The 6 Greatest Errors of All Time | ✓

XXIV. queen's waltz

** last dance is posted above **
•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

OUR COMMANDER LED us back to the first deck for a regathering. As soon as I stepped foot on the marble tile after descending the spiral of stairs, the bustling state of the main room was made apparent by the dozens of unfamiliar guards maneuvering the area to bring our personal belongings in.

K2 was stationed at the heart of the orderly chaos, serenely roaring out commands left and right. Osias, Cody, and Asao were all sucked into a whirlwind of chores. I practically saw all of the water that made up an adult's body dripping off of Cody all at once when he passed me hauling a hulking crate of carefully wrapped apparatuses.

Pierce left my side and converged with the guards again as he went back to lending a hand at the moving in process. Kenya joined him. I walked up to Osias and Asao, who were resting on the chaise lounge sofa.

Asao had a laptop pulled up and was busy watching something on there on one end of the couch, and on the other end, Osias was involved in a deep conversation with the red suit lady from the movie set.

"Not this one, does your collection have an ashen-colored necktie?" I heard the man repudiate. Curious on what their conversation was about, I seated myself across from the pair and announced my presence through a simple cough.

Osias lifted his head and saw me, along with Fiona. She gave me a polite nod and gestured for me to join their conversation. "Miss Venus. Do you have a particular taste?"

After moving to a closer seat, I peered over the catalog list that Osias was perusing over before my head tilted. "Taste for what?"

"Attire, Risa." He flashed me a smirk. "Gotta wear something to the dance, right? Now, I took on the generosity of picking out our Commander's suit for France, and you know what happened? That jackass refused."

Even without hearing the whole story, I knew there was something more to it than what came out of his lips. "What color was it?" I raised my eyebrows.

"Hot pink."

Silently gagging, I caught Pierce flipping off the man from the second floor as he walked past the railings. Osias rolled his eyes and turned to give me a look that read, You see what I have to deal with?

I ignored him and directed my attention to Fiona. "Uh, can you tell me what you have?"

"All types of evening gowns, from lace to silk fabric, to cream and ebony hues, flowing to fitted dresses—"

I stopped the woman right there. She quieted down and waited. "Why are they all dresses..?"

She frowned. "You can't possibly want to wear jeans and a crop top to a ball across the world, now do you?"

I ignored her comment and snatched up the catalog magazine. Osias and Fiona shared a confused side-glance as I flipped through the dozens of pages that would have attracted other females. I arrived at a section that subtly transitioned from women's attire to men's.

My finger pointed down to a picture and I flipped the booklet back around for the two to see. "You see this one? That's my taste."

Fiona gave a long and hard stare at the classy women's suit. Osias' eyes dilated in curiosity as his eyes peeled off of the picture and back to me, finally giving me a look over.

"Interesting," The man murmured lowly under his breath, rubbing his chin in thought. Fiona, on the other hand, wasn't having it.

"A suit? Miss," She took the catalog out of my hands and gave me a serious stare. "That's not exactly— well, we have other options that will fit you better than... men-modeled clothing."