Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.
SERIOUSLY.
Chapter 9
When Epstein and Cartesia brought her to him, Athrun knew that the chances of relinquishing his feelings were next to nothing.
It was all he could do to stop his jaw from becoming dislocated for his dignity and the carpet's sake. So he maintained a cool, impersonal glance as he lifted an eyebrow and appraised her.
Laplacia was standing on a small stool, trying to minimise the height difference so as to help him with his dressing. His left cufflink was already done, and she was trying to secure the right one. But he ignored her, taking his wrist away.
Distracted, Laplacia turned to the people who had entered.
His little aide made the exclamation he had suppressed, and then hopped off the stool. He watched her run towards her sister and Epstein as they led Cagalli in.
She stood before him, and the three aides left, sensing that they were not needed.
He finished doing his cufflinks with some effort that he did not show outwardly, and then returned his eyes to Cagalli. If anything, the effect was that of impersonal disinterest, and it riled her.
She lifted her head proudly and glared at him, her posture rather mannish and incongruent when juxtaposed with her gown. She had folded her arms over her chest, the jet, long-gloved hands tight, her fingers tapping against her elbows uncomfortably.
Her stance ruined the effect of her elegant champagne and gold-coloured dress somewhat. She was comely and desirable, but she had brought on her artillery of a dark scowl, crossed arms, squared shoulders and similar male defences.
Nevertheless, he congratulated himself on choosing the gold dress rather than the maroon. While the dress she wore was quite a bit flashier than the maroon one, really, that was the whole point of it all.
The material had the consistency of silk but the texture of something far more decadent. Like a second skin, it accentuated her hips and chest more than Cagalli wanted to admit or appreciate. This was obvious from her defensive posture.
But it didn't matter- he would do enough admitting and appreciating for both of them.
He took a step nearer, a bit like a circling wolf.
He could detect the hint of musk on her neck and wondered if his knees were giving way.
Of course, he'd asked for Epstein to arrange for the evening, giving specific orders the maids must have then acted on. Athrun had asked for them to enhance her natural beauty into one that arrested men, quite forgetting that he was susceptible to her. So Athrun had created a Frankenstein.
Oh well. He didn't really mind.
The maids had curled her long hair into softly cascading locks that rested on her shoulders, and he was pleased at how different she appeared. If anyone had looked at this person, he would not have recognised her as the Orb Princess.
Her pink lips sported a coat of gloss and nothing else, making it seem like she had wet her lips seconds before. And her eyes looked like light, golden and flecked with amber. Privately, he noticed that her neck bore the best adornment of all- nothing.
"What?" She said waspishly.
She glared at him venomously and he fought back a smirk. A smirk was a rude thing; only men like Dearka could hope to pull these sneers off.
But if someone could count the number of silent smirks Athrun had ever made, they would have just added one more to an infinite number.
She must have sensed his amusement, for her voice became slightly agitated.
"I followed your instructions, didn't I? I sat still while they treated me like a Barbie. They friggin' curled my hair! I don't even look the same anymore! I mean, I've never worn my hair this long, in these Goldilocks thingies-," She shook a curl furiously, "And did I mention that I look like a damn bee? All gold, and these black gloves! Look-,"
She waved her arms in the air frantically, and there was a blur of her long black gloves against the gold.
He began to laugh.
But even without the ridiculous movements, she would draw all eyes to her for a whole fifteen minutes at least, if not the entire night.
The ensemble was perfect, Athrun decided, quite perfect.
He took a step closer to her and she faltered just a little. "Be still. You look fine."
'More than fine.' He added mentally, and smirked quite openly.
Cagalli, on the other hand, frowned. "And don't you think it's strange that I can walk around like this? Aren't I supposed to be some sort of captive in some sort of top secret crap thing? I mean, if I go around like this, someone's bound to recognise me even with this get-up, and-,"
"Relax," Athrun repeated calmly.
He realised that he was saying this for his own sake.
Trying to regain some control, he asked, "What is your name?"
"Cagalli." She said dumbly.
He raised an eyebrow. "So quick, and you forget."
"I mean," She stammered. "Wait-,"
"Once more." He said mockingly. "What is your name?"
She looked distinctively uncomfortable. She rubbed her elbow with one hand, as if she had caught a chill.
"L-Lyra Delphius."
The mirrored walls showed four reflections. Neither of these felt like it belonged to her.
"That's right." He said pleasantly. "And what do you do for a living?"
She paused, biting her red lips.
"Don't have one." She said sulkily, after her silence. "I'm your- your consort."
She gave him a look of resentment that was blended with bewilderment. He ignored it.
"That's right. And where do you live?"
That look was in her eyes again. He tried to focus while she answered.
"With you."
"And where's that?"
"That's a secret." She said uncomfortably. She twisted her hands together.
"Spot-on. Epstein did brief you very well then."
Cagalli began to speak very fast. Her expression was one of confusion, agitation, and doubt. "And won't they ask me more about my occupation? I mean, that's the way it is. Name, occupation, location, that sort of thing."
"No." He said firmly. "They won't."
"Why?" Cagalli said starkly.
"Because they don't intend to offer the same information. Therefore, they won't ask for yours. Besides-," He allowed himself a smile, "It's pretty obvious with your get-up that you're my consort. Just act like it."
"And how do I do that?" She said sarcastically.
He considered this, and then his smile changed a little, into something strange, something that sent thrills and possibly, a chill up her body.
For he was pulling her closer to him and forcing her to drape her hands around his arm, as if she were hanging off it the way clothes were slung on a hanger.
Her eyes widened then, and her voice was a snarl.
She pulled away like he was a poisonous scorpion, stumbling back. "Get this right, Zala! I'm only doing this because you're promising me-,"
"Because I'm promising you a few days away from The Isle." He said smoothly. "I know."
The four-panelled mirrored room reflected her unease. She had never been to this room before, his changing room, she supposed.
There was nothing but mirrors and a table and some chairs in it, as well as a chandelier and candles. A vase of flowers were scenting the air, roses and red clovers again. It looked like a spray of blood, shooting out of white porcelain vessels that the vases seemed to be.
She stared, wondering why he favoured red clovers so much.
But in the meantime, Athrun had taken a velvet box from the table, opening it towards her.
She stared, shocked and somehow, she rubbed her eyes like a poor, silly girl who had never seen jewels before.
She unfolded her arms helplessly and looked at him. A diamond pendant on a platinum chain winked at her.
"A diamond necklace?"
"Yes." He said casually. "Lady Rochester's birthday gift, actually. She gets seven carats. But-" He put the box on the mahogany table, took another and opened it.
"You get twelve carats." Athrun said with a mildness that resembled a sort of carelessness. "Because we mustn't look shabby, must we?"
She blinked, opened her mouth and said numbly. "Holy guacamole fucking shit."
He took a step closer, and Cagalli had no time to react. She made a soft, silent cry, but her feet were backing into something and she was leaning against the table, unable to move away.
"I thought so when you came in looking like this." He murmured.
His lips grazed her ear and she realised he was now standing by her side, close to her, and his fingers were at her chin, lifting her face up to his.
And she had no comeback for that.
Dry-mouthed, she stared at him, wondering if he would do anything. But if she had thought that he would kiss her, she was surprised.
Wordlessly, he pulled her away from where she'd backed into. Then, he moved behind her and she glimpsed something dazzling being swathed around her neck.
She shivered at the sensation of the necklace slithering around her. A string of pear-shaped diamonds, arranged like a collar. The stones were so brilliant she wondered if the jewel-smiths had sacrificed their eyesight for each component.
The realisation that she was wearing something that her car was probably worth only three-quarters of made her slightly uneasy.
"There was a twenty-carat one," He teased. "But I thought you wouldn't be able to handle it."
She had a ridiculous image of herself struggling to walk with a rock around her neck. Her pet rock- good lord. She looked into the mirror to see him smiling, and she realised that he was joking with her.
Rune Estragon. Joking with her.
