VELVETEEN PRESENTS THE PRINCESS vs. The Congressional Committee for Superhuman Oversight #2
The Princess stopped in her tracks, reassessing the situation in an instant.
The little girl who’d shrieked was no more than twelve, brown-skinned and black-haired, wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a knockoff print of one of the Company’s latest animated properties on the front.
She was with a woman in her mid-forties who was probably her mother, and a teenage girl holding a sad concoction of limp frills and off-color sequins in front of herself.
Both of them were staring at the Princess, and continued to stare as she made her way over to them and crouched to put herself on a better eyeline with the squealer.
“Hello, sugar,” she said, voice warm and welcoming. “What’s your name?”
“Valeria,” she said, eyes going bright with excitement. She stood up straighter, and for a moment it looked like she was going to let out another of those ear-splitting squeals. “Are you—you’re the really for real—”
“I’m the Princess, honey, and I’m here in DC because I have to meet with some people about some silly little laws they’re trying to pass on through, which is why I can’t stay around for very long. But I wanted to stop and say hello to you first, before I did anything less important.”
“You can’t stay?”
“No, I’m sorry, but I have to meet with these folks before they do something we’re all going to regret.” She glanced to the other members of Valeria’s family. “You here for your sister’s quince?”
“We are, ’cept she says all the good dresses cost too much, and Mama says she already has a budget for just the dress that’s twice what Mama had for hers, and she’s so sad.” The older woman looked mortified by Valeria’s matter-of-fact accounting of their financial difficulties.
“A good dress makes all the difference in the world, it’s true,” said the Princess. She straightened. “I think I can help.”
“Are you gonna pull out a magic wand and just wish a better dress into being?” asked Valeria, eyes shining.
“Aw, no, sugar. I don’t do that, no matter what they say in the cartoons.
My dresses are all designed for me by my fans, and then the woodland critters that live in the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle make them real.
” And sometimes passing through one of her mirrors would do it, but those dresses were only ever temporary, not designed for the rigors of wearing more than once.
“But there are other ways of getting a better dress.”
“Ways like what?” asked Valeria, enthralled by the idea of some esoteric dress-summoning magic.
The Princess smiled, held a finger to her lips, and turned to walk to the counter, where the salesgirls remained frozen and staring.
“Pardon me, ladies, but would you happen to have a current inventory of the contents of this store?” she asked, voice honey-sweet and gentle enough to be a major warning bell to anyone listening.
“Y-y-yes, ma’am,” stammered one of the girls, wide-eyed and still young enough that while she might not be one of the Princess’s believers anymore, she could still remember those days, might even long for them sometimes.
“All right.” The Princess reached into her dress, pulling out a credit card that was neither black—so gauche—nor gold—so cheap.
It was diamond, clear and glittering and perfect.
She placed it on the counter between them, letting her fingertips rest on one corner, just below the corporate logo of the company she worked for.
“Here’s what I’m going to need you to do. ”
* * *
Contacting the store’s owner had been simple.
Convincing them that they should sell their entire inventory had been slightly harder, especially since the Princess didn’t want to be identified by name.
She wasn’t asking for a discount, but that didn’t mean she wanted every item to double in price as soon as her name came into things.
Finally, after far too much negotiation and several assurances that she wasn’t planning to open a competitor, she was able to put down her credit card and purchase every dress, petticoat, pair of gloves, and tiara in the shop.
With this accomplished, she turned to the salesgirls.
“All right,” she said. “It’s all paid for.
And that means I’m trusting the two of you to get hold of everyone you know how to get hold of—every school, every charity, every non-profit, and every family you know with a girl in the right age range—and you let them know it’s all been paid for.
I figure the locusts will have you cleared out by closing.
Just remember that she,” and she gestured grandly toward Valeria’s sister, “goes first.”
She turned and made for the door then, ignoring the squeals of joy from behind her as Valeria’s sister and the other teen girls who had watched this whole scene with bewilderment turned to begin rooting through the racks, no longer constrained by budget.
