"This is your brilliant idea?"
"Not technically mine, first of all. Sienna wants an inside man - or woman in
your case."
"Why didn't she choose you? You pass for human far better than me!"
Ilia shifts under her accusing glare, smiling sheepishly. "She has a different
assignment for me."
Hurt, Blake wheels away from her to pace across their apartment, floorboards
creaking offensively underfoot. "Ilia this will take months , I never would have
agreed if I knew this was your plan."
"Look, Blake, please look at me."
Blake twists around reluctantly, and Ilia crosses the distance. There's a subtle
desperation in her irises, the caramel color washed to gray in panic. "You won't
even have to pay rent for the next few months, you can just focus on your
writing and I'll take care of everything else. Please Blake. We are so close to
getting legislative action. The riot last week scared them, this is one of the last
steps to equality."
Blake looks her over, her mouth pulled to the side in indecision.
"...But the Moulin Rouge? Of all places, why there? What would Sienna Khan
want with a bordello?"
Ilia moves to the window, still facing Blake the whole way. She gestures out to
the red building across the street.
The waning daylight exposes its age in washed out paint, letters peeling off the
grand sign out front. A massive red mill sits at the apex of the building, its
wheel spinning in an aimless breeze. It sits innocently enough, a veritable
cadaver on the sidewalk until the moonlight ressurrects it.
"It isn't just a bordello Blake. We've been here for a year, haven't you seen who
goes in?"
Of course she has.
The chaos of Paris' most infamous cabaret is hard to miss. Like the world's
largest sundial, the Iron Lady's needle points a black path towards the
Montmartre district in the hours of dusk. Guiding wayward souls to the Moulin
Rouge with her long shadow.
In such close proximity, Blake breathes in cigar smoke when the wind turns.
She suffers the crowds forming outside those wide, inviting gates on her way
home. She dreams with the hands of trumpets and laughter reaching through
her window every night, coaxing her to join the chaos.
The Red Mill is considered both the pride, and bane of Paris. A humming
curiosity of debauchery and splendor, it serves as a theatre, bordello, and
nightclub. Though if you were to perouse the tea times of Parisian nobility,
they'd liken it to a circus with the way its ringmaster, Harold Zidler, runs it.
Blake has spent the better part of a year skirting the radius of it's thrall.
Determined to resist that siren's call. There are plenty of bohemians who've lost
themselves to those glowing red walls, and the guardian at its door.
She knows the giant, hollow elephant in the courtyard. Its visage is a postcard
of exuberance and fortune - and its purpose is less than secret. Only the highest
of clients are brought into its belly to finish out the night. The sparkling
diamond of the Moulin Rouge is particular about who she selects. Even Blake
knows the rules.
Only those with the deep pockets of the wealthy can ever step foot in there.
Those who win the favor of the infamous Satine.
Though despite the ostentatious sniffs and haughty laughs given at the expense
of proprietors, it is no secret that the Moulin Rouge embodies a lifestyle that
appeals to nearly everyone in the city.
Inside, fantasy can bleed into reality in a way that's rarely found in real life.
They say it's only inside the Moulin Rouge that wizards and sirens become as
real as the protesters in the streets.
"I'm aware of its reputation, Ilia," Blake sighs, giving the deceased building a
lingering look before turning away. "I just don't see what Sienna could do with
it."
"The Moulin Rouge has been trying to convert itself into a theatre for years." Ilia
swings into her eye line, eagerness on her face, "Harold Zidler's been fingering
the pockets of the wealthy for any crumbs to stow away for it, and they're
looking for a writer to make their first show. You're perfect for the job, you've
been writing stories since you could read!"
Blake bares her teeth in a snarl, "Ilia what man in his right mind would hire a
woman for his production, let alone a faunus?"
"He won't know! You can hide your ears and pass just as easily as me!"
"This is such a stupid idea-"
"You already promised!"
"I'm going to strangle you in your sleep I swear -"
"Strangle me if you don't get it! Prove me wrong. Prove that even your best
efforts won't get you this job."
They glare at each other.
One second becomes a minute. A silent, tense minute of battling wills.
Blake lets out a long, suffering groan.
Hours later, Ilia spends the entire walk across the street to the Moulin Rouge
convincing her not to turn around and head straight home. It only takes four
times before she manages to bully Blake into the lamplit courtyard.
As they walk together under that gaudy plaster elephant, Blake nearly turns
back again.
