I Am Royal: The Search for a Prince

Act II: Coffee

            

Apparently, Khalid had more power than Willow thought. She thought she would never get out of her room, after the stunt she'd pulled. But Jenny came bustling in around four, when Willow was starting to feel her eyelids droop from the total lack of sleep she'd gotten.

"Get up!" Jenny yelled.

Willow was slumped in one of the seats in her room. She jumped at the sound of Jenny's shrill voice.

"What?" she said. "Did they find Henry?"

"No, but we have to get you dressed!"

Willow frowned. "Why?"

Jenny rushed over to Willow's closet, and threw open the doors. It was an enormous walk-in space, with special locked drawers for jewelry. About eighty percent of the items Willow had never worn, and the other twenty she wore almost every day. Her habit of re-wearing her favorite clothes was a constant source of great distress for Jenny.

"The Crown Prince Khalid sent a personal request to Her Majesty asking if she would allow you to give him a dancing lesson in the ballroom!"

Willow's mouth dropped open.

"He doesn't need a dancing lesson from me," she scoffed. "He's a great dancer."

"I don't care!" Jenny yelled. "The Queen personally told me to dress you up and get you there! She is invested in this relationship, if you haven't noticed. And so, therefore, am I!"

Jenny came out of the closet with an armload of clothes. She dumped them on the bed.

"Pink, pastel green, or violet?"

Willow groaned, and slumped down until she slithered out of her chair onto the floor in a heap.

"None."

"Different color?"

"I'll wear nothing."

The look on Jenny's face was worth it. Willow laughed, and rolled over.

"Don't even say something like that!" Jenny hissed "It is so inappropriate! If anyone knew that you said that-"

"I'm kidding," Willow sighed. "I'll wear something green, but not pastel green."

Jenny handed her a dress. It was forest green, with short sleeves, and buttons up the front. The skirt was knee-length, but flared, so she would have room to dance. It was modern, but still very appropriate, of course.

Willow put it on without a fight. She wanted to wear some white tennis shoes, arguing that it would look super cute. Jenny absolutely refused, and wrangled her into a fair of flats.

"Let's bun your hair," Jenny said, the term they had come up with for the way Willow could twist her thick, dark hair up into a mass on the top of her head. She held it in place while Jenny secured it with bobby pins.

"Remember," Jenny said. "He wants a dancing lesson. Nothing else."

"Right," Willow said. "I'll make sure we don't start snogging with all the security staring at us."

"Good idea." Jenny stepped back and looked Willow up and down. She nodded. "It'll do. You look nice enough in forest green. I would have liked to get a decent amount of make-up, though..."

Willow turned. "I'm leaving now!"

She noticed, as she was escorted out of her suite and to the ballroom on the other side of the palace, that there was heightened security around her. They were not going to give her a chance to escape. That was okay. She didn't have any leads to go on at the moment. What would she have done?