[OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF A RANDOM PARK] The W.I.T.C.H girls stand behind some bushes all dressed in meridian styled dresses. Hay Lin has just finished adjusting something on Wills skirt and stands back to admire her work. "All right everyone are we ready to go?" asks Will as she still fiddles with her skirt.
"Ready," replies everyone.
"Okay remember, I'm Miss Watko, Irma your Madame Irki, Taranee your Lady Tratzi, Cornelia your Mrs. Cartzi…" reminds Will.
"Why do I have to be married" complains Cornelia crossing her arms.
"What, you plan on flirting with Phobos's followers," jokes Irma. Cornelia glares at her but otherwise doesn't say another word.
"Continuing on, Hay Lin you are Widow Harky. Now we can't transform unless completely necessary understood?" finishes Will. Everyone complies and Will brings out the heart of kandrakar. "Let's go." She opens a portal and the group heads through.
[BACK IN 'YOUR' ROOM] For the past hour or so you and Elyon have been fussed about by the castle servants. Elyon, it seems, has been enjoying the whole situation but for you it has been a sad reminder of the time you could be spending liberating and helping these people. With the time you have gotten to know your assistants, and have done your best to see how life is in the castle. It seems that the main issue is food. Therefore throughout the day you have been hording small amounts of food that has been given to you. After spending what you consider way too much time to spend on anybody's hair you bring out a parcel of food and offer it to them as payment for being forced to help you get ready by Phobos.
"I'm sorry miss we cannot accept this," claims the head maid Hillia. You look over to your left where the young girl Marylyn, who did your hair, eyes the food with weary eyes.
"I insist that you take it," you say handing it back to them.
"You don't understand. If we are caught with this then we will be punished by Phobos," explains Hillia, once again handing the parcel back.
"Then he's going to have to deal with me, but come eat here it should be safer and if anyone dares to hassle you then they also will have to go through me," you say not taking no for an answer. The maids look at each other and smile taking back the parcel before them. For the next hour the five of you enjoy each other's company as you continue to get ready and relax before the oncoming storm that you know will take place tonight. Although you felt better doing what you did, the true joy from that afternoon was when Elyon, seeing what you were doing totally one-upped you and brought out a whole fruit platter for her hand-maids and yours. Eventually though your new friends had to leave and you were left alone with Elyon waiting to be called out for your grand entrance into the ball.
"Oh I'm so nervous I hope the evening goes well. My first ball, this is just so overwhelming," exclaims Elyon as she paces in front of you.
"I'm sure the evening will go great," you say with a hopeful tone. However you know that the probability of this evening not ending with disaster is down to only a few timelines. Looking over at Elyon you can see the happiness radiating from her. The dress Phobos had tailored for her looked amazing; it was a light spring green with a slight A-line skirt, with a v-slit in the front of the skirt that revealed a darker complementary green. The top was a simple scoop neck t-shirt with somewhat puffy sleeves and underneath was a cream long sleeve blouse. She had taken your advice and her hair blonde hair was loose and wavy. As Elyon continued onto another nervous ramble you take the time to look at your own attire. You really didn't have any say in the matter other than being able to convince the maids to put on some black nail polish, your dress is a shimmery dark midnight blue with a more flared out a-line bottom with silver detailed embroidery and simple over the shoulder sleeves, and a pitch black tank-top v-neck corset on overtop with silver detailed embroidery along the edges. Your ever long brown hair is half up in a series of complicated twists and pins while the remaining has been shined and left to its natural waves, and across your forehead sits a silver headband with sparkling crystals within the twisted designs. All in all, the outfit isn't too bad, you're still just sore at the situation.
"Do you think there will be any cute boys there?" asks Elyon drawing your attention back to her.
*Highly doubt it* you think but say otherwise to satisfy Elyon.
"Are you going to be looking for anybody specific tonight?" You detect a motif behind Elyons question.
"No. Why do you ask?" Elyon stiffens at the follow up question. With the expression on her face it's quite obvious that she regretted asking in the first place.
"Ummmm no reason just wondering. Well, I mean…." She stammers as you roll your eyes and tell her to spit it out. "When was the last time you had a boyfriend?" You're caught a little off guard by the question, however the pieces are starting to fall into place, not that you didn't suspect the end result anyways. You take a moment to think before responding.
"I don't know a few couple… thousand years, give or take a century." *Wow has it been that long* you think to yourself, guess time really flies when you're busy trying to protect the universe.
"How old are you?"
"Let me give you a tip Elyon. You never ask a lady what her age is. Especially in the court. Those types of questions can go downhill fast."
"Umm thanks, but you still didn't answer the question."
"Look, if I knew I would tell you but unfortunately I lost track some couple of something timelines ago." You figure now would probably be a good time to have a back story session…
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
The two of you look over towards the door to see Cedric open up the door. "It is time for the grand entrance," states Cedric with a hint of a hiss in his voice. In excitement Elyon squeals and hurries towards the door.
"Let's do this," you mumble too yourself with a devious smile creeping across your face before getting up and gracefully make your way out of the room as well.
[JUST OUTSIDE THE CASTLE WALLS] After making it safely through town without being recognized the W.I.T.C.H girls made their way towards the castle gates and were now awaiting entrance to the castle. "So how do we exactly plan on getting in, its invitation only?" asks Taranee.
