"Ohh...I just don't know..." Rose sighed, looking at her reflection in her hallway mirror. She had picked out her dress almost two years ago and it had hidden in the back of her closet as she had quietly worked up the nerve to participate in the beauty contest. It was made of blue satin and hung from her shoulders in thin straps, trailing down into a long gossamer skirt. "I'm too old." she complained with a sigh, turning her back to the mirror and looking over her shoulder in an attempt to see what it looked like from behind. "I can't compete with all those younger unis." she lamented.
"Rose, are you going somewhere with this?" Dr. Death asked in exasperation from where he sat on the edge of the couch in the living room. "You told me you needed me to come over because you needed my help...and so far all you've done is make me sit here while you whine and stare at yourself in that mirror."
"I'm sorry..." RoseMadder whimpered, her ears drooping. "I'm just nervous. I don't know what possessed me to fill out that application to be in the pageant in the first place this week."
"Do you need my help or not?" the techo asked, his tail beginning to lash impatiently against the back of the couch. "Because I've got things to do at home and this is my only day off."
"Well its MY only day off too." she argued, straightening her skirt a little. "You just want to check your mail and see if that horrid Zafara Girls calander you ordered came yet or not." Dr. Death flushed a bit in embarrassment.
"No I don't." he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. Actually, he did, but that was only one of the reasons he was interested in going home. For one, he had planned on watching the Deckball Finals to see if he had won the five hundred neopoint bet he had made with Hubert on the victor and for another, Rose's house made him uneasy. The air held a low aroma of potpourri and dried flowers that had begun to give him a headache and, lord, it was so PINK! He had never seen so much pink in one place in his life.
Beside him on the couch, an angel chia plushie grinned stupidly up at him through its permanently-stitched smile and nearby had carelessly been tossed a valentines bruce plushie that she had gotten as a gift from the employment agency on her birthday. Feh...he needed to get out of here. Just sitting here made him feel like his teeth were rotting from all of the sweetness and light.
"Fine, go then." Rose huffed. The doctor cocked a brow.
"Are you sure?" he asked, not expecting her to have given up that easily.
"Yes, go on." she said, making a dismissive motion at him with her hoof. "I should have known better than to ask you for help anyway."
"Well for crying out loud, Rose, how often do you think I go out and buy frillies?? If you think the dress makes your rump look big, then it probably isn't the dress's fault! Don't ask me!" Dr. Death snapped in exasperation.
"You're horrible!" Rose groaned, wrapping her arms protectively around herself. He snorted in annoyed contempt, getting up from the couch and leaving. She flinched as he punctuated his exit with a slam of the front door. What a grouch....even away from work he didn't lighten his attitude. She supposed it wasn't really his fault, given all he had to put up with from the hordes of abandoners they got daily, but she really wished he'd learn to control his temper.
She gave a final look at her equine features in the mirror before sighing and slinking back into her bedroom to wriggle out of the dress and put it back on its hanger. What was she doing? Why did she ever think she stood a chance? Oh well....she supposed it would take learning the hard way to satisfy her curiousity. She sat on the edge of the bed after she had put the dress away, sighing and staring off into space.
The contest was three days from now which left her with very little time to prepare and even less time to notify people that she would be participating. It dawned on her that, with no one to vote for her, she would be a laughingstock in the final ballots. She began to run through a mental checklist of people she could weasel a vote out of....there was Dr. Death, of course, if she could get him off of his tail and out to the ballots in time...and Hubert would likely help if she caught him before his lunchtime customers had all approached and begged him to vote for their pets. But who else? Nobody, as far as she could tell.
Rose sighed and leaned back on the mattress, sprawling out and staring at the pastel pink ceiling. What a huge mistake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The day of the contest drew near and all participating contestants had been phoned that morning to come in and fill out the necessary paperwork in addition to their participation form. RoseMadder stood patiently in line, feeling like an utter outcast as she cast a nervous look around at all of the uni foals surrounding her. She had been right, she was far too old to participate in things like this. The babies had their cuteness and innocense on their side...not to mention owners that likely had many friends who would gladly vote for them.
"I can't believe I took two hours of my sick time for this..." she thought to herself, looking worriedly over her shoulder as an older faerie uni eagerly fluttered her opalescent wings as she chittered eagerly to her friend about how she had come in second in species last time but was hoping now for first place. In front of her, an achingly adorable pair of striped twins both quietly ate the lollipops their owner had given them. She suddenly felt very old and very plain.
"Next?" the desk manager called out. The twins eagerly galloped forward and peeked over the edge of the table at the kindly-looking green usul behind it.
"Well aren't you two precious??" he grinned at them. "Is your mommy around?"
"Zat da gaming centew." one of them said around her lollipop....translated, "she's at the gaming center".
"Alright, well, I'll need you two to fill these out as completely as you can and then probably bring her back later to enter in your legal information." Saying so, the usul pushed a small stack of papers and a pen across the counter at the twins who abruptly began to fight over them and who would get to sign what. The usul smiled indulgently at them as they gradually moved out of the way. "Next?" he asked, looking squarely at Rose. The red uni swallowed hard.
"I...umm..." she faltered.
"Come on up, I don't bite." the usul smiled at her, beckoning her closer. Feeling suddenly sick, Rose timidly approached the desk. "Well, its nice to see an older girl take enough pride in herself to enter our contest." the usul smiled. Rose felt her heart sink. Old....she was probably old enough to be most of the contestants' mother.
"I think I'm going to have to forfeit." she told him quietly.
"Nonsense!" the desk manager chuckled. "Its just jitters, my girl." She watched, fidgeting as he put together a packet of forms for her and handed her a pen from the cup of them on the desktop. "Just get these filled out and bring them back when you're done." Rose hesitated only a moment before grudgingly accepting the forms into her grasp and sidling out of the way so that the people behind her could get their necessary information as well.
She selected a tree, not far off, to sit beneath and fill out her paperwork, but try as she might, every time she touched the pen to the paper, all of her insecurities would flare, preventing her from putting anything down. At length, she simply gave up, folding the forms and stealing quietly away from the gossiping throng of potential contestants. They were all so much prettier than she was. Painted, frilled up, youthful....and what was she? A dull red uni who had few charms and even fewer friends.
Her mood, chipper that morning, dulled into a deep gloom as she retreated back to the adoption center. Dr. Death, immersed in paperwork for the incoming adoptees he had recieved in her absense, cast a disinterested look at her as she trudged in through the front door.
