The Annual Greenhaven Ball and the Shenanigans Surrounding It

Chapter 3

"Three jacks." Abeke said decisively as she placed the cards onto the stack.

"Bullshit!" Conor, who was in possession of two jacks, shouted with glee.

"Dammit..." Abeke muttered, picking up what was nearly an entire deck of cards.

Not willing to make the same mistake as her, Rollan played it safe. "One queen."

Meilin was just about to place her cards down when Tarik quietly opened the into the room.

"All of you might want to come outside." A small smile appeared on his face.

"Well that's not suspicious at all." Rollan muttered, warily watching Tarik as he left.

They silently crept out of Meilin's room (it was always clean) and down the hall, making sure that they didn't wake any sleeping Greencloaks. The chirping of crickets rose behind them as they stepped into the night. When they rounded into the courtyard, they spotted many familiar faces wearily sitting around the statue of Tembo, the first Greencloak.

"What on earth are you guys doing here?!" Meilin cried, a shocked grin on her face.

They were all as surprised as Meilin to see that everyone they invited to the ball had arrived a whole week early. They all came together into a giant, laughing group hug.

"How did you all get here at the same time anyway?" Abeke wondered.

"Well... we'd be lying if we said it wasn't planned..." Xanthe winked at them, clearly proud of their scheme.

As they all separated broke into smaller conversations, Conor noticed Worthy and couldn't help running over to him and wrapping him in a tight hug.

"Woah!" Worthy said, startled by the sudden ambush before hugging him back.

"It's been a while huh?" Conor murmured sheepishly. As he stepped back, he finally had an opportunity to get a good look at Worthy. He tried not to make too much of a show of looking him up and down. As much as he tried to suppress the thought from his mind, all he could think was "Damn" as he saw just how much he had changed. He hated to admit it, but Worthy had gotten pretty hot since the last time they'd seen eachother.

"Your hair's gotten long." Worthy smirked as he playfully tugged on a strand of Conor's hair.

And he was right. Conor's hair was already nearing shoulder length. He blushed profusely and pouted at him. "Well I see you haven't gotten any taller!"

"Woah! That was a low blow..."

"That was the point!"

While Conor was secretly ecstatic to see Worthy again, he couldn't help but notice that Abeke was looking rather crestfallen. As he surveyed all of the people there, he realized that King was nowhere to be found.

"Hey Worthy, how's King doing by the way?" Conor was sure that as a fellow Redcloak he would know of King's whereabouts.

"What? Why would you of all people care?" Worthy was bewildered. It seemed that Conor's disdain for King was no secret.

"Does it matter? Just tell me!"

"Fiiiiiiiiine." Worthy rolled his eyes. "King's been on some sort of mission in Stetriol for the past month. I don't know jack shit about what it is or when he's getting back. He's been really secretive about it."