Event | Masquerade Ball

[redlightgreenlight]

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...

Comments

[oceantier]

Unfortunately simply the voice where it was unexpected was startling -- and although she was more at ease with Keelai than before, anything unexpected had the effect of a sudden volt of electricity. Blue eyes, wide behind their mask, whisked to him immediately, flashing over his figure like a bird startled and determining if she needed to fly.

It was just a moment, though -- a brief disconnect from time and place. She tugged herself back into the moment . . . back into the fact that he had not made any gestures towards her, that his tone was calm, that people she knew were not yet so far away. The brief panic slipped away.

"I-I'm sorry?" It was a question that asked him to repeat. To explain.

[denyamenti]

"Being so..." Slim fingers flicked out, indicating the dance floor, the mingling people. "Like that. They make it look effortless, right? Just having fun without a care in the world."

[oceantier]

Her gaze slipped back to the room to follow the motion of his hand, then back to him, taking him in anew.

"Yes."

Even now, if she were to reach out, she expected her fingertips to brush glass, the barrier solid and intangible. Perhaps she was incapable of moving through it.

Perhaps she was still afraid to find out.

Her arms came up to wrap around herself -- an old position, unconscious and not easily broken. She lost herself again in the lights and the figures for a long moment -- in the light glittering off a costume, in the shadows behind masks.

"I'm not sure . . . if I can believe that yet." The words were very soft. "When you're watching, it always looks very easy."

[denyamenti]

"Spoken like someone who's done a lot of watching," Bakura replied, and he knew that feeling.

Although he didn't know her situation, and likely the circumstances were very different, as a thief he'd spent a good deal of time observing people from a distance. Sometimes it was for finding the best means with which to steal from them -- routines, habits, possible abnormalities -- and other times it was about finding weaknesses in people to use against them. Who they cared for. What could they be bought for. What intimidated them the most.

And sometimes, he just watched people because he was used to being unwelcome in their company. Before Keeliai, he'd rarely had meaningful interaction with people where he wasn't either pretending to be Ryou, or being an opponent in one way or another.

That had changed, he acknowledged, in his time here. But that didn't mean he didn't still fall back into the habit.

"Well, you're already here. Might as well go the little extra bit."

[oceantier]

She looked back at him again, quiet in her consideration. "What will you do?"

After all, he wasn't exactly venturing out himself . . . and something in his tone and earlier words whispered of his own unease.

No one could observe how carefree and effortless others seemed, after all, without knowing a lack of it in themselves.

[denyamenti]

"It's an evening about masks," he answered. "Sometimes you end up putting on more than one at a time, that's all."

He'd mingle and talk with others, particularly when Pepper was around since she was the reason he was here and he did owe her for the costume and its thoughtfulness, but it was hard for him to be relaxed in a setting like this.

[oceantier]

The image of a small boy's face rose in her mind, bright-eyed and absolutely earnest. Only genuine, incapable of being anything else.

She couldn't say why she thought of him then. Only that in light of that face, this stranger's words seemed inexplicably sad. Yet . . . somehow she suspected she understood them. Had understood them. Once.

She wasn't sure what she believed now.

Any words she could think to offer him felt trite in her mouth. Meaningless.

Finally, softly: "Thank you."

[denyamenti]

The thanks was unexpected; Bakura didn't think he'd done anything particularly worthy of appreciation. Still, it was nice to hear, perhaps because of its unexpectedness.

"Yeah," he answered. "Well, sometimes it helps, knowing someone else gets it. I take it you don't spend so much time around others here?"

After all, he was out about the city fairly regularly, and he didn't recall ever seeing her in casual passing-- and she did somewhat stick out.

[oceantier]

His question took her a little off guard -- but more because of the stripping truth of it. "I don't . . . live here."

Coming to the city remained a labor of wings and rooftops, and the city itself remained something she knew far better from above and afar than from the streets below.

[denyamenti]

The thief made an amused noise. "Be glad you weren't here when we had soul lanterns instead of soul gems," he answered. "You couldn't be away from your house for more than a few days at a time."

[oceantier]

Couldn't be away. Couldn't get away.

Her eyes widen slightly beneath her mask, and for the breadth of a moment, it's as though she isn't there at all. For a moment, if he's observant enough, she's not breathing.

Then her chest quivers, and suddenly she's there again, present, suddenly disoriented. One foot moves back, poised and tentative on the earth. The soul gem at her wrist dangles into the air as her hand shifts, deep and virulent blue.

Suddenly everything seems too loud.

"I-I see." The words are distracted as she works to pull her thoughts back to her.

[denyamenti]

It's impossible not to notice that reaction; Bakura glances around, but he can't see anything that would have caused it. "What is it?"