The black of the elephant's skin is washed out in halos of red and yellow. Its
small, glassy red eyes glow menacingly from oil lamps flickering deep within the
body.
By the time the silhouette of the great creature falls away behind them, Blake
submits herself. She resigns herself to the charade, and gives herself over to
the curiosity she's staunchly ignored for a year.
After all, once the Moulin Rouge has her hooks in you, there is nowhere to go
but inside.
The building has painted walls that stretch so far above her head she can't see
the edge of the roof; swallowed by low hanging clouds of cigar smoke. Perfumes
of cedar and clove, leather and burning books, even a toasted cinnamon drown
them upon their approach. The obscurity and rising noise sets something
atavistic in Blake's bones. Something that sings like instinct - vibrating under
her skin in fear and wonder.
She's armed with nothing but a poem in her pocket, and a waylaid plan that just
reeks of bad decisions.
Ants have probably felt mightier, and perhaps far comfier in their carapaces.
Her borrowed dress shoes feel like they've been designed just to torture her.
Pinching at her toes, flattening the natural arch of her feet with each step.
Nerves writhing in her chest are pulling her breath up too short per second - but
there is curiosity at its core.
She's avoided this place like the plague, but even Blake isn't immune to the
allure of fantasy.
Ilia takes her wrist and pulls her past the gauche, bright red double doors. The
frame curves together to meet at a raindrop tip, a beautiful filigree of lotus
petals in gold leaf painted onto the wood grain.
They're greeted by a pair of large bouncers dressed in tasseled vests. Shadows
jump across their barrel bodies and bulging muscles. The sense of danger grips
Blake in a familiar vice. She refuses to show it. Adam taught her well.
Instead, she tips her hat to the burly pair, hiding the nervous sweat beading
along her brow. Ilia follows suit, and they're granted access without a second
glance. The moment they step across the threshold -
Everything explodes into motion.
Hundreds of men in tailored suits dance across a massive ballroom floor. Women
sashay and sweep around with them in a kaleidoscopic blur of fabrics and
glinting jewelry. Blake can't help but watch as the women twirl gracefully (and
sometimes ungracefully) across that wide golden floor, their painted lips forever
smiling as they rush past with their partner.
Carried with them is the hurricane scent of humidity and salt, mixed with far too
many sickly-sweet perfumes. Blake's sensitive feline ears are thankful for what
little covering she has from her top hat. The music pounds so hard and fast off
the walls that her skeleton feels unstable.
High above their heads, strings of crystal and crimson tapestries hang in
sparkling smiles along the curve of the domed ceiling. Lanterns and
accoutrement in lace and floral filigree spiral magnificently up the four pillars
that support the dome. It frames a grand stage set between two of the pillars.
Painted murals of flowers, clouds, and stars nearly obscured by waterfalls of
crystals on near-invisible wire. A large man with a conductor's baton stands
above the stage on a balcony, and the name of a dance is displayed on a
revolving board set in the wall below.
Lining the ballroom are several bubbled pockets indented into the walls. Each
divot hosts a single velvet red table and booth. People are laughing from them,
toasting expensive champagne to each other without a care in the world.
Everywhere she looks, the overlapping details rend her breathless.
It is chaos.
But god , Blake never knew how wondrous chaos could be.
It's specifically the lavish gowns and jewelry of the women, splashed with the
black of men in tuxedos, that make Blake self conscious of the similar tight
jacket around her shoulders; the noose of a bow at her neck; the pinch in her
shoes. A quick look around tells her there's absolutely no faunus amidst the
crowd. She adjusts the brim of her hat even lower.
Ilia gives her a confident smile as they're suddenly swept up in the crowd by a
pair of twins. They move onto the main floor with the rush, and Blake has to
squint. The lights are so bright they set sunspots in her vision. She's passed
from partner to partner, all of them pretty women lathered in makeup and
clouds of perfume that sting the inside of her nose.
Her body moves with the music and the women in her arms, obediently
following the booming cry of the portly conductor - but Blake's head is still
somewhere back at the entrance. Still left to marvel at the chaos and beauty of
it all.
The current song gives an abrupt end. Her dance partner, a woman with short,
bright orange hair and electric blue eyes, awards a playful wink as she slips
back into the crowd. Hips swaying like she knows who's watching.
Blake's brown skin flushes in jeweled reds, and she quickly scurries over to Ilia
who'd commandeered a corner booth.
