The fingers in her mouth help her to relax.
Cinder still has her gloves on, but she's wiped the blood off of them before coming home so Ruby doesn't have to taste anything except dark heat lining the inside of her mouth. Ruby doesn't mind though; it wouldn't be the first time that she'd licked off the aftermath of a business deal gone wrong, and enjoyed every moment of it. Ruby can feel the outlines of Cinder's nails even with a barrier of kidskin between them, and she suckles on the black leather, gazes up at the older woman in search of approval.
Cinder doesn't even seem to care though, even though she has three fingers buried deep into the hollow of Ruby's cheeks. She tips the wine glass in her right hand to rest against the sharp, angling plane of her cheek, smiles distantly. She's had a good night - the painted grin stretching across her face is Cheshire-like in nature and only appears when she's terribly pleased.
When Cinder starts drifting, Ruby feels the need to bring her back down, next to her. She wants all of her attention, she needs the fingers digging into her bones, all of the hungry limbs and death on the tip of her tongue. She wants it all.
Ruby inches closer to Cinder's gloved knuckle, lets long fingers hook down into her palate, sink into the back of her throat, one at a time. Cinder glances down at Ruby as if noticing her for the first time, eyes brilliantine and gleeful in the firelight.
"Baby girl…" Cinder's voice is a knife at Ruby's throat, a tight pressure pulsating there and pressing closer to her veins. Ruby closes her eyes at the endearment, only opens them when Cinder passes her thumbs along her eyelids like ghosts, an unspoken command to watch carefully.
Cinder pulls her fingers out of Ruby's mouth, dripping in spit and slick, and strips off her gloves, tosses them onto the side of her chair. Ruby licks her lips and settles her jaw, feels it return to its normal state after having been slackened for so long. The crick in her neck is unnoticable - all she can think of Cinder - she's dying for Cinder to touch her, to lick her, to press her into the ground and keep her there.
"Mama…" Ruby's whisper is almost silent, an admission of her own pent up lust and need, and Cinder cradles Ruby's cheek in her jaw, feels the thin, unshattered frame of her pretty, doll-like face. Ruby's never known any real pain, the fire of a freshly broken nose or the split seam of a dagger parting skin like the god damned Red Sea. Cinder likes that, the fresh innocence of a petal waiting to be crushed.
When she'd picked Ruby up on the streets so many years ago, she'd been untouched, like a pretty flower trembling in the wet wind. And now, kneeling by Cinder's side wearing leather and rose gold and a five carat diamond at her throat, she still exudes nymphetic purity even after sucking on Cinder's hand like a two-bit whore.
Cinder purses her lips.
"What a good girl." Cinder's thumbnail drags across the soft flesh under Ruby's eye, forcing her to the point of shivers. "My good girl." Ruby nods, pressing her palms into the dark carpet of the study, arches her back so that she can lean into the warm touch that Cinder so willingly gives.
"Who owns you, Little Red?" Ruby shudders, stays silent. It's a daring move to not answer Cinder when she first asks, but she wants to hear Cinder press the words into her skin like a brand. Cinder's grip on Ruby's jaw tightens by a slight decibel.
"Who loves you so much that it hurts?" Ruby waits longer, and Cinder's hand on her cheek grows abrasive, the runes hidden along the wings of her ribcages sending heat flooding along her arms and into her fingers and into every single centimeter of skin that reaches Ruby. "Say it, baby doll."
"You - M-Mama. You love me like that." Ruby stutters out her words, and they shift and fall into the air like the totter of a broken high heel. Cinder smiles like she has all the gold in the world, falling between her fingertips, and cups Ruby's face with both of her hands.
"That's right, my love." Cinder slants a hot kiss across Ruby's willing, pliant mouth, consumes her with a fast, fluid tongue. She pulls back, takes delight in the shattered pupils of Ruby's full-moon eyes. "I love you so much, darling."
Cinder pauses.
"I'd die for you." Cinder brushes a curl from Ruby's ear, tucks it away with a careful hand like she's touching porcelain. "And you'd die for me. And we'll love each other forever and forever… Isn't that right? You and me, we'll rule hell together." Cinder sighs, strokes Ruby's face. "But for now, Vale will have to do."
