[PM to Join] Crystalizing Clear as Day

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

Violetta Ballington smiled, and something like wickedness glinted in her sharp blue eyes. "I think the darker red, dear," she said.

Niccolette glanced sideways at the older woman, raising her eyebrows lightly. She turned back to the mirror, and glanced down at the two little twists of paper, one dark and rich, the other sharp and bright. “It is not too much, you think?” Niccolette ran her finger over the bottom line of her lip, carefully.

The afternoon light was crisp and clear; it shone winter-bright through the polished glass windows, bright on Niccolette’s face. Violetta’s dressing room was all pale colors, white tables and mirrors edged in white painted wood, pale blues and violets the only accent colors to be found. Niccolette sat sideways, the long dark burgundy velvet skirt of her dress pooled in her lap, just a hint of stockings revealed where her ankles crossed. There was no accent on the dress, and the Bastian wore no jewelry – nothing but the pale gold wedding ring on her left hand, and a smooth hint of collarbones revealed by the keyhole neck.

“Without it,” Violetta said, firmly, “it should be too little.”

Niccolette grinned, then; she leaned back in to the mirror once more. She painted the last of the black kohl on her eyelids, drawing the line out carefully over the edge of them; she brushed her fingers over the delicate skin of her under eye.

Violetta rose with a faint wooden creak from her chair; her dress was a sharp, icy blue, edged with white, neatly tailored to create a waist where she had thickened – but thoroughly tasteful, all the same. The white-blue of her hair matched the color flawlessly; it was curled and pinned up, and glowed wintery in the light.

With a little smile, Violetta returned with a jar. “Do I need to send you more?” She asked, setting the cream down on the table.

“No,” Niccolette set her brush aside, delicately. She opened the cream, and dipped her finger in, and smoothed it carefully on her under eyes. She sat, still, hands curled together in her lap, the fingers of her right playing, slowly, back and forth over her left. The Bastian shrugged. “I did not expect to cry today. I have grown spoiled, I suppose,” she swallowed a faint taste of bitterness of her tongue. “That sometimes a day or two passes, without…” Pale, unpainted lips pressed together.

“Yes,” Violetta said, gently. Niccolette felt the brush of her field, soft perceptive mona, and then the older woman’s hand resting gently on her shoulder. Through the velvet fabric, Niccolette could just feel the thickness of her fingers, and the gentle pressure of several rings.

Niccolette’s eyes fluttered open again, a moment later. “Powder?” She asked, meeting Violetta’s eyes in the mirror with a little smile.

“No,” Violetta said, practically. “So long as you don’t think you’ll cry more later.”

Niccolette shrugged again. “Who can say,” she sighed. “Dhimitriou’s parties could bore anyone to tears.” The Bastian picked up the darker of the lip colors, and a second, small brush with a pointed tip. She pressed her lips together, and eased them apart in an expression more like a grimace than a smile, and began, carefully, to paint the color over the lines of them.

Violetta chuckled, and squeezed Niccolette’s shoulder once more. She eased back to her seat, careful, one hand trembling lightly against the wood of the vanity. “Winter in the Rose,” Violetta said with a little smile; her fingers stroked, lightly, the large pale blue beads of the necklace she wore.

Niccolette painted on the last of the color; she pressed a blotting square to her lips, and set it down. She sat back in the chair, and smiled, carefully, in the mirror.

“A brooch, dear?” Violetta asked. “I’ve something in gold.”

“No,” Niccolette said. She ran her fingertips over the pale lines of her collarbones, and lowered her hands back to her lap. “The dress does not need it,” she smiled, more genuinely this time, and rose easily from the chair, turning to Violetta.

“We had better go,” Violetta said with a grin. “I should hate to miss sunset through Kalogeropolous’s windows; it’s the only reason I bother with his parties at all.”

It was Niccolette’s turn to laugh this time; short, and a little sharp, but there was no gleam of moisture in her eyes. She settled her arm through Violetta’s, and the elderly woman leaned on her, ever so slightly, as the two made their way from the room.

It was a short trip through King’s Court, down the hill to the houses that glittered on the wharf, tucked close to the corner of Lionshead Beach. The carriage stopped just shy of the gleaming metal gates that separated the home from the wharf; a liveried man opened the carriage door, and bowed them out. Niccolette held one of Violetta’s hands, and the servant the other, as the woman lowered herself down the steps of the carriage.

Niccolette followed her out; she glanced back over her shoulder at the dark winter sea, the bobbing masts – beyond, scattered drifts of clouds on the horizon. The slanting sun glinted off an airship; Niccolette looked away, and followed Violetta’s inside, dark black cloak whispering softly over the velvet dress.

The garden was half-bare, pruned back for winter; no leaves crunched underfoot on this path. Another liveried footman bowed them in through the door. Niccolette sighed, audibly, and received a nudge of Violetta’s elbow in her ribs. The Bastian smiled, then, lifting her chin delicately, and breathing her field in to an appropriate dampening, and the two woman left their cloaks behind, and sailed into what passed for a ballroom.

They were far from early; the party had started sometime in the mid-afternoon, and by now the room was comfortably busy, all wicker furniture and neat high tables, with a handful of men and women wandering through with drinks and platters of seafood. The house was elevated, the path through the garden sloping up, the wide plate glass window which covered an entire wall filled the room with light, and revealed all of the wharf and the horizon below.

“Mrs. Ballington, Mrs. Ibutatu,” Mathieu Deaudemonte bowed and rose, his sharp shock of red hair well-mussed to hide its steady, careful recession around his temples. He grinned, gold eyes bright. “Am I the first to welcome you tonight?”

