“So, do we have any idea how long it will be before the actual council are ready to convene at this point?”

John shrugged distractedly in response. His eyes were still firmly planted on the itinerary which a rather worn-out suit-wearer thrust into his hands between repeated apologies to me for all the problems that the apparent trade commission put me through when we first arrived, while one of their ‘medi-mages’ worked on my arm earlier free of charge too, naturally.

I’ve got to admit I’m rather glad to find out that the supposed ‘council’ we met this afternoon, who more resembled an arguing auditorium full of children than a real council were, as I’d rather hopefully guessed earlier, not the real government representatives in charge around here but just a lower-level group who thought to gain power and position through me instead.

No-one’s got the full story yet, but from the sound of it they planned to eventually make some kind of takeover bid together while the government is in so much trouble by either trapping or tricking the naïve new girl that they desperately need at the moment for their own survival into getting stuck within their grubby hands before she, in this case me, of course, can be sworn in and save their ungrateful asses from being taken over by either Magical China or even worse Magical bloody Canada!

It’s probably helping both my mood and my ability to not go on a rampage over them all being such utter bastards in the pursuit of political power, that we were quickly ushered down a few floors into what I can only describe as a five-star luxury apartment taking up an entire oversized floor of its own, moments after I was declared the winner of that stupid little non-fight against the now former Lord Suttonsborough.

There are apparently a lot of these diplomatic chambers in the tower itself that are kept in reserve for visiting mages and diplomats, as the name would suggest. In this case, the chambers we have are specifically held in reserve permanently for the truly awful days when Maxarimus, or his representative at the moment, comes for a visit. Judging by the nameplate declaring it as such when we got to the front door leading into the main receiving room of this place, at least.

I am not easily swayed by puerile things and trappings of grandeur such as thi—
…Oh! Who are we kidding?…
They had high end Belgian chocolates and champagne sitting in the ‘entertainment room’, a cinema quality relaxation chamber, waiting for us!

They have a ninety-inch TV that seems to run on magic somehow and contains every channel you can imagine on there for our personal enjoyment, up to and including all the porn channels that have been paid for and unlocked as well—something I unfortunately found out while flicking through them all earlier, much to John's amusement at the time, for more than obvious reasons.

I know that it’s all just things and stuff, put in place to keep me quiet while they run around and sort out their own infighting behind my back, but Powers damn it! I like things!
...And we’re not entirely impartial to ‘stuff’, either!...

So, I’m going to enjoy all the bonuses of being important while I can. I’m pretty sure the headache that is going to be dealing with mage politics has only just started for me at this point, and already it’s beginning to get on my nerves, despite my best efforts.

Hopefully, if they follow the itinerary John’s still reading over religiously while ignoring the action movie I put on earlier at the same time, then we only have an apparently standard ‘festival of welcoming’ event to deal with tonight. In the morning I can to appear with whoever the other remaining Numbers are to be sworn in before witnesses from the other interested nations, so we can all put our rubber stamps on the idea of not tearing apart Magical bloody America at last. If things go as they should, by all reckoning we should be done and on our way home by dinner time tomorrow with no more mess or problems to push my seemingly eternally-on buttons at the very least!
…The odds of that are exceedingly tiny, of course…

I’m being positive about this one for once, though. It will all work out! I’ll get my shot to ask questions and find a solution for fixing Eris’s memory, then we can all go home far, far away from Powers’ damned politics before anyone can do anything stupid to mess it all up for me.
…You’re intentionally not listening, aren't you?…

Full of positivity! Maximum, ultra-mega positively, I’m sure it will all work out fine without a hitch in the slightest!
…Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn you, Lady Suttonsborough…

======

Something on the TV went ‘Boom!’ making me jump out from my thoughts and shoot a wild look around the room automatically. Judging by the almost manic looking grin on Eris’s face from her position on the floor facing the TV she’s enjoying her first real experience with the finest things the modern world has to offer outside bacon and—well, more bacon, I guess?—namely, action movies on big TV’s and several different flavors of popcorn from the honest-to-Powers popcorn-maker they have in the corner next to the fully stocked bar around the corner that is currently being propped up by Pauly’s troops and Fena, of all people,

As far as I know, the others, consisting of Trudy, Rosemary, Sarah and Pauly himself, are all off on the other side of the suite in our apparent library that seems to be worryingly bigger than our house in square-footage alone. I’ve got to admit that I was more than a little tempted to join them in there for research purposes if nothing else, but I’ve got all day tomorrow to be ‘responsible’ Hannah and it’s been a long time since I just had a nice night in. Eris’s enthusiasm over seeing the new TV may have also played a part in that decision, naturally, but if it did then I’m not going to admit it to anyone in the slightest, so there!

