Demitytes Bride

A traitorous Uncle.

"Wake up Princess! Wake up!"

Kashara woke to someone gently shaking her awake. She rubbed her eyes blearily, and sat up, and was stunned by what she saw.

Unless she was dreaming, her room had just turned into a marketplace. There were a dozen or so maids scuttling here and there with huge bundles of what seemed to be cloth materials, pushing racks of dresses, while some carried suspicious looking bags brimming with god knows what inside.

She stumbled out of the bed, and asked the nearest maid, "What..What's going on?" The maid turned to her, looking very frazzled, carrying an armful of an atrocity she had come to learn was lipstick. The maid replied hurriedly, " Oh, Princess, thank goodness you're awake! Marizbeth, Isanta, is the bathing room ready for her highness?"

Wow...thank you. That totally unanswered my question. Kashara thought annoyed as two maids ran forward and ushered her to the bathroom. After she submitted to a thorough washing, she was half convinced she must have lost half a kilogram of skin from all that scrubbing, she was permitted to put on underclothing and stand in front of a mirror as three seamstresses slipped on huge dresses and stuck pins in to make them not look like she could hide a whole elephant inside her dress.

Someone was holding a plate of delicious breakfast rolls and pastries, and Kashara bemusedly ate a few before, it was snatched away by a frustrated maid who was trying to apply lipstick.

She belatedly recalled Fallon had said her self defence classes were to start today morning. Maybe, this was some kind of test? She wondered if she was supposed to fight them all off or something. Well, she certainly felt like eleven kilogram ballgown was threatening to suffocate her. Though she highly doubted her coming out of this alive if she harmed a stitch on the dress, if the glares of the seamstresses were any indication, when she tried to adjust a ruffle.

Perhaps, this was a tactic of Fallon to put her at a disadvantage during the fight. I knew he was a coward! Kashara thought. Yet her ideas felt suspiciously off the mark, even to her.

Finally the seamstresses were done adjusting her dress and she looked down. She was wearing this flowing, glittery gown that oscillated between shades of champagne and moonlit. She had always thought if a dress ever made her speechless, it would be because it had been stuffed down her mouth. Never because she was actually impressed by it.

She realised somehow her makeup and her hair was also done, and considered maybe she wasn't actually going for a training session. She frowned thoughtfully at the mirror when a particularly irritating voice appeared at her shoulder.

"Well, If my reflection looked like that, I certainly wouldn't be frowning at her." Kashara looked up and found the ever pestilent, ever charming Fallon Eagus was standing behind her, his eyes running up and down her.

"What's happening?" She asked him abruptly.

"Oh, it's a ball. Very short notice." He remarked airily.

"A...a ball?" Kashara asked hesitantly. She tried in vain to not remember the last ball she attended. She could still remember, Lady Feola, giving her an apologetic smile for her abomination of a mother, her eyes crinkling up adorably. She was nearly the same age as her. She wondered, if that was her first ball, for she had been very young.

"It's not going to blow up. I promise." Fallon said slowly, Kashara's eyes snapped back to him.

"Well, forgive me if I don't take your word for it." She snapped at him.

"This is not up for debate, Princess. Get moving." Fallon grabbed her elbow and physically dragged her out.

She tried struggling out of his grasp, but he held too firmly, and she could feel some kind of floating jinx was keeping her feet from touching the ground at all.