The sounds of shocked gasps filled the ballroom. Solomon looked up at me with an angry and offended expression. He glanced around and seemed to have been shrinking from the embarrassment. With folks’ glances constantly hopping between me and him, it was clear that he was feeling the scrutiny but…with no power in the moment to make it look good on him.

Looking through the crowd it was easy to find other faces that I could recognize one way or another. Such as Emperor Mathusela who was around three distinct older women.

One was a brunette with a dark yet regal air surrounding her. She’s Faye’s mother. I think I can tell from the eyes. A combination of them sharing the same eye color but also the same intensity in their stares even if their stares aren’t aggressive in any way. That was Duchess Magdalene Zhao alright.

Another woman was an older blonde woman who I instantly knew as Patience Conwyn. It would be hard not to recognize her after watching so many fan-cams of her “girl-boss” antics to irritate and foil her husband’s plans to break up Solomon and Camila. Now, she just looked irritated by her company. Of course, she had to be seen next to her husband but now she was also next to her sister-in-law, who definitely hates her. But she was also next to another woman and that woman got most of her ire.

It was an older black woman. Outside of me, I had a realization that she was one of the only other ones in attendance. The other few being some of the help. This meant that this had to be Elvira’s mother, Duchess Edith Khanna. An antagonistic figure in the story because of how she wanted to use her daughter to usurp the power of the Conwyns. A use of the “villainous foreigner” trope.

The series uses this trope…a lot. I’ve grown since that doe-eyed girl who didn’t know how insidious it can all be and just how much damage the show’s creators were doing especially when you learn how much of the audience were young girls. Impressionable young girls. It may not have been the intent but the results were there. They were very much there in fandom spaces I used to frequent where black people and Chinese people were told to “stop starting drama” for pointing out how the fictional cultures in the series that clearly took after theirs were being villainized.

The amount of times it “stopped being fantasy” when people, at the smallest mention of Elvira post her death, were calling her the worst names imaginable and it even became common for black fans to get threats hinging on “if only you and Elvira switched places”.

…….

That’s it. I can admit I was maybe a little slow back then. I didn’t understand just how aggressive someone was being when they said to me until a few other people in the forum defended me and that person got reported to hell and back for “death threats”. I didn’t realize it at the time and even when I learned, I couldn’t understand where the vitriol was coming from.

Were we all not watching a romance show? Was it really that bad that so many of us didn’t want to see our cultures treated as backwards and innately evil while the genocidal Regina Empire got to “influence others for the better” and be “necessary evil”. A dark time that they never had to own up to even in the present of them colonizing Lyona. The Lyoni people being presented as backward savages that NEEDED to stop fighting against “their betters”.

If this was what characters like Elvira, Faye, and Ginette faced in reality…then it’s not hard to see how they were massively seen as the villains. In fact, one of the major plot points to bringing down the Khannas was that they were loved by the common folk who didn’t escape the bad lighting either. Portrayed as fickle because “they didn’t know what was good for them”. It was a constant mystery as to how the Khannas were so loved by commoners but hated by the nobles.

But when the nobles are just racist and the commoners are the subjects of many of the Khannas’ acts of charity, it’s not a hard mystery at all. Holy shit, the show portrays this as a bad thing…but then again there are people who think giving homeless people money is a bad thing.

The dissections of Roll End Romance and how much is stunted an impressionable generation is a rotten one. When you compare it to other 90s shows that were trying to push the bar, this show truly was held together by its merchandising. It’s going through it’s renaissance back home and…I honestly am way more interesting it how people approach it today.

But I’m not home. Not right now. I’m here.

But just because Elvira put up with it, doesn’t mean I have to. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was brought here to help fix it. As that entity said, a life of misery for a life of abundance. I have to fix it but I get to enjoy the abundance and what better way to start fixing it all then with ending this engagement before it all starts?

As long as I play my part, right?

𝕐𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕥.

“I’ve thought a lot about this and this engagement…does not benefit me in the slightest.” I made sure to make my voice boom. “Between a future father-in-law who clearly can’t be bothered to teach his son anything and a fiance who has the mentality of a child, what do I gain from this?”

The crowd seemingly went with it. Shrugging and shaking their heads in intervals.

“Exactly! Nothing. I’m already the daughter of a Duchess. I’m well off now. I can find a better husband…or even a better wife.”

The mention of a wife caused gasps. Roll End Romance was a straight story and with all of these revelations, I wouldn’t be surprised if same-sex marriages were illegal here.

“Even if I have to leave this place to do so.” I added. “Solomon…I’m too good for you.”