======

My point made, internally at least, I nodded my head to myself a little and reached over to grab another sinfully delicious, liqueur-filled dark chocolate from the open box next to me before tossing it up into the air and snagging it in my mouth a few moments later with a happy little hum of pleasure.
...I could so get used to this...

“You do know we have dinner later, right?—and those things have alcohol in them as well.”
Oh please! Don’t try and pretend to be the responsible one here, John-Boy. It doesn’t suit you.

We’re mages; alcohol doesn’t even effect me unless it’s drunk in high enough doses to kill most mosquitoes the moment they get a sample of my blood-alcohol level! Al used to have to resort to some rather questionable drinking practices just to get a mild buzz going, let alone the euphoria he was looking for in order to drown out the guilt in his head for all the people he’d killed over the years. In comparison, I could probably eat twenty boxes of these little chocolate balls of deliciousness and not even reach the ‘giggling’ stage of inebriation, and you know it!

“Dinner’s going to suck! I’ve got to wear a dress and there’s going to be a buffet with no bacon and—and—”

John turned his head to stare at me quizzically for a few moments, as if I’d honestly caught him off guard with my sudden little grumbling words.

“You wear dresses constantly—I’m pretty sure you own more of them than Sarah does at this point. While that’s not exactly hard to do with your tomboy of a sister, the fact that you actually wear yours by choice should count for something, too, right?”

Shut up, John-Boy! Don’t come at me with logic here, okay?
I just—I—

Fine, okay? So I’m kind of comfortable with the whole ‘wearing dresses’ thing at this point in my life. So sue me! To be honest, I was pretty comfortable with them even before my awakening too, back when I was Al, in no small part thanks to Sarah, of course.

This is different though. This isn’t some silly little light, airy-feeling sundress or a nice skirt, or even—Powers forbid!—my stupid schoolgirl skirt, either.

This is a formal dinner thing. This is one of those big black-tie type of events you see on TV with powerful and influential people walking around like normal bloody people! The kind of events where beautiful women walk around in designer dresses and killer heels even I couldn’t manage with their perfect hair, and perfect makeup, and perfect figures with boobs bigger then my head as a minimum standard, on full display without exception, let alone anyone leaving any space for my own that are barely the size of my new tiny fists at best, and—
...Breath...

I let out a long, heavy breath and slumped moodily in the far-too-comfortable sofa underneath me while
glaring menacingly at the screen where some kind of explosion was going off in a rather unrealistic way given my actual, up close and personal, experience on the topic in general.

“You shouldn’t worry, Han. No matter what you wear tonight, you’ll look beautiful. You always do.”

My eyes wanted to flick to the side and glare at John for reading the stupid thoughts in my head so easily when I’d been trying to ignore that they were even happening, myself, but I wrestled them back under control to focus on the screen instead before they could embarrass me even more. Slowly my arms came up to fold under my stupid chest and I let off a long huff of breath through my stupid tiny Arista-mouth.

“I mean it, Han. You could turn up to this dinner in a sack and put everyone else there, male or female, to shame with ease.”

Shut up, John-Boy!

Without saying another word, John started to eased his arm down my back as I pointedly didn’t look at him in response. I wasn’t really paying much mind to his wandering hand at all really, until it was finally in the position he wanted, from which he managed to pull me off the chair with worrying ease only for me to land on his lap a few moments later as a blush started creeping its way up my neck in an obvious display of my body betraying me and the universe hating me in general!

“You’re just saying that because I look like Arista—stupid stalker perv—”

Apparently I’d said too much this time because John’s free hand shot up to cup my chin and he turned my face almost painfully far around so we’d make eye contact at long last. I could feel tears forming in my traitorous eyes the longer we sat there staring at each other awkwardly but he wouldn’t let me go and I refuse to show weakness by reaching up to wipe them away while he’s watching me like this.

“It has nothing to do with your face, Han. You enter a room and take over it like no-one else I’ve ever known. Your presence alone is inspirational and added to that you have a wonderful mind, quick wit, intoxicating laugh and, well, let’s just say that my opinion has nothing to do with how much you do or don’t look like Arista at all, okay?”

My blush went supernova in its apparent rush to race from my neck up to the very tips of my ears and with a jerk of said backstabbing neck, I managed to pull my face free of his hand so I could turn away from him at last and focus blindly on the movie once more, for my sanity’s sake if nothing else.