Ruby sits up on her knees so that she can drape herself over the arm of Cinder's throne of velvet and red-wine silk. She kisses a path down Cinder's arm, stops at the divot of her elbow and gazes up at her.
"Anything for you, Mama."
Ruby had been living on the streets for a while when Cinder had found her. It wasn't any place for a pretty girl like her, not with the embroiling promise of gang wars that would tear apart Vale - if not Remnant - for good.
Fifteen years old, and all she had was a switchblade and two cents to her name, but when Cinder took her in, the world blossomed for her like it had been waiting for her all along.
That wasn't true though, and it never would be. The world only waited for those who had enough money and power to make it stand still for them, and Cinder was one of those lucky few.
Ruby was eighteen now, pretty as a doll, laced up in a sweetheart corset with Chantilly lace draped across her throat. Cinder's crest was tattooed on the back of her neck the day that she turned legal, an abstract heart deconstructed and inked at her nape. It was a brand that claimed her wholly.
Not much else was known about her. She hung around Cinder's cabaret sometimes, tucked into shadow with a bodyguard packing more pistol than punch watching from afar while she knelt at Cinder's feet, kissed a discreet path along the inside of the older woman's thigh. Rumour and speculation followed the young girl wherever she went, but only one thing about her was confirmed.
She belonged to Cinder.
"Dead, I presume?" Cinder asks cooly, regarding Junior with an even, measured gaze. Junior shifts in front of the mantle of her fireplace, smiles with his shark's teeth. He's a born killer, and Cinder likes him for that.
"All of them."
A slow smile spreads across Cinder with the ease of a river rippled by a breeze. Her fingernail grazes across her temple, palm resting under her jaw. It's an easy, comforted gesture, and in the warmth of her fire, Cinder feels content.
"Such a tragedy." Her tone is light, the slightest edge of pity hidden under the languorous silk of her voice. "The police will have a field day - an esteemed professor, his wife, child, and brother-in-law shot dead in their own homes. And they'll try and try to find out where the other little girl is, but they won't succeed, will they, Junior?"
Junior laughs, a brusque rumble deep seated in his gut.
"And two weeks later, like clockwork, a girl's body, charred to disfiguration shows up, and the entire Rose-Xiao-Long family is taken care of." Cinder nods approvingly.
"If I can't do something as simple as that, why the hell would you keep me around?" Junior adjusts the bright crimson his tie, preening. "C'mon, boss. You know that I've got some flaws, but failing to clean up a scene ain't one of 'em."
"That is true, Junior. Sleep well tonight, my friend; you've done a job that most men wouldn't have the courage to do." Junior bows at the waist, his formality not forgotten under the unexpected praise. Cinder pauses.
"And Junior, the girl is well?"
"Shaken up, thrown out into the streets, told to change her identity and stay away from home." Junior flashes his his teeth, a gruesome parody of a smile. "She's picture perfect."
Cinder laughs, bright, sharp as knives.
"Very good. In six months time, we will seek her out, and she will settle into our home. Tell me, is she a pretty thing?"
"She's strong. Stronger than any girl her age should be. And sure, she's pretty. Real weird eyes, though. Silver like... coins, or something." Junior shrugs. "I dunno your type, boss, so I can't say whether you'd like her or not."
"If she's strong, then she already has my interest. Goodnight, Junior." Cinder practically sings out her farewell and watches as Junior leaves the study and the smaller, leaner frame of her attendant replaces him in the doorway.
"Some champagne, if you would, Gabriel. Tonight calls for some celebration."
"Ruby, come zip me up!" Cinder's call rings past the walls of her boudoir, into the main bedroom, and Ruby glides into the private alcove, a finger hooked in the swatch of velvet at her throat. Cinder stands barely under six feet in front of her vanity, the silk of her evening gown stretched taut across her hipbones and twisting upwards towards her breasts.
"Do you have to leave me tonight?" Ruby asks, her voice hinting towards petulance. "The house is a bore without you." Cinder's laugh is abrupt and slight, interrupted by the lipstick bullet sliding across her mouth.
"Sweetheart, you know how I hate to leave you. But this is business. Just a bunch of fat old men mingling in a sweaty room. Wouldn't you much rather play here? God knows you have plenty of toys to entertain yourself with."
