Prince George knew the girls had arrived, and that he wasn't allowed to see them. He knew they were in their rooms meeting their maids and getting ready for a fancy dinner that he hadn't been invited to.

He had never not been invited to dinner in his own house.

His entire family wasn't going to the banquet tonight. It would just be the girls, there for the purpose of meeting eachother. Tomorrow morning he would have to meet them, and cut a few of them. That was just how it worked. Any girl he wasn't interested in would be gone by breakfast.

But tonight, he was supposed to be reading the forms. Of course, he wasn't. His whole family was doing stress relivers, except for Lilli, who George heard being ridiculously loud when he was getting lunch.

He hadn't seen his father or Donovan today, but he wasn't sure he wanted to see them. His mother had been trying to calm Lilli down when he was coming back from lunch, which wasn't really a stress reliver as much as a stress multiplier.

Stress relivers almost didn't exist for him. He had one, which he couldn't do right now, because Donvan and Lilli did the same things to unwind as him. And arguing with his brother again wasn't exactly taking the weight of all of this off.

He wished he could just see the girls and get it over with. He wished in one look he could know which one of them was going to be his wife, and which ones he was going to eliminate.

On the contrary, he had been given a stack of papers with information about the girls, and an almost identical one with what to say to them.

He wished he didn't feel so strange about looking at the papers about the girls. If he could just bring himself to take a glance at the papers, he would be able to see what he might witness tomorrow.

But he couldn't.

That was creepy, that was invasive, and techincally reading something like this was illegal. Or it felt illegal to him.

How was he supposed to pick?

He sighed, got up from the desk and walked towards the door. He opened the door to a mirage of guards that all looked to be on duty, or at least they were all in uniform.

"Sir, you need to stay in your quarters," one of them said.

George's eyebrows knit together. "What?" he asked confused.

"To protect the process of the Selection, you need to stay in your quarters," the same guard said.

"I don't understand. Why can't I go outside of my room?" he asked.

"As you have been informed, you are not allowed to meet the girls until tomorrow morning. We can't risk you meeting them before then," another guard said.

"What about my family?" he asked.

"Your family is not under similar restrictions. They don't have to worry about meeting the Selected girls. They're perfectly qualified to do so," the first guard said.

George slammed the door in their faces, and sat back down in his desk chair, frustrated.

————
Deirdre wasn't excited for her makeover.

She had heard they were a thing, of course. Elizabeth had told her when she came to Midston.

Hearing that they were a thing and actually experiencing it were two different things. Deirdre could see girls all around, getting manicured and pedicured, getting their hair done, and putting makeup on.

Deirdre wasn't excited about a few of those things.

Maybe they could make her into someone that could win the heart of the prince, but that wouldn't be her. Nothing could change who she was on the inside, which was a poor, griving musician from Carolina.

A woman pulled her over. She looked Deirdre up and down. "Oh, you must be one of the fives. We'll have you looking like those twos over there in no time." She gestured with her clipboard to two girls, both already made up.

The woman called out some numbers, and Deirdre was escorted to a stylist by two maids.

"This one's going to need some work," the woman said, coming over.

"Of course," one of the maids said.

Deirdre sat obidently while the stylists tried to tame her curly hair, and painted her nails to match with some of the dresses she had picked out when Elizabeth had come to her house the other day.

Her nails were a sunny shade of yellow, one of her favorite colors, and one she knew she had seen in her dresses, while her hair stayed generally curly. They tried to get her to wear heels.

"My lady, it's for an official photo," the head stylist said.

"It's just a little bit uncomfortable for me," she said.

"My lady, it's only for a few seconds. Then you can have some more comfortable shoes," the stylist said.

"Please," Deirdre said, "I can grow into wearing them in the future."

The stylist sighed. "Of course, my lady."

A photograper instructed her on how to stand.

She was lined up in about forty different positions, one with her hand on her hip, others with her legs and arms up in ways she didn't even think were "poses".

On a chair, on a setee, on a loveseat next to a green screen ball that she was informed would later become the prince.

She didn't protest. There wasn't any reason to. If she made it far, she was told she'd have to take more pictures anyway, with the real prince, not just a green screen.

Deirdre had decided there was no point in being rude to anyone, but she also had decided there was no harm in being quiet.

After she was done with the pictures, she was put with some of the other girls, including some that were supposed to be at the airport, but she wasn't sure they actually were.

One girl, who had black hair and blue eyes looked at her. "Hi, you must be Deirdre. I'm Tricia Hope. Were you supposed to be at the airport?"

