needed to talk about it. I held back the tears as hard as I could, but one managed to find its way down my cheek.

"Your dad will be dead! And there is nothing that you, or me, or anyone can do about it. This is not a problem that can be fixed by the king and queen."

"And its not a problem that can be fixed by sending me away. Noah won't be able to fix this situation either, he'll just make things worse."

"Well, maybe you should just give him a chance. Now, you are going on this trip if I have to send you in what you are wearing and that alone. While you are gone, I am going to try to do everything in my power to make things better and everyone else will too." she let a single tear down her cheek as well.

"You can't fix it! You won't do anything to fix it. You and everyone else will just make things worse."

A look I've never seen arose on my mothers face. It was a look of sadness, madness, dissapointment, and every other emotion you could guess she was feeling. She quickly settled down and acted as if this fight had never happened, "You will be leaving by sunrise. Have everything prepared by then. You will get a chance to say good-bye to everyone tonight at the ball. I most likely won't see you before you leave, so I'll say good-bye now." She stood up signalling the conversation was over. I stood up as well. We hugged without another word and I slowly walked out of the library.

I thought that it least Noah would have left by now, but they were all standing there still talking.

"Father, she is an immature little prissy princess who cares about no one but herself. She is not only annoying, but she will drive me crazy."

The king and queen looked at me apologetically while at the same time signalling Noah I was standing right there.

I looked at all of them in disbelief and ran to my room.