The Crown Prince sent a wide-eyed angry look my way as he ignored the hushed giggles coming from some of the younger girls in the crowd.

“And where I come from, when someone is too good for another person, they don’t marry them. In fact, they stay far away from them. So with that, I’m ending our engagement. This is just as good for you as it is for me. I don’t like you, you don’t like me. That’s the end of that. So really, let this be mutual. Now you can marry the girl I caught you with in the pantry instead.”

Nothing riles up a bunch of petty nobles with nothing better to talk about than implications of debauchery in any form. In high societies like this, cheating is commonplace but talking about is another thing.

A fact that’s made clear when I spotted Emperor Mathusela stalking towards Solomon with a worried Empress on his coattails. That was my cue to leave. I came down the stairs and would’ve almost fell if it wasn’t for Faye catching me.

We caught each other’s stares and it was like I mentioned. Even if it’s not aggressive, there is an intensity about the stare of the women in the Conwyn family. She flashed me a devilish smirk.

“Well, don’t you know how a rile a crowd.” She pulled me further into the crowd as Solomon tried to grab hold of me only to be stopped by Mathusela. “Let’s get out of here.”

She kept a tight grip on my wrist as she seemingly expertly weaved through the crowd that morphed into gossiping chickens. The women hiding their faces behind fans that color coordinated with their dresses. The men snickering behind their glasses of shiny liquor. Everyone else just straight up huddling together and talking and exchanging more information that they were just sitting on and waiting for their moment.

Despite being the person that caused this. No one really looked to me at that moment but I’ll probably be labeled as some sort of “runaway bride” in the papers but who cares?

We needed more time to get this situation under wraps and now I don’t have to worry about acting out an engagement alongside this whole thing. This is perfect. I can see nothing going wrong with this route.

“Fix Elvira’s life”.

DONE!

What next?

We made it to the array of cars parked outside. As if to make the job easier, they were seemingly separated. The ones with drivers were on one side with the drivers in question seemingly huddled together and talking with each other, making the time pass by as their bosses were currently inside having the social time of their life.

On the other side, were the cars with no drivers. That meaning that they were driven by some of the party goers themselves. I had no clue as to why they would be separated. Especially since the party most likely had valets.

“The ones on the right are easy pickings.” Faye said casually. “Every time someone gets some fancy new decal on their car, they HAVE to drive it themselves before the novelty wears off. Do you think you can get one of those working for us?”

I came down the small staircase and made my way towards the unattended cars. It makes you wonder if this party even had valet because of how bad the parking jobs were. It’s like watching the work of the worst Tetris player you could find.

“How about this one?” Faye called out to me.

She was standing by a silver car. It’s probably called something else in this world but in our world, most folks that are fans of vintage cars know it as a Chevy Sudan, specifically what it would look like back in the 1930s in all its bulky glory.

The door was unlocked. Not surprising to me. Rich people tend to be careless no matter what era they’re from. I’ve seen this car on my brother’s lot before. But hotwiring was not an issue cause if the door was unlocked then the chances of the keys being in the glove compartment is a solid 50/50.

So I opened it and sure enough.

50/50 in my favor.

There the keys were along with some other random stuff like miscellaneous papers, random trinkets, and some cigars. I grabbed the keys, jingling them in front of Faye’s surprised face.

“Didn’t even need to hotwire a thing.”

I held out my hand with the keys on my palm and she looked at me in confusion. “What are you doing?” She asked.

“I don’t know how to drive these things. Do you?”

“You know how to break into them but you don’t know how to drive them?”

“Must I repeat how OB-SO-LETE these cars are where I’m from?”

“Excuse me, I forgot about your self-driving cars.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not everyone can afford them.”

“Move over.” She ordered.

It’s so easier to do in cars like these too. Once she was in, she carefully shut the door as to not alert the drivers nearby. She put the key into the ignition and once the engine responded, she carefully pulled out of the driveway. We were home free.

“Now what?” I asked her.

“We get to my house and I hide you until morning. Then we go find the crone.”

“And your family’s gonna be okay with that?”

“We’re not going to mention the crone part but I feel like she’ll be understanding about other stuff after tonight. You saw her in the ballroom, didn’t you? As long as I don’t completely shut her out, she won’t ask too many questions. You did well in there. So leave everything else to me, alright?”

The reassurance put a smile on my face as I nodded. “Ok, I’ll leave it to you.”

“Not everything,” she quickly threw out, “but most things.”

“Hahaha! Yes, ma’am.”