So This Is Love - Part 1

Part 1 - In Which Ahiru Meets her Betrothed, Fakir is Disgusted by all Proceedings, and Rue Ponders her Situation

So… this is love, I guess. Ahiru walked forward very slowly, to place her hand in Prince Mytho’s. Though, in truth, this was more to make sure she didn’t trip on the way than in apprehension.
When her guardian had told her two years ago that she was to be wed to this prince, she had not known what to think. Now, meeting him like this, everyone around them in the giant ballroom silent, watching them, his eyes looked into hers, and…
With those beautiful eyes… Well, it wasn’t what Ahiru had expected.
Ahiru gasped a little when she was startled out of her reverie by a gentle touch to her hand.
Mytho took her hand tenderly, then carefully put it to his lips.
“Welcome, Princess, to Gold Crown.”
Ahiru looked at him, keeping eye contact as was proper, and curtsied low, slowly and carefully.
“Thank you, my Prince. It is an honor to be here.” The words were calm from practice. They slipped off her tongue without a thought.
But she almost grimaced as she rose at Mytho’s prompting hand and he started to lead her onto the dance floor. If she had lasted this long without tripping over anything, or losing her balance at all, something was bound to happen during their dance.
This night counted. And Ahiru couldn’t have been more nervous. She forced herself to take one deep breath as the orchestra started the opening chords, and she stumbled only slightly in the opening step of the waltz.

Fakir looked on, already mildly disgusted by the night’s proceedings. If he weren’t a knight, and the Prince’s best friend, he wouldn’t be here, especially not in the ceremonial armor “befitting his station.”
As the Princess stumbled slightly in the waltz, Fakir turned away from the couple. He leaned back against a marble pillar, ignoring the hissing of whispers that carried around the echoing chamber.
He would sit through dinner. Mytho knew him well enough not to let him get away with simply promising to be there, to see the princess. Mytho had also made him promise to stay through dinner. He had attempted to con Fakir into staying the whole time, but Fakir had flatly refused that. They had reached the compromise of dinner through Mytho’s pleading and Fakir’s appetite. But when the last course was finished, and the dancing began again, allowing other couples to twirl each other around madly to the tune of the humming violins, Fakir would leave quietly. For now, he would wait… through the whole… bloody… ceremony.

As the music began, the lightest of noises carried themselves down to a small antechamber off the entrance hall, where a raven-haired girl was looking around nervously.
Satisfied that no one had seen her come in, she produced the crimson dress she had made for this occasion, shaking it free from her bag with a slight sprinkling of leftover sparkling magic.
Rue held the dress up and smiled a bit.
“You’re my last hope, you know,” she told the dress quietly, “If I don’t marry myself off tonight, I shall be stuck forever in my father’s service.”
Not to mention he will find out that I have been at his books, and using more magic than he thinks I possess, the girl thought rather despairingly in the act of turning around to face a floor-length mirror.
She muttered a short spell and left the dress hanging in midair while she stripped off the rags she had worn that day.
Her father treated her like a servant. Everyone treated her like a servant. Even the other servants in her father’s household treated her like a servant, having her run errands for them and tend to the small, dirty jobs like cleaning the fireplace. For the last 10 years of her life, since her mother died when she was eight, her father had not spoken her name, and forbidden the other servants to call her by it, either. He called her “Servant” or “Girl” when he deigned to talk to her. She had earned the name Rue for the common herb often hung above doorways to keep out evil spirits, and while known to be useful in small amounts, was also known to be deadly in any large doses.
She also suspected that the other servants had given her this name for its language use. Pity. Regret. As she performed a washing spell upon herself and tidied her hair with a similar spell she wondered if anyone even remembered her true name, Claire.
She supposed they did, for sometimes she heard their adulteration of it hissed just maddeningly out of earshot. Kraehe. Raven.
She frowned momentarily, then turned and snatched the dress out of the air. She hated them all. All she wanted was to get away! Away forever!
Her emotions softened again as soon as the magic-woven silk slid over her skin and settled into the shape of her body, the laces at her back tightening to fit perfectly.
She smirked momentarily. At least none of them knew how powerful a witch she was. Even her father didn’t know the extent of her powers, which had allowed her to slip away so easily and create this dress from her other set of clothes.
She had debated using one of her mother’s dresses, but that would have meant stealing into her parents’ room, which she had never dared do since her mother had died. And she didn’t think she would have had the heart to manipulate anything that had belonged to her mother. She purposefully avoided all of her mother’s possessions. She did not want her mother to see what she had become.
Rue looked into the mirror and was somewhat shocked to see an elegant Lady staring back at her, seemingly just as shocked. Her raven hair was clean and shone vaguely in the moonlight from the French doors leading out to the garden. It was curly and cascaded beautifully down behind her shoulders and half-way down her back. The dress was simple enough, it was a sweet-heart neckline, fitted to her waist and then full-circle, leaving it to drape across her legs attractively, just showing her black-clad toes – garbed in ballet flats with black silk ribbons laced up to her knees. Her sleeves were just as fluttery as her skirt, and short, baring most of her pale arms.
The whole effect was breathtaking, and Rue saw the woman, surely some dignified Lady of the court, smile delightedly and take a practice curtsy, then twirl in excitement.
Yes, she was ready. Now she simply had to get into the ballroom.