tushanshu_logs | Event | Masquerade Ball

Event | Masquerade Ball

Characters: All
Date: The Evening of October 30th
Location: The Courtyard of Public Opinion
Situation: Valdis and 'Rue' have put together an All Hallows Eve Masquerade Ball.
Warnings/Rating: None

The day has finally arrived and the morning and afternoon are spent putting together what will be the scene of the Masquerade Ball at the Courtyard of Public Opinion. Kedan can be seen coming and going, carrying in decorations and lights and later on, various foods and desserts. Valdis, and Rue can occasionally be glimpsed directing people and moving things around, but anyone not a part of the setup will be ushered on and discouraged from lingering.

As night falls, the Courtyard will be brightly lit and ready for guests...

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"Oh, I am," said Solomon lightly. He couldn't see the wince, but the way Ravel's shoulders tensed under his hand was impossible to miss. "It's so amazingly ironic. I leave the Temple, and discover depths of our magic of which they only dream."

Ravel was composed, Solomon would give him that. Not that Solomon expected otherwise; Dead Man, and all.

"Don't fret your pretty head too much," he added with self-deprecating amusement. "It's much more limited than it sounds. I can tell who you are and I can see that you have scars, which frankly sums up half the Foreigners in Keeliai. I can't tell where those scars came from and I can't tell anything you want or intend to do. Your deep, dark secrets are safe from me, Rue."

Whatever the other deep dark secrets might be, to make Skulduggery treat Ravel with cool indifference or irritation; much as he had Solomon for decades. Not that some of those scars were much of a secret, but one did not discuss those matters with a man as tense as Ravel currently was.

Either way, it ought to be a clear enough statement for Ravel to know Solomon wouldn't destroy Rue's cover. Too much fun to be had, there. Solomon wondered if China knew.

Rue. Wreath was still calling him Rue.

And was he actually trying to be reassuring? This night was just moving right along from one surprise to the next, wasn't it? Ravel focused for a time on keeping up the steps of the dance, not faltering in the image he was projecting to the rest of the party as he thought things over. Aside from the learned distrust he'd held for Wreath for over a hundred years, there was no actual reason to believe that Solomon was lying about any of this. But he wasn't going to expose Rue's identity, either.

So what now?

Now the song and the dance were winding down around them, and maybe now was a good time to spring the little surprise he'd planned for Raine and Solomon. There certainly wouldn't be a better time, he thought--not with the look Raine had shot him before he'd stolen Wreath for the dance.

Still clinging to Wreath as Rue was wont to do, Ravel glided back across the dancefloor to where Raine was waiting and then attempted to catch her arm up with his free arm, hooking them both, one on each side.

"Come along, darling. This way."

Raine had mostly lingered near the outskirts and the refreshment table, attempting not to give this interlude any more weight than it justly deserved. She was not, however, watching the dance floor. At Solomon and Rue's approach, she half-turned, cuing more off Solomon's presence than Rue's, and was more than a little surprised when Rue caught her arm as well. "I-- what?" she managed, blinking and bemused, but she didn't stumble beyond the first step.

"Where are we going?" she prompted in a moment, wits about her now. She was cooperating mostly because Solomon himself seemed unconcerned and would have warned her if something untoward was in the offing, not of any great fondness for Rue.

Ravel was obvious thinking things over, but Solomon was still mildly surprised when his only reaction was to keep dancing, and then when the song had finished to lead Solomon quite courteously off the dance-floor. Well, courteous according to Rue, at any rate.

Solomon smiled sunnily in Raine's direction, or as best as he could manage given that they were on either side of Ravel. He was far more relaxed than he had been before, and even during their three-way conversation over the handset. "It's okay," he said cheerfully. "Rue and I have come to an understanding. He's quite the convincing fellow, once you get to know him."

He had to admit, though, he was curious as to what Ravel was planning.

An understanding. Rue laughed brightly, a nod to the conclusions one could quite easily draw from that kind of statement. Inside, Erskine was sighing a little if only for Raine's sake. It had been fun at first, but it was infinitely more amusing to poke fun at Solomon than it was at Raine. At least none of it was real. And maybe this would make up for it.