“Shut it, John-Boy! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I tried to not give in for the few seconds I could but eventually his words, the words that soothed my suddenly rather raw sense of self-confidence in my looks almost subconsciously, hit home. Even as his magic worked to calm me down at all the points where our bodies and auras met, it was just too much to take and I ended up slumping against him in a boneless puddle rather than even trying to deal with it all, anymore.

Quietly, John let off a little laugh under his breath much to my annoyance and even worse, he decided to follow it up by nuzzling his face lovingly near my currently burning-hot right ear as his little hushed laugh continued on without any sign of stopping.

“Who knew you were such a soppy, self-conscious drunk, Han?”
What!

I spun around in his lap and glared down at him in righteous indignation. A move which sadly only seemed to bump his light chuckle up into a full blown laughter fit for the few seconds it could before I dug my elbow into his ribs to cut it short and the fight was on instead—

“I’m not drunk, damn it!”
...Stupid John!...

======

“Well, good thing we aren’t paying for this place— Doubt they’d give us our security deposit back if we were.”

Slowly my eye eased open to offer a rather limp glare at Sarah from her new position in the doorway leading into the entertainment room. Eris giggled to herself in response from her position on the floor but I honestly couldn’t bring myself to face that potential landmine waiting to go off any time soon, in the face of what just happened.

What had started as a somewhat playful, somewhat real fight between me and John, slowly progressed into something much more tender and gentle as we both—
…mostly us, honestly…
Calmed down, to a point where it almost became more of a physical re-creation of our magical play-fighting back in the Jeep on the way here earlier instead, leaving me feeling both limp and tired, while also completely unprepared for the kiss John planted on my lips moments later.

I couldn’t even bring myself to stop him, nor stop myself from deepening the kiss before he could pull away and now—and now—
…Things are complicated…

I wouldn’t even call what we did a full-on make-out session or anything, but it was definitely something beyond our normal relationship up to this point. And even worse, I’m honestly not sure if I regret it or not, either.

As I lay here against John’s warm body with his arms wrapped around my waist on the remains of the probably pretty damn expensive sofa we ruined in the earlier stages of our fight, watching a nature documentary that Eris apparently chose at some point and under the judgemental gaze of my often exasperating sister, I really can’t bring myself to regret the wonderful burn of my lightly swollen lips at all, because it just felt so good at the time.

It was wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, but it was also like nothing I could have ever imagined enjoying before now and yet I did—oh, did I enjoy it!
…Tender and gentle, yet demanding and oh-so-good…

“We shouldn’t have done that.”

======

“What was that, Han?”

My head jerked up sharply at Sarah’s sudden question as I realised that I’d actually said those words aloud, quietly at least, but still loud enough for John to hear and Sarah to question.

“Hey, Sare—uh, I said, ‘Is that the time already?’—um, yeah!”
...Bravo, now we see who in the family actually got all the acting talent Sarah sadly appears to lack when lying...
Shut up brain! This is embarrassing enough as it is and I don’t need more help reminding myself how much of a bad idea kissing John was no—Huh?

Why does this all suddenly feel familiar for some reason? Déjà vu, like I’ve had this mental rant happen bef—
…More important things to focus on at the moment! Namely, Sarah!...

Right! Powers, do I hope she bought that flimsy excuse for a lie!

“Sure, Han—whatever—you’ve got to get up, anyway. Rose is getting ready to make our outfits for dinner, and she said it might take a while if you all feel like being picky about it. Come on. She’s waiting in the third bedroom on the left.”

Her piece said, my mildly annoyed sounding sister turned and left without another word. If I’m being honest, it seemed like she was giving off moderately heavier than usual foot stomps as she went through, a sound which told me more then I’d really like to admit about just how much she didn’t enjoy walking in on the aftermath of mine and John’s still-not-a-make-out-session-fight thing.

Slowly, I turned my head around to look at John in feigned confusion which he only responded to by allowing a little smirk to form on his equally swollen looking lips in his usual painfully smug way.

“Did she say Rose is making our outfits for the dinner? As in, Rosemary of the AMS? Pink cardigans, kitten posters, and all Rosemary?”

His smirk went up slightly, as if to say that he knew something I didn’t, but he still nodded along with me anyway as if he was just trying to humor me.

“Only one way to find out more, Han… You grab Eris and we’ll go check things out, shall we?”