"Get everything in order for your contest, Goldilocks?" he inquired with non-chalant sarcasm, setting aside a completed adoption profile and going to the next. Rose sniffled miserably in reply, quietly taking her seat beside him and opening one of the desk drawers, attempting to slip the beauty contest papers inside unnoticed. Unfortunately, her techo co-worker chose that moment to turn his head. "What's that?" he asked.
"Nothing." she said defensively. "Just....just some papers. That's all."
"You chickened out." he groaned, shaking his head. "I can't believe you left me here to deal with the hordes of abandon-happy morons by myself for two hours just to have you duck out at the last minute."
"Well, you would have been intimidated too if you saw what I was up against!" she shot back, hurt in her voice.
"That's why I don't bother with that dung." he told her. "I've got better things to waste money on than paint brushes and accessories."
"Like this??" Rose growled, yanking open a desk drawer on his side and holding up a glossy photograph of Mianna Zephyr, a faerie zafara actress who had starred recently in the neopian blockbuster, "On Whispered Wings". Ms. Zephyr was posed on a beach and wearing an emerald-colored bathing suit.
"Give me that!!" he snapped waspishly, grabbing the photo out of her hoof and stuffing it back into the drawer.
"Hmph...serves you right for bringing it to work." she told him, sticking out her tongue at him. Getting into a spitting contest with the doc usually put her in better spirits, but it hadn't done much of anything for her mood today as she continued to sulk.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Dr. Death asked her after he had closed the drawer. "You get up on the stage and prance around with all of the other little egotists and then the one who's weight best matches her IQ gets the trophy. Its not like they're going to single you out and laugh at you for losing."
"You make it sound so appealing." the uni grumped, putting her head down on the desk with a defeated sigh. "There's nothing special about me anyway."
"If you're hoping that this is where I'll give you a lecture about all of us being special in our own way, I'm afraid you're whinnying up the wrong tree." the doctor told her, blowing a strand of silver hair out of his eyes and wishing he hadn't left his comb back at the house on his nightstand.
"Thanks a lot." Rose told him, pushing away from the desk and storming across the pound gloomily in the direction of the washroom. Dr. Death watched her go dispassionately, listening as the door clicked closed and shrugged. It really wasn't his concern whether she was happy or not. Nobody ever cared if *he* was in good spirits so he never really did other people the same courteousy. In fact, most of the time, it seemed like the people abandoning had done it simply to spite him. And then there were the rumors that had circulated about his mistreatment of the pets in the pound, saying he starved them or took away their toys.
At first he had tried to defend himself against the false accusations, but had given up after a time and let people think what they wanted. Because of it, a lot of activists had harrassed him over the years about the "unethical" way he treated the incoming adoptees...and most had retreated back into the woodwork after being given a tour of the pound to be shown that, indeed, the pets were fed and watered and that many of them were still cuddling their plushies and petpets. It made him sick, really, the way some people jumped to conclusions.
He waited another few minutes before leaning over and sliding open the drawer Rose had stuffed the papers into, retrieving them and looking them over. While they were long-winded, they didn't look terribly complicated. He cast a look over his shoulder at the closed bathroom door before getting up from his chair and retreating into the pound's back office a moment. When he returned, he carried with him xeroxed copies of the forms he had taken out of the desk and quietly replaced the originals back where he had found them.
As he folded the copies, tucking them into the inner pocket of his labcoat, Rose emerged from the washroom, her face flushed and eyes red from crying. He watched as she returned to her seat, tearing open the drawer she had put the forms in and grabbing them out, crumpling them between her hooves and throwing the ruined papers into the wastebasket.
"And I don't want to hear another word about this stupid contest." she told him sharply, clearing her throat and attempting to gain her composure back.
"If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence you tried." Dr. Death told her. "Its evident SOMEONE lives by that policy."
"Shut up." she grumbled. He obediently closed his mouth and didn't say anything else. "I've wanted to be in the contest since I was a little foal." she told him. "And when I took the job here I never had time to get all prettied up and enter....and now its too late." She felt her eyes tear up again and angrily brushed at them with her wrist.
"Alright." he shrugged. "So leave the stage to the delicate faeries and rainbow mannequins who have owners that are willing to blow thousands of neopoints on a pretty face. You can't expect to compete with a bunch of pampered brats when you work for a living."
"Its not fair." she sighed. "Why is the only ones who win are the ones that get gussied up in the most impressive outfits?"
"Rose, its called the Beauty Contest for a reason. Its not called the 'Its Whats On The Inside That Counts' contest. Its MEANT to be petty. And I don't care how many movies you've seen, the judge is NOT going to declare you the winner if you tromp out on stage in plain clothes and inform everybody of all the good you've done for society."
"I know that." she said icily. "And you can stop rubbing it in anytime now."
"Just telling it like it is." he shrugged. "If you're not painted and you don't have a big guild to vote for you, you don't stand a snowball's chance in Tyrannia of placing. Its all a big popularity contest."
"For never entering, you sure know about the contest." Rose told him.
"I never enter, that's not to say I never GO." he retorted. Rose opened her mouth to argue it further with him when the door swung open and a timid-looking blonde girl trailed by two red kacheeks approached the desk.
"Scuse me?" she asked sweetly. "But have you gotten any kacheeks in lately? These two want a little sister..." She gestured to her other two pets that peered over the top of the desk, looking nervously at Dr. Death out of the corner of their eyes. Rose fixed her expression immediately, forcing a smile.
"I'm sure we have exactly what you're looking for." she told the small family, getting up out of her seat and escorting them to the back room where the kennels were kept. When he was sure that they were gone, Dr. Death pulled the copied forms out of his pocket and began to fill them out in Rose's name.
"You did NOT leave me to run this place by myself for two hours just to weasel out of this, Rose..." he said quietly, irritated. It was not that he was offering her encouragement but moreso that he considered it a form of revenge. All of the poking and fun-making she had done to him in her time of employment....all of the non-chalantly trotting in a half-hour late to work...she was about to learn that paybacks weren't very much fun and DID come when you least suspected them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, Rose awoke to the sound of birds twittering their dischordant melody in the trees outside and sunlight dappling her bedsheets. It occurred to her that this was the day of the contest and it made her pull the sheets over her head and cringe as she remembered that she had bowed out the night before. Maybe she would just stay there for the rest of the day...wait until it all went away. Or, she supposed she could be big about it and maybe stop by that evening to watch the judging to see who had won.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the jangling ring of her telephone on her bedside table. For a moment, she simply stared at it, not wanting to pick it up as she was almost positive it would be Dr. Death on the other end complaining that he was swamped with adopters and abandoners and demanding that she come in if she wasn't going to participate in the contest and had taken a day off for nothing.