Without a word of explanation, Rue all but strutted across the party with his two captives in tow on either side. Just off the side of the refreshments area there was a little corner of courtyard that had been roped off. It wasn't easy to see from the main part of the masquerade, or even from the refreshments table. Only if you knew to look for it.

A table for two sat in the corner, complete with pretty tablecloth, candles, flowers, and fairy lights suspended above. A nice dinner, just a cut above the fare served at the party, and a bottle of good wine waited for them.

Rue detached himself from the two of them and gently nudged them forward.

"For the lovers~"

"Oh," said Raine, taken off-guard, when Rue's intent became apparent. She hadn't known what to expect, but if forced to guess, she would not have been anywhere near this. "This is-- this is lovely. Why...?"

It didn't make sense, said the suspicion following immediately on the heels of the startled delight. She herself barely knew Rue, and judging by their conversations beforehand, Solomon and Rue weren't on the best of terms. And this most recent 'understanding' could hardly have generated this; Rue would have had to prepare this beforehand. Nor could it have been Valdis' handiwork.

In other words, Rue had done something kind for the couple specifically, rather than one of them separately, and Raine couldn't see why he was at all interested in their relationship.

She stopped herself from frowning dubiously at Rue, and instead took Solomon's arm, since they had both been set adrift. "Thank you," she said, polite, "but I have to wonder why you went to the trouble to set up a-- a date for us."

Solomon indulgently allowed himself to be pulled along, though he had no idea what Ravel had planned. By the time they stopped he still had no idea, though he tilted his head and took a deep breath, and his eyebrows shot up behind his faceless mask as he smelled wine and flowers.

Raine's words as she took his arm confirmed that there was something laid out there, and Solomon stretched out a hand to feel the shadows of the table and the chairs.

"Why, Rue," he said with a degree of bemusement he didn't bother to hide--call it recompense for the surprise he sprang on Ravel earlier. "You've depths I never imagined."

Rue shrugged slightly, then dipped into a deep, flourishing bow.

"Consider it recompense for stealing Solomon away from you, my dear," he replied, addressing Raine first. He should have known Raine would be suspicious, though he wasn't terribly concerned about it either way. There wasn't actually an ulterior motive to discover, even should she try.

To Solomon he nodded, tilting his head a little in lieu of a grin they wouldn't see behind the mask anyway. "Tip of the iceberg, dearest," he crooned. "Merely the tip of the iceberg. Now if you both will excuse me, I have a masquerade to help run. Please enjoy yourselves."

With another little flourish, Rue pivoted on one foot and strode away.

Raine still eyed him with some little suspicion, but she inclined her head. "Thank you," she said again, and managed a smile for him, and watched him go.

"He really has gone to some trouble," she added, for Solomon's ears, when Rue had departed. "There's-- fairy lights, I believe they're called? From the decor to the food, it's... above and beyond, really." This was now more thinking aloud than informing for Solomon's benefit, and even as Raine moved toward the table she looked up and over, at Solomon, trying to discern if he knew something that would give some reason for this. The half-mask hid much of his expression, but even so it did not take a genius to be sure she'd missed some vital point.

"What did you two talk about?"

"I can smell it," Solomon assured her, stretching out a hand to feel the table's shadows. He found a chair and pulled it out for Raine. "Master Healer Sage."

Then he found his own, skirting the table with his fingers running along its edge. "Oh, a few things," he said breezily. "Talents, gifts, the depths of my genius. We bantered, that's all. Wine?"

He reached out for it, knowing full well that one thing he would never quite master was the art of spilling everything he was pouring, and that Raine's obligation to help with distract her long enough for the food to distract her more completely.

Raine had long since given up the disagreement about that particular title, and so she only sat, absently crossing her ankles to one side. "That's all," Raine repeated, skeptical, but as Solomon had predicted she was distracted by the issue of pouring the wine. His shadows and his ka could compensate for many things, but not everything. "Yes, wine would be lovely."

She knew Solomon well enough to guess, a few minutes later when she had been nearly thoroughly distracted by first wine then food, that he was redirecting, but if he was so determined, she likely wouldn't get it from him, and it didn't seem a bad thing, in any case.

Raine was more than content to settle down, and enjoy the date. The matter of Saracen Rue could be dealt with later.

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Event | Masquerade Ball

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