Before I could answer, he’d already started easing me off of his lap and back into a standing position anyway. My annoyance levels which had already started building when he decided to smirk at me with his stupid swollen lips, not helped in large part to my also losing contact with his warmth in the process, went up a degree or two to a point where they brought a mild pout to my lips that only seemed to amuse him even more, sadly.

I’m pretty sure he’s going to be in an obnoxiously good, not to mention teasing mood for the foreseeable future now, considering he managed to somehow trick me into kissing him in that insane still-not-a-make-out-session period of time where I apparently lost complete control of my senses and actually let myself even entertain the idea that kissing him was in any way a good idea! This—this is all his fault!
…The cad!…

“Come on Eris, let’s go make sure Sarah doesn’t set us all up in ‘Team Tomb Raider’ customised short-shorts or something equally stupid, huh?”

Eris giggled and happily hopped to her feet so she could grab my hand. It may have just been my imagination but there definitely appeared to be an unholy light of mischief in her eyes as they cut between me and John’s still obviously happy form behind me, for the few seconds she allowed it to be visible before pulling herself closer to me and hiding her face in my leg like the small child she is.
…She’s a child of John—nothing good can come from that look!…

With an uneasy sigh, I gave her hand one more squeeze, moving off towards the doorway and leaving John to trail behind us at his leisure, because I really don’t think I can trust myself in talking to him directly right about now, considering what happened the last time we tried that a little while ago and all.
…It was a fluke. No need to panic…

Yup, just a stupid fluke is all. It’s that simple, so there!
…Stupid John-Boy…

======

“Do I really have to do this?”

My eyes followed the slowly turning form of my soon-to-be dress worriedly as it spun in the air under Rosemary’s command so she could continue to tweak and improve it apparently on a whim as we went on.

“For the last time, Han, the dress is expected of you. It says so on the itinerary sheet.”
Sarah sighed in exasperation and gestured her hand for me to turn on the spot a few paces so Rosemary can get a better look at my underwear clad ass again, as she works on the horrible little bustle at the back of the dress a bit more.
“You’re not just representing yourself but all of us tonight as well. You’ve got to show them you’re not just some naïve little girl from a mountain town they can play games with, or you can kiss any hope of leaving here by tomorrow afternoon goodbye right now, okay?”

“Can’t I just go in full combat gear and pick a fight instead? Seems like it would save a lot of hassle with these idiots in the long run…”

I pulled my arms up to my bra clad chest with a huff that made one of the loose tendrils of my now far too curly hair flutter at the edge of my vision annoying in the process. Sarah’s hands came up to swat my arms away from my chest and we both growled at each other warningly moments later for entirely different reasons.

That began a painfully long stare-off between us that only really stopped when Rosemary spoke up in her somehow still far too cheerful, bubbly voice to tell us both that the dress was done at long last. With one more frustrated huff to show I wasn’t happy about this all still, just in general principle alone, I turned away from Sarah to look at my embarrassment filled doom-implement of torture for the night instead.

Annoyingly, at first glance there wasn’t really anything that jumped out at me about it as being particularly wrong or unfair, aside from the obvious fact that it’s a big fancy dress, naturally.

I could grumble over the fact that the stupid bustle at the back is going to make my ass look huge, but I already tried that one earlier and got told by the pair of them that it was ‘in style’ for mages right now for my troubles.

I could point out that putting me in a skirt that’s not only floor-length, not only heavy, not only restrictively A-line in design; but also has at least one fluffy petticoat underneath it too from what I can see—is, frankly, a terrible idea—But that’s a lost cause, too, I’m afraid. I’m pretty sure the only answer I’ll get on that front will be along the lines of ‘You’re not going to be doing anything but dancing tonight, Han. No need for easy movement when you can just look pretty instead’ or words to that effect, from both of them as well!
…Sarah’s such a hypocrite…

I could point out—let’s just say that there are a lot of things I could point out which are stupid about the two-tone forest green and white lace, obviously Victorian-inspired, long-sleeved dress floating before me if I was given a bloody chance to!

Apparently, I have no say in any of this anymore, though. Rosemary is not only amazingly good at conjuring but also rather stringent about her fashion vision when doing so, a vision she used to create not only my really nice ‘not-a-robe’ earlier, but also used to create this monstrosity too, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, Sarah seems to be enjoying my discomfort more than anything for some wholly unfair reason, while she stands here ‘helpfully’ giving Rose suggestions on how to make my dress for the night even more fussy than it originally was.

