Here's to Christmas - Skulduggery Pleasant FanFic

Chapter 16: The Christmas Ball

Valkyrie couldn't help but savour the looks on their faces when they saw her dress.

She had originally gone to buy a black dress, like she usually would, but her eye had been drawn away, towards the white dress. It was stunning. She had decided to opt for a break in tradition.

She met them at the end of the path. Dexter was smiling ridiculously. Saracen's mouth was open like a goldfish.

But the real compliment came from Skulduggery; he'd taken his hat off.

"Wow." Saracen breathed. Valkyrie shrugged.

"I hate to sound cliché," Skulduggery said softly, "but you bear an uncanny resemblance to an angel."

She smiled. "Of course I do. I'm a wonderful person."

She managed to bully her way into the front seat of the Bentley and had a minor explosion when she realized the seat had been adjusted before turning on the radio. She sang along softly to All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey and managed to get everyone bar Skulduggery singing along too. In fact the car became a karaoke session, and Valkyrie was well and truly in the Christmas spirit when they arrived at the Sanctuary.

Outside, it looked no different than usual. The inside, however, was a different story. The overall theme seemed to be gold. Cleavers remained grey, but everything else was draped heavily in something gold, be it tinsel or silk  or chiffon or georgette, or maybe things were painted gold or had gold glitter sprinkled over it.

The mages and sorcerers and operatives of Roarhaven had well and truly gone to town. Dresses of every colour, tuxedos of varying sharpness danced around the hallways, the crowd thickening as they drew closer to the Hall, where there would be drinks and dancing. Had Valkyrie not known better, she'd have said they were...on the verge of celebrating.

And another thing that struck her as odd was this; as she walked past, people turned to look at her, but she got the feeling they weren't staring at her dress, although some were. No. They looked at her with something dancing in their eyes, something Valkyrie recognised and identified as hope.

The hall was big and more beautiful than Valkyrie had ever seen it. People danced and laughed in the centre of the room, and anyone who wasn't dancing was standing to the side and sipping champagne or expensive wine.

"Who organized this?" Valkyrie said in awe. Skulduggery tipped his hat down slightly.

"The people," he said simply, and then they found some chairs to put their coats before going off to mingle.

Valkyrie had always detested mingling. She always picked the wrong people to mingle with; but mingling was the pinacle of any social event, and as much as Valkyrie couldn't stand it, she knew it had to be done, so she walked gracefully around and before long started looking for China. What would China be wearing if she were here? Something unbelievably elegant but at the same time incredibly sexy. Maybe an emerald green. Yes. An emerald green dress with a slit down one leg, and she would stand alone, champagne in hand, quietly dignified and screaming sophisticated beauty.

But China wasn't here; China was in New York, maybe drinking in the beauty of the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Centre, and Valkyrie was here in the Santcuary, and that made her sad.

She talked to people - the hall was packed predominantly with Sanctuary operatives, some of the Roarhaven citizens had come along as well. But they all had one thing in common. They looked at her in the same way, as if they were looking up to her, admiring her, waiting for her. When she left to talk to others, she felt them watching her walk away, and although her dress was well and truly the spectacle of the evening that's not what they were looking at. There was a quiet excitement rippling outwards from her, and she couldn't understand it and she didn't know why, but the people of Roarhaven were hoping for something, and it was something to do with her, and they were sure that whatever it was she was going to...what? Accept? Decline? No. That's not what she felt as they watched her. They were watching her like she had seen people watch Meritorious, like some had watched China, like everyone had watched Skulduggery. They were looking at her as if she were a leader.