Dress disaster

[Octavia Lytton]

She had no clue whether she was allowed up here, but Octavia had appeared at the castle doors an hour early and swanned past anyone who might had told her otherwise with a few good seamstresses and a willful streak a mile wide. It was now just twenty minutes or so till the great debut- she could hear the strains of the orchestra tuning up and the chatter of people at the bottom of the stairs, thankfully not visible from the landing where the girls were milling.
 
The faces ranged from bored (mostly the girls in their sunday best, who were probably starting work that Monday and would never set foot in society again) to nervous (most of them), excited (also most of them), to frankly nauseous. Octavia was flitting from one girl to another, pinning a rosette here, powdering a tear-streaked nose there, stitching and comforting as best she could,
 
“No, that shan’t do.” She firmly told a girl, handing her a handkerchief and drawing out her powder puff to smooth out the girl’s tear tracks. “I shall return shortly.” Ava added in promise, hoping the girl’s friends got her together in the mean time.
 
“Any more last minute assistance?” She called out over the tonged and curled heads.

  

[Regina Lacey]

Regina's outfit

Regina was having a little bit of trouble. Her darling glowing rubies, well, they were glowing just a bit too brightly. And by a bit, that meant way to brightly. It, thankfully, wasn't hurting anyone's eyes, but one would probably have to squint just to look in her direction. It was not OK.
The poor girl was trying to stay calm. The spell must have gone wrong. She would have to speak with her uncle, or perhaps one of his friends. After all, it was them that sent the dress. It must have been a mistake. Perhaps the gems had slowly glowed brighter and brighter on the way to her. It was a beautiful dress, and the rubies were gorgeous, but it hurt to look at them.
At the very moment that help was offered, she looked to the person that the voice belonged to. "Yes, please!" She called over. She had been trying to think of a spell to dim the shine of the rubies, but she couldn't think of any. That was partly due to the fact that she wasn't sure of the spell that was used. All she knew was that she wanted the shining of the rubies, just not as bright.

  

[Octavia Lytton]

Octavia was forced to squint and shield her eyes a little as she tried to find the source of the request. She assumed it was a girl in whatever glowing monstrosity it was that she’d chosen to wear that was the source of the red light- when would girls learn that the simpler the dress the better? Her plain black gown was probably going to garner more comments than any debutante’s dress purely because of how daring it was.

It looked to be some beadwork that was causing the issue. “I’m assuming your intention is not to look like some third-rate theatre’s idea of a demonic posession.” Ava said a little caustically, examining the beads. Why on earth would the girl want them to glow? The whole point to jewels was to have them cut so they would elegantly refract and reflect light flatteringly. If you were going to have them emitting their own light- well, you may has well have dressed in lightbulbs!

  

[Regina Lacey]

Regina watched as the woman tried to find her briefly. The fact that it took so short of time for the woman to find her was fully embarrassing to Regina. She couldn't believe it. Of all the nights, how could this happen to her now, when she was about to debut? She felt so uncomfortable with the look in the woman's eyes. Was it really that bad?
She waited as the woman examined the dress. The comment she was given was horrendous. "Well, of course not. I would be shocked if anyone woul-" she had been saying, with as calm of a tone as the situation would allow, when she was cut off by a striking thought that entered her mind. Her thoughts clicked with a part of the sentence, third-rate theatre. "My aunt and uncle sent this to me. ... It must have been a mistake. They're always so busy, maybe they didn't realize that something was wrong." She mumbled. They wouldn't do that on... purpose, would they? After all, they were certainly eccentric, but they were certainly not cruel. At least, that's what she told herself.
She pushed that out of her mind, at least for now. Doing nothing but talking was not going to get her dress fixed. "Well, no matter how I got the dress or the intention behind it, can you fix the dress?" She asked, making sure that her voice still remained polite in tone. Even if she was stressed, there was certainly no reason with her to get snippy with this lady, who seemed to want to help her.

  

[Octavia Lytton]

Octavia rolled her eyes. When would debutantes learn they couldn’t just rely on relatives to pick their dresses? And surely the girl had had fittings, or there was going to be a mammoth task for Octavia to deal with after she got the dress to a point where it wasn’t blinding her.

“That, at least, is easy enough.” She raised her wand and muttered finite incantatem, which at least stopped the girl looking like she belonged in some shady district of continental Europe. “Better?”

  

[Regina Lacey]

Regina wished she knew what this woman was thinking, but that look on the woman's face seemed to tell it all. She wished she could just blurt out how eccentric her uncle and aunt could be. She knew it was so pointless to fight anything they said or did half of the time, dresses included. And the dress changing to fit her when she put it one caused her to see that it had been enchanted to fit her. Oh, how she wished she could have chosen her own dress instead.

She looked at the dress once more and was glad that she didn't have to shield her eyes. She gave the woman a small, grateful smile. "Yes, thank you. I'm sorry, I'll be sure to ask how that could have possibly happened." She said, a slight shake of her head from this insane turn of events. "I'm very glad that I didn't have to go into the crowd looking like the sun." She joked lightly, hoping to lighten the mood.

@'Octavia Lytton'
(OOC- I'm sorry for the late reply. My brain was so fried at what I could say.
Wrap?)