“Mr. Deaudemonte,” Violetta said; both she and Niccolette bowed, delicately. She settled her arm through the crook of his elbow. “Lovely to see you as always. I believe you had rather an exciting fall – I remember hearing something about a Hessean ship, and a journey along the southern coast…?”

Mathieu laughed, bright and cheerful, and let Violetta lead him off.

Niccolette held back; she breathed deep, looking around. She took a wineglass off a passing tray with the faintest edge of a smile, and crossed to the window, watching the light tilt and prism through the glass.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

L
ike ships in the night, Anatole, parallel. You’re in no danger of stepping on Miss Bruzzese if you imagine your feet and hers as ships in the night –

He’s not sure when the light turned so golden. When they arrived, the sky through those mant windows was blue, vivid-blue, the same color as the sea – the vivid blue of the Mahogany on a clear winter day – but now it’s changed, tilted. The masts and the distant rippling sails and the spiderweb rigging have turned black against the sky. Little spots moving, here and there, on the wharf. Spots, too, in the distant sky.

“Violetta Ballington,” Etienne says, and Anatole’s head turns, as if he is a dog and someone has whistled.

There’s a look of mild surprise on his face. He follows Etienne’s eye; at some distance, the slanting gold light catches on a head of sweeping white curls, a rustle of wintry blue. “Ballington?” he repeats.

“You’re new to the Rose,” comes another sharp Bastian accent, and then a laugh. “Otherwise you would most certainly know her. I daresay you will, soon enough.”

Etienne’s reedy laughter. “In fact, I highly recommend it, if you have any desire to acquaint yourself with society in the Rose.”

– never quite lined up. Do not avoid her; move with her. See, there, your knee glides right by hers: one does not avoid the lady, one simply moves parallel – there you have it, there, and now, left with left, right with right – reverse step…

“I look forward to it, then,” Anatole says lightly, “if she comes so highly recommended.”

Chrysanthe laughs.

Anatole has danced with Chrysanthe Stefanidis once tonight. Now, she looks fashionably exhausted, late-afternoon exhausted, a cat that’s worn itself out playing with a mouse. She’s either ten years his senior or his junior, depending on how you look at it, but there’s not a line to be seen on her face; her lips are painted bright red, her wavy dark hair swept up in a cloud on her head.

One arm is swathed in dark blue fabric, the shoulder a sweep of fabric; the other is bare underneath lace like ivy. He remembers the scratch of it settling against his sleeve.

Do not push the lady, Anatole, do not push and pull. Not like that, no, do not grasp, do not lean. Your center of gravity, Anatole. Lead with your body, not your arm. Lead with your body.

It’s been some hours; the glass in his hand has been replaced several times, and his palate is a fine blend of shrimp and an airy, peachy white, one that goes down easy enough he’s not sure just how many glasses he’s had. The one in his hand, at least, is not the one he started with, and Etienne has not been breathing down his neck the whole evening, at least, to give him sharp looks and remind him wordlessly of what he has said about aging gentlemen and decorum. As if anyone here cares much.

Etienne is pristine, as usual, what serves as a mustache waxed, his dark hair like silk. Like most of the gentlemen present, he’s a wash of light tans, his cravat a loose sweep of baby blue at his throat.

Earlier, when there was still dancing, he was never more than a stone’s throw away, arm looped through one or another Bastian’s pretty daughter; his eyes were always on Anatole, or more accurately, Anatole’s feet. The sun has tilted toward the horizon and the crowd has dulled and thinned to a comfortable wine-sweet broth; now, he’s relaxed his iron schoolmaster’s grip. But he is never far.

“And look, with Mathieu Deaudemonte,” Etienne says. “Lucky him. I’ve heard his venture with that Ilmari fellow finally paid off.”

“Hesse,” murmurs Anatole. He’s looking toward the window again, where the thick-paned glass is almost misted with the light. He can see a figure there, a slim silhouette.

A heavy-laden tray sweeps past, and his focus scatters. “Where gold is so common it has no value.”

“Ah, Liilan and Eirene,” parrots Anatole. Etienne smiles; Crysanthe is looking at him with a strange, soft smile on her lips, not unlike the one she wore when they danced. “Not my favorite – written by an Anaxi in Heshath, for an audience in Florne…”

“This again, Anatole,” laughs Etienne.

“Go on,” says Chrysanthe.

Anatole is still looking at the window, at the ships on the bay. The slim dark figure, light glinting off a glass, glinting off a ring. Another figure sidles up to join the first, a little taller. He blinks, comes into focus on Chrysanthe. “I only mean – Brisbois has a Brunnhold grasp of Heshath,” he goes on, laughing, “and he understands neither Bastia nor Hesse well enough to write about them.”

“This again!” Etienne is laughing, play-chiding the old man, but his eyes are glimmering with pride. “Dhimitriou would agree with you, but I can hardly understand it. To ask the two of you, a librettist must be Naulanese to stage an opera set in –”

“Hardly,” tosses back Anatole. “But then, I wouldn’t write it in Naulanese.”

Chrysanthe laughs a little too hard. Anatole takes a long sip of wine, wedding-band glinting.

“Let’s not bore the lady. Where has Dhimitriou gone, anyway?” asks Etienne.

“I haven’t seen him since we were introduced.”

“Isn’t that him, over by the window? With –” Chrysanthe’s brow knits.

“Yes,” says Etienne, slowly. “I believe that’s Niccolette Ibutatu.” He doesn’t quite manage the Mugrobi consonants, thinks Anatole, with a twinge of malice.

Chrysanthe’s red lips pout slightly. “I wonder,” she says more quietly. “Ever since Anastasia…”

“I haven’t seen Mrs. Ibutatu in – years, it must be,” murmurs Etienne.

