AN: Here we are. This was in response to the Tumblr prompt of Michandrea at a masquerade ball.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Andrea smiled to herself. She was being stalked, just like prey. And what could be more fitting? As she was spending the night as feathered fowl, so she should be stalked.
The masquerade ball was a charity fundraiser. Everyone who was anyone in the surrounding two counties was there.
Doctors, lawyers, politicians. It was a charity event, but it was also a social event.
Andrea was there because her law firm had bought into it. Tickets all around. Everyone had one, whether they were going to use it or not. She probably wouldn't have used it, because she didn't really care for this crowd, but she did enjoy the chance to dress up and go out.
And a masquerade ball was exciting because, even though a short conversation with someone might reveal who they were, there was an element of mystery to everyone as they walked around with at least half of their faces covered.
Andrea was in love with her dress. She'd ordered it from a shop because they didn't have what she wanted, even with the large selection that they got in because they anticipated the great need the ball would create. One of the sisters who owned the shop was also a seamstress and she'd assured Andrea that she could, for the right price, fashion whatever she wanted, and she'd delivered. It was a floor length gown. It was strapless. The base of the dress was gold and the entire thing was decorated with the tail feathers of beautiful peacocks that had shed them when they no longer needed them—she'd questioned the woman carefully about where she'd acquired the treated feathers and she'd been assured that they were "voluntarily shed" by the birds and gathered up by a friend of the shop owner who raised the birds.
Her mask matched it too. Gold and adorned with pieces of the beautiful, colorful feathers.
It was extravagant. It was over the top. But it made Andrea feel beautiful and the mask made her feel mysterious—and sometimes you couldn't put a price on simply feeling your best.
She knew, too, that she'd turned more than a head or two since she'd come into the space. A few people had spoken with her, some she'd identified by sight, some by voice, and others remained unknown to her. She hadn't dawdled long, though, speaking to any of them.
None of them were, exactly, what she was looking for—and she hated to lead someone on needlessly.
She hadn't seen the tiger when she'd come into the door of the hall. Andrea wasn't sure how she'd missed her, exactly, since she was certainly worthy of attention, but she had missed her just the same. The tiger's dress was form fitting from top to bottom. It was a metallic gold and black dress, sleeved, but with the midsection missing on each side of her perfectly shaped, tight torso. Her mask was of the feline persuasion, to match the rest of her attire, but it covered enough of her face that Andrea couldn't identify her.
She didn't know if they'd ever met before, but Andrea liked to think she would remember this woman if she'd ever seen her.
The tiger had been "stalking" Andrea for at least an hour. At first, Andrea barely noticed, but as the night progressed? It was becoming more and more clear.
Andrea got a drink and walked toward the window lined wall to look out at the magnificent view of the city lit up at night. The tiger got a drink and walked to the same wall—but she stood a few windows down. The mask kept Andrea from watching her from the corner of her eye, but a stolen glance or two told her that the tiger was admiring the view—but it wasn't of the city.
Andrea sauntered slowly around the great room and looked at the paintings on the wall—all donated by one person or another—and the tiger stalked slowly behind her, always at least two paintings away, but she never seemed to have read a single gold-plated plaque declaring light information about the piece.
Later? When they were invited into the adjoining room to dance?
Andrea made her way into the space along with everyone else, but she hung tightly to a wall and smiled and thanked every masked man that asked her to dance. She didn't accept a dance for the first three songs, four maybe, and neither did the tiger who remained quiet and sullen and almost hidden in a corner where her metallic dress wouldn't reflect the glittering lights in the room.
But when Andrea, finally caught with the urge to show off her feathers, took the hand of one of the men who offered to sweep her around the floor? She wasn't caught up in the dizzying spin of the dance for too long before she noticed that the tiger—having snagged easily enough a willing partner—was dancing too. In a dance where the man was expected to lead, the tiger didn't give over her power to her partner. Instead, she led the dance and steered him so that, with every spin, Andrea was able to find her.
And when the fast-paced dance gave way to a slower, swaying style of dancing? Andrea noticed that her tiger stayed close and in sight. And she watched Andrea watching her over the shoulder of the man who thought that Andrea's interest was solely in him—at least for the moment.
When Andrea had all the dancing that she could take, and she stepped away to get herself a drink and cool down from the exertion and the heat of the feathered dress, she kept casting glances over her shoulder. She didn't know when her feline friend would come, but she expected that she would—always behind her, always at a distance, always afraid to get a little too close.
The tiger, it seemed, though quite bold in her own way was skittish as well.
Andrea knew that she was being stalked, but she doubted that her hunter realized that she was aware of the game that they were playing. She hung, some moments, near the punch bowl and tasted the fruity drink. She took it slow because, though nobody had said it, she could tell that the punch was spiked and she bet that it probably contained just as high of an alcohol content level as any of the champagne or wine that was available at the gathering. The punch hadn't been spiked by the caterers, after all. Its contents had come from the flask of someone there—some phantom or a well-meaning pirate, or perhaps even the tipsy parrot resting on one of the wooden chairs—and the liquor they carried wouldn't be cheap and it wouldn't be weak.
Finally, when her tiger appeared, her heels clacking louder than she probably would have liked on the hard floor, Andrea decided that she was going to speak.
What good was it to be stalked if the tiger never pounced?
