Princess Avalon of Honey Falls (currently incomplete)

Anything but Plotting and Reading

I wake up to the sound of... wait? No gnomes laughing? No fairies fluttering? No Blair shrieking at me? No mother screaming as she sweeps gnomes out the door?

I sit up and look next to me, and see that Atlas is indeed gone. Just like he said.

I pout, wishing that he was still here, but know better when my door is pummeled by something.

"Gosh, AVALON! Why is your door locked?" Mother.

I groan and push the covers off of me and stumble over to my window and lock it, grateful that Atlas remembered to close it in his recent departure.

I glance in my mirror and roll my eyes when I see my hair is tangled beyond hair-brush material.

I get to my door and barely have time to move out of the way when I unlock it because it is flung open as mother barrels past me.

She starts snooping around my room, looking under the bed, yanking back the duvet, pulling open drawers.

"What are you looking for?" I ask nervously.

She ignores me, continuing her search for who knows what.

I start to fidget, bringing the waist of my nightgown between my fingers, tugging at it, "If you're looking for something of Blairs, it's not in here."

"I'm not. I'm looking for evidence."

I gulp, "Evidence of what?" Evidence that Atlas was here last night? Evidence for our thievery of the palace scroll? Oh no, please don't let her know these secrets.

"Evidence that the gnomes weren't in here yesterday," she mutters, knocking over a pile of my books.

I breathe a sigh of relief, "Oh, well, they can't climb up that wall," unless they use those vines, I think, "and they weren't in the palace yesterday."

She straightens the books, "You're right." She stands up, I'm going to search Blair's room."

"But you just agreed that they weren't in the palace yesterday." I remind her.

She stops walking "Right, of course. Sorry, I'm very tired."

Now concerned, I ask, "Do you get any sleep last night?"

"Less than usual, but I'll be fine. You should come down and eat breakfast. Well, now almost lunch."

"Okay," I start getting out of bed, hoping she doesn't suspect anything about last night or the palace scroll. 

She walks briskly from my room and turns right to the spiral staircase as I hurry to my dresses and yank off my nightgown and replace it with a simple sky blue gown. I scoot my fancier dresses all the way to the right, separating them from my simple day-dresses.

I throw my nightgown into the hamper by my door and snatch a ponytailholder from one of my dresser drawers and try to tie my hair into a simple braid down my back when the band snaps and I scream in annoyance, grabbing another one from the same drawer, and correctly securing my hair in the braid. 

I slip on tan wedges and close my door behind me and hurry down the spiral staircase.

I enter the dining room to see my mother alone in her usual chair. There are no palace guards and no fairies.

"Where's everyone else?" I ask, walking to the table and pulling my chair back from the table so I can sit down.

"Not here, obviously." she adjusts her crown as it begins to slip off her head.

I scan the table in front of me, "I thought you said there'd be lunch."

"I never said that. It is being prepped right now."