#mxlusine

The dance was similar in tempo to the classic Hoshidan one Takumi was familiar with, but the footwork was completely different, and to make things worse, the dance carried him everywhere, and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be walking, or turning, or turning his partner, or some other terrifying option.

…And so, it was less about the dance now and more about trying really hard not to look like as much of a fool as he was making himself into. Especially in front of his dance partner: an unfamiliar woman who, um, looked as terrifying as the dance itself…

It’s fine, Takumi told himself, trying to clear his head. Just get through this, and then you never have to talk to anyone here ever again.

By some miracle, he managed not to trip over his own feet—or his partner’s—and the song elegantly slowed to a conclusion. Takumi took his partner’s hand, bowed, and then immediately scanned for the quickest possible exit route that he’d take once everything was over with.

[ SLIP-UP ] - As it turns out, a lot of people at the monastery make for great body doubles in the dark. What do you do when you slap a friend on the back only for you to find out when they turn around that it's not your friend at all?

"What a troublesome child you still are, Marni," she tuts, though not unkindly—not with the vitriol that ought to be there, and not with the apathy that had once settled only to bleed itself dry. Maybe she had lost it, somewhere it Gradlon; maybe it had burned away with the rest of her, too heavy to bring with her overseas. "Did I not tell you that if you were going to attend, you should at least..." ...dance, Zephia thinks, but this is not Marni. In fact, now that she actually looks a little closer, this is certainly a small girl, but not a small enough girl. She is not her girl, dressed ridiculously for a ridiculous event that should have made her ridiculous heart soar. "...Well. You'll accept my apologies, I hope," Zephia says, withdrawing her hand from the girl's shoulder. "In the dark, you looked almost like someone I knew. Perhaps she isn't as special as I'd thought."

Marni?

Nanna turned at once, pale skirts whispering softly around her ankles as lanternlight caught across the pearls threaded through her dress. For a fleeting instant, confusion crossed her features—quick and bright as a bird’s wingbeat—before the woman’s correction followed close behind.

And then, despite herself—

“...Not Citrinne?” she asked lightly, smile blooming with almost dangerous ease, as though they were discussing mistaken identities over tea rather than ghosts of people who lingered too vividly in memory.

Her head tilted just slightly, studying Zephia now with clearer attention. The withdrawal of the woman’s hand did not go unnoticed, nor did the peculiar softness folded into her apology. It sat strangely beside the sharpness of her words, like velvet stitched over a blade.

“…Well,” Nanna continued gently, rescuing the moment before it could sour into embarrassment, “For your troublesome child, do take this.” Orchids, fashioned with endearment.

A soft laugh escaped her then, delicate enough to leave room for retreat if unwanted.

“…I think,” she added after a beat, eyes warm with quiet curiosity, “that people rarely mistake others for those who meant nothing to them.”

The droning of unfamiliar voices that accompany the figures shifting on the screen has long since lost her attention. Long ago, grief painted everything with dull colors-- flower fields that once held her favorite colors eventually faded and crumpled when the soil no longer held enough nutrients for any life to persist. She doesn't need something as trivial as a film to remind her. She doesn't need this pointless poking and prodding from a wretched soul who knows the same unending agony. The same pain that burns, burns, burns until nothing else remains. Until she had to begin picking up the pieces of her fractured world, painstakingly placing each shard back together again. Until that searing hole in her chest became too much to bear, too much to dwell in, and too much to allow herself to succumb to. One day, in the far future... Nel, too, will pass on into the next life. It's a naive wish to believe that maybe, just maybe, she'll be reunited with those she misses-- but one she can't refrain from nonetheless. There will one day be another that joins that list. There will be many. Over the centuries, as nations lose their rulers and are replaced with others, Nel's list will only become longer and longer. Laslow's name will be etched into that. "I know." One day, her hand will extend, only for no one to take it. One day, a half of her bed will be frigid and empty. One day, her smile will resemble a grimace more than it will anything made from happiness. "... I know." "Amongst humans, there are few who will remain in the memory of those like us." Like us. Like those who have lived too long and seen too many tragedies unfold right under their noses. "... You need not concern yourself with my ability to remember. My memory of him will not fade so easily." Sometimes, she thinks she remembers too much. Other times, maybe not enough.