"How could I not?" Cagalli retorted indignantly. "I can handle anything you throw at me!"
"Perhaps," He said with warmth in his voice that made her colour a little.
She felt his fingers running up her neck and trembled.
He whispered, "Are you afraid to wear this?"
His reflection had changed again. There was intensity in his eyes, the emerald so deep it was almost jet. And his lips were set together as he stared at her reflection while she watched his.
Was she afraid to wear the necklace? Maybe.
Was she afraid to wear his fingers? Draped around her skin, tasting the rough pads of his fingers and the beautifully-formed fingers tiptoeing across her flesh?
Yes. She was afraid.
She swallowed quickly. "And why should I be afraid? It's not like I haven't been loaned stuff like this. That brand, what's it called Canary and Cartiere, Hillary Winston, Tihanny, Mont Noir, they're always passing stuff with my personal assistant. Product placement. I know."
"But this one's different." He said lightly, with the air of one who was stating a fact and nothing else.
She instinctively knew what he meant. He had chosen this for her, taken it from its box, put it around her neck, and let his fingers linger on her flesh, marking it and her.
But defiantly, she said, "I've worn things like these before. What's so different?"
"This one's yours." He said softly, his breath caressing her cheek. "And I want you to have it."
She began to stammer incoherently, and she felt cool metal slide into her earlobes as he slipped matching earrings in her ears. She shuddered, afraid but somehow, wanting him to warm her with his breath.
"It becomes you." He said simply.
"What?"
Amusedly, he handed her a hand-mirror, as if those around them did not suffice. But in fact, those served their function sufficiently. It was simply that the hand-mirror showed only the reflection above her neck, magnifying the necklace, earrings, and her face.
She gazed into it as he straightened the dazzling strand around her neck.
Her voice was weak and disbelieving.
"Good Lord." Cagalli said unsteadily. "Are you the Sheik of Araby or some bloody owner of some bloody diamond mine somewhere in South Africa? I haven't even worn one of those pieces you have a whole casket of."
"We'll see to that," He said mildly. "I'll find you opportunities to wear them. Those are just baubles, but I want to see you wear them for me."
She lifted her eyes to his face in the mirror and found tenderness in his expression.
Her heart leapt for a second, and the diamonds sitting on her flesh seemed dull compared to the atmosphere that persisted around them.
There was no edge in either of them, no will to argue and fight or disagree. There was only the simple pleasure she derived from his gift and the way he'd presented it to her, regardless of its value.
And for him, there was only the awkward joy she received his gift with. Athrun knew that his pleasure was derived from watching her behave with that innate childlikeness to a gift another woman might have reacted coyly to.
She opened her mouth to say something, but he shook his head and put a finger near her lips.
"You're ready now."
And then, he took her by her arm and helplessly, she closed her eyes as he tied a scarf around her eyes, his fingers gentle and his presence flooding her senses.
She was only half-aware that she was stepping gingerly as he guided her, and then they must have reached the last step, for there was a sound of a car door being opened and someone hurrying towards them.
"Enjoy yourselves," She heard Epstein say in a strangely flat voice, some distance away, and she thought she heard a note of envy and mistrust.
He had been a wonderful teacher, patient and humorous, correcting flaws in her dancing, and reminding her of what to say to potential questions that night. She'd leant forward to thank him, kissed him on his cheek, watched him turn a funny pink. She'd laughed at how young he was, despite the way he presented himself, and he had smiled shyly, a bit like Kira.
She wondered why Epstein was in such a strange mood now.
So she turned in the direction of his voice, wanting to call out to Epstein, but she found herself being ushered into the car.
It smelt faintly of leather and lavender, and Athrun's hand was holding onto hers. He had gloved it by this time, but she felt his hand's warmth still.
To reassure herself, she curled her fingers around his, and found herself becoming calmer as his other hand covered both of theirs securely.
The engine purred and she muttered something of a curse under her breath and heard him chuckle.
They must have been in something like a limousine, for the driver's voice echoed before reaching their ears. The driver spoke very softly, but her hearing was heightened with the scarf shielding her eyes- he spoke in the same Germanic tongue the maids had spoken in to Athrun before.
But between Athrun and her, nobody spoke for what seemed like a year. Then she felt him moving slightly and whispering that they had arrived.
The scarf fell by the seat as she blinked, adjusting to the light of the pavilion and the colossal shape of some mansion that threatened to swallow them as Athrun led her towards it.
She noticed a fur-lined shawl she had seen in the car seat, and reached for it. But clearly, he had other plans, pulling her along with him. She protested, trying to reach for it, but he glanced at her and said lazily, "Don't bother with that."
So they stepped towards the entrance, he an uncompromising presence, and she, glittering and reflecting a dozen lights with what she wore, both her dress and the jewels he'd placed on her.
She tried not to shiver with the gust that was blowing around her bare shoulders, conscious that the dress dipped low in the back and front. A few women stared at her, and Cagalli knew that she was committing a faux pas of sorts.
Even in Orb, Cagalli had never entered the soirees without a shawl to hide her shoulders, especially with more revealing gowns- that was a sort of formality to observe everywhere.
Athrun however, was silent and she sensed his confidence as he walked by her side, his arm snaking around her bare shoulders, and she tried not to tremble. But once they were further into the hall, she felt less exposed. The other women had long removed their fur stoles, shawls and whatnots.
Inside, the music was a swamp of sound, the orchestral pit an entire platoon of brass instruments and morgues of viols. She gazed around, feeling remarkably familiar with the surroundings, the bright colours of women's gowns contrasted with the men's suits.
The chandeliers swarmed above their heads, the lights flickering busily from fork to brooch to spoon and then the jewels on the men's cufflinks.
A pair of perfect, nearly blood-red spaniels sat near a pillar, looking a bit bored with the smoke that eased out of long, gilded pipes that owners put their lips to. One saw her and wagged its ostrich plume of a tail, its tongue waving at her.
With a delight that made her forget where she was, she began moving towards them. But Athrun pulled her back, his lips twitching.
She remembered then, that she was here to act the role he'd decided for her. At the same time, she felt a surge of self-depreciating pity. The more she met people, the more she liked dogs and their simplicity.
She glanced at Athrun to tell him this and realised that he wore very simple, understated silver cufflinks- how like him to eschew what the others did.
He led her past the buzzing hives of people who murmured greetings to him, which he nodded and responded to politely and vaguely. The spaniels were now eating daintily from platters of veal.
She looked back at them, past his shoulder, and saw that their owners were staring at her.
"Don't look at them." He muttered. "Just follow me."
And before long, she found herself standing by his side, facing a massive woman. Her face bore some homage to her past handsomeness, although her frame suggested this had gone to waste some years before.
She was surrounded by other guests, both men and women. But Cagalli couldn't help but notice that as Athrun moved towards her, women swarmed around the host, trying to put themselves before Athrun.
The host cast an imperious eye over her soiree, fanning herself lazily with a decorative, entirely useless jewelled fan.
Cagalli stood stiffly, trying not to look as Athrun bowed deeply, almost to the point of pretentiousness, and she saw a flash of mockery flit in his eyes very quickly.
He reached into the air and plucked a red rose out, and Cagalli gaped along with the women standing around. The men's expressions were less encouraging- it ranged from disinterest to bitterness.
"Why," The host said loudly and quite sincerely, "A new trick! The last time, it was a pink rose!"
The women alongside the hostess began to titter with excitement, and one looked bashfully at Athrun, frantically adjusting her ostentatious headpiece. It looked like an exploded parrot with a swathing of crystals.
Cagalli tried to stand still, although her toes were possibly laughing in their cramped shoes.
"Lady Rochester," Athrun said gallantly, "May I?"
She vibrated a quavering laugh and held out what looked more like an overfed crab than a hand, powerful but very blunt.
Her eyes gleamed greedily as he kissed it delicately, lingering on for that infinite second, as if he knew that it increased his hold on her exponentially. And it did, Cagalli marvelled. It bloody well did.