At this point, there’s really only one form of petty revenge I can reliably look to in the search for something to keep me sane over the next few hours of snobbish dancing ahead of us all, sadly. I really hate to do it to—Fena, maybe?

After all, its Rosemary’s fault I’ll be wearing this thing. The rest of the Hub ‘dream team’ of Trudy and Pauly are therefore implicated for bringing her to Long Island with us in the first place.

Sarah is pretty self-explanatory at this point. Eris will probably love her own dress, while John and the gun-wavers, especially my personal female gun-waver Oats, can enjoy some of my pain on general principle if nothing else!

“If I’m wearing this thing, I’m wearing my safety suit underneath—and we all need to make an effort to provide a united front, don’t you think so, Rose?”
Sarah blanched visibly out the corner of my eye but Rosemary seemed to practically inflate with joy at the very idea of my evil plan being put into action.
“I’m thinking that we keep my dress special by making everyone else’s clothing in similar styles, but with a slightly dulled-down color pallet as is appropriate for an entourage escorting their VIP to such an important event, right?”

I tried to be subtle about it for our now truly excited-looking Rosemary’s sake, but I couldn’t really resist the urge to poke my tongue out at Sarah to show her that I was more than a little aware of the hell I’ve just set her up for at this point. While I may feel awkward, resentful, and more than a little put out by the concept of wearing this stupid outfit tonight in front of actual, living, breathing people— my feelings on the matter are going to be nothing when compared to Sarah’s, considering her rather easy to see tomboy streak that often leads into situations where she acts more macho and boyish than I ever have, despite my status as one of the ex-boys’ club!

“That idea sounds wonderful, Hannah dear. Oh, I’ve got ideas coming to me already!”
Rosemary beamed an intoxicatingly happy smile at me before explaining her apparent ideas with so much obvious joy on her face that it was hard to resist joining in her enthusiasm, honestly.
“Do you think the soldiers would be upset if I gave them ceremonial swords and tassels like the old British army’s dress-uniforms that were worn during the same period as your dress’s source material?”

Oh Rose—Darling Rose—I take back everything bad I thought about you while you were making my new dress! Can you imagine it? Pauly stood around in a stiff, prim and proper old-timey uniform? His chuckling goon squad doing the same thing at his side, too?

The only thing that could be better than that is if we could get Jo—Oh, this just keeps getting better and better!

“I love that idea Rosemary. Do you think you could come up with a sufficiently royal looking version of the same uniform for John to wear as well?”

The utter glee that spread across Rose’s face moments later was the perfect cherry on top of my happy little revenge cake. Well, almost as much as Sarah’s pained groan in the background, naturally.

With a skip in my step, I moved over to be fitted with my new dress, images of my not being the only stupidly dressed person there tonight filling my head with pleasure to a point where I really couldn’t even bring myself to feel annoyed over the now more visible satin petticoat peeking out from the hem of my dress.
…Misery loves company after all…
Exactly!

======

“Stop fiddling with it, John-Boy. You look fine.”

Despite those words leaving my lips, I couldn’t help but also smirk at him slightly as we all walked together in one large group towards the huge ground-floor dance hall that this welcoming party is apparently going to be held in.

“Easy for you to say… I’m the one wearing a military corset under this tasselled mess you got Rosemary to make for me.”

That complaint actually made me pause slightly in my mid-heeled leather ladies’ boots to fix him with a highly un-amused look and show him just what I thought about his bitching over having to wear something that simple. He’s basically got a gut-buster on, at worst, while I get the unenviable pleasure of wearing a full Victorian woman’s corset, simply because it’s apparently ‘in vogue’ with the magical elite right now for some Powers-known reason!

“When you have to go to a fancy party with your tits pushed up to your collar bone thanks to steel bands that are crushing your stomach into the size of an average kidney stone, I’ll give you all the sympathy you could ever want, John-Boy. But considering it’s your fault that I get to enjoy that little gift from ‘fashion past’ right now, I apologise if I’m less than likely to kiss your mild discomfort better at all, okay?”

Thankfully for once in his life, he seemed to realise that now really wasn’t the time to be playing who’s-got-it-worse with me at all, and he quickly looked forward again with a slight wince rather than make any form of smart-assed comment at all.
…Will wonders never cease?…

“It’s only a few hours, then we can all get back into normal people’s clothes and pack up to leave as soon as possible tomorrow.”
…We hope!…

======

“Just a moment, Ladies and Gentlemen. I need to take your attendance and announce you before you can enter.”

