When in Harmonia
By: Amber Michelle
Written for Spring Kink. There are a few minor OCs to make the story move more smoothly, plus a ton details about Harmonia that I made up for the same purpose. The prompt asked for a fancy dress date in Harmonia, so this is set roughly around the beginning of the game, or maybe a little before.
...
"Truly, Lady Sarah, you do not find it intimidating-- not at all?" The girl's name had already slipped her mind - Adelaide, Adele, it started with an 'A' for alliteration with the family name, her mother widely known for silly ideas regarding children and naming. Crystal light glittered behind her, a low-hanging chandelier, the gleam caught in a halo Harmonian blond flyaways. Strings tuned in the background, viola, violin. "What is he hiding?"
Every mouth echoed that question when Sarah mingled with their Harmonian allies - what could Luc be hiding behind that terrible mask, what scars, what shame of birth, or-- was it a deformation, a cutting of the nose, to signal some sort of crime and its resulting punishment? "Nothing," she said, watching the blue glitter of her hostess's eyes above the lace arch of a fan. A similar instrument weighed in a hidden pocket between the folds of her skirt, useless and heavier than it should be, the tines made of real silver to keep up appearances. "He did not consult me in the matter, but I suspect he wanted to avoid bias on the part of the other bishops and take the ranking on his own merits."
Lady A's lips made a little 'o' behind her lacy ruffle fan. "So he is well connected!"
That rumor was also creeping about. Sarah wondered if the speculation running rampant might stumble upon the truth and ridicule the idea. "Silly," she said, making herself smile, feeling the strain in her cheeks. "What bishop isn't?"
Steinhopf's sonata in C picked up behind her with a long, strident opening note, not loud enough to drown Lady A's talk, but sufficient to function as a distraction. Sarah asked her who the violinist was, what ranking, what station, leading her away from thoughts of bishops and - surely - the eventual question of Luc's availability. The mask didn't drive them away, only made them balk like animals at the crack of a whip. She didn't see any women approach him while he stood at the head of the room with the resident bishop, which may have been Gabriev's influence as much as the brass gleam of the mask. Crystal lamps made the planes shine and the shadows deep. His sandy hair fell over the top, looking more gold than brown.
"So I've heard it said you're from the north, the far north, those ruins--"
That one wasn't even a lie. Sarah had the look of the north, according to others - too pale, hair colorless, eyes a strange blue lacking in the aqua tint popular among the breeders of the nobility. The girl's lip pulled in slightly when Sarah looked over again, trying to smile and not quite managing the expression. She'd smiled so much the last two days alone that her face was hurting. When Lady A finally left her alone to follow the beckoning hand of a suitor, her green dress slithering over the tiles and the cloying rose of her perfume drifting after, she felt she'd let herself out of a tiny, closed room. Even lit by white flames, the lamps and chandelier could not lighten the wood paneling enough to give a sense of space; the floor was dark also, polished wood so dark she believed the claim it was imported from the islands. How much must the room alone be worth? What a waste.
Staying close to the wall and slipping behind the long banquet table saved Sarah from more interference when she crossed the room to Luc. Platters shined silver, offering stuffed mushrooms, blocks of pate dyed by their spices deep red, brown, black, an odd pale green like new leaves, white breads and sour sliced on the diagonal, slices of magenta tuna and other fish arranged on beds of greens. She considered taking one and remembered Luc's voice warning her that to eat more than a few nibbles was inelegant - and it was true, the bodies surrounding the table were all men, those without escorts, two of whom glanced at her for more than a few seconds. Refuse all of them, he'd also said, before they entered the ballroom. It isn't strictly polite, but it'll cause less talk than stepping on too many toes.
She'd tried. She'd tried to learn, even asked Albert to teach her dance steps, but when they kept sending her on reconnaissance--
We'll dance together, he said - if they danced at all. Sarah's stomach fluttered when she reached his side and she swallowed, folded her gloved hands over her middle. She'd liked their silky texture when she put them on. Now they felt clammy and sweaty and twisted around her wrists.
"I thought she might keep you the whole time." Luc's voice came out flat, though it might have been the mask. Her gaze found Lady A and her male friend near the double doors. He towered over the girl, almost as tall as Albert. "Never thought I'd be grateful to a Hecht."
Sarah covered a laugh, made it a cough. Bishop Gabriev didn't bother to hide his chuckle. "They're insufferable to a man-- when you have the misfortune to be related to them."
Luc's response was drowned by a swell of music. She sidestepped a little closer, enough he took her hand when he turned his head to look at her and asked if she was well, tucking it on his sleeve at the elbow. It was just hot - not even that, uncomfortably warm was more like it, a closeness of the air that made her think of the isle and the way summer would sometimes lay itself over the rocks and ruins and shimmer, making the task of sweeping steps and benches unbearable. They ignored the commotion at the door - that will be Helen, the other bishop said, making her appearance - and when Gabriev deserted them to play escort for his wife, Sarah said, "It feels like we've been here for hours. People are still arriving?"