She drops into the red satin cushions beside her friend and says sharply, "I can't
do this."
"Yes you can!" Ilia exclaims, pushing her shoulder. "You have everything you
need! Satine's opinion matters even more than Zidler's. He'd do anything to
keep his sparkling diamond happy. You just need to sell your poetry to her. Once
you're hired to write the show, we'll have access to every rich duke and count in
Paris."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were planning on kidnapping
someone."
The mirth drips off of Ilia's face, and she gives her a glare. "We're not stupid
Blake, kidnapping does nothing but piss off the nobles."
Though she should be relieved at the response, Blake can't help the
apprehension building in her chest. The band starts jamming to an upbeat fiddle
solo. Her voice quiets to a murmur.
"Ilia you can't seriously think this is a good idea. The only 'good' this will do is
to draw attention for the government to paint a fucking target on our backs-"
"There is no other way!" Ilia snaps, slamming her palm into the velvet table.
She makes a face as her palm doesn't make the kind of noise she was hoping
for, and now her hand is damp with something vaguely alcoholic.
She wipes it on her trousers and growls, "We've tried peaceful protest and it
didn't work. We need to kick off a revolution and anger is the fastest way to do
that. You know the nobility's been feeding off the backs of faunus for decades.
You know they need to be held accountable for the shit they've done."
"You can't change people who don't want to change, Ilia!"
The look Ilia gives her rakes across Blake's nerves like snapped violin strings.
It's two parts pity, one part knowing, and Blake wants it gone before she even
registers the animosity boiling in the pit of her stomach. The utter hatred she
feels towards her friend, for one inconsolable second.
"Don't look at me like that. Just because I learned my lesson doesn't mean you
get to pity me."
"I'm not pitying you" Ilia lies, her eyebrows pulled together with stress. "Sienna
has the people on her side, and this is just a stepping stone. There's no killing
involved, we're just getting information."
Blake gives her a skeptical look.
"Blake," Ilia starts in a sigh that scrapes across Blake's nerves, "Her methods
may be strange, but we're doing the right thing by following her."
It's the same conversation, every time. Ever since the powerful form of Sienna
Khan darkened their door; since Ilia's bohemian friends upstairs sent a
favorable word through the grapevine. Since blood droplets pass as coin these
days. Blake's been around long enough to know there's always a new
revolution. A new cause. A new perceived path to equality.
None of them ever end.
Blake's tired of repeating herself, but Ilia continues doggedly, "We're getting
results now. The new Freedom of Business bill that passed is because of our
involvement - because of us . Sienna's way is working, you can't deny that."
She can't, but it doesn't stop her heart from hurting.
"It's working now , but it won't last. Parliament won't like getting bullied into
legislation, and you and I both know Sienna's not as peaceful as she seems.
What do you think she's using this information for, Ilia? None of it feels right!"
Blake leans closer under the escalating music, acutely aware of her ears moving
with her emotions under her hat and adjusting it accordingly. "If Adam -"
"Adam is gone, Blake! He's been gone, when are you going to let it go?!"
Blake sits back, stung. The subject of Adam is hard for both of them. Blake
hates how his name still tastes like ash in her mouth. Like the bridge he burned
between them so long ago would never let her mouth feel clean again. Brilliant
red floods Ilia's freckles and eyes, and they glower at each other in a stalemate.
An uncomfortable hole yawns in her stomach. "I'm not holding onto him!" Her
left hip throbs, as if it's chanting liar, liar. "Ilia what -"
Blake's jaw suddenly snaps shut with a click. Ilia's bright colors quickly revert
back to her olive skin tone.
Her words are echoing. The music has stopped, and Blake doesn't know for how
long. She realises the blinding lights have dimmed. Softened to a romantic
pulse.
Blake immediately decides that silence feels ultimately wrong in this building.
Far out of sight, a low drum beat begins to toll. A single spotlight made of
mirrors alights on the dreamscape ceiling. Right where curtains and crystal
obscure the apex of the dome.
The blustering conductor, donned in a cardinal red uniform and gold tassels,
appears in the circle of a second spotlight, having come down from his balcony
to grace the stage. His thick mustache and brows are slick with sweat from the
dance he'd been orchestrating prior.
"My fair patrons!" He crows, flinging his hands up grandly. "Thank you all for
being here tonight!"