“She must have only just arrived. I have not seen her for,” begins Chrysanthe, pouting a little.

It seems to Anatole that their legs are tangled up; Chrysanthe is silent, having tripped on her skirt. He’s watching the figure, watching the light glance off the wine glass. “Shall we join them?” he says lightly. He is already moving. Do not push, do not pull; lead with the body.

Etienne begins to follow. A reverse, left foot back.

“I should like to sit awhile,” Chrysanthe says, apologetically. “A pleasure to see both of you gentlemen – a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Vauquelin.”

“Likewise, Mrs. Stefanidis.” He takes her hand in his, bends and kisses it in the precise way Etienne says is the Bastian fashion this season. She laughs, then moves away.

A cat, retiring among sunlit wicker. He will see her again. He resists the urge to twist the ring on his finger. Many things are looser here, brighter. None of the things he would prefer.

He drifts across the floor, weaves among the scattered fields, like a dancer. He is a spot of high-collared Vienda dark, yesterday’s drab politician, in a sea of loose linen and bright silk; Etienne has advised him only insofar as one might advise a dying star, one that should expect to be outshined.

“Mr. Kalogeropoulos,” Anatole trills. “Mrs. Ibutatu. What an unexpected pleasure.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

Niccolette studies the light through the window, her gaze fixing on the distant gleam of gold against the waves.

“ - the liveliest spirit,” Bedhi pezre Efidhi says, her voice soft and sonorous.

”Yes,” Niccolette agrees, warmth in her voice. She turns; she inclines her head, and there is a faint smile on her lips. ”It was so good of you to join us in Thul Ka.”

Bedhi smiles, softly. One beringed hand brushes Niccolette’s upper arm, and after a few words more the Mugrobi is gone, tightly curled hair styled a vivid brown red. Niccolette follows her for a moment with her gaze, and then turns back to the window.

Nicolette lifts her glass for a sip of the pale wine. She crosses her arms over her chest, one finger tapping silently against the glass. It is an easy, light wine - fruity but not too sweet - and Niccolette thinks of draining the glass. She does not do it.

“Niccolette,” Dhimitriou says.

The light is sharp against her, but not too warm, not at this hour. The line of it blurs against the floor; the line of it is more of a soft fade. Niccolette shifts, turning to look at the Bastian. They caprise one another politely, his field of perceptive mona mingled with quantitative, slippery and strange.

Dhimitriou is not quite waiting; he is bowing over her hand, taking it in his and kissing it lightly as she rises from her own. He is square jawed, his thick hair all smooth gray, with only a few dark hairs left threaded through. He rises easily, a smile on his worn, tan face. The hours on his feet seem to have given him no trouble at all; he moves well for his age, Niccolette notes, idly, with no trace of the little limp he had when last they met.

“Mrs. Ballington told me she hoped you would attend,” Dhimitriou says. He has not let go; now he squeezes, lightly. It is not painful and Niccolette thinks he means to be reassuring. “It is very good to see you looking well.”

“Mr. Kalogeropoulos,” Niccolette says. She takes another sip of her wine.

“Dhimitriou, please. You have not answered my notes,” Dhimitriou says, gently. “Overwhelmed by grief, I expect. It is terrible, my dear - I cannot express enough how much I feel for you.”

“Yes,” Niccolette draws her hand away, runs her fingers through her hair, pushing it back off her forehead; she relaxes the clenching of her jaw. “Naturally I have not felt much like correspondence.”

“Ah ah,” Dhimitriou shakes his head, wags a finger. “In such times, Niccolette, such routines and customs are more important than ever. When my Anastasia lost her husband, we wrote one another weekly, my dear, for the first two years of her widowhood. I cannot emphasize enough how crucial it was for her resumption of normal life.”

“How crucial was it?” Niccolette asks. She takes another sip of wine; there are bright, fruity flavors, and she wonders if Dhimitriou chose it himself. Abruptly she hopes not; she hopes it was some advisor he has hired, or even a human manservant, placing a careful order from Bastia. It is a Bastian wine, of course; the appetizers she has seen are all Bastian, Tessalonian, flawlessly recreated in the Rose.

Dhimitriou laughs. “Droll, very droll. The most essential thing, my girl, is that you must ready yourself to be married once more. I know your father -“

“Mr. Kalogeropoulos,” comes a familiar voice. “Mrs. Ibutatu. What an unexpected pleasure.”

Niccolette turns further; her eyebrows lift at the brush of a faintly disorganized clairvoyant field. She grins, suddenly bright; she hides it in a tiny sip of wine.

Dhimitriou is turning.

”Incumbent Vauquelin,” Niccolette says, pleased. He has joined them in the golden light, all starched collar. She bows, deeply, and extends her field for a curious, polite caprise of his. “I did not expect to find you here. It is good to see you.”

“Mr. Vauquelin,” Dhimitriou bows lightly. He glances between them, and smiles at Anatole. “I hope you are enjoying yourself today? You were most impressive on the dance floor; Etienne’s fears were quite overstated.”

Etienne is there, then, just a few steps behind, with a bow and a twitch of his reedy mustache. Niccolette half-remembers him; Dhimitriou’s cousin, she thinks, on his mother’s side. She cannot remember his last name and cannot much care. She bows lightly to him, and turns her smile back to Anatole.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

T
he brush of that vivid-bright field. He realizes, as she turns after Dhimitriou, that her dress is open at the throat; it’s not quite a human neckline, not like – but it’s open enough to show a slender, pale column of neck, a hint of collarbones. It’s a strange contrast with the long, dark velvet dress, undeniably galdor. Unadorned, except for that flash at her ring finger.