Despite this, however, she found herself reaching for the phone, lifting the reciever off of its cradle on the tail of the fifth ring. "Hullo?" she asked sleepily.
"Oh there you are! I was starting to think you were in the tub!" a cheery female voice chuckled on the other end. "Am I speaking to Ms. RoseMadder?"
"Whatever it is you're selling, I don't want any." the uni said gloomily.
"Waitwaitwait, don't hang up!" the voice implored. "I'm not a solicitor. This is just a courteousy call to remind you to be at the Bazaar Center at six tonight."
"Tonight...? What for?" Rose asked, confused.
"The contest, of course!" the woman on the other end of the line told her. "This is why we needed to enstate a calling tree. Some of our contestants, no offense, are more fluff than brain, and end up completely missing the contest if no one reminds them."
"I know when the contest is." Rose replied defensively. "But I didn't enter."
"No? But I'm looking at your application right here." Rose cringed a little at the faint rustle of papers on the other end of the phone.
"Then there must be a mistake." she said decisively. "Because I promise I didn't send in any forms."
"Nope, no mistake. Honestly, its funny how some neopets can fill out a five page consent form and then not remember it the next day." she chuckled. Rose felt, at that moment, she could have strangled the woman on the other line. "We'll see you at six, Rose." and saying so, the woman hung up. For a long moment, Rose simply stared at the phone as though it had come to life in her hand before hanging it up.
She suddenly felt sick as her mind raced. She knew she didn't fill out the forms...in fact, she remembered throwing them away. And the only person who had seen her do it was---
"Doc..." she said aloud, venom in her voice. For whatever reason he had dreamed up in that twisted lizard head of his, HE had done this. It was the only reasonable explanation. Without bothering to straighten her mane or give any thought whatsoever to her appearance (a rarity in itself among unis), Rose stormed out of her bedroom and out the front door. One of her neighbors, an elderly striped tonu, looked up from his gardening and had been about to wish her a good morning until he saw the look of absolute murder in her eyes as she stormed past.
Having never seen RoseMadder in such a state before, he stood by quietly until she had passed before looking quizzically in the direction she had gone, wondering what could possibly have gotten her tail in such a horrible knot. Better to mind his own business, he supposed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Death sifted through the mail, tossing the assorted junk flyers from people who were advertising their shops into the trash. Amid them he found the monthly electric bill and the pound's bank interest statement which he tossed onto the break room counter disinterestedly.
"Boring..." he sighed, flipping through the rest of the envelopes in the crook of his arm. He paused momentarily to read a scribbled postcard that had been sent from one of the pound's "admirers" that had been written in red crayon and on the back held the lovely sentiment "RELESE ALL ANIMULS OR I KILL U!!!!" He pondered saving it for Rose to see so she could get a laugh out of it as well, but decided against it and threw it in the trash along with the junk mail. They recieved at least one letter like that a week from activists scattered throughout Neopia who didn't have the courage to come talk to them face-to-face and hid beyond anonymous threats.
As he tossed away a coupon book, lamenting the fact his zafara calander still hadn't come, he heard footsteps behind him.
"I'm on break." he said disinterestedly, thinking it was one of the pound customers who had grown impatient waiting for him up front and had come looking for him. "I'll be back up there in about five minutes."
"You...." Recognizing the voice, he turned to see a rather disheveled and angry Rose standing in the doorway.
"What're you doing here?" he asked, tossing the rest of the mail on the counter. "Thought you took the day off for the contest." She crossed the break room, stopping when she stood straight across from the yellow techo, glaring icily at him.
"I didn't *enter* the contest." she said through gritted teeth, nearly touching noses with him. "Apparently someone entered FOR me." For a long moment neither said anything and dueled silently with their eyes....her blue ones piercingly accusing and his yellow ones mellow and narrowed.
"Maybe someone did. Maybe that someone got sick of watching you flapping around like a headless peadackle and wanted you to get on with it." he replied quietly.
"How dare you!" she cried, seizing the lapels of his labcoat and yanking him forward. "Do you have any idea how embarrassed I am now? If I show up, I get to make a fool of myself on the stage in front of half of Neopia, and if I DON'T show up, everyone will have to listen to them calling my name over the loudspeaker all night looking for me and I'll have to live down their teasing that I wussed out tomorrow!!"
"So?" he asked, still uncommonly calm. Before she could stop herself, she shoved him. The doctor hadn't been expecting it, stumbling backwards and colliding hard with the refridgerator against the wall with an audible "Whuff!" as the air left his lungs.
"SO??" she shrieked. "I'm going to be a laughingstock!!"
"Oh please, Rose, you honestly think people don't have better things to talk about besides you?" he asked in irritation, wincing as he rubbed at a forming bruise on his lower back where he had collided with the fridge doorhandle. "You're worse than those attention hogs that are going to be on the stage tonight if you think people's worlds are going to center around whether or not you participate!"
"No I'm not!" she complained, her lip beginning to quiver. "I just....." she sniffled, trembling a little as the first of her tears began to spill down her cheeks. "I don't...wanna....be laughed aaaaatttt...." she broke down, sobbing loudly. The techo watched his coworker cry dispassionately for a moment before rolling his eyes and sighing, approaching her.
"So what if they laugh?" he asked. "Think about who you're trying to impress. A crowd of squealing kids and their owners."
"I'm not going to go." she whimpered, her ears flattened in humiliation at both her outburst and the fact that she was expected to make an appearance tonight. "If I just lay low, this will all blow over someday..." she choked back a sniffle as she said this. Dr. Death was silent for a long moment, and then, in a rare show of affection, placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Rose, honestly, what's the worst you think is going to happen?" he asked her. "You said you've been wanting to do this all your life and if you wait much longer, you're going to end up working up the nerve to try again when you're somebody's grandma and then people are REALLY going to laugh at you."
"S-So you submitted the forms to help me live out my dream?" she asked, looking up at him in astonishment.
"No, I did it to get back at you for making me run this dump by myself just to have you come running back here with your tail tucked between your legs and whining that the whole world's against you." he said matter-of-factly. "AND that you made me spend an hour of my day off sitting on your couch watching you preen your hair." She scowled, turning roughly away from him.