It'll only be a matter of time before more will be shoved into her arms, she's certain, but for now, Zephia is eager to be rid of the final orchid in her current bunch. That, she will say, is the sole reason she approaches a lovely enough woman sitting off to the side, fortunate enough to be injured so that she could have an excuse to avoid the endless dancing.

"It's a shame," Zephia says, sitting down beside her. "Lovely women like yourself are usually the sort to enjoy these kinds of events the most."

Alas.

"Here." The final orchid is offered. "Perhaps by the next event, you'll see your ankle healed, and I'll have the pleasure of asking you for a dance then, hm?"

Camilla smiled at the stranger. She had good taste at the very least.

"Thank you." Camilla smiled, taking the orchid. "And for you as well." She held out a black tulip.

She will kill him.

She will kill him, and she will ensure that his body is found, strung up throughout the monastery like lights during the winter holidays. His foul blood will water the gardens until all the flowers wither, and his bones will be repurposed to give novice knights something to break their wooden swords on as they practice their swings. He will be used but useless, forgotten in the way that he has always deserved.

Zephia's smile strains. She jabs her elbow into the tender flesh of his side.

"Move. Your. Foot."

Rafal's temperance was that of a monk; so disciplined and sacrificing that it brought to mind the very topic of his atonement. Because this was precisely that: an act of atonement, of goodness far beyond his natural means, and—most of all—of restraint.

"—Sweep that outrageous excuse for hair aside first." A hiss slithered out from between his teeth. Or, thereabouts. A hiss usually came from a mouth, but this hiss sounded as if it could have been from anywhere due to the obfuscating curtain of hair that hung over it. He spat out a tease of a strand that threatened to slip inside with a grimace. "I've not an ounce of desire to ruminate on your taste in my mouth!"

It wasn't the first time Zephia elbowed him or that her hair inched into his mouth, nor the second; and these distinctions Rafal would know because he counted each and every touch the Mage Dragon visited upon him, and dreamed viciously of repaying each and every one. But, as a result, then must come the question: why did he merely dream instead of do? Why was it that a man of such terrible force of will complied with this infantile activity? This insufferable partner?

He stretched out his arm and nevertheless silently spun the wheel. Left foot. Blue.

It was as if the answer went unspoken - conveyed from his knitted look of concentration, to his unquestioning relocation from one quadrant to the next. Victory would be his, in this form, and against this woman. As the Fell Heir was wont to say to his most dreaded enemies: once one should cross him, there was no turning back.

The class—if it can even be called that—is an impromptu little thing, expanded from a girl trying to teach her friend how to arrange her bouquet, to a boy overhearing and failing to apply the same knowledge, to a girl trying to do the same... and so on and so forth. In the end, what had started as a group of completely separate attendees had become a fluid group of struggling students and well-meaning teachers, with very few of them producing decent results.

"Just exchange a few with the person next to you!" their 'teacher' says, sounding almost exasperated. "The more variety you have, the better!"

Zephia considers it. Orchids, in her opinion, are naturally ugly things—and so she has no problem offering one to the man next to her, pleasant smile and all. "Shall we trade? For variety's sake, that is."

The more variety you have, the better!

Matthew isn't sure if he buys that. Some of the bouquets he's seen tonight, particularly those belonging to the more social of butterflies present, seem to him a lost cause. Or the bouquets of those making a game of collecting them all - a real nightmare to maneuver, he expects. The more colour they have to deal with, the higher odds of clashing by default, and, well,

There's a reason he never became a florist, one supposes. Maybe it's just his own tastes that are lacking, for all he knows.

"Oh. Sure. For variety's sake, that is."

