Fallout
In the last chapter, the siblings continued to select the Selected that would compete for Xander's heart. Despite going more swiftly than before, some questions remain. Now, on the first day of March, the thirty-five Selected have arrived, believing that it is merely a lady-in-waiting training.
Chapter 10
»Just a few memes on Instagram«
Los Angeles International Airport, Angeles
Veira Schreave
A gentle nudge by the flight attendant wasn't enough to wake Veira up. Only when she clumsily shook the lady's shoulders, Veira opened her left eye confused. They had arrived. In the small timespan between the announcement that they would be landing and now, Veira had fallen asleep again.
In her defence, it was seven o'clock in the morning, and she hadn't slept all night or day.
Veira politely thanked the attendant and grabbed her bag to exit the private airplane, following her uncle, Phineas Schreave, who was in Angeles to attend a meeting. Most of the plane ride, Veira had spent sleeping, but she couldn't help but still feel incredibly tired.
"Maybe these twenty-four hours of meeting friends weren't the best idea after all?" she asked herself while slowly descending the stairs from the white plane. The sun in Angeles sky was already warm, even though she had been briefly watching the sunrise from the plane.
"Veira, dear!" The bright voice from Sophia Illéa pulled her out of her sleepy mindset though.
"Good morning," she replied to her old friend, and briefly curtsied to the princess. Sophia had promised to come and greet her when she would arrive in Los Angeles; she claimed that she needed a distraction from the stress of all the last weeks of preparation for the Selection. Understandable, Veira thought. Briefly, Veira said her good-bye to her uncle, who however had to hurry to the Illéa Palace.
"How have you been?" Sophia asked curious while they walked towards the car in which Sophia had probably also arrived.
"Good," Veira replied with a smile. "I spend the whole day yesterday with friends—have you heard that…"
Within the span of two minutes, the two friends trailed into gossip about this and that that happened in Waverly since Sophia last had been there. They discussed a few friends, the newest gossip, and, of course, the newest styles.
Veira knew that she wasn't heading to a lady-in-waiting training—she had only heard of this a few days ago—but she didn't mind. The month sounded like a sweet holiday with Sophia and new people to meet, and curious about the Selection as she was, she soon began learning about all the things that the princess was planning for their stay at Hill Castle, which was an hour away from the central city of Los Angeles.
It was going to be a very long day for Sophia (who had been awake since two hours and already was drinking her second coffee), but Veira was glad to be able to confirm that besides some brief mandatory things, there wasn't much to do for her.
"Meet the girls" seemed to be Sophia's favourite suggestion which she repeated when they arrived at Hill Castle. The white building was built into the Sespe Condor Sanctuary nearby a lake and secluded from Los Angeles itself; the perfect location in Sophia's opinion to keep the press away, and Veira agreed. Plus, it was large enough to host thirty-five girls plus staff and two royal residents. The only other royal residence that could do that was the Illéa Palace.
"The other girls will arrive by caste in most cases. We have a bit of a triage process to judge whenever there are medical issues, and all, so the easier cases are taken off first, before we go on with others," Sophia replied.
"Easier cases?" Veira repeated. She stopped walking up the stairs to the castle, and turned to her friend. "What do you mean?"
"It's more likely that girls of higher castes have no medical issues and all. It'll go faster, and our teams can focus on the more serious cases first," Sophia replied. "Are you alright? Did you drink enough? You look pale…"
Oh yes, Veira did look pale, but she quickly overplayed that with a bubbly smile. "Don't worry, dear," she insisted. "I am just a little bit nervous about meeting so many new people."
"Oh, some won't be new," Sophia assured. "Leila Sinclair, you know her, don't you? I think you'll probably be able to stick around people you already know. Do you know the Tailors? The hotel chain? Harriet Tailor is coming."
Relieved, Veira nodded. "That sounds reassuring, thank you. What did you mean with castes though?"
"We have one One, you, nine Twos, nine Threes, six Fours, three Fives, three Sixes and three Sevens, as well as one Eight. Well, four Sevens by law, but yeah. One Eight, de facto," Sophia replied, counting down the castes with her fingers. "At the moment, at least. Nothing is set until the public announcement, of course."
"Eight? Isn't that dangerous? What if she is a criminal?" Veira was horrified. How could Sophia have overlooked such a possibility?