"I can't believe you'd put me in this kind of situation." she whimpered. "I've worked with you for almost five years and this is how much you respect me??"
"Hey hey, woah..." Dr. Death interrupted her tirade. "You wanna pull the respect card, kiddo? Let's talk about the time you dumped habanero sauce in my coffee....or how about when you got it into your brain to xerox the daily reports on flash paper and "accidentally" let a scorchio sneeze on them? Or then there was the time---"
"You made your point." the uni grumped and then sighed, turning and walking out of the break room.
"Where are you going?" he asked her.
"Home." she replied flatly. "I'm going to make myself some cocoa, take a long bubble bath, and forget today ever happened."
"Whatever floats your boat." he shrugged. "Being laughed at isn't the end of the world, for the record. With a name and reputation like I have, I get laughed at every blasted day and you don't see me sulking and wailing."
"Whatever, doc...." she sighed, hanging her head as she left. For a brief moment, he wondered if he should follow after her. No...he was going to let her sweat this one out on her own and if she wanted to shrivel up and die because a couple people might talk about her behind her back, that was her problem.
"Hey! Can I get some help up here??" an obnoxious voice yelled from up front. Dr. Death sighed.
"Coming!" he called back, gathering up his scattered wits and taking a deep cleansing breath before venturing up front to deal with the customer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She still didn't know what had possessed her....or why she hadn't stuck to her guns about staying home. At first, she had done precisely what she had told Dr. Death she was going to do....she had indulged herself in a large mug of cocoa with raspberry marshmallows melted in it and then had taken a long relaxing bubble bath. Afterward, however, instead of returning to her room to sulk the evening away, she had found herself spending nearly an hour in front of the mirror, meticulously brushing and styling her mane and tail. Afterward, she had rouged her cheeks and applied a bit of lip gloss....and now, here she was.
Rose looked herself over in the mirror as she had a few days ago, still just as uncertain. She wore her dress again, this time with an opal necklace and a pair of small golden earrings in the shape of moons that winked faintly. Her mane hung in shining curls over her shoulders and down her back and her tail had been brushed perfectly straight and tied with a bow that was the same color as her dress.
She had given no one any warning, she had no one that would vote for her, and felt she stood no chance against her competition, yet for whatever reason, she had decided she was going to the contest tonight.
"Its not too late, you know. You can still back out of this." a voice said somewhere in her head. She told that voice to kindly shut up as she checked herself one more time and then hesitantly turned away, crossing her living room to her front door. She lingered for a moment with her hoof on the knob before forcing herself to step outside and close the front door behind her. The sun was at its highest point in the sky, not quite ready to set, and her neighborhood street, mercifully, was mostly deserted since everyone was either having dinner or already at the contest to watch the judging.
Holding her head up and determined she was going to go through with things, RoseMadder walked briskly down the street and in the direction of the Neopian Bazaar. As she drew nearer to her destination, she found herself surrounded by hundreds of other neopets, all of them prettied up just as she had been.
"Stop struggling, Kiyomi!" a black-haired human girl complained nearby as she busily ran a rainbow paint brush over her faerie nimmo's wings, trying to get the color to stick instead of running off and puddling in the grass. "If this works, you'll be the most beautiful nimmo there!" Rose vaguely wished she had an owner to help HER prepare. Or even a paint brush to make herself look more unique as she passed through the throngs of costumed and painted pets that loitered outside of the Center, all of them making last minute preparations for the contest.
Rose passed them all by, feeling dizzy from all of the activity as she made her way up the center's walk and went inside. The spectators were all gathered in the auditorium and the low rumble of their thousands of voices made her feel nervous as she hurriedly walked through the back hallway and in the direction of the backstage dressing rooms. Quickly, she pulled the dressing room door open an slipped inside, sighing with relief as she closed it again behind her.
"Hey gramma, you in the contest?" a snide voice inquired. Rose looked over her shoulder at a younger uni, painted a dazzling gold color who was glaring at her as though she was the ugliest spider she had ever seen.
"I'm in the contest, yes." Rose said, embarrassed by how small her own voice sounded. The gold uni tossed her mane and chuckled.
"That's cute, grams, real cute."
"My name is Rose." she said defensively.
"Whatever. Actually I hope all of the competition's like you. It'll make winning a lot easier." she smirked. RoseMadder, though she didn't make a habit out of hating people, found herself strongly disliking this brat more and more by the minute. She opened her mouth to retort when the door blasted open behind her and a rather unkept uni, a pair of lopsided sunglasses on his muzzle, trotted into the room.
"I'M KEWL!!!!" he cried at the two fillies. The golden uni rolled her eyes.
"You're entering AGAIN, you loser?" she sighed. "Why don't you go help your owner root through the dumpster for omelettes or something?"
"I'M KEWL!!!" he announced again, grinning and seeming proud of himself. Rose supposed his intelligence was rather low...probably because his owner couldn't afford to buy him books. Poor guy...
"Moron." the gold uni scoffed, trotting daintily to the corner of the dressing room where she had set her duffle bag. Rose drew in a slight gasp as she watched the spoilt equine withdraw several ungodly expensive plushies from her bag and begin to idly play with them. Her owner must have been incredibly wealthy. Another wave of uncertainty washed over Rose and she was uncomfortably aware of her unpainted fur and her age.
The door banged open again as more unis began to filter inside.
"Hey, you work at the pound, don't you?" a slender faerie-painted uni inquired, grinning at Rose as she passed her.
"I....uh huh...." she nodded.
"Wow....I bet you've got all sorts of inner connections for votes then, huh?" the faerie asked, looking a little dejected.
"No...not really. I don't think anyone even knows I'm competing tonight." The stranger studied Rose's face a moment to see if she was kidding before breaking into a smile.
"Name's FluffyRabbit." she informed her, smiling.
"Rabbit?" Rose asked, quirking a brow.
"I used to be a cybunny." the faerie uni shrugged. "My owner and I decided to give the lab ray a try and...heh...this is what we ended up deciding on."
"You look very nice." Rose told her.
"Oh bah...I'm just a face in the crowd. There's all sorts of faerie unis that compete every week and never get anywhere." FluffyRabbit informed her. "Scuse me, hon, but I need to go get ready." And, in a shimmer of gossamer wings, the faerie uni had crossed the room to examine her reflection in a vanity mirror. In the corner, the golden uni that Rose had butted heads with earlier, continued to survey the crowd distastefully as she cuddled her Snowager plushie and Rose favored her with a dirty look. Though she was sure that nobody would vote for herself, she certainly hoped that no one would vote for such a disrespectful girl either.