Lady Rochester, if anything, seemed to behave like a frisky maiden, puckering her lips at Athrun and batting her eyelids. Her fingers held the rose's stem daintily, as daintily as a bunch of bananas could, Cagalli supposed, with her pinky sticking out obscenely.
Her arms wobbled a little and she smiled boldly, resting her hand on Athrun's cheek. He didn't even blink.
"Mister Estragon," She said crisply, surprising Cagalli with her amorous but very crisp enunciation, "How good it is to see you."
Her fingers began measuring the distance of his upper lip to his eye.
Her lips looked like individual slices of raw fish, Cagalli thought, all pink and fleshy and blubbery.
"The pleasure's mine." He said simply, with the air of one who had no patience for pleasantries. "Please, if you'll accept my gift-,"
He handed her the velvet box that Cagalli had seen, smoothly stepping away from Lady Rochester's prying hands.
And she opened it, laughing and shaking so much that she resembled one of the chandeliers without its securing chain. Her rose-colored gown made her flushed with life and colour, although the spider webs on her skin made her look slightly sinister, as did her overly-dark, dyed hair and hooked nose.
"Lovely." She said with the same articulation that seemed incongruent with her form. "Thank you. Lord Estragon, you always escape my imagination. How is it that you emerge here and there and make all these women pine after you? And after you made me agree to sell that company to you, you never even paid me a visit anymore."
He bowed slightly. "Nothing of that sort, Lady Rochester."
She cast a curious eye at Cagalli. "And this is Lyra, whom I've heard so much about?"
Cagalli tried to look unsurprised.
One of Rochester's friends was flitting around her, and Cagali lifted her head haughtily, staring at the woman with some dislike.
Athrun nodded slightly. "I never knew things got around so quickly."
"Ah," Lady Rochester said knowingly. Her grin grew slightly predatory, and the little cupcake seemed ridiculous in her massive palm. Its sugar rose looked pitiful, wilting on the icing. "You haven't been seen with a woman for so long. Surely, if one hears that you have been with somebody, then it will spread far and wide."
He bowed again.
"Rumours always have a grain of truth in them." Rochester mused. "I have long heard that you had found a blonde little rosebud, and I suppose that was true as well. Enjoy yourselves, both of you. Ask Ink for directions."
She turned around and was promptly occupied by some other guests who began presenting their gifts to her.
Cagalli stood, waiting until the swirl of parties reshuffled and she felt it was safe to speak. And when she did, her voice was incredulous, too stunned to be upset. "You were the one who spread rumours, weren't you? You let them think you keep a blonde woman?"
"Of course." He said absently, smiling at someone in the distance who was waving to him. "How else could I get Cagalli Yula Atha to appear like this?"
He took a wine goblet from a tray that appeared to levitate past them, and brought it to her lips. "Now that that's over, you can relax and do as Lady Rochester suggested."
Cagalli took a sip obligingly, liking the sensation of bubbles teasing her tongue and the acid sweetness of the champagne. Liking its taste, she downed it quickly.
Athrun watched her, his voice warning. "Don't chuff too many down. Rochester likes her drinks to have more booze than anything else in them. They taste harmless but are addictive."
She ignored him, taking another goblet to suggest that she was old enough to do whatever she wanted. "She told us to ask Ink for directions. Ink who?"
He gestured to a jolly, rather plump man who bustled around, handing out truffles and trifles and that sort of thing. He had a perpetual redness that Cagalli knew, was something of a liquor-addiction's symptom.
But then, he looked so clean and so well spruced, so alert, that she supposed it was possible that he used a nutmeg-grater to bathe, not soap.
"That's Nigel Ink. Her head servant, or butler. He knows exactly which rooms have been allocated to which person, that sort of thing."
"Rooms?" She said anxiously. "Surely, this isn't some kind of roadhouse?"
There was an indignant repulsion in her face as a man stumbled past her, talking to the girl by his side as if she were at the other end of the room. They disappeared into the mesh of the crowds.
"Not at all." Athrun reassured her.
She glared at him, not believing him.
He paused, studying her. "I suppose you haven't gotten drunk enough in any event like this before?"
Cagalli frowned, and then she nodded, finally understanding. 'I never drank enough to require lodging for the night. So it never crossed my mind that I would have to stick around for more than a few hours during those events, let alone stay the night. I suppose lots of guests do. Come to think of it, I saw servants bringing in suitcases sometimes."
Worried, she gazed at him. "Do we have to stay the night?"
"No." Athrun said simply. "Now, come with me before she returns and asks me to humour her-,"
"Alright," Cagalli said brightly, approving of Athrun's dislike of Rochester.
He led her to the turbulences of men and women, lost in their own hedonism, unable to see past the shoulders of their partners, unable to recognise the blur of color that consumed them all.
There was a comfortable lament of a stray violin playing in the distance.
They were all like stray cats, she and Athrun, wondering and wandering.
And these parties were so foreign but so familiar to both of them. Each person was casually courteous to the faces that swarmed around them, making friends and forgetting them within the hours that passed.
For Athrun and Cagalli, not knowing anybody was a familiarity in itself.
But, he seemed to know everyone for now. They murmured to him as he murmured back, nobody really raising their voices, but the sheer multiplicity of people's murmurs a maddening stream of sound.
She studied the faces, trying to chart the map of their minds and Athrun's, the single mind that seemed to chart hers effortlessly.
A woman with a doll's face sat opposite her, beaming and offering to take her on a spa. She wore a nebulous blue, and her hair was a seaweed colour. Her husband was a walrus of a man, his handlebar moustache making his thick European accent even more jarring.
Next to Cagalli, a young man sat, cutting meat as if it were a surgical operation. She noticed that his hands were fine and smooth, like a pianist's, and knew that he probably used a knife to do more than dine. But when she asked Athrun who the man next to her was, he merely smiled.
A tiny waif of a girl with heavy russet bangs and pretty forget-me-not eyes passed by, and Athrun bent down as she whispered something into his ear.
With heels, the top of Cagalli's head only barely reached Athrun's eyes. Even if Cagalli hadn't worn heels, the girl would still have struggled to reach Cagalli's shoulder. Next to Athrun, this girl seemed a midget.
Cagalli stared, wondering if she was a child or vision, for the girl's face was like moistened clay, smoothened by a potter's hand, the lips flushed with health.
The girl looked at her with a mischievous grin in her eyes, and then lifted a goblet and downed it entirely, toasting her. Cagalli's lips parted in surprise- surely that contained more liquor than a child could handle.
But Athrun nodded towards the girl, looked once at Cagalli, and the girl vanished, pattering off into the distance.
"Who is she?" Cagalli inquired. She felt uneasy.
Athrun's eyes were still trained in the distance. "Ah. A friend's cousin, who's the baby of their family. Her name's Dolce Mignonettie."
Cagalli stared, trying to identify the cause of her unease as Dolce waved to them, the tiny pearls swinging in the light from her ear lobes, framing her pretty fairy's face. The rustling, watered silk on her child's body, slender and boyish, seemed to envelop her entirely, like a chrysalis. She was soon lost in the mosaic of women and men around her.
A woman introduced herself as Yvette Leigh Kanabaria. When pressed to talk about something other than her immense wealth and privilege, she would reveal herself to be a very shy person.
She was a woman whose voice was a mincing shout in the air. She seemed to swing from a perch, around the room, a sort of colourful parakeet with a thousand versions of the same, insufferable voice.
"And this is Lyra, whom I've heard so much about?"
Cagalli took a step back involuntarily, backing into the curtains clinging to the balcony that she and Athrun were standing near to.
'No,' She thought desperately, 'I'm Cagalli Yula Atha. I have nothing to lie about or hide.'
Yvette turned her head to Athrun, her hard, lined mouth turning amorous suddenly. Athrun did not appear surprised at the way she attached herself, limpet like, to his hand.
On the contrary, he picked it up, kissed it, and patted it in an almost amused manner. "Yes, Mrs. Kanabaria. I've been telling Lyra how she's missing out on these parties because she hasn't been attending enough to get to you."