It sounded like Luc snorted. "We've been here about half an hour, and these parties always stretch-- not that it matters anyway. We'll leave before midnight."
Midnight. Sarah swallowed, her throat dry. They'd arrived at seven, which meant it was seven thirty. "I think you were worried about nothing," she said instead of sighing. Her first party, and it would have to be in Harmonia. "No one has asked me to dance. And all that girl wanted to know was about your mask - like usual."
"It's the lady's birthday. No one was going to interrupt her." He pulled his arm closer, her hand caught against the side of his coat: Harmonian blue, deep and vivid and fake. "You're pretty, and nicely dressed, and associated with a high-ranking military official. They'll ask, so just remember what I said."
Sarah looked at him. She looked at the other guests, the other women in their jewel-colored silks and velvets, trimmed with lace of all colors, some silver or gold, or borders of tiny pearls harvested off the southern coast by slaves who knew how to hold their breath underwater for longer than she'd thought possible. Her own gloves were already showing hints of gray on the palms and fingertips when she looked down, curled her free hand to her side.
Pretty?
Balls and fancy dates were all she dreamed about as a child, because she'd seen them from afar; from the high windows of boarding houses in the Temple complex, sometimes between railings when she was taken by some priest or other to supplement their private research. Beautiful people with blond hair would crowd the hallways, the drawing rooms, in vivid reds and greens, brown, richest black, their heeled shoes tapping, their colors reflected in the marble tiles or polished woods of the floors. Talk would keep the house up all night, many voices together in the same room. Sarah would have fit in if she'd wandered down, for she looked Harmonian - she was Harmonian, even if they liked to forget.
Now they looked at her, and saw only the worth of her dress - plainly trimmed and decorated with pintucks and small ruffles, tiny, transparent glass beads, but dyed a purple almost red, a pigment worth more than a regiment of Harmonian troops and their armor, weapons, runes and equipment. Their lives didn't mean much, of course.
Sarah didn't really notice when Gabriev and his wife made their entrance and cleared the dance floor, thinking back to what Luc said. Pretty. He'd never told her that before. The times he'd commented on her wardrobe could be counted on one hand, and almost all of them involved some kind of disapproval - irritation that she'd ripped a sleeve, criticism of her hemming or mending. Once, he took the time to let her display a blue dress he'd purchased for-- something, some practical reason, but she didn't remember what. He didn't even say he liked it, only that he was glad it fit.
Now he led her to the floor while the strains of the last song echoed from the high ceiling, and her cheeks heated under the eyes of the other guests when they started their dance: a slow waltz, and her legs trembled at the first turn, and the next. Luc's lead was as sure-footed as Albert's, and Sarah wondered if he'd coached both of them - or if dancing was one of those obscure, useless skills Luc said he learned when Leknaat exiled him with the Tablets of Promise. She was flushed and cold at the same time, his hands on her waist making her want to jump whenever they moved and returned, her fingers too tight on his shoulder and creasing the fabric. Her legs steadied, but only because the tingle at the back of her neck made her forget about them, made her want to shrug, and she couldn't.
Etiquette required one more dance from them when Lady Adele - she was right - took the floor with her escort, and then Luc led Sarah back to their spot by the candelabra with his arm curled around her waist to pull her away whenever someone paused to speak to her. New rumors sprang up behind their eyes. Sarah could almost see them take shape.
When in Harmonia, Albert had said to her, you must act as if you belong. He told her to think back to her own impressions of visitors to the island she grew up on with Luc - how those individuals differed from her, how she knew, how she felt. These people will smell an intruder at a hundred paces.
In some ways it was unfair; Sarah belonged here every bit as much as these men and women. She even looked the part.
Rather than pausing on the dais where they'd waited before, Luc half-led, half-pushed Sarah toward a pair of glass doors on the west side of the room, where cool air made the runic lights and candles feel dimmer. Jasmine tangled around the door frame on the outside, lent its sweet perfume to the night. Others were out in the garden too - pairs half-hidden behind statuary or tall box hedging, three young girls in virgin white, sitting on a bench beneath a cherry tree with a porcelain lantern and strings of silvery rope to play cat's cradle. Luc's hand on her back hesitated, so Sarah took the lead, chose a short, squat marble bench near the doors so they would hear their names if someone called for Luc's attention.
A full moon peered over the rooftop, just visible when she sat down. Stars spangled a navy sky, unremarkable, faded behind the glare of House Amaranth's lighting. That other bishop would be the star of the evening; he was the birthday girl's uncle, or second cousin or somesuch, the sort of relation no one below the nobility ever cared about. Sarah knew the basic genealogies, and that was enough to get by in casual conversation. For instance: she claimed relation to the Dee family of the north, a clan destitute and unlikely to have representatives in the capitol to contest her claim - but they were old, respected by reflex, for Harmonians knew better than to sneer at the ancient families, the ones that went back to the Revolution.