TBC....
"Rose, are you going somewhere with this?" Dr. Death asked in exasperation from where he sat on the edge of the couch in the living room. "You told me you needed me to come over because you needed my help...and so far all you've done is make me sit here while you whine and stare at yourself in that mirror."
"I'm sorry..." RoseMadder whimpered, her ears drooping. "I'm just nervous. I don't know what possessed me to fill out that application to be in the pageant in the first place this week."
"Do you need my help or not?" the techo asked, his tail beginning to lash impatiently against the back of the couch. "Because I've got things to do at home and this is my only day off."
"Well its MY only day off too." she argued, straightening her skirt a little. "You just want to check your mail and see if that horrid Zafara Girls calander you ordered came yet or not." Dr. Death flushed a bit in embarrassment.
"No I don't." he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. Actually, he did, but that was only one of the reasons he was interested in going home. For one, he had planned on watching the Deckball Finals to see if he had won the five hundred neopoint bet he had made with Hubert on the victor and for another, Rose's house made him uneasy. The air held a low aroma of potpourri and dried flowers that had begun to give him a headache and, lord, it was so PINK! He had never seen so much pink in one place in his life.
Beside him on the couch, an angel chia plushie grinned stupidly up at him through its permanently-stitched smile and nearby had carelessly been tossed a valentines bruce plushie that she had gotten as a gift from the employment agency on her birthday. Feh...he needed to get out of here. Just sitting here made him feel like his teeth were rotting from all of the sweetness and light.
"Fine, go then." Rose huffed. The doctor cocked a brow.
"Are you sure?" he asked, not expecting her to have given up that easily.
"Yes, go on." she said, making a dismissive motion at him with her hoof. "I should have known better than to ask you for help anyway."
"Well for crying out loud, Rose, how often do you think I go out and buy frillies?? If you think the dress makes your rump look big, then it probably isn't the dress's fault! Don't ask me!" Dr. Death snapped in exasperation.
"You're horrible!" Rose groaned, wrapping her arms protectively around herself. He snorted in annoyed contempt, getting up from the couch and leaving. She flinched as he punctuated his exit with a slam of the front door. What a grouch....even away from work he didn't lighten his attitude. She supposed it wasn't really his fault, given all he had to put up with from the hordes of abandoners they got daily, but she really wished he'd learn to control his temper.
She gave a final look at her equine features in the mirror before sighing and slinking back into her bedroom to wriggle out of the dress and put it back on its hanger. What was she doing? Why did she ever think she stood a chance? Oh well....she supposed it would take learning the hard way to satisfy her curiousity. She sat on the edge of the bed after she had put the dress away, sighing and staring off into space.
The contest was three days from now which left her with very little time to prepare and even less time to notify people that she would be participating. It dawned on her that, with no one to vote for her, she would be a laughingstock in the final ballots. She began to run through a mental checklist of people she could weasel a vote out of....there was Dr. Death, of course, if she could get him off of his tail and out to the ballots in time...and Hubert would likely help if she caught him before his lunchtime customers had all approached and begged him to vote for their pets. But who else? Nobody, as far as she could tell.
Rose sighed and leaned back on the mattress, sprawling out and staring at the pastel pink ceiling. What a huge mistake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The day of the contest drew near and all participating contestants had been phoned that morning to come in and fill out the necessary paperwork in addition to their participation form. RoseMadder stood patiently in line, feeling like an utter outcast as she cast a nervous look around at all of the uni foals surrounding her. She had been right, she was far too old to participate in things like this. The babies had their cuteness and innocense on their side...not to mention owners that likely had many friends who would gladly vote for them.
"I can't believe I took two hours of my sick time for this..." she thought to herself, looking worriedly over her shoulder as an older faerie uni eagerly fluttered her opalescent wings as she chittered eagerly to her friend about how she had come in second in species last time but was hoping now for first place. In front of her, an achingly adorable pair of striped twins both quietly ate the lollipops their owner had given them. She suddenly felt very old and very plain.
"Next?" the desk manager called out. The twins eagerly galloped forward and peeked over the edge of the table at the kindly-looking green usul behind it.
"Well aren't you two precious??" he grinned at them. "Is your mommy around?"
"Zat da gaming centew." one of them said around her lollipop....translated, "she's at the gaming center".
"Alright, well, I'll need you two to fill these out as completely as you can and then probably bring her back later to enter in your legal information." Saying so, the usul pushed a small stack of papers and a pen across the counter at the twins who abruptly began to fight over them and who would get to sign what. The usul smiled indulgently at them as they gradually moved out of the way. "Next?" he asked, looking squarely at Rose. The red uni swallowed hard.
"I...umm..." she faltered.
"Come on up, I don't bite." the usul smiled at her, beckoning her closer. Feeling suddenly sick, Rose timidly approached the desk. "Well, its nice to see an older girl take enough pride in herself to enter our contest." the usul smiled. Rose felt her heart sink. Old....she was probably old enough to be most of the contestants' mother.
"I think I'm going to have to forfeit." she told him quietly.
"Nonsense!" the desk manager chuckled. "Its just jitters, my girl." She watched, fidgeting as he put together a packet of forms for her and handed her a pen from the cup of them on the desktop. "Just get these filled out and bring them back when you're done." Rose hesitated only a moment before grudgingly accepting the forms into her grasp and sidling out of the way so that the people behind her could get their necessary information as well.
She selected a tree, not far off, to sit beneath and fill out her paperwork, but try as she might, every time she touched the pen to the paper, all of her insecurities would flare, preventing her from putting anything down. At length, she simply gave up, folding the forms and stealing quietly away from the gossiping throng of potential contestants. They were all so much prettier than she was. Painted, frilled up, youthful....and what was she? A dull red uni who had few charms and even fewer friends.
Her mood, chipper that morning, dulled into a deep gloom as she retreated back to the adoption center. Dr. Death, immersed in paperwork for the incoming adoptees he had recieved in her absense, cast a disinterested look at her as she trudged in through the front door.
"Get everything in order for your contest, Goldilocks?" he inquired with non-chalant sarcasm, setting aside a completed adoption profile and going to the next. Rose sniffled miserably in reply, quietly taking her seat beside him and opening one of the desk drawers, attempting to slip the beauty contest papers inside unnoticed. Unfortunately, her techo co-worker chose that moment to turn his head. "What's that?" he asked.