Ruby kneels to the floor, grasps the zipper before sliding the fabric higher and higher, closer and closer to the temple of Cinder's waist, the tattoo at the small of her back. She stops at her hips though, slips her hands across the garter belt at Cinder's hips and kisses her tailbone reverently.
"I know…" Cinder's gasp is audible in the small room when Ruby teases her teeth along the edge of the garter strap, pulls it along her incisor and releases it with a snap. "But I want to play with you."
Ruby keeps going, scattering a collection of lipstick marks along Cinder's skin, laces the curving lines of the woman's shoulder blades with a pale red stain. She presses a wet kiss to the side of Cinder's neck when the zipper finishes traveling its chosen path. Cinder keeps Ruby there, regards them both in the mirror. A fitting pair, she thinks dryly, Ruby, with all of her young and vivacious wiles, and herself, far more tame but deadly all the same.
"Won't you stay home?" Ruby whines, nuzzles into Cinder's shoulder and snuffles around like a small child. "Stay with me, and we can do all sorts of things together. Bad things." Ruby's eyes spark devilishly, tempting Cinder with the promise of a fruit far more juicy than a night surrounded by corporate big shots and negotiators.
Cinder pulls away to face Ruby. The girl had stripped down to her corset and high socks, and a bounty of her pale skin was on full view for Cinder, outlined and accented by black lace and wide, faceted jewels.
Cinder reaches out, cradles Ruby's hip and tugs her forward. Face to face, nose to nose, and Cinder's scent of hot nights and shimmering honeysuckle makes Ruby see double for the slightest moment.
Cinder grips her harder, crashes their hip bones closer together until Ruby moans out a whispering little cry of "Mama,". Cinder presses the motion, leans forward to lick the divot between Ruby's collarbones with the tip of her hot tongue.
"Tell me what you want, lovey." Cinder croons. "Tell me what you want me to do."
"W-Want you to stay home."
"No, no, no, you want more than that." Cinder drags her lips across Ruby's neck. "Tell Mama what you really want." Ruby's head lolls backwards, towards the sky and a moan tumbles out of her mouth, wanton and abandoned.
"Want you to stay here, lick me, bite me, take all of me - " Ruby's eyes collide with Cinder's and for a split second, there's a moment of full, bursting clarity. "And rip me apart."
Cinder hums, a slow rumbling purr falling from behind her teeth and into the shared space between her and Ruby. She gazes down at the younger girl through lashes so dark that they create their own shadow. When she shoves Ruby against her vanity, the girl scrambles, knocks lipsticks and powders onto the ground and tries to stifle the nervous, shrill giggle pitching into the air.
When Cinder looms above her, she advances like a panther, like a golden god. Ruby presses her back against the mirror behind her, splays her fingers along the lacquered table top in anticipation. Cinder slams her hand against the vanity, feels every nerve in Ruby's body freeze.
"Then convince me."
"The girl..."
Cinder pours out two fingers of whiskey into her beveled glass, indifference obvious in the languid dip of her hand and wrist.
"The girl, the girl, the girl. You better have good news, Junior, because today has been nothing short of disappointing. And if I have to hear about another death, I'll be distraught." Cinder turns and sips at her drink. "So spit it out. Is she dead?"
Junior twists his handkerchief between his thick hands and gulps.
"The opposite actually." Cinder's brow raises by a centimeter. "She's... surviving. An experienced thug wouldn't be able to tough two nights in her part of town, but she's alive and thriving."
Cinder knocks back her drink and frowns momentarily.
"I don't see the problem, Junior. Alive is more than what I expected from a small child like her. Thriving... Well, that's unbelievable."
"The more she settles in the streets, the more problems you're gonna have getting her into this house. She might get caught up with some bad figures, and next thing you know, she'll align with some gang on the streets, and we'll have to fight for her. And this - this is gonna take some time to get used to." Junior gestures towards the marble inlay buried in Cinder's north wall.
Cinder puckers her mouth slowly, a sour bud taking root in her mouth. The glass clicks against her side table, and she twists her golden signet ring against her pinky, a full revolution along the pale orbit of her hand.
