It is not often a man has the opportunity to become a living work of art. I suppose, in some respects, my station for the party is a gift; I am entertainment and entertained. I cannot understand the artists very well for their lilting accents; but I learn to understand the strokes of their paintbrushes, and in their flashing mirrors (they brandish them, proudly, with each new work upon my body) I flash a smile back.
They have covered in me in gold, and red, and the mural of their work is entangled in the natural rosettes of my flanks—I am a serpent and a battlefield and a monolith. I have a face of painted eyes and an angel's frightful wings, tonight. I am at once more beautiful and more terrible than I have ever been before.
The crux of this, of course, is that I must also be entertainment. I must smile prettily at those who visit the artist’s corner in the wide courtyard; the night air is pleasant, and nearly brisk with winter’s influence. But I enjoy it. The music from the party drifts toward us, a lull beneath the rhythmic tones of the artist’s conversations as they work upon a trio of peasant brothers. I turn away and gaze beyond the fence of the courtyard, out, out into the night. I wonder what lays beyond—
but there is someone else approaching, and with the artist’s preoccupied, I suppose it is my Princely duty to engage them. I offer my most brazen smile—and, highlighted with the artist’s work, I am sure it is quite striking. “How may I help you?” I ask, but my voice is velveteen, my voice is bedroom poetry and silk sheets. It asks, instead, can I take you to bed?
I offer a wink for good measure, assuming if nothing else the gesture might make their night. It might make me the most memorable of the Princes, for my brazenness, for my indifference. The smile broadens. "Unfortunately for you, the artist’s are otherwise preoccupied. Although, I have to count that as my fortune. What brings you to our party, then?”
"Speech." || @Anyone!
dark summers are honeyed and sulky, full of pomegranates
YOU WILL NOT TAME THIS SEA either by humility or rapture. / But you can laugh / in its face.
I must have been here for hours. It doesn’t feel like it’s been so long at all.
My night haze been a haze of glittering lights, stars and gilded lanterns alike, one-half gilded daydream and one-half claustrophobic nightmare. It’s so- different. Parties at home were smaller, warmer. This party is beautiful in the same way that a poisonous flower is beautiful. That is to say – it is bright as a warning sign.
I was too dazzled to notice, at first.
But I’m content to stumble through it. I’m unimportant, irrelevant – maybe a bit too eye-catching, with my coat of autumn leaves and my cascades of red curls and my wings and my horns and my odd eyes, all a thousand times more striking than I’m accustomed to, but I’m no public figure. In fact – I’m a stranger to everyone I’ve encountered at this party, to every glamorous personage I’ve locked eyes with. I’ve been in Novus a matter of weeks. I barely know anyone – and barely anyone knows me. It isn’t lonely, but I’m still deciding whether or not it’s a virtue.
I’ve noticed the painters a few times, as I’ve circled the party throughout the evening. I’ve even watched their work from a distance. I’ve never seen designs like the ones that they’re painting before; I assume they must be cultural, and it makes me want to take a closer look, though I’m never quite brave enough to engage them. (And – well, I can hear their voices from a distance, and their accents are so thick and so unfamiliar that I honestly can’t make out a word they’re saying, so, even if I do have questions, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point in asking them.)
I’m watching the painters, again – and I must have strayed a bit closer than usual, because this time one of them walks up to me, though he strikes me as less of an artist and more of a canvas. He’s young, relatively, probably around my age, though a bit older; somewhere on the precipice of manhood. He’s striking, too. It’s not just the dark rosettes on his body, or his lithe form, or the elaborate artwork swirled across his frame. It’s a matter of presence. He carries himself with a kind of indulgence that suggests that he wants to be seen.
That is to say: of course I noticed him, each time I looked over at the painters.
(I notice the way the reds and golds painted across his flanks match my eyes.)
And now he’s approached me, an oh-so bold smile twisted across his lips. “How may I help you?” His voice is all honey and silk, darkly inviting, and I piece together his intentions almost immediately.
He’s laying it on thick, I think – but he’s pretty, so I don’t mind.
I incline my head at him, red hair twisting to frame my face, and I return his smile with one of my own; in all the places where his is dark, mine is midday-bright and sweet, but my lashes flutter, faintly, when I say, “Well, I was thinking that I’d like to have my coat painted,” I say, slowly, deliberately – my eyes drifting the length of his frame. “I don’t suppose you know how?”
He winks. I’m caught between finding it charming and laughable, but I’m certainly willing to play along: with a coy tilt of my head, which sends that red hair falling in just the right way. "Unfortunately for you, the artists are otherwise preoccupied. Although, I have to count that as my fortune. What brings you to our party, then?” His smile grows, if that is even possible. (It occurs to me, dully, that he must be one of the hosts – one of the Ieshans, one of the Princes. I suppose it makes sense. He looks quite like a prince should, I think.) “Oh,” I say, still smiling, “I think it might be my fortune instead. I’m Nicnevin – I came to see the desert…and because I heard that there would be good music and good company.” A hint of amusement works its way into my tone. “But I find myself curious – are you the good kind of company, or the bad one?”
My head cocks – the tilt halfway-innocent and not innocent at all.
@Corradh || pretty sure that Nic finds him hysterical || "Speech!"
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
DARK SUMMERS ARE HONEYED AND SULKY, FULL OF POMEGRANATES THUNDERSTORMS, MAGNOLIAS, UN-KEPT PROMISES
This is what Pilate gets for demanding entertain the guests. It was his party, after all—he knows I lack the refinement of the rest of them, the patient willingness to… to fill a role, as is demanded by our society. I recognize nearly immediately that she is not Solterran; she is not an aristocrat because, if she were, I would know her by name. And she is not a citizen because, well—I can recognize the sand that sifts through generations of the desert-born. It is the way of us, those blessed by Solis, and I am gladdened by her foreignness. She is beautiful like a forest is beautiful; perhaps a little plainly, but with plenty of majesty. Well, I was thinking that I’d like to have my coat painted.
Another brazen smile.
This one, showing the tips of leopard’s teeth.
I say, “You’re in luck.” Glittering eyes, and glittering skin, and my voice woven into the cacophony of music and conversation. I do not speak loudly. I speak just above a whisper, to entice intimacy, to demand, listen closer, to hear what I have to say. “I am the newly crowned prince of body paints.” If I were more tasteless than I already am, I might have laughed at my own joke. I refrain, however, until her next comment evokes a guffaw from me.
“A pleasure. I’m Corradh.” It doesn’t matter if she knows me. I am not my brothers, obsessed by their regality; in fact, I hope she doesn’t recognize me as the youngest prince. I turn away, briefly, to retrieve a set of paints and brushes. I brandish them before her, for approval. “Now, Lady Nicnevin, that’s a loaded question. It remains very open to interpretation.”
I pride myself on being halfway to wild; on being the only Ieshan that appears, at any moment, as if they might dissolve into wind and be gone, running to the sea, or the forest, or across the sand dunes of the Mors. I dip my eyes to the paints, but then glance up at her from beneath my lashes, emerald against long, dark kohl. “I don’t think I fit well into the boxes of “good” and “bad.” I prefer…. Well, free. I’m the most fun you’ll have tonight.” I say it cheekily, with a lack of severity.
I gesture with a brush, asking for permission. “I don’t suppose you have a specific request?”
