The Awakening (First in the Dynasty Cycle)

Chapter Four

 “What about this one, honey?” Starla turned to see that Mrs. Stevens had a ruby red dress held up.

“I’m not much for sleeveless dresses. They fall off too easily, if you know what I mean…” She laughed, flitting through a rack of gray sequined dresses.

“Ah, yeah I never had that problem, but then again there really weren’t any strapless dresses around when I went to prom.” With a sigh, Mrs. Stevens put the dress back, before running her fingers through her strawberry blonde hair.

“What color is Walter wearing? I want to match at the very least.” Scratching her chin, Starla moved beyond the gray dresses to a rack of blue ones.

“Well, his tux is just black and white, but he said that once you pick out a dress to just get him a tie in that color so it looked like you coordinated, instead of…”

“Instead of him telling me that we were going to prom days before?” That was when she saw it.

Her attention on Mrs. Stevens, Starla didn’t notice the aquamarine dress until her hand brushed across the smooth fabric of the material. Turning her attention down to it, she gasped softly, holding it up into the light. It reminded her of the color of the sea, and it had a shiny silver slip that covered it, giving the impression that there was light reflecting off the surface. It was made of a stretchy, gauzy material, with a ribbed body that would conform to fit her figure. The strap went around her neck, with a low-lying scoop in the back that would show off the tattoo on her shoulder.

The skirt was loose and flowing, going all the way down to her feet, like pouring water. Starla smiled, gently tracing her fingers over the beige, sandy detail work at the hem of the skirt. It was perfect!

“I want this one.” She proclaimed, showing it to Walter’s mom and looking at the price tag.

“Alright sweetheart, go try it on.” Mrs. Stevens laughed, before floating over to where the shoes were.

Starla quickly hurried to the dressing room, glad that the dress was on sale and under one hundred dollars. She needed to save her money for dinner too, and she only had one twenty. Pulling her jeans and Converse off, Starla quickly undressed, before gently tugging the dress up her body. Because of the low cut back, there was no zipper, and she would need a strapless bra too. The dress fit perfectly, outlining her curvy frame and showing off her cleavage. Spinning in a full circuit, she popped open the door to the dressing room and looked around.

“You look beautiful dear! And I found the perfect shoes too! They’re not high-heels, because I figured you don’t need much more height.” Walter’s mom grinned, handing her a pair of gold gladiator sandals.

“Wow, these are great! Did you find a tie or whatever for Walter?” Starla asked, before lifting up her skirts and heading into the dressing room to change again.

“I did! Now, let’s go check out so we can get you back home, so you can get back to work on that giant ship! It looks great so far honey, are you going to make little people on it?” Mrs. Stevens asked, lying the dress and shoes gently on the counter.

“I was thinking about it. I’ll use that quick dry clay I got for Christmas, that way I can oven bake them and have them set up. I just really hope nothing shatters in the kiln. Mrs. Kolinsky said she’d have it shipped over to one of the larger kilns downtown if I hurry and get it done. Which, I almost am, just a couple hours more work.” She shrugged, looking down at the dark brown half-moons under her nails.

“You’re such a good artist, you work so hard and fast, I can’t imagine it will. Now, we’re going to take this home and put it straight into my closet. That way, there won’t be any orange or white furry surprises when we take it out.” Starla laughed at the annoyed twitch of Walter’s mom, thinking happily about her cat, Fireheart.

“He only did it out of love.” She smiled, sitting in the passenger seat and buckling her seatbelt.

As soon as they got home, Mrs. Stevens was true to her word and took the dress bag straight into her bedroom. Starla leaned against the refrigerator door, gazing down and contemplating what she wanted to eat when she heard a soft ‘mrooowr.’ Looking down, she scooped up the orange and white tuxedo cat, snuggling him happily and kissing his nose. Fireheart purred happily, rubbing his head against her chin as Starla grabbed a diet Pepsi and closed the door with her hip.

“Hello baby, do you wanna come help me finish my ship?” She asked, scratching his ear and earning a happy meow in response.

Laughing, Starla climbed the stairs, leaving her door open as she resumed to her workbench. She was almost done, only needing to add a few more touch-ups and getting everything set up for when she attached the rigging and masts. Starla braided some twine together, to make it look like rope, and draped it over the masts. All she needed now was to get it back into the box and have it moved down to the pick-up. They’d have to take the truck to school tomorrow.

“Walter! Help!” She huffed, running to her friend’s room and knocking loudly.

“No time, gotta kill a noob.” He answered distractedly, eyes glued to the television screen as he said something into his headset.

Starla rolled her eyes in annoyance, walking over to her friend and snatching the headset off of his head.

“I’m sorry, Walter has a life and needs to go now. He’ll be back later, to continue wasting his life away on a meaningless game.” She snapped into the microphone, before hitting the pause button and lifting her friend bodily off of the bed.

“Ow! Come on man you can’t do that!” He protested, reaching back for the controller.

“Walter Stevens, I need your help carrying my boat into the bed of the pick-up, so that tomorrow we can deliver it to the art room so it can be shipped off to the kiln. Taking a few moments away from your precious Call of Duty obsession to help me won’t kill you.” She sighed, lifting up one side of the box.

“Mneh…” He pouted, before helping her.

The worst part was going back down the stairs, because they had to keep the box level, to make sure that the boat didn’t smash against one side. They carefully carried it out into the garage, Walter’s dad holding the doors open for them. Once the large box was gently lowered into the bed of the truck, Starla sighed in relief. She had been so worried about it, but it finally seemed as if everything would be all right. Walter of course was already gone—headed back to his room no doubt—and the black haired girl looked around in mild interest. Well, now that she was done working on the ship itself, maybe she should start on the crew.

“Nah, tired…” She yawned, crawling back up the stairs and falling down on her bed.

Rolling over, Starla pulled her dragon stuffed animal out from underneath her body, snuggling it close to heart as she blinked sleepily. Before too long, she was asleep.

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(a/n: Well, I would have uploaded sooner, but I was caught up reading an awesome story called Dumped! by XxSassyCynicxX. I recommend reading it if you find yourself in need of something new c:

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==> Jaime