Chapter 23

            Traditionally, throwing a grand ball was a celebration for young singles in the kingdom to come together for a night of fun and dancing. A lot of people historically, have met their partner at a ball. It was spell bound with romance. Everyone could feel the love in the air. This time was a little different. Princess Penelope never got her own grand ball. She was locked away in a tower before she had the chance. The Kingdom had an ominous feel about it. People weren’t exactly thrilled about a celebration, when Princess Penelope couldn’t attend. It felt like an arrogant snub on the king’s part. As if he couldn’t read a room, and was too self righteous to consider his daughter’s feelings. Still, nobody was going to miss it. The castle always threw amazing parties with the best food and spectacular liquor. There was also a whole generation of youth in the kingdom, who have been waiting their turn to experience the lavish ways of the royals. Everyone flocked to the city, for the best dress in town, and it would not be short of attendees.

            “I heard that the king is throwing the ball, because he thinks Princess Penelope is losing her mind, and this will get her to jump off her balcony.”

            Whispers on the street were not kind. Many remember the ball Princess Penelope went to when she was eight years old. The king was celebrating twenty years since his coronation. She wore a white and gold dress, with a pink flower halo in her hair. Pictures from the event are still widely famous and well known. It was one of the princess’s most publicized appearances. King Charles did not like seeing all the photos of his daughter circulating at eight years old. Thinking of all the stupid things he had done at those parties. If some of those things had gotten out, he would have faced so much public scrutiny. As the internet grew, so did his caution for protecting his daughter from it. Usually, she was very private when she mingled with the public. Leaving behind nothing but talk about where she had been and what she was doing. She was very good at public relations and creating discrete public chatter. Balls have always been highly anticipated, because it was the one time the public got unfiltered interactions with the royal family. This was a huge part of the reason he didn’t throw as many balls as his father had. He was cautious about their dwindling privacy with the public. It needs to be said however, that Penelope handled the constant attention of the internet much better than the king ever did. Her generation seems to have a different worldly awareness built into them, that their parents are afraid of. Privacy was a concept older generations coveted, especially as a royal. Penelope had become accustomed to the concept, that any moment she lived had the potential to make it in headlines, and spread through the internet instantly. It was for this reason the king knew Penelope could handle the tower.

Looking back, it was hard to pinpoint exactly when the internet had changed life so significantly, but at some point, the king realized it wasn’t going away. He had to embrace it, even though he was not built to handle this world. Penelope was born in the mist of its rise. She had no concept of any other way of life. It was all she knew. Being twelve years since the last royal ball was had, this would be the internets first real experience with royal parties. The king wanted it to be a huge bang. One that they would always remember, as the historical beginning of the Cyber Ball. For the king planned to live stream the entire night in honor of Princess Penelope’s absence. He had a few stunts planned to keep it interesting as well, and it would not be short of any headlines to scroll through.

In his twenty-eight years as ruler, he had only thrown a hand full of grand balls. Opting for smaller, private dinner gatherings instead. His father had thrown balls for everything. Charles had lost a tooth, and a party they threw in his favor. By the time Charles was of age, he had danced with half the girls in the kingdom. Of course, this was before the internet. A time when what happened inside the party, pretty much stayed there. With the exception of a few headlining events.

Nothing compared to the kind of parties his father used to throw. Charles used to love those parties. Back in the day, you could get away with so many things. It was a kind of freedom they lived in, and had no idea what it was at the time that made those parties so special. Looking back, they broke a lot of rules at those royal gatherings. It used to be about letting go, having some fun, and not worrying about reporting back to the internet what was happening. You never had to worry about anyone tattling on you, so long as it was done in good fun. It was easier to trust people in that way, and the relationships were so much more intimate because of that. All you had was the moment. This vulnerable trust in the people around you. At the end of the moment, when everyone said their goodbyes, sometimes those goodbyes were for forever. You lived with the constant understanding, that you had no idea when you would hear from someone again. Perhaps this was why parties just don’t pop off the same way anymore, with the internet being the big bad hall monitor to tattle on everyone and everything.

I would tell you the tales of those legendary balls thrown by the previous king of the state, but something about that feels like a betrayal of the intimacy those moments held. Unless you were there, you wouldn’t understand. It may be possible to sit in on the king’s poker night with his friends, and get them drunk reminiscing about the shit they would do. But here and now is not my place to tell those stories, where they would only find their way onto the internet. That’s not where some memories belong.

The internet has a way of shoving sticks up people's asses, and they can't enjoy themselves because they’re too busy clenching their cheeks together. Parties went from letting go, letting your hair down, to these stiff events, where you had to be on your best behavior at all times, or else! Nothing could be sadder. Social gatherings are not supposed to feel like a burden, too heavy to carry. Maybe this is why anti-depressant use is at an all time high. Too many people with sticks up their asses.