She was almost there when a hand caught her arm and she turned to look back at Valeria’s mother.
“Yes, sugar?” she asked.
“This is very kind of you,” said the woman. “But…why?”
“Sometimes kids need a little magic, and teens are just kids with taller trousers on,” she said.
“And you mind that little one of yours. You might find some people in black suits come sniffing around your door in a year or two, when that sonic shriek of hers finishes maturing. That happens, you snatch her up and run right for Florida, all right?” She reached into her dress, this time producing a golden business card with red roses printed on the corners.
She handed it over. “You just show this at the gate and they’ll have you right on inside, where our legal department can make sure you know what your options really are. ”
The woman, who had doubtless been waiting for the visit from The Super Patriots, Inc. since the first time her youngest daughter had hit a high note that genuinely cracked glass, clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes filling with tears as she nodded.
The Princess smiled and let herself out, unsurprised to see the first few girls rushing down the sidewalk toward the shop. They barely spared her a glance. What was a fairy tale princess compared to a new prom dress?
Oh, they were going to be surprised when they realized that all cubic zirconia that spent more than a few minutes in her presence turned to real diamond out of sheer mortification.
Still smiling, the Princess started down the street.
She had a congressional committee to address, and she didn’t want to spend her entire day in DC. Not if she had a choice in the matter.
* * *
The vaunted halls of Congress—distinct from the Congressional Hall, and wasn’t that just needlessly confusing?
It seemed unreasonable to use tiny variations on a name to distinguish one space from another—were anticlimactic after her stroll through the city, and more importantly, after her years in the theme park that was her home.
It was all marble and stark, flat colors, seemingly designed to reduce the business of government to just another strip mall.
It made a certain sense. Government should be a businesslike thing, meant to serve.
But given how much the people who worked here wanted to stand on their own importance, it seemed odd at the same time.
Not nearly enough gold brocade and blue velvet for the veneration they desired.
The Princess had been met at the visitor’s entrance by a congressional page, an anxious, rabbity-looking fellow who seemed to flinch every time she turned her head, like he was sure she was about to summon a choir of cartoon birds to peck his eyes out of his head.
To be quite honest, she was getting tempted.
He led her through the halls, droning on and on about the historical importance of everything they passed, but never slowing down long enough for her to look at anything.
It was all show and no substance, and if that didn’t describe American politics, she wasn’t entirely sure what did.
“Pardon me for interrupting this scintillating description of democracy, hon, but can you tell me when I’m going to be meeting with the committee?
” she asked. “Only I had to set my alarms for four in order to be here on time—West Coast, don’t you know—and I’d prefer to get this over with while I’m still almost awake. ”
The page jumped. “Oh! Oh. I’m sorry, Miss Miller, they’re expecting you right about…now.” He stopped, dead center to a large wooden door, and gestured. “You can go right on in.”
The Princess paused, eyeing him suspiciously.
Protocol always got a bit, well, squishy when superhumans were involved: some of the rules involved in getting them in to see the members of Congress were old enough to have originally been intended to deal with visiting members of the British royalty.
Still, this all felt out of sync with itself, and too easy by half.
At the same time, she didn’t want to screw around in the hallway long enough to miss her slot.
Someone had to do this, and as it wasn’t going to be Vel, poor girl, it might as well be her.
Finally, and still suspicious, she turned back to the doors, took a deep, fortifying breath, and pushed them open.
She didn’t see the page smirk as she stepped into the chamber. “Into evidence entered,” he murmured to himself, and disappeared.
* * *
They had apparently been waiting for her for some time.
Not enough that she was fully out of order, but enough that there were some grumbles when she walked down the aisle to her seat—although those could have been directed at the raccoons and magpies in her wake, which stopped when she did and arrayed themselves over the open space around her, occupying chairs and tabletop with equal ease.
A few people tried to grumble about impropriety, but stopped when the raccoons chittered at them.
The raccoons in turn stopped when the Princess looked at them admonishingly.