The penultimate chapter! Prom night!

Just to clear something up- Anya and her friends are very close, but she's really good at hiding her emotions- like her parents :P Sophia knows because she's a Spirit user so can see auras :)

Disclaimer: Vampire Academy belongs to Richelle Mead. I am not she. If I was, I'd be in America so would be able to watch the VA movie tomorrow. Oh well, I hope it's awesome :)

Enjoy everyone :)

The next few weeks passed in a blur as well. During lessons I dedicated myself fully to what was being taught, and at the end of the day I studied for finals, worked out in the gym, or tried to focus my abilities. I hadn't had any more visions, but it no longer felt like I was cut off- just that there was nothing to see at the moment.

My friends were a great help. Sophia was always there to talk to if I needed it, and Mason and I were closer than ever. We'd go for a run around campus every morning, before the rest of the school was awake, and just forget about everything, even for half an hour. Mariana or Lily joined us sometimes, but I preferred when it was just the 2 of us. Mason was a great guy, and our easy banter and casual insults comforted me.

As for Aleks, well, that was a story in itself. Whilst I still saw him every day in lessons- even sat next to him in one- I treated him no differently to anyone else in my classes. I still wasn't sure how to describe my feelings towards him, other than 'different'. I still missed him the bond we used to share, but I had accepted that it was just something that I would get over in time. I had let go, and everything else would happen when it was supposed to.

He'd broken up with Brooke a few days after the concert and our confrontation. Half way through a lesson, he realised he'd forgotten his textbook. He'd walked into the room he shared with Hayden to collect it, only to find him and Brooke getting hot and heavy on his bed. Ironic on so many levels.

After that, I'd received apologetic texts and calls, voicemails that I hadn't bothered listening to. He'd tried to apologise to my face a couple of times, but after the initial "You were right, I'm so sorry", I'd walked away and left him. It was too little, too late. There was nothing left for me to say, other than 'I told you so', which had never helped anyone. So I let it be.

Anyway, I had bigger worries than my non-existent love life. Next week was the beginning of Finals Week, where I would be both physically and mentally assessed on my skills. As a Sophomore novice, it was almost as important as our assessment at the end of senior year, as these scores would affect the groupings for the next 2 years. Lots of novices would drop out at the end of this year- if their grades were that bad, especially the girls, they'd probably leave the school and go back to the communes their own mothers were from. The guys who failed might decide to transfer, or pursue a career in the human world. Basically, if you weren't 100% dedicated to protecting Moroi, now was your opportunity to leave with dignity, rather than being chucked out later on and wasting everyone's time.

And I knew where my loyalties lay. I was going to graduate top of my class both now and at the end of Senior year, because the Guardian for the Queen's daughter had to be good. Though I had been happy all my life to have my parents' reputations precede mine, I was getting to the point where I wanted to be known for my own achievements. I wanted to be known as something more than the only person to be conceived by 2 Dhampirs. I wanted people to know me for who I am.

I sighed and put my pencil down. I'd been daydreaming again, and I really didn't have time. The Sophomore prom was just 2 weeks away, and as Sophia kept reminding me, I didn't have my dress yet. We were all getting ours made by a designer at Court and, we'd decided to design our own. Marina was helping Lily, since her art skills didn't match up to her intellectual ones.

So far, I had just the basic outline of the dress sketched, and a couple of fabric swatches in various shades of green. Sophia had finished hers yesterday, and was pressuring me to get mine finished so we could send them to the dressmaker at the same time. But the longer I stared at the piece of paper in front of me, the more the image of my dream dress seemed to elude me.

Giving up, I pushed my chair away from the table, spinning around on it. Swivel chairs like this really weren't the best idea for people as easily distracted as me.
I dropped onto the bed, turned on the TV and laid back against the soft pillows. After a minute of channel surfing, with disappointing results, I left it on a nature channel showing a documentary about the rainforest. I drifted into sleep, soothed by the sounds of the narrator's voice and the ambience of the forest.

I jolted awake, practically falling off the bed in my haste to get to the desk. Grabbing pencil I had discarded earlier, I sketched furiously for the next 20 minutes. Once I was happy with the result, I sat back with a satisfied smile.