Dee and Mercade were old friends. Neither family liked Dowaine, but it didn't matter, because they'd married their daughters off to each other for a hundred years before the branch houses decided they were important too, and declared themselves: Hecht, Renalt, Ledt, Rosenweit. See-- she knew her history.
"Albert said he would be here," Luc said. His mask was cooled by the moonlight, but the shadows couldn't gentle it.
Sarah folded her hands in her lap and watched them sink into the puff of her petticoats. "Maybe he's busy using his persuasive skills on someone." She picked a piece of lint from a purple ruffle and flicked it onto the flagstone walk. Everything was blue in the night, even her dress. "Someone's wife or daughter, probably."
The hmm that echoed from behind the mask flattened, the tone like nails on slate. "I know you don't like him--"
"I've seen him work, Master-- lord bishop." She tried not to sound snippy. It wasn't entirely fair - Albert used tactics that worked, and sometimes he decided being dissolute was more effective than being honest. "If you don't want to talk to him about Vinay del Zexay, fine, but he seems to take pleasure in flinging the rest of us into awkward situations."
"I did talk to him." A rustle; in her peripheral vision, she saw him remove his white gloves. "He has been instructed in the ways he may utilize your talents - and the ways he may not."
Sarah decided not to look over. Her velvet slippers peeked out from beneath her skirt, red crescents that showed a bit of skin-colored stocking. White and gray flagstones made an irregular pattern, curving back to the door, away to the tree and the hedges, and other pairs of doors open to the ballroom, to corridors where servants waited to fetch coats or lead guests to rooms in which they might rest.
It would be so nice to lie down and sleep through the rest of the party. They had rooms in the west wing where they'd been invited to stay the night, and then Gabriev's troops would march to Caleria, Sarah with them.
"Sarah."
She was stubborn; instead of letting go of an insult, she brooded over the thing and held grudges - you take after your teacher - it's almost comedy. Wasn't he cheeky, their Silverberg. "L-- my lord?" Sarah turned on the bench, gathered handfuls of skirt to refold over her knees and keep her ankles covered. Every time she looked at his mask it reminded her of something different: ancient gods frozen in stone, broken sculptures on pedestals in Sindarin shrines, masks excavated when she was a child, faces frozen in grimaces and inhuman grins, lips poised to blow the wind into motion.
"You've done well until now." The moon didn't reach Luc's eyes, didn't illuminate any skin behind the slits. He reached for her hair, gloves clutched in his other hand, and did something, tucked a strand away or straightened her combs. It pulled on her scalp. "I can't think of a time you've disappointed me, but..."
Windows overlooked the courtyard garden. Even if the space were to empty, eyes would watch their every move. Sarah's fingers curled when she let her gaze abstract and rest on the string holding his disguise in place, so she looked down at her skirt and felt him finger the garnet dangle of her earring, tips slightly rough on her earlobe. Her garnets clicked together, swinging upon release, and she felt the tickle of the sound all the way down her spine. "For as long as I can remember, you've told me to do a chore well, if I decide to accept it." She licked her lips, felt them crack. Was drinking an acceptable pastime for a Harmonian woman? "There's no need for praise. After all, I'm only doing my job."
Luc took her hands, both of them, leaving his gloves a white smear on his lap. "I'm sorry."
Did her voice waver? Was she tearing up? Was he sorry for leaving Leknaat so abruptly, for returning to Harmonia, for asking her to wear their uniform and play politics with their over-privileged officers, for reminding her she could have been one of them - or perhaps he was referring to the void at the end of the tunnel, in which they would both be dead, though he remembered a different plan, one that would leave her behind--
"Do you want to leave early?"
"Yes." Sarah didn't know she'd spoken aloud until he started to get up, a hand to her shoulder. She pulled him back down by the sleeve and said quickly, "No, we don't have to, it's just--"
"It's all right, Sarah." Luc covered her mouth with his fingers for a moment, three quick seconds, before drawing away. "I'm new to these functions too. It's not very interesting, is it?"
She shook her head, the ends of her hair tickling her chin as they swayed. "It is my first party," she said, slanting her gaze back to the flagstones. Her slip could be passed off as a case of nerves. It was true. "That's all. I'll get used to it - just, all the people here, that girl..."
Whether he believed her or not was impossible to discern. Luc let go of her and stood up, gloves in one fist. "I'll find something for you to drink. We can stay out of the way, and they'll forget about us."
Sarah watched him disappear past the jasmine arch over the doors. Childhood dreams always came to her twisted, shadows of what she used to want: fancy dresses, invitations to prestigious parties. Luc, taking her hand, touching her lips, telling her they would be together forever, or at least unto death. Maybe he would kiss her with his pale lips before they died with his rune, and she would know their warmth. Maybe they would lose, never even get that far, and the kiss of death would come with the tang of blood, hers or his, probably both. But they would be together - she'd made sure of that. Together forever.
Luc returned with a fluted glass of pale pink punch, a white rose wrapped around the stem to brush her fingers with silky softness, and Sarah tried not to let him see how badly she wanted to cry.