The Selection: Semi-Advanced Roleplay discussion

 

Maeve was by no means prepared to have thirty-four teenage girls parade around the palace in hope of catching the eye of her eldest son. The whole thing was stupid; she could easily find some princess to marry him off to - that's what she was going to do with her younger children, anyway - though she did suppose that was how she became queen, so she couldn't entirely hate the system.

The queen was going to do her absolute best just to ignore these girls, and occasionally force her son to eliminate a selected or eight if she felt they wouldn't be suitable to replace her. The thought of a five or six or seven (did they even let sevens in the competition?) becoming the queen, or even a four, horrified her, and someone which was a two, or maybe a three, was definitely more well suited to rule.

She was staying as far away from the entrance hall as possible, and decided just to retreat to the library since what Selected girl would just want to read after first entering? None of them, and they would probably be in the entrance hall for another half hour or so, maybe an hour. After that, they would be going to their rooms for a few hours, and she would get to avoid them there, too. The unfortunate thing was, she couldn't avoid her husband.

Maeve didn't hate him when they first wed, though now, she was quite tired of him, and purposely avoided him most of the time. When they had to talk, unless it was filmed, it was mostly arguing, screaming, and the occasional glass breaking. They just ignored each other when they could, and it was most unfortunate she couldn't do that now. "What are you doing in here?" the queen asked impatiently.

"Me? Pamper the girls?" She replied back, her tone raising. Their conversation was already off to a terrible start. "I'm the queen not a maid." She spat, not wanting to deal with him. Still, she couldn't stop talking.

"Just because I'm the same gender of the annoying children doesn't mean that it's my duty to take care of them. We have plenty of planners to do that, anyway," Maeve said. "Stop doing your stupid paperwork, your wife is trying to talk to you and you aren't listening," she almost yelled.

"We should just stop this whole stupid Selection, marry Nick off to some princess and hope he likes her. We have the power, anyway," she said. "The Selection didn't exactly turn our lives into a fairytale, I much rather live in a manor alone with a husband who is always away from me who I could then poison and then live alone and no one would care."

"Only because I was forced to!" Maeve responded, her tone near screaming, "I would have never married you if I had the choice, and if you weren't the king, I'm sure that you would still be alone to this day."

She ignored the pen flying towards her, staring at her husband as her looked at her with the same amount of emotion, which was none. They hated each other, and the only reason they were together was because a royal divorce would cause chaos in Illéa and would hurt the crown's reputation.

"Wouldn't you like to abolish that stupid Selection though? And when I was Selected, I was told by numerous people running it that the queen did in fact have power," Maeve glared at him. "And you were the fool who believed me. I was the one smart enough to take advantage of you, and you, the stupid boy you are, believed the lies, and therefore, I am smart enough to be the queen, and deserve much more power than you do. You were just born and that made you eligible; I proved myself to be better than all the other girls in the country. I deserve everything, and you nothing."

The queen pulled her wrist back on instinct, her glare still on her face. "What I don't like is having children running around and causing chaos. You can already cause enough on your own." She ignored the comment about someone pouring acid over her head. After all, she had enough security and people knew not to thrown acid on her head. And if the king did, there was no doubt everyone would hate him.

She scowled at the mention of the name, and only used his in return, "Well, Jim, wouldn't you just eliminate me if you knew I was trying to fool you? It would be easy. Plus, you seemed to like that other girl, what was her name? Daisy? I told you the lies about her, and you accepted them. Did I fool you or was there some other reason?" She paused, catching her breath after screaming, "You know how much that would damage your reputation if I left? I can't just leave, as much as I'd like to. The country would be in chaos, and I could easily blame everything on you."

"I could be a queen on my own, I could be a great queen alone, without your annoyance," she yelled, continuing the argument. She caught sight of a maid quickly come in, but then widen her eyes and run out, obviously scared. "Why I bail on my kids? You act like you have actually done something to be a good father, which is a lie. You've done even less than I have, and I bet they hate you way more than they dislike me. I doubt they even call you father, just 'The King' instead," Maeve spat.

