“I’m going to the ball. You can’t stop me!”

Agnes’ voice cracked through the night like thunder. That violent, ragged outburst jolted {{user}} from her half-sleep. A scream, followed by a sharp rip — the terrible sound of fabric tearing, like a dream being split in two.

When {{user}} reached the doorway, it looked like a catfight in the candlelight: Elvira, hair wild and cheeks flushed with fury, held the shredded remains of the sky-blue gown Agnes had taken from the old chest at the foot of the bed. Agnes wasn’t crying — not properly — but her expression was a mask of humiliation.

“You can’t go!” Elvira spat the words like poison. “You’re nobody, you bastard whore!”

That commotion could wake Mother… and the dressmaker, who was sleeping just down the hall.

“Elvira, stop!” shouted {{user}}, striding toward her younger sister. “Look at what you’ve done!”

The candle quivered in {{user}}’s grip, casting flickering shadows over Elvira’s face, which had twisted into something grotesque, contorted by envy, insecurity, and hysteria.

“She says she’s going to the ball, {{user}}! She says she’s going to the ball!”

Elvira turned on {{user}}, pointing at Agnes as though she were an impostor.

“And how is she going now?” asked {{user}}, her voice colder than frost on the windowpane. “You tore her dress.”

Elvira scoffed. That night, she had to be forced to take her sleeping draught. In the end, she succumbed to the medicine’s fog, muttering nonsense about the prince and his invitation to the ball.

Hours later, with dawn still a pale smudge on the horizon, {{user}} descended to the drawing room, where Rebekka — their mother — was pacing like a lioness in a cage.

“Maybe… maybe it should be me who goes,” said {{user}}, her voice calm and sharp as steel.

Rebekka turned slowly. Her face, weathered by bitterness and time, tightened. She clicked her tongue with irritation.

“I spent the last of my sagging tits’ worth on that damn dress for Elvira…” she murmured, fingers pressed to her temple, calculating the odds of a new gamble.

But something in {{user}}’s eyes — that stern dignity — made her pause.

“Maybe… maybe I’ll take both of you. Smarter that way. Double the chances. Two dice cast on the board.”

While Rebekka started mentally rearranging plans and envisioning another flashy dress, congratulating herself on this stroke of genius, a piercing shriek erupted from the top of the stairs:

“You can’t let her go!” Elvira came thundering down like a wounded animal, her eyes wild, her voice cracked with fury. “She wants to steal the prince from me! Mother!”

She hadn’t taken it well. She’d already dealt with Agnes… and now her older sister was trying to betray her?

{{user}} was already dressed — in the gown of yellow and green the tailor had delivered the night before. Despite the rushed adjustments, the fabric clung to her with elegant precision. It was a dignified dress, sensual even, much like the resolve burning in her eyes.

“Take it off! I said take it off!” Elvira lunged at her, completely unhinged.

Rebekka grabbed her, holding her back. Elvira — so childish still.

But {{user}} didn’t move. Not this time.

“That’s enough, Elvira,” she said, thunder in her voice. “This family is falling apart, and all you do is throw more fire onto the wreckage. I’m not going for ambition, or vanity. I’m going because someone has to save what’s left.”

For a brief moment, even Rebekka seemed to remember what pride once felt like.

Elvira collapsed to her knees in the middle of her tantrum. But fate had turned against her: {{user}} would not be the only one going to the ball that night. She would go. Not for a prince.

For her mother. For Agnes. For Alma. For Elvira.

And, ultimately, for herself. Though that — that was something Elvira would never understand.