"Oh tosh," The woman threw her head back, laughing like a mad horse, eyeballs rolling in her sallow face. Her lips were rolled back, obscene and flapping, like a man's appendage. But her flipped hair remained remarkably perfect, frozen by the hairspray.
Another woman appeared by Yvette's side, not even bothering to introduce herself at all. Cagalli gazed at her, wondering why she was limping around with one heel missing.
If Cinderella had fled through twenty storms and decided that over-adornment with tassels and crystals dripping everywhere were a la mode, this woman would have been the embodiment. She lurched a little, a goblet of sherry in her hand, which she toasted to the chandeliers and apparently, nobody else.
Cagalli found that her back was pressing against the curtain's velvet trimmings. She was pressing into the wall, shrinking away from the people she was expected to somehow know.
Athrun, however, did not back away. He remained like that cold, marble statue, dark and light together, his colouring making him a stain in the mad colours of the world they were in.
"Master Estragon," she said blissfully, "I've been wondering about the time when you complimented my dress, the one with the gold beads and rose trimming and the emeralds near the bust- you admired it-,"
"Ah," He said delicately. "How could I forget?"
Cagalli looked at him, horrified, but his eyes never left the intruder's face.
"I wanted to wear the dress tonight," She babbled, her lipstick a bit smudged, and the smell of smoke travelling around her fingers as she took a bite of her pipe and choked a bit. "But I fell down and ripped it and had to get it mended in the bust. And it was a little too small for the bust anyway so-"
She began to giggle and cry incoherently.
Cagalli looked at her silently, too disconcerted to say anything. The woman had the tired face of one who had been through too little to say very much, and her face was swollen, dripping with tears and rivulets of ruined makeup.
A man appeared at her side, a sort of thin, sunken-cheeked person, and he said apologetically to Athrun, "My apologies- she enjoys herself very much at Lady Rochester's parties."
His body was hunched, but there was something rigid about its shape, something brittle and breakable about his arms and how they clung to the woman who was laughing and crying.
He began to drag her away, but she flung herself away, towards Cagalli, and he caught her before she could collapse there and then.
Cagalli stared at her, frozen, and then, without quite understanding why, she looked accusingly at Athrun.
Athrun said nothing.
Then another man, portly and balding, pounded up to all of them, shoving away the sallow-faced man. And he dragged his babbling wife away, his face a bit red as well, but his mind clear enough to look at Athrun with dislike and some fear.
Some other women swept up to both of them and Yvette Kanabaria. They chattered like jays, bright and colourful, with their claws extended over the remnants of the absent woman's entry. They resembled critics fighting over who had the meanest, wittiest word for a flop of a play. It was entertaining to watch and horrifying to hear.
Cagalli was still staring at Athrun as he smiled emotionlessly at Yvette Kanabaria.
"Be careful of Mrs Tatoller," Yvette Kanabaria advised solemnly, "She's always a bit strange when she doesn't leave it alone. Just like Marcus over here-,"
"I do leave it alone," Marcus Lohengriter accused hollowly. He slumped over the table, snoring, the remnants of his pipe slithering into the air. His goblet was refilled by an efficient servant, who floated off after that.
Cagalli flinched, looking at Athrun. But he showed no expression. He drank a little, although he did not exhibit any strange signs of Bacchus' mirth. And not for the first time, she was envious of the control he had over liquor.
"Lyra, of course," Another man said with a sneer, adjusting his moustache with his index finger as a curler, "Is unlikely to be as- carefree, shall we say, as Mrs Tatoller and Marcus Lohengriter."
Cagalli tried to look innocuous, smiling politely at them all. She cut a piece of veal into two, watched blood ooze out of it, and felt distinctively sick.
"When he asked you," Eearl with his rheumatic voice said, "Did you agree to immediately?"
She stared, confused. But Athrun cut in immediately, smiling genially as he did with people he was playing with. "Why, of course she did not."
"Why not?"
"Because she was afraid that I wouldn't sustain her interest for long, with my kind of job and that sort of thing." Athrun said flippantly.
"Lyra's so shy," Masterson said suggestively, looking at her with sly eyes. "This is one of the few times that anyone's seen her. Just ask Jeremiah Buffonesco."
Even more bewildered, Cagalli turned around to them and said without thinking. "What?"
A man with a plum face who she assumed to be Buffonesco raised his head briefly, "Saw you from very far the other time, Missus. Four years ago. But as fantastic as ever, and same dress looks twice as good on you."
His head dropped and he began to gorge himself on the lobster once more. The black beady crustacean eyes stared balefully beyond his fork, a strange addition to his bulging, iridescent chins.
"Why of course!" Yvette said in astonishment, "Why, you wore this dress the last time as well, didn't you? Everyone recognises you because of it. Of course, your hair's longer now, and you looked a little taller the last time. Different shoes, no?"
"Did I speak to you the last time?" Cagalli inquired. "And when was the last time you saw me?"
"We-ell," Yvette looked at the other guests in embarrassment. "No, not really. You kept mostly to yourself that night. It was a very large party, so I couldn't get around to speaking to everyone, you must understand. And why are you asking? You sound like you've forgotten the party Lady Rochester threw four years ago."
Shocked, Cagalli turned to Athrun, who was sitting without expression, save the slight furrow in his brow.
There was something slightly cruel in his mouth, and his eyes were a bit cold.
"Perhaps, Lyra has forgotten," He said smoothly. "But no matter." He smiled winsomely. "Meeting you, Mrs Kanabaria, will make the night more memorable. Lyra accompanies me to so many of these events that we forget very easily."
Yvette tittered.
"True," Masterson said eagerly. "We had twelve parties in that week, last year. Twelve!"
The bustle of noise built around Cagalli's head, and she thought, for a horrible second, that she had been locked in a cage, in a circus somewhere.
She clenched her fists in her lap, and her golden dress glimmered brighter than the gold-plated forks and spoons. She was afraid to look at Athrun, afraid that she would give something away.
"Ladies and gentlemen," The conductor said loudly, "May I present to you, Victor Lyonsky's latest composition, the Great Symphony of Modern History!"
Yvette Kanabaria flashed away into the distance, a young man on her arm. Masterson looked around but found nobody in particular.
A whole pit of wailing trumpets and complaining woodwinds flooded the massive hall, and Yvette caught whole of a young man and he carted her off to the floor. Her husband appeared at her elbow a few times, hissing, "You said you would!", but she did not seem to hear him.
Cagalli gazed around at Athrun, afraid to refuse, but afraid to agree as well. She was at a loss.
"Lyra dear," Eearl said, his grey hair and wide face stretched in a grin, "Would you like to dance?"
He reached out and she flinched as his paws slithered near her neck. He wore an opal cravat, a thing of great beauty that appeared incongruent with the sauce on his chin.
But Athrun's hand found its way to her shoulder first, as his other hand tilted her chin, smiling at her stunned silence as he brought his lips across her cheek, clearly claiming her.
She felt a wave of embarrassment mingling with relief and gratefulness.
He looked directly at Eearl, even as a dozen people drifted away from their tables to form a gigantic monster of many legs and arms in a single mass. "My apologies, Lord Nottingherk, but Lyra promised me the first dance."
Eearl looked disappointed, even pouting a little, making him look like an overgrown catfish. The comical points of his moustache lay on a wide, wet upper lip folding over the lower one. "Not at all."
"She is your wife, after all." Eearl added, as an afterthought.
Cagalli, who was downing her goblet of champagne, swallowed, set it down and stared at Eearl. Athrun did no such thing.
He smiled, a bit insincerely, stood up, and neatly pushed his chair in. "Come, Lyra."
She gaped at Athrun as he stood up; pulling her up by the elbow, guiding her away from the table where champagne was staining the white table cloths. The food was everywhere, multiplying, it seemed, and the alcohol in even greater abundance.