He pauses, waiting for the crowd to die down on cue. His voice booms, "Firstly, I
wish to extend the warmest welcome to our benefactor this evening, sponsoring
our Dance Night Spectacular - the Duke of Atlas Commons, Jacques Schnee!"
A sudden pair of floodlights blind Blake and Ilia for a prolonged second, both of
them flinching away from it. They hastily flutter away after too long a pause,
blinding light skittering along the faces of the crowd again and finally pinning on
the man in the booth next to them. It vanishes as quickly as it had appeared, as
if embarrassed by its haste.
Blake and Ilia exchange a wide-eyed, knowing glance.
Jacques Schnee is one of the wealthiest nobles in Paris. His wife's bloodline is so
close to the ancient monarchy that it's easier just to call them royalty. He's also
one of the most vocal racists in Parisian politics. He makes no secret of where
most of his wife's money goes - funding the beatings and blunderbusses that
the White Fang has met time and time again.
But apparently he has a pocket of gold meant for the Rouge, too.
He's the perfect target for a statement, Blake realises. Reading Ilia's expression,
she knows they're sharing the same epiphany. Unease pricks at her skin, forcing
her to rub her arms over her black tuxedo. She makes an uncertain pass over
the rambunctious crowd, the noise of the announcer filtering into the
background as his long winded speech turns to a muffled drone in her ears.
Blake peers cautiously around the edge of their curtains. She catches a glimpse
of stark white hair and a black suit. That's all she manages before abruptly, all
the rowdy patrons fall deathly silent once more. Blake's ears knock her top hat
askew as they perk up sharply. She looks around the room in confusion.
"Ilia? What-"
"Shhh!" Ilia hisses, leaning over the table to stare at the folds of curtain fabric
and crystal in the dome above.
"It's her!"
Blake finds her neck craning back, following the eyeline of everyone else in the
room.
It starts as a humming. Omnipresent and low.
It fills the vast ballroom with an enchantment she can't name. It hangs like
anticipation over her head and seizes the breath in her lungs with unforgiving
hands. The notes coax a building excitement from every hollow bone and
crevice in the room. Blake is nearly on the edge of her seat when the curtains
part with unseen strings.
There on a bench, gliding down like an image of the sun setting, is a woman.
She has a swath of gold hair pulled into an elegant bun. Her defined arms and
shoulders are laden with jewelry like a dragon wearing their horde. Her dress is
splattered with gold sequins, make a sunset out of silk. It's cut diagonally
across her chest, the fabric so tightly wound around her curves it seems to pull
the powerful humming from her throat.
In the glint of the lights and the scent of sweat and heat, the entire room
ceases to exist.
Blake can't feel her hands or feet. Her tongue goes numb. Ilia hisses something
at her, but she doesn't understand it. Not with her pulse knocking a new rhythm
in her ears. Her fingers are screaming for a pen as she digs them into her thigh.
She can't feel the sting.
The woman's pale eyes flit over their corner booth just as Ilia hastily fixes her
hat again. Blake doesn't feel the pull on her ears. Her heart is too busy seizing
in its death throes. She's slain by the slow, sly smile crawling across the
woman's face.
"The French are glad to...die…"
Her magnetic gaze shifts away. Blake's lungs stutter. "For love."
The woman bends backwards, one strong hand wrapped around the chain of her
seat. Descending to the crowd. The sublime pale spotlight plays with shadows
across her toned body. The wrap of her dress expands in a controlled breath.
Small strings of gold hair dangle from her temples. It's painful to observe her
beauty.
Blake used to wonder if love would ever knock on her door again.
This is less of a knock and more of an assault.
The light catches on the woman's eyes, their colour flashing like ingots of
amethyst. Her voice grows from a murmur, low and echoing in the ballroom.
"They delight… in fighting duels…"
Her painted lips curl into a sinful smile as the bench begins to spin slowly. Her
dress falls open on a slit that comes up dangerously high on her thigh.
"But I prefer…"
Blake tries to remember how to breathe.
"A man who lives…"
It has to be easier than this Blake, you've been breathing your whole life. Come
on.
"And gives…"
Just, in. In, out. It's not rocket science.
She manages a single mouthful of oxygen. Trapped in eye contact with the
woman again, and it's held deliberately. Like she knows exactly how it'll ruin the
object of her attention.
