[P] night poem. || ieshan party

[Adonai]

adonai.

I drift through the party on statuesque limbs. 

For a while I am amiable, pleasant, uttering a blessing in common tongue for the pious, slipping a glib in Sahvahn for the enamoured—until my breathing grows strained and my smile stretches tight like lambskin left out to tan.

I bow lightly to a brunette with the Hajakhan crest ironed into her sleeve, her ruby eyes faintly serpentine in shape; she is watching me too carefully to be anything but conniving, and her smile fails to convince me otherwise. Vaguely I place her as the new Emissary's maternal cousin, but her name escapes me, and anyway—she is not important enough for me to expend any further effort.

This entire party is an avalanche of barely placeable faces and smiles that leer like a laughing jackal's. And it has only just begun.

A new tide of arrivees pours as fluid as wine through our carven doors, and as I lean precariously against the skeletal, holly-wreathed banister of our staircase—prized for its looks more so than its effectiveness, a taste distinctly Ieshan—I bring a wing to my mouth and absently check if it comes away red. 

It doesn't. This comforts me, but only barely. 

I am faintly annoyed that besides Miriam, my sisters and Corradh seem to have conveniently forgotten about my existence. Pilate is the only one I know the whereabouts of, and this only serves to annoy me further. 

I grit my teeth; I am too proud to search for the rest of them through the swell of aristocratic faces, so I turn away to pick unhappily at a fig tart I had plucked when I'd passed the kitchens. It tastes bland and paste-like. I resolve to hovering the china plate in the air, and seeing how high I can lift it.

I am the eldest, and as such have never looked for my siblings, because they have always been the ones to look for me. To boast, to whine, to wheedle. I had listened to it all without complaint. Was sibling devotion inherently limited to childhood and spritely adolescence, then? Was a never-healing sickness and months of bedrest enough to undo all I have done in their welfare?

I am fairly unsurprised and too impassive to take particular offense. It is simply the way of the nobility. Our mother had barely raised us, our father her sulking shadow; that her children have grown up feral yet clothed in the finest of silks, fed on a diet of ambrosia, should surprise no one, least of all me. It is quite possibly the worst combination you could have—we are quite possibly the worst you could have—yet something still holds us all together, and for now—

For now, it is not my duty to ask what exactly that thing is.

There is a teasing flutter of lavender in the crowd. Immediately I am aware who she is—I have been waiting for her—yet I hesitate, the plate shivering in the air, for a surer sign. Until the scent of night-blooming jasmine perfumes the air, and my lips drag up into a grin. 

I am pleased that she has come. I am honored that she has traveled such a distance at my request. I hunger for such physical reminders of my existence.

When I step into her path, the sapphires draped like tears over my cheeks and breastbone ripple and whisper like a voiceless chorus. "Lady Mesnyi?" I say, my voice raising in inquiry, though it is more a display of manners than a real question. I have never seen the performer in the flesh yet she is infamous: skin kissed by lavender, ears dabbed with jasmine, a swan's grace and a nightingale's croon in clear, warbling soprano.

I sweep into a bow, the tasteless tart providing me with the energy to make it low and grand. "I am honored. Your presence has been eagerly awaited."




§

In this country of water
with its beige moon damp as a mushroom,
its drowned stumps and long birds
that swim

« r » | @Mesnyi
he's not wingless yet as depicted but I just couldn't wait anymore to use this table c""":

[Mesnyi]

Maybe if we re-invent what our lives give us we find poems.

She wonders if perhaps she is moving up in the world. 

The party is delightful, certainly, with its silk banners and holly wreaths and diplomacy-sharp grins. More important, however, are its attendees: nobility, nobility, nobility, and Mesnyi. (Does that make her important, too? Is she above a whore, these days? What is an invitation to entertain from an ill prince but an invitation to his bed when he is otherwise forgotten? She isn’t sure she minds.) Mesnyi passes through the crowd, curtsying to those she knows - biblically or otherwise - and those she does not, smiling softly as though each greeting were its own secret. Her violin trails just behind her, an echo of birdsong coming from its strings, hollow, almost forlorn. It is part of her entrance; after she has made her rounds she will commence with the merry tunes. She has made quite the effort to learn Solterran winter solstice music; she is familiar with those of Delumine, but the desert is oft made unappealing and she has neglected its studies. No more. If she is to endear herself to this nest of vipers - if it is possible - then she will apply herself to such cultural pursuits.

Vaguely, she wonders if Amun is here, or if any of the sovereigns’ feral children have made an appearance. Ah - but does it matter? Adonai is a pale ghost among the crowd, and he has seen her also. She looks surprised when he approaches, but she had been waiting. “Lady Mesnyi,” he greets her, and bows deeply - more so than she expected, but her expression is unchanged, delighted. “I am honored. Your presence has been eagerly awaited.” Of course - she had been fashionably late - but, she thinks, these are only formalities and it is a waste to read into them so early (or not - she has been preparing all day to memorize the veins in Adonai’s face, if nothing else.) Mesnyi dips her head and curtsies, her own draping silks and gemstones designed in a similar style to his, though they are opal and pearl. They will last her the season in Solterra, and longer elsewhere. 

“The honor is mine. To entertain for your house and its guests is an unexpected pleasure.”  She offers him the same secret smile she has offered everyone else, but plasters it there: just for him. “How is the tart?”  She hasn’t eaten anything, herself, and wonders if perhaps they should make a pilgrimage to retrieve some hors d'oeuvres. She should be fully focused on him.

"Speaking."

