AN: Happy Holidays! And Happy Festivas! (Festivas is for the Restofus). Ahh me and my terrible puns. I don't know how you guys tolerate me. 3 Now I've FINALLY updated and I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Before you ask: YES it does have a purpose.
And that will be reveal in good time. Thanks!
Disclaimer: I don't own Pandora Hearts.
Vincent Nightray read over the letter with a small satisfied smile lingering over his lips. Slowly his tongue ran over the edged of the envelope, sealing it with a slow insincere grin. In sure time he would hold in his palm everything that he worked for.
All because of human nature.
"Break? Break!" Oz's voice rang sharply into Break's thoughts. The Hatter turned his eye upon the young man in supposed disinterest.
"Were you even listening to a thing I said Break?" Oz sighed with mild indignation at Break's lack of interest.
"Not at all Oz." He flippantly drew another sugar cube to his lips as he resumed his former pose of staring off into the distance.
Shaking his head slowly, Oz continued on,
"There is to be a Masquerade at the Nightray Manor. He says it's to stimulate an interpersonal encounter for some diplomats." Oz snorted, not believing for a second that was Vincent's true intentions.
Reim took of his glasses, cleaning them with a handkerchief.
"Nevertheless we all received invitations and must attend as delegations of our dukedoms." His eyes fixed upon Break, pointingly telling him that he was not allowed to wriggle out of this formality. Break drew back, his hand holding Emily to the ceiling gazing upon the doll in a sense of wonder.
"Fine, I'll be there."
The hatter slipped a mask over his face, it was everything that he was.
A mask, forever doomed to hide and keep hiding everything that plagued him. It was a bit of a relief, for one night he could be among strangers. He could be a stranger to everyone, as well as himself. There was the everlasting question was it for their benefit or his own?
Break's hands quickly and efficiently tied the bow around his neck. He saw himself in the mirror with little inclination. He was just going through the motions. In a minute misstep the ribbon fluttered from his fingers, Break stooped to catch the falling trial of satin. That was until he saw the small card that he had missed.
There was nothing in the words of the invitation that inspired him, but instead the familiar yet unnamable scent that filled the room caught his attention. Break clutched the tiny invitation to himself drawing in deep breaths, as he reached through memories to try to find the source of the scent.
Somehow he still couldn't place it.
It would be hours later when that same scent tickled Break's nose, drawing him to the center of the dancers.
Through the shinning fabrics that flew across the floor in step with the beat of the music he caught a whiff of that scent. It set him aflame in a way that he couldn't explain. Break was heedless of his duties as a representative of the Reinsworth household. It was a siren's call that he could not resist.
Then their eyes met. One would say that it was that old black magic, eyes meeting across a crowded room.
But it wasn't so. There was no magic in their world. It was reality true and pure followed by the curse of an ending.
Their reality.
There was nothing that could make Break divert his piecing stare. No responsibility, no morals, no laws could have dragged
It was a moment of pure disbelief.
The magic was broken when she turned her head sharply away from the white hair man. Sharon closed her eyes, her delicate hands grasping at her throat. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. She didn't know how to look at him without the choking memories of her former self possessed her with the frenzy that Sharon hadn't felt for so long. It was something that she could never imagine. The chain within her snarled bitterly; angered by the sheer power of Sharon's emotions. For some reason they all came rushing back.
Everything that she had wanted to gain back, for one second all was right with the world.
For one dizzying second.
She glanced at him once more, her eyes filling with all of warmth that she hadn't felt for so long. She walked towards him, involuntarily. It was as though she was being lead by a magnetic attraction. An inexplicable pull that she felt. A feeling of fulfillment that surged throughout her body.
Break turned; his one eye caught the gentle glow that were barely contained within her own. Even behind the mask Break knew for that moment exactly who she was. He felt himself fixated upon the graceful form as she approached him.
"Sharon ojou-sama." He breathed out those words, whispered through dry lips.
Uttered by a man so hungry for what he saw to be true. A man so desperate for this moment to last forever.
Slowly Break held out a hand, his smile trembled with his every heart beat as he stepped closer. For that moment her delicate fingers slipped into the glove of his hand. He didn't notice for those few minutes that her hand was as cold as ice. He didn't see that the young woman that he used to know had come to stand apart from him on the other side of the lines of battle.
And in return she only saw his eye, the one eye that was fixed upon her. Somehow she had healed him. She did not know how she knew but she knew that he could see. He could see her face, the vivid colors that surrounded them on the dance floor.
For one night only they could dance with each other, with wild abandon. Their lives thrown to the wind, where two people can just be together.
"Break," She whispered, a shaky laugh coming from her body. "I never did teach you how to dance did I?"
He chuckled slightly, a small laugh of mirth. Nevertheless it was something. She was alive and it was something that he could believe in. For the first time since that day, Xerxes Break had laughed.
"Really ojou-sama, did you think that I did nothing while you were away?" He stepped to the smooth strains of the violin, the music alive in their every step as they sailed across the marble floors. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer to his own body, as if he wanted to be sure that she was there. He wanted more than anything to hold her and make belief that he could hold her forever and never let go.
She rested her cheek against the soft fabric of his clothing, the light scent of his masculinity filling her with the calm.
This was a Masquerade. Where two strangers could dance with one another, no matter who they are or who they used to be, it was all hidden behind the masks. And for those few moments they wouldn't have to face each other nor the bitter bifurcation that had separated them past a point of no return.
Of course there always would be an end. One could never live in a paradise forever.
The beautiful pull of the bow stilled and the violin stopped singing. The spell was broken.
Reality came rushing back as they stepped away from each other. their eyes met in mutual longing. She pulled away, her heels clicking upon the glassy floors. Never once did she look back. Sharon simply couldn't let herself look back and see the forlorn spark of hope in his eyes.
The misery that she had caused, the selfish manner in which she indulged her own emotions. In the end she only hurt him more in the long run.
So Sharon ran and kept running.
She wouldn't glance back. She had chosen her path the only way to help them now was to stand and protect them from behind enemy lines.
This was the life that she had chosen and there was no going back.
For minutes afterward Break would stand there, his hand held aloft as he reached for the woman that had been there only seconds ago. As the new song began, his hands dropped to his side. He glanced on with a longing, a thirst that could only be quenched by one person.
In his hand he held the only evidence that Sharon Reinsworth had been there that night. He cradled in his hand a single blue rosebud, tied with a shinning lock of golden hair.
He ran his thumb over the lock of hair, unwinding it from the blue rose, tucking the pieces of her hair into his breast pocket. His hand lingered for a second too long over his heart. Over where he had placed his only hope that his ojou-sama was still alive.
There was that ever present voice, telling him he was insane. That he drew conclusions from longing and delirium. But Xerxes knew better, he knew the sweet child-like scent that belonged to his ojou-sama. There were no persuasion that could even crack his resolution.
Slowly his turned his gaze upon the blue rose in his hand.
Blue roses only grew in one part of Pandora.
AN: Please, Please tell me if I made any spelling errors. I'm practically seeing double right now as I haven'y slept in... weeks.
When you don't sleep you usually also can't recognize which days is which. Thanks for reading and remember to review! (please with a cherry on top?)
(You know you want to review! I even wrote fluff! ...kinda.)