"I was," Deirdre said.

"Oh, I didn't notice you. Were you the one that was so high up in the clouds... twice," Tricia said.

Some other girls around her laughed. She noticed one girl with dark hair didn't laugh. She just sat there with a small frown on her face.

————

So sitting with the other twos hadn't gone the way Evelyn had hoped. Tricia had made fun of a girl, Deirdre, from Midston.

The makeover hadn't gone her way either. She had tried to make sure that the outfits she was given didn't look too revealing, since they were going for some sex appeal.

Evelyn had said absolutely not. She was not going to be the girl that wooed the king because she was a 2. And an athlete.

She knew that she was pretty, but she didn't want to be here. She didn't love the prince. She didn't want to be his wife. Around all these people she had to hide that there was no way she would ever marry the prince.

She knew that some girls didn't want to be in the Selection. Some people were here for the money, for the crown. The palace must know that that.

The stylists said they didn't need to do too much to her because she was "naturally beautiful". She didn't believe it.

Evelyn had always tried to hide her beauty. She didn't want randos trying to attack her because she was famous and beautiful. The castes were sculpted in a way where people below you hated you so much they would sabotage you.

She had heard stories of Sixes or Sevens that trapped Twos with children, making them Eights. She also knew that being pretty did nothing in soccer. It didn't matter if you looked nice, it mattered how you played.

She couldn't even remember the last time she wore a dress. It must have been years ago.

The way they made her pose were poses she would have never done in millons of years. When she heard pictures, she heard headshots.

This was not at all what she thought. Not at all what she would do if she hadn't been twisted into this world of seductive poses and fake smiles.

"You're very beautiful, my lady," one of the stylists said. I'm sure you'll go far."

Which only summoned a grumpy-looking expression from Evelyn before she walked away from the photo shoot in a bad mood.

Then a girl named Tricia came up to her. "Hi, I'm Tricia. You must be Evelyn. I love watching your games. I'm a huge fan!"

"Oh?" One of her eyebrows raised in surprise. She didn't think anyone here would like soccer, nevertheless pay attention to the players.

"Yeah. I grew up playing too. I never got good enough to go pro, but now I play volleyball."

Evelyn definitely didn't think there would be any other athletes here. So she decided to sit with Tricia.

And obviously that went amazing.

————

Maeve was instantly awed by the palace, but a sort of mysterious feeling of fear rose in her.

It hadn't seemed real. Not until now. The Selection had been a far-fetched fantasy, something that would never, ever happen. It was real now.

The entirety of her makeover she stayed silent, sinking in all of it.

The lotion they applied was coconut scented, which she was informed was one of the prince's favorite scents.

They mostly kept her the same. At least they didn't change her an unrecognizable amount. She could still look in the mirror and see herself.

They had dressed her in a beautiful sage green sundress, something she might have picked for herself.  They gave her sandals that matched with a little wedge heel, which reminded her of something formal she might wear at home. Baked clay leaves right out of one of her paintints dangled off her earlobes. She felt like the outfit had been made for her.

The only part she had to complain about was the hairstyle, which was tremendously uncomfortable. The palace pulled and twisted hair in ways she didn't know were possible.

The earings they put on were huge, and they made her earlobes feel pulled down, but she didn't complain.

The poses they had her do weren't the kind of things she would have ever expected. She wasn't one to protest, though. So she posed the a thousand ways they told her to.

As she continued to dive deeper and deeper into the world of the Selection, she felt more and more carried away. The other girls were sitting on chairs and at tables, looking just as dolled up.

She spotted famous models, athletes, and even an actress among them. Their dresses were just as glamorous if not more, and they had jewelery accenting their beautiful faces and frames.

They looked like girls sprang out of a painting in the province museum she visited every now and then.

Suddenly, a feeling of fear and hesitence washed over her.

There was no way she looked as beautiful as the other girls. They had probably been working to be a selected for decades, and her, well, she hadn't ever prepared until she found out she was selected.

All the thoughts in that moment were overwhelming, and she couldn't bear to think of not winning, or at least getting some money to help her family.

In the end, she chose a seat away from the sparkles and makeup, near a girl with dark curls that didn't look too happy. Maeve couldn't tell whether the attitude was directed towards the rich girls or her.

Neither of the girls was very inclined to strike up a conversation, though, so the whole encounter remained silent, which was calming for Maeve. The other girl was people-watching, staring at all the frenzy that was happening at the stations.

————

Jara did not like the other Twos.