People were swooning on their tables, their arms pillowing their resting heads, a few talking animatedly, a few coughing and looking sick and faceless in the orgiastic energy and waste of their surroundings.
Those who were in arguably more sober states were waltzing in neat little quadrants across the expansive floor. A few were doing the lindy hop with only the courage of Rochester's liquor. The others kept clear of the whooping, cheering bunch, until they had consumed enough to join their ranks as well.
A girl in a crimson dress, a lily in her bosom and a suspiciously glad neck snatched a glass abruptly, downed it for confidence, and clapped her hands, moving her hips and twisting, her heels beating a clear rhythm. The temporary hush burst out as the orchestra obliged their beats into a frenzied tango.
Athrun murmured, "That girl used to be in the circus."
"Aren't we all in one?" Cagalli muttered back sardonically.
She wanted to pull herself away, run away from this madness. But he did not let her. He pulled her to him; forcing her to arch her back as he twirled her without warning. Epstein had made sure she could dance the tango, but she had not been prepared for this.
The others were doing the same, but with less fervour and intent, she suspected, compared to Rune Estragon. He moved her in a circle as she tossed her head back angrily.
She was afraid to move away for fear of ruining their elaborate pretence, but unwilling to be near him. The net result was her aggressive pulling away from him, but her body creating a tight symmetry with his as he forced her back into his radius each time.
The others were beginning to notice the way he controlled them perfectly with the music's timing, every beat, and every line of tension complying with each viol. There was no false step with this man- only ruthless execution and possessive precision.
She panted once as he pulled her in a dizzying twist against him, and she straightened once more, his hand guiding her back. He ran his fingers up her spine, her body a breathing cello in his arms, and she heard murmurs from people who were watching.
She wondered why his palm was moving so near her thigh as she lifted her leg half-heartedly against his waist, as Epstein had instructed her to.
"Smile." He muttered. "You look like you're trying."
"I am!" She panted softly.
"You shouldn't have to." He told her.
Scarlet with shame and hatred, she would have pushed him aside, angry at her body's reaction to his and her flushed cheeks. But she obeyed him without knowing why, smiling as a trained animal did for its audience.
There had been something frenzied about the last few minutes, the way she had silently fought against him even as her body moved to every nuance of his command. She had been like a show horse, urged to dance in a ring, throwing its glossy neck back to be admired.
When the beat finally ended and he helped her to stand properly once more, she found their faces dangerously close, and her hands tight around him even while he ran his hand teasingly, up her thigh. The slit in the dress was rather revealing, she thought dazedly- and then she realised she was the one being revealed.
The applause was still going on, and mortified, she straightened from the position they'd both been in, him bending over her, his arm supporting her weight as she had been flung back.
The orchestra slid back into a more sedate waltz and the others continued to dance.
Athrun was looking at her quietly with a tiny smile.
Someone complimented her, and she forced a nod back, although it was curt.
Then she remembered what she had wanted to ask him before he had pulled her into the dance.
"What Eearl say?" Cagalli hissed. "What the hell did you introduce me as?"
"My wife." He said unconcernedly.
"What the hell were you thinking?" She said tensely. "I thought you introduced me as your consort? Like those call-girls? Wasn't that what you told me? I thought nobody would remember me if I just hung around you for one night! Now, they're all going to remember, what with me being your wife, and the way you just pulled us into that tango! And I don't dare ask anyone what's going on. They seem to know me, although this is the first time I've ever seen them!"
"That doesn't matter." He said in so patient a manner that she thought for one fantastic minute that they were all drunk like those at the table. "Ignore them."
But that was illogical. She couldn't have been seen by these people before, certainly not with Athrun, certainly not as Lyra Delphius. Surely, not all of them were drunk and nonsensical?
"No," She insisted. "They must know something that I don't. Tell me."
He moved her around, and she twirled expertly without thinking. Why the hell, she thought furiously, was she still dancing with him?
"There's nothing to tell." He said softly.
The perfumes in the air were pervasive and oppressive, obscene roses that were more like cabbages than blooms. Thankfully, the circus-girl had vanished to meet her admirers and the orchestra had long slowed into a more conventional meter.
As they moved, Cagalli found the questions dying each time they reached the tip of her tongue.
A few times, a few people wanted to trade partners. Athrun politely refused, although he did laugh when they mentioned that he was a jealous husband.
His laugh was cold and she disliked hearing it.
All around them, introductions made minutes ago were heard and forgotten, and hollow laughter drifted everywhere. The Symphony of Modern History, it seemed, was a patchwork of music and a mess of sound and strangeness. There was a fast moving, syncopated beat to it, but the strings made it seem more or less like an orgy of jazz and swing.
Either way, it was grand and solemn, thrillingly pretentious, and Cagalli found herself drunk on repulsion and the inability to describe what she saw around her. The parties she had attended had been equally pretentious and boorish in its splendour and obscenity. But she had been there to strike up the right conversations and to meet the right people who would further Orb's progress. She had seen those parties as part of a job.
Even with dates and parties, she'd made it her personal mission to offend as many potential suitors as possible- otherwise, the whole thing seemed pointless.
It seemed like on The Isle, with nobody she knew, with nobody she was planning to do business with, this party was aimless. She imagined that she was throwing something of her youth away by being at Rochester's mansion.
She moved a bit woodenly, half-steered around. But she lifted a hand off Athrun's shoulder, long enough, past another woman's shoulder, and found the tray that was lifted high in the air.
And Cagalli reached for a goblet amongst the goblets that floated past them on a man whose face they could not see.
"Shouldn't you leave that alone?" Athrun said quietly. He was watching her as they moved amidst the palette of people. They were not quite dancing, but they were in postures that suggested that they were either starting or ending without doing either.
She ignored him and downed it, feeling the warmth settle in her throat and stomach. The heat was a fire in her throat and she coughed a little, feeling ridiculously cheerful but somehow hollow.
"That's the last one you'll have tonight," Athrun told her firmly.
Lazily, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You sound like Jimmy."
"Who is that?"
She was feeling too cheerful to notice that his voice had changed a little.
"Marlin." She bubbled to herself. She giggled. Good Lord, she was giggling.
"James Marlin?" He said as an afterthought to himself. But he made no further comment, and she was too busy blinking in the lights to notice his silence.
A woman's elaborate hairpin caught Cagalli's eye, near Athrun's ear, but then the woman was waltzed off almost immediately, and she lost sight of the jewelled acessory. It was like chasing after butterflies, sudden drops and dots of colours within a Klimt painting of gold leaves and obscure shapes and a thousand eyes everywhere.
They eventually grew tired with the infinity of the waltz and the mechanism at smiling people who approached them. They all made light conversation while feeling heavy with the rich foods that levitated around them, balanced by waiters who looked like waist coated penguins with little red bowties.
The meat was cooked in French-style, all blood and fresh prey. She could not stomach it. But she did take the pastry option, which was a viable alternative to raw meat. She took a bite of something the person next to her was also eating.
Athrun whispered in her ear, "Is it good?"
"Not bad." She muttered back, hiding her whispers with her napkin. "What is it?"
He smiled.
"It's pigeon pie."
She froze, then a second later, hid her regurgitated food within the folds of her napkin that were still hiding her lips.
He shook with silent laughter, and his voice grew soft and teasing. "What?"
"I can't eat a pigeon!" She muttered in outrage.
"But you eat chicken." He murmured back. Daintily, like a cat, he sliced a sliver of veal and put it between sensuously-parted lips.
"It's not the same," She hissed, still hiding her mouth with her napkin as the others talked about other things. "Pigeons are fluffy, cute little things, not damn chickens!"
He grinned and looked on with amusement as she hid the meat under the crust to ensure it looked like she had finished most of her meal. The other food was done in French-style, all meat and blood. She was not used to such refinement.
Upset, she took a swig of champagne, and liking it better than the recollection of pigeon flesh, refilled her glass. Glass after glass was downed- and she was not conscious that efficient little servants were refilling the same glass over and over again.