"Expensive…"
Blake enraptured by the way the woman's lips purse and round around her final
word. The way she lets it slither into the silent air, as if they're the only two
people in the world.
"Jewels."
Satine winks.
Blake nearly blacks out.
Oh, this is a wrench in their plans. A very large, very uncomfortable wrench.
Drums roll to life as the cabaret bursts into song. Satine slides off the bench
with liquid grace, landing on the platform at center stage. She has flapper
tassels dripping off the hem of her dress, one long, tanned leg exposed as she
rolls her hips to the side, then the other. Her low voice croons the number. The
lyrics almost seemed to stick themselves to the walls.
Blake isn't sure she's still alive. It's pretty touch and go still, honestly. Ilia keeps
trying to talk to her, but it's like talking to a brick wall.
Satine expertly swings around in the congested room, her singing just as
beautiful as all the tabloids had prophesied. She doesn't have to do anything
more than suggest, and the entire room falls at her feet. She stretches out her
hand, and the men near her frantically climb over themselves to lather her
wrists in jewels. Her tall form disappears amidst the rabble, and Blake has to
scoot herself back into the booth before she falls off her seat.
She pulls at her high collar and tie. They're burning their way into her neck by
the sheer heat of her skin. It takes everything she has to avoid fanning herself
in public.
Because she's supposed to pose as a man.
Because she has a poem in her breast pocket that suddenly weighs thirty
tonnes.
Because she's meant to impress Satine that very night.
Oh, gods .
Blake is supposed to write a show for the Moulin Rouge. She's supposed to get
hired, and write a show for the woman enchanting an entire room of men with a
smile and a song. A woman Blake would never be able to function in front of,
even if her life depended on it.
And it just might depend on it.
Blake turns to an irritated Ilia, who'd finally realised that Blake isn't listening at
all.
Before Ilia can reprimand her for getting distracted, Blake cuts her off.
"I'm going to die tonight." She says with a vicious edge. "If you put me in a
room with her, I will die."
Ilia rolls her eyes disbelievingly, "Don't be so dramatic."
She's quietly laughing at her, like she doesn't believe Blake can predict her own
downfall. Like Blake's never done it before. She reaches up to fix Blake's hat
that's gone askew again, but Blake isn't having it. She swats her hand away,
gold eyes wide with panic.
"I'm not being dramatic! I'm serious as a stroke, I can't fucking do this." The
hat shifts forward right over her furrowed brow. "I'm-"
Ilia's eyes go wide at something over her shoulder. Cold splashes down Blake's
spine in an uncontrollable shiver.
She twists around, and finds Satine's breasts pressed right up in her space. She
catches a heavy waft of a smoky, incense-like perfume, and her head begins to
spin itself in a heady dance.
"Ladies choice," Satine purrs, taking Blake's limp hands from her lap. The backs
of her fingers skim along the inseam of her trousers. "Dance with me, Duke."
Heat flushes under brown cheeks. Blake can't make more than a quiet squeak
with the sparks skittering under her skin.
Satine tugs on her wrists with unholy strength, and ultimately, Blake couldn't
resist if she tried. She's caught by the mouth, and the hook of Satine's smile
pulls her out onto the dance floor.
Her presence alone seems to part the crowd, a pathway opening up to the
center of the ballroom. Blake realises she's been staring at the sway of those
hips for far too long and snaps her eyes up.
It really strikes her how tall Satine is. Unusually, almost intimidatingly so, for a
woman. Even taller still with her glittering heels.
Which also means that Blake's eyeline is aimed directly at the glisten of sweat
and jewelry - the ritual sacrifice of diamonds cluttered in the altar space of her
exposed cleavage. Blake's never been religious, but it's the only vernacular that
fits. Even the way that smoky, incense-like perfume sticks to the roof of her
mouth reminds her of Notre Dame.
Satine gives an all-knowing smile. Blake's mouth waters. She's never felt so out
of control in her life. Certain her knees are going to give out if she lets go of
Satine's hand. She's twisted across the floor by that iron grip. Blake can do
nothing but flow where warm hands pull her. Tide to shore.
Mercifully, her instincts and years of partying too young finally kick in. She pulls
herself together with the frayed threads of an old survival technique. As her
heart seems convinced it'll die tonight, and it's imperative that she impresses
Satine. That she plays her part well enough for an encore.
She shifts her grip to hold Satine's waist, straightening her posture. She is
acutely aware of all the jealous eyes trained on them.
