Bonus Content for One Night for the Heart. See my profile for more.
A/N Welcome to the Gala. I hope you enjoy. I hope the OCs are distinguishable. You probably won't see them again.
Games
Tal stood still as a statue as the long skirts of a pair of lady guests brushed past him on either side. They continued whispering—about wine, not something he needed to listen in on— apparently unaware of his temporary intrusion between them. He didn't bother following them.
Taking advantage of his short stature, he stepped fluidly through the crowded hall, agile in his ability to avoid bodies and elbows and feet, and came to a rest against a wooden pillar carved with a dragon twisting around it. A promising clique of young ladies stood in a circle nearby. He sidled to the other side, edging just a little closer to the girls, sliding behind the purple and green skirts of the closest one to duck beneath a table with a potted plant atop. Tilting his head, he listened in.
Just as he expected, they were speaking of His Majesty. His ears tingled with excitement as the closest one spoke.
"I still can't believe he had the gall to invite my family after how rude he was on our visit last year," the girl in purple and green said, pressing back against the pillar where Tal had just been.
"Perhaps he's grown up since then," said a girl in a gold dress embroidered with green filigree.
The other girls laughed. "Okay, Hitomi, so how did the king reject you that makes you so lenient on his character?" the girl in purple and green asked.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Terra," the girl—Hitomi, he thought—said. She stood on the other side of the circle from Terra, and he had a good view of her between her and the tall girl in scarlet. In colors matching her dress, Hitomi's hair was burnt gold and her eyes were a striking green. She had a face just prettier than average, but she met the eyes of the other girls with a sharp glance.
The next voice came from the other side of the girl in scarlet. "Yes, tell us your story with the king, Hitomi," a short red-head in maroon asked. "Your experience with him must not be that bad if you can speak positively of his character."
Tal's eyes focused again on the girl named Hitomi as her face went pale. "My story?" she said, blinking rapidly and raising her eyebrows.
He smirked, sensing she was hiding something, but the other girls didn't catch on.
"Yes, your story! How many times do we have to ask? He's snubbed us all before," the brunette in scarlet said. She was facing away from him, directly across from Hitomi, so Tal couldn't see her face, but something about the way her hair curled in long ringlets down her back seemed familiar to him. She was waving her fan at the five other ladies. "If you ask me, I think his advisors forced him to invite us all as a peace offering. So speak up. Tell us your story," she demanded.
The girls turned in unison to Hitomi, waiting for her to answer. "I don't have a story with the king," she said, and he noticed a little color coming to her cheeks as she gazed beyond the girls and the pillar towards the ballroom.
Tal narrowed his eyes, wondering what her supposedly non-existent story with the king was that made her blush as she watched for him on the dance floor.
"What?" The red-head shrieked. "How could you not?"
"I don't believe you," the brunette in scarlet said, tossing her silky ringlets over her shoulder. Tal watched them bounce and wished he was tall enough to tug on one. "Everyone here has been snubbed by the king. Nobody will marry him because nobody wants to put up with him. The only thing he's got going for him are his looks and his rank."
"Brigitte, don't be rude," said a plain-looking, black-haired girl. She was on the other side of the girl in maroon, close to Hitomi.
"Oh, boo, Cassia," the tall one, Brigitte, said with a tap of her fan. "It's true. He's a brute. And we all have a story." Before anyone could ask her to tell her own, she turned to tap her fan on the shoulder of the short red-head next to her. "Minnie, break the ice for Hitomi. Tell us how he rejected you. It's so entertaining."
"Oh! Oh!" the girl named Minnie bounced on her toes on the other side of Brigitte. Tal couldn't see her, but her maroon skirts rippled with her excited movements. "Two years ago, my father had invited him to our home on a visit to Ezguardia, and I took him for a walk in our gardens. I made a gift of a jeweled dragon lapel pin I'd bought and gave it to him. Guess what he said!"
"Thank you?'" Hitomi ventured to guess.
"No! Even better!" the girl said with a hop. "He gave it back and said," she lowered her voice, "'I suggest you give it to someone who actually cares about your gifts.'"
Four of the girls burst into fits of giggles. Cassia's eyebrows puckered, and Hitomi's hand crept up to grip around her own neck.
"Would you like to hear my story?" came the musical voice of a girl in blue. With a shiver, Tal shifted so he could see her where she stood between Hitomi and Terra. His eyes grazed over her features, memorizing them all over again. Jessina de Morak, from Asturia. She moved like a moon fish through water, and her hair and dress were as elegant as the features of her face.
"Oh yes, Jess, do tell!" Minnie said.
"My family was invited here last year for a festival dinner," she said in her musical voice. Tal found it impossible not to stare. "I had spent some time out in these wicked gardens and, thinking it was nothing but a pretty weed, had plucked a flower and pinned it onto my gown." She demonstrated with a fluid movement of her hands where the flower had been pinned, and Tal cursed his poor view that he couldn't admire the placement. "Of course King Fanel noticed it when we danced," she said with an evocative shimmy of her shoulders he just barely caught from this angle. "Unfortunately, the king is a man who actually cares about what grows in his garden." Her voice turned grave and articulate. "His face darkened and he asked me why I thought it was acceptable to steal one of the roses his great-grandmother had planted."