Sophia shook her head. "She's a veteran who lost her legs during a mission. She'd be a Seven otherwise, or still in the military and thus a Two. She isn't homeless either, and lives with her family."
"Oh…" Veira nodded. "That's sad."
"I know," Sophia sighed. "But oh well, I won't start today in melancholy!" she cheered. "It'll be fine, I'm sure."
She guided Veira into the entrance hall and on to a larger room that, going by its looks, probably once had been a ball room. Right now though, it was filled with a mix of various people—too many for her to gasp at once. Veira yawned.
"I'll leave you with the staff here, alright? I need to oversee the girls' arrival and all."
"Have fun," Veira replied and turned to the approaching young woman. "Hello," she greeted her. "It's nice to meet you."
"Lady Veira Schreave, am I right?"
"Yes."
"It's nice to meet you. I'm not sure what Her Royal Highness has told you, but we're doing some form of triage process to make the work of the staff easier. It's a mix of education, medical wellbeing and looks. We're starting with the last, but I've seen your Instagram, so I don't doubt that that'll be a big problem."
Veira forced a smile. "Alright."
The stranger led her on to a chair that looked a lot like a hair dresser's, and began with her work. She asked Veira for her sizes for clothes first, mentioning that she expected there to be cases where they needed to measure that, but considering how often Veira went out shopping, she was all too well aware of her size. Discussing Veira's style—she had been told by Sophia before that the girls wouldn't be able to bring too much to the Illéa Palace, including clothes—didn't take much more time, and Veira soon was assured that she wouldn't miss her closet.
The blonde lady wasn't so sure about that.
"I love your hairdo," the stylist remarked when she began opening the bun that Veira had been wearing during the flight, "but I need to destroy it, sorry. I don't think you'll want to change anything…?"
Did she want to change something? Such a good question, she hadn't been at a hair dresser's in forever… Was there anything she wanted to do? Her hair wasn't the thing she looked at most, even though she liked it more than other things, but a change didn't sound bad.
"Actually," Veira spoke up, "what do you think? What would fit me?"
"Your hair is pretty thin," the stylist pointed out. "What's your routine? I like the cut in its basics, though."
For a few minutes, Veira and the stylist conversed about her hairstyle, but there wasn't a particular reason why her hair was so thin, so the stylist pushed it onto either nutrition or gens.
"Maybe an ombre? We probably would have the time to do it now…"
Veira yawned. "What colour?"
"Brownish? Maybe not, just darker blonde? I think it'd fit you. Did you sleep enough, dearie?"
"Uhm…" Veira paused. "I usually sleep during the day…"
The stylist laughed. "Understandable, but sure. I'll mark it down, and write a note for the med team to check whenever you might be lacking vitamins or so. Your hand please?"
Round about exactly the same happened with Veira's nails who were quite brittle in the stylist's opinion, so she ended up with a note for treatment for them as well. Another note onto the board on which Veira noted her name and 'Waverly', and another chill down her spine.
"Sweet," the stylist ended once she had gone down anything she needed to look at. By now, the background chattering had grown a bit louder. "Have you eaten?"
"Yes," Veira replied while glancing at her (alright, quite a bit brittle) nails.
"Next up is a brief education test, but please don't worry about it," the stylist assured. "Apparently, Prince Ernest dared Princess Sophia to take it, and neither of them has results that you would have expected. It doesn't really matter either way; this is to help you all."
Veira rose with her hands folded in front of her. "Thank you," she replied, and turned into the direction, the stylist pointed to. She rushed towards the second part, but she certainly took her time with the test when she arrived.
/ / /
Interior of Hill Castle, Angeles
Harriet Tailor
Harriet Tailor, the hotel heiress (as Sophia had called her earlier), arrived thirty-five minutes after Veira, and therefore didn't catch her. As she was guided in—unlike Veira, not by the princess but by the footman that had picked her up from the airport—she recognised quite a few women of the Illéan upper class. She also heard one asking for a rainbow-coloured pixie cut, but she wasn't sure if she wasn't going to be thrown out immediately afterwards.
Harriet knew them, but at the same time, she wasn't a socialite. She meant business.
She was introduced to a stylist as well, but paid much less attention than Veira did before. She was much more curious about the 'test' that she had been told earlier. Turns out that it was essentially an exam of various school topics (noticeably lacking subjects such as art or biology, but why would you need that?), current international politics and generally things, she would have expected.