He can’t recall he’s been caprised by Niccolette before; maybe once, what seems like a long time ago – months – midsummer, he’s an impression of her field mingling with his, swimming-drunk in the musty room in Lossey.

That was here, in the Rose. The realization shoots through him. For a moment, he’s sharp-aware of all the figures, fields like drifting dust-motes, milling about through the golden light; of the wicker furniture, of the salt-sea smell tamed into buttered, herbed shrimp and olive and cheese antipasto. Light fragrant perfumes, silk brocaded Thul Ka, flashes of rich vivid red among winter-wisp skirts and lace like snowflakes.

Beyond Niccolette and the old man, out that enormous window, dark ships bob in the dark harbor.

Etienne is bowing, deeply; so is Anatole. He’s used to it by now, this juggle of bowing, pleasantries, caprises, all at once. Kalogeropoulos’ field, slippery perceptive-quantitative, is like a dozen fields he knows from Vienda. He remembers it from earlier; he returns the older man’s caprise briefly, politely, though he’s reaching round in the dark to recall anything else about the man.

There is Etienne’s reedy laughter; there’s an edge to it, the same edge as when he introduced them. “I was hardly concerned, Dhimitriou, really. Mrs. Ibutatu,” he adds, with another bow, suddenly serious. “I was terribly sorry to hear of your loss. I sent my condolences; perhaps they did not arrive, with all the troubles earlier this year.”

Overstated fear; sorry to hear of your loss. Something like anger squeezes his insides, before he can hush and tame it.

Anatole is taking a sip of wine; he hears Niccolette’s voice, Bastian accent sharper than Etienne’s, but he does not see the expression on her face. He is paying attention, for the moment, to her caprise.

Niccolette’s field is suppressed; it doesn’t surprise him, now – he remembers the wash of it flexed, how you can almost taste the sharpness of it on the air, how you’ve almost to squint for the brightness – but what does surprise him is the faint brush of curiosity.

He smiles back at her briefly. He lingers slightly longer in this caprise, letting the clairvoyant mona creep out to mingle with the living, letting the living investigate. He’s looking at Kalogeropoulos. “You do me credit,” he says. “Etienne tells me you’ve danced every ballroom in Florne. You were quite something to see, earlier, yourself.”

“Tivian overstatement at its best, my cousin Etienne.” There are thin lines round Kalogeropoulos’ eyes when he smiles; for all the pieces seem to fit together, the weathered, handsome face, the distinguished grey hair, there is something about those eyes that does not seem kind or handsome to him.

Anatole turns to Niccolette. “I happen to be here on business,” he says casually enough, taking another – restrained – sip of the white. “Etienne thought I had best show my face in society” – he raises his eyebrows, then smiles pleasantly at Etienne – “one should never be too busy for the company of friends.”

“I haven’t seen you in some time, Mrs. Ibutatu,” says Etienne suddenly, thin mustache twitching in something approaching a smile. “Perhaps you do not remember me, madam – Etienne Lucretius Merenniano – we were introduced in Florne, when I was Gianis in The Lady of Sielan, though that was quite some time ago. You were still Miss Villamarzana, then, I believe.”

Villamarzana. There’s a name he hasn’t heard in a while. His smile doesn’t flinch or falter; he takes another sip of wine.

“I was in Florne for that; an excellent production, with a fine Gianis.” Kalogeropoulos’ dark eyes are twinkling. He glances between Etienne and Niccolette. “What an unexpected coincidence.”

Anatole blinks, following his gaze. “You know, I had the privilege of discussing Lady with Mrs. Ibutatu just recently,” he puts in brightly.

“In Vienda?” Kalogeropoulos raises his dark eyebrows.

Anatole meets Niccolette’s eye; his smile twitches. “Unexpected coincidences indeed,” he says. “I am new to this, ah, set, in the Rose. It’s quite different from the capital. Are the soirées here always so – unrestrained?”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

There is always a touch of softness to clairvoyant mona, and Anatole’s field is no exception. Niccolette knows them well, after so much time among Mugrobi, and while the clairvoyant conversation has never appealed to her, she knows, too, better than to think it as soft as it feels. She keeps her caprise polite, at first, ready to draw back, but there is no need. His caprise does not bow beneath hers, although she knows he knows her strength, but rather welcomes it – just a little, and just a little deeper.

It is brief, still, in the scale of things; it does not hold her full attention. Niccolette inclines her head in response to Etienne’s apologies. Perhaps they did not arrive, he says, and she shrugs her shoulders in something that could easily be taken for agreement; the sunlight shifts across the dark velvet, shimmering across the crushed texture. Niccolette is fairly sure she knows where his condolences ended up, along with most of the rest; she remembers well pages curling black-red along the edges, inked words vanishing into the smoke.

Niccolette glances between Anatole and Dhimitriou as they speak; she takes another small sip of wine, just enough to taste it. She watches the glance from Anatole to Etienne, and her smile deepens, ever so faintly.

When Etienne speaks to her, Niccolette turns to him; her eyebrows lift once more, one, in a delicate arch. “Yes,” Niccolette says. “Of course, Mr. Merenniano.” Her smile warms, a friendly fraction, although it is more the memory itself that is dawning across her face. It is not Etienne and his Gianis Niccolette thinks of, but her precious cousin Gia, sitting next to her in the theater. It is Gia’s rapt smile, she remembers first; her cousin had always liked the opera, the handsome sky captain and the lady who is the object of his adoration.

For herself, she remembers an aborted attempt at a daring red dress, powdered cheeks and the name Villamarzana burning like a brand beneath them. She remembers watching, hands clenched on her armrests above the pale pink skirt; she remembers listening, intently, as if the lady’s name might have been added to the libretto in the previous decade.

