The Masquerade

Second and Lorcan had spent these last few moments of the conversation only just barely listening to the content of said conversation; both were too busy focusing on what Taber had said about not being truthful with love. Second was more than a little surprised with how much more red Lorcan's face had managed to get. But as Damascus tried to deny the need to tell Boris, Second tried his best to convince himself that Lorcan didn't feel the same way about him.

That would be absurd.

And, yet, Lorcan was getting pretty red whenever the two of them were brought up in the conversation.

"Lorcan?" he said softly, hoping that Damascus and Taber couldn't overhear this particular part of the conversation. "Am I your crush?"

Lorcan's eyes widened behind his mask.

"You've been getting embarrassed when couples, and love, and us are mentioned..." Second hesitantly added, watching his best friend's expression for something that would indicate if his guess was right or not.

Lorcan took a shaky breath; nervous blue eyes swept across his face, studying him as Lorcan seemed to try deciding what to say. "Yes," he admitted, his voice so quiet that Second had to strain his ears to pick it up. "You're my crush, Second."

"Oh," Second managed to get out.

"O-Oh?" he nervously repeated.

"You're my crush, too," he blurted.

"Oh," Lorcan lightly said.

"Yeah," Second said. "Oh."

Taber tilted his head. "Oh, from where?" he said, sounding a little high-pitched as he tried to restrain a scream of joy from the conversation he'd just heard. "You look pretty human, but I guess I'm wrong?"

Damascus, completely oblivious to what was passing between Second and Lorcan, smiled widely, pleased that to Taber, at least, he looked human enough to be non-differential.

"Oh, I'm not really a human." He shrugged. "I'm a shifter, so I've had experience with other forms besides human ones."

"So, um..." Second awkwardly said. "What are we supposed to do now?"

Lorcan shifted nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I don't know," he weakly replied. "I never thought I'd get past crushing on you..."

"Yeah," Second agreed. "Me too."

Nodding, Taber kept his eyes on Damascus as he moved towards Second and Lorcan. "What other forms do you have?" he said, tilting his head. "I can also shift to be a lion or a human, but I'm guessing you're kinda different? Do you just like your human form the most?"

Tasha's frown only deepened as he spoke. She couldn't stand the power-hungry people who used what they had for manipulation, entertainment, or anything else that wasn't destructive. Beyond that, she didn't appreciate being a pawn, or having her close allies and friends and James being used as pawns. Her hand fell to her sword subconsciously and her fingers brushed the silvery pommel.

"Such arrogance is distasteful," she growled. "And beyond that, the lack of class is merely a disgrace. If they're going to be kekh-ren, they could at least have standards. Or let us plan our schedule around it, since it's not voluntary anyways."



Kratzer looked down somewhat bashfully and a bit red, but Auryon seemed to thoroughly enjoy it and she grinned. "Aw, he sounds like an adorable little kid," she beamed. "Kratzer, Kratzer, what was Boris like when he was little?" she winked.

He sighed and took a sip from his glass, looking at his sworn brother over the top of it. "Well, he was a bit of a smug ass, just like he is now. Stubborn, too, insensibly so. Made a fool of himself as much then as now - except it was more forgivable as a child, I suppose." His words were monotone and his gaze deadpan, but there was a certain lilt to his voice that portrayed the teasing inherent in his words.

James scoffed and a smile crossed his features. “I wouldn’t expect that much from someone who would do something like this in the first place. But that would sure be nice though. ‘Hey, can I write you in for Tuesday at noon? Yeah I’m just going to hijack your body for a few hours and waste your time. Sound good?’”

Tasha laughed, smiling at him. "It'd certainly be welcome. Perhaps a cursive invite on my office desk, written very officially so it doesn't present like a waste of time. Maybe it'd even give me time to request leave!"

“Maybe we could even consider it a free vacation!” James quipped back with a smile. “Here’s a free break from your normal lives. Will it be equally as chaotic and equally, if not more, problematic? Likely so! But at least we fulfilled our carnal desires to control people’s lives and you didn’t die - yet!” He let out a short laugh, and shook his head.

