Romain woke to a deadweight on his legs and a slight chill over his bare chest. He blinked several times to clear away the bleariness of sleep, and discovered that the source to both the numbness in his legs and his missing blanket was Eden, who was grinning down at Romain from his position on top of him.
"Morning," he said. "Your mother wanted me to come and wake you up."
"I highly doubt that," Romain said, pushing him away. "You probably heard her tell my assistant to do it and you decided to beat her to it."
Eden tried to reach over and smack him, something that was made much more difficult by the fact that he was now sprawled on the ground beside the bed. "Maybe you shouldn't have made me Captain of the Royal Guard and given me automatic access to every room in this castle, then."
"Umeko's going to be pissed," Romain reminded him. His assistant was very new, but had already proved herself both competent and a bit too concerned about the state of palace security - Romain often found her giving long lectures to guards who she thought weren't doing their jobs properly.
"How long do I have before she gets here?"
"Thirty seconds?" Romain looked over the edge of the bed at his guard. "Maybe you should hide before she tries to write you up for not doing your job."
"...that's true," Eden said, managing to wedge himself in the closet and closing it moments before the bedroom door opened.
"I really hope you actually have clothes on, because you've had thirty minutes to get ready and I'm not waiting any longer"
"Wait, Umeko -"
A young woman who seemed to be the epitome of professionalism, what with her sleek black hair tied neatly up in a bun and her crisply ironed pants, strode into the room. She threw open the curtains, flooding the room with dazzlingly bright light. Romain cringed, both at sudden brightness and at the thought of the no doubt imminent scolding from Umeko he was about to receive.
"You slept in again, didn't you."
"...Yes. I did."
His assistant sighed. "You know you're supposed to go meet the Selected in an hour, right? They don't pay me enough to put up with you, Romain."
"Sorry?" Romain offered feebly, not at all surprised when Umeko just sighed again.
"Just...get dressed, at least," she said. "And meet me in the gardens in twenty minutes. If you don't, I'm going to resign and you're going to have to find someone else who's willing to put up with your lazy ass."
Romain waited in silence for a few moments after Umeko had exited the room, before speaking. "Eden, you can come out now. Actually, while you're in there, get me one of my suits."
Eden stumbled out, holding up a hanger with a dark grey suit and tossed Romain a navy blue tie. "I don't know why you bother. You'd probably make a bigger impression on them if you just met them in your pyjamas or something."
Romain had just barely finished adjusting his tie when his door was flung open again, this time by a girl with long, gleaming black hair that fell to the waistline of her elegantly cut scarlet dress.
"Morning, Beni," Romain said bemusedly. "Special occasion today?" He inquired, staring at her dress, which shimmered with gold embroidery and clung to her body. It was very different from the simple dresses she usually wore, particularly in combination with the delicate gold bracelets encircling her wrists.
"Of course it is," Benicia said, in a lilting, melodic voice with a light inflection of her Spanish origins. "Not that you seem to care, you have kept the Selected waiting for nearly an hour already. That one," Benicia pointed at Eden, who had made himself comfortable in Romain's bed again. "Was sent to bring you down."
"Told you," Eden muttered. Romain ignored him. Cursing under his breath, he started walking as fast he could while still looking dignified down to the garden. Benicia followed at an impressively quick pace, considering the fact that her shoes were nearly two inches tall. There was a yell of annoyance from Eden at being left behind, and within seconds, he'd caught up to the two of them. Romain nearly bumped into a servant in his haste, but could only offer several fumbling apologies, still half-jogging down to the gardens.
"Idiota," she complained, but Romain knew she didn't really mean it. Eight years of living with her had him attuned to almost all of her habits and quirks.
"Why are you meeting them, anyway?" He asked. Benicia was too refined to roll her eyes, but Romain could sense her exasperation through her regal air.
"Because I am Infanta Benicia of Spain. What would Illéa think if the Spanish Princess staying in the palace did not come to greet the future Queen? I imagine it would cause almost as grand of a scandal as the Prince sleeping through his own Selection welcome party."
"Okay, you've made your point," Romain said, as Eden laughed. "Where's the party?"
"Around the corner, here," Benicia replied. Romain and Eden followed her as she led them through the gardens.
Whoever had planned the party had placed it in the rose gardens; Romain personally hated the heavy, overpowering smell of the flowers that seemed to permeate every inch of the castle as soon as one so much as opened the doors that lead to the garden. There were tables set up, with the Selected mingling around idly with several other officials and staff who had been deemed important enough to attend.
The music seemed to end right as he stepped outside. Way to make an entrance, he thought, almost halting, but Umeko, who had materialised out of nowhere, held onto his arm and near-dragged him over to the party.
"Go and talk to them," she practically hissed into his ear, before walking off, presumably to yell at another guard for looking too tired.
Romain looked around at the small assembled group of people, who had resumed their socializing while stealing glances at him when they thought he wasn't looking. He walked over to the nearest girl - this one wearing a dark blue dress and looking just as nervous as he felt - and made a hasty introduction.
"Hi."
"Oh! Good morning."
"Thanks. What's your name..?"
"Olivia de los Angeles Martí," she said, all in one breath. For some reason her hand was covering her mouth, making it a bit hard for Romain to understand her. "Um. You can just call me Olivia, if you want. Or not! It doesn't matter, really."
He nodded, and she continued to speak. "This is a really beautiful venue, isn't it? Do you know who planted it?"
"Probably a gardener," he mumbled, before giving her a firm handshake and making a quick exit.
