"Every student must dance at the Ball," Pollux noted, teetering on mule legs in the Valor common rooms.
Ella inhaled deeply. The room smelled strongly of cologne and leather with musky couches, bear head rug, (which made Ella nauseous) leather bound books on a shelf next to a moose head boasting massively large antlers.
Pollux led the girls through a series of dances, some of which were hard to follow, since mules aren't built for dancing. After stumbling around for quite some time, Pollux finally stirred the fairies to play a song.
They did. Ella only blinked before she was spun from partner to partner, waist to waist, heels never stumbling. Soon, she could follow through, and girls whipped around each other, moving as fast as lightning. The fairies switched to a slower song and the mass slowed their steps. Wolves howled the end of class and the girls went to the Groom Rooms, for Prof. Dovey had to take care of a peculiar matter. Ella sighed with pleasure as she sank into one of the massive sapphire tubs. She leaned back against a plush head rest. Looking over at Avery and Lauren, who were getting manicures, she lazily asked them a question.
"If you had to choose, which Neverboy would you date?"
Both girl looked up sharply, as if fairies were to burst through the door and throw them into a dungeon.
"Oh, come on guys, it's not illegal to ask a question like that,"
Lauren relaxed back into her chair and answered quickly,
"Blake."
"Ditto," Avery added, closing her eyes.
"Besides Blake, think deeper than that. He's probably just some witches son who used a spell to make himself pretty," Ella retorted.
"You didn't tell us who you would date," Lauren said, avoiding the question.
Ella lifted her head,"Well, there was this one boy who I saw at the Welcoming. He had really pretty eyes and an adorable nose."
As she laid her head back down, she noticed both girls looking at her strangely. Five minutes later, the three of them burst from the Groom Room, Ella being dragged behind. Lauren huffingly threw open the door, to stand face-to-face with Pocahontas. The Native American princesses eyes widened when she saw the girls. She snagged the trio and rushed them to Professor Dovey's office.
"What is the meaning of this?!" She cried, gesturing to the girls.
"I see no problem," Dovey responded calmly.
"These girls are dressed immodestly!"
The professor sighed.
"Don't sigh at me! You know that this is wrong!"
"Pocahontas, this is the new uniforms. It is not your decision to make,"
"These girl look like prostitutes! Not twelve, thirteen, and fourteen year olds!"
"It is not your choice to make!"
"It is now!"
Pocahontas swirled her fingers and leaves flew out of nowhere, all around the castle, covering the girls from head to toe. Leaf-covered screams were heard through the candy walls. Ella tried shaking off the leaves, with no avail. She couldn't move a muscle. She heard muffled conversation as the Dean and former student argued.
"Release the students!" she heard professor Dovey shout.
"They are not captive," Pocahontas replied, this time the calm one.
Ella felt a slight shifting on the top of her head. She willed gravity into effect and felt more shifting. Soon, her head was uncovered, and she could see the Dean's office and her friends. Pocahontas was gone, probably the result of the angered teacher. She still couldn't move the rest of her body, but the leaves continued to fall.
She could see her shoulders, but they had thick white mesh straps over them instead of the gray tank she had on before. She shook the green fronds off of her hands and waist. Stepping out of the plant molds, Ella looked down at her new clothes.
It was a white dress with white mesh sleeves that ended where her shoulder curved down into her arm. The hem of the dress ended about mid-thigh, showing off enough leg without showing too much. Light pink rose petals cascaded down her dress starting from her left shoulder, down to a rose blossoming on a silver ribbon around her waist.
She looked at Avery, who had finished de-leafing. She had light pink carnation petals curved across her dress, and Lauren had lilac petals.
Looking at the Dean, Ella stated the obvious. "I guess Pocahontas got her wish, huh."
(Next Chapter)
The students gathered in the clearing before Surviving Fairy Tales, something the teachers wanted to say.
"An Evil student snuck into the Woods last night," Lady Lesso proclaimed to the sea of students below.
She paused, waiting for the collective gasp to end. "He has not returned, and has failed this school by breaking the rules. Let this be a reminder to all to never go into the Woods at night."
The children broke into their Forest Groups, uneasily murmuring amongst themselves. Ella did a headcount of their group, and swallowed the rising nausea when she came up missing one. Dustin. He had gone into the Woods at night. An act of suicide. She staggered over to Lauren and whispered into her ear what had happened. Lauren gulped.
"Today we have a very special occasion," Yuba noted, appearing from his burrow. "Since Dustin is unfortunately no longer present, we will have a new member from another group,"
Ella looked up sharply.
"Presenting, Hogan of Bloodbrooke," Yuba applauded sarcastically.
