Time was a blur, they could barely count the minutes before their injuries were healed. Entoma was ecstatic, not just because Bertra had come across the empire to cheer for her, but for someone to take the time to make sure someone was there. "That really was… I can't thank you enough." Entoma said, and Inta, for his part, looked away from them for a moment. The sea of people had begun to melt away, the vendors were packing up, the smell of living things, cooked meat, and so many other things still filled the air.
But for the vampire's bright crimson eyes, the true interest was the people. His sharp ears caught new friendships being formed, and existing ones enjoyed with gusto as they chatted over the display he and Entoma had put on.
Some were walking off, some were flirting, the crowd was fading but all were caught up in their own little worlds beneath the endless sky that hovered over campus grounds. An orc chatted with a human and an elf, while they traded introductions, before ultimately deciding to collectively get a drink, and then walk off together.
"It was nothing, really." He said while watching it all unfold. "Before the war, when my sister and I lived in hiding, it felt all the time like it was she and I against the whole damn world. It was hard not to be angry and unhappy like that." Inta opened his mouth, hesitated, and then changed whatever he was going to say, and said instead, "Nobody should have to feel like the whole world is against them, especially if it isn't."
"Well, it was a wonderful gesture, and I'm grateful. So why don't we go to my home for drinks and something to eat." Entoma suggested, glancing from one to the other.
"Marvelous idea." Bertra accepted immediately.
"I couldn't agree more." Inta chimed in and turned back to them with a big fangy grin on his face.
And that was where they were within the hour, breezing through Entoma's door and finding the orc butler steadily working on a runecrafted stewpot. Steam rose from within while he stirred with a wooden spoon. "Welcome back, ma'am." He said with a polite bow when his lady entered. "Did the exhibition go well?"
"Absolutely!" Entoma exclaimed while she strode across the floor to sit at the table.
Her companions joined her around it, the sound of wooden legs dragging over wood was the only one for a moment until they were seated. "Manaly, drinks for all of us, and make sure you prepare enough for my friends… wait…" She looked over to Inta, "Do you eat regular food?"
"Yes, I don't really get a benefit from it, but I can enjoy the taste." Inta said and licked his lips. "And from the smell of that, I believe I'll enjoy it quite a bit."
"I wasn't expecting company, my Lady, so please understand it will take time to prepare extra." The orc butler said from across the room.
"Of course." Entoma said, and the trio fell to idle chatter.
Inta told bad jokes that were laughed at, not because they were funny, but because they were bad.
"...So then he says, 'but he sure is hard headed'!" Inta laughed at his own joke and when the women were done laughing, he said, "See, I told you the undead could be funny."
"Oh that's not why we're laughing." Entoma said, "It's because it was just that bad."
Bertra brushed a hand against her golden hair, "I'm afraid my dear friend here is correct," she smiled teasingly and said, "you're even worse at telling jokes than the Pope, if that's even possible."
They winced collectively at the notoriously poor joke telling ability of the faith's founder. "That's mean even by my standards, and I'm a maneater." Entoma chuckled.
"Maybe just a wee bit." Bertra held her fingers close together so that the pads of them were almost touching but not quite. "But still."
"Alright, fine, so you tell one." Inta said and held up his glass for Manaly to refill it.
"...so then she said, 'the monkey is 'not' scratching an itch'." Bertra's face fairly glowed, she looked back and forth to the other two, who after they got it, burst out laughing in turn just as Manaly approached and laid down several bubbling hot stone bowls.
"I normally prefer my food raw but…" Entoma shrugged, "Nobody minds if I remove my mask?" It was an impulsive question and one she hadn't even realized she'd asked until it was said. More importantly, the question was really only meant for one.
'I've never bared my face to him, never shown him what I really look like beneath it… what if he thinks I'm a hideous monster… What if he thinks my many eyes are disgusting? What if he flinches or shrinks back…?' Anxiety filled her to the point where her hand had to grip the side of the bowl to keep from shaking.
'What if he leaves and doesn't come back? What if he thinks the way I eat is no better than a dog wolfing down offals?' Entoma asked herself, and saw Bertra's understanding little smile.
Like the elf could read her face even through the mask, Entoma could see into her friend's mind. 'Whatever you do, I'm here.'
All that took mere seconds before Inta, oblivious to her anxiety while he held his glass up to Manaly and said, "You may as well just leave the bottle." Then saying to Entoma, "Of course, do as you see fit, it's your home."
Manaly set down the bottle on the middle of the table, then walked away while Entoma put her hands up to the sides of her mask, "I don't show my face to very many. Outside of my home, and the ones who nearly killed me, only Bertra here has ever seen my real face."
That seemed to reach Inta on some level, and his playful smile melted away and became serious. "Entoma, you don't have to if you don't want to. It's fine. We're friends." He said and took another sip of wine. The rich red liquid flowed over his tongue and down into his stomach. "You do what you want, if you're not comfortable, wait until you are."
For a moment Entoma removed her hands, but only to turn her head to look at him, "You know what I am, are you sure?"
Inta shrugged his shoulders. "It's not really for me to be sure, it's for you to be. I like you, of course, and we have fun. I don't see why that would change if you showed what's behind the mask." In an impulsive moment, he reached out and touched the smooth bug mask that concealed Entoma. It was, predictably, hard to the touch. But smoother than any silk.
Entoma froze, while Bertra suddenly choked on her wine and coughed several times, pounding on her chest with her fist until she could breathe properly again.
It went on for several seconds, long ones that felt like minutes, before Inta realized what he'd done and drew his hand back away. "Ah, sorry… I wasn't thinking."
"It's- y-yes, it's fine." Entoma stammered and then like someone taking off a band-aid quickly to minimize the pain, she flung her hands back up to the sides of her mask and yanked it off.
'Whatever happens from here,' she thought while the inner appendages that clung to the inside of the bug mask unfolded around her face, 'happens, and I'll be fine.' She thought of Harold, the little golem that could never judge her, never criticize her, never disobey her, said whatever she wanted him to say, and for that momentary span, she longed for him.
And yet she didn't. 'He was certainty, he was control, and he wasn't real.' Entoma reminded herself of the little broken thing that tumbled from the high tree to shatter on the stone below. The uncertainty, the fear, the throbbing inside her chest as she exposed herself a second time to a total unknown outcome that she couldn't undo or go back from. It was pulse-racing in the worst way, but behind it lay a spark, a flame that roared to life like a brush fire through dry summer grass.
So, driven by this need, this urgent desire to take the only chance she could, she took it off. It was gone, but not away, the appendages of her face were visible, but the bug mask was still held in front of the rest of her. Part of her still clung to that invisibility that the mask granted her.
From behind it she said, "Sometimes I wondered if my creator thought that I was ugly, and that's why he gave me a mask. Is that why I'm hidden? I love my mask as I was designed to, but I never know what part of me it is that loves it. Just some random element of my creation added for nothing? Or was it to protect me from what happens when it comes off?"
She snorted, "I guess I'll find out." Entoma said in response to her own rhetorical question, and then set the mask flat on the table.