“2709, I believe it was,” Niccolette says, lightly. “I recall we met backstage.” That had been Gia’s idea, after the show; a handful of the dancers were members of her company, then. This is an easier memory, sitting cross-legged beneath the wide pink skirt on the floor of the dressing room, laughing easily on cheap, sweet wine.

Dhimitriou catches her with the edge of a twinkling glance.

All the nameless ladies, Niccolette thinks; one finger taps gently against the side of her wineglass, against the faint dampness of the chilled wine against the glass.

Anatole’s words are too close to her own thoughts; they catch her off guard, and Niccolette stifles a second smile, less successfully. Anatole’s twitches as well; he moves onward.

“Oh,” Niccolette says, glancing around. She raises her eyebrows. “Unrestrained? Perhaps I have arrived too late,” she remarks, smiling through another sip of wine.

“It is a shame you could not join us for the dancing,” Dhimitriou agrees. “I remember you as rather a good dancer. A year and a half ago, I think it was, the last time…?”

Niccolette still smiles, easily enough. “I am, in fact, rather a poor dancer,” the Bastian says, lightly. “I relied largely on the strength of my partner at that party."

“Nonsense,” Dhimitriou says, suddenly firm. “This is what I mean, my dear. You mustn’t let this loss interfere with the living of your life.”

Niccolette raises her eyebrows; she is smiling, still, easily. Her field is still dampened all around them; she does nothing with it, her hands do not clench, and the line of her brow does not twitch. “In fact I danced mostly with Violetta at that party,” Niccolette says, cheerfully enough. “Although you are right; Uzoji was an excellent dancer.” She takes a comfortable sip of wine, settling effortlessly into the discomfort.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

A
nother piece of the puzzle, more he can’t quite picture. Backstage meetings in Florne. Niccolette Ibutatu – Villamarzana? – is of an age with him; in oh nine, he’d’ve been, what – nineteen, twenty? He can picture that somehow even less easily than Niccolette as a little lass. Whatever that look in Dhimitriou's eye is, he doesn't think the old man is picturing it very accurately, either.

Perhaps I arrived too late, she pronounces casually, and he catches a smile behind the rim of her glass just before it catches the sunset light. Dhimitriou is ploughing on through, and Anatole is lifting an eyebrow.

For all she’s a flair for making a kov bleed, he’ll take her at her word – though the old man is pushing, leading with a fumbling arm. Not every fighter’s got to be a good dancer, he wants to say, swallowing the words with another sip of wine. He’s seen her plenty of times; it’s not much like dancing, what she does.

An excellent dancer. He’s never thought about it. He can picture it, still, if he tries, the pirate swift-stepping sideways at a ball. Reversing with grace, without that funny right-footed stumble new dancers have, when they’ve the rules but not the feeling. He can picture it well, insofar as he can still picture Uzoji Ibutatu’s face.

He thinks he can, or at least the important pieces. The shape of those warm, inquisitive dark eyes, the sharp broad smile he wore even if he was threatening to cut out your eyes. For Niccolette, of course. Not that he’d’ve needed to; she could’ve done worse to you herself, and without the thought of a point. And the balach knew it, well enough. Yes, he thinks Uzoji must have been a fine dancer; you don’t push, you don’t pull.

But funny how it was always Uzoji, then, fixed in his mind, and his rosh a cold sharp face and gooseflesh woobly at arm’s length. And now? He watches her take another sip of wine.

It’s her ring that catches the gold light, this time, clicking softly against the glass. This is the first time he’s thought of Uzoji since he saw her over by the window, though he recognized her by the ring. Though the loss must’ve come up more times than the late Mugrobi’s name, at least in this company. Push, pull.

Kalogeropoulos’ face seems confused whether it wants to be a smile or a frown. It’s a polite smile, maybe, and a confused frown, all at once. He opens his mouth. Do not push the fucking lady, he thinks.

Usually, Anatole wouldn’t interrupt. “Violetta,” he says, tapping his glass with a fingertip. “Not Violetta Ballington?”

Another reverse, but Etienne, at least, is swift enough to dodge. A sideways glance gives him a view of a twitching mustache, but not for long; his pale face settles itself back into a smile. “Is there another Violetta?” he asks.

Kalogeropoulos isn’t stepping on anyone’s hems, at least, either. He laughs.

“A lady of many talents.” Anatole smiles at Niccolette. “I’m afraid I didn’t have the chance to dance with her.”

“She only just arrived,” says Kalogeropoulos swiftly, with an expression he can’t quite read, “with Niccolette, I believe,” and – a brush of his hand on her shoulder, barely touching, fatherly.

Anatole blinks at him, then smiles again at Niccolette. There’s an expression of faint curiosity on his face. “Yourself and Mrs. Ballington are friends?” The distant shimmer of white hair catches again in his mind; the impression sharpens. He wonders just how far Mrs. Ballington’s circle of acquaintances and dance partners goes.

Stranger things.

At his side, Etienne shifts from foot to foot, as if restless with the subject matter; Anatole doesn’t look at him, and takes another drink. Gianis, he thinks. Ought to be used to the sideline, this toffin. He pictures her cracking an egg against the side of a skillet and takes a sip of wine.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

It lingers, that discomfort, but Niccolette knows to call it home now. She lives with the grief, with what everyone likes to call her loss; it is her constant companion, even more ever present than her husband once was. She does not mind; it is better than way. She is almost perversely grateful it for its constancy. For it to go and return sharp and sudden, would, she thinks, be more than she could bear.

