A/N: Viviana Morales with her favorite jacket and hood^^
Jeanette swung her dangling feet back and forth as she gave Viviana a glazed-over look.
"That's your plan? Just break into the castle, like that? You'll be caught, and arrested for sure."
"You don't have to come with me." Viviana shrugged, holding her triangular prismatic crystal meant for future-reading up to the light. Rainbows refracted around the room, but no images appeared. "No one said this was your quest too or whatever."
Jeanette groaned and stood up, nearly stepping on Santiago's hand as she stood beside Viviana.
"We're BFFs. Best friends forever. Viv, that means we're together through everything until the end."
Viviana smirked and twisted the crystal, "If I had known that when I accepted the friendship bracelet, I was basically making a wedding vow, I would've given it a bit more thought."
Jeanette rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. We all know you're freaking impulsive for someone who's so good at magic."
"Pretty sure that's called intuition." Viviana grimaced at her crystal and zapped it with maroon sparks.
It shuddered in midair and almost shattered before projecting an image onto the wall. It was a girl sitting cross-legged on the floor.
But unlike the other people Viviana had unintentionally stalked, she looked up at them, frowned, and sliced the air.
The crystal swapped to the front view of their school instead, and Jeanette and Santiago gaped at it.
"What. Just. Happened?" Jeanette asked.
"Viviana stalked a girl after almost breaking her scrying glass." Santiago rolled his eyes.
Jeanette elbowed him. "No dummy. The girl! Did you see that?!"
"Probably just another witch." Santiago mumbled. "What are we even using this for anyway?"
"To find the best way into the castle that involves the least amount of guards."
"This is why the school is unfair." Jeanette insisted, sitting by her brother on the floor. "They won't teach us teleportation until the month before we graduate."
"It wouldn't matter, Jeanie. You can't teleport into the castle. Spells are on it from like a thousand years ago. You'd just get stuck in a wall. Not a pleasant experience." Viviana muttered, her eyes fixed on the projected image as she rotated the crystal with maroon magic to zoom in and out, switching locations to view the castle.
There were guards and cameras posted at every major entrance and almost all of the minor ones. But as with every security system, there was a major flaw.
Viviana spotted it faster than Jeanette, probably because, unlike Jeanette, Viviana specialized in weakness.
"Why are you just staring at that window?" Jeanette asked. "What's so special about it?"
The window Viviana had found was not particularly special looking, mostly because it was next to a stained glass window that took up a significant portion of the outer wall of the castle. But Viviana could see from this angle, that this window didn't have any locks, and it was almost open.
In reply to Jeanette, Viviana zoomed in on the bottom of the window. "See? That gap is small enough to be noticeable only as a draft. But it means that even if this window has locks, they wouldn't work. That right there is an exploitable gap. All we need is a telekinesis boost up... or perhaps a broom, and we can open it with a levitation spell or more telekinesis."
Santiago gave her a look. "The brilliant plan is to go through a window? What are we, Romeo and Juliete as a squad?"
"I hope not. That would involve me dating a guy, and also dying. Neither of which, I am looking forward to doing anytime soon." Viviana replied rather flippantly.
Jeanette shrugged. "I'm actually worried that that window may be jammed. There's a reason it looks like that. And look here-" She pointed at a corner of the zoomed-in vision. "There's a spot!"
Santiago stood up and looked at the spot. "That's a speck of dust, Jeanie."
"Perfect!" Viviana blurted. "Do you know what that means?"
"What?" Santiago asked along with Jeanette dubiously.
"It means this is also likely a slightly neglected area of the castle, where no one goes, not even to clean. Come on, it's a perfect place for breaking and entering."
"Why can't we just walk inside like normal people?" Jeanette whined. "Are you really so obsessed with being a rebel you'll go to jail for it?"
Viviana just stared at Jeanette. It had not occurred to her to go through the main entrance, because her reason for being there would not be considered valid.
But then again, she could just lie to the guards there, and with Santiago's help brainwash them if necessary...
Hmm. Fine.
A telepathic yawn came through her link with Preisha, and she glanced at her familiar, who was lying curled up on Jeanette's bed.
"That took forever. You really are nonsensical sometimes. Stop trying to do the hardest thing possible when you haven't even tried the easy way yet, it's exhausting."
Viviana glared at Preisha, but the familiar curled further into a ball and dropped off to sleep.
"What's she saying now?" Jeanette asked.
"Just that I should listen to you." Viviana grumbled.
Jeanette grinned. "Are we going with my idea?"
Jeanette turned from Viviana to Santiago, and when neither of them denied her, Jeanette did a small party dance.
"Finally! We're going with my plan. Ha!"
"Don't celebrate yet, Jeanie. We have to actually get inside. And if we do, then you can tell us how wrong we all were." Viviana promised.
***
The next day, Viviana tugged up the collar of her red jacket. It wasn't snowing, but it was still really cold, especially with the strong wind.
It felt like with every step forward she took, she was shoved back half a step. Jeanette was similarly struggling next to her, but Santiago had moved on ahead and was patiently waiting for them at the end of the line of visitors waiting for clearance to go into the castle.
