Hey guys! This took a bit longer to get out than I'd originally planned, but hope you like it! It features Waverly Evans, submitted by JenHen48, and Delilah Gregory, submitted by Happygreenbirdy. A lot of you also asked for a POV of one of the Royals, so I have one of those for you too!

Shout out to Monotonic Rainbow for following and favoriting, XOstarbrightXO for favoriting and submitting, Jcuret98, ryaspirit, and Happygreenbirdy for submitting, and XOstarbrightXO, ryaspirit, CarrieReeRay, jenhen48, Monotonic Rainbow (x2), and UltimiteMaxmericaShipper for reviewing! Definitely continue to do all of those things, and SUBMIT!

Enjoy!

Waverly Evans

The prompt for this morning's Beginning Activity was pretty simple: write twelve sentences (two paragraphs, as my little second graders had just learned) of your own fairytale. Five minutes to write, and then the kids can volunteer their stories.

So far, it has been a train wreck.

Halseia Station's fairytale involved a fairy who gave children peppermint candy and sent demons to kill mean parents who took it away.

Riley O'Keefe's story was about a pig, named after the young author, who ate his children's legs when they wouldn't roll around in the mud and was resolved when a dragon swallowed the swine whole.

The great future-novelist, Quigley Pierce, wrote about flying poop. Enough said on that one.

With each inappropriate and/or violent story, I want to recede deeper and deeper into my own skeleton and become a human turtle. This prompt was my idea, and Mrs. Edilie Parson had been so encouraging of me, even letting me plan out the rest of the lessons for the day as a reward for the concept I had come up with. Usually, I leave the lesson planning to her, not wanting to further invade her teaching, and not sure I'm prepared yet. I've only just been transferred from Kindergarten to Second Grade this school year, and I'm Mrs. Parson's student teacher, not the other way around.

What a great way to prove that I'm ready to plan more lessons...

I know that I should cut the story telling short, as to not encourage stuff like this, so I call on one last volunteer: Marina Hepburn. I know that teachers shouldn't pick favorites, but she's mine regardless. She's so intelligent, and so eloquent for her age. She'll have her birthday in late November, making her one of two children in the class still seven, and wears ice blue every day (today it was ribbon securing her auburn curls out of her eyes, with a navy and white striped romper and light pink flip-flops). I bite my nails nervously (which I already have tried quitting-to no avail), praying that her story won't be as terrible as the others'.

"Once Upon a Time, there was a pretty lady named Ms. Evans." Marina begins, much to my almost immediate embarrassment. "She cared for many little children and protected them from evil wizards and dragons. She didn't have any kids herself, or a nice husband, but she had a very big heart anyway. She was also sad because she wanted to see the world outside the Kingdom of Columbia but didn't have anyone to see it with her. She didn't want to go alone. So she always stayed home and cared for the town's kids, like a pretty, nice babysitter.

"One day, she found Prince Charming. His full name was Prince Cameron Charming. They fell in love and got married. Ms. Evans became Ms. Evans Charming. They had kids and then travelled the world. And they all lived happily ever after." Marina skips back to her seat and high fives Gilliam Stonem, who I've gathered must be her best friend. "The End."

"That was a very nice story, Marina." Mrs. Parson coos, sending me a small smile. I avert my eyes and hope that the undertones in my face haven't been cranked up by a million, but I can practically feel heat radiating off of my skin. Seriously, my complexion must resemble Pepto Bismol.

I had tried to avoid thinking about the Selection for as long as possible. No matter how strong I wanted to be, I knew it was too soon to "get back out there", as my roommates/best(/only) friends seemed to want me to do. I think I deserve a bit more time. There's no cap on how long it takes to grieve someone you've lost. That includes good for nothing ex-fiancé's who use you to get in good with your mother and secure a recording contract. It's taken almost just as long to wrap my head around the fact that I'll never again be able to write a song without thinking of said good for nothing ex-fiancé, who could sing like an angel and turn mere thoughts into poetry... Never mind. I don't want to talk about it. Wait, not it; him, sorry.

