Fern woke up surrounded by four people.

Thorn, Carnation, Cypress, and a short older woman with a green bob and warm smile.

Cypress and the woman were talking about swords, Thorn and Carnation were talking too.
"My adopted brother was my closest friend." Thorn looked uncomfortable, tense.
"Not anymore. Does that answer your question?"

Carnation nodded.
"Shame you lost touch. My childhood best friend was named Lily, she was a riot."

Fern rubbed her eyes.
"H-Hello?"

Carnation beamed
"Hello, dear! You did great, good job!" She shoved a bouquet of blue flowers into Fern's hands.

Thorn took Fern's hand in his own as he crouched at her side.
"No, she's just trying to make you feel better, you did pretty bad and shouldn't have tried."

That woke Fern up a little more.
"Oh, wow."

"But I also pitched in with the flowers because I'm glad you're okay." Thorn claimed and Fern looked back down at the bouquet.

"Thanks." She said, plainly.

Cypress still hadn't said anything, everyone looked expectantly at him.

Thorn stepped back, and Cypress took Fern's hand instead.

His touch was gentle, it was unexpected.

"I'm sorry, your highness."

Fern didn't want to be rude, but she wanted to know the truth

"Are you?"

Cypress's face lifted into a smile that was uncomfortably wide. His eyes didn't match the smile, they were cold and hurt.

"I wasn't. Not in the slightest." His hand tightened around hers, then fell near limp again.

"But I am now that it's done. I'm a weapon on the battlefield, I was raised to be. It's the only place I can get back at my mother, while doing what she wanted."

Fern nodded in false understanding.

"You should get some rest." Said the short woman, who had been silent all this time.
"The ball is in a few hours. You don't have long, but you must be exhausted."

Fern nearly jumped out of the bed she lay in at the mention of the ball. She had completely forgotten.

"Don't I have to get ready? Thorn, Carnation- what do I have to do?"

"Just do what Saffron says."
Carnation suggested, causing Thorn to give her a look of shock.

"We don't have time for you to sleep! You sleep enough when you're awake." He argued.

Fern rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. She sat up in the bed.
"I have to get ready."

Carnation bit her lip but didn't stop Fern from getting onto her feet and linking arms with Thorn, who escorted her back to her room without so much as a glance back at Cypress, Carnation, or Saffron.

"Now, I sincerely hope you have already planned what you're wearing." He commented, sitting down in a chair in the room's corner.

"N-Not exactly..." Fern admitted.
That wasn't weird for a princess was it?
After all, the night they had walked here Thorn had casually mentioned that it was good she traveled lightly, as the castle would supply her every need.

"Something about you tipped me off that you wouldn't." Thorn sighed.
He flicked his wrist.
"Well? What's in your closet?"

Fern gently opened the double doors to an ivory wardrobe that may have been the size of her entire wall back home.

She scanned over the dresses inside and pulled out four blue ones. She didn't look like your traditional water princess, and if she didn't wear blue...her fraud would be seen through in an instant.

"What do you think about this one?" Fern held up a light blue ballgown. She didn't care for it.

Thorn barely looked up from his crossed legs.
"Here's a magical fact: It doesn't matter if the aristocrats think you're pretty. You want them to see you and say 'Man, that dress must be worth a million gold pieces.'"

Fern ruffled through the dresses.
"I-" she was about to say that she didn't know how to distinguish what was expensive and what wasn't, but Fern realized that was something a princess should definitely know.

"Then why's this supposed to take so long? I could've been napping you know."
Fern grabbed the dress with the most jewels and pearls.

"Because if you want to look halfway to decent, you'll be spending a lot of time in front of the mirror." Thorn fixed his own coat in the mirror.

He paused, then turned back to Fern's offended face.
"That wasn't personal. Everyone does."

Fern dropped the three least expensive gowns.
"You're so contradictory."

"Hmm. Those are big words for you." Thorn commented. He stood up from his chair and moved to Fern's dressers.

"Well? Go get changed. I'm gonna do the same."

Fern raised an eyebrow at Thorn who was now rooting through the dressers.
"Into a dress?"

"This was my room before you so rudely barged in." Thorn hissed. Fern was about to argue that she hadn't rudely barged in at all, but it didn't seem a good time.

"Alright."
Fern shrugged and turned to the en suite.

"And don't come back until I say you can." Thorn barked after her.

Fern found that the ballgown was much tighter than she had anticipated. It made it hard to breathe, she hoped this was the kind of thing she would get used to before the ball.

The ball.

Today she was going to meet her husband, and an army or fancy, prissy, annoying, richer clones of Thorn.

And that wasn't a poke at Thorn. Fern had grown to like him...almost...maybe...sort of...
He had some issues he had to work out before they could be friends, but he was a lot better a guy than she had initially expected.

Just thinking of their first meeting made Fern's fist clench.

"What's your problem?!" She growled under her breath as she patted down the gown's puffy skirt.

Fern needed some accessories to make this look more expensive. The whole point of the ball was to welcome her, so she had to look the best, the best in the entire large, crowded room.

Fern looked in the mirror. She would have to get Carnation to do her hair and makeup later. She didn't have any idea how.

She also looked really short. She had forgotten to pick out shoes to help her with that. Honestly, wearing heels would make her neck feel a lot better.

Fern opened the door to her room, mentally planning just how high the heels should be.
They have to be tall. But not so tall that I can't dance in them...

"I told you not to barge in!" Snapped Thorn from the other side of the room. He had gotten changed a lot faster than Fern, but he was still buttoning up his blouse.

Fern stumbled back a step.
"I-I'm kind of more concerned about why your entire back is ripped apart and scarred!"

A/N: It's that time folks. Backstory time.