dusk until dawn (the selection)

princess ophelia

It was still early in the morning when Elise dropped Dawn off back home. And she gave her a hug.

"I promise Lisander is not as tough as he may seem." Elise assured Dawn, "You're one of us, now. I'll pick you up every night after your lessons." then she pulled back from the hug, and asked the jacket Dawn was wearing back.

Dawn had been confused of what Elise had meant with those "lessons" she spoke of, but couldn't care less that moment. All she could think of was how fast she could get back into bed and sleep.

It was still quiet out in the streets when Dawn snuck back into her bedroom and jumped under her blankets for what she thought would be another few hours of sleep.

But those few hours turned into maybe one. One hour at most.

Dawn regrettably knew who was at the door when there sounded three polite knocks through the apartment.

Dawn sat straight up in her bed at an instant and looked over to Ami's little bed. He didn't seem to have noticed. Dawn pretended she hadn't, either.

After a moment or two, another three knocks on the front door clank through the house. these three were louder.

Ami sat up in his bed, "Dawn?" he asked as he rubbed his eyes, "Do we have to get up already?"

Dawn shook her head and tried to listen. She heard her mother shuffling through the living room to open the door while mumbling something under her breath about it being illegal to bother her at an hour like this.

As quiet as possible, Dawn moved towards the door of her and Ami's room and tried to look into the living room.

Mother opened the door wearing her bathrobe and a nightgown. She was barefoot. When she opened the door, she loudly said, "WHAT?" right in to the faces of three royal servants. When she realised who she was talking to, it was too late.

The servant at the front wiped his face off. Mother had accidentally spat on him in her moment of anger.

"Is this the house of Feye?" asked the servant politely, but there was a slightly hostile undertone in his voice. Mother grimaced.

As soon as the servants got their hands on Dawn, things started getting more serious. Billie and Isla had stopped by to see what was going on, and admire whatever happened to Dawn.

She was being fitted for future dresses with one of the servants, had to practice etiquette with another and even got a pair of heels she had to practice walking with. They assumed that because Dawn was a Six, she could barely do anything on her own.

—Which was kind of true. She had no clothes her size, had no idea how to properly eat using fork and knife, couldn't dance in heels if her life depended on it and wouldn't know how to address the prince or the queen even if she knew all the words in the world.

At the end of the day, Dawn was exhausted.

"Not quite what you tought it would be?" snapped one of the servants at her when she sat down on the couch to take off the heels he had forced her to wear. The servant obviously disapproved of Dawn.

Dawn looked up at him darkly. She didn't even know his name. All he had done all day was command her around.

"Well." said the servant when she didn't answer. "We have packed up for today. We'll be back" —he clapped his hands once when he said this— "tomorrow at seven, so don't stay up too late. And, tomorrow, an interviewer for illea weekly will come. So again, get some sleep. Maybe a beauty sleep will fix...some of...this."

The only female servant giggled, but Dawn had missed the joke. She didn't speak and didn't say goodbye when the three left her apartment.

Mother was home with Ami, they had been watching all day. Or rather, Mother was watching, Ami napped, and played with a few old toy cars whenever he felt like it.