It's too soon. Definitely. Right?

I try to push the impending cutoff date for sending in Applications as far as possible from my mind. Instead, it's time to split into Vocabulary Study groups. I take the teal group and Mrs. Parson the green. The other three groups (clumped by talent in spelling tests and basic word comprehension) go to their assigned stations. After I'm finished with teal, I take lilac group, the smartest in the class (Marina amongst them), and after them, yellow. Mrs. Parson has already gone through green and crimson, and monitors the children who aren't studying with me. After every group has gone, we head off to lunch: kids to the cafeteria in the basement, Mrs. Parson and I to the teacher's lounge.

I'm sure you can imagine my surprise as I find Aislynn and Clara (the best friends/roommates I mentioned earlier) waiting for me in my usual seat next to Willa Thorne, the fourth grade teacher from the top floor, and Teagan Chase, the aid that one of the students I had while I taught kindergarten (they had both moved so they could gossip by the window). Aislynn's in Media and Advertising, and works later than the rest of us, and Clara's smack in the middle of a school day (she's a teacher, like me), so I'm left unsure about how they got time off to spontaneously visit me.

"Umm. Hi guys?" I raise one eyebrow and push my dark hair behind my ears as I sit down on Clara's left hand side.

"I'll cut to the chase," Aislynn says suddenly, not bothering with formalities. She throws down a Manila form and a black pen onto the table in front of me, and I watch her pull her own. "The Selection. We're entering."

"But not me." Clara reminds us. "I'm twenty, it's you children that are signing up." Aislynn giggles, but all I can conjure are protests.

"Wait! I know what you're going to say, and please don't." Aislynn interrupts me before I even have a chance to speak. "I know that you don't want to, but Clara and I think this would be really good for you. Proof you're over him, yeah?"

I don't have the heart to tell them that I'm in fact not over Jefferson. That their sappy movie therapy and pint after pint of ice cream they had forked over cash for in a three week span couldn't help me.

"Maybe I just don't want to. Maybe I don't like Prince Cameron." I reason, trying to get out of entering. Actually, I've had a celebrity crush on the elusive Crown Prince since I was young. I don't really have any idea what he's like, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious.

"Come on! Please, Waverly?" Clara begs.

I consider arguing again, a rebuttal to her plea on the tip of my tongue. But instead I just stifle a sigh, finally relenting. "Fine." My best friends high five and freak out for a minute. I almost feel like laughing at the sight.

I click my pen on and so does Aislynn. Clara helps out with phrasing things better, being an English teacher and all.

Name: Waverly Nicole Evans

Age: 19

Province: Columbia

Caste: Three

Occupation: Second Grade Student Teacher

Hair Color: Dark Chestnut Brown

Eye Color: Hazel

Skin Tone: Lightly tanned

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 120 pounds

Languages Spoken: English, German, and French.

I try to write Spanish, because I totally can speak it, but Clara scolds me not to, saying that lying on my form could get me in serious trouble. Lying. PSH. I can so speak Spanish...

Hobbies: Teaching, drawing, singing, playing guitar, writing songs, reading, baking

Clara admires my form and then Aislynn's after mine, and we head to the head of Administration's office to let me leave early. They tell me it's ok, which I'm remarkably surprised about, and the three of us walk to our shared apartment.

Clara dresses both our friend and I. For Aislynn, it's blue skinny jeans and a turquoise lace top (to bring out her eyes, of course), with her long blonde hair pulled back in a braid. For me, it's far less dressed up. I get to keep the plain black leggings I had on, but I change my green blouse for a long sleeved white and black stripped shirt and an orange scarf around my neck. I get little black flats and a gold wristwatch as my accessories, and my hair is pulled back in a ponytail. I apply mascara and blush, not wanting to overdo it, and Clara practically pushes Aislynn and I out the door.

Jefferson Reynolds: this is me saying goodbye and good riddance. You can't control me anymore.