"So very unfair. Not only are his powers cooler than mine, he doesn't even have to struggle through this grey mess." Jeanette grumbled beside Viviana.
Viviana tried to give her a sympathetic smile, but the strong wind just made her grimace as her eyes teared up.
Santiago had hydrokinesis and a few powers dealing with water. Jeanette had always been jealous of this because her abilities only involved healing. Jeanette claimed her powers did not match her personality, and that she should have gotten the hydrokinesis and extended abilities to be able to perform complex spells.
Really, Viviana was jealous of both of them. She would much rather have healing powers or water powers, even though having water powers could cause her to be mistaken for a siren.
Santiago was often mistaken for a siren. He found it to be inconvenient.
Viviana and Jeanette arrived at Santiago's position and partially hid behind him, using the fact that he was taller than both of them to their advantage. He pointed to Viviana's shoulder bag, and she nodded.
Preisha was guarding the application. Viviana had not been the one to fill it out though, as she had guessed the second she received it.
The application was for Santiago.
The edited version of Jeanette's boring plan was to walk inside with Santiago posing as the applicant because he was a guy, and then presenting Viviana as the actual person who wanted the job after they got past all the security.
King Silas is so desperate, that there is no way he can say no. There just can't be.
Most of the people in front of them were sent away, either into the castle or back to the capital city, Betejuencos. Viviana felt bad for the people who were turned away, mostly because they seemed to be well-wishers for Princess Isabelle, just like Viviana herself.
With every well-wisher turned away, Viviana felt doubt stir to life in her heart. Maybe their plan would not work after all.
Before she could even attempt to pull Santiago and Jeanette away, they were next. Jeanette actually linked her arm through Viviana's and tugged her forward.
The gate was set up the way someone else might have set up paid parking for a business. There was a little arm extending from a tollbooth that prevented them from walking through the narrow hallway in the castle's external wall. Except, instead of a robot or computer in the tollbooth, there was a guard behind a shield of bulletproof glass.
"State your name, and your interest." The guard from behind the bulletproof glass said in a bored voice, his eyes lazily glancing in between all of them. "And if there are notes for the Princess, or King, put them in the drawer."
He pressed a button and a drawer slid out toward them with a click. Santiago gave the guard a disarming smile, and calmly explained that they had an application for the job King Silas had posted.
The guard sat up straight, interest showing on his face. "An application? For traveling to Remembauri, yes?"
"Yes. The recruiter recommended that I give it to King Silas personally, and seeing as there is no one else here..."
Santiago trailed off and the guard nodded.
"We haven't had an applicant in a long time. You're welcome to enter after you've passed the screening. You two, however-"
"They are with me." Santiago interrupted. "They're my sisters, and they wanted to come with me to see how the selection process worked."
The guard still looked like he was about to say no. Viviana sighed.
Time to shine.
She elbowed Santiago out of the way and used her given powers, using the eye contact she had with the guard to her advantage. She used the guard's attention to pull apart his concentration. Viviana knew she had succeeded when his eyes turned back to bored and disinterested. She elbowed Santiago again, and he caught on.
"So... we'll just go?"
Viviana stared hard at the guard and the guard nodded blankly. Viviana shoved Jeanette and Santiago in front of her and dashed for the metal detector and magic detector, both of which were designed to find any and all potentially dangerous magical objects.
Somehow, Preisha did not set off the magic detector, despite the fact that she was hidden in Viviana's bag like usual.
Hmm. I should anonymously email the crown about that later. Viviana thought to herself as Jeanette dusted invisible dust off her shoulders.
"Now what?" Jeanette asked quietly.
"Now we find the King." Santiago answered, motioning to Viviana's bag. "Preisha didn't set it off?"
"Nope. I don't know why. I should probably tell them about that... preferably right after I talk to the king."
Preisha huffed. "Why would I set that stupid thing off? I'm not an object."
"Maybe not, but you are a concentrated manifestation of magic. If the detector can't pick up on that, it can't do its job very well. And you know what that means: the royals are not protected nearly as well as they should be."
"So now would not be a good time to say that it looked disabled?" Preisha asked.
"What?!" Viviana hissed out loud, and Jeanette jumped along with Santiago. "Preisha, what do you mean disabled?"
"What's disabled?" Jeanette asked but Viviana held up a finger and listened to Preisha.
"It's a magic detector, so it runs on magic. But there was no energy or spell working at all. It was like we walked through a vacuum. Therefore, it is clearly disabled."
"That's not good." Viviana whispered.
Anyone could just waltz into the palace! Like us. But unlike us, they probably have bad intentions.
"Again, Viv, what's disabled?!" Jeanette hissed intensely.
"The magic detector." Viviana replied, adjusting her backpack and taking off down the hallway. "And now we should find the King. He needs to know, and I have a quest to sign up for."
A/N:
Sorry I'm late guys. The snow delayed me.
QoW: If you got a witch familiar, what would it be?
I think mine would be a turtle.
Also, I don't remember if I stuck a pronunciation guide for Nazeen's capital city, but I want to clarify that it's supposed to be like Spanish. So Betejuencos should be {Bet-ay-who-en-cose} not {Betty-jew-en-caus}
Stay warm!
-Eva