As her feet move by instinct alone, Blake imagines those eyes burning into her
with scalpel-like precision. They dissect her clothes, her shaking hands, her
clumsy steps. They pick apart the ears hidden under her satin black hat. The
short, ink black hair she's left to float about her chin in an effort to match the
fashion of Parisian men. She imagines those eyes becoming hands, grasping at
her throbbing hip, pulling her off the floor and tossing her out from the Moulin
Rouge. Repercussions for touching Satine, as someone with not even a franc in
their pocket to offer.
Oh there is a guillotine in the room, and those accusing stares can't wait for her
neck to fall into the slot.
But she keeps time. Swaying where Satine needs her, surviving by the tips of
her toes. It's like dancing with a live flame. Satine leads even when she isn't,
and Blake is helplessly stuck in the gravity of her. She ignores the jealousy
rising in the room. She ignores the murmurs passing around the crowd.
Insidious rumors passed through the lips and bristles of the men snubbed of
their chance to dance with a goddess. She ignores it all.
Because as terrifying as the attention is… Letting go of Satine somehow seems
worse.
"You're light on your feet, Your Grace." The courtesan murmurs, nearly startling
Blake right out of her skin.
Blake's frame stiffens, her grasp growing firmer along Satine's waist as she
flounders for a coherent thought. She needs something. Anything to keep
Satine's attention. Anything to carry the illusion that she belongs here - in her
arms and guided by her body. Become the Duke, if only for a moment.
She croaks, "I- um. I've had some practice."
"Oh? So you're experienced?" Satine tilts her head slyly.
Blake coughs out a nervous laugh, but before she can respond, the dancers
around them halt at a swell of noise from the band.
Satine suddenly pulls her close enough that Blake can count the threads of
jewelry tucked into her cleavage. The other ladies on the floor follow the cue
with uniform precision - a rehearsed dance that everyone should know - except
those who have never been here before. Blake's hands are guided to Satine's
hips and she searches her face in confusion. She's not entirely sure if the
courtesan can tell there's butterflies in her wrist at their proximity.
A violin wails at the bottom of a well, and Satine sinks down onto her knees in
unison with the other dancers. She looks up at Blake through the gold curtain of
her eyelashes. Her hands slip around to grip the backs of Blake's thighs, the
sensitive skin screaming alarms in Blake's head.
There's a moment where the insanity around Blake breaks something in her.
She has insanity chattering in her ear, the carnal urge to hold Satine's jaw; to
tilt her head back and breathe in that saccharine smoke of perfume. To taste it
from her painted lips and remember something she's never known in this life.
As quick as it came, the fantasy blinks away. She's left numb from her toes to
her ears, open-mouthed and gaping as Satine rises from her dip, reclaiming her
height.
"We're delighted you've taken an interest in the show, my dear Duke," Satine
croons with a hand pressed on Blake's chest. She's pushed backwards, Satine's
heels clicking on beat with the music.
Blake instantly thanks whichever god had possessed Ilia to convince Blake to
bind her chest down. The lies she's brought to the Moulin Rouge come crawling
up her throat in a panic, burning like acid.
"I-I've heard nothing but good things," She says, hoping to all hope that the
music can cover the crack in her voice. "I'd love to be involved."
Satine's face lights up with interest. Blake tries to play it safe by switching her
hold to the taller woman's waist, but Satine takes her hand and drags it around
to her ass. Blake nearly passes out as the muscles roll beneath her palm.
"Would you?" Satine hums curiously.
"Yes!" Blake's skin feels like she's holding her hands over hot coals. "I was told
your performances are to um. To die for."
Satine's eyes narrow, and Blake has the distinct feeling of being hunted. She's
not sure why it doesn't scare her like usual. The rabbit pace of her pulse tells
her to rethink her understanding of fear.
"You want to be involved in them?" The courtesan asks with a crawling,
salacious smile. "My performances?"
Blake is wholly unprepared for that smile in close proximity and replies
brainlessly, "Oh yes! I was um. Thinking about introducing poetry to it."
" Poetry?" The word doesn't sound anything like what it's supposed to, coming
from red lips with such a dark rumble. "Oh, certainly . I've never met a man
who likes poetry."
"Well," Blake laughs nervously, unconsciously flexing her hands to expend some
of her jitters. "Most men don't appreciate the gift of tongues I guess."