"Nothing." she said defensively. "Just....just some papers. That's all."
"You chickened out." he groaned, shaking his head. "I can't believe you left me here to deal with the hordes of abandon-happy morons by myself for two hours just to have you duck out at the last minute."
"Well, you would have been intimidated too if you saw what I was up against!" she shot back, hurt in her voice.
"That's why I don't bother with that dung." he told her. "I've got better things to waste money on than paint brushes and accessories."
"Like this??" Rose growled, yanking open a desk drawer on his side and holding up a glossy photograph of Mianna Zephyr, a faerie zafara actress who had starred recently in the neopian blockbuster, "On Whispered Wings". Ms. Zephyr was posed on a beach and wearing an emerald-colored bathing suit.
"Give me that!!" he snapped waspishly, grabbing the photo out of her hoof and stuffing it back into the drawer.
"Hmph...serves you right for bringing it to work." she told him, sticking out her tongue at him. Getting into a spitting contest with the doc usually put her in better spirits, but it hadn't done much of anything for her mood today as she continued to sulk.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Dr. Death asked her after he had closed the drawer. "You get up on the stage and prance around with all of the other little egotists and then the one who's weight best matches her IQ gets the trophy. Its not like they're going to single you out and laugh at you for losing."
"You make it sound so appealing." the uni grumped, putting her head down on the desk with a defeated sigh. "There's nothing special about me anyway."
"If you're hoping that this is where I'll give you a lecture about all of us being special in our own way, I'm afraid you're whinnying up the wrong tree." the doctor told her, blowing a strand of silver hair out of his eyes and wishing he hadn't left his comb back at the house on his nightstand.
"Thanks a lot." Rose told him, pushing away from the desk and storming across the pound gloomily in the direction of the washroom. Dr. Death watched her go dispassionately, listening as the door clicked closed and shrugged. It really wasn't his concern whether she was happy or not. Nobody ever cared if *he* was in good spirits so he never really did other people the same courteousy. In fact, most of the time, it seemed like the people abandoning had done it simply to spite him. And then there were the rumors that had circulated about his mistreatment of the pets in the pound, saying he starved them or took away their toys.
At first he had tried to defend himself against the false accusations, but had given up after a time and let people think what they wanted. Because of it, a lot of activists had harrassed him over the years about the "unethical" way he treated the incoming adoptees...and most had retreated back into the woodwork after being given a tour of the pound to be shown that, indeed, the pets were fed and watered and that many of them were still cuddling their plushies and petpets. It made him sick, really, the way some people jumped to conclusions.
He waited another few minutes before leaning over and sliding open the drawer Rose had stuffed the papers into, retrieving them and looking them over. While they were long-winded, they didn't look terribly complicated. He cast a look over his shoulder at the closed bathroom door before getting up from his chair and retreating into the pound's back office a moment. When he returned, he carried with him xeroxed copies of the forms he had taken out of the desk and quietly replaced the originals back where he had found them.
As he folded the copies, tucking them into the inner pocket of his labcoat, Rose emerged from the washroom, her face flushed and eyes red from crying. He watched as she returned to her seat, tearing open the drawer she had put the forms in and grabbing them out, crumpling them between her hooves and throwing the ruined papers into the wastebasket.
"And I don't want to hear another word about this stupid contest." she told him sharply, clearing her throat and attempting to gain her composure back.
"If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence you tried." Dr. Death told her. "Its evident SOMEONE lives by that policy."
"Shut up." she grumbled. He obediently closed his mouth and didn't say anything else. "I've wanted to be in the contest since I was a little foal." she told him. "And when I took the job here I never had time to get all prettied up and enter....and now its too late." She felt her eyes tear up again and angrily brushed at them with her wrist.
"Alright." he shrugged. "So leave the stage to the delicate faeries and rainbow mannequins who have owners that are willing to blow thousands of neopoints on a pretty face. You can't expect to compete with a bunch of pampered brats when you work for a living."
"Its not fair." she sighed. "Why is the only ones who win are the ones that get gussied up in the most impressive outfits?"
"Rose, its called the Beauty Contest for a reason. Its not called the 'Its Whats On The Inside That Counts' contest. Its MEANT to be petty. And I don't care how many movies you've seen, the judge is NOT going to declare you the winner if you tromp out on stage in plain clothes and inform everybody of all the good you've done for society."
"I know that." she said icily. "And you can stop rubbing it in anytime now."
"Just telling it like it is." he shrugged. "If you're not painted and you don't have a big guild to vote for you, you don't stand a snowball's chance in Tyrannia of placing. Its all a big popularity contest."
"For never entering, you sure know about the contest." Rose told him.
"I never enter, that's not to say I never GO." he retorted. Rose opened her mouth to argue it further with him when the door swung open and a timid-looking blonde girl trailed by two red kacheeks approached the desk.
"Scuse me?" she asked sweetly. "But have you gotten any kacheeks in lately? These two want a little sister..." She gestured to her other two pets that peered over the top of the desk, looking nervously at Dr. Death out of the corner of their eyes. Rose fixed her expression immediately, forcing a smile.
"I'm sure we have exactly what you're looking for." she told the small family, getting up out of her seat and escorting them to the back room where the kennels were kept. When he was sure that they were gone, Dr. Death pulled the copied forms out of his pocket and began to fill them out in Rose's name.
"You did NOT leave me to run this place by myself for two hours just to weasel out of this, Rose..." he said quietly, irritated. It was not that he was offering her encouragement but moreso that he considered it a form of revenge. All of the poking and fun-making she had done to him in her time of employment....all of the non-chalantly trotting in a half-hour late to work...she was about to learn that paybacks weren't very much fun and DID come when you least suspected them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next morning, Rose awoke to the sound of birds twittering their dischordant melody in the trees outside and sunlight dappling her bedsheets. It occurred to her that this was the day of the contest and it made her pull the sheets over her head and cringe as she remembered that she had bowed out the night before. Maybe she would just stay there for the rest of the day...wait until it all went away. Or, she supposed she could be big about it and maybe stop by that evening to watch the judging to see who had won.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the jangling ring of her telephone on her bedside table. For a moment, she simply stared at it, not wanting to pick it up as she was almost positive it would be Dr. Death on the other end complaining that he was swamped with adopters and abandoners and demanding that she come in if she wasn't going to participate in the contest and had taken a day off for nothing.