Oh, for Powers’ sake! The man standing before us in a frankly ridiculous looking penguin suit—the dinner jacket kind, thankfully—had appeared between us and the doors leading into the dance hall, practically out of nowhere the moment we even got close.

In Normal years, I’d have to say he looks to be in his mid-to-late forties, so the odds are that he’s rather ‘old’ in mage years. That probably explains why his lightly greying crop of brown hair is so neatly parted, and the horrendously bushy moustache on his lip forms an almost perfect inverted U-shape around his mouth that makes him look like he would feel at home in any other recent century but this one, honestly!

After the initial shock of his sudden appearance was over, my eyes were drawn to a floating piece of honest-to-Powers parchment over his left shoulder that was hovering quite comfortably at the ready with an accompanying quill, as if it were just eagerly waiting to take notes at any moment.

“Won’t take a second, everyone! I’ve just got to give you all a quick scan.”
That being said, the penguin-suited, walrus-mustache owner pulled a wand from the sleeve of his jacket and ran it quickly over me from head to toe.

The moment he finished the motion, the quill behind him started scribbling away before stopping suddenly with a rather anti-climactic ‘ping’ sound that seemed to come out of nowhere. From there he proceeded to repeat the same motion with accompanying ‘pings’ on everyone present, even the small group of Pauly’s soldiers we were allowed to bring down with us, as well, despite them being non-magical, as far as I know.

When it was all done and dusted, the walrus-tache guy turned to take the floating parchment into his hands with practiced ease, almost lazily plucking the quill out of the air as he went, until finally turning back around to face us all as he examined the sheet in detail, presumably for errors.

“Lady Cooper-Garnier-Suttonsborough. I’ve been told to expect you and your retinue. Who might I ask is everyone here in relation to you?”
…Uh, what?…

“He means he wants to know what roles in your entourage we’re all playing tonight, Han.”
Oooh! That makes more sense. Thanks, John-Boy!

“Well, uh…?”
What the hell am I meant to say?
…Just make something up, whatever pops to mind!…

Slowly I turned around and pointed at the first person my eyes settled on, namely Fena, in all her still dark-leather-and-lace robe, helmet-clad glory.

“My personal bodyguard and assassin, Fena.”

Strangely enough the walrus-tache guy didn’t even hesitate in writing that one down.
...Not exactly a hope-inspiring fact for tonight, honestly...

Getting into the spirit of things now that I’d proven that even my more outlandish options were apparently normal to this guy, I continued on my turn. First pointing out Rosemary as my Personal Stylist, followed by Sarah as my Personal Trainer, Trudy as my Life Coach and Pauly with his surrounding troops as my Honor Guard, before finishing it all off by defining Eris as my cute little Apprentice and turning to the final person I’d yet to name.

A wholly evil idea popped into my head as my eyes met John’s almost expectantly exasperated face and I just couldn’t resist putting it into action the moment it came to me.

“And finally, this is my Personal Assistant, minus the usual miniskirt and coffee cup obviously, although I assure you he really does have the legs to pull the standard outfit off still, when he tries.”

The look of embarrassed surprise, followed closely by flushed anger, before mulishly settling into what counts as a pout in John’s book, made me want to laugh outright just because I could.

…Ha! See how you like being someone’s P.A. for once, John-Boy!…
I told you I’d get you back for that crap you pulled at the space-needle someday!

Yet again, if my answers surprised the walrus-tache man in the slightest he didn’t let it show. With little more than a nod of confirmation he turned to face the doors sharply and waved his wand at them so that they would creek open rather ominously, unveiling the extravagant fool’s gold-lined and palatial-looking ballroom beyond, where thankfully only a few guests appear to have arrived so far.

While I wouldn’t say that we planned to get here early or anything, the thought had occurred to me that something like this might happen. It always does in movies and TV after all. I may have rushed us all out of our apartment floor just a little bit, in order to get here before most people would be here and limit my own embarrassment from the coming introduction call-out if nothing else, naturally.

…We’re not daft just because we’re stupid, after all!…
Exac—Wait! What?
…Gah! Never mind!…
Okay…?

“Well, hold on to your corsets people! Let’s hope we don’t regret this in the morning, huh?”

Sadly, no one else seemed to be up for joining me in my gallows humor as we stepped out onto the balcony-like fool’s gold-covered staircase. Attracting the attention of pretty much everyone in the room so far, thanks in no small part to the resounding gong that the walrus-tache guy rang before he took in a great big breath and unrolled his parchment officiously.

…This is gonna suck, I can just tell…