Particularly the mathematics part, Harriet believed to have aced.
The final aspect of the 'triage' process, the medical examination, found nothing wrong with her, but once again, she hadn't exactly expected it. Harriet maybe was a Four on paper, but de facto? She was a Two, with all that came with it.
"Thank you very much," the doctor told her when he finished scribbling the unreadable note onto the clipboard. "That is all." He added a brief direction on where Harriet was asked to go, noticeably much politer than the staff initially had been.
Not that they hadn't, but while before, she had felt like an employee, it sounded like she was the boss now. Definitely more adequate, she thought, and walked out of the (probably not originally meant to be) examination room.
Following a brief hair stylizing and manicure that Harriet, being the lady she was, didn't mind, she was led to one of the apartments of the palace, was told that her suitcase had already arrived and that she was free to do whatever she wanted for the rest of the day.
Harriet was also given a map of the castle, and honestly? She didn't mind that at all.
Not that she'd ever tell anyone.
Her inner monologue was interrupted by someone bumping into her side when she was looking around in the marble hallway nearby one of the crystal-clear windows that showed the large garden.
"Oh, sorry," the brunette briefly looked up from her phone, but her eyes went down immediately. The baseball cap followed her motion, hiding most of her face. Going by the looks of it, she already had been through the same process as Harriet had been.
Despite the short time phase, Harriet recognised the piercing ice blue eyes from the February Vogue. She enjoyed following the recent fashion trends, and the Vogue was most certainly one of the sources she enjoyed reading most. The woman who had bumped into her was Alessandra Valentino. Affectionately known as Alex by most of the model's fans.
"Good day," Harriet replied. "So, you're here for the lady-in-waiting programme too?" she asked.
"Oh," Alex nodded slightly distracted, "yeah, I am. … Sorry for running into you, you look a lot like that woman who picked me up from the airport, you know."
"I'm not," Harriet assured her immediately while hiding any reaction to the indirect insult. "Harriet Tailor, nice to meet you."
"Alex, hi," Alex replied. She dropped her phone into the pocket of her jeans. They were ripped, Harriet noted. "So, what'cha doing here?"
"… I am here for exactly the same as you are."
"Ooooh!" Alex nodded quickly, her Spanish accent flowing in naturally. "I see what you mean."
Alex looked at her, as if she was expecting an answer, but honestly? Harriet wasn't completely sure what to respond. She kept a polite smile—just like she did when dealing with her father's terribly smelling co-workers—but looked for anything to say. Alex was a model, but wasn't her father the CEO of an oil company?
… On a second look, she didn't look like someone who cared about economy or business.
"What are you reading? On your phone, I mean?"
"Oh, that?" Alex showed her the phone, display a yellow-ish creature with open mouth and the caption "me: I don't need to listen in class / also me: *pulls all-nighter, revising content of a whole year*".
"Oh," Harriet replied, her face mimicking the yellow-ish creature.
"Just a few memes on Instagram," Alex replied.
"Ah." Harriet nodded. Not exactly the topic for a lady to consider, she decided for herself. Good to know that Alex was that kind of Two. No one she should mix with, right? Even if Alex' family had some form of influence and wealth. But 'memes'?
Above her social class, absolutely, Harriet reminded herself.
"Well," She forced a smile over her disdain for the situation, "I will be off. I will see you around, I assume."
Alex shrugged. "Go for it, girl."
Harriet increased the peace of her step to get away from Alex and the thoughts that accompanied her immediately. She had seen the gardens now from the window and decided that they would be a decent place to spend her time, for now.
She slowly walked down the stairs into the garden, past the pine where a gardener was cleaning up pine cones, that was filled with neatly kept, past the peach-coloured roses and Californian poppies. The civil war raging in her home province had taken much of her interest in flowers, but she couldn't help but notice that the garden was just as well kept as the seven-star hotel of her family on Hawaii. Maybe the venus fly traps were a little bit out of place but well… not everyone had the same taste.
"It's nice here," she muttered to herself before taking a seat on a park bench, careful to place her legs next to each other, as it was adequate for a lady. She took her phone and sighed. Her father hadn't responded to her recent message informing him, yet. It wasn't on purpose—she knew that, but she suspected that he wanted to know his daughter to be safe, after Jack, her twin brother, had been drafted into the war. Jack was still missing and presumed death.