And Cagalli hardly noticed that her voice was becoming softer and like watered silk, blurred at the edges by the champagne, only that Athrun became more and more agreeable.
She did not know what she was saying to his questions, and for that matter, did not quite understand what he was asking. But she perceived that his face was very pure and pale in the crowd of the colours and that his eyes were like depths and tunnels she was mesmerised by.
And she thought she understood then, why his mouth was always slightly sad.
So when Athrun muttered that he could bear no more, she nodded, smiling with the cheer of champagne and the thrill of being so close to him for so long.
As if they had planned to, as if it they had meant to, they wandered outside the sphere of Lady Rochester's mansion. He watered a tree that blossomed white with the last of his champagne, tossing the goblet away as if he were slightly drunk himself.
The alcohol burnt into something, and there was a hiss, which she did not notice.
And the goblet rolled, as strange as a skull, heavy brass, studded with tourmaline, against the bark of the slender tree.
She clung to hers; drinking greedily, stumbling behind him, not conscious that he was holding her hand. She was thirsty but growing thirstier on what she downed.
Turning, he wrenched the empty goblet from her hand, ignoring her protests, and it suffered the same fate as his goblet, this time against a pillar. She twisted around and saw that the light emitting from the colossal steps of Lady Rochester's home was far away.
"Hey-!"
She was unsure as to whether her indignation rose from the last of her drink being used as a garden sprinkler, or that she was afraid to be away from the comforting mash of people who surrounded them and made her feel secure with her dislike an contempt towards them.
"No." He said firmly. "You're probably half-drunk already."
"No I'm not-," She argued, in reality, saying, "Not I'm know-"
His grip tightened, although his voice was strangely more reminiscent of years she had already forgotten. "Shut up for a bit."
The greenhouse, somewhere in the shroud of trees behind the pavilion, had nobody visiting it. Its dog roses and willow trees were flourishing in the artificial heat, amidst a field of exotic plants.
Cagalli gazed around and saw that only both of them were present. But this had no implication on her next actions. If a dozen people had been there, she might have still done what she did.
Wandering and giggling to herself, she pointed at a bunch of rather surly looking garden gnomes. She was stumbling and skipping at the same time, and her hand was in his as he followed her in a less ungainly manner.
They laughed and amused themselves, darting beneath the hanging vines that threatened to tangle themselves in their hair from the arches of shrubbery. There were fireflies that had been trapped in the place, and they glowed a little in the sepia lights of the place.
Slightly tipsy but still mostly sober, Cagalli trailed one, tripped over some dahlias and found herself in Athrun's arms as he pulled her hand to catch her from falling. A small yelp escaped from her lips, but it was buried as her face turned towards his chest.
He hauled her towards him, seeking her mouth with his.
She ignored him even when she opened her eyes, casting them on the single entrance of the greenhouse. The entire greenhouse extended for half a kilometre and she wondered how many gardeners existed for the place to be maintained.
Perhaps, there were other guests here. She glanced around, expecting a thousand of them to be hiding behind pots, ordered to be breathlessly silent.
Her eyes were channelled at the corner, where a particularly sweet-smelling bower of jasmine called to some fireflies and the dim light of the blue and orange air within the glass house.
Athrun's lips were still teasing hers, and she looked back at him finally. He ran his mouth slowly across hers, and impatiently, she caught his lips, pulling his face to hers.
When they broke for air, she began laughing giddily, soft and with the emptiness that was safer for both of them. But then, she saw that his eyes were serious and his expression was unreadable.
Tormented suddenly, she pulled away and moved to a wooden bench, sitting and staring blankly into the rows of golden rod and clematis. There was no real light in the greenhouse, only a vague, flirtatious glow of cyan tones and twilight lanterns embedded within the curling plants.
He stood before her. "What's the matter?"
"Let's stop this." Cagalli said tiredly. Her head was buzzing with alcohol and resentment. "It's no use at all, is it? You can't trust me and I can't trust you either. You've always kept secrets from me. Even now. I'm not going to fool around with you. It's not worth anything."
His face remained an enigma to her. "I've always wanted you. My being Rune Estragon doesn't change that."
"Seven years have passed." She said acidly. "I'm not just Cagalli Yula Atha anymore. I'm a captive you brought here, and you're Rune Estragon."
She began to laugh painfully. "That's why I hate big parties. They're so intimate."
They both understood what she meant. In the crowds, in the mammoth twirls of people, there was a silence within the cacophony and their thoughts were clearer than ever, their heads amidst but away from the laughter and music. People they met grew more and more agreeable, cursing the host while on the courage of the host's wine. But both of them retreated into the silence of the distaste they could not help but feel what they had hidden for so long.
And Cagalli saw that while the drooping heads of happy people found themselves in a long daisy chain of intoxicated guests, Athrun grew increasingly isolated. The realisation of this made her just as isolated as he was.
There was an essential insincerity the words had, next to the inexpressible voice that was trying to free itself from her heart. He knew there was something that lingered in her voice, an emotion that he was unable to catch hold of, one that she could not articulate clearly.
There was anguish and joy in her voice and a lost expression in her eyes despite her bright and lovely mouth. And he ached to chart her mind once more, but found that she had laid a wilderness before him.
Here, away from everything, everyone, their breath in tandem, the reincarnation was complete. They could be lost in each other, without understanding themselves.
She wanted him then, and her heart ached for something.
"Didn't you know?" Athrun said quietly.
She gulped and wished he would stop spinning, the white, flowering shrubs behind him swaying maddeningly.
"What?"
"I've always loved you. Didn't you know?"
Her face was consumed by hatred for a single second. And she stood up, her hands trembling badly.
"Did you bring me to The Isle for me to hear that? I'm your captive, for Pete's sake! Am I supposed to see you as Athrun Zala and fall in love with you again? I don't want to hear that you love me. I'd rather you kill me quickly without tormenting me. I want to hear you say that you'll let me go back to Orb. "
He studied her. "I thought you were just a captive to me. But it's obvious now that
I still want you after so long."
"Please." There was a pleading anxiety in her voice and face.
"You're afraid of staying here on The Isle because you're afraid that we'll remember the past. No, you're afraid that we'll repeat it."
She turned away, her voice without the vitality that nevertheless, seemed to emerge from her body in every vein and fingertip. "I'm not afraid of anything."
They knew she lied in all respects. Cagalli instinctively rejected the hot, desperate struggles of the rich to live for the sake of living. The way she smiled at those who were friendly, the way she ate for courtesy, the way she sat stiffly in her chair, unable to respond to the flush of humanity around them both-
She had been born into the cold, established money of families before her. The frantic pleasure of the parties she encountered drew unconscious disgust in her. It wasn't desperate, wanton pleasures that disgusted her, but that the purposelessness in her life's events was made starker than ever.
Perhaps, such parties, filled with the inexhaustible promises of living, reminded her of duty and that her life had never been hers to lead, let alone waste for the few hours of Epicurean festivities. She was afraid to love. She was afraid to live.
And for those reasons, Cagalli had sat still for so long, smiling a small and cold smile, a lone figure amidst the whirl and crackle of the world.
His voice rose as a challenge. "You're afraid. You're afraid of me."
"I'm not." She said angrily. "I'm not afraid of you-,"
"Then show me," He interrupted. He wrenched her against a white marble which was adorned with a thin beard of creeping blossoms, her body warm and panting against the leaves.
He did not spare a glance at the statue. But if he had, he might have thought it apt that the sculpture was Aphrodite's form, Paris' golden apple in her hands.
The only way to overcome temptation was to give in to it.
He raked his mouth across hers, tasting warm mead and her protests. It was her instinct to struggle against everything, and this did not deter him, but intensified the desire to possess her. He would. It was only a matter of time.
When she responded, he moved from the desperate passion to a slow, lingering fervour. She was kissing him hungrily, guiding his hands to her breasts, her gloved hands inky and smooth against his neck and shoulders. He did not hesitate, pulling his gloves off and putting them in his pocket- she was his golden filly, wasn't she? Surely, he could take her?