The next few Selected quickly faded from his memory. He noted a girl from a high-status family walking by - he remembered her from some private military fundraising event - and they made uncomfortable eye contact for a moment. She had been walking with another one of the Selected, and that one turned to look at him as well, waving a bit shyly before turning her attention away. Another girl with striking, ice-blue eyes and blonde hair dropped Romain a quick curtsey without once smiling at him.
Umeko had snagged one of the men from the group and was now leading him over to where Romain was standing.
"Romain!"
"Yeah?"
"I want you to meet Prince Xiumin Xue."
Romain nodded. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too," Xiumin said. They both continued to stand there awkwardly. Umeko seemed to be quite unhappy about where the conversation was going.
"So!" She glared at Romain. "Xiumin. 您好吗?"
"不错啊。天气很好!"
"真的是！你可以着夹克，可是你不是要!"
"Hey," said another girl, butting in on the conversation, although not in an unfriendly manner. She seemed nice enough to Romain, at least. "My name's Kathleen."
"Hi," Umeko said, clearly wishing that she was anywhere but here at the moment. She looked over at Romain and shooed him away, gesturing at the remaining Selected at the party.
He immediately ran into another man in a suit (they were all in suits today, weren't they?) but Romain managed to get away with shaking his hand and then excusing himself.
He was running out of patience, and wanted nothing more than to leave the garden and hole up somewhere, preferably where Umeko would never be able to find him. As he tried to weave his way through the people crowded in the garden, he tripped on a loose rock and let out a cry of surprise, bracing himself for an embarrassing fall. Before he could smash his face against the hard stone pathways, however, he felt himself literally swept off his feet, with someone's arm wrapped tightly around his waist. He looked up to see a young man with dirty blond hair, his hazel eyes gleaming with interest.
"I know I'm attractive and all," he said, helping Romain back to his feet. "But really, there's no need to fall for me so soon."
Romain was ready to go crawl into his closet and never return, when another two of the guests came over, ostensibly to help, although he wondered if they were just there to see him embarrass himself. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he said, before remembering that he should probably learn their names while he was at it. "Are you two Selected?"
One of the girls nodded. "I'm Ivelisse. Ivy, I guess. I know it's hard to pronounce."
"Cynthia," the other one said. He promised to catch up with both of them later and continued making his way back to the glass doors that lead back into the palace, hoping that he could beat a hasty retreat before Eden and Umeko could catch him and drag him back to the party.
He noticed two girls, one dark-haired and the other one blonde, standing behind a rosebush, which was frankly an odd place for them to be, and he decided to try and get closer to listen on on their conversation after he heard one of them raise their voice in anger. Maybe he could break up their argument, whatever it was - it wouldn't do for the Selected to be fighting with each other when they just met.
" - what are you doing? You've got a lot of nerve, showing your face here," the blonde girl said.
"It's not like you have any more of a right to be here, especially after what happened - "
"Really? Then -" She noticed Romain, and immediately ended the conversation, turning away and walking back towards the rest of the Selected. He was about to approach the other girl when Umeko rushed in. She had clearly been running around trying to make sure everything ran smoothly, and had probably heard the argument at the same time as Romain.
"I hope we're all behaving ourselves," she said icily, sizing up the dark-haired girl. "What was your name again?"
"Valentina," she said, now visibly nervous. Umeko seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding slowly and sending the girl off to talk with some of the other guests.
"Romain, weren't you supposed to be socializing?" she asked, and he knew that he'd been caught.
He figured that he only had a few of the Selected left to meet at this point. He shook hands and nodded at a few more of them, their faces and names all blurring into one mess that he didn't even want to sort through. I'll look over the files later, he thought as he smiled at a girl with wavy brown hair and brown eyes. I should be able to convince them that I remember all of them.
Romain finally met up with Eden again as the party started to wind down, the guests dispersing and the Selected chatting amongst themselves. "What'd you think of the Selected?" he asked. Eden seemed to find that question funny.
"Can't say much about them yet," he said, "unless you want me to talk about security risk and clearances and all that stuff Umeko's been hounding me about. I don't really like her, though." He pointed at a girl with caramel brown hair tied into a bun and a green dress. "Umeko doesn't either."
"It's not your Selection," Romain said, bumping his shoulder.
"Can't say that I wish it was." The pager hanging by his side went off once. "Well, it was nice talking to you, but there's some kind of security threat up front. See ya."
"Shouldn't you be more concerned about that?" Romain called after him, but Eden just made finger guns and ran off around the corner.
Romain suppressed a sigh as he realised that he was now virtually alone with a number of strangers he didn't know, who all had some sort of expectation for him to live up to, or at least a preconceived notion about who he was and what he was like. And not only was Eden's departure unfortunate in that Romain was left at the party with no friendly, familiar face in sight, the implications of Eden's sudden call away concerned him. There'd been so many of these security threats recently, Romain could hardly remember the last time he'd had a proper conversation with Eden without him being abruptly called away halfway through it.
For the second time in as many days, Romain found himself longing to be able to do something instead of sitting idly around, waiting for the conflict he could sense was rising in the kingdom to come knocking at his door. As he stared out at the Selected, their faces and names blurring together so that he could barely differentiate between them, he couldn't help but think that he would end up disappointing them and all of Illéa...perhaps dooming them all in the process.
Hey guys! Sorry for taking so long to upload; school's been really busy and I haven't had time to write much. We're starting to see the Selected characters, but don't worry if your character doesn't really appear in this chapter; they'll have plenty of opportunities to shine in the rest of the story. I just wanted to get Romain introduced to most of them, and to set up some things for the next couple chapters.
Just in case you haven't read our updated description: the Selected characters list is now full. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted a character! I'm sorry that I couldn't accept all of them, but I appreciate the interest in this story, nonetheless.
Thanks for reading!
- Brenn