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((Fun like a fire-cracker. 3nodding ))

The gaurd attempted to grab her once more to forcefully search her, but she acted faster than he. As soon as the words left the 'doctor's' mouth, she was upon him, choking the life out of him whil violently shaking him back and forth.

"You!" she screetched, "I swear you'll pay for this! I'll ha-" She was cut short when the guard grabbed her around the waist and yanked her back. This time, she didn't waste her time with words, or rather, threats and insults. Instead her focus was on escaping, and since the gaurds were formal clothes for the ball, it left some easy targets wide open. She simoultainiously elbowed the guard in the stomach, and kicked him with her heel in.... well, let's just say a place where it hurt. Badly.

The gaurd let go of her and attended to his wounded areas, while Lucia disapeared into the crowed. She immedietly took off her wig, since it was at least a foot higher than the heads of everyone else, and reajusted the sash she had used to keep her hair up into a headband to keep her hair out her face. After all, stray hair did get rather pescky when you were running away form someone.

After zig-zaging through the crowd for several minutes, she was sure no one was following her. And at least, if they had been, she had now lost them. So now if was time to focus on her next goal: staying hidden. She knew that by now, she must have look very suspicious, but rather than clear her name, she preffered to lie low until they found the actual killer. However, she soon realized she had made back to the front of the crowd again, and since the 'doctor' would most likely rat her out, that was a bad thing.

She quickly scrutinized the crowd for something or someone that would be of use to her. To her satisfaction she spotted a male red-headed servant, wearing a red coat and black slacks standing at the very edge of the crowd. "You." She hissed as she yanked him deeper into the crowd, "I need to take me somewhere and give me servant's clothing so I can stay hidden. And if you know what's good for you, you'll do what I say"

A new lady had entered the scene and was shaking the daylights out of one of the guards. Armand barely suppressed the laughter from inside him. This was a sight to behold! She's cretainly got a style, he thought.

The red head sighed and turned away, and in a few moments, was yanked out of his thoughts by a lady in suspiciously similiar clothes as the lady who had been shaking the guard earlier. He was quickly pulled further into the crowd by Lucia.

"What?" Armand guffawed as he heard her hiss at him. "Know what's good for me? Uh, you can tell me?" Know what's good for me? I daresay she's talking about her actions with the guard if this is the same lady. Fine kettle of fish I'm ve found myself in. The problem was ...first, the lady was completely acting suspiciously. Why hide? Second, he did not know where she could obtain clothes. Third, he neded to look at that map to "refresh" his memory of some hallways. Lastly, he was going to blow his cover if he helped this obnoxious lady.

Galavinthian Thoringano wanted to get every single occurrence in this wondrous event down in some form or another onto his records or memory. Unfortunately, the crowd was still rather tense, and Gal found that he couldn't get a view. It seemed that plenty of interesting characters were at the ball.

If anything, the crowd, though it looked calm, was actually completely the opposite. People didn't want to be blamed, and Gal suspected that sooner or later, people would simply start pointing fingers at each other. Frankly, the historian was surprised that it hadn't already happened. The incident with the doctor and the lady had certainly come close, but hadn't reached the apex of the circumstances.

Not thinking on how he could be incriminated himself, Gal pushed toward the grand staircase, intent on climbing it for a better view. Some guards noticed him, and stopped him.

"I just want a better view!"

Little did Gal know that a simple phrase such as that would sound suspicious too at a time like this. Against his will, Gal was forced back down and searched without warning. The guards patted him down and rummaged through his bag. They carelessly dropped the contents of his bag onto the floor. Books. Paper. Writing utensils...

Gal's mouth almost dropped open. Luckily, he hadn't brought any rare books with him. "Careful!" he cried.

The guards nodded to each other and shook their heads. "Nothing."

"Why are you carrying these around?" another guard asked.

"I'm a scholar!" Gal sputtered, reaching for the books and gathering his things from the floor. The nerve of the guards to just search him and so carelessly too!

Lucia frowned. What was he snickering about? This man didn't seem highly trustworthy to her. She could feel that he would do something that would not be in her favor. And what type of clothes was he going to give her anyway? She really hoped he hadn't taken her statement about rags literally.

As she followed behind him, she felt rather uncomfortable. Maybe it was because she didn't trust him to follow through with his word, or maybe because it looked rather suspicious. As they walked, she put her hands on his shoulders in order to get him to walk right in front of her, and craned her neck so her mouth was right next to his ear. "If anyone tries to force the reason why we were together out of you, tell them we're having an affair." she whispered. With her history, it was believable; after she had been widowed almost eight years ago, she had slept around, to the extent that her affairs had become boring to gossip about. "And if you tell anyone differently, your going down with me. Do you understand?" she added.

