#nightshxdc

How do we see ourselves when gauging our encounters with others? Do we believe ourselves superior to our conversational opponent, or simply on par for the course? Are our appearances a misgrievances within the world we live in, hindering our ability to interact with the world at large;

Or are we able to take what some would consider a disadvantage and use it to our benefit? I am sure that some would look down on you, little one, and frown with disinterest- at best. Yet, there is value in the unique. The individual and special.

The castle had beencarved out of the side of a great underwater canyon, the bottom ofwhich served as a city for the region's merfolk. It had great coralturrets and kelp and anemone gardens on the outside, hallways pavedin mother-of-pearl and ceilings with vaults made of blue whale bones.And this was where the royalty of merfolk lived, and the gentryfrequented, for merpeople have their castes too just as landfolk. Butonce a year, when the moon shines so bright in the sky above that itcan be seen even in their deep city, there is a ball where all cometo the palace, commoner and noble alike, and they are masked so thattheir may mingle without concern for class.That's the claim,anyway. In reality, of course, it is instantly apparent what stationsomeone belongs to---the dress they can afford, their way ofspeaking, their mannerisms, and so on. The mask does nothing todisguise this. But it affords the illusion of it does, and thus bothsides get to indulge in the fantasy of being seen for something theyare not, and pretending to do the same for others. It keeps themhappy, thus preventing runaways from the upper classes andrevolutionaries from the lower ones. For instance, it waspretty easy for everyone in said upper classes to recognize a certainpair of their peers. Both orcas from the waist down, being siblings,Fabian and Anne Marie had very different but very...distinctbehaviors. Really, even if they'd covered their equally distincthair, it'd had been a no brainer who was behind those ornate goldmasks surely picked out by the former. But they themselves didn'tknow a lot of the commoners here, who also likely did not know them.Again, the whole purpose of the party was for the social classes tomix, because they usually didn't outside of commerce and employmentrelationships.Someone really should have given the poorpeasants some warning. Anne Marie was swimming around, pokingmasks, pulling on costumes, openly blurting who people were. Rememberthat part about mannerisms marking the upper class? That did notapply here. Regardless of her birthright, Anne Marie a class of herownFabian, on the other fin, a more subdued form of scandal,but also far less innocent. He was currently working his sleazycharms on small school of wide-eyed mermaids who all thought this wastheir chance to be Cinderella at the ball and catch the eye of a mannormally far beyond their reach. His fingers twined in their hairlike seeking tentacles, or trailed up their tails like the slimybrush of seaweed as he cornered them against the palace columns.

Anne Marie just saidhello with hugs, flinging her arms around perfect strangers with nowarning.Fabian had started on one side of the room. AnneMarie on the other. Little by little, without realizing it, they wentthrough person after person towards the middle...until they bothtouched the same mermaid, each in their own way, at the same time.