"What refreshing insight, Junior. Then, move the plan up by a month. In three weeks time, you and I will be on a nightly stroll, when we will come upon a poor, darling little street urchin, trembling and scared, and we will take her in."
Junior flashes her a grin.
"Your will be done, boss. I'll tell the twins."
Cinder's laugh catches him by surprise. It's one of mirth and pure euphoria, only lasts for two seconds but manages to stay behind like the tail end of a whisper. She giggles again, claps her hands together in delight.
"I like that. How clever of you, Junior." She nods, more to herself than to her companion. "Yes, my will be done. I am a god, Junior. And my plans to conquer are coming along just fine."
The day is hot as sin.
It's almost unbearable, or at least it would be if Ruby wasn't in the largest swimming pool that Vale had to offer, right in Cinder's backyard. The waters are crystalline, glimmering like they're made of silk.
Ruby lingers by the edge of the deep end, with her arms on the scorching concrete, feet kicking in the water. She licks her teeth in concentration, paints her nails a shade of red so bright that it practically glows.
Cinder reclines on a pool chair, chainsmokes a few packs until everything is haze and heat and acetone wetness and a bottle of Dom Perignon uncorked and already half empty. It really does feel like hell, Ruby thinks dreamily as she finishes off her pinky and caps the bottle with a loosely closed palm.
Ruby watches Cinder from her place in the pool, the way that she shifts her long neck to take another drag, blows out the smoke with a smile so sly that it's like she's telling a secret so bad and dirty that she could bet a million bucks on it and still win.
She wants her right then and there, in the pool, where everything is so cold and watery and still so hot at the same time. It's like heaven and hell kissing, fucking in a last blaze of glory sort of thing.
"Mama," Ruby sings out, her voice dripping in milk and honey. Cinder looks up from her Scroll; the holographic projections are barely visible from the excess of the sunlight, but Ruby can still make out the vague outlines of the daily news anchor.
"Yes, baby doll?" The ashtray earns another companion and Ruby wants to suck the smoke from Cinder's lungs, eat the black from her God forsaken soul.
"Come play." Ruby bats her lashes, presses a freshly painted nail against the bow of her mouth and parts her lips. "I miss you."
Cinder sweeps her sunglasses up her head in one fluid motion, looks at Ruby with her cutting eyes, and casts aside her tablet. When she stands, the world narrows to Cinder, and nothing else.
She walks along the edge of the pool, makes her way over to Ruby and kneels slowly, until she's on all fours, in front of Ruby, close enough to touch.
"You miss your Mama?" Cinder whispers. Ruby looks up at her and nods; the curve of Cinder's shoulders gives her some shadow from the sun, and she can see Cinder, all of her, and realizes she's never wanted anyone or anything this much.
"C'mere, baby." Cinder leans down to kiss Ruby, and it's slow and seductive, all in the way that Cinder slides her hand across Ruby's arm, up towards the nape of her neck, down towards her waist, until she finds the string of Ruby's bathing suit and pulls.
Ruby squeals, tries to pull away before Cinder makes her stay put. The game's started all over again, and Cinder always wins.
"You gonna take off the bottoms too?" Ruby whispers, eyes challenging. Cinder chuckles, kisses down Ruby's cheek and along her jaw. She inches closer to the water, and finally slips in next to the girl.
The game is Cinder's specialty, but when she pins Ruby to the side of the pool, her leg pushing apart Ruby's with skin still hot from the sun, it still takes her by surprise, makes her feel like she's flying, like she's been given wings and allowed to fly.
"Do you want me to?" Cinder kisses Ruby again, rolls her tongue across Ruby's so fast that the younger girl arches her back jerkily. Cinder kisses down Ruby's chest, looks up at her until she's almost eye level with the water.
Ruby nods, bites her lip when Cinder watches her with sharp, shimmering eyes.
Ruby knows that Cinder will always win at their games. But when the older woman submerges her head underwater, and everything in Ruby's body becomes a live wire in terms of sensitivity, she knows she wouldn't have it any other way.
"You ready, boss?"
Cinder turns, finishes tucking the edges of her black silk scarf under her jawline with long, manicured fingernails. Her far more dramatic fashions had been abandoned for something more homely and matured.