Delilah Gregory

I run into the wooden confines of my family's barn, searching desperately for a sink to wash afterbirth from my fingers. I'd like to think that knowing what happens when you deliver babies will be really useful for me when I'm having my own kids, but at this point I think I've had enough birthing to last me a lifetime. But, if I happen to have multiple children at once, I'll be a lot more prepared, because no dog that I've ever bred has had only one. Horses, however, were another story. Delivering foals was a lot grosser… I mean, covered in blood and other things I don't even want to think about, I'm a lot less likely to want kids than with puppies.

Two of my horses, Jack and Sally, have delivered me a sterling mare that I've decided to name Rosey. I don't typically name the foals, as I read somewhere that if you name it, you start getting attached to it (and it's definitely true), but in the past year I've had to start keeping the horses I get. Jack, Sally, and my other two horses, Quinton and Sara, are each somewhere from twenty-four to twenty-eight years old, and they don't have much more time. And I'd know better than anyone, horses are really expensive. It's not like money is incredibly tight here, I guess, but we don't have any extra to just throw around. Rosey will make the third in my new generation of breeders, along with Taylor and Trysten. I just helped my sister, McKenzie, ride one yesterday. Her long, blonde hair flew about haphazardly, and the canary yellow in her dress was dirtied by mud, but I don't think I've ever seen her more excited.

Once I'm cleaned up, I wander back outside the barn to help Sara in any way, to make her more comfortable. I only make it a few steps, however, until my heart stops in my chest and I fall backwards. It almost landed on my nose. A butterfly flutters past me, it's wings black and red and gold, and immediately I'm terrified.

As far as I can remember, butterflies have always been around when something bad happens. When I was six and ten respectively, I was watching butterflies hatch from cocoons when I heard that my mother had a first and second miscarriage and I wouldn't be a sister. When I was twelve, I was looking at a butterfly out the window in my classroom when I got a report card back with my first C (I didn't take that one well). When I was fourteen, I was outside looking at flowers for my botanology assignment (with butterflies on them, of course, and at that point I was already a bit scared) when my father came out of our house in the lively cityscape in Zuni saying we were being bumped down a caste. After that one, I realized that everything bad happened to me when there are butterflies around, but awareness didn't stop it. When I was sixteen, a butterfly landed on the arm that I wound up breaking a half an hour later, and just last month, one of my dogs was chasing a monarch before it spontaneously died.

And lying on the ground, breaths nearly coming out as whimpers, I decide that it's impossible to feel more terrified. So I change course, after picking myself back up. Instead of risking a horse's life, I trudge to my family's farmhouse. I'm not sure if I can escape bad luck like that, but I figure it's worth a shot.

I haven't taken but three steps into the house when I realize that I've gone in the wrong direction. My mother stands behind the kitchen table, holding a cream envelope addressed to me, which she probably found in the trash, where I had put it yesterday. I stand still, knowing it would be pointless to try to run.

"No." I flat out refuse. I am not joining the Selection. Not when I don't have much time with my horses, or my dog Lucky. Not when my sister is still young and impressionable and there are no other kids in a ten-mile radius. No chance I'm going.

"Delilah," my mother demands, her eyes turning the color of ice. "Yes, you are." I instinctively back away when she comes out from behind the table and tries to force me to sit. "If not for the prince, you need to meet girls your age. You haven't had a friend since LyRynne, and it's been years! You have to get back out there, meet some nice girls and make friends! I'm worried about you, alright?" I glare into her eyes, trying to ignore the guilt I can see in them.

All right, so I get her point. I haven't been around girls my age in forever. But… I don't know, I just don't want to.

"Please do it, Delilah." My mother presses the envelope into my hands and walks out of the room, casting me one final, desperate look before she disappears. I can feel simultaneous guilt and resentment building in my chest. No I do not care about the prince or being queen. Yes I do want to make friends. No I don't want to be away from my family and my animals, many of who don't have much time left. Yes I do want some more money in case something happens, and a caste raise to three could mean I have the opportunity to become a veterinarian again. Yes, no, yes, no….