A few of the girls in the circle gasped.
"No! He actually accused you of stealing?" Minnie asked, her sharp voice breaking the spell Jessina had woven. Tal blinked, his eyes coming back into focus.
"Indeed he did," she said with a nod.
Tal thought he heard Hitomi mutter something, but he was too busy nodding along with Jessina to listen.
"And he had the nerve to invite you to this?" Terra asked with a scoff.
Jessina posed with a hand towards the refreshment room. "We only came to spend his money," she said, her voice conspiratorial, her lips a lovely, pointed smirk. "Besides, Fanelian pastries are delectable." She paused, turning towards the girl in gold and green. "So, Hitomi," she said, "now it's your turn. Tell us about your experience with him."
Tal tore his eyes away to watch Hitomi, whose hand still gripped her neck. She pulled it away and stood taller. "I haven't actually been introduced to King Van."
Something about the way her lips formed his name caught his attention. He quirked his head and examined her. Why had she used his familiar name?
Hitomi's cheeks turned pink as she corrected herself. "King Fanel. This is my first time formally meeting King Fanel."
Tal narrowed his eyes. What did she mean by that? He hoped the girls would ask, but if any of them picked up on her word usage, they didn't let on. Weren't these girls supposed to be educated on body language?
"Are you serious? This is your first time meeting him? You must be the only one here," Terra said, turning her head to take in the people scattered down the long, wide hallway, her gaudy skirts swishing loudly against Tal's face. He didn't hear Hitomi's response, but he caught the next question.
"How did you get invited, then?" Brigitte said, sounding upset. "I heard a rumor that everyone here is someone he's met before and they were getting a second chance with him."
"Oh, is that why you came?" Hitomi asked her with raised eyebrows.
Brigitte snorted and shrugged. "I'm not interested, but he is a king. It's not going to hurt to put my best foot forward."
"So will you be dancing with him?" Terra asked Brigitte.
"No," she said shortly. "I'm scheduled to attend the afternoon musical performance with him tomorrow."
"Oh, yes, it's the same for me, too," said Terra.
Tal snickered as he caught Brigitte's profile glaring at Terra.
Minnie said, "I'm scheduled to dine with him for breakfast tomorrow. What about you Jess?"
Jessina cleared her throat with a musical little hum. "Yes, I'll dine with him tomorrow night. I'm so looking forward to it," she added with a trace of sarcasm. "What about you, Hitomi?"
"We haven't heard from Cassia," Hitomi said, turning to the darker, shorter girl next to her.
Cassia looked around wide-eyed. "Oh, um, I already danced with him."
"You did?" Brigitte exclaimed. "When?"
"The third dance," Cassia said, her cheeks turning red as the other girls muttered their disbelief. She looked up at Hitomi, "What about you, Hitomi? When are you being introduced to King Fanel?"
Hitomi swallowed. "I've been assigned to the eighth dance," she said, and Tal, not at all picky about where a woman blushed, noticed Hitomi's décolletage turning red.
"Oh, how exciting. That's only two dances away! Just think, we get to see Hitomi's story unfold before our eyes!" Brigitte said with genuine glee. Tal had no doubt she would enjoy watching His Majesty break someone's heart.
"Unless she's lucky," Cassia interjected, looking up at Hitomi encouragingly. "Maybe you'll impress him."
Brigitte laughed and Terra said, "I doubt that. Who has that power? The man is a wall of ice."
Jess spoke up with her musical voice, "When you put it that way, Terra, you make it sound like there's someone who could melt him, but I don't think that's possible." The girls had shifted and now Tal had the pleasure of watching Jessina de Morak draw her hand to her beautiful breast as she shook her beautiful pale hair and added, "If I don't have that effect, I doubt anyone else will."
Tal bit his nails to keep from mimicking the movement of her head.
"Maybe you're just not the right person," he barely heard Cassia say.
"So do you think you are, Cassia?" Brigitte said condescendingly, the hand on her hip blocking Tal's view of the girl in question.
"Terra, tell your story. Let's help Miss Hitomi by giving her all the information we can," Minnie said.
"I'd rather not," said the girl in the gaudy gown. "Suffice to say that he treated my whole family unfairly and left us with quite the sour taste in our mouth."
"Well, you're no fun," Minnie said with a pout to her voice.
"Do you know what you'll talk about when you dance?" Terra asked Hitomi.
"I haven't thought about it," she said, clearing her throat. "What do you talk about with a king?" Hitomi asked with a tight sounding voice.
Sniffing, Tal had to give her credit for trying to lie. She wasn't good at it.
"Oh, I tried to ask him about himself, but his answers were so short that I knew even less than before," Terra said.
"Did he ever ask you questions?" Hitomi asked.
"No," Terra said curtly.
"He didn't ask me any either," Jessina added.