@Adonai || Valentine for Ernest Mann

✽

[Adonai]

adonai.

She is beautiful, a star dipped all in rose, and as she curtsies to me and I bow to her the only thought I can hold in my head is grief for how far I have fallen.

Flakes of gold line the bones of my cheek, and dabs of coal placed at the edges of my eyes throw smoke into them like wings. Yet I do not need to look into mirrors to know that the effect is akin to reddening the cheeks of a corpse. The base matter remains unchanged.

The base body remains decayed.

I never used to be so exacting with my looks. Instead, I was used to treating them with the customary aloofness of boyhood: I was healthy and not disfigured and this, to me, was more than enough. Among us, Pilate has always been the most obviously vain one—with his lavish robes and hourly-polished scales—seconded, I think, by Hagar.

My sister and Pilate's twin is a difficult case to quantify. Yet I could say the same for the rest of them, with the exception of Ruth (and only for this do I speak with any certainty; dear Ruth has always accepted her place, and though I'd rarely let her know it, I had admired her for it)—my sisters each have their own points of vanity that they relinquish to nothing and no one. Hagar's is her charmspeak, Delilah her general devilry, and Miriam—

Miriam's is similar to mine. Our sins of vanity were that of being the first-born. We accepted our duties like being knighted, wearing them around our heads like iron-weighted circlets. We were solemn; we were burdened; we were proud, noble martyrs.

Our vanity has always been that of the martyr. So I suppose—if thought of in that way, then Pilate has gifted me the ultimate martyrship. 

I discard this thought before it can wrinkle my poison-drunk lips.

“The honor is mine. To entertain for your house and its guests is an unexpected pleasure,” the Lady says, and I smile. “Please, Mesnyi,” I say, glancing to her wryly when I discard with the honorifics, “allow me the honor or I will be wounded. And I am very good, you know, at acting wounded.”

It is easy to be gracious. It is easy to be charming and pleasant. These have always been my strengths, and even when I am crossing over into death I have resolved to say something charming before breathing my last. I have given much thought to what I will say. All I know of this phrase so far, though, is that somewhere at the beginning will be Pilate and somewhere at the end my forgiveness. 

Beloved Brother. Do not cry, for I forgive you. What a lovely way to die. What a wonderful knife to throw.

“The tart?” I glance towards the barely-nibbled confection lying on its side in the little china plate, and am immediately embarrassed. “Ah. It is from a very famous local bakery though I'm afraid I haven't given off that impression. It is scrumptious.” If it isn't to me, it only is because I have lost the ability to taste most things months ago. This is not a fresh wound and so I am not wounded. Instead, I watch her pale, gold-flecked eyes carefully, before inclining my head towards the muted glow of the dining hall and beckoning for her to follow.

Because I am an Ieshan, and the noble first-born, the crowd parts for us like a knife through butter.

“Though I must recommend a drink, first. To hold a delicate glass to laugh politely behind is very fashionable tonight, I think.” I say this brightly, before turning towards her and managing a few strides backwards, the act near swaggeringly boyish. It has been a year since I have entertained a guest. I am finding that it is the surest reminder of my existence that I have felt this night, and I am becoming intoxicated on it.

My smile is almost effortless.

§

and your shadow is not your shadow
but your reflection

« r » | @Mesnyi

[Mesnyi]

♡
but I am a dance and the dance goes on,

H

e immediately dispenses with their titles and aims for flirtatious familiarity. She plays right along, giggling at his little joke (is it a joke, really, if you are, actually, quite wounded?) and bumping his shoulder lightly. At the very least, he can make light of something dark. Mesnyi, to her credit, thinks he is handsome, but in the dull sort of way that one might think all rubies are pretty enough rubies, if one’s jewelry box happened to be full of them. (Perhaps, in retrospect, that is not a good analogy for anyone who is not disgustingly wealthy or associates with the disgustingly wealthy. Maybe, a better example would be: all jays have lovely feathers, even if they are - arguably - more similar in looks than most equines. Adonai, to her, is simply a jay with an extra-plush nest, and if anything, his feathers are dull, though she imagines they have potential.) 

“Ah,” she says in response to his comment on the tart, though she isn’t quite convinced, whether that is of the tart’s scrumptious taste or that he might be interested in eating at all. “A drink sounds delightful,” she says, wind-chime voice clear and bright. “I haven’t had the chance to try anything yet. And to think I have done all my polite laughing without it!”

Mesnyi’s violin continues to follow them, finally picking up a solstice tune as the crowd parts before them. ”It can play anything I know, so if it starts heading off on some distasteful tangent, let me know what you’d like to hear.” She motions towards the violin, but her focus is on Adonai. She throws a glance and a coy smile to an important guest now and then, but for the most part, she looks before her, or to Adonai, his presence more significant to her than any other noble she could’ve picked up for the night. And she is glad of it, of course - there have been too many small fish in her pond for far too long. It did get a bit boring, after a while. (And it had been a while. Gods - how long?) They arrive at the bar, and Mesnyi begs her own favorite cocktail of the bartender; she’d seen Pilate’s drinks set out, but she wasn’t quite sure if it would be a poor choice to pick one whilst attending to Adonai, and besides that, her favorite tastes good and would keep her (relatively) coherent if she was in for a long night of diplomatic conversations (picking up rich boys). (Sometimes, she had to be drunk for that. Especially if her options were unappealing.) Her drink is something frothy and clear, an extra shimmer in it, she imagines, as a festive touch. ”And what will you be politely laughing behind, Adonai?”

« r » | @Adonai