Artemis Fowl II navigated his way through the sea of people, adamantly refusing to meet anyone's eye. His logical side insisted that everyone in the immediate area was far too wrapped up in their own little fantasy worlds to notice what had just happened, however, the devil on his shoulder, as he so often does, whispered cuttingly into his ear that everyone had seen and that they were all judging him for it.
Careful to not step on anyone's toes, Artemis made the final stretch out of the crowd to an area filled with predominately empty tables. He chanced a glance up and quickly scanned the grand room he was in, searching. Almost immediately, his eyes met up with an occupant of a table at the edge of the room. The occupant, a boy about Artemis' own age, was brown-eyed, sandy-haired, and pale in complexion, to the point where he rivaled even Artemis' own vampiric shade, was eyeing him with sympathy. And not the kind of sympathy that offered comforting after the death of a loved one. This was a harsher type of sympathy that seemed to say, 'Wow. That went so badly that I don't even think I can make fun of you morally. Yet.' Well thank God for small favours.
When Artemis reached the table, the boy's expression hadn't waivered. Artemis gave an indiscernible sigh and collapsed into the chair beside the boy, who immediately clapped his hand on Artemis' shoulder; silently promising that years from now, they'd be able to laugh it off. Artemis tilted his head and opened his mouth to say something, but paused, as, for the first time in the longest while, a witty, sarcastic comment didn't just roll its way off of his tongue.
'How in the world had it come to this?'