Arvium [I.L.S. Beta Game #1]

11: Unveiling Ball, Part One

Inna hovered beside of Aella, her fingers working quickly to straighten the folds of the elaborate dress. It was the same dress she had worn to the breakfast with the Founding Family and the signing ceremony, but the final pieces had been added. A long train with shining metal pieces crafted to look like bird feathers ran four feet down from the bottom of the skirt. From her arms, a sheer cape hung over the metal pieces for protection, dangling from elaborately designed arm cuffs. Tiny jewels and delicate embroidery gave the entire outfit a shimmering effect.

Inna smiled and snapped her fingers. Twinkling lights flashed into existence, and Aella's gasped as she looked down. Thousands of tiny lights sparkled from the swirling lines and shapes of the embroidery. The designs seemed to come alive, some blinking on and off in the bird's eyes, the rays of the sun rippling across the fabric.

Inna stepped back and smiled as she looked over the outfit, then up to Aella. "What do you think?"

Aella's looked up at her and smiled, nodding her head. "It's beautiful."

"You will never want for fine clothes as long as you live in the Capitol," she said. The Founder loves finery and he usually has each garment created to be a work of art in itself. Richard is renowned the world over, and the Founder gives him plenty of chances to go overboard. You are fortunate he was in town for the Unveiling Balland and could make your outfit for you."

Aella's reached up and lightly touched her hair, a small frown crossing her face. The hair extensions had been wrapped and braided and twisted in so many ways she had lost count, creating a waterfall of hair gently spilling from her skull.

"You aren't required to do much more than making an entrance and mingle with the Court," Inna said, noticing her expression. She stepped back and looked down at her pad, then back up at Aella. "I will be waiting for you so I can show you to your quarters and introduce you to the schedules and protocols of the Complex after that. You will be in the Game the majority of your time, but there will be state functions that you will be required to go to. Usually, they are scheduled for days when there are festivals in the Game, so players that are required to do attend or want to attend have the leisure to do so. "

"You won't be going to the Ball?" Aella asked, taking Inna's hand and stepping down off of the small platform. Her heels clicked on the marble floor in the small changing room they were in.

Inna laughed. "Its not my style. I usually hang out in the kitchens or staff areas and we usually have more fun down there. Most of the people who will be at the Ball are Quadrant heads, officials, and diplomats. The only variety is with their Apprentices or families. But I'm not into the whole pump music genre."

"That explains why there are lights on my dress," Aella said.

Inna nodded. "It will be a show, to be sure. Come on, we need to get you into the arrival hall so the guards can clear the way and perform their safety checks."

***

Aella gasped softly as she entered the stage of the ballroom in near darkness, guided by a few dim recessed lights on the floor. Pump music blared in the massive space beyond, the dance floor filled with swaying and twisting figures dressed in glowing lights. The techno beat switched and shifted between different keys in accordance to several figures on the walls, the computer-generated dancers jumping and moving through acrobatic steps as they moved from the far side of the room a hundred feet away to the front of the stage, stopping a few times and interacting with the audience.

The dancers were made up of shifting lights in hundreds of colors, the lines of their limbs moving back and forth as they danced, creating a swirling effect. It was mirrored in the audience, who danced along to the tempo of the song, their clothes illuminated in biolum ink or small lights. A few near the stage had swirling tattoos on their skin, made from the biolum ink, and they glowed in the darkness as they danced.