A cape of heavy velvet drapes across Cinder's slight shoulders, falls around her waist in wide, pleated panels. The plum fabric gathers at her waist and flares outwards along her hips. The headscarf and gloves give her the airs of a benefactress, someone kindly and generous.
"As ready as I'll ever be, Junior." A glimpse of her own deep purple and ebony reflection flashes back at Cinder from the mirror in her study, and she sighs mournfully. "Lord have mercy, I look like I've stolen the outfit off of my sainted stepmother's corpse."
Junior furrows his brows.
"Yeah, but didn't you?"
Cinder smiles with half of her mouth, snaps the clasp of her pocketbook closed.
"A small joke. Forgive me, I suppose I've got the slightest hint of nerves." Junior clasps his hands in front of him and opens the door of Cinder's study. When she breezes past him, it's like he can almost hear all of her thoughts, tumbling and fumbling for control.
"Don't worry, Cinder. If she resists, there's nothing a little force can't fix." Junior's laugh dies off in a sputter and gasp, and Cinder's nails sink into the raw, meaty skin of his neck, all while she watches, cold, unperturbed.
"Let's make one thing clear right now, Junior." Cinder hisses, pulling Junior up on his shoes so that he can't fall limbless from her grasp. "The minute you touch that girl is the same minute that I take the pistol from my pocketbook and shoot you in a back alleyway of Vale. Do you understand me?"
The skin along Junior's face flushes an unnatural shade of red, and Cinder can see his consciousness slipping away like sand through her fingers.
"I asked you a question."
Junior nods his head, a miniscule movement that makes him wheeze out half of his lung span. Cinder releases him with a flick of her wrist, and Junior collapses onto his knees, trembling and gulping for air. It disgusts Cinder, the weakness of human willpower, the primal instinct to be subservient.
Cinder strides to the foyer, a marmoreal cavern of gold dusted accents and white chandeliers. She sets her eyes on the man, still trying to scramble up to his feet, and speaks, voice full of clarion coldness.
"Go bring the car around, Junior. You know I don't like to be kept be waiting."
"Where'd the brat go?"
"Hell if I know. She ran down this side street with my god damned watch!"
Ruby shivers in the dark corner of the alley, clutches the gold timepiece to her thudding heart in an attempt to soothe her nerves. It'd been a damn stupid idea to steal a watch from a thug, but she hadn't eaten in two nights, and she felt close to collapsing.
God knew that the pawn shop wouldn't take the watch from her; they'd call the cops, cart her off to jail and they'd find out who she was. She was supposed to be dead, she was, and she knew it. She should've died that night, she knows that she should've been shot too, but the men wouldn't do it - they just pushed her into the streets after burying bullets into her family.
The sound of the two men shuffling into the alley sends shivers down Ruby's spine, and she falls onto her side, pushes against the concrete of the wall next to her and tries to hide in the shadows. She can see the rough sole of a wide, cracked dress shoe from her spot on the ground, the edge of a thick coat, and tries to stop breathing so loud. The man moves on, and Ruby lets out a soft breath, barely above a whisper.
A hand grips the base of her neck, pulls her from the alley, up and into the dim street lamplight. There's no time to scream - no, it's all happening too soon - she feels like she's going to drown in her own lungs if the man doesn't let her go. He's got a savage glint in his eyes, something so twisted that Ruby doesn't want to look at him anymore.
"Well, look at what I found!" The man crows, hoists Ruby higher into the air like a ragdoll prize won at a fair. "A little thief." The other man sidles up next to his friend, reaches out to touch Ruby's cheek with a thick, grubby finger.
"A pretty little thief."
Ruby wishes for death, she really does, she wants to die before these men ruin her. "Please," She gasps out, swings her ankles in search for the ground near her feet. "Please don't do this."
The man leers at Ruby, twists his ragged upper lip until it nearly disappears to reveal a row of chipped yellow teeth.
"What do you say we take this little thief home and teach her a lesson?" The man doesn't have time to get his answer; he's cut off by a bullet sluicing through the side of his neck so fast that Ruby can't even register which direction it came from. She falls to the ground, scrambles away from the deadening body, tries to force down the bile crawling up her throat like warm, rancid insects.