What I will tell you about those parties, is that as a prince, Charles loved them. He loved to mingle with the people of the kingdom, and he still has friendships founded from those parties so long gone. It’s where he met his Queen Margaret. A love story that has been well told. As a prince, he easily swooned all the girls in attendance and had danced with them all. Of course, he was the prince, so this was totally normal to have all the attention of the girls. Margaret was beautiful, but he had always noticed her as just another frequent to the gatherings. As just another person in the crowd, she could never get his attention. She could never swoop him away from the the other girls, to get him to notice her. Eventually, she gave up hope of ever attaining his admiration. So instead, one faithful night, she started to swoon all the other boys at the party. Looking for someone who she could dance with and get along with. The ones sitting all alone at the tables, or dancing with the grandmas. She flirted with them all, and had them under her finger before the end of the night. Who needed the attention of the prince, when you could have your own posse to fawn over you. She sat at a table of all boys, while Prince Charles sat at a table of all girls. It was that night at dinner, he looked over and saw her laughing at a table surrounded by the misfits and ignored boys, and he saw himself in her. She had completely mirrored the prince, and suddenly, they were the only two in the room. He knew then that she was the one. He let her wander, but he kept his eye on her. She didn’t even seem that interested in the prince like the other girls. She was too busy having fun of her own, and successfully landing the moment she needed to get his attention.

Later that night, he broke away from the crowd and pulled her away to the dance floor for their first dance. They felt like two counterparts coming together, with the push of the moon. It was a chemistry you could see and witness, almost touch the divine energy of love. Destiny could not have hoped for a better pairing. After that night, they were always together. People came to the balls just to see the two swooned over each other. Charles had always looked back at these memories, like the glory days long gone to the wind, but their love never faded.

Ever since King Charles had taken over the throne, the balls seemed to have taken a turn for the worst. He believed that the gatherings had been cursed with some sort of bad luck. He had a weird pattern of drastically dramatic events go down at his parties. It was enough for him to disavow the events entirely. It all started, when he was just a new king. His father had gotten too sick to hold the throne in his old age, and Charles had taken his seat a little earlier then expected. Then his dad ended up recovering from the illness. He lived another five years, watching over Charles’s shoulder. In that time, his younger brother Jerome, became consumed with jealousy watching the two of them bond over royal affairs. He felt left out. Nobody had ever anticipated that the jealousy was so bad that he completely lost himself in it. Their whole lives, Jerome knew that Charles was going to be the king some day, and yet he could not emotionally handle what that actually meant.

When Charles inevitably threw his first royal ball, Jerome tried to stab him with a dagger, to kill him and take the throne. Pulling the knife at dinner nonetheless, so everyone would see that Jerome killed the king. However, Charles was much bigger then Jerome, and had the physical fitness to defend himself properly. He thwarted his little brother’s attempt to kill him. Broke his wrist and nearly dislocated his shoulder. King Charles didn’t have the heart to hang his own blood, even in the face of treason. A death like that, could taint the beginning of his rule. So he banished his brother from the kingdom of Alamora, and hid the events of the ball from the public. Needless to say, rumors swirled. The kingdom thought that Jerome’s disappearance was because they found him dead at that ball. Why else would they hide what happened? It was a tragedy. Charles had just gotten over the grief of almost losing his father to sickness, and yet it seemed that his brother’s betrayal was worse than almost losing his father. There is a harsher grief in betrayal, that almost makes death a sweeter goodbye. It was because of this, King Charles had decided that he only wanted one child. To save his own child, from having to feel the pain of betrayal, and because sibling rivalry as a royal was too dangerous to have more than one child. So it was settled. There would only be one heir to his throne.

Ever since the day his brother betrayed him, a looming melancholy hung over every party Charles tried to throw. The attendees always looking over their shoulder waiting for disaster to strike. A fallen ice sculpture, or a food poisoned band, something always going haywire. The press didn’t help, turning all the events into urban legends, with their spins and sensationalizing. The lore of disaster captivating all the eyes of the kingdom. Even Penelope got swooped away with the mystique of the balls. It was hard not to become fascinated by the tales of the royal gatherings, that had become infamous campfire stories by the time Penelope was born. It was no surprise when Penelope grew up just as drawn to them as her father and mother had been. She waited her whole childhood for her own royal ball, and she never got one. That is what made this night even more difficult. Penelope has been waiting for this moment her whole life, and she still pretends to dance with a prince in her tower.

This was going to be King Charles’s first royal ball without his queen, since he was a teenager. It was a twist of the knife, and he tried not to think about it, but it pained him just as much as it did Penelope. He knew well enough from his history of these nights, that he could plan all he wanted to, something was still going to go wrong. In all his years, he had never thrown a party without a huge hitch. It was inevitable. The curse would have its say, and he knew that well. Nonetheless, he got ready for the ball in his finest clothes, and swallowed his sorrows. Ready, for whatever was in store