Satine gives a breathless sort of laugh, her hips shifting forward into Blake's for
a heartbeat of pressure. The music announces its final crescendo, but Blake's
mind has gone fuzzy. She barely hears Satine murmuring by her ear, " Oh , I
think we're going to get along just fine, Duke."
"I'm - really?" Blake's mouth clacks shut.
Satine spins away on her own, leaving Blake's hands cold and empty. The dress
flutters out at her thighs in a beautiful river of fabric. Blake briefly entertains
the thought of drowning in it.
"Meet me in the elephant and we can find out. I'm looking forward to your
poetry ."
Satine winks, just as the music crawls to a halt.
The patrons around them escalate into a roaring, painfully loud applause. The
courtesan swings around to disappear amidst the crowd - though not without
giving Blake one last molten look over her broad shoulder. Blake's knees knock
together once, but by some cosmic miracle, she stays standing.
She can still faintly taste the smoke from Satine's perfume at the back of her
throat. It stands out amidst the thick miasma of noxious fumes coming off the
other dancers. It's like a dose of absinthe made airborne. Blake's hands flex
numbly at her sides, her mind buzzing like a beehive. She couldn't get a clear
thought if she tried.
"Blake!" Ilia's hands clap onto her shoulders, startling her out of her haze. "That
was incredible, I've never seen Satine look so interested! What on earth did you
say to her?"
"I...um. I don't...know."
The music kicks up again, and Satine's voice soars above the clamor. She sings
of diamonds and jewels, of shapes that never bend or break. Blake's ears lose
their rigidity as the eyes on her turn to the stage, lending a soft ache to the
back of her skull. Ilia fixes her hat for her, waiting eagerly for her answer.
Satine's made it to the stage by now. She drapes herself over the bench once
more, and it begins to ascend to the ceiling, taking her with it. She sings to the
patrons below. Absently, Blake likens her to a legend she once heard from a
travelling sailor. Of the sirens that haunt the ships at sea, and their merciless
call for hulls to crack upon rocks hidden under the waves.
Blake takes a shallow, shaking breath.
"She invited me to read poetry to her." She says numbly, turning to look at Ilia
with wide, searching eyes. "In the elephant."
"In the - Blake that's fantastic!" Ilia immediately pulls her towards the double
doors.
Blake mutters sarcastically, allowing herself to be pulled. "Fantastic, a death
wish."
Ilia chatters to her excitedly, but nothing quite stands out. Blake is still caught
up with it all. Spellbound, until Satine disappears into the folds of the dome.
She inhales fully for the first time that night, the fog in her head clearing just
enough for panic to set its claws in her.
"She- oh no. Ilia she thinks I'm a Duke!" Blake pulls the rim of her top hat down
hard enough to make the stab of a headache travel behind her eye. "What am I
going to do!? What if she finds out I'm not -"
"What, that you're not a fabulously wealthy Duke?" Ilia snorts, the pair slipping
out the double doors.
The elephant looms over their heads. Blake finds that the shadows pulled over
its body are quite sinister - though perhaps that's just the fear setting in. Ilia is
still talking, and Blake finally tunes in.
"You'll be fine , your poetry will speak for itself. You just need to read it to her
and secure the job. Whatever you do to get there is up to you."
Blake's neck cranes back to stare up at the monstrous creature, dread pooling
thick in her stomach.
"...She's either going to be very cross," She rasps, "Or she's going to eat me
alive."
Ilia rolls her gray eyes, pushing her towards the stairs that begin at the back of
the elephant's ankle. "Come now. Be brave. You've been in worse situations."
Blake takes a step, and Ilia stops her suddenly. She twists her around, prodding
Blake's bound chest. Her traitorous heart skips with the memory of Satine's
palm over the same spot.
"Just don't lose sight of the goal.," she says seriously, "I know women aren't
your thing, but Satine is infamous for her charms. She might make you
confused or off kilter, so just - just stick to the objective."
Blake has a cold sweat tingling over her spine. The heat of Satine's body still
lingers at the cuff of her wrist and she thinks back to the brief fantasy she had
while dancing with her.
She doesn't bother to correct Ilia's idea of her preferences, swallowing her
attraction painfully. She nods.
"Right," She says weakly.
She makes a shaky step towards the elephant, adjusting her hat as her ears pin
flat to her skull beneath it. She wishes she'd brought something to tie them
down.
"...Stick to the objective. Got it."