Lia DiStefano, eat your heart out.

I'd only been awake 5 minutes when there was a knock at the door. When it became clear that I had no intention of getting out of bed just yet, Sophia went to open it with a sigh.

Marina bounced into the room, followed by Lily who was rolling her eyes. "Anya! I can't believe you're still in bed, today to all day!"

"Uh, yeah. That's kind of the point. I'm making sure I get enough beauty sleep."

Marina came over and started poking my arm. "You're beautiful enough already. If you're any more gorgeous, I'll have to give you a black eye so I feel better. Now get up." She pulled the duvet off me.

"It's a good thing I don't sleep naked," I noted dryly.

"It wouldn't make a difference if you did, except maybe getting you up faster to find some clothes."

With a dramatic sigh, I hauled myself out bed. I wasn't even that tired- just didn't want to have to face the 2 promzillas that would be on top form today. At least I had Lily to help defend against them.

Marina instructed me to go shower and wash my hair ready for it to be styled later. We had the whole day free to get ready, with hair, makeup, mani/pedis and dresses built in. Still, it was utterly ridiculous to think that we might need 9 hours to get those things done.

Because of the ridiculous amount of time allotted to get ready, I didn't feel bad about taking a half-hour shower. It was even worth facing Marina's wrath afterwards. Well, almost.

"Anastasia Hathaway Belikova, get your ass out the shower! Are you trying to use up all the hot water in Montana?!"

I stepped out the bathroom, wrapped in a fluffy white towel. "Nope, just using up some of the time we have to spare."

Marina glared, but backed off when I shot back one of my own. "Okay, so maybe we didn't need to start quite so early. But it's better to finish early than to rush, right?"

I suddenly felt bad for her- just because my own night would undoubtedly be crap and not at all like I had imagined it could be, it didn't mean that everyone was the same. It was Marina's first date with Angelo- finally- and more importantly, a night to celebrate."Sure. So why are we standing around talking right now when we could be doing our nails?"

After lunch, the things we had left to do were hair and makeup, and get our dresses on.

We'd killed the last few hours with facials, manicures and pedicures. Sophia had taken charge on these, since her porcelain skin didn't need the pampering that the novices did. My nails had been short and crappy, the skin chapped and dry. Marina and Lily's had been a little better, since they hadn't done as much training as me lately. But thanks to Sophia's ridiculously expensive scrubs and lotions, you'd never know that my hands spent most of their time punching things. I sat admiring the slightly pearlescent shine of my French manicure as Marina started working on my hair. I wanted it in loose curls, with the front pinned up out of my face.

Once that was over, after a lot of complaining on both our parts, we all split up. Since there was only one mirror in each room we couldn't all put our makeup on at the same time. I'd decided to go with shades of bronze and gold, since they worked well with my tanned skin.

By the time that was done, I was glad we'd started getting ready so early. It was almost 6:00, and the prom started at 7:00.

Sophia stepped out from behind the wardrobe, and despite being perfectly happy with how I looked just a moment ago, I immediately felt scruffy and common in her presence. With her blonde hair half pinned up in a regal style and floor-length blue dress with sapphires glittering on it, she looked every bit the Queen's daughter. She was so beautiful I would have hated her for it if she wasn't my best friend.

I suddenly got a thought, an image of her going to hundreds of Royal functions looking stunning in ball gowns whilst I stuck to the shadows in a dark uniform. As her Guardian, I'd always be her shadow.
A moment later, I berated myself for thinking like that. That was the life I had chosen- the life I wanted. Guarding my best friend, my sister, from the evil in the world whilst she continued to make it better.

Anyway, it wasn't like I'd never be able to dress up again. But I should still make the most of tonight. That was the purpose of this whole thing- let us have fun now so that we could focus on duty later.

As I thought that, I saw flashes of my future before my eyes. It was blurry and moving too fast to see, but I welcomed them. I was still relieved that I hadn't lost my gift- or myself.

"Anya, are you actually going to get dressed, or stand there staring at me all night?"

I shook myself out of the vision. "Sorry, occupational hazard." I said.

Sophia's excitement doubled. "Ooh, what did you see?"

