Harriett hated this. She hated the black dress with white polka dots and a collar that she had on, which included a top button that was fighting her with everything it had. She hated the leggings that felt like they were squeezing the blood out of her legs and into her internal organs. She hated the earrings she had to wear because, honestly, who wanted to pierce holes in their ear lobes all to look more beautiful? It hurt, it bled, and it was uncomfortable. But what Harriett truly hated at this moment, more than anything was that there were only thirty minutes left before her mental roommate came for a proper visit in person. Truly, Harriett hated that more than anything. And what might have been a side effect of their “connection” was that she could actually sense Aesir’s presence coming closer, both through the Earthly planar realm and whatever hell dimension he was coming from.

“You are really worrying too much about this, as per usual,” Feron declared lazily as he laid upon her bed, levitating a book above his head that he had brought and flipping the pages with his mind. When Harriett looked back, she could see the title, which read “To Walk in Shadows as Light”. Harriett had no idea if it was a fictional book or a spell book, but she knew that to Feron, it could be both. She decided to ignore the matter for now for he would most definitely brag about the novel in some way once he was done.

“Oh, reading my mind like everyone else these days, Feron?” Harriett asked as she turned back to face the mirror in her basement room before deciding to move from the button that was putting up a life-or-death match against her to putting her crazily disheveled hair into a presentable ponytail. Once again, the odds of the presentable part were quite slim, but she only had less than thirty minutes to pick her battles.

“Please,” Feron began as he mentally flipped another page, “I don’t need to read your mind to know that you’re anxious about this. But if it helps, I am too.”

Harriett was a bit shocked by his response, which was a rare feeling for her to have when it came to Feron. She turned back again to look at him before she spoke. “That doesn’t sound like something you’d usually say. Don’t tell me you’re actually nervous about this too, Feron.”

Feron mentally closed the book he was reading. Then, he sat up and placed one hand behind his back to brace himself as he leaned back. “Please, princes don’t get anxious. We get concerned. There’s a big difference.”

“Oh?” Harriett emitted with a smile. “What kind of difference?”

“Well… I could explain it to you.”

“Oh, please do,” Harriett quickly chimed.

“However!” Feron exclaimed, “For one of royal blood such as myself to explain myself to a mere peon would in fact be quite beneath me and a waste of my time. Therefore, ipso facto---.”

“Ipso facto?” Harriett repeated back to him.

“Ipso facto times 2,” Feron continued, “Yes, I’m anxious. But more about making sure your mom doesn’t scold me again rather than the meeting with Lord Aesir. I mean, my father has a person of royal blood over every Wednesday, for crying out loud. In fact, I think Uncle Dracula is coming over for tea tomorrow.”

“Uncle Dracula?” Harriett repeated again.

“Repeat much?” Feron fired back at her.

“Dracula isn’t your uncle,” Harriett retorted with a small snap in her words. “In fact, is Dracula even real?”

Feron nodded as a smile crept onto his face. “Where do you think the stories come from?”

“Authors, Feron, they come from authors.”

Feron shrugged. “Hey, the authors have to draw inspiration from somewhere, right? I mean, most of them are pretty wrong though. Uncle Dracula definitely wasn’t the first. But he was one of the firsts. An easy mistake to make.”

Harriett glared at Feron, expecting him to break out into laughter the minute after she started to believe him. But this time, she wouldn’t let gullibility etch itself onto her face. So instead, she decided to take the high ground and best Feron at his own game.

“If this Uncle Dracula of yours is actually real and if I ever, and I mean ever meet him, I will literally, for the first time ever, declare to the whole world that I, Harriett Carefree, was wrong in an assumption about you. And I will eat this god forsaken dress that I’m wearing too.”

Feron quickly scooted off the bed and came to stand behind Harriett. “Do you mean that?”

“Mean what?” She asked. “You mean the declaration of me being wrong part? Yeah, of course I do.”

A warm smile replaced the childish one Feron had been displaying before. The young prince then reached out his hands, took a hold of both parts of Harriett’s collar, and gently buttoned it for her. Then, he went to work on her ponytail, allowing Harriett to sit back and relax for a split second. It was times like this that Harriett truly understood what having a best friend meant. Sure, Feron could be more trouble than he was worth. He was obnoxious, annoying, and full of himself often. But above all of that, he was first and foremost her best friend, and she would always see through all of his upkept walls of irritation in order to view the prince whom could one day possibly be a king.

After a few more moments of light pulling and twisting, Feron managed to braid Harriett’s usually wild hair into quite a lovely ponytail that fell into a nice loop at the bottom. As Harriett continued to stare at the ponytail through the mirror in front of her in sheer amazement, a knock came from the basement door.

