Slumber party

Evening came and Maria had arrived at Yuna's house. She was waiting for their butler to answer the doorbell. As she was looking at the door, framed by white marble pillars, with a thick rich brown color, covered in symbols laced with gold, Maria wondered, and not for the first time, why her dad had lived in such a small house in Elementum before moving out. He said that she was related to the White family, but that they didn't like that her mother was a dark. Maybe that was why she didn't live in a huge manor as well? Maria didn't put too much thought into it, as her dad apparently still had a lot of secrets and at least this one didn't concern her. This mystery just had to wait some more.

The butler opened the door and welcomed her inside. He offered to carry her stuff and lead her to Yuna's room, but she graciously declined, stepping up the huge marble staircase to get up to the second floor.

As always, the whole place smelled of strawberries and flowers. Plants were everywhere: hanging from the ceiling, tied to the banisters, up on tables in what looked like very expensive vases. Maria inhaled the pleasant smell and moved towards the left wing of the house, from which she could already faintly hear a violin playing. She smiled, knowing that later on into the night, the music would slowly shift from classical to rock. She stopped in front of the massive wooden door, curls sculpted into the sides, just as ornate as Yuna’s hairstyles, and pressed down on the golden handle.

The music stopped for a beat, but as Maria entered, Yuna put her hand down and the violinist continued to play something with a fast tempo. Yuna came up to Maria and caught her in a tight embrace. "Welcome, welcome, Maria! Now we can get this slumber party started!" She let go, then pointed at the corner, where there was another backpack, made out of leather, and a bedroll. "You can leave your stuff there."

As Maria put her backpack down, she took in the room: Rachel, Yuna and Isabelle were gathered around an assortment of nail polish bottles, make up of all kinds and a ton of bows, elastics and other hair accessories. They were sitting on the white, fluffy carpet in the middle of Yuna's room. Rachel was going on with some enthusiastic story, clearly excited about the party, while Yuna had a knowing smile. She must have heard the story before. To Maria's surprise, Isabelle didn't look like she was paying much attention to the story. She took one of the bottles of nail polish, turning it around and squinting at it. But she also glanced in Maria's direction. The moment they locked eyes, she looked away, continuing to examine the colored contents of the bottle.

Maria sat down in between Rachel and Yuna. Rachel was moving her arms wildly, adding flair to her story: "And then I hit him where it hurts!" She said, miming a kick. I winced, as Yuna shook her head, still smiling and Isabelle smiled as well.

"After that, he scuttled away like a beaten puppy and then he never pulled on my pigtails again." Rachel ended her story, touching her pigtails as if to emphasize a point.

"Well, since everyone's here, I guess we can start with our first event." Yuna said and she winked at Maria, but she didn't have the faintest idea what Yuna was talking about. Isabelle frowned at Maria, but when she looked at Isabelle, she had turned her gaze towards Yuna.

"Me and Rachel went to Earth!" Said Yuna, beaming.

"You did what?!" Maria and Isabelle exclaimed.

"Aww, c'mon girls, don't be party poopers!" Said Yuna, her expression changing into one of a scolded puppy.

"You should have said something! I could have tagged along and shown you around! I mean- Where did you even get the money?!”

"There are exchange centers, silly! Plus, you were busy with training and I wanted it to be a surprise for everybody."

"I'm not surprised." commented Rachel. Yuna scoffed, but smiled.

"Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted, I wanted to say I bought some make up stuff and cool earthen accessories! That's something earthens do at slumber parties, right Maria?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Then you'll show us how to use these! Fantastic!" She lifted up a bottle of golden nail polish. "How does this one work?"

Needless to say, this resulted in a colorful mess and a ton of laughter. Maria ended up with bright red lips, 3 nails in the most neon green you could imagine and the other 7 covered in tiny golden stars on neon pink. She was pretty sure she had a blue strand of hair made by Isabelle with some hair chalk, and what must have been at least 10 little bows caught in her hair. The other girls didn't fare much better and somehow, Rachel had a smear of pink lipstick down her cheek.

"Wow, we look so stylish now! We could just go outside and everyone would look our way." Isabelle said sarcastically, then giggled.

"Yeah, but for the wrong reasons!" Said Rachel and burst into a fit of laughter.

"Good one, Rachel!" Maria said, a beaming smile on my face, which looked absolutely ridiculous with the slightly smeared red lipstick. She looked at Isabelle, but she was looking away, her smile from earlier almost gone.

Just about as Maria wanted to ask what was wrong, Yuna took Isabelle's hand and pulled her towards the other side of the room and they started spinning around. She must have noticed Isabelle's fowl mood. Rachel sat up as well and made a great show of inviting Maria to a dance, even going as far as kissing her hand, to Maria's amusement. They danced around on the improvised dance floor, Yuna and Isabelle doing a sort of sophisticated dance that required a lot spinning, while her and Rachel were just fooling around. The violin had been replaced by a guitar, the music still playing on a fast tempo.

Out of breath, they all collapsed on the carpet. Isabelle was smiling widely again, her mouth open as she was panting from the dancing. Then Yuna plopped a board game box between us. Maria looked at the box incredulously, before saying:

"No, you didn't..."

"I bought a game from Earth!" Said Yuna, misinterpreting Maria's horror for surprise.

"You bought Monopoly!” Maria said, absolutely shocked.

“Yeah, is there a problem with this one? Is it broken?” She gently shook the box, as if expecting for the whole thing to crumble.

“Yuna, this is... how to put it kindly... a very competitive game." Maria said, not adding what she was also thinking: oh no, she bought the most nefarious friendship breaker game she could find.

“If it’s only that much, I’m sure it will be fine!” Said Yuna, opening the box, immediately grabbing the puppy figurine. “Ooh, this one looks nice! What do you do with it?”

They started playing and, just as Maria had predicted, it quickly devolved into chaos. Maria didn't think she had ever seen Yuna as angry as when she landed on one of Rachel's spots and had to give her some expensive rent. Rachel was laughing and teasing her, but when her turn came, she ended up in jail and it was Yuna's turn to laugh and tease. As they got further and further into the game (and into the night as well), Isabelle finally started to open up. At the beginning of the night, she stood on the edge or near Yuna, avoiding eye contact with her and only sometimes joining the conversation. Now, she seemed like a different person: smiling wide, commenting on every move they made, throwing sarcastic remarks left right and center, eyes crinkling with laughter even when she looked at Maria. Although, from time to time, she swore she saw something much sadder glinting in her eyes as she looked at Maria. But maybe she just imagined it. After all, how could she be sad when she was winning the game? Indeed, Isabelle managed to win the game, getting a cluster of spots and upgrading them until one wrong dice throw would mean bankruptcy for the rest of them. She did a little victory dance, accompanied by the riff of an electric guitar played by our very dedicated (and probably very tired) instrumentalist, who was now using an enchanted acoustic guitar.

They settled for the night after taking off all the accessories, washing off the lipstick, cleaning the eye shadow, mascara and nail polish.

Maria wrapped herself up in the bedroll she had brought with her and fell asleep to the sound of hushed conversation and shushed giggles. Beside her, in another bedroll, Isabelle was racked with guilt, desperately trying to fix a mistake she'd made. Because if Monopoly hadn't destroyed friendships, her mistake might just ruin every friendship in the room.