Prince Fitz's POV
"Alright, Fitz, commence the useless information we totally don't need to know!" Samuel grinned, typing something into his phone, his back flat on the plush carpet of the room.
Fitz rolled his eyes with as much dignity as he could muster, and looked around the room. He had decided to call a meeting, a powwow of sorts, to discuss the upcoming selection with his brothers, and had spent most of the day preparing, leafing through the binders that Jadie had given them, highlighting useful information that they could use. He felt that it was always best to be prepared, especially in this case. The Selection was one of Illea's original ideas, and he knew that he would have to find a good queen for when he became , Fitz was certain that it would be him. As the first born, and most qualified for the job, it would naturally fall to him, but Fitz supposed that his father wouldn't want to hurt their feelings. It may have been an oversimplification, but the very fact that he was first born would automatically give him the job. Plus, Sam and Luke had never said they wanted to be king. Sam was too wild, and Luke just didn't know what he was doing. Confident in the fact that the selection would be of most use to him, he had decided to let his brothers off a bit easily.
That afternoon, Fitz had checked with Jadie to see which rooms were open, and found one that had seemed to be a good size. It had a large window on one wall, but it wasn't attached to a balcony. Sam had been in enough accidents furniture wasn't in there when he had arrived, and dragging a few desk chairs in was easy. He had also looped some bright, colored lights over the walls and set up a table.
The table was for various snacks, since he had come up with the brilliant idea of calling it a "Planning Party" in hopes to get Sam to come, and he had promised Luke food.
Speaking of Luke, he still hadn't arrived, and Fitz checked his watch. It was already 8:47, and the planning meeting/party/thing had officially started at 8:40. It wasn't at all like Luke to be the last one to arrive, he seemed to prefer slipping in unannounced and waiting for everyone to notice he was there.
Fitz quickly checked the closet and behind one of the chairs, much to Sam's amusement.
"Bro, what're you doing?" Asked Sam, mid-laugh, still looking at something on his phone. Fitz shot him a potent death glare, and walked over to him, snatching the glowing phone out of his hand and replacing it with a binder that had laid abandoned on the floor. He swiftly marched over to the window, and opened it.
"Hey!" Shouted Sam, moving to get up, but it was too late. The phone went falling down to it's demise. Well, not really, since he had signalled the guard below before he did it, but Sam looked like someone had just thrown a baby into an incinerator. He pushed Fitz out of the way, and looked out the open window, and saw the guard standing there. He waved, and gave Fitz a thumbs-up. Fitz waved back, then gave a pointed look at Sam.
Sam grumbled, muttering something under his breath, and started to fidget with his sweatshirt drawstrings before grabbing a bag of chips from the table and tearing it open, before slumping back down in his former position.
Fitz started to pace around the room, checking the clock every few seconds, wanting to get this over and one with so he could get some sleep before tomorrow, when the Selection lottery took place. Thankfully, he was saved by a very sweaty Luke running through the room's door.
"Sorry! I lost track of time, and I was a few miles away when I realized, and I had to run back-" He began, but Fitz held up a hand to silence him. It was a gesture the three had seen their father use many times, placating some official or getting them to be quiet, and Luke automatically fell silent.
"Thank you for joining us, Luke. Can we get started? Now that we're all here, it's time. Help yourself to an food on the table. Tomorrow is the selection lottery, when the 70 girls will be picked to come here and attempt to win our hearts, but we need to go over exactly how the entire selection process works, from start to finish," Fitz said, pausing for effect, launching into one of the speeches that would always win over whatever foreign official or officer he was trying to win over. It didn't have quite the same effect on Sam, but Luke had sat down and was listening, his head tilted. It wasn't very helpful that he had beads of sweat pouring down his face from his run, or that he was basically sitting in a gaseous cloud of underarm stink, but Luke somehow managed to pay attention. Sam, on the other hand, was staring at the wall and eating chips, though every so often he would grunt or make some other sound effect to convey his feelings.
"To begin. Over the past month, since the report, applications have been filled out by girls from all of the provinces of Illea, and tomorrow a lottery will select two from each province. Unlike those of the past, our reactions will not be aired on television, since the amount of time it would take for the whole process would overtake the time allotted for the report. Instead, the names will be called on television after they have been selected, and we will not be present during that time. Mom is scheduled to go down and say a few words, as is tradition, but we will watch from our rooms. During the lottery process, Jadie has agreed to let us watch, and she'll make us new binders to study the girls once they have been selected. She estimates that it will take about an hour to make these, but she can get them to us quicker than most people would. After the girls have been selected, we will have one week until they arrive at the palace, at which point the selection will begin. Since the seventy girls will take up much of the space in the palace, we are advised to eliminate ten of them within the first three days. Are you both with me so far?" He asked, then sighed.
They didn't seem to be listening anymore, but he kept talking until he realized that Sam had fallen asleep, and Luke was nodding off. He roughly shoved Sam, then walked over to Luke and tapped him on the shoulder. Luke muttered something about frying pans, and Sam just fell on his face.
Fitz groaned, and picked up one of the water glasses on the table.
"Get up, or I'm splashing you with the water. Yes, you, Prince Small!" He said, seeing that Sam had cracked one eye open. Samuel glared at him, upset about the nickname, and pulled himself off the floor.
"I'm getting up. I'm going to bed, if you don't mind," He said, then proceeded to exit the room, leaving Fitz and Luke alone. Luke left shortly after, but Fitz made sure to give him the binder before he did. He was certain that Jadie would lecture them tomorrow anyway, so it wasn't any harm to give him it
Once he was alone, he asked a maid to clean up the room, and headed to bed.
Author's Note: Sorry that this took so long! I actually wrote this awhile ago, as a practice and to help myself figure out what I was going to do with the characters, but I needed to put something with this and this was the only eligible thing I found. I have an announcement!
I AM CLOSING THE SYOC TOMMOROW. YES, TOMMOROW, BUT RESERVATIONS WILL BE HELD UNTIL MONDAY. IF YOU HAVE A RESERVATION, PLEASE GET IT IN QUICKLY, BECAUSE I NEED TO START THIS.
I'm planning how long this will take, so here's a quick summary of what's going to happen. I was originally going to add this on to the actual chapter part, but we can get this over with sooner if I put it down here. I'm not sure if any of you actually read my author's notes, so this might be completely useless.
First, I'm going to have some time where I eliminate only the throwaway characters. No submitted characters should be eliminated until some major events start happening. I'll try to give each character a fair amount of screen time, and I hope to really churn out chapters quickly once we get into the selection.
Second, it will be awhile until we get into the elite. In the story, it's about early August, and the elite will only be chosen in October. In the story, of course. The number of elite might change, but right now I'm planning for it to include 21 girls. It may seem like a lot, but in selections other than Maxon's and Eadlyn's, I think they had ten. If each prince had ten girls, this would last forever, and I don't want that. Also, we'll have a top fifteen. More on that later.
Anyway, get your characters in! Please! With cherries and other more yummy things on top!
Don't forget to review if you liked this chapter, or have any constructive commentary on what I should fix.