The other man falls; the bullet doesn't have to come out the other side of his temple for Ruby to know that he's dead. She claps a hand to her mouth and tries to quiet the soft wheezing that wrenches her lungs useless. Black and white edge along her eyesight, encroach along the blurring figure approaching her from the end of the alley.
"Are you alright?"
The voice is soft, heavenly, and Ruby sinks into it. It's a woman, tucking a pistol back into her bag as if she hadn't just murdered two men mere seconds ago. Ruby shakes her head. The tears come unwillingly, but there's no explanation for anything that's happening around her that she can't help but break down and cry.
"Hush now, lovey." The woman stoops to Ruby's position on the ground and looks her in the eye. Her irises are stained the color of birds of paradise, like a mirage of dyed glass and fluid water coiling around a central black pupil. The woman is the first beautiful thing that Ruby has seen in five months. "You're all right now."
"What's your name?"
"R-Red."
"Your real one, darling."
Ruby doesn't know if she wasn't believable, or if this woman is deceptively good at reading people, but it makes her anxious nonetheless.
"Ruby. I'm Ruby."
She reaches out, takes one of Ruby's trembling hands in hers, and kisses it. Her lipstick leaves behind a mark, a picture perfect imprint of her full mouth against the canvas of Ruby's skin.
"Come home with me, Ruby. Let me take care of you." Ruby gazes up at her with wide, wavering eyes. The promise is too sweet to believe, and the idea of protection makes her undeniably apprehensive. But when the woman cups Ruby's cheek with her gloved hand and presses her lips together into a thin line and speaks to her again, she decides to go.
"Let me be your mama."
"When did you know that you loved me?" Ruby whispers into the still of the night. She still smells like chlorine after her swim in the pool, but with Cinder's arm wrapped around her waist and spreading kisses low onto her waist, she doesn't really mind.
Cinder hums into the bare flesh of her belly, spreads her hands along Ruby's hipbones and tugs her down the bed with a little jerk. Her eyes glow luminescent in the curtained dimness of the bedroom, two molten coronas fixed on the counterpart of Ruby's silver-moon irises.
"When I first met you." Cinder says softly, kisses the top of Ruby's hipbone. Ruby scrunches her nose up in confusion and passes a hand through her half-damp hair.
"What, you mean in that alleyway?"
Cinder's laugh comes unexpected, a low, rocky chuckle that crawls into Ruby's bones and climbs into her skeleton and bounces around all the hollow spaces in her heart. She closes her eyes, presses her hands on top of Cinder's so that she can hold her hips tighter.
"When I first met you, Ruby." When Cinder used her first name instead of any saccharine sweet endearments, she meant absolute business. "That's my answer, and you can take it or leave it."
Ruby huffs, a bit put off, but Cinder trails her fingers along the outside of her thigh with the patience of someone who knew that waiting brought the best fruits forward, knows that it won't take long for Ruby to come around again. Ruby turns her head towards her shoulder, feels her teeth chatter at the goosebumps that Cinder brought forward.
When the woman's mouth settles above the top of her navel and bites a blooming mark into Ruby's skin, she whimpers slightly, fists her fingers into Cinder's dark hair to encourage her on. Cinder's mouth maps a slow way down until Ruby squirms, impatient and unamused at the teasing that brought her closer and closer to the edge.
"Please…"
Ruby's plea is all it takes for Cinder to press two fingers into lush, slicked heat, and Ruby comes undone in a white-hot fit of pure, perfected paradise. She's not sure if she even made a noise through the whole thing; all she can hear is a buzzing of static in her ears that overwhelms and drowns out anything else in the world.
As she comes down from her high and everything still feels like flower petals around the edges, Ruby thinks that if Cinder is death, then she's wine laced in nightshade, and Ruby will drink her down again and again, just to taste her one last time.
Cinder lifts a flute of champagne, nods her thanks at an immaculately dressed waiter, and continues her leisurely sweep through the crowd. The night's gathering included a collection of eccentric scholars and university professors, all waxing poetic over the endless supply of alcohol.
Cinder didn't think herself much of a philosopher, but the sizable donations that she had made to her alma mater earned her an invitation to these events. The men and women were austere in appearance, clean cut and dressed in sharp angles and monochromatic hues, but their laughter was plentiful, filled the large hall with noise.
"Cinder!"