He makes to pluck a red hyacinth from his own selection to hand her. Somehow, he thinks, it kind of suits her. Head tilts to the side.

"So... do you think a ball like this anymore worthwhile a pursuit for a military academy?"

[ LIGHT ] - A complex waltz uniquely performed blind, requiring both trust in one’s partner and in one’s self to successfully pull off. While it has only recently made its way from Ast to Fódlanese soil, it has quickly gained popularity in local dance classes as the ultimate test of faith in a pair.

"Come now, dear; I thought you'd be jumping at every opportunity to dance. You've always wanted to take part in events like this, haven't you?"

The blindfold slips on easily, secured by a neat bow in the back. Zephia's hands settle on small, tense shoulders—and they are small, aren't they, without the bulk and jut of useless armor—as she guides the girl to an easy place to dance. The music plays, sweet and charming, an encouragement of trust and faith and everything that has been irreparably broken between them.

"Shall we?"

"It's not all that great," Marni huffs. "I'm pretty good at this dancing thing, but there are so many people around that no one really cares what I'm doing. Besides, one year Griss, he..."

Self-preservation kicks in and she promptly shuts her mouth. That one might be better kept to herself lest Zephia get any ideas. She doesn't particularly want another ice cube down the back of her dress or whatever else Zephia might come up with after hearing about what happened.

"Anyway, Mauvier danced with me last year. And Lady Veyle danced with me the year before. You're the only one who hasn't..."

Marni doesn't meant to let an edge of bitterness creep into her voice. She knows she'll probably pay for it. But the sudden darkness is more distressing now than it had been before and the pounding of her heart in her ears puts her on edge. She wants nothing more than to rip off the cloth obscuring her vision and let her sight confirm to her whether or not Zephia intends to walk away from her again.

She hates it. She hates fumbling around in the dark, simply just trusting that someone will be there. Nothing is ever where she expects it to be. No one is ever where she expects them to be. She hates the dark. She hates the way the blindfold feels on her skin. She hates it.

But she leaves it on.

If you won't bite, neither will I.

"Once you see how good I am at dancing, you'd better praise me, okay?"

Some might call it naïveté to expect to be forgiven no matter what, but hadn't that also been trust?

"!!" No force in the world could have stopped Ronan's attention from dropping downward. Away from the serpentine eyes of this viper of a woman, naturally, but he finds no safe place for his gaze to land here along the midnight edge of her elegance either. Shyly, as if he were no more than a boy now (or, more aptly yet, a hare beneath the hawk's shadow), he looks up to her fangless smile and realizes that she has caught his wrist in the manacle of one warm hand.

There is nothing but sweetness from her lips - hypnotic coos to be a dear and play her partner for this dance. Ronan doesn't know why he feels like so strange, or so small within the shadow cast by the ribboned crescent of her horns, but he nods. Slowly at first, as if coming out of a trance.

"O-of course. I wouldn't want you to miss out..."

He feels foolish even before he finishes, like anything he might say to such a woman would be little more than a child's babble, and is thankful that the orchestra begins in triple time. Flayn and Miss Edain may not have realized that their newest dance student would be putting their lessons to use so soon, but Ronan offers his hand with confidence that he would perform passably at least.

That is, until his partner pulls him right into her as if in an embrace and away they whirl across the dance floor, all the confidence Ronan had built up in his ability to lead now dashed into a fluster as he tried simply to keep up. His cheeks burned furiously pink.

"I, um-- wow." Ronan staggers back a step when the dance finally ends and she releases him, his face still as red as ever, but something like exhilaration in his eyes. "You sure know how to dance. I must have looked no better than a foal on its legs for the first time by comparison." Steadying himself with a small, shaky laugh, he turns to collect his bouquet and extracts a hyacinth from the middle of the arrangement.

"Here. This is the only thing I have to thank you for the thrill. And... apologize for maybe not quite being the right dance partner for you."

Although he doubts there is any man in the world who would not shrink before such majesty.

"I hope it makes up for it."