Ella squeezed Lauren's arm in a death grip. This was the boy she was talking about before in the Groom Room. Stunning green eyes, dark chocolate colored brown hair, and that adorable iconic nose that turned up slightly. Why did he have to look so Good and be so Evil? His eyes met hers and Ella squeezed harder. She broke away when Yuba poked her with a gleaming gold Flowerground ticket. It took her a while to process what he was holding.
"B-but I already h-have one," She stammered, trying to shake the feeling that went with those beautiful eyes.
"Use this one, I don't have time to wait for you to find yours," He crabbed, poking her once again with the ticket.
She took it and walked over to the blue pumpkin that Blake just disappeared into. She opened the top and was met with the crabby caterpillar conductor.
"No sneezing, spitting, slap-"
"I know, the breaking of the rules will result in the removal of your clothes, get on with it already!"
The Conductor lifted his nose up at her and vines yanked her in. At first she was free-falling through darkness, then she was once again amazed at the majestic beauty of the Flowerground. (I'm not feeling like I have enough brain cells to describe the Flowerground. READ THE BOOK)
Ella closed her eyes and relaxed, feeling the soothing, strong pace and the calm that went with it.
"My arm is throbbing because of you!"
She turned at the sound of Lauren's voice. Her friend was glaring at her angrily. Noticing movement behind her angry friend, Ella saw Hogan harnesses by vines. Avery explained in front of her.
"The Flowerground is for Evers only, but they have to let the Nevers on because they're with the school,"
"Why the harnesses then?" Ella asked.
"Just because they let them on doesn't mean they trust them,"
Ella 'ohhed' and went back to Lauren. She spoke to her friend in French, hoping Nevers weren't bilingual.
"Je suis désolé pour vous blesser. Il est juste qu'il est tellement chaud, et il m'a regardé, puis le sentiment-"
She was suddenly pushed upward through the ground and into a frozen over hell. In her short dress, she was already a little bit chilly. Now she was a solid block of human shaped flesh. As her teeth chattered like wind-up toys on steroids, Yuba sparked up several fires.
"Today challenge is to find and eat meerworms, which are useful for avoiding starvation and death," Yuba crabbed.
Before the class could groan and grumble, he randomly paired the up the students in teams of two. Ella barely heard what Yuba said next, for her partner wasn't anyone Good.
"The pair who eats the most wins first place ranks!"
Her partner's voice snapped her out of her state of shock.
"Shall we go skipping through the Garden of Good and Evil and find ourselves some meerworms for me to eat?" Hogan asked with a scoff.
"Challenge accepted," she retorted, getting on her hands and knees, starting to dig through the dirt.
"Wait, you're touching dirt right now, aren't you supposed to explode?"
Ella found a meerworm, held it up to him, then ate it herself. She swallowed the stupid earth swimmer just to shut the Neverboy up. It tasted like dirt and surprisingly chicken.
"Well?" she asked when he gaped at her, dumbfounded," Aren't you going to help?"
As he got down and joined her, a magical paper and pen floated over and started tallying the eaten worms.
"Try and keep up," She jeered, elbowing him.
"Only if you can stay ahead!" He said, returning the jab as he ate four meerworms at once.
Yuba called time after multiple minutes of searching. The papers floated over to him as students looked sickly shades of green from eating so many worms. While Yuba was reading the ranks, Ella stood and brushed the dirt off of her dress.
"You ate so many meerworms, yet you still have a flat stomach and fit into that dress," He commented as she walked away.
She looked over her shoulder and flashed him an Evil smile, and continued to walk away. Before she could find Lauren, Yuba announced the ranks for the class. A one exploded over both her and Hogan's heads.
"A shocking 112 from the Good-Evil Team," Yuba seethed, "If only the rest of you were that productive! These two are supposed to be enemies, yet they beat all of the Ever and Never teams!"
Ella stuck out her tongue at a shocked Lauren, who curled her lip back at her. Yuba handed out a shimmering purple potion that smelled of rotting wood and stale air.
"Drink this, and it will empty your stomach of meerworms,"
The group quickly downed their vials, eager to rid their stomachs of the foul worms. Students looked around, waiting for their stomachs to empty magically. Then, faces started to turn green, and the teens hurled simultaneously onto the graves. The sparkly violet vomit swirled together and seeped deep into the ground. All of the Evergirl's looked mortified that they had just thrown up in front of their princes.
But Ella hurled up more than any of them, the price to pay for winning. Yuba looked unimpressed.
"You should be able to eat by dinner, but until then I advise you not to eat anything,"
Ella made her way towards Lauren and Avery, and together they managed to eat dinner without throwing up again, (Although others were not as fortunate) and slept peacefully through the night, eyes watching unnoticably in the darkness.