what's your pleasure?

❝ Each of us narrates our life as it suits us. ❞

introducing THE EMBEZZLER — HANNAH JAMES. 29 years old. as penned by laine. + expanded bio

LOCATION: One of Ravensmoor Manor’s bedrooms. STATUS: Open to everyone!

Permission to explore the manor had been both deeply amusing and entirely unnecessary. If Mr. Ashton is foolish enough to welcome an opportunistic thief into his palatial home, ripe with precious items to carry off into the night, then Edgar sees it as his (im)moral duty to do precisely that. 

The ball itself is of little consequence to him, worth nothing more than a fleeting look of disdain on his jaunt to where the real interest lies. He’s moved from room to room over the course of his evening, deftly rifling through possessions and trying to decide what would be easiest and in his best interest to steal. He’s made it to the second of seemingly endless bedrooms, snooping around without a shred of shame   (If the rich opt to be naive and overly-hospitable, then it’s the god-given right of the poor to leap upon the opportunity.)   A delicate hand mirror is lifted from its resting place on the dressing table, slivers of it catching the light as he turns it over in his grip. He’s contemplating the value, weighing up whether it’s worth taking, when the creak of someone in the doorway startles him. The mirror slips, hitting the leg of the dressing table on its plummet down and promptly smashing into pieces.  Despite the fact that the entire event has happened before both of their very eyes, he apparently still has the audacity to feign innocence.

“Can you believe the way some people treat their possessions?”  It’s punctuated with a delicate sigh, as if the mere thought is too upsetting to linger on.  “Heartbreaking, I dare say.”

-

She has always been attracted to shiny, spectacular things—and Mr. Ashton’s manor carries a whole repository of it. Thus far, Hannah has swiped a sapphire pendant with a gold chain, surreptitiously tucked in her dress pockets, along with an emerald ring she’s passed off as belonging to her costume. It is not like their host would miss it, she surmises, not when he has freely urged them to explore the grounds and essentially gave them free rein of the manor. 

With that agenda in mind, Hannah twists open the doorknob to find yet another bedroom. Bedrooms meant canopy beds, end tables, dressers, but most importantly, jewelry boxes. There is a man inside, presumably being as nosey as she is, but no matter. She expects his own excursion to last no longer than a minute or so, and the spoils of one person is another's luxury. 

Hannah moves to slide back, but the floor creaks against her weight to betray her presence. Apparently, the noise alone is enough to spook him, and the older man drops whatever he is holding to the ground, shattering into a couple hundred pieces. 

Pity. Hannah resists the urge to pout, though her lips curl into a frown all the same. She enters the room fully now, fixing her glance on what she assumes was once a hand mirror—and a damned expensive-looking one, at that. “Oh, that’s a shame,” she says, walking towards the man and seeing all the trinkets laid out on the table. At the far end of the table, she spots a glass figurine of a swan. “If it’s any consolation, it doesn’t look as expensive as this one...” Hannah then moves to pick it up—

—only for the figurine to be heavier than she’d originally assumed, and her hand balks against the weight, and the swan turns into a few hundred shards, just the same. 

“Oh, wow.” She says, incredulously, imitating the man’s approach and feigning innocence. “This Ashton fellow’s a deeply irresponsible prick, don’t you think?” Hannah rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. “It’s like he wants to waste money.” 

there’s a faint sound of music coming from inside the manor, a reminder of the nature of this ball. a cause célèbre, the ball has spurred heated debate in public; while some moan about missing out on such a celebration, others regard it with suspicion and a hint of displeasure on stony faces as they recall the brutal murders of three more innocent girls not yet a whole six months ago.

half the time, link isn’t sure who else is attending this evening; the few faces he recognizes are those that are not obscured by masks, the faces of friends and acquaintances. they smile at him while the rest—those he can’t place—remain silent.

his gaze falls on the flower that ellie had touched earlier that evening; already in full bloom, colors of pink and yellow are bright against the darkness of the approaching night that is slowly settling over the manor. although the scent carries with it nothing but pure loveliness, somehow, somewhere in the back of his mind, link can’t help but wonder whether that’s enough to kill him, too.

i’m hannah james.

snapped out his reverie, a stranger’s face comes into full view—clad in a costume that’s eerily reminiscent of something he’s sure he might have seen at the frost fair, link frowns. “you’re—sorry, come again?”

he thinks about it, the way a stranger is carrying the name of a man he once loved, continues to love in spite of it all. don’t go where i can’t follow, and for a moment it feels as though maybe, time can be rearranged into a kinder version of the life he leads now but that’s wishful thinking and he nothing but a fool for entertaining the thought in the first place.

he told me about you.

that he did. and look how little it matters, in the grand scheme of things. link contemplates this for a second, lets his eyes wander her face. there’s something there, the fleeting whisper of a memory but it’s gone when he blinks. so he returns her gesture, shaking her hand with mild curiosity tugging at his brow. “i’m—well, it appears you already know who i am.”

his hand falls to his side again, a quiet exhale following suit. “are you enjoying the ball?”