So Niccolette waits, and she takes another sip of wine, and she does not rush them through it. For a moment, there is only the glow of the light through the window, the distant tinkling of glasses and the soft sounds of laughter and conversation.

It is Anatole who breaks the silence, and the world resumes.

Niccolette’s gaze flickers down to Dhimitriou’s hand as it hovers over her shoulder, only just touching. She looks back up at his face, holding just a moment too long, and smiles politely, with just a little showing of her teeth. She turns her gaze to Anatole; it is the last sip of the wine, then, and Niccolette is a little sorry for it, but she finishes the glass.

“I am,” Niccolette says with a smile, “exceptionally fond of her.” She says nothing of dancing, nor of Violetta’s broken hip in the fall of 2718. There is only so much which can be done, she remembers telling Violetta; she was not her doctor, of course, but she cast anyway, to assess the extent of the damage, and the state of her bones.

There is still not much which can be done. Violetta walks, if not as easily as she did before. She does not, Niccolette thinks, dance; Niccolette doubts she will again. One does not always recover; some things, once lost, are simply gone.

“I should be glad to introduce you,” Niccolette offers, smiling at Anatole. “She should never forgive me if she learns I kept you from her.”

It is not quite that simple; it never is. Dhimitriou has things he wishes to say; Niccolette can feel them in the faint tensing of his jaw. She ignores them, just as she ignores the inelegant twitching of Etienne’s moustache. She is set in her course, and Anatole is a willing and capable co-conspirator.

It is not quite that simple, but it is not too difficult either. Before long, they have extricated themselves, leaving Dhimitriou and Etienne bathed in the glowing light. There will be no direct sunset, of course; the house faces out towards the wharf too far, and is perhaps northeast only if one feels generous. But the golden light over the hill slants through the windows regardless, and falls upon the harbor beyond with all its beauty; the more distant clouds are already beginning to glow pink.

A human bows the glass from her, and Niccolette takes a second. She does not drink from it, holding the stem lightly in her hand, and she escorts Anatole across the party.

This, too, is not quite that simple.

“Mr. Malborough,” Niccolette says with a smile, “Mrs. Malborough.” There are appropriate bows, and polite introductions. “Have you met Incumbent Anatole Vauquelin?”

They talk of the weather – “Yes, it is simply too cold in Vienda, this season; the Rose is such a welcome change,” says Mrs. Malborough, and politics, only briefly, “One does wonder about the changing of the Symvolio,” Mr. Malborough tries, lightly; Mrs. Malborough laughs and shakes her head.

But, again, it is not too difficult either. Niccolette leads them towards the edge of the largest bar, to a cluster of wicker chairs close to the far end of the window. Violetta is sitting there, with several cushions pilfered from nearby chairs, and a man a few years younger than Niccolette is laughing with her, his face glowing beneath tousled strawberry blond hair.

“Terrence,” Violetta says with a smile, “would you go and fetch me a shawl, dear boy?”

He rises; he smiles at Niccolette and Anatole and bows. “Pardon me, madam, sir – duty calls.” He goes.

Violetta raises elegantly sculpted white eyebrows at the two of them. “Your gallant rescuer from Mr. Kalogeropoulos, I presume?” She asks, her tone mischievous.

“And I his from Mr. Merenniano,” Niccolette glances at Anatole and raises one eyebrow in a delicate arch. “Unless I mistake my guess…?”

She sits on the edge of one of the wicker chairs with a sigh, setting the still full glass of wine down on a little glass table. “Violetta, this is Incumbent Anatole Vauquelin. Anatole,” she hesitates briefly on the first name, but only the barest flicker, “this is the lovely Violetta Ballington, whom you have heard so much about.”

“Only bad, I hope,” Violetta’s hand shakes on the arm of the chair as she rises; Niccolette is standing again, then, one hand delicately on her elbow, turned lightly so the motion is hidden from the room by the slope of her back. Violetta ignores her entirely, her attention on Anatole Vauquelin. She bows, properly, perceptive mona engaged in a delicate, curious caprise.

“Incumbent Vauquelin,” Violetta says. “A pleasure, I am sure.”

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

T
his is, he thinks, a different sort of drifting.

He’s drifted through this caoja on a cloud; the drunker, the better. Another man’s words in his mouth, or in someone’s mouth, or someone’s words – he’s not quite sure, anymore, which words are his and which are not, or if any words were ever his to begin with. The drunker, the better, when you’ve no destination, when the best you can do is forget where you are and do as you’re told.

There’s a destination, now. “The breeze from the bay,” he says once, catching a pair of gold eyes and holding them, intense with the enthusiasm of a man who’s bent on finding his way through this labyrinth: “It does one good, I would swear; it’s just simply unlike the chill in the capital…”

“Have you ever been to Mugroba, Incumbent?”

“This will, in fact, be my first cycle abroad –”

“Mrs. de la Fontaine…”

“... I will admit, the idea of traveling so far up in the air…”

“... Oh, hardly, hardly, madam; but really, we would not wish to keep you...”

It’s a different sort of drifting. It’s not so hard, together, to hack through the vines on the ballroom floor, and he finds himself a willing follower to her lead. Not leaning – not pushing, not pulling.

Now, he finds himself wishing there wasn’t so much wine on his stomach. The hours have turned it syrup-sweet in his mouth, molasses-slow in his head; he finds himself hacking through it, too, rather than yielding to it. The golden light filtering through the mant windows, the warm glow, is no aid. But even suppressed, he can feel the bright-sharp brush against every one of his ley lines, in a place beyond description. He can taste it like the edge of a knife, as sharp as his own curiosity.

Niccolette Ibutatu, he knows, does not lie. He knows it with the weight of shame that smells like flowering dzutaw, and he feels it every time she says Incumbent Vauquelin.