“At the very least, if any good came out of this, I’m glad I got to see Maahes again. And you. It’s been a while.”

"I agree," she said, looking him over through her mask. "You're of a good sort. Of all the people I could get thrown into a mysterious masquerade, you'd be at the top of my list." She looked out towards the dance floor somewhat wistfully. Had it been quieter, she might've asked him to go out on it with her, but with things as they were - with the danger, noise, and chaos - she didn't really want to go out there. He probably didn't,
either.

I scoffed lightly. "You speak as though I haven't changed at all." I protested, more transparently than I had meant to.

I was aware that this sort of defensiveness, however lighthearted, only invited further teasing, but in all honesty, I sort of liked the feeling of familiarity and normalcy that the idea promised.

As long as Engel refrained from going into too much detail about the events in question. If he began to speak of them in anything more than the briefest detail, I would die before I let him finish.

James smiled and fell back into the comfortable silence between them two, and briefly followed her gaze out into the crowd on the dancefloor. His eyes returned back to her.

He wished she wasn't wearing a mask. It would make it so much easier to gauge how she was feeling if he could see her face, and more visibly read her eye. His gaze lingered on the done-up curls of her hair before an idea came to him, and he compelled himself to act on it before he could give it much thought.

"Would you like to dance?" he asked, taking a small step forward and extending a hand for her to take, if she wanted to do so.

"It's a little crowded and loud," he admitted. "But it might be..." he paused, suddenly finding himself losing all words. He swallowed and dropped his gaze to the floor. "Nice," he finally said in a poor attempt to recover his sentence.

Tasha looked up at him, somewhat surprised, but not about to say no. Across the room, Thana jabbed her elbow into Evron's side and gestured as their leader took James' hand and smiled at him.

"It'd be quite nice indeed," she said, following him out to the dancefloor.



"Well, I do hope the fear of bears have improved. You got a bit taller, too. Oh, and you didn't drink so much as a kid," Kratzer answered with a chuckle.

James found himself smiling back, and he could feel warmth rising to his cheeks that he tried to ignore. After a small bow of his head, he led her onto the dancefloor with a graceful stride.

As they weaved their way between people and found a spot amongst them to face each other, the music from the band had stopped, and they'd started a new song that seemed to directly pair itself with his slow realization that he was nervous, and not sure why. The music beautifully and dramatically swelled up until the point that they stopped, providing a pause, as if, waiting for them to take the first step.

That only made his heart beat more erratically, but he took in a deep breath. With a carefully maintained outward air of confidence, he gave her a small grin and a bow. He didn't know if it was traditional in her world to do so, but he was falling back onto to what he knew. When he straightened up he slipped his hand into hers again and put his other behind her back. As he met her eyes, the violin led the band as it swelled back into the flow of music, and he led into dance, taking the first step.

She returned the bow before stepping forward, resting her hand in his and putting her left on his shoulder, offsetting herself. Felicia's words rang through her mind in a hopeless jumble: stand up straight, arm high, chin up, look towards your partner, move with the music, if you're following, follow, no backseat driving!

Oh stars above, this was hopeless. What in the world had she just done to herself?

She moved her foot with his. Where he lead, she followed, first in the slow waltz with simple quarter- and half-turns and box-steps and into the more complex promenades and spins.

The nervousness, the anxiety, the tension melted away as they moved across the dancefloor in tandem. Somehow, it all came so naturally, working in step with him. And as her muscle memory kicked in and she found herself terrified no longer she looked up to meet his eyes. She wished that there wasn't a mask. That there wasn't the crowd, or the magic, and that it was just the two of them. There. Dancing.

But it really didn't matter, did it? Because it was still James and they were still hand-in-hand. A part of her never wanted it to end while the other began to slowly give in to the fact that maybe - just maybe - what she felt for him wasn't entirely unwelcome.