-

Hannah does not know what to expect from James’s younger brother. Beyond his name, title, and money, along with the bits and pieces James had shared to her in the past, Lincoln Littledale still comes across a translucent presence. The backdrop does not help much in establishing this as any more concrete, either. The night, the moon, the shining stars, the poisoned shrubbery—all these render the setting picturesque and even more dream-like, the same kind of illusion that had made the patrons appear so shadowy, almost faceless, against the dark. 

“Hannah.” She repeats her first deceit. “Hannah James.” The next name, too, is a lie, but it slips past her lips with a graceful ease. The frown that forms in Link’s features is not surprising, though it disappoints her all the same. Gaining his trust would be an uphill battle, she surmises, but she has never been one way to stray from a challenge. 

At this juncture, she attempts a small chuckle, smooth in its cadence. “I understand how the shared name can come off rather jarring,” she adds, stretching her lips to form a smile. “Your brother and I—we had a ball when we figured out the coincidence, too.” Midway through she realizes that the words should not come across so easily, for memory requires its own kind of sharp, bitter unrooting. Here, she tries out a shaky inflection against her tongue, her best attempt in imitating what the books and the plays describe as grief. “It was... well... it proved to be the start to a long friendship.” 

And what an ending, what an ending. 

Releasing her hand from the handshake, Hannah turns on her heel and moves back to his side. Without those curious eyes staring back at her, it is easier to displace Link’s identity for the other—and for a moment, she is beholden to memory, finding the similarities that are there-but-not-quite. The height, the hair, the seafarer’s ensemble, even the pronounced gait. 

“A fair share of friends here and there, though it seems my and this Ashton fellow’s circle do not intersect much. I suspect we are in the same predicament?” Hannah ventures a guess, though it does not seem far from the truth—without the music and idle chatter, she wonders how much of the manor would become silent. “Truth be told, I’m not sure whether to be pleased or concerned to find you alone out here.” Her face is pensive as she attempts honesty for the first time that night. “This is not how I would have wanted us to meet.” 

Ellie had felt ever so slightly uncomfortable the entire time she’d been here. Not enough to show, or even to affect her too much, but enough to be aware of it all. It was a beautiful place, full of beautiful people in beautiful costumes - the type of grandiosity that had been familiar to her for so many years of her life, the kind she hadn’t seen in over six. As a young girl, she had been here. Not here, here, but places like here, whether held at the Whittock manor or at any of the families she was allowed to be friends with, dressed in, whilst probably slightly less homemade, similarly fancy outfits. 

The key difference between then and now was - obviously, the absence of her brothers. Of all of them, Henry’s absence smarted the most. Despite the lack of connection they were supposed to have, an actual real lack of contact since he’d left London, coupled with the kind of event she could have reminisced at. So, to combat the feeling, she had had perhaps one more glass of wine than she should have.

It’s been a while since she drank, not something she ever did around John, and she was mostly around John. And so, it’s hitting her a little harder than she’d wanted it to. One hand to her head, she blinks a few times, half sitting, half falling into the nearest chair. She doesn’t say anything, but smiles at the woman she’s found herself beside, “Sorry,” she mumbles, after a moment, “I don’t mean to- I’ll leave you be in a minute. Just getting my head right.” 

-

She is intrigued. It is obvious the alcohol has hit her, but there is an undercurrent there beyond the usual episode of drunken melancholy. A jadedness, perhaps. A certain sadness. Whichever it is, Hannah is keen to find out. She’s never been able to veer away from intrigue, especially when it comes in the presence of a beautiful, bejeweled woman, clad in emerald and gold. 

The name of her costume escapes her, though it is far too elaborate, too intricate, to be fully machine-made. Is she of noble lineage, just the same? Her mannerisms do not seem to indicate so, slumping in her seat with nary a care for her companion, but she has had miscalculations before. 

“No, you should stay,” she says sweetly, though it is less from concern than it is to satiate her own curiosity. “Save yourself from the noise of the dance floor. They’re all just stepping on each other’s toes and falling, anyways.” Her gaze moves from the other’s eyes to her ensemble, as if taking her in. “In any case, I doubt you’ll be able to find a companion worthy of you, and worthy of that dress.” She adds, stretching her lips into a coy smile.   

Daya looks stupid, and feels stupid, in her flashy gold dress. She hates her hair, hates her outfit, hates that she came here in the first place, and hates that she’s drunk so many glasses of wine that she’s lost count. Head hazy, she stands back to the wall ( for support more than anything else ), and wills the room to stop spinning.

She is brought back to the room with a startling jolt, attention captured by the thud of a man hitting the floor, and a cutting peel of laughter from somewhere near her. Daya did not see the man take the tumble, does not know what caused him to fall, but neither does she wish to witness his humiliation further. And so she pointedly averts her gaze, turning to look at the person who seems to find it so entertaining.

Hannah Thomas.

