Once Upon A Time

Chapter 3

One day until the ball. And two days until that mysterious, arrogant man would come back and ask Cinder if she had finished it. Scarlet could see the irritation in Cinder's face whenever Scarlet brought up her clock shop. Cinder would bury her hands in her hair and groan out, " Don't remind, Scar. I already ask Linh Garan to get it for me."

" And did he bring it to you yet?" Scarlet asked, raising a thin brow.

" No, and if he did, he'd be in trouble. If he didn't, he'd be in trouble."

" You and your impatience," Scarlet said. She and Cinder were going to her clock shop. With some extra hours with no agenda, Scarlet offered to go with Cinder. Carswell said he probably wouldn't be able to see them for a while so they both bade him a goodbye and left the castle walls. Scarlet rarely got out, and mostly for the bad things. Running errands for Chief Cook or either just to escape the wild, feral hogs that would also get out of their pigsty and chase after her with the loudest, scratchiest squeal ever.

Ah, animals. Scarlet didn't mind them, in fact, she liked to spend time with the chickens. Yeah, they clucked and crowed at her and she would glare back at them and they would shut up. That one rooster, however, got on her nerves. Glaring at her with beady eyes, ruffling out its beautiful, male feathers to taunt her. Scarlet gave the rooster a fist and the rooster began to squawk and shrill like the earth was collapsing.

Scarlet wore her simply raggedy dress that covered up her knees but bounced gently on them. It was rude and extremely inappropriate for a lady to wear a dress showing off her leg skin–ankles, actually–but she couldn't afford that. No man grazed an eye over slave girls. Scarlet kept her fiery red hair pinned behind her cap in hopes to bring less attention to her and her best friend.

Cinder wore her usual clothes that she would wear to the clock shop. With pants and a normal colored tunic–rarely a cap, which she wore today–and the gloves. It was weird seeing Cinder with gloves, for Scarlet, because Cinder's hands were already raw from cleaning the floor with soggy water with the moldy scent.

" Stars," Cinder cursed when a man bumped her shoulder forcefully and didn't bother apologizing. Scarlet watched the back of his head with hawk eyes, pinned it, and threw an imaginary dart. Hmm.

" Leave it, Cinder," Scarlet assured her friend, crossing her arms defiantly. " I threw a dart, something bad should happen."

Cinder believed her. It was weird. Whenever Scarlet pretended to throw darts or any sharp needle at a disliked person in her imagination, something would always happen. Once, Scarlet had threw a dart at Commander Mira's back of her head and two minutes after doing so Carswell ran up to Scarlet and immediately told her that Commander Mira was stung by a venomous wasp. Frozen and petrified, Scarlet and Cinder had exchanged glances. It was a joke to make Scarlet feel better. But maybe it wasn't so.

The same thing happened. Scarlet had pretended to set a fire to Princess Levana's room and that very night, the room caught on fire and Levana had worn that veil ever since.

But with this man, Scarlet didn't exactly care what would happen to him. He was rude.

Cinder arrived at her shop and stabbed the key inside the lock and turned, the satisfying clicking sound taking place. She wiggled out the key and gestured for Scarlet to come in. Scarlet admired the familiar room as the broken clocks ticked with the wrong time.

Cinder rushed over to her desk and groaned. " No package," Cinder muttered, running a hand through her tangled, squashed hair as she used the other hand to lift up her cap.

" Maybe tomorrow," Scarlet said.
 " Maybe never," Cinder added quickly. " Tomorrow is the ball welcoming the royals of the Western Commonwealth. Linh Garan has been asked to attend, last he told me."