Into the Depths

Chapter 27

Ben smiled as he looked at the picture of his grandmother's engagement ring that he'd taken back when he had visited his grandfather. Part of him wished he'd taken his grandfather's offer but...the ring just wasn't Mal.

I like the gold band but the gem...Mal's not really a diamond type of girl, Ben thought as he pulled his laptop to him. She's purple all the way. So the gem needs to be purple.

He paused just as he was about to open up a new tab on his internet browser. Was he really ready to do this? Design Mal's engagement ring?

I love her...why am I even questioning this?

Because you're only seventeen!

Like Granddad said, mom was seventeen when she made the choice to trade herself for Granddad in terms of who would be dad's prisoner. Besides, I'm just designing a ring. It's not like I'm asking the question right now.

...good point.

Why thank you self. I tend to have those.

Ben snorted as he pulled up the search bar of his internet browser. He wanted to see what type of gems were purple. He knew that there were fancy sapphires like Doug mentioned one time when Ben was designing Mal's necklace but those were extremely rare.

He didn't want there to be too much time in between designing the ring and actually having the ring to give to Mal.

Amethyst would be a good choice, he thought as he searched through the images of different purple gems. He knew what he wanted the band to look like. As he said, he liked the look of the gold band but he wanted to see if he could make it look like dragon wings were coming off the side.

Like how his grandmother's engagement ring looked like vines were coming around the band, Ben wanted Mal's ring to look like dragon wings were surrounding the band. After all, dragons were Mal's motif. Besides, what wasn't to love about dragons? They truly were amazing creatures.

"Hey Ben," Evie's voice broke through his thoughts and Ben couldn't help but chuckle as he saw the blue haired girl leaning in through the doorframe.

"I thought I told you you don't have to knock?" Ben asked as he closed his laptop.

"You said that was for your office," Evie said. "This is your room. There's a difference Ben."

Ben tilted his head in thought but then had to nod; Evie had a point.

"Is everything okay?" Ben asked. It was rare for Evie to stop by his room—actually it was rare for anyone other than Emir and Akiho to stop by his room. Mal hadn't even stopped by his room, though to be fair Ben hadn't stopped by her room.

Evie smiled as she looked at him, seemingly studying him for a minute. "Ben...do you own anything other than suits?"

"Sweats from Tourney," Ben said immediately.

"Okay but what about more casual everyday clothing?" Evie asked. "You can't wear sweats out and about unless it's winter and even then you'd get some weird looks."

Ben sighed. "Evie, what's this about? I've always worn suits since I've known you. No one's had an issue before."

"No one's voiced an issue to you," Evie corrected. "Ben, you're seventeen and you look like you're thirty if I'm being conservative. Come on."

"Wait, where are we going?"

"Well you can't get new clothes by just standing in your bedroom," Evie told him. "Please Ben? Mal asked me to do this and I agree. A few casual choices to your wardrobe can't hurt."