After Clara left with her condoms in her pocket, Lily laughed about it for the next five minutes. The whole thing was just so absurd to her, like offering a condom out of nowhere and then starting to lecture about how to have sex safely felt almost unreal. It was too much, almost funny in a strange way. Still, Lily knew why Clara did it. She understood that the night ahead would be a complete nightmare, a real hell on Earth, and she was only trying to help in her own awkward way.
And aside from that small moment, Lily was not really worried about anything at all.
When she was younger, there were many grand balls meant to bring princes and princesses together so they could form connections and alliances. Back then, Lily was innocent and young enough to believe that friendship meant something real and pure, though it did not take long for her to learn the truth.
Those gatherings were never about friendship but about influence, power. People used each other to climb higher, and feelings were just tools. Once Lily understood that, something inside her changed. From that moment on, she stopped caring about appearances. How she looked did not matter to her anymore. What mattered was staying aware, staying strong, and never letting herself be fooled again.
And that is why she did not do her makeup at all, and she did not really care about the small details either. She already had the dress on, and her hair looked fine the way it was. That was enough for her.
What mattered more was that she wanted to look good for a few reasons. One of them was that this whole ball was going to be pure chaos, and she already knew those fucking princes would start hitting on her the moment they saw her.
Because of that, she chose what she believed was the best tactic to deal with it. Instead of hiding anything, she showed everything that was already on her face. A pimple, an acne scar, anything like that, she was not going to cover it. She was not going to pretend it was not there. She was not going to use any lip balm to make her lips look better, and she was not going to do anything fancy or pretty just to impress them.
She was not interested in playing that game. She did not want to attract them, and she did not want their attention. So instead of doing what most girls would do, she did the exact opposite.She stayed natural, simple, and real, hoping it would push them away instead of pulling them closer. Even her dress was different, as it did not show her body at all, but rather hid it, as if she wanted to disappear into the fabric and keep her distance from everyone around her.
There was no excitement in her eyes, but there was no fear either. If anything, there was a quiet kind of readiness, the kind that comes when you know trouble is coming and you decide not to care.
But even if the dress hid everything the fabric still felt heavy and annoying, but it was part of the role she had to play tonight. A ball was still a ball, no matter how much she disliked it, people would stare, whisper, and make up stories in their heads.
She knew the princes would notice her anyway. They always did. No makeup, no effort, no fake smile, and still they would come, thinking they were charming, thinking they were different from the rest.
Maybe that was why her reputation was a bit… bad… moreover, that fight she put up wasn't really helping that, but at least they knew she was ready to throw her hands up for herself, and she also made a quiet promise. She would not smile for them, she would not entertain their words. She would not soften herself just to make them comfortable. Tonight, she would be exactly who she was, nothing more and nothing less.
With that, she grabbed her gloves from the table and slipped them on and waited a minute in the quiet room, enjoying that silence, because once she stepped outside, it would be gone.
Music, voices, laughter that did not mean anything, all of it waiting for her, but she needed to go, so she opened the door and walked down the hallway of the Imperial palace, decorated with gold and who knew how old paintings, while servants bowed their heads, going straight to the grand hall, and as she got closer to the ballroom, the sound grew louder.
The music mixed with the noise of people talking over each other, just the same shit every single time, but when she finally reached the entrance, she stopped for a second. The large doors stood in front of her, just like everything else in this place.
Then she nodded to the two servants on the side and the grand hall doors opened up.