The woman turns at the call of her name, brow arched in consideration. It took a large amount of courage to approach her at an event, especially on a first-name basis. A lumbering figure emerges from a cluster of colleagues, and Cinder smiles halfly.
"Tai."
The larger man crushes her into a bear hug, his warm arms wrapped around the small of Cinder's back before releasing her with a joyous laugh. Cinder looks up at him and notes the beginnings of silver hairs lining his tanned temples. Other than the inevitable signs of age, Taiyang looked virile as ever, even with his broad shoulders crushed into a suit two sizes too small.
"I've been looking for you all night! Where've you been?" Cinder rolls her eyes, gestures towards him with her glass.
"It seems you haven't been looking hard enough, old friend. You and I both know that I have no other acquaintances to entertain here." Tai shakes his head, lets out a laugh like a thunder roll.
"Oh please, you've always been good at socializing."
Cinder hums, takes a miniscule sip from her glass and shrugs.
"Only if there's an endgame to it."
Tai laughs again, louder this time, claps his massive hand across the half-split seams of his waistcoat. Cinder joins him, hers floating in mezzo soprano harmony above his booming baritone.
"Has anyone told you that you look ravishing tonight?" Tai asks, the charm in his pale lavender eyes sparking instantly. Cinder scoffs and shakes her head.
"Flattery won't get you anywhere you already haven't been, Tai." She quips back at him. The compliment wasn't taken lightly however; words that affirmed her physical appearance did plenty to stroke the purring monster of her ego.
"Besides, I heard you got married again. I know better than to tamper with a Huntress's marriage - especially someone like Summer Rose." Tai's eyes gleam at the mention of his wife's name.
"She should be around here somewhere - oh, she's probably keeping track of our girls." All of Tai's pretense and social airs disappear in an instant. "I'll tell you something, Cinder. I don't think I've been happier in my entire life."
Cinder reaches out to pat Tai's hand.
"I'm happy for you, my friend. I truly am. Now go along and speak with your fans. I see those two over there are waiting for you to sign some books." Cinder juts her chin towards two women holding Tai's newest book in fluttering, flimsy hands. Tai glances back and gestures for them to wait a moment.
"Thank you, Cinder. I'll see you soon." He swoops down to steal a chaste kiss on the cheek, and Cinder accepts it mildly, and turns to loop around the hall another time. It isn't until she makes it halfway around the room that she finds a small little alcove, a little gypsy den of moon-stitched curtains and beads.
Two girls race down the hall, both in sensible kitten-heeled shoes yet running fast enough to stumble against each other.
"Yang!" The smaller one cries out, the name lost in the middle of a pant and a laugh. The older stops and turns. She's a real beauty, thick blonde hair arranged in an intricate plait across the tanned slope of her shoulder.
"C'mon, Ruby! I told Mom we'd meet her by the fountain in two minutes!" The one called Ruby leans against the wall and wipes at her eyes. She can't be older than fourteen, doe-limbed with long legs that she's yet to grow into. She's pale, with pearly pink cheeks and dark hair falling around her delicate jawline in stray, jagged strands.
The blonde takes off again and Ruby lets out an indignant shout of frustration. She makes to leave, and would've disappeared into the hustle of the crowd if Cinder doesn't move an inch to the right so that the girl bumps into her.
The moment they meet eyes, Cinder feels a curious tinge of déjà vu curl up in the tail of her spine and rise like the ocean current. The girl stares up at her, all long lashes and big eyes, mouth parted slightly.
"S-Sorry." She stammers and runs away, leaving Cinder alone in a narrow, dark hallway.
"How was your night, ma'am?" Cinder's driver asks when she slips into the car in her scarlet and golden glory. She considers the question for a moment and answers only when her full thought is formed.
"Most curious." The streets of Vale pass one by one outside Cinder's window, and she watches as the moon dissects each part of the suburbs and slums, sheds light on all of its transgressions and wrong doings. "I believe that I have something I want now. Something unusual."
Cinder's driver remains placid, just blinks thickly from underneath white brows.
"If it's something that you want, ma'am, then I believe that you'll do everything in your power till you get it." Cinder passes a hand through her hair and lets out a small laugh under her breath.
"Yes. Yes, I believe that too."