Ernest watched the lanterns twirl into the night sky. The place was beautiful, but she wasn't about to let her guard down. Despite the shimmering decorations, something didn't feel quite right. She tried to push the feeling to the side, but it wasn't letting her. Something was… different about this party.

Perhaps it was merely the fact that she didn't fit in. She wasn't dressed up, hardly at all. She had on a simple tunic, with a skirt she had sewn covering the fact that she was wearing her boots. The only beautiful things she had on were her mask, fallen from the sky, and a strange necklace people had claimed was cursed. Not that she believed them. She had worn it for nearly a week before trying to sell it, and nothing had happened to her.

There! It was back again. The strange feeling that she was being watched. She spun around, just in time to see a shimmering figure slip out of sight among the guests. She slid through the crowd in the direction it had gone, hoping to hunt it down and ask it why it seemed to be stalking her. Sliding among the people, however, she somehow managed to trip over someone's foot - or maybe it was her own skirt, and ended up sprawled on the ground.