Damn. I wish I hadn't thought of the vet thing, now I actually want to sign up…

I shuffle to our kitchen's cabinet, where I take the nearest writing utensil and sit down. It's my father's old work pen, from when he was a vet himself. I recognize the near-black color as one which always wrote up reports and made notes in, and I feel a bit more confident immediately.

Name: Delilah Evangeline Gregory

Age: 17

Province: Zuni

Caste: Four

Occupation: Pet Breeder

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Auburn-Hazel

Skin Tone: Tan

Height: 5'6"

Weight: 109 lbs

Languages Spoken: English, Italian, French, and Spanish

Hobbies: Archery, horseback riding, reading, training, hiking

There. That seems decent, right?

I call my mother so that she can assess everything that I've put down (I mean, if it's her making me go, she should at least proof it. Also, she was the one who got all of her education, while I got only until second grade), and she agrees that the Selection could become my reality with a form like mine. I mean, I speak four languages, and my hobbies are all good. All my mother says is that I have to get ready so my Application Picture can match the quality of everything else, but doesn't trust me enough to pick out my own outfit. A nice black dress is waiting for me upon entering my room, with a pair of high heels sitting on the floor beside my bed. I chuckle at my mother's efforts and roll my eyes. Instead of the dress (I do not wear dresses, thank you very much), I swap my bloody t-shirt and jeans for a dark grey and green flannel, black top, and ripped up black shorts. I throw my hair up into a ponytail and put on a little mascara and Chap Stick before trudging back downstairs.

The look on my mother's face (the look of slight pride, which overshadowed her distain) is enough to make me sure that I made the right choice. I almost feel like hugging her.

Princess Cassiopeia Havillard

My mother says that patience is a virtue. That a princess should be calm and kind, and cater to others, rather than have others cater to her. And normally, I try to conform to the standards that my parents have set for a "perfect princess", even though I've nicknamed myself Sisyphus, constantly pushing a boulder up a mountain to an unreachable peak, (perseverance is also apparently one of the virtues, according to my father), but right now, I'm at my wits end. So you can call me high maintenance if you'd like, and I won't care. I've had enough of Cameron's façade.

This was no longer some coping mechanism. These are his ways of shutting people out and begging for attention. It's bratty and petty, and after this morning, I've had enough.

He didn't utter a word at breakfast. He blatantly ignored me when I asked if he was excited for his Selection (I mean, less than a week from the actual selecting part of the competition, and if I was him I'd definitely be either very excited or very nervous), and immediately after sifting through his meal, he trudged up to his bedroom, not bothering to speak to any of us. You could hear his door close all the way from a floor below.

It's dumb.

I mean, I'm his sister. I get that he doesn't care much about my opinion or anything, and I understand that he thinks he can treat me like crap without repercussions, but what about when the girls come? Is he going to refuse to open up to them too? Will he dismiss them in crazy quantities due to scrutinizing pickiness? There's too much on the line here for him to throw it away.

Speaking of having lots of stuff on the line, we're building a bomb shelter. My parents say that it's just a precaution, that there really isn't anything to worry about, but really, I think that they're nervous. And why shouldn't they be? We all had thought that the conflicts between India and Italy would quickly resolve, but in the past two months, no such thing had happened. India, for trading purposes, wanted to make a system of waterways to allow their ships passage along Cairo, which is on the border of the newly Italian Territory: Buona Gaînes. The Italians refuse to allow the building of such waterways, and as India is being cut off from trade with the rest of Europe due to its lack of connections, more unrest and frustration is building. India's economy can't survive without selling its exports, and Italy's recent boom in population has got them hunting for new land anywhere they can find it. This is causing unrest with countries like Tunisia, Portugal, the southern part of Spain, and even the nearly anarchical Novaya Zemlya Island, who just recently requested independence from its mother country, Russia. Most of the Northern part of the African Republic has sided with India without officially becoming a part of the brewing war, and southeast Asia has allied fully, but Italy has support from the Nordic countries, the majority of Europe, and of course, us, should we choose to enter the effort at all. Simply looking at my father, you could tell that he'd been tenser, as of late. His smile never quite reached his eyes, as someone who had known him for her entire life could tell.