Despite this, however, she found herself reaching for the phone, lifting the reciever off of its cradle on the tail of the fifth ring. "Hullo?" she asked sleepily.
"Oh there you are! I was starting to think you were in the tub!" a cheery female voice chuckled on the other end. "Am I speaking to Ms. RoseMadder?"
"Whatever it is you're selling, I don't want any." the uni said gloomily.
"Waitwaitwait, don't hang up!" the voice implored. "I'm not a solicitor. This is just a courteousy call to remind you to be at the Bazaar Center at six tonight."
"Tonight...? What for?" Rose asked, confused.
"The contest, of course!" the woman on the other end of the line told her. "This is why we needed to enstate a calling tree. Some of our contestants, no offense, are more fluff than brain, and end up completely missing the contest if no one reminds them."
"I know when the contest is." Rose replied defensively. "But I didn't enter."
"No? But I'm looking at your application right here." Rose cringed a little at the faint rustle of papers on the other end of the phone.
"Then there must be a mistake." she said decisively. "Because I promise I didn't send in any forms."
"Nope, no mistake. Honestly, its funny how some neopets can fill out a five page consent form and then not remember it the next day." she chuckled. Rose felt, at that moment, she could have strangled the woman on the other line. "We'll see you at six, Rose." and saying so, the woman hung up. For a long moment, Rose simply stared at the phone as though it had come to life in her hand before hanging it up.
She suddenly felt sick as her mind raced. She knew she didn't fill out the forms...in fact, she remembered throwing them away. And the only person who had seen her do it was---
"Doc..." she said aloud, venom in her voice. For whatever reason he had dreamed up in that twisted lizard head of his, HE had done this. It was the only reasonable explanation. Without bothering to straighten her mane or give any thought whatsoever to her appearance (a rarity in itself among unis), Rose stormed out of her bedroom and out the front door. One of her neighbors, an elderly striped tonu, looked up from his gardening and had been about to wish her a good morning until he saw the look of absolute murder in her eyes as she stormed past.
Having never seen RoseMadder in such a state before, he stood by quietly until she had passed before looking quizzically in the direction she had gone, wondering what could possibly have gotten her tail in such a horrible knot. Better to mind his own business, he supposed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Death sifted through the mail, tossing the assorted junk flyers from people who were advertising their shops into the trash. Amid them he found the monthly electric bill and the pound's bank interest statement which he tossed onto the break room counter disinterestedly.
"Boring..." he sighed, flipping through the rest of the envelopes in the crook of his arm. He paused momentarily to read a scribbled postcard that had been sent from one of the pound's "admirers" that had been written in red crayon and on the back held the lovely sentiment "RELESE ALL ANIMULS OR I KILL U!!!!" He pondered saving it for Rose to see so she could get a laugh out of it as well, but decided against it and threw it in the trash along with the junk mail. They recieved at least one letter like that a week from activists scattered throughout Neopia who didn't have the courage to come talk to them face-to-face and hid beyond anonymous threats.
As he tossed away a coupon book, lamenting the fact his zafara calander still hadn't come, he heard footsteps behind him.
"I'm on break." he said disinterestedly, thinking it was one of the pound customers who had grown impatient waiting for him up front and had come looking for him. "I'll be back up there in about five minutes."
"You...." Recognizing the voice, he turned to see a rather disheveled and angry Rose standing in the doorway.
"What're you doing here?" he asked, tossing the rest of the mail on the counter. "Thought you took the day off for the contest." She crossed the break room, stopping when she stood straight across from the yellow techo, glaring icily at him.
"I didn't *enter* the contest." she said through gritted teeth, nearly touching noses with him. "Apparently someone entered FOR me." For a long moment neither said anything and dueled silently with their eyes....her blue ones piercingly accusing and his yellow ones mellow and narrowed.
"Maybe someone did. Maybe that someone got sick of watching you flapping around like a headless peadackle and wanted you to get on with it." he replied quietly.
"How dare you!" she cried, seizing the lapels of his labcoat and yanking him forward. "Do you have any idea how embarrassed I am now? If I show up, I get to make a fool of myself on the stage in front of half of Neopia, and if I DON'T show up, everyone will have to listen to them calling my name over the loudspeaker all night looking for me and I'll have to live down their teasing that I wussed out tomorrow!!"
"So?" he asked, still uncommonly calm. Before she could stop herself, she shoved him. The doctor hadn't been expecting it, stumbling backwards and colliding hard with the refridgerator against the wall with an audible "Whuff!" as the air left his lungs.
"SO??" she shrieked. "I'm going to be a laughingstock!!"
"Oh please, Rose, you honestly think people don't have better things to talk about besides you?" he asked in irritation, wincing as he rubbed at a forming bruise on his lower back where he had collided with the fridge doorhandle. "You're worse than those attention hogs that are going to be on the stage tonight if you think people's worlds are going to center around whether or not you participate!"
"No I'm not!" she complained, her lip beginning to quiver. "I just....." she sniffled, trembling a little as the first of her tears began to spill down her cheeks. "I don't...wanna....be laughed aaaaatttt...." she broke down, sobbing loudly. The techo watched his coworker cry dispassionately for a moment before rolling his eyes and sighing, approaching her.
"So what if they laugh?" he asked. "Think about who you're trying to impress. A crowd of squealing kids and their owners."
"I'm not going to go." she whimpered, her ears flattened in humiliation at both her outburst and the fact that she was expected to make an appearance tonight. "If I just lay low, this will all blow over someday..." she choked back a sniffle as she said this. Dr. Death was silent for a long moment, and then, in a rare show of affection, placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Rose, honestly, what's the worst you think is going to happen?" he asked her. "You said you've been wanting to do this all your life and if you wait much longer, you're going to end up working up the nerve to try again when you're somebody's grandma and then people are REALLY going to laugh at you."
"S-So you submitted the forms to help me live out my dream?" she asked, looking up at him in astonishment.
"No, I did it to get back at you for making me run this dump by myself just to have you come running back here with your tail tucked between your legs and whining that the whole world's against you." he said matter-of-factly. "AND that you made me spend an hour of my day off sitting on your couch watching you preen your hair." She scowled, turning roughly away from him.
"I can't believe you'd put me in this kind of situation." she whimpered. "I've worked with you for almost five years and this is how much you respect me??"
