a dream is a wish your heart makes / / isla & open
The Great Hall glowed, both from the light of the lanterns and the mass of bodies that clustered inside the room. The warmth swelled with the music, the heat tinting Isla's cheeks and staining them red and riotous. Not that she minded. Her flush completed her look: she hadn't pinched her cheeks, expecting that the Hall would be crowded and overheated. Instead, she had chosen to focus on her lips, plumping them with cinnamon oil, before reddening them with a mixture of beeswax and beetroot that she had obtained at a shop in London, hoping that the colour would -- in time -- match her cheeks. She had spent so much time preparing for this event that it delighted her more to see the final product that to be the final product.
Her dress was beautiful: made from a silk so fine that whenever it caught the light it looked like pale sunshine, whereas in the shadows it turned from golden summer to the dark dust of a springtime rose, the silk changing from cream to pink with even the slightest of movements. Her mask was cream-coloured -- silk like her gown, of course -- and tinged with strands of pink, its curling edges painted gold. Isla had charmed her hair into ringlets that crashed over her shoulders and her back like water, the curls closest to the sides of her face pinned back with little bundles of pink baby's-breaths. The flowers -- and her décolletage; the space behind her ears; her wrists -- were charmed to give off the scent of her perfume -- orange blossom and bergamot -- rather than their own scent. A necklace hung at her neck, cream-coloured diamonds set in gold, arranged to look like a delicate vine of small, pale flowers were trailing across her collar-bone. Yes, her dress -- her outfit -- was beautiful, chosen for this fact. She had spent so much of her time, so much of her thoughts, in ensuring that she looked beautiful -- as delicate and as darling as the princesses in her books, waiting for her Prince Charming to come and sweep her off her feet.
Like the princesses in her books -- like the Twelve Dancing Princesses; like all twelve regal bodies, twirling in and out of motion, spinning in and out of romance -- she was going to dance from twilight to dawn. She had arrived on Bilius' arm -- saddened that her friend hadn't been able to bring his choice, but nonetheless pleased (selfish; shameful) that she had someone to go with. Over the course of the night their paths had seperarted, crossed, then seperated once more, and now she was waiting on the sidelines, waiting to be asked to dance. Waiting, because she thought that it was inevitable that she would be asked to dance; because she had calculated her appearance to ensure that she would be asked. Sure enough, out of the corner of her eye she could see someone coming towards her. She tilted her head in a manner that she thought looked demure and delicate -- and then decided that, no, a head-tilt wouldn't be attractive. She forced herself to clear her expression, fearing that she looked rude or uninviting -- or worse, nauseated. She was so focused on looking like herself -- and not, please Merlin, nauseated -- that had forgotten about the person approaching her, turning to them with a start when she did notice them. "Oh, goodness," she said, laughter bleeding into her tone. "You scared me! I wasn't expecting you."