When the crowd from the bar melts away behind them – as if they’ve passed through a cloud of gnats – there’s another scattering of wicker; the light is different here, in this corner, soft as the murmur of the party behind.

Terrence, he hears a voice say. As he sidles easily round a small, dark man in a deep gold Mugrobi suit, another field brushes by. A young man – a little younger, leastways, than him and Niccolette – catches his eye, face still flushed from laughter. He raises his brows, then finds duty, finally, sitting on a wicker chair just ahead, bountiful with plump pillows, Niccolette moving to her side.

It’s the sweep of white hair he knows, first: it’s the same, unmistakable, he saw from afar, and the same winter-blue dress. But it’s the bright blue eyes he catches, and the elegant arc of one white eyebrow.

“No mistake,” he replies, stepping closer, though he has eyes only for Mrs. Ballington; there’s something about that sharp-eyed look that doesn’t let him go. “I’ve been waiting for better company most of the night.”

Niccolette’s glass is still full, when she sets it aside. Incumbent Anatole Vauquelin, she says, and he has braced himself for it; he has heard it often enough. It’s Anatole that sends a little shiver through him – an impression of drifting blossoms – but Anatole is still smiling, and Violetta is rising with Niccolette at her elbow, uncommonly careful and discreet. The plump, beringed hand is shaking on the arm of the chair, but Anatole does not spare a shaky hand a glance. If he thinks of dancing, it is only briefly.

The brush of perceptive mona is not unexpected; he returns her caprise, curious and polite, and bows deeply himself. “Mrs. Ballington,” he says, rising. “Most certainly a pleasure.”

The sky outside is darkening; the sunset light is giving way to soft phosphor. Once, the caprise of a perceptive field would’ve sent a shiver through him. Not so long ago.

You can hardly have been in the Rose long, he’s heard, without having been acquainted with her. Longer, he thinks, than a lifetime? This place, these places, hidden like ley lines among streets as familiar as scars. Once, at the sight of a soiree like this, full of fields and humans with heavy-laden trays –

But Anatole, smiling and wondering at Mrs. Ballington, does not think of it. Only when they’ve sat will he sit. He sets his glass to the side with care – full, too; he cannot remember when it was replaced, only noticing, with surprise, that he hasn’t had a sip since – and lowers himself into a nearby chair, with only a slight shake in his hand, a slight twitch of his lip.

Only bad, I hope, he remembers, meeting those keen blue eyes again. His smile tilts crooked, genuine. “I have heard, many times now, that in the Rose,” he says carefully, honestly, “one ought to be acquainted with Violetta Ballington.”

He sits effortless-straight as he’s been taught, and not by Etienne; still, just as deliberate, he crosses his legs, and knits his fingers over one knee. He leans forward, just slightly.

“My duties in the capital don’t often take me to the Rose; Mr. Merenniano has invited me here in the hopes of introducing me to this vibrant set, but I’m afraid, like any decent politician, I’ve proven terribly dull. Niccolette seems to think otherwise, at least.” There is a smile crinkling round his eyes. “I’m told the two of you have known each other quite some time?”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Afternoon, 29 Ophus, 2719
The Home of Dhimitrios Kalogeropolous, the Wharf, King's Court

Niccolette’s hand slips gently from Violetta’s elbow once the older woman has risen; she does not so much as look down, her gaze instead towards Vauquelin. Violetta holds herself standing for an appropriate amount of time, smiling politely, and her sharp blue eyes study Anatole curiously.

They sit, the three of them; Violetta eases comfortably back against the pillows with a wry smile. Niccolette sits lightly on the edge of one of the denuded chairs nearby, not minding the lack. Anatole sits, too, with a little lag.

Violetta chuckles, softly, and waves a hand at Anatole’s comment about the necessity of knowing her. “I’ve known most of these men since they were wet behind the ears from Brunnhold or Anastou,” she says with a little smile. “They are only sorry I remember it so well.”

“And Thul’Amat?” Niccolette asks with a grin.

“No,” Violetta says, patting her arm lightly. “The ones from Thul’Amat come a bit more fully formed; fewer soft spots on the skull.”

Niccolette only smiles when Anatole says she does not think him dull, but it is a warm smile, friendly; there is nothing particularly cruel about it. She settles her glass of wine in her lap; it contrasts a bit with the dark crushed velvet, but it gives her something to do with her hands in the holding. She keeps to the stem, at least, and not the cool glass, except for one finger which taps softly, silently, against it.

“Six and a half years, now, I think,” Violetta says with a soft smile; fondness crinkles at the corner of her eyes. “A long time, perhaps, for someone of Niccolette’s age – or yours, Incumbent.”

Niccolette glances back at her; she shrugs, lightly, and looks away once more. She sets the glass aside.

Their little corner is behind the edge of the bar; it is not quite out of sight – the chairs are visible from across the room – but it is discrete, somehow. Most of the alcohol through the party is dispensed on elegant trays, polished silver; there is one other station, small, a high table with a liveried man behind it, who mostly pours the light, fruity white wine into appropriate glasses.

Here, though, is Dhimitriou’s true bar; it is a gleaming, wooden thing – light wood – with a set of shelves stacked behind; bottles of various colors, shapes, sizes and labels are neatly arranged upon it, and there is a set of glasses stacked beneath them. It is on the bar where all the rest is available: the human behind it, dressed in a blue suit and cravat, is pouring clear alcohol into a martini glass. A few bottles are set here and there, liquor mostly, and one of dark red wine. A tall wine rack sits on the floor next to it, between the long wooden edge and the wicker chairs, more than half the height of the bar; it is there where Niccolette’s eyes drift.