"Don't worry I've got that covered," answers Irma as she ruffles through her purse before pulling out some cards, "with the invitation Caleb received I was able to make copies for the rest of us." Swiftly Irma hands out the cards to the girls.
"This looks so real! How did you to this?" enquires Hay Lin closely inspecting it.
"Some questions are better left unanswered," states Irma smiling.
"We're doing running in gym next week, any chance you can make me some fake doctors notes?" requests Cornelia.
"Girls focus! We're almost at the entrance," snaps Will brining the girls back to the matter at hand. Shortly the girls found themselves at the front of the line and we're allowed admittance without any issues. "Remember everyone, use your fake voices we don't want to risk being recognized." The group nods their heads in agreement, "alright let's go."
[IN THE HALLWAY BEFORE THE GRAND STAIRCASE WAITING FOR YOUR GRAND ENTRACE INTO THE BALL]
After exiting you are given the formalities of how and when to enter, you barley listen this isn't the first time you've done this. All it is is waiting till your name is called then walking down the stairs without tripping. Nothing to it. "I shall be escorting Miss Elyon down," starts Cedric looking over at Elyon. "Therefore Amy you…"
"Are with me." The three of you look behind to see Phobos walking towards you down the hall with a deviously attractive grin on his face. Once by your side he gently grasps your hand lifting it up to his lips and gives it a kiss.
You hate to say it but damn did he look good. There he stood wearing a floor length tunic the same dark midnight blue as your dress, overtop he had a slightly fitted black overcoat with long flared sleeves with a thick band of the dark midnight blue at the edges. On his shoulders opposed to his usual large shoulder piece is a brilliant royal blue draped scarf with a silver clasp on his right shoulder. On his head is a simple silver crown headpiece with a black jewel centered in the middle resting just between his forehead marks. Actually the crown seems suspicious to you, it's almost like it's the male version of yours. This only add new risks to an end result you would happily like to avoid.
"Ahem," coughs Cedric. Snapping back to real time you realize that you have been staring at Phobos for far too long. In a fluster you pull your hand back and quickly look away considerably embarrassed. You can feel his smile bearing down on you from behind as Elyon giggles.
"May I have your attention please," starts the announcer. Cedric hold out his hand as Elyon takes it and they place themselves before the deep red velvet curtains dividing the hall from the grand staircase to the ballroom below. "Announcing Princess Elyon and Lord Cedric," announces the announcer. The curtain is drawn and the two step out too clapping before the curtains fall again ready for your debut.
Out of the corner of your eye you see movement from Phobos and you carefully turn around to see his hand extended, waiting for you to take it. Sheepishly you look up at his face expecting to be greeted with ultimate triumph, except that's not what you find. Instead you see a sense of kindness and compassion. *This is not right* you think. Looking back at his hand you lightly place yours in his and the two of you gracefully move into position before the curtains. Although his face may seem soft and kind you can sense his true feelings. Pleasure.*Oh he is totally milking this situation.*
"And now," continues the announcer. You feel Phobos gently squeeze your hand. "Announcing Prince Phobos and Princess Amy Harvstar." The curtains are drawn and Phobos leads you out into the grand ballroom. The room is filled with people all dressed in formal attire, and all eyes are on the two of you. You feel just like a princess…. the whole situation is absolutely unbearable. As you descend the stairs you scan the area and find exactly what you are looking for.
[THE ENTRANCE TO THE BALLROOM FLOOR] Collectively the girls enter the ballroom through the ceiling high doors to the grand ballroom. The area is crowded with people and dresses all looking at Elyon and Cedric walking down the grand staircase across the room.
"Okay guys keep a lookout for Amy," instructs Miss Watko (Will) while discreetly looking around.
"ANNOUNCING PRINCE PHOBOS AND PRINCESS AMY HARVSTAR." The announcer's voice echo's through the great hall.
'Well that was easy" jests Madame Irki (Irma).
"She's a princess! And she didn't tell me!" says Mrs. Cartzi (Cornelia) shocked and a little bit offended.
"Ooooooo Phobos isn't going to let her leave his side! How are we going to get her out?" asks Widow Harky (Hay Lin)
"We'll just have to look for our window of opportunity and hope it's open long enough to use it without too much confrontation," states Lady Tratzi (Taranee)
"So in other words now is not the best time," jokingly states Madame Irki.
"No. It looks like the two of them are going to be busy with formalities and such, it might be better if we wait for them to come to us," suggests Lady Tratzi fixing her glasses.
"This evening might go a little longer than expected girls," says Miss Watko as a Widow Harky gives a woohoo at staying up late before realising that it might not be the best of circumstances for it. "In the meantime, has anybody seen Caleb?"
[BACK WITH PHOBOS AND AMY ON THE BALLROOM FLOOR] For the past hour or so you have been greeting and chatting with a variety of Phobo's followers. Most of the time it has been simple greetings to the two of you however there has been a few characters to which Phobos but nothing prepared you for this certain encounter.
"Phobos, how long has it been?" says a voice from behind the two of you. You find this puzzling because you and Phobos are taking a slight break from the massive crowd and there shouldn't be anything but a wall and stained glass window behind you. Before you can turn around to investigate Phobos swiftly let's go of your hand and places it around your waist, even though you specifically set up boundaries about half an hour ago. Before you can protest however he leans his head towards yours and whispers into your ear.
"If I were you I wouldn't try to draw to much attention to yourself." He leans back out bringing you in closer and the two of you turn around to face the voice. What you see is something you didn't think possible.