That much she had determined.  She didn't like most of the other girls, but the Twos were the ones that annoyed her the most. Gossiping and sitting in a corner with jewels dripping from every inch of their body, like they were entitled to riches. She knew she wasn't. The words that came out of their mouth in their high pitched voices.

The makeover hadn't gone that awful, and she had liked the dress that they gave her. She had heard some other girls, the snobby, annoying, whiny ones, complaining even though they looked like they had stepped out of the pages of Illea Glamour.

Soon they probably would be in the pages of every magazine, including her. She knew how it worked with the Selection.

She sat alone, away from the group, trying to distance herself from the general snobbery and greed that was the girls of the Selection. When the maid came by to pick up all the girls to take them on a tour of the palace, Jara lingered near the back, unready to interact with even the maid, who probably wasn't like any of the girls.

She had liked her maid enough, but she was pretty sure the maid was really, really annoyed with her towards the end of the session with the dress fittings.

One of the girls camee up to her, midway through the tour, when they were in the dining room, looking at the two long tables that were set out to fit all 35 selected girls and 5 members of the royal family.

A girl came up to her while she was trying to look for her name on the placecards set out at the tables.

"Hi, I'm Quincy," she said, "you must be Jara. Your card is over there," Quincy pointed a newly manicured finger at the other table, "it's right next to mine."

Jara mumbled out a thanks to the sunshiny girl. Her happiness wasn't infectious, and it felt a little like she was putting on a mask, playing nice to the girls she was competing with. Jara would never be nice to her rivals in this game.

As they continued the tour, Jara learned all the important places in the palace, the Women's Room, or the Newscome Library as it was formally called. That was where the girls were supposed to spend most of their time.

Then, finally, they got to the individual bedrooms, where they would spend most of their time. It was a cute little room, built for a lady Jara thought to be much more graceful than herself. Her head maid, Olivia was back, sitting in the room, with another girl who was dusting. She had long black hair and tanned skin. She gave the two girls a wave.

She could tell this room was where she would be spending a lot of her time.

————

Anika was enjoying the palace so much already. She was with Tillda, and the other girl she had learned from the plane, Bethanie.

The three of them had been bonding a lot, and Anika was so glad she got along with the other contestants and they hadn't been pitted against each other. She had been so scared that the whole castle would be a war.

"This might be the best my nails have looked in my life," Bethanie said, giggling. Even though the other two girls were higher castes than her, they nodded their heads. The palace's glamour was far above anything even the most famous of Twos could afford.

"I can't wait until we get to meet the prince," Tillda mooned. Anika nodded along. She was excited to meet him too. But again, so were the thirty-four other girls that she would be fighting with.

"I hope he likes how we look," Anika said, running her fingers through her newly straight thick hair. "I'm glad my makeover wasn't too drastic."

Tillda's perfectly white teeth sparkled as she smiled. "I'm sure he will. He wouldn't eliminate a girl because she wasn't pretty enough."

"That's true," Bethanie said, "I'm just afraid he'll eliminate me because I'm a Five."

"I don't think he'd send you home because of your caste either," Anika says.

"I think he would. Wasn't the queen a Two?" Bethanie worries.

"She was. A model before the Selection," Anika confirms, "but there was a Five that made it pretty far in that Selection. She might have gotten third or fourth. I can't remember what I read."

"But I don't care if I get far, I'd just like to win," Bethanie says.

"Everyone wants to win," Tillda cut into the conversation.

"Maybe not everyone will want to win later," Anika said camly, trying to make sure the girls didn't spiral into an argument. "I'm sure it will change with time."

"It might, but I still want to win right now."

"Everyone wants to win right now, you already said that," Bethanie responded.

"Yes, but-," Tillda started before a maid came to scoop them up and take them on a tour. Anika had never been more grateful for an interruption in her life.

They got to see the kitchen, where Anika was sitting next to Evelyn Kack of Sota and Vicenta Gema of Dominica and across from Evangeline Lissette of Paloma. Fortunately, Tillda was to the left of Evangeline, across from Evelyn Kack. Bethanie was at the table that had been set up on the other side of the dining room.
Anika expected that at some point there would only be one table, once more girls were let go.

She just hoped that she would have enough of a connection with the prince to stay for long enough.

————

I'M BACK

after basically a year since the first chapter was released i finally came out with chapter 3.

i'll try my hardest not to take that long ever again and i'm so sorry for making you wait so long. i forgot how good it feels to write this story, but i really love the selection world and that's what i forgot about all of this time.

i hope to get at least 1 more chapter out before christmas!