Rosemary went to town on my hair with all the different tools she had at her disposal, it seemed as if her hands were being moved with the power of a hurricane. She was acting so fast I could barely follow what she was doing. After she was done with my hair, she didn’t let me see the result as she started on the next phase of her plan. She opened the door to let Stephanie in with my clothes. They both then directed and guided me into my clothes and made everything look in tip-top shape before enacting the final phase of their plan. A huge box had appeared behind me, which Stephanie had probably brought in earlier. Rosemary opened it to reveal an entire array of make-up.

“Oh, hell no, that ain’t goin’ on my face.” I shook my head violently.

“Are you that opposed to make-up?” Rosemary asked.

“I really don’t like the feeling of it on my face.”

“When it’s applied well, you’ll barely be able to notice it.” Stephanie replied.

“Hmmm.” I sighed and looked at Rosemary. “Alright then…”

“It’ll only take a second.” She began applying some light make-up on my face, I don’t even know what most of it is called. I just know that the lipstick was lipstick. “There, that’s done.”

While she did apply only a little bit, I could still very much feel the make-up on my face, and I didn’t like that at all. I guess my facial expression must’ve betrayed that as Stephanie quickly stepped in. “You can remove it the instant you are done with your meeting.”

“You must have quite sensitive skin for you to be able to feel it that much.” Rosemary continued. “Well… I guess that not being used to it does a lot to that too.”

“I don’t know how Emma and Ria do this so often. It would annoy the fuck out of me.”

The two maids just nodded at my reply.

“Would you like to see yourself in the mirror?” Rosemary then asked.

“I guess.” I shrugged. “Might as well, right? Why couldn’t I look at myself before?”

“Because looking at the complete picture is better.” She replied with a smile as she showed me to my bathroom mirror. In front of me, in the mirror image, was a reflection I could only barely recognize as myself. It’s weird how different I looked with my hair neatly brushed and styled, together with the make-up and the suit as well. Seeing how much the red lipstick accentuated my lips…

“I look like a completely different person…” I commented as I kept staring at my lips. “I can’t say I terribly like it.”

“I think you look good but that’s fair.” Rosemary patted me on the shoulder. “It’s definitely different from your normal look.”

“Yeah… rugged, right?” I looked at her with a slight taunt in my eyes.

“Haha.” Rosemary giggled. “Once you are ready, Aurora. Let’s show you to your mother.”

“Yep, let’s go.”

Alessia was waiting for us in the living room and when she saw me she clapped her hands together and smiled. “That looks marvelous, good job, ladies.”

“I’m not a big fan, but at least I don’t need to wear earrings… I guess you wouldn’t be able to penetrate my ears anyway…”

“We have some clip-ons with us. That shouldn’t be a problem.” Rosemary pointed at the case Stephanie was carrying.

“No, thank you.” I quickly shook my head.

“Huh…” Alessia scratched her chin. “A piece of jewelry would finish it off completely. Maybe a necklace or something?”

Stephanie nodded and put the case on my living room table. She started to open it up when I stopped her.

“Wait! I think I have the perfect thing.” I walked over to my bedroom, almost stumbling halfway because of stupid heels. And quickly came back with the bag from our shopping trip.

“What’s this?” Alessia asked, curiously looking at the bag full of clothes.

“It’s from our shopping trip. The three of us got some necklaces and maybe I could wear one of those?”

“Oh.” Alessia looked interested. “That’d add a nice personal touch.”

I looked through the bag and fished out a little black box. The store clerk had stored each necklace separately in a different box. This box looked to be the biggest, so it was probably mine. I carefully opened it and took out the necklace with the three intertwined hearts. I layed it on the palm of my hand and showed it to Alessia.

“That’s very cute. I like it.” She smiled. “Want me to put it on for you? These locks are a bit annoying to put on by yourself.

I nodded. “If you would.”

She signaled me to turn around, which I quickly did. She then hung the necklace around my neck. The necklace actually hung quite deep so that the tree hearts were mostly covered by my shirt, but I didn’t really mind that. The weight of the necklace was not too heavy but not too light either, so I was aware that it was there without it being annoying. “There you go.”

“Thank you.” I turned around and smiled at her. “So, are we completely done now?”

“I just need your signature on these three papers.” Alessia slid three pieces of paper out of a folder she’d placed on my table. “It’s just the final piece of paperwork to officialize the adoption. You can keep one paper, the second is for me to keep, and the third one is to send to my friend who’s in the administration.”

“I see.” I looked around for a pen, but Alessia also had that covered and handed me a nicely decorated silvery pen.

I put my scribble underneath my name on all three papers, and then handed the pen back to Alessia.

“Great.” She gathered up her papers and put the folder in a small briefcase. “Now, let’s go and get to a certain meeting. If you feel thirsty, I’d recommend you drink something real fast, but be careful not to spill it on your clothes.

“Probably not a bad idea…” I had gone the entire day without drinking anything after all.

A quick sip from a glass of ‘grape juice’ later, I was ready to head out.

“If it’s okay with you, Rosemary and Stephanie will stay here until we get back.” Alessia commented before we walked to the door. “Otherwise they’d have to wait in the car.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Make yourself at home.” I smiled at both of them. “Just make sure you get the correct grape juice… Ah, and if Shima comes along, don’t worry, she generally doesn’t bite people she doesn’t know.”

“I can handle cats quite well.” Stephanie smiled.

“She should have plenty of food and water, so don’t worry about that either.”

“That’s noted.” Rosemary replied. “Good luck at the meeting.”

“Thank you.” I smiled back and followed Alessia outside to the car.

Alessia got in the driver’s seat and I sat down next to her.

“Won’t it be a bit weird for such a high class lady to drive her own car?” The thought had just come to mind as the car hummed alive.

“Not if said high class lady likes driving her own luxury cars.” She winked at me and then put her seatbelt on.

I did the same. “Fair enough.” I then stared out of the window as we started our short trip to Ria’s house. The trip seemed even shorter than usual, as it was over before I’d even noticed. We had stopped right outside the mansion’s gate. Being seated and staring at the big mansion… it looked more intimidating than I remembered.

“Hey,” Alessia laid her hand on my shoulder after she’d turned off the car. “We got this, okay? No need to be stressed about it.”

“Huh, I thought Rosemary said you were nervous about meeting new people.”

Alessia smiled in return. “I am not going to deny that.” She sighed softly. “But my experience has proven that that’s generally unwarranted. So, even though I’m a bit nervous right now, it will be fine.” Alessia then looked back at me. “And if things go wrong, we can always have Viktor come over to wipe their minds clean and try again. Got him on speed dial right here.” She showed her phone and chuckled a little.

“Truly prepared for everything, aren’t we?” I chuckled. Her little talk had reassured me more than I expected, but it was still a bit nerve-wracking to sit eye-to-eye with Ria’s parents after all these years.

“Ready?” Alessia looked at me, her hand on the door handle.”

“Yep, let’s do it.”

She smiled and opened her door, I did the same. And together we walked up to the gate and walked through.

Before we could even ring the doorbell, it slowly swung open in front of us. Ria’s dad was standing there, waiting for us at the top of the doorsteps. He’d visibly grown quite a bit older since the last time I’d seen him. Streaks of gray going through his short black hair. He would fit right in with your usual comic book rich super villains.

“Welcome, my ladies, please come inside to get out of this frightful weather.”

-Hmm, he just invited two vampiresses inside of his home… that’s quite ironic now that I think about it…-