I smiled. "The future."

Sophia realised that I wasn't being sarcastic, and nodded slightly. Then, she grabbed the remaining garment bag from where it was hanging on the door of the wardrobe and handed it to me. "Go get it on."

Sophia was just lacing up the back of my dress when the others came back in. Marina squealed when she saw us. "You both look so gorgeous!"

"So do you," I replied truthfully. Marina had a black and pink short dress that flared out from the waist, and Lily had a mid-length cream satin one with tiny flowers embroidered along the bottom. We all had our dream dresses, thanks to Lissa's connections.

"Anya, I didn't think you'd ever get that dress made in time. But now I get why it took you so long to design it. I love it." Lily commented.

"Thanks Lil. Yours is so pretty."

In truth, I really was proud of my dress. Floor length shot silk in a green that changed colour depending on the light, sort of like a beetle's wing. The bodice laced up at the back and the fabric crossed over and layered at the front. It was exactly as I'd imagined it.

"What do you want to do now? We have half an hour before it starts, and I don't want to be early." I asked.

"The boys will be here in about 10 minutes to 'escort us there', as Mase put it. Until then, we can work on a playlist that we want to request?" Marina suggested.

I could feel how excited she was for Angelo to get here. Jet was obviously taking Sophia, and yesterday Mason and I had agreed to go together for a laugh. Half the school already thought we were dating anyway, so why not give them something to really talk about? Hopefully it would stop me missing the real person I'd hoped to go with so much. Lily was going it alone; but had promised to save a dance for a non-royal Moroi called Chandler. He was a little crazy, but adorable in his way. He had this cute crush on her, and I had no doubt that this dance would make his night.

We'd each chosen a song we wanted, and Marina had 2, before there was a knock at the door. It was probably a mistake to let Sophia get it. About 2 seconds after the door had been opened, she was pushed back into the room with Jet firmly attached. Clearly, he appreciated the work she'd done to dress up. I caught a few mumbled phrases of 'beautiful' and 'gorgeous' before Ash walked in, rolling his eyes.
"As if tonight wasn't going to be bad enough already, without having to watch that." He had practically been forced into a suit, after coming up with a barrage of reasons why he didn't want to go. His main one was that he hated dancing, but Sophia had mentioned it to Lissa and she'd reminded him that after graduation, the number of royal functions would only rise. After that, Ash had complained to Christian over the phone for an hour, knowing that his dad would be able to sympathize. I bet it had been a proper pity party.

Mason came over to me as his sister went to greet her date at the door. Poor Angelo wasn't used to seeing Sophia Dragomir sucking face with Jet Ivashkov, and was wisely staying out of the way.
"Not too bad, Anya. I guess you're looking good enough to be seen on my arm."

I slapped said arm playfully. "Sure, honey. But the jury's still out as to whether you're good enough to be seen with me."

Mason smiled good naturedly. "Of course. And I swear to dedicate the entire night ensuring you have the night befitting a girl as amazing as you." Though he said it jokingly, I knew that he meant it. He knew how much Aleks had hurt me, and what I'd hoped for tonight to be. I was grateful, but didn't need any special treatment. I just wanted to have a good night and have fun with my friends.

I bumped his shoulder. "Alright, Prince Charming. But you don't need to worry so much- I'm not going to turn back into a poor servant girl at midnight. Or the fragile broken girl, ever."

"I know." He gave me one final sad smile, before holding out his hand. "Shall we?"

Glancing around the room, I saw that everyone else was ready to leave. "We shall."

As we arrived at the doors of the ballroom, I hung back and let everyone else go first. Mason took my hand, tucking it into his elbow. Together, we descended the stairs, with me paying extra attention to make sure I didn't trip in my heels. Despite my dhampir reflexes, it would be just my luck to fall down the stairs right now.

Our group caused quite a stir as people noticed us, heads turning to catch a glimpse of the Royal group. Girls looked at us with a mix of jealousy and wonder, and the guys looked at with jealousy and lust. All in all, a great way to start a party.

PromNightDrama! Please review, let's get as many as possible before this story is over! It might even make me work on the sequel some more, even though I'm supposed to be writing something else. Oh well, I love this story :)