( these poor kids have the worst parents ever. they never really cared for them, just had others do it, and they would be divorced except they're the king + queen so can't really do it. and they're fighting about who is hated by their children more. )

"Excuse me? So now you're just being misogynic?" She yelled, "Just because you're a man and even more power-hungry than I am, you have more right to the crown than I do? I am so done!"

"Yes, it is your fault. You just resort to making babies right after our fights. If you were the one that got pregnant, then you wouldn't be the one yelling," she argued. "It's damn right these kids hate you, and I bet they enjoyed going away to school to get away from you. What kid calls their father 'Sir' instead of 'dad' or even 'father' would be better. And if you didn't want to yell at Nicholas, then you could have just stopped this whole stupid Selection!"

"This is all your fault, you know. When we first were married, I was nice. I loved you. What did I get in return? Nothing. Resentment. You hated me for nothing, and for that I have a reason to hate you."

"Fine. Leave. I am tired of dealing with you, " Maeve didn't bother to stop James, not wanting to create a scene in the hallways with people in them, and just left right after him, going to somewhere hopefully more private.

The kitchens, were nowhere in sight. Or, that's what Eve Foster thought as she continued to roam around the palace, searching and searching. Door after door it was, and they all lead to nothing of interest. A fancy bedroom, a room full of camera screens, a room filled with couches, a broom closet with two guards kissing--don't worry, Eve promised she wouldn't tell--and now, a library. A useless room, full of books. Or, well actually, maybe it wasn't useless. Maybe, there was a cute little cookbook sitting around somewhere?

The faint clicking of her heels reminded Eve that she should've probably changed out of her pale lavender dress and designer heels and into something a bit more appropriate for the setting, but then she was reminded that she didn't really care if she was being noisy. Besides, she didn't mean harm anyway, she was just looking for the kitchen or a cookbook she's never read before, so she can sit around and act like this wasn't the beginning to perhaps the most 'stereotypical teenage girl's dream' type thing she was going to do. Ever. Other than make a bowl of cereal and say she can cook. Now that, was sad. (Especially when it came from the lips of some famous chef's daughter. And here Eve thought the apple didn't fall far from the tree, but apparently, the apple can launch itself away from the tree. Very, very far.)

Go make sure no one’s getting lost. That’s what Arthur had told him to do. Which was why Adam was making sure that no Selected girls had gotten lost/escaped/fled from the entrance hall. And so far, it had proven to be a pretty, well, boring station. But it wasn’t that bad; he did like Arthur, he really did, and he was grateful for the draft and its opportunity to hopefully redeem his family name. He was hesitant to check the library—earlier he had opened the door to hear some… lovely conversation…—but he was fairly sure that whatever that was, was over.

And sure enough, there was a girl in the library. Adam was sure she was a Selected—she had to be; look at all that… fabric—but she didn’t appear to be lost. On the contrary, she seemed to be making herself perfectly at home in the royal library. She looked familiar—he wasn’t sure why; he was pretty sure that Selected girls weren’t former bricklayers—but he chalked it up to having seen the announcement on television. “Excuse me,” he said, praying he wouldn’t startle her. The last thing he needed was for her to, like, scream or something. “Can I help you find anything?”

Autobiographies, science fiction and the historical fiction section later, Eve heard a voice. Being the most bored person in the country had it's perks, something about the whole thing making Eve hard to scare or even sneak up on. It was as if her lack of emotion towards the world heightened her eye for detail. Or maybe she just got her mother's hearing. Either way, it was still pretty cool. Anyways, the voice was that of a guy, a guard probably. He asked if she needed help, looking for whatever it was she was looking for. And she did.

"Actually, yes," Eve didn't even look up from where she was looking, trying to search through the shelves. "I'm looking for some cookbooks, you wouldn't happen to know where they are, would you?" She finished, finally turning to look at him. And then she paused, and just kind of stared at him. He looked so familiar, and Eve wasn't one to forget anything. Heck, she could still recite to you the first recipe she ever learned, even if it was nothing too spectacular. "Sorry," She apologized for staring, "But do I know you?"

