33 Ceremony and Ball- Arrival

The day of the ceremony approached very quickly; Tim and I picked up our uniforms, and the others had already bought their suit and dresses. The girls had gotten their hair done and their outfits the day before the actual event.

Grace had cut gotten her hair cut into a pixie style, and someone here must have created dye because her hair was purple again all the way to her roots. Sarah got bangs and cut her hair up to her shoulders. Laura decided that she would get something that she called box braids. She told me that her mom had this hairstyle, and she wanted to remind herself of her family.

I keep forgetting that Laura is still a teenager and how hard this all must have been for her. We all knew that we weren't her real family, but I think that we all hoped that we could still show her that she had people that cared for her. The dresses the girls wore were beautiful. Sarah wore a flowing red dress that was shorter in the front and longer in the back, showing off her long legs, which were even longer now that she was wearing silver pumps to go along with them.

Grace had chosen a flowing black ball gown with a lace overtone and a cut that showed off her shoulders. She also had accessorized with a pair of sleek metal gauntlets, one of which hid a small blade in it. Laura had chosen to go a little more modern in a shorter knee-length white gown that had frills at the bottom. She had pulled her braids up into a bun and was using her wand to keep it in place.

Each one of us had something on us to defend ourselves. There was no real need for us to bring it, but after all of this time being adventurers, I think it just kind of became a habit of wanting to be ready just in case. Derek was lucky enough that his rapier looked good with his suit. His date had to get creative with her hiding places, though. Sarah had to buy a collapsable bow which she had hidden in her handbag, and she had hidden arrows inside the fabric of her dress.

She would have to rip the dress up in order to get to them, but at least she felt more comfortable. We were on our way now to the Guild, where we were supposed to receive our transportation to the capital city. We walked through the streets, clad in our new outfits. It was nice to dress up for once, honestly, even if I did feel weird being in a military uniform.

Our party arrived in time to find the other people we would be traveling with. Jake and his party were all dressed up; Sean was wearing a white suit that matched Laura's dress. Jake had done the same for Grace. Master was there as well, Dressed to the nines in an elaborate lacy green dress that clung to her body and ended at her knees. It really showed off the hourglass figure that I'd forgotten my Master had.

The most shocking part of her outfit though, wasn't actually her clothing, but the fact that she had unhidden all of her alchemic tattoos for the night.

"Aren't you afraid of prying eyes?" I asked her, remembering that she hid her tattoos so that other alchemists couldn't copy her work.

"It was requested." That was the only information that she gave me about the subject. 'Who in the world could convince her to do something like this off of a simple request?' I thought. Sean walked up to our group and greeted Laura.

"You look amazing!" He said to her, causing her to giggle nervously and look down.

"Thanks so much, Sean, you look good too." The manager's mouth hung open like he wanted to say something else, but he couldn't seem to make the words come out.

"Ah, young love," Grace whispered to me and Tim, which made us both laugh.

"It's a lovely thing to behold. But not even half as lovely as you." Jake had appeared behind her, and with that, one sentence, had turned our fearless leader into a stammering mess. The man took her hand and kissed it lightly, and even I couldn't help but blush to see a scene like that. It was like something out of a movie. I felt awkward, so I turned to Tim and made a joke.

"Aren't you going to tell me how pretty I am?" I puffed out my chest and held out my hand to him. I didn't expect him to continue the joke by grabbing my hand and laying one on it. He looked up at me and grinned.

"You look lovely." I felt my heart skip a beat, but I laughed it off, and in a haughty voice, I told him thank you. 'That was weird.' Sean interrupted my train of thought, though, and asked if we were all ready to go.

"Sure, but where is the transportation?" Sarah asked him.

"Oh, we're going by circle. Lady Lilliana, would you be so kind?" She nodded and grabbed me.

"I'll need a little help with this one." She took all of us around the building, where she had already drawn a rather large alchemic circle. "Spacial Alchemy, I'll need a little more power to get all of us where we need to go." I looked at the circle then at her.

"What is spacial alchemy?" I asked, but she said she didn't have the time to go into detail. Instead, she told the group to stand in the circle. They did what she asked, and she began pouring a pre-mixed bag of herbs onto the ground in specific places. She then came over to me and told me what the words were to make this work. I memorized them pretty quickly, and a few minutes later, I stood directly opposite from Master and chanted the words that she had taught me.

A second later, it felt like I was floating; the imagery around the group of people changed and kept changing until master stopped the process.

"We're here!" She exclaimed, and sure enough, we were. We were now standing in the gardens of a rather large palace. There was a man already there to greet us.

"Lilliana, how wonderful it is to see ye again!" The man came up to us with open arms and hugged her.

"Master, how have ye been?" The man frowned.

"Girl, how many times do ah have te tell ye call me Dad! It's only right for a father to want his daughter to call him that, right?" 'Dad!?'

"Ye ahm, sorry, Dad." He said it was ok and went on to greet the rest of the people until he got to me.

"And is this who ah think it is?" Master nodded her head.

"Ye Dad, that's mah apprentice." The man grinned from ear to ear, hearing this.

"The Todd Sheargin, huh? Lilliana's favorite student top of the bronze alchemy class. She's treating ye ok, isn't she?" He began asking me.

"Dad!" Master cried out in protest. I gave her a big smile.

"That's me! She's a great teacher." This made the alchemy teacher roll her eyes at me. But her father was thrilled.

"Well, ah look forward te seeing how ye do in there today!" He clasped me on the shoulders and told all of us to follow him into the palace. We were lead down several corridors until we had arrived at a large chapel-like room. The vaulted ceilings made were created so that whoever was at the front of the room could be heard without having to do too much shouting. There were other people there already dressed up in the same uniform that I was wearing; each of them had a different colored chord, though.

"Mr. Sheargin, these are the other tops of the silver test!" We all made introductions, but it was clear that the other people didn't care for me much. Alchemy was still looked down on, and most of them thought that I was only in this position because I had to compete with a lot fewer people for my spot than they did. Still, I held my head high and greeted every single one of them in a manner that my etiquette teacher would be proud of.

They all did the same, but with disinterested looks on their faces. That was ok though I was here to make a good impression on the higher-ups, not these people. After a while, the other heads of the other tests found their way into the room, and we began our rehearsals before the event in a couple of hours. I recited my speech, and the others all did the same.

By the time we were all done, it was only thirty minutes until the real thing was supposed to start, so everyone found their seats. Mine was in the front row along with all of the other heads, and all of my friends sat in the row behind me. I felt so nervous I would have to speak in front of god knows how many people. I was beginning to freak out a little bit when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was from Tim.

"You're going to do great!" He squeezed my shoulder and smiled at me. The weird thing was though that I actually believed it when he said it.