"Well you don't count. You stole a sacred rose from his exalted garden. That's probably unforgivable in his eyes," Brigitte said, reaching across the circle to tap Jessina with her fan.
"So if there's no give and take of questions, then what do you talk about?" Hitomi asked.
"You don't know this, then, Hitomi!" Brigitte exclaimed, and she flipped her fan open before her face. Tal could just see the floral detail painted on its fabric. "Our game during the days of the gala is to see who can make him blush the hardest."
"What?"
"Of course," Brigitte said.
"So the game," Jess took over dramatically, "is to see who can break that stony façade of his handsome face."
"By flirting?" Hitomi asked, and to her credit, her eyebrows pinched in a dubious expression. Tal got the sense that she knew it was a bad idea.
"Oh, it's more than that, you sweet sheltered child," Brigitte said with a wave of her open fan in Hitomi's direction. "Our goal is to embarrass him."
Tal didn't miss the contempt that briefly twisted Hitomi's lips.
Terra spoke up with a little excitement. "My mother and I tried that last time. I made stuff up and told him what I would do to him if we were alone. It got the funniest blush from him and his mouth turned so severe. He did not smile," Terra said, shaking her head in mock gravity.
"Is that perhaps why he treated your family—?" Hitomi began, but Brigitte interrupted her.
"Oh, yes," Brigitte said as she raised her fan in front of her face. "I padded up my breasts extra and loosened my earring. When it fell into my cleavage during our dance, I fished it out right before his eyes. You should have seen his face!"
Tal wanted to snort but stopped himself. That's why she was familiar. Every one of the king's council knew that story. Brigitte had not only done what she'd said, she asked the king, who stood shorter than she did, to look for the earring himself, promising that if he retrieved it for her, he could have it and her virginity. The King had escorted her off the dance floor and left her without explanation.
Hitomi gawked at the girls. "You do these things to a king?" she asked. "You debase yourself like that just to make him uncomfortable? Just for entertainment?"
"Not all of us, of course," Jess said with a musical sigh and a wave of her gloved hand. "I suffered in silence after he accused me of stealing."
"We actually had a civil conversation about energist mining today," Cassia offered, looking up with an encouraging smile at Hitomi.
"How delightful," Brigitte sneered.
"But the rest of you?" Hitomi asked, looking around the circle.
"Listen, Hitomi, we get nothing out of dancing with him and being rejected. If we get a little entertainment from it, what does that hurt?" Brigitte said, leveling her fan at Hitomi from across the circle.
"I thought you wanted to put your best foot forward. Your jokes are at his expense," Hitomi said, her eyes flashing.
"So what? He's a king. He's got enough and to spare," Terra said.
"And at the cost of your own dignity," Hitomi added accusingly.
Jess made a sweet sound that almost could be a scoff, "Think about how rude he was to me. He accused me of stealing," she said with emphasis.
"You picked a flower without permission from the royal gardens. That is stealing," Hitomi said. "You demonstrated to him that you have no respect for his property."
Tal wished he could see Jessina's face. She was probably very fetching when she was offended.
"What about his rejection of my gift?" Minnie was asking with a ripple of skirts.
"He was being honest. Him being forthright and him being rude are two different things," Hitomi said, looking at each of the girls as if she couldn't believe they had to be told the difference.
Tal's lips lifted into a smile.
"Oh just wait until he insults you," Jessina said, and Tal winced at the way her voice cut across the circle. "Perhaps then you won't find his rudeness so endearing."
"I never found him rude, I just think he's rather boring," Cassia inserted soberly.
"Oh gods help me," Brigitte said with a toss of her hands. "You know what? I hope you enjoy your marriage to him, Cassia."
That time Tal choked on his laugh with a spluttering cough. The six girls in the circle all turned towards the sound, but, blessing his short stature and the end of the music from the ballroom, he could duck back into the shadows and out of earshot without being seen.
By the time he crawled back into the unseeing crowd, the group of girls had split up, but he had heard all he needed to report from them. Across the room, Hitomi was walking away towards the waiting area. Tal was searching for a way to follow her when he noticed a very alluring pair of twins hanging on the arm of General Balgus. One was dressed in gold and the other in silver, and they were leaning to whisper so provocatively into the general's ear that Tal couldn't resist. He slunk behind the curtains and headed towards them.
A/N Did you figure out who Tal was supposed to be? He's actually one of my favorite characters, and I just used a short version of his latin name here. You'll see him again.
I tried not to make all the girls terrible. Did I succeed?
Is there anyone who wants a detailed meeting of Van & Hitomi? I don't have one planned, but... maybe.
So I made the gala a multi-day event where there are balls and performances and dinners. I imagine poor Van was tortured to attend these with small groups of ladies. The dance might be the only time they get alone with him. Perhaps there's a second ball the second night? Obviously, he didn't dance every dance with the single ladies; he obliged others (and gave himself a break from the pressure) by dancing with dowagers or wives. But the single girls he danced with might have a better chance with him. Does that mean Cassia was on the nice list? Definitely. I loved writing Cassia. You'll see mention of her again in another scene I have drafted.
xo-CE
