[ Masquerade ]

[breakspromises]

Who: Everyone! Even the grouches :D
When: Friday Evening
Where: Park
Format: Paragraph/action/whatever you like
What: Masquerade Par-tay!
Warnings: None...yet.

The park was lit up by lights and of course the stars that night. Tents were pitched up where refreshments and food were served. Tables and chairs were scattered throughout the space and

Comments

[sonvisage]

[She's drawn by the color as she passes, the split and spill of gold that echoes all the tiny lights along the walkway and in the trees.

Staionary false-lights, not-quite-fireflies that make her both melancholy and warm. For the briefest moment she'd contemplated smashing them for all they reminded her of, but as usual lately, the compulsion gives way to heartache, which gives way to a need for distraction.

Of course she'll choose the distraction that reminds her most of what she's edging away from...

...or is that toward?

Her own dress is less ornate than she's used to, a bit closer to the attire she wore a lifetime ago.

The bones from the direwolf she slew have been arranged into another mask of sorts, clean and stark against the careful updo of that great mass of hair. Grinning balefully when she turns, revealing a second face to the crowd behind her.]

I wasn't sure I'd see you here.

[Facing Priscilla, masked only barely (a mask over a mask, perhaps?), she smiles just a little.]

It's rather hard not to, in that dress. My compliments to the tailor~

[yetsleeping]

I wasn't sure that I'd come. Iolanthe.

[Priscilla glances down at her dress - exquisite as it is, it's a bit strange. More beautiful than anything she'd worn as a warrior, and too light to have been worn in the North.]

[Still.]

The tailor... I'm not sure who it is. Isley helped me. I'm not very good at beautiful things.

[sonvisage]

Very much about this night is unexpected.

[Yet for a moment she doesn't look entirely unhappy. It's possible she doesn't look unhappy at all.]

I wouldn't have guessed at first glance, so between the both of you I'd say it's a success. You wear it well.

[...]

I think like the lights, now. I didn't at first. But I feel lonelier here in this crowd than I did in the ruins.

[yetsleeping]

[Priscilla glances at Lust, vaguely, contemplating these unexpected things. and the lights, yes. And the oddity of living dressed as a human, masquerading as a human.]

[She'd had the thought, once, that her face was her true mask.]

You shouldn't be lonely. Is that part unexpected?

[sonvisage]

[So many masks. And masks on top of masks, even. She's not sure which is her true face anymore. She's less sure that she cares.

What she is sure of is that no, she's never felt this lonely in a crowd before.]

Extremely.

I'd banish it - cut it out if I could. But one ...set of memories won't seem to let me.

[yetsleeping]

Sentimental. So sentimental.

Sentiment can burn you... if you hold it too long. And cut you, if you handle it the wrong way.

...why are you lonely?

[sonvisage]

I didn't used to be. Didn't ask to be.

I let Remus get close. I think he's broken my heart. Or whatever it is that's buried beneath my chest. [Rack adjustment, go!] I shouldn't miss his company at all, should I?

[yetsleeping]

You should feel what you feel. And let it go.

[Priscilla holds her hand up to blot out the party lights, and for a moment her hand is ringed with glowing gold.]

There are people I could miss. They've turned away from me. But none of that matters, I think.

[Her hand closes, holding empty air.]

Why is he gone? Your Remus.

[sonvisage]

[Follows the movements of Priscilla's hand very closely with her eyes, her own fingers splay as she turns her head.]

She came. [Slow arc of ink as the blade climbs to meet the light source, touching very gently to the surface and pressing there, holding but not piercing.] He was hers before he was...

...mine.

[Oh, well that's something, isn't it? She hasn't really addressed this before.]

I did think of him as mine, even if I wasn't his. He's not now, and I doubt that he ever was. It wasn't what we'd intended.

I hate her a little.

Him, too.

But it never stays. It would be much easier if it did.

[yetsleeping]

[Priscilla listens, and her brow furrows slightly as Lust speaks. Iolanthe? Miss Silk? A woman of many identities, with many names.]

[Different memories, like Priscilla herself.]

[And Priscilla searches through those memories - seeking that feeling, the one Iolanthe describes. Hating... sometimes. Fleeting hate, mixed with--]

...it would be. Mm.

[She nods.]

I felt that way too, once. I understand.

[sonvisage]

I believe you do.

I yearned for it, once. Asked for it. It was [Was? Isn't it still---] my great wish to become human.

I'm not sure if wish for that anymore. What I'm wishing for right now is to make someone else feel like he made me feel. It doesn't matter who.

Is that monstrous, or human, I wonder.

[yetsleeping]

[Priscilla tips her head, watching Iolanthe from the corner of her eye.]

More.

[There is no doubt in her mind about that. Not even for a moment.]

[sonvisage]

[She may or may not have heard, although all signs point to yes as she continues. A bladed finger taps the edge of a tree-light again, pulls back and glides just above the surface.]

I wonder if their heartbreak would mean as little to me as mine has to him. Oh, he says one thing, but he's not the one left picking up the pieces.

[Tap.]

I wonder what they sound like when they shatter.

[Not. Just. Talking about lights.]

[yetsleeping]

They sound like... screams, and the crack of bones, and the thump of a beating heart as it grows slow, and then... a groan, like a dying animal, and the squelching noise of tearing flesh.

[...]

They sound... good.

[Like music. She misses it. wants it. She aches.]

[sonvisage]

[The beating of a heart as it grows slow. This, in particular resonates. Lupin's heart had grown slow and dull and heavy and then faint as she'd sat on the floor and held him, frozen with her useless fear.

She didn't mind the screams, remembering when they tore through her own throat, as teeth and flesh were blasted away by bullets, by ribbons, by---

---it hurt less than this thing she'd been left with. Is it in her own heart? Slow and sick and wounded like a dying animal? Better to tear it out of her breast than feel this forever.

Or to tear someone else apart from the inside out? Was that a thought she was having? Yes.

Oh, look. This little light is ...gone. Just the one, but it's such a fragile thing. It's almost disappointing. Until it's not.]

I believe you.

[She's smiling as she says this, the tiny, tiny rain of glass eliciting a hum as it sparkles, falls soundlessly, nearly unseen. It reminds her of something.]