He bit softly into her neck, one hand like water against her sloping back, the other pressed where she had guided him to.
She muffled her cry by burying her mouth in his hair, her elbows resting heavily on his shoulders. Her acceptance pleased him, and her submission ignited him.
When he pulled away, he saw how her hands were clamped around his shoulders and face, his own around her waist. He straightened his tie and she tried to smooth the wrinkles in her dress where his hands had burnt against the cloth, and she avoided his gaze.
He made up his mind then, and reached for her hand. "We're going. We're getting out of here."
She stared, disorientated, but he pulled her with him.
Her voice crackled above the crickets' song, protesting and apprehensive. "But if we disappear like that-,"
"We'll go," He interrupted. "Just follow my cue."
Within minutes, they were in the bright glare of the chandeliers and the portraits of gardens stared at them.
Nobody else seemed to be looking at them, although a woman was singing in a quavering, crying voice with a glass perched precariously in her palm. The crowds around her were cheering her on. A pet monkey was perched on the piano, the finishing touch to the circus.
They found Lady Rochester, her face nearly hidden by the ostrich plumes of another guest's headdress. She appeared to be asleep while standing, giving a little start when Athrun addressed her. Her jowls wobbled perilously as she made a funny, little action with her tongue, as if she was scratching for the remnants of food in her mouth.
"My lady," He said politely, "I apologise, but Lyra has caught a cold. She should return to rest, not for her sake, but for fear that other guests begin to display similar symptoms."
Cagalli wondered how ignorant Athrun was expecting Rochester to be.
The women fawning over Lady Rochester were sharing stage whispers. One was openly pointing at Cagalli's lips. She did not dare put a hand to her mouth to feel how warm and swollen it was.
"Now," The host said with a frown, "I didn't expect both of you to be running off so early. Lady Estragon looked fine this evening! Very fine, in fact."
"As you can see," Athrun said smoothly, "She needs her rest."
"Both of you can stay here," a woman piped up, her eyes watching and her mouth laughing, "The hostess always provides a room for everybody. The beds are large enough for three, let alone two."
"Don't want to spread the flu," Cagalli said, with her voice naturally wheezing and weak.
They all stared at her, and she tried to look a bit lethargic despite her racing heart and her warm palms. Her eyes focused on the third flap under Rochester's chin, because she could not look into the insect eyes and remain calm simultaneously.
Even looking straight at Athrun's face, free of all emotion but with something moving in his eyes, would have made her lose the last of her reserves.
"Alright then," Rochester relented eventually. "Estragon, you must come and visit me more often! You have yet to see me wear the present."
"I will." He said dutifully, looking at Cagalli with a strange mischievousness that she had only seen once or twice before.
"Oh, and Lyra too," Lady Rochester added rather unwillingly.
Cagalli bit her lips, trying to refrain from bursting into laughter. When Athrun led her into the darkness, her voice swelled into the sky with the happy, vacuous bursts of laughter that blossomed all over the behemoth lawn.
A girl had ripped her dress and was bemoaning the fate of her lost earring, but similar losses were rampant and nobody spared her their pity.
They passed along the path of the trees, passing what must have been an arch during day time. The scent of magnolias festered in the air, and she shivered a little. "Do I actually look like I have a cold?"
"Do they dare say otherwise?" He said calmly. Fearlessly, almost as if she had begged him to, he slipped an arm around her shoulders in a manner that suggested that nobody could be near her, save him.
Behind them, a young man was leading a girl somewhere into the mazes of shrubbery, the girl giggling coquettishly and his smile a bit telling of what they were up to.
She understood his intent. Nobody had questioned his explanation of their need to return to the manor. There was a common understanding amongst the guests that trysts could be held anywhere at any time, but that Rune Estragon probably preferred to have his trysts somewhere else.
Distracted at the laughter and muffled sounds behind the dense dark mazes that filtered into the air around her, Cagalli turned to her right. As she did, the world swerved, and she knew she had had too much to drink.
Athrun, on her left, remained very still, apparently ignoring the hints of promiscuousness and provocative life that the world held. Cagalli, on the other hand, was simultaneously attracted and repulsed by the vitality and vulgarity of his world.
And she saw that somewhere else, lights were flitting, man made and fireflies not very different in the blur of alcohol and her clouded senses.
The moon was clearing behind the frame of clouds in the dark sky, and she saw that the left side of Athrun's face was menacing in its lack of expression.
Startled, she took a step back, suddenly frightened and sober for a fatalistic second. His arm was still around her shoulders.
"Where's the car?" She said tentatively.
He made no movement, save the slight parting of his lips. "Coming."
She strained her eyes, searching for headlights, and then, saw a distant weaving of bright lights flashing up in the winding roads beyond the eastern gate of the Rochester Estate.
His lips moved silently
"Pardon?" She said in confusion.
But he did not answer, producing and pulling the scarf around her eyes, knotting it securely. She was blinded but her other senses became more acute. She perceived the girl's frantic cries of pleasure and her partner's panting beyond the first layer of distant music from the golden, lighted halls. Those echoed in her head, and she did not know if she was imagining those or not.
They stood in the gathering cold and long-established darkness. She wondered why the crickets were chirping so loudly, why they were singing in such vain, and why Athrun was not saying anything. The girl's murmuring and the strain of a man's hoarse voice was muffled from far away, extricating themselves from the boundary of trees.
Then Cagalli heard the skid of wheels on the pavement, and she was only aware that a door was opening and Athrun's hand was on hers, cool and silver to feel with his gloves. She climbed into the car, feeling rather like a mole in a tunnel, and within seconds, felt his weight settle next to her.
The whoosh of the car door's suction and the silence as the vehicle slid forward made her nerves strain and her senses taut with her thoughts. She thought about him and shivered, and wondered if the pale, well-defined fingers were locked together.
His palms might have been arched towards each other, in prayer or deep thought. Perhaps, he was holding his hands together. Or perhaps, they were somewhere near her. She shivered, thinking. His hands had resembled limestone, fair and smooth against her throat and breasts.
Surely, she had known what it meant to allow him to touch her, what he expected of her once she had allowed him this. She knew the danger of the world around them and the uncertainty involved, but she wanted him still. It was all she wanted there and then.
When the car finally stopped, she heard him opening the door, getting out, and opening the door she must have sat next to. Blindly, she held out her hand, patting air, and he took it, leading her out.
They did not say anything as he guided her forward, but in her blindness, she knew that the steady rhythm of his heart was changing and his pulse was increasing.
She had sensed their urgency as he led her up the steps, and wondered why he did not remove the blindfold even when the maids stood ready.
She heard their soft, hoarse voices, questioning, and then trailing off as Athrun continued to step forward.
"No." He said decisively, in a murmuring, low voice. "I'll bring her back to her room myself."
Cagalli wondered if Epstein was watching them, whether he saw her like this, blindfolded, completely needy on Athrun.
He walked at a quick pace, guiding her, and she heard the door being unlocked and then clicking shut.
The hand on hers was suddenly removed, and frightened, she put out her hands to the blindfold. But his fingers were already unknotting it and she froze as it slipped off her face to her shoulders, then the floor.
From behind, his arms collected her, a forearm diagonally across and up her chest, its hand fastened on her shoulder. His other arm rested diagonally across down to her waist, its hand on her hip. He murmured her name, nibbling her earlobe and she trembled, feeling his reaction towards her grow.
And she turned her head towards his mouth and found him ready for her. She was scarcely thinking, mad with pleasure and pleased with the kind of attention that he'd never paid to her before.
The liquor she'd consumed burned in her entrails, the final goblet that she'd downed that evening suddenly rising with those before it like a mist in her.
She wasn't afraid of him. He didn't mean anything to her, anything that she was afraid of. She'd show him.
His fingers were undoing the row of buttons behind her back deftly, reaching for the thin straps that supported the golden column she was sheathed in. Those came off easily and her dress pooled heavily around her ankles as he moved to face her and guided her out of it and towards the bed.