"Cookbooks?" That wasn't the answer Adam had been expecting. He had assumed that any Selected girls who had found their way to the library did so in hopes of educating themselves on the royal family or etiquette. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid that I don't..." He glanced at the door. There were plenty of other guards stationed around. "I could try to help you find them, though, if you want?"

Her second question was the one that made him freeze. He knew that she very well might have seen him; just a year ago, there had been those reporters who had showed up at his workplace to get photos for a where are they now feature. He didn't like to advertise his identity; people no longer trusted the Iscariot name, and he really would rather not be accused of being a rebel when he wasn't. "Adam Iscariot, Miss," he said cautiously, carefully gauging her reaction.

He wasn't useless, but he didn't know where the cookbooks were. Well, at least he knew who to ask for help. And then he got weird, and kind of awkward. He looked as though Eve had shot him with some sort of freeze ray, or perhaps had asked him for his social security number and credit card. Which she didn't, and she also had no interest in that matter anyway so there was no reason for him to make such a big deal of it? What was he, some kind of undercover rebel or something? But he gave her his answer, in a nervous almost frightened tone. Adam Iscariot.

Eve was thinking, for a pretty long time actually. She just stood there, here arms crossed now while one hand stayed on her face, thumb beneath her chin and pointer finger tapping her cheek lightly in thought. That name rang a bell, and his face looked pretty familiar, but why? Obviously, they never worked together, no, he would definitely remember working with her. How could he not? But perhaps her parents... Ah, yes! That sounds about right. Her father used to take her around with him sometimes when he was constructing? Perhaps he had some long term project and this guy was around? Probably. "You wouldn't have happened to ever have construction going on at your house during your childhood, would you?"

This was safe, probably; either the girl a) didn't care that his parents were Richard and Uma Iscariot, b) hadn't made the connection, or c) was just plum stupid. But it was nice -- to be able to talk to someone who didn't care about his parents for whatever reason, and who wasn't a coworker. "I, ah." He paused for a moment, trying to think of the best way to say, well, yeah, 'cause my parents were rich from the money they embezzled. "My parents were quite... frivolous with money when I was young, so we did have a fair amount of construction."

Which was to say the least. Uma Iscariot had been constantly adding, renovating, making sure that everything was the best of the best and the latest and greatest. No wonder Adam had once thought that money grew on trees.

Frivolous? Now that was a big word. Fancy too. Hm. Eve had it on the tip of her tongue, this guy was some boyish memory in her head, she just couldn't figure out the time frame. But it was definitely clicking. The name Adam, and construction visions, the name Adam, and a big house, the name Adam, and a fancy family, the name Adam, and a boy. Whose name was Adam. And that boy, was here now. Hot, and here.

"I've determined," Eve began, pointing her polished index finger at her newly discovered yet old friend, "We were friends. My name is Eve Foster, and whether or not that name means anything to you, we were friends. My father used to do construction at your house and would bring me along. We were friends. And now, we will be friends too. Unless you have other ideas, I'm open to anything worth listening to." That last part sounded rather scandalous and illegal, but it was just Eve being Eve. You say things like that just so people have a higher chance of saying something interesting and not making you cry of boredom.

(("Hot, and here" i'm ddying red))

Adam raised his eyebrows when she pointed at him. She certainly was straightforward. Eve Foster... Eve Foster... He could remember the name only vaguely — it had been a long time since he'd, well, had any of the luxuries of his early childhood. We were friends. And now, we will be friends too. It was familiar — he could remember her, now, a small curly-haired girl demanding to be friends with him on one of the long days when his parents had been gone at work.

"Eve," he repeated. And then, "Okay, friends. That works." Could he get executed for being friends with one of the Selected? Probably. With the Iscariot name, at least. He was sure that King James would be thrilled to have any reason to end the family line and have his head. Or by firing squad. Or by electric chair. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if the king wanted all three at once. But a friend — and old friend? He could give it a shot.