(( o_o;;; ???? *poke poke* I'm done with finals?))

(( I'm gonna drag Rainey around for right now. Hope she doesn't mind... I'm also playing them up to speed. XD I also spent like two weeks off and on writing this. I'm slow. ))

And what had Miss Penelope Pierce been doing all this time? I'm sure you were wondering yourself, as she had seemed to mysteriously disappeared ever since the Princess had been murdered...

Rainey had not mentioned her plan when the commotion started. As most of the servants were still in the kitchen, enjoying their 'feast', it was Rainey and Penelope who were among the first of the servants to hear.

"Oh my god!" Penelope whisper-yelled to Rainey. Her companion seemed to be in shock, but this was no time to dilly-dally! "We got to tell the others!"

The two girls half ran to the kitchen, Penelope dragging her friend in tow.

"The Princess has been MURDERED!" she yelled at the top of her lungs over the din in the kitchen. That got everyone's attention. So while the guests in the hall murmured to themselves and the doctor was called forth, the servants in the kitchen got their information from Penelope. She didn't know much, but explained what she saw, which took a few minutes. The servants were very nervous- no death in the royal family was ever good, and servants would probably be the first to be suspected, even sacked. Especially if it was a food related death.

It was hard to untangled themselves from the now panicked kitchen (Yes, yelling murder in a crowded area is the best way to spread news, I'm sure) but the two girls managed. It seemed like a long time since the Princess had been killed, but only now were to guards starting to search people. They now stood in a small hallway, visible to the main ballroom. The hallway itself was rarely used by servants, as it was farther away from the kitchens, and it allowed both Penelope and Rainey a good view of the searching going on in the Ballroom. Rainey still seemed to be in shock, Penelope wouldn't be surprised if the girl fainted in any minute. Meanwhile Penelope kept an eye on the crowd; she wasn't sure why. Maybe she could spot the murderer? Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary at the moment, though people kept moving about, making it hard for the guards to search anybody.


---

So it was a gun that killed the Princess. Rolando had heard about them and seen them used before, but they were not a very common weapon. He was surprised that one could be shot in such a crowded place with no one hearing. And he was about to say so when Lady Eva murmured to him.

"I need some air. Too many people." He looked down at her; pity flowed through his chauvinistic veins. "Ah, she's shaking and scared; rightly so too. This is far too much for her- I should have realized sooner!" "I think I'm just going to step away for a moment." she added, still sounding faint to his ears.

"Let me escort you," he immediately said. Let none say Sir Garrote was without manners! And indeed, he started to lead her away, where they would have time to be alone, away from the crowds trying to simultaneously look at the princess's corpse and avoid being harassed by the guards.

Unfortunately for Rolando, the guards took an interest in his seemingly random walk-away from the crime scene. "Oi- 'ey you. Get back here!"

"Hm...?" turned to face the yelling man, who happened to be a guard. Fortunately for Eva, Rolando had let go of her, and the guards were paying her no mind- she had already gone past their line of sight.

"We need to search you for weapons. Such as... this!" the guard said, triumphant. For he pointed to Rolando's dress sword, the kind noblemen tended to wear all of the time. It was, of course, dulled for this occasion, and peace bound, so even drawing it would be very difficult to do without people noticing.

Rolando sighed as the guard called over more guards and a (very thorough) search of his body began. With Rolando telling them quite clearly that as it appeared to be poison that killed the Princess, whom he was nowhere near with a drawn sword it couldn't have been him.

"Are you even keeping track of who you're searching? Have you even compiled a list of likely people?" he asked accusingly. The guards didn't responded right away, and looked a little confused. "Organize, you imbeciles! Have people whom you searched stand over there," (he pointed randomly), "And suspicious people over there," (he jabbed in another direction, closer to the body), "And people you haven't searched everywhere else!" He did a wide sweeping motion, nearly knocking a guard on the head.

"Ah, then you'd belong over here, Sir." The guard smiled and lead him over towards the 'suspicious' people area, which was pretty much where he had been standing before. "Now wasn't there a lady...? Ah well." he mumbled before going back to his post. Rolando rolled his eyes, glaring at the guards, the Princess' body, and finally the doctor.

(( Currently thinking about what I could have the good doctor say. ;; Not coming up with anything. Will post when an idea strikes me (like a freight train). ))