Today was the day. The ball.
As daylight blazed through the window waking Octavia up, she realised that it was the time she had been…looking forward to.
*groan* "Do I really have to do this."
That was the sound of someone looking forward to the day to come.
The way she saw it, this event meant she had to mingle with all of the nobility in the region. Her being a commoner, if she made one wrong move, it would be reflected badly on Lord Desmon and his family for having invited her.
What he would do then she didn't know. He had been very nice since she met him, and his caring nature for Sylvia showed this even more, but she was an outsider to his family. If her failure to do well in this meant affecting his relations with other members of the nobility, their respect for him, deals and all other manner of noble-like things, she wasn't sure which one he would protect.
But, even though this was still very much at the forefront of her mind, this would only be the case if she caused a problem. All she had to do was mingle, dance a bit, not trip herself or anyone over, be polite and that was it. Should be easy.
She is normally very polite, and with all the training the dance and not tripping people should be a breeze. Even the mingling should be fine. She was unique, something they hadn't seen before, surely they were going to either be afraid to approach her or just talk to her about herself. Both of which she was fine with.
"Time to get ready."
As she continued to stress about the ball, she was almost knocked out of bed by Sylvia as she sprung into a seated position out of nowhere having been asleep all this time. She was raring to go, and dashed out of the room, leaving Octavia to her own devices.
…
Calling the maids to her room, she got to work getting ready for the day. The maids filled the tub, leaving her to have a nice soak and freshen up.
With that done, it was time to get some grub in her system, and following Sylvia down to the dining hall made that happen.
Breakfast was a simple affair, where it was really just a bowl of porridge or something akin to that. But honestly, that seemed fine to Octavia. Having a heavy meal would not help when it came to being on the move and dancing in this ball. Something light was just what she needed.
No one else showed up in the hall, as they were all probably focused on the final touches for the ball and would either be having their meal where they were or just later. And so, with breakfast eaten, they both headed back to their rooms.
…
Next came the actual dress. With it all tailored, it was ready to go. But with the amount of fabric present, it was not something you could put on yourself. Similar to how the store attendants had helped with the initial fitting of it, it was down to the maids to help her into it this time.
Rustling upon rustling of fabric was heard as they all heaved the dress up and over Octavia's head. Then came what felt like an hour of nipping and tucking, shuffling the folds of fabric around. They shifted it all into place, tying all the relevant knots, and eventually…she was ready.
Well, the dress was.
The maids stood back and all just sighed as they saw it. Whether it was because they were in awe of how beautiful it was, or they were just wistfully imagining themselves in it, she didn't know.
It took a while, but they finally stopped basking in the dress's beauty and got to work with the next tasks. The first of which was hair.
…
Her hair had not changed much since she came to this world, aside from the turning green side of things. The style however was the same, and that was pretty much no style at all. She had a good deal of hair that cascaded down her back and was just straight left to the will of gravity. With all that had happened in this world, giving it a new style had not been on her list as a priority.
It did have a nice shine to it, where the baths she had taken in the castle allowed her to wash it. But that was about it. So, it was down to the maids to change things up a bit and give her a head of hair that went with the dress.
They moved it around, tried pining it up, twisting it this way and that, but none could come to an agreement. Her hair was very long and no matter which way they moved it, it seemed that the length just caused problems with it.
After a good deal of faffing around, they managed to find one that they like. It even worked well with the many folds of the dress, where it too was complex and also appeared to have layers to it. It involved a lot of braiding, where they braided the hair on the side of her head in two locations, one on top and one in the middle. The top two were then pulled across her hair, meeting in the middle, before flowing down to the next two that were also folded over the rest of her hair to meet in the middle again. This then all continued down, flowing into a lovely, braided ponytail, using the rest of her hair as well. It was complicated and she was sure she would never be able to do it herself unless she had help, but it just looked so regal and lovely. It fitted well for the day.
…
After more wistful sighing came the fragrance which didn't take much time. With the era she was in, the mechanism to spray a fluid was not available. So, when it came to applying a fragrance, it was more along the lines of coating various locations in the liquid. So, out came the brushes.
Each girl took a brush, coated it in the liquid, and started to coat various locations on her skin. They could only do so in a few places; with the dress on, there weren't many areas that were accessible. But it was more than enough. They brushed the fragrance along her neck, her wrist and even over parts of her tail. The oil the fragrance was mostly made of seeped and ran down her skin, coating even more. It felt very odd, but it smelt amazing. After they had managed to get every bit of skin still exposed to the air, they stepped back and marvelled at their work.
…
Before long one of the maids from Sylvia's popped her head in to say something, but she too ended up starstruck at how she looked and had to be broken out of her stupor by a cough from one of Octavia's maids.
"Oh, sorry. Lady Sylvia is waiting out in the hall for you to then head over to the ballroom." Was what the maid was finally able to say, before going back in and closing the door.
Now, with nothing else to do in preparation for it, she had to head off to the ball. But first, she had to see Sylvia, who as she recalled, had hidden and refused to talk about the dress she would be wearing to this thing.
So, heading out of the door, she turned and saw an incredibly beautiful sight.
Sylvia's back was turned to her, and she saw her gorgeous hair, silky smooth and flowing down her back. Her dark hair with purple strands was given a similar style to how hers was done. Braids were also present, but they seemed to move up around her head rather than down. As she moved her eyes down her back, she saw her fluffy fox tail which poked out through a hole that had been specifically cut into the dress, which looked to have been brushed to an inch of its life, its fur is almost perfectly straight. The dress was green, almost like an emerald in colour, and was like hers and probably the rest flowing all the way down to her feet, where she also had shoes in a similar colour. It looked amazing.
It was at this point Sylvia turned around, and Octavia had to think she planned it like this, facing away from her at first just so she could turn. As she did her dress ruffled and spun with her. Her hair too flowed and swayed with her twist and it looked picturesque. She also saw what the deal with the braids was, as they curved from the back of her head to the front of her hair creating what looked like a crown across her head. The dress also had more to it than just one colour, where at the front down the centre, similar to her own, it was white and ruffled in all the right places giving it depth and looking like flowed continuously.
"She's beautiful." Was the thought that popped into Octavia's head, which ended up being reinforced by a deep blush on her face.
As she looked up at Sylvia's face, she found a very similar blush on hers as she just stared at her.
Their eyes quickly locked, and Sylvia turned away, blushing even more at that.
"…"
"…"
Neither knew what to say, so Octavia just made her way over to her and said to her what she was thinking.
"You look beautiful."
"So-so do you." Sylvia managed to get out as she dealt with the heat that had rushed to her face. "Should we head down." She then said as she held her hand out.
Octavia didn't even have to think about it as she took it in her own, said yes and then they both headed down the hall, making their way to what would hopefully be an uneventful ball.