She dialed her father's number, and he answered after three rings. "Tailor?"
"Hey dad, it's me," she replied with a softer voice than she had used when talking to Alex. "I wanted to talk to you since I'm going to be off the net for a while."
"Off the net?" He hadn't read her message, huh?
"I'm doing a thing in Angeles."
"When?"
"Now, I arrived two to three hours ago."
"Did you?" her father asked. "What is this for?"
"I scanned a copy of the contract and emailed it to you. It's a bit secrecy around it though, so please don't share it. It's related to the Selection."
Her father sighed. "Harriet, I told you that you shouldn't risk your career on this."
"Well, I'm not in the Selection?" Harriet tried awkwardly. "I'll be fine dad, okay? I just wanted you to know. I'm a grown up, and this is a bit of a vacation, you know? It's weird to go to a hotel for vacation if you are the daughter of everyone's boss…"
Her father had to admit that that was true. "It's fine, love, just… you know, stay safe," her father replied wary.
"I will, dad, I promise," she insisted. "So…" What was she going to say now? Her father accepted her decision, fortunately, but he wasn't going to be less happy about this. Still, Harriet wasn't too happy that her oh-so-dear step-mother hadn't passed on the message… Gold-diggers, huh?
"I need to go and meet someone to discuss the project to bridge the time until the central Washington hotel has been rebuilt. Did you organise someone to take your work?"
"Yes," Harriet assured him. "I have two people for it."
"Awesome, that's my girl. Good luck, but stay in contact, okay?"
Harriet nodded. "As much as I can. See you dad."
"Be careful."
Be careful, be careful. Yeah, she had gotten that message, but she couldn't help but feel bad about it. What would life be like if Jack hadn't been drafted, or if he had tried to pay his way out? He hadn't, because he was worried about possible scandals (that already had happened by then…) but now that she knew, she couldn't help but think that he should have.
Harriet rose and looked into the distance, noticing two women standing nearby the stairs. If she was going to mingle around, then she probably should make friends, but of course, she reminded herself, a lady like her wasn't going to waste her time around Sixes. Absolutely not.
The two girls looked like acceptable presence, but they also looked like they were already in the middle of a larger conversation, so she decided that there wasn't a particular reason for her to talk to these ladies just yet.
She had a whole day to spend. Of course, they'd need to organise the arrivals, but she couldn't help but think that there should have been a better way to organise this all. With a shrug, Harriet began walking away from the bench. Maybe the garden would bear something interesting.
/ / /
Author's Note
Appreciate Abi, the beta reader.
Two things, besides yay, the girls finally arrived:
a) Each of the girls is allowed to invite one relative / friend / ... to the King's birthday ball-who does your OC invite? If I don't get a response from you to this and don't have anything from myself (which, at the moment, is no one), your OC is likely not getting any scene. Your character does NOT need to invite anyone, but please still tell me that they wouldn't invite anyone.
b) The groups for the project as are following:
#1 The Reception: Ami Kennedy (Berrybush123), Sawyer Roth (OctaviaWithStarsForEyes), Isla Woodley (Cookiedoodles168), Tessa Evans (Smiley111), Cilla Chamberlain (ChillyIce)
#2 Sightseeing: Alex Valentino (Jcuret98), Leda Conner (Exotence), Irina Cavanah (Nikt Wazny), Rosy Tillings (Sabinethafangirl)
#3 Philanthropy Work: Rie Jespersen (Michelle The Editor), Jaira Phillips (Sylea), Leila Sinclair (mnbvcxz-xx), Deylin Reyes (sevenzeroseven)
#4 The Ball: Veira Schreave (Abizeau), Kate Blanchard (SlytherWitch), Minnie Whitefield (Celegera123), Harriet Tailor (PrincessLillyCarter)
If you aren't in any group but interested and I somehow missed you, flick me a PM or just message someone of the group you want to join and go ahead! :)
Names in italics did not respond and might not be reading the story anymore. It might be that they don't have time, so if you try and contact them but cannot reach them, flick me a PM. Depending on how many people aren't showing up, we'll see.
I'll check in with everyone once a week, but it'd be awesome if you could add me to any group chat you create. I'm open to joining any app, as long as I don't need to give out my phone number or real name. Feel free to just message everyone in your group and begin! :)