Her hand freezes on the glass; it is half on the table, and lands with a faint, sharp clink. There is a moment where she is very still, no motion at all, not even breath to shift the soft fabric of her dress. Then she moves again; she shakes her head, once, and eases the glass the rest of the way onto the table. She looks away, back over Violetta and Anatole; her gaze drifts out, then, along the windows.

Dhimitriou and Etienne are no longer at the far end of the window; Niccolette’s eyes rest on a moment on the spot where they were. She pulls herself back, turning a little more on the edge of the seat to look at Violetta.

“Are you fond of the Rose, Incumbent?” Violetta is asking. She has said something else, before that; Niccolette is not sure what. “It’s a very different place from Vienda; the adjustment, either way, takes both time and effort. Utterly giving myself away, I shall tell you I much prefer the Rose. Here, at least, the swords are not hidden inside canes.” Violetta takes a sip of her drink; no white wine for her, but a sparkling cocktail in a highball glass, with a curve of orange peel sinking through it.

[Tom Cooke]

The Kalogeropoulos Home • King's Court

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Ophus, 2719

A
natole is listening, smiling still. He feels the urge to a shiver – just faint, just as if a goose is trotting over his grave, somewhere – but the subtle grace of the compliment isn’t lost on him, even if Mrs. Ballington doesn’t know just how true it is.

He takes a contemplative sip of the wine, sets it back down on the table without a noise, and with barely a ripple. He turns over Mrs. Ballington’s words, all of them – six years; soft spots on the skull – and they wash round the corridors of his mind. He casts back through the haze of memory: three years, he remembers Aremu saying; a younger Aremu, coquettish-quiet, watching him wind his hands through thick dark hair. That was a little under three years ago.

It doesn’t answer all of his questions, but it answers some of them. He thinks, still: deep roots in the Rose almost always tangle with the local flora.

He knows something of what she means, he thinks. He remembers, still, golly lads in the Rose, finding work with Hawke fresh out of the vroo schools down south and overseas. He remembers watching a few such drown; others learn to breathe.

“A long time in the Rose, I think,” he parries; “things move more quickly here.” Smiling, he sets his wine glass back down on the table without a noise, and with barely a ripple. “I’ve heard, at least, that the Rose – changes one.”

As does Vienda, of course. The conversation burbles on; he listens close, drinks in the tiny expressions Mrs. Ballington chooses to write in the thin lines of her face: the raise of a sculpted eyebrow, the tilt of a smile, the careful dry humor that unfolds itself in the pauses. He finds himself sitting closer to the edge of his seat, though his back aches, and he thinks wistfully he wouldn’t’ve minded just one of those cushions she’s amassed.

The clink of a glass pulls his attention away abruptly. In the corner of his eye, Niccolette’s expression is a blur, but he can see her eyes glinting, looking somewhere past his left shoulder. The bar burbles comfortably a little to the side and at his back; he wonders whom she’s seen, but he’d have to shift in his seat to look. Niccolette freezes there for a moment, like a creeping cat.

He can feel the burn of curiosity. He douses it, but it doesn’t quite go. He catches a tiny shrug of the pirate’s shoulders, and when she looks at him, he catches her eye without expression. He doesn’t look again, as she looks back away, though there’s an edge to her posture.

He’s smiling at Mrs. Ballington, and she is saying something, and he is nodding; then, she’s asking a question.

“Fond - I am unsure,” he says, feeling himself fall into a familiar track, “but it’s easy to get lost here, I find, and stay lost. I can already tell that it will be be difficult to return to Vienda, where the knives are hidden in paperwork."

“I must respectfully disagree,” a soft, neat voice cuts in. “It may be that not all swords are hidden in canes, madam, but all canes in the Rose still hide swords.” There’s a soft tap, tap, tapping just over his left shoulder; this time, he does turn, though the bar is a soft blurry glow and glisten in the corner of his eye.

The young man has returned, a thick brocade shawl draped over his arm, dripping tassels. He’s not alone; another man follows him, slightly taller, walking with the aid of a long, thin, glossy black cane. There’s something familiar about him, right off. From Vienda?

He can’t place it – this long, sallow face, a pair of spectacles perched on the thin pointed nose, eyes almost as grey as Anatole’s. Neat-combed, receding dark red hair, a light tan suit. He looks maybe a decade Anatole’s junior, but he wears it in gaunt shadows. There is a spot of dark color in one hand, a swirl of muddled purple-black in a cut-glass tumbler with a glistening drift of raspberries.

His other is resting casually on the handle of the cane; not leaning – there’s no shake to the arm, the wrist – but keeping a good grip, as if he might need it sooner than later. He is not out of breath, but he breathes carefully, and he looks tired.

It’s the field that jerks attention through him, at odds with everything else: robust, bristling static mona, with a bold caprise.

“Good evening, Mrs. Ballington.” Norton Collingwood bows before he does anything else, and when he rises, his smile is grim, as if his face cannot quite manage anything more cheerful. At first, Ballington has all his attention; he does not so much as glance to either side. “I haven’t missed you for long, I hope, madam?” he asks, with a wry edge.

Anatole is rising already. He can’t escape it, the jarring-strange sensation of not quite rising up far enough. Collie’s above eye-level. Pushing the feeling aside, he bows deeply.

It’s Niccolette he turns his attention to next, though. “Mrs. Ibutatu,” he says, as the two women begin to rise. Something passes briefly across his face at the sight of Niccolette - keen curiosity, maybe - but only briefly.
“When I saw Dhimitriou earlier, he said he was expecting both of you soon. I can only hope you’ve managed to evade his grasp so far.”