“Come in,” Harriett declared loudly.

The basement door opened and a powerful step hit the first stair. Harriett watched as her father bent his body diagonally and stuck his head down the staircase so that he could better acknowledge the two teenagers.

“You kids ready for one of the most memorable nights of your life?” Roy Carefree asked with a delightful smile. From the stairs, Harriett could make out that he was still wearing his black and white, ceremonial warlock robe over a cream colored, button-up shirt with a black tie and black pants. His long, brown dreads were tightly bound behind his head into a ponytail that cascaded behind him like a sprouting flower. But most importantly, his eyes, although tired looking to Harriett from afar, gave off a hint of a glow behind his brown irises that gave any onlookers a slight hint as to the power that lay within her father. Even Harriett was not entirely sure as to what her father could truly do. But, by having such a powerful father and mother, Harriett was always a bit comforted by the fact that perhaps her own power could possibly be explained a slight bit by her parents’ lineage.

“Yeah, dad,” Harriett gleefully replied as her father pulled himself back up to his full height before coming down the rest of the basement stairs to join Harriett and Feron. “Feron was just helping me with finishing getting ready. As you can see,” Harriett pointed to her head, “Your genetics are kicking in heavily today.”

Mr. Carefree took on an inquisitive look as he leaned over his daughter and inspected her head. He gave the top of her head two light taps before finally nodding as though he had found the solution to the problem he had been looking for.

“What’s the diagnosis, Mr. Carefree?” Feron asked.

“It doesn’t look good, Feron,” Mr. Carefree replied as he and Feron shared a look between each other akin to a doctor and nurse preparing to discuss a patient’s diagnosis. “I think the tumbleweed has fully fused to her head. We’ll have to operate.”

“Ha ha ha, very funny, dad,” Harriett bellowed, her cheeks slightly flushing from embarrassment.

The two men shared two smirks between each other before continuing the escapade, much to Harriett’s dismay.

“Scalpel?” Roy Carefree asked Feron as he put his left hand out, palm upward, as if he expected Feron to place an actual scalpel in it.

Feron reached out his hand and dropped an imaginary scalpel into Mr. Carefree’s hand. “Scalpel,” he excitedly played along.

Mr. Carefree nodded to his overambitious assistant before moving back to Harriett’s head and beginning to examine it thoroughly again. “If we begin with an incision on the left side, we should be able to save her. Though I fear the effects of the weed may linger.”

As her father continued to poke and prod at her head while attempting to hold back a laugh, Harriett finally had enough and swatted his hand away. The two men couldn’t hold back their laughter anymore. Harriett simply sighed with anger.

“You two are children sometimes, honestly,” she angrily declared through puffed up cheeks.

“You should see me at work then,” Mr. Carefree replied as he began to re-collect himself. Feron, on the other hand, appeared to be having a harder time with ceasing his annoying giggles, which Harriett attributed more to his abounding amounts of immaturity more than anything.

“I’m sure you are a joy to be around at work as well, dad,” Harriett said as she grabbed her ponytail and flung it over her left shoulder. Between the ponytail and the dress, Harriett had to admit that she had come together nicely for once in her life. If their incoming guests had been anyone else, Harriett might have actually desired to cherish everything about this night. However, that aching feeling in the back of her mind of Lord Aesir approaching had finally overstepped a critical threshold of pain in her mind, which meant only one thing to Harriett.

“He’s here,” Harriett suddenly stated as the doorbell upstairs sounded.

Roy Carefree gave a quick and curiosity-filled glance at his daughter before darting back to the basement staircase. As he placed his hand on the staircase’s handrail, he gave one more look back at his daughter and his basically adopted son and smiled before speaking once more, “Put on your favorite faces and do your best, kids. You’ll get through this. I promise.”

Though Harriett felt her face subconsciously start to frown and felt her eyes starting to look towards the gray carpet below, she quickly stole another glance up at her dad. In that moment, she saw the bright and loving smile of her father shining down on her with his wordless expression of love seeming to say that everything was going to be alright, no matter what happened tonight. With her vigor beginning to restore itself thanks to the unspoken help from her father, Harriett gave her father a nod, to which her father returned in kind before continuing his ascent out of the basement.

After Mr. Carefree closed the basement door behind him, Harriett turned to look at Feron. “Ready?” she asked with her returned vigor empowering her voice.

Feron nodded. “I mean, it’s not like I have anything to worry about, Hare. It’s your night after all.”

Harriett shot Feron a pout filled expression as she slugged him across his left arm. Though she knew it wouldn’t hurt him, she still enjoyed that he played along by rubbing his left arm where she had hit him. Satisfied that the night might actually be survivable, Harriett and Feron gave each other a fist bump before making their way out of the basement.