"Hey hey, woah..." Dr. Death interrupted her tirade. "You wanna pull the respect card, kiddo? Let's talk about the time you dumped habanero sauce in my coffee....or how about when you got it into your brain to xerox the daily reports on flash paper and "accidentally" let a scorchio sneeze on them? Or then there was the time---"
"You made your point." the uni grumped and then sighed, turning and walking out of the break room.
"Where are you going?" he asked her.
"Home." she replied flatly. "I'm going to make myself some cocoa, take a long bubble bath, and forget today ever happened."
"Whatever floats your boat." he shrugged. "Being laughed at isn't the end of the world, for the record. With a name and reputation like I have, I get laughed at every blasted day and you don't see me sulking and wailing."
"Whatever, doc...." she sighed, hanging her head as she left. For a brief moment, he wondered if he should follow after her. No...he was going to let her sweat this one out on her own and if she wanted to shrivel up and die because a couple people might talk about her behind her back, that was her problem.
"Hey! Can I get some help up here??" an obnoxious voice yelled from up front. Dr. Death sighed.
"Coming!" he called back, gathering up his scattered wits and taking a deep cleansing breath before venturing up front to deal with the customer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She still didn't know what had possessed her....or why she hadn't stuck to her guns about staying home. At first, she had done precisely what she had told Dr. Death she was going to do....she had indulged herself in a large mug of cocoa with raspberry marshmallows melted in it and then had taken a long relaxing bubble bath. Afterward, however, instead of returning to her room to sulk the evening away, she had found herself spending nearly an hour in front of the mirror, meticulously brushing and styling her mane and tail. Afterward, she had rouged her cheeks and applied a bit of lip gloss....and now, here she was.
Rose looked herself over in the mirror as she had a few days ago, still just as uncertain. She wore her dress again, this time with an opal necklace and a pair of small golden earrings in the shape of moons that winked faintly. Her mane hung in shining curls over her shoulders and down her back and her tail had been brushed perfectly straight and tied with a bow that was the same color as her dress.
She had given no one any warning, she had no one that would vote for her, and felt she stood no chance against her competition, yet for whatever reason, she had decided she was going to the contest tonight.
"Its not too late, you know. You can still back out of this." a voice said somewhere in her head. She told that voice to kindly shut up as she checked herself one more time and then hesitantly turned away, crossing her living room to her front door. She lingered for a moment with her hoof on the knob before forcing herself to step outside and close the front door behind her. The sun was at its highest point in the sky, not quite ready to set, and her neighborhood street, mercifully, was mostly deserted since everyone was either having dinner or already at the contest to watch the judging.
Holding her head up and determined she was going to go through with things, RoseMadder walked briskly down the street and in the direction of the Neopian Bazaar. As she drew nearer to her destination, she found herself surrounded by hundreds of other neopets, all of them prettied up just as she had been.
"Stop struggling, Kiyomi!" a black-haired human girl complained nearby as she busily ran a rainbow paint brush over her faerie nimmo's wings, trying to get the color to stick instead of running off and puddling in the grass. "If this works, you'll be the most beautiful nimmo there!" Rose vaguely wished she had an owner to help HER prepare. Or even a paint brush to make herself look more unique as she passed through the throngs of costumed and painted pets that loitered outside of the Center, all of them making last minute preparations for the contest.
Rose passed them all by, feeling dizzy from all of the activity as she made her way up the center's walk and went inside. The spectators were all gathered in the auditorium and the low rumble of their thousands of voices made her feel nervous as she hurriedly walked through the back hallway and in the direction of the backstage dressing rooms. Quickly, she pulled the dressing room door open an slipped inside, sighing with relief as she closed it again behind her.
"Hey gramma, you in the contest?" a snide voice inquired. Rose looked over her shoulder at a younger uni, painted a dazzling gold color who was glaring at her as though she was the ugliest spider she had ever seen.
"I'm in the contest, yes." Rose said, embarrassed by how small her own voice sounded. The gold uni tossed her mane and chuckled.
"That's cute, grams, real cute."
"My name is Rose." she said defensively.
"Whatever. Actually I hope all of the competition's like you. It'll make winning a lot easier." she smirked. RoseMadder, though she didn't make a habit out of hating people, found herself strongly disliking this brat more and more by the minute. She opened her mouth to retort when the door blasted open behind her and a rather unkept uni, a pair of lopsided sunglasses on his muzzle, trotted into the room.
"I'M KEWL!!!!" he cried at the two fillies. The golden uni rolled her eyes.
"You're entering AGAIN, you loser?" she sighed. "Why don't you go help your owner root through the dumpster for omelettes or something?"
"I'M KEWL!!!" he announced again, grinning and seeming proud of himself. Rose supposed his intelligence was rather low...probably because his owner couldn't afford to buy him books. Poor guy...
"Moron." the gold uni scoffed, trotting daintily to the corner of the dressing room where she had set her duffle bag. Rose drew in a slight gasp as she watched the spoilt equine withdraw several ungodly expensive plushies from her bag and begin to idly play with them. Her owner must have been incredibly wealthy. Another wave of uncertainty washed over Rose and she was uncomfortably aware of her unpainted fur and her age.
The door banged open again as more unis began to filter inside.
"Hey, you work at the pound, don't you?" a slender faerie-painted uni inquired, grinning at Rose as she passed her.
"I....uh huh...." she nodded.
"Wow....I bet you've got all sorts of inner connections for votes then, huh?" the faerie asked, looking a little dejected.
"No...not really. I don't think anyone even knows I'm competing tonight." The stranger studied Rose's face a moment to see if she was kidding before breaking into a smile.
"Name's FluffyRabbit." she informed her, smiling.
"Rabbit?" Rose asked, quirking a brow.
"I used to be a cybunny." the faerie uni shrugged. "My owner and I decided to give the lab ray a try and...heh...this is what we ended up deciding on."
"You look very nice." Rose told her.
"Oh bah...I'm just a face in the crowd. There's all sorts of faerie unis that compete every week and never get anywhere." FluffyRabbit informed her. "Scuse me, hon, but I need to go get ready." And, in a shimmer of gossamer wings, the faerie uni had crossed the room to examine her reflection in a vanity mirror. In the corner, the golden uni that Rose had butted heads with earlier, continued to survey the crowd distastefully as she cuddled her Snowager plushie and Rose favored her with a dirty look. Though she was sure that nobody would vote for herself, she certainly hoped that no one would vote for such a disrespectful girl either.
TBC....