Andrea made her way over to the tiger and the woman behind the mask seemed to spook slightly at the closing of the distance between them. She regarded Andrea with her mouth set in a firm frown—unbecoming of a woman or a beast.
Andrea smiled.
"I couldn't help but notice you—noticing me," Andrea said, keeping her voice low. She was still trying to figure out who the person behind the mask might be. She was trying to figure out if she knew her and, if she did, where she might know her from.
The woman regarded her. No—the woman examined her. Head to toe. It was quick, and Andrea wasn't supposed to notice it, but the woman gave her the full sweep. Andrea smiled again.
"Like what you see?" She asked.
No response.
Andrea smiled even more broadly at that.
"Cat got your tongue?" She teased.
Behind the mask, the woman's eyes were hidden almost entirely. It was set too far up, as ill-fitting as many of the masks there were, and it appeared that instead of eyes she had two dark holes to see from.
Still, Andrea's curiosity was piqued and she suspected that her boldness might have frightened the woman who had been stalking her all night. She renewed her smile.
"I'm going," Andrea said. "I'll be in the lobby for ten minutes."
She didn't say anything else. There was nothing else to say. Either she'd be followed, or she wouldn't. Andrea finished the small cup of punch that she'd been sipping, put it on the table for the person who would clear it away later, and turned. She said nothing else to anyone there because there was nothing to say and she let herself out of the grand room that they were in.
As she passed through the hall, she nodded at one or two people that she passed by. She no longer noticed them. She didn't try to see who they were beyond their disguises. She didn't hear the words that they tossed at her in passing. All she heard was the clicking of her own heels on the hard floor—and maybe she heard clicking behind her, at some distance.
But she didn't turn back to check. She waited, by the elevator, for the few moments that it took for it to arrive and she stepped on alone. The doors closed without allowing another soul into the tiny space and Andrea admired her own reflection in the mirrored walls and door backs to the elevator. When it touched down on the bottom floor, the doors opened to the lobby and Andrea stepped out, her heels clicking as loudly as they had upstairs—more loudly, even, because she was alone in the lobby.
She walked directly toward the windows that looked out toward the street. She leaned against one of the one window sills and looked out at the lights. Cars passed by of people who didn't know the ball was even taking place. At this hour there was no one coming. Everyone who would come had already arrived. And, at this hour, no one was leaving. It was too early to leave. The night, many would argue, had only just begun.
Andrea might argue the same thing, though she hoped that the night didn't end—at least for her—when she stepped through the grand doors and stopped to hail a cab for herself.
She didn't have a watch. The passing of ten minutes wouldn't be a precise science. She couldn't count the seconds and she didn't care to. She would stand there, until she felt she'd stood there long enough, and wait for the tiger.
And if she didn't come? It wouldn't matter. But Andrea had a feeling that she would come.
Andrea smiled to herself—saw her own smile reflected back to her in the glass of the window—when she heard the hollow clicking behind her.
Before the tiger reached her, Andrea turned around. She continued to wear the smile.
"I knew you'd come," she said.
"You didn't know anything," the tiger responded.
"You've been stalking me all night," Andrea said. "Hunting me."
"You're not hard to follow," the tiger said.
Now? Not cowering in corners or hiding herself among other party goers? The tiger was clearly a regal black woman. Andrea wondered if her costume suited her well.
"You're not easy to camouflage," Andrea said. "You draw too much attention."
"How do you know that's not what I wanted?" The tiger asked.
"The lion is the king of the jungle," Andrea teased.
"I'm no king," the tiger said. "Queen—maybe."
Andrea smiled.
"Michonne," the tiger said, extending a hand.
Andrea swallowed and decided to take a chance. If she regretted it, at least there would be no witnesses to her mortification in the empty lobby. She took the woman's hand, tipped her head a little, and pressed her lips gently to it.
The woman didn't snatch her hand away, and when Andrea lifted her face enough to see her through the mask once more, there was a hint of a smile on the lips that had shown nothing beyond a scowl before.
Andrea smiled at that—her smiles didn't cost as much as those of Michonne. They were free.
"Andrea," Andrea said, giving her own introduction.
She saw Michonne's throat bob with her effort to swallow.
"I know," she said, more softly than before. "I know a lot about you."
"And here I am," Andrea said, "knowing hardly anything about you."
Michonne glanced away a second, out the window and toward the passing traffic outside where nobody was even aware of a conversation had between a peacock and a tiger. Then she looked back at Andrea. Andrea still couldn't see her eyes, but she could feel her expectation. She could feel a good deal hanging in the air at the moment.
"Shall we—remedy that?" Andrea asked, referring back to the lack of knowledge on her part.
Michonne either understood what she meant or didn't care.
"What do you want to do?" Michonne asked.
"Well—that's up to you," Andrea said. "But—we could go? Get out of here?"
Michonne looked down, as if to say that they weren't dressed to go anywhere because of the attention that they would draw.
"Where did you have in mind?" Michonne asked.
Andrea smiled again.
"My roost?" She asked coyly.
And, with a slow nod of her head, the Michonne accepted. Andrea thought, though, that she'd never thought it would go any other way. Not since she'd started stalking her some time back. Her tiger, though not as bold as she might want to be, seemed to have known from the beginning that she would get her prey. And, at that moment, Andrea wouldn't have had it any other way.
So she gestured toward the large doors, and walked out with her new companion, into the dazzling lights of the city at night while the ball continued floors above them.
The night, after all, had only just begun.