Celia
The next morning my maids woke me early. I was still in my dress from yesterday, my hair was an utter mess and my body ached.

Elana ran me a bath, as Willow and Anna helped me out of my dress. The three of them happily chatted away, but they treated me with such care that I knew they were not oblivious to my mood, but none of them asked me what was wrong, I wasn't sure if they had been told not to ask, or if they just respected my privacy. Either way, I was thankful.

After my bath, they helped me dress in a red day dress. The dress fell to just above my knees and had long sleeves, there was a floral design etched into the fabric on the top section of the dress, whilst the bottom fell to my knees in pleats. Then they did my hair in a loose braid down my back, leaving some loose strands framing my face.

Breakfast was delivered to my room without me even having to ask for it, along with a note signed by the King that informed me that my parents would be arriving at the palace before lunch.

I ate in silence, my maids dismissing themselves and taking my empty plate with them.

Once I was alone I made my way out onto the balcony. I leant against the rails and looked out across the palace grounds. I was still sure that I didn't belong in this place, but the garden was reassuring, a little piece of something slightly familiar amongst all of this chaos. But even as I looked out at the gardens it felt wrong, the hedges were too perfectly pruned, the flagstones were too perfectly weeded.

********

Aspen Junior
Shalom was much better at the selection than I was. As soon as Mum and Dad asked, he had a list of nine girls to eliminate.

After they explained what the DNA test had shown, that Celia was, in fact, Celeste, they asked us if we would be willing to eliminate some of the selected so that the press would focus on that instead of them getting wind of the return of Celeste before we were ready for them to know, before she was ready. 

Although I was reluctant to let any of the girls go before I had a chance to get to know them better, none of the girls on Shalom's list had jumped out to me, and a few of them were frankly boring. 

We had to start to narrow down the pool at some point. Cutting the number of selected from Seventy (Sixty-Nine with Celia discluded) down to Sixty would be a good start. That way I might actually have the chance of being able to date some of them.

The elimination was an uncomfortable exchange. We gathered the nine girls in a parlour and Shalom was the one to tell them that they were going home. Some of them cried and others ran from the room, but within the next two hours, they were gone.

Shalom and I watched them go from the top of the stairs. They all wore grand dresses, some were still crying, some held their heads up high and one even grabbed my arm and asked me to give her another chance. I apologised to her, and wished her well, before she too left the palace, climbing into a car just outside the doors and leaving. 

Just as the last car carrying the selected away left, another car pulled into the drive. A woman and a man climbed out. They were in old worn clothes, the woman's top had a brown smudge of mud on it. They looked to be in their mid-fifties, both of them had grey hair. The man took the woman's hand, and they looked around, looking rather uncomfortable. Without any words, they walked in through the palace doors.

"Who are you?" Shalom asked bluntly.

I rolled my eyes at my brother's poor conversational skills. I walked down the stairs to greet them.

"Hello, I'm Prince Aspen," I offered them my hand. The woman took it gratefully and shook it, "can I ask who you are?"

"I'm Wednesday and this is Quentin," the woman hesitated, "the King and Queen asked us to come, we're- we're Celia's parents."

"Oh," I wasn't sure where to go from there with the conversation.

A butler, whom I recognised as Williams, my father's personal butler, hurried down the stairs and stopped beside me, "I am incredibly sorry your royal highness," he apologised.

"No problem Williams," I smiled at him, patting him on the back. I turned back to the Gardeners, "I'm sure that we will be formally introduced later, Williams will take you to my parents." I gave them a nod and a smile, before walking back up the stairs towards Shalom who still stood at the top of the stairs. I grabbed him by the arm and we began to walk back up to the third floor. 

"How can you be so nice to them?" Shalom demanded, "they stole our sister from us."

"I don't believe that," I shook my head at him, "the man who took her was caught remember, and according to the file that Mum and Dad have, Celia was abandoned at a church. I'm sure that they had no idea who she was when they took her in."

"You always see too much good in people."

"And you always see so much bad."

********

Celia
"Mum!" I charged at my Mum the moment she entered my room. She enveloped me in a hug, "tell me it's not true."

She said nothing, stroking the top of my head silently and holding me tightly. My Dad also wrapped his arms around us and we stood there in a silent embrace for quite a long time, until we finally broke apart.

Both of my parents held one of my hands and I looked between them, asking for them to tell me this was all a bad joke.

"Tell me it's not true," I repeated.

"Cece, we don't know," Mum's eyes were shining with tears, but she refused to let them fall down her face, hastily wiping them away with her free hand.

"We don't know," Dad repeated, "we couldn't have children, we tried for so long, but then you were abandoned at the church and it only took one look at you for us to know that you were ours-"

"I don't want to be a princess anymore," I swallowed down sobs, "I thought I wanted all of this, but I don't, I just want to come home."

Dad pulled us both into a hug again, holding both me and Mum close, like we were about to disappear.

It was becoming harder by the second for me to fully deny the truth of what the King and Queen had told me. If I really had been abandoned; then it was damn near possible for me to be the Princess.

I didn't want to believe it, but it was being forced into reality.

"No matter what," Dad said, breaking apart the hug again, "we love you Cece and you will always be our daughter."

"I love you too," I replied, still holding back tears.

"You look so beautiful," my mother looked down at my dress, still wiping away tears. I sniffed and smiled, smoothing my dress with my hands.

I had wanted to speak to my parents so badly, but now they were here I wanted to be alone again.

I knew that I would have to reconcile with all of this, and I knew that it would take me a lot of time, but eventually, I would get there.