She recognises her even through her fuzzy gaze, and gives her a quick nod of greeting, though her mouth remains downturned. Clearly, the amusement is not shared. “He could have hurt himself.” She points out. “I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to fall like that.”

-

Dayanita Davalbhakta. She should not be so surprised to see her here—when it comes to affairs like these, a woman of her status and prestige is more than likely to be in attendance. 

Still, her chest constricts at the sight of her. The woman is impossibly, incomprehensibly radiant as always, donned in a golden ensemble whose inspiration escapes her. Something about Daya’s discomfort makes her want to retract her claws, and she does, though not quite fully. “I doubt it’s that serious,” she shrugs, briefly lifting her index finger from her wineglass to point to the display.“See? That beautiful woman’s helping her out. She didn’t have to, but she did.” 

Hannah lets her chuckles die a natural death as the situation grows more mundane, watches disapprovingly as the woman makes a move to help the buffoon in question. “And what’s a broken nose to a woman’s tender touch?” 

After growing significantly bored by watching people dance in the ballroom, Anthony takes Mr. Ashton’s words about exploring the manor to heart—he slips out on his own and heads for the staircase, climbs up until he’s satisfied and sets off to investigate every single unlocked room on his way. There are many of those—bedrooms, studies, he even finds a nursery, even though it does not look very enticing. Were he a child, he’d probably find it terrifying. 

A bright smile stretches across his face as he enters another room and finds a piano there. The lights are on, there’s wine and glasses on the table right next to the instrument, as if this room has been waiting for someone—for him—to make use of it. Anthony wastes now time. He leaves the door open; not that he’s looking for an audience but if someone should want to listen, he wouldn’t mind. He takes a seat at the bench and presses a few keys to see how they will respond. It sounds like home. 

Anthony finishes a song and then finally notices that some audience has actually come around. He gives them a warm smile, turns towards them on the bench in an invitation to a conversation. “Does that sound any better than what is being played in the ballroom?” 

-

Hannah Thomas is drawn to spectacular things. It is the only truth—perhaps the only truth—she can say for herself. She has never been able to resist the bold, the bright, the beautiful, and that fact is precisely what leads her towards the piano being played some ways away from where stands. Her feet instinctively drag towards it, and while the notes and the tune are unfamiliar by name, the warmth it exudes in her chest is one she wholly welcomes. 

She could recognize those hands and that playing anywhere, but facing Anthony Griffiths sparks another emotion in her entirely. Her nerves are frayed and her heart beats a little faster than it should. Perhaps this is what people mean when they say they are nervous. She can’t say she likes the feeling. It’s almost annoying, the way doubt begins welling in her chest. Hadn’t she already squashed that feeling long ago? 

“Are you a ghost?” A shake of her head follows, quickly, almost sheepishly. “Sorry. I meant—are you Anthony Griffiths?” Time is scarce for a better first impression, but perhaps there is still an opportunity to salvage it. For her to appear calm, collected, cultured. 

“Are you kidding? It’s better than what’s being played anywhere.” She chuckles. “How about that one piece where it sounds like a handbell comes out of the piano every few seconds? I really like that one.” 

♣

The ball’s guests do not disappoint, their costumes ranging from queens and kings to ones borne from myth. Though Feriha doesn’t recall her literature or history lessons well, she’s curious about them all; she loves a good story nearly as much as a good party. ( Her previous teachers simply failed on delivery. ) It’s easy, then, to become engrossed in conversation with a woman dressed as Chang’e when a man trips on the hem of said woman’s dress and falls spectacularly to the floor. The moon goddess twists, her mouth a perfectly shaped ‘o’ before she rushes down in a flurry of silk to help him up.

Feriha claps a hand to her mouth, smothering her laughter. Someone else does not bother, her sharp, sudden laugh drawing Feriha’s attention, and it’s who it belongs to that keeps it. “Nothing.” Feriha puts her hands up in mock surrender, feigning innocence with wide eyes and a guileless smile. “I thought it was awfully entertaining. Best show so far. Very fitting for the costume, too.” The man in question had been dressed as a court jester, the bells of his hat jingling as he met the floor. “Maybe a bit too on the nose?”

-

A smirk begins to form on her lips when Hannah finds the young woman not only taking little offense by her words, but also intrigued by them. Clearly, she had understood the humor the situation had incited, and Hannah is grateful not to partake in the usual manner of courtesy expected in affairs like this. She takes it almost as a cue to elaborate, pressing on her mockery. “Seems like he was very committed to his bit.” She chuckles, her humor toeing the line between playful and dark. “Dressing up as a jester? Really? My, he was practically asking for it to happen.”

Her gaze is stern as she watches the moon goddess help the useless man up, pushing aside the heavy fabric of her dress as she did. “Oh, I do hope he hasn’t hurt his nose or something,” her voice takes on a sickly sweet turn, “I don’t think it would be easy to clean up blood on that fabric so easily.” She tuts. “That poor woman. That dress must’ve taken weeks to sew together, and now it’s ruined.”