Stumbling a little, Cagalli looked into his face and tried to remember whether it had haunted her. He feasted on her mouth, aware that the thin chemise she wore was sensuous against her skin and his.
Slowly, she reached forward and touched his brow, tracing a line down the closed eyelid and the ridge of his nose and pausing at his lips.
There was a kind of longing, misery and wonder in her eyes, and he was touched by the single emotion he had understood in that blinding moment.
But before he could respond, her mood had changed again. He did not understand her fickleness, the way she drew him in with her melancholy and yet enticed him. For Cagalli had buried her face near his shoulder, saying playfully, "Well? Shall we stand here all night?"
He responded with more sense than sensibility, his body speaking rather than his mental facilities.
"God forbid."
She mounted the bed, closing her eyes and alert but dazed at the same time. His fingers busied themselves at her earlobes, and she whispered, "What are you doing?"
"Those are expensive," He murmured. "And you're wearing far too much."
She turned her head just in time to see both earrings being tossed where the gleaming, golden dress lay. Her arms were soft against the coarser material of his suit. She pulled him out of his jacket rashly, pulling his shirt out so she could run her hands up his abdomen, marvelling at the taut muscle and soft flesh that seemed closer to her own than the mask of his linen shirt.
Kneeling over her, he put his hands to his lips, peeling his gloves off with his teeth, and she moaned, imagining that he was doing the same with her chemise. But he undid his tie impatiently and kissed her deeply and deftly.
She took his tie from his hands and threw it on the floor. And he said vehemently, "If I meet the man who invented the tie, I'll strangle him with his own invention."
She laughed dizzily, but he smiled tenderly, a smile that she saw and registered only half of. There was a disconnection somewhere, the heady lust of her drunken body, and his soberness. The exhilaration of seeing his smile was one thing, understanding it was another.
When had he last looked so human, so vulnerable? She tried to recall, but found the alcohol impeding the flow of her memories. There were only the needs of their bodies, flushed with youth, excitement and heat. Everything would be dismissed in the morning with alcohol as their scapegoat.
All she wanted was to have him once, to finally know him once, and to have him love her, just for a few hours, before he became Rune Estragon again, and she the captive, the Orb Princess.
His voice was whispering something about how nobody could take their eyes off her that night, though she hadn't noticed. Cagalli chuckled and said abstractly, "Rochester couldn't take her eyes off you either. You know how to please the ladies, don't you?"
"She's not a lady," Athrun said archly. "She's a fucking cow."
She threw back her head and half-moaned and half-laughed as he fondled her breasts through the silk chemise and kissed her white shoulder. "Father Zala swears! What else? Steals? Murders? Plunders?"
"You don't know many things about me." He said ruefully, and she thought that this was true.
But she couldn't care to dwell on the ambivalence of his words, feverish with pleasure. And she raked her hands, their scarlet nails, talons she couldn't get used to seeing on his sleeve. "You'll please me tonight, won't you?"
His smile lingered in her mind even after it faded from his face, a slow, teasing smile that made her shiver. "You'll see."
She was running her hands through his hair distractedly, tipsy and her thoughts badly fragmented. The man who was kissing her neck might have been any random person at that point, while she was in her state. And Cagalli was comforted that in the morning, everything would sort itself out, and for now, allow the night to be led by the heat that pooled in her.
"Do for me what you do to the others," She commanded in her stupor.
"You're worth more than the whole damn bunch of them put together." He told her, his eyes no longer playful. "Did you see them? All made-up and polished without any worth."
She could not respond, because she was busy kissing and nibbling at his neck.
"Seven years," He murmured. And this is what it comes to."
"A single night," She said in a dim, blind sort of voice, unaware of the emotions that were building behind the single façade of blind lust.
He raked his hands down her shoulders and thighs, noticing how lush her body was. Despite her tomboyishness, she was clearly more desirable than any woman he had ever been with.
He kissed her collarbone. "And all that time when we were so close by each other, I never did more than struggle with our fathers and their selfishness."
She began to speak, in a disconnected, rambling manner that revealed her tipsy state. "My father isn't selfish, don't say-I know that-,"
"Look at you." He said intently, gazing at the breasts he had kissed greedily through the fabric of her shift. "I should have done this earlier."
He wondered why he had never made love to her a single time before. They had been too young then, he reflected. He had been inexperienced where a real relationship was concerned- he knew women early and they spoiled him, so he grew jaded with virgins for their inexperience and cynical about those with experience.
His first encounter with his senior had been more of education than a relationship, and his subsequent girlfriends had been something of a finishing school.
The women he had been with were outlets for a man's needs and frustration. Those had even become a sort of personal rebellion against the properness that Patrick Zala's son would be assumed to symbolise. But in the camps where trysts were common, there was nothing very jaw-dropping about what young men and women did in their spare time.
But Cagalli was another kind of issue altogether. She had been pure but with the sort of sensuality accentuated by her denial of it, and doing more than kissing had seemed unthinkable. So he hadn't minded bedding other women, but he could not bear to do more than kiss Cagalli. There had been a sort of hypocrisy in the past, where he was concerned with Cagalli and the women he'd had before her.
And seven years later, something about her had changed again. He could not ignore it. It persisted in his mind. And vaguely, he wondered if he could impact the blank canvas of her life, the way she lived for a dead man but not for herself.
Desire blossomed in him and he murmured that he wanted her more than anything else. In her state, she was uninhibited, demanding and unaware of who he was.
She did not seem to hear him, distracted by something he could not perceive. He had already removed her chemise, revealing the lace undergarments she wore. The diamond necklace hung above the silk and ivory lace brassier, and he lifted the dazzling string with a hooked finger, inspecting the maddening gleam of the stones and the flesh it had sat on.
She whispered that she wanted him to love her, for a few hours at least.
And then he understood. In one irrevocable moment, pushed her away from him.
She did not notice, only pulled him to her, eager to resume their kiss, and she smiled absent-mindedly and tears ran from the corners of her eyes. He wiped them away and saw that she was shaking and something in her was sobbing.
His name came in a slurred form, and she was not totally drunk but not sober enough for him to take her.
He separated himself from her, trying to keep his eyes on her face. She looked bewildered, but the state of her soberness was questionable even as she reached for him and caught only air before finding him.
"You're drunk." Athrun said emotionlessly. The deliberate coldness was present again. But in him, the same turmoil and lust threatened to take control of his hands and voice.
"I'm not really," She insisted, slurring a little.
"Perhaps." He admitted, "But you're not sober enough."
Cagalli's eyes followed his hands as they buttoned the first two buttons she had gotten loose from their slots. "Does it matter?"
He moved off from the bed and stood up, hating the pain that burst in his body and chest, threatening to make him turn back and take her within that very hour. "Yes."
"Why?" She demanded, trying to ignore the hazy hurt and shock that her fuzzy mind was registering only slightly. Her voice was fighting to be steady but it was ridiculously firm as well. "I'm a grownup. I'm not afraid of anything."
Then she added, foolishly with the liquor guiding her, "I can do whatever I want."
"No." Athrun said morosely. "You want to sleep with me as some kind of rebellion against everything that dictates your life. But you'll dismiss it in the morning, and push the responsibility of your actions on the liquor."
Her eyes, hazy and dimmed, focused for a second and then became weak once more.
"I don't want a simple fuck or shag." He said flatly. "When I make love to you, I want you to remember me in the morning and for the rest of your life. I want you to be fully conscious that I took you and that you wanted me to. I won't let you dismiss it as a fling in the morning with the excuse of alcohol."
He stooped down and kissed her on her mouth, lingering, as he had even for the hostess that night. The emerald eyes were stormy and with that strange gentleness she did not want to feel from someone like him towards her.
She stared at him, trembling a little, and her eyes were unfocused, not comprehending, but the sober part of her understood that he was tormenting her.
And she closed her eyes, aware that tears leaked from them. He had turned to leave and the door was being locked once more.
4 months 3 days.