Astoria

t w e n t y - s e v e n

Meredith pulled her long, brown hair back into a knot at the base of her neck. She looked at herself in the mirror.

As opposed to her magnificent dress for the coronation ball, she was wearing the simple day dress of a servant.

A knock sounded on the door to her outer sitting room, and she ran her hands over her skirt once more, smoothing the fabric, before she crossed the room and pulled the door open.

Isabella stood there, smiling back at her, her hair done in an equally simple do, any makeup absent from her face, and in a dress as simple as Meredith's.

"You'll fit in just fine," Meredith assured her, noting a bit of apprehension in her friend's face. Isabella smiled gratefully.

"You don't think I'll make them uncomfortable, do you?"

"I'm sure they'll all like you perfectly well. Just be yourself." Meredith smiled. "We're not usually a judgmental bunch. She pushed the thought of her own judgments against the House Westerholme to the farthest corners of her mind.

"I miss Kade," said Isabella, suddenly. "I know he'd be going to this party, if he were here. Even in his position as Antony's general, he still always had time for the friends he had made in the servants and lower guard ranks. And..." She hesitated. "I know that they're simply journeying to the southern borders but...I can't help but worry that something will go wrong. It's silly of me, I suppose..."

Meredith rested a hand lightly on the demure princess's shoulder. "He's going to be fine, Isabella. Kade's strong and brave. And they're simply traveling. I'm sure there won't be any fighting."

Even as she said it, she found herself wondering, allowing Isabella's worries to play throughout her own mind over and over again and questioning whether or not her assurances to Isabella would prove true.

"Come on," she said, cheerfully, in an attempt to distract herself as much as Isabella. "Let's go to a party."

Isabella slipped her arm into Meredith's and the two of them left behind their rooms for the cheerful atmosphere of the lower wings of the palace, where, even as they made their way towards it, a roaring party was in full swing in the smallest of the palace's ballrooms.

They entered the brightly-lit room, with it's paneled walls and polished wooden floor, the gold patterened wallpaper of the upper walls seeming to glow in the light of the chandeliers.

A makeshift "orchestra" had been formed by a few servants with rudimentary fiddles, two men with battered violins, and the plump matronly cook, Ramona, bent over the room's grand piano.

Sturdy stable boys whirled around the room with plump kitchen maids and short scullery maids. Where there was a shortage of men, there was no shortage of dancing: maids paired up and spun around the floor none-the-less. There were people of all sizes and shapes, and Meredith found comfort and wonder in the fact that, here, they were all the same. It did not matter what one looked like, for the servants accepted everyone, making them all, each and every one, feel welcome.

"Meredith!"

She turned to see John coming her way, waving, his smile seeming to fill his entire face. She grinned at him.

"Hello, John!" she said. "Promised I'd come!"

"And so you did!" he said, looking thrilled, his eyes twinkling in the light. He seemed to see Isabella then, and bent into a quick bow.

"My Lady," he said. "It is an honor to have you here."

"Please," said the Princess, smiling graciously. "Just call me Isabella. I want to leave behind my title for one night."