What She Did

Chapter Eight

The ballroom was pleasantly cool as Sheila entered it. All eyes were staring at her. Apparently, she was the only one wearing a mask.

So, her first task was to get the attention of the Crown Prince.  Foremost, she must meet him, and by a "coincidence".

That was too easy for a Princess to guess. She just had to find an isolated place, where the prince would most likely find refuge in from all the people eager to talk to him. After all, they were holding this ball for him to choose the future Queen, also known as his wife. She scanned the ballroom for any doors that seemed abstruse. 

There it was. It seemed to be calling out to her, and she kind of knew it was the room she had to go to.

She tried to seem as nondescript, as inconspicuous as possible as she headed towards the door, fervently hoping that she would not attract the scrutiny of anyone. Her heart beat faster than usual. Once she was under the shadows, she heaved a little sigh of relief. 

The door was locked.

Even better. She could just deny it and make the prince more confused.

Extracting one of the pins on her head, she picked the lock with ease. Learning lock picking as a child to escape kidnapping certainly was useful, well, now.

Once she entered the room, she locked the door behind her and surveyed her surroundings for a place that the prince would see her only if he took a couple of steps in. It was faintly familiar. Finding a spot by a window, she sat down.

He would ask her what she was doing here, and she would answer that she didn't want to attend the ball in the first place. That would more or less create a bond in which they had a similarity, in which she found his place of refuge and their dislike for perhaps crowded places. She would also pretend that she didn't know he was the crown prince, so that it wouldn't seem fake.

Likely enough, he would ask for the reason she wore a mask. And she would say that she was very ugly. Then he would be touched by what she said, and feel that she would be more of a normal person. 

How did she think up the script? Well, she didn't really know herself.. 

Then-

She noticed a picture on a cupboard. Getting off the couch, she tip-toed and took it down. Dust rubbed off onto her hand. It was a painting of a girl with ash blond hair, probably done by a professional artist. It looked like herself, but it couldn't be, as she was endowed with dark hair. Her curiosity was captured.

Her glance fell onto a cupboard and she opened it, hoping to get any leads about the girl in the picture. 

Inside the drawer was a box, and inside the box were old, yellowing letters. Sheila got a feeling of déjà vu. The last time she read other people's letters, had more or less caused her to be pushed off a building, and she definitely didn't like it. 

The handwriting on the fonts was familiar. Like hers. But they were scribbled and messy, like a child's.

Her eyes opened wide as she remembered something.

As a child, her father, King Xeno, dyed Coleka and her hair ash blond, same but darker than the other two children with light, ash blond hair. He warned them not to play with the Chryso, and if they were asked who they were, they would always have to answer as Sadie Vince.

She never obeyed what King Xeno said. To purposely refute him, she decided to track down any of the Chryso in the palace grounds. She had entered this dark room, with this dark haired guy crouching in a couch. 

They hit it off immensely well. They played together everyday, even though each other was told not to do so.

Until what they called the Splitting, and they never met each other again. They exchanged stupid letters with everyone that made no sense through pigeon mail, until her King Xeno found out and stopped all the letters. He didn't stop the mail to the Vince though.

Sheila put all the letters back into her box, her fingers shaking as she closed the drawer and put the painting back into its original position.

Then the doorknob turned.

"How familiar is this, seriously." Sheila rolled her eyes, springing back to the couch. She knew what to do. Even though if that Crown Prince was her friend, she wasn't going to let him get in the way of her revenge. 

A key was inserted in, before the doorknob turned fully. 

He entered, locking the door behind him. Taking a few steps, he froze midway as he saw Sheila sitting on the couch, moonlight reflecting of her mask and face.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" He queried.

"The door was open and I entered, but when closed the door it locked me in." Sheila responded in her mellow voice. 

"Shucks." Lukas thought. "Must have forgotten to close the door after I locked it."

"I hate crowded places," Sheila divulged, her voice natural with a ring of finality. "I didn't want to come here in the first place for this prince's party." She put scorning emphasis on "prince".

Upon hearing her first sentence, Lukas' face seemed to be a little confused, but her second seemed to have touched a nerve and wiped it off.

"Can you take off your mask? Who the heck wears a mask to a ball?" Lukas demanded.

Sheila gave herself time to bring the tension to an up by remaining silent.

Then she slid it down down down as she spoke in a slightly shaking voice. "I'm ugly." 

Sheila put on a sad face, fighting the growing desire to laugh.

But it seemed to affect Lukas as his face clouded. 

Did she say that to him before?

Sheila started to feel bad. 

"Hey, is it that bad for a girl to say that she's ugly?" she remarked before giving him a hug like it was the most ever natural thing to do.

Sh-,!!

He was at the couch, face contorted and close to tears. 

She approached him; the earlier triumphant look wiped off. Then she hugged him. "Things are going to turn out right."

People always smiled at least a little if she hugged them and said what she just said. She'd seen many actors to the castle say that before and sure it worked so why not?

He smiled. 

Shae always liked it when she made people smile. Especially if they looked sad or something.

Sheila backed away. His expression was frozen and staring. 

"Oh no."

"Are you Sadie?" 

He said.