And what are we doing in the midst of all of the turmoil? Battle planning? Ha. Don't make me laugh. No, we're preparing for Cam's Selection. Not that he asked for one, or even seemed to desire one (although, there's really no way of figuring out whether or not he had wanted one, considering he's decided that actual speaking is unnecessary). And next year? Would we be working out peace treaties then, when the war will hopefully be over? Probably not. Because next year it will be Mason's turn for a Selection. And then mine will be two years after Mason's, and Connor's a year after mine. Elena will be three years after Connor, though, so lets cross our fingers and pray that we can get stuff sorted out in that span. But unless we fire our entire advisory board and stock the new cabinet with fresher faces, best of luck to future us. My father's advisors are all idiots. I'm sure they were at one point the brightest of their age, but some of those gentlemen are now into their older sixties and young seventies. Obviously they would have a much older-fashioned perspective than someone closer to my brother's age.

What each of them seemed to miss was that, if we can just ally with India (on top of our old-standing alliance with Italy), we could probably negotiate peace between the two nations a lot easier, still without involving ourselves and our people in battle. I've even tried suggesting things like that before at advisory meetings that all of the Havillard children are able to sit in on upon their sixteenth birthday (I'm just newly seventeen, so I had gotten used to the fact that I was usually blatantly ignored), but who on earth would anyone listen to a naïve, young princess such as myself? I wasn't meant to be queen, and I only had a place in the line because blatant sexism like exclusion would cause unrest amongst our people, but no one really saw me fit to be a ruler. Most of the advisors didn't even bother addressing me as Princess Cassiopeia, or Princess Cassia, as they would any of my brothers. If I didn't know that there was no other way to be kept in the loop about important issues such as the current usual topic of discussion, I'd boycott the meetings all together. Not that anyone would notice.

And because nobody listens to such a silly princess as myself, my father and the advisors thought it better to prepare for lethal attacks on our land (hence, building the bomb shelter, in case of nuclear warfare) than stopping the commotion at it's roots and negotiating peace.

So on top of needing to disguise the shelter in some abandoned corridor that's equidistance from the girls' rooms, the dining hall, great room, Women's Room, and our royal chambers, we need to put the finishing touches on everything related to the Selection. There were the matters of reconstructing each room (my mother found a flaw in the bathroom plan and had to scrap each and every one), hiring maids specifically catered to serving ladies that would simultaneously be the valuable property of Illéa and amongst them a future queen, hiring gourmet chefs to cook up recipes not involving allergies that we don't even know if the girls have yet, and picking an educational refinery specialist out of over six hundred applicants. Needless to say, the palace is currently a mess. It's like a bomb went off here, which is (thankfully) hasn't yet.

Stepping over a cluster of workers varnishing the stairs, I slipped off my sneakers and marched up the grand foyer staircase ("no shoes, food, beverages, or animals allowed on the third floor"). Skimming the walls for a few seconds, I find Cameron's room, which I'm not in all that often. I knock with a quiet determination, and wait almost two minutes for Cam to open the door. When he doesn't, I knock again. Another two minutes and another cluster of knocks pass before I barge into my oldest brother's room without official permission.

My mouth drops near the floor.

Cliffhanger *Insert demonic laughing*! Guess you'll have to wait for the next chapter to find out what Cassia saw…!

Speaking of next chapter, I'm thinking that I'm going to have max one more chapter of intros before I announce the Selected. SUBMIT PEOPLE! It's been slow lately, most definitely try to send in characters!

Also, review! Each one makes me smile so much guys, please just do it.

Love you all! :)

xx. Scarlett