everything is more beautiful because we are doomed
The Night Court is full of many people and colors and, most of all, it is full of many parties. Every night is a celebration of life and rebirth and friends and who knows what else. The stalls are brimming with activity, the dancers hum and twirl gaily in their viper dens, the people are laughing on the streets. Some days, it is hard to tell if they are drunk or not, but in a world so whimsical, he is not entirely sure if that really matters.
Winter, Alecto would tell you, is the favorite of the court. Night, you see, is long. Caligo is closer under the cover of stars that watch as she does, and when the moon is silent or close to – tonight it is barely a sliver of a smile in the sky above – they are the loudest. The merriest. He does not know if Caligo is a deity – she is not his deity, nor would she ever truly belong in his pantheon. But he knows the way her people love her, and that is inspiring. What figure she must be to cause such a stir in their breast, such warmth in their faces when laughter flows as easily as the alcohol and good cheer. It is easy to think her holy then if nothing else.
He moves between bodies like a snake, winding easily among them and through them, pressing against those with charming smiles and even more charming skin. Some notice, some do not. He does not mind being a shadow merely passing by. They all wear their secrets as silk gloves, present for parties, and never talked about. Tonight, they are hidden deeper, for there is no room for fine dining and silk gloves. Tonight, there is color that fills the streets and it is bright and it is beautiful and it screams of life being lived, not hidden away and left to rot. Not stuck behind ornately carved marble doors that are barred every eve for fear of usurpers and other unwanted scum. (Those days he does not miss the most.)
Where there is so much color, it is the softness of one, the absence of another, that pulls him closer and snags him nearer a fire. Just a glimmer of pinks and creams, a flesh of curling horns and then nothing – the absence of it all behind a draped cloak that would be better on a frog’s bride than it would whoever that is – has Alecto veering to the left. He comes up beside the other like a spring shower – quickly and gently and ever so sweet. Peppermint, cinnamon, clove, something foreign and strange and warm radiates from him. It is the smell of home. It is the smell of his mother and his sister and his dreams as they died. It is Alecto in all his mystifying glory as he pauses near enough to Savannah to catch the last of his words.
Should he balk? Magic, it is not so uncommon a thing that one could not turn another into a newt. However, a newt did seem a bit…extensive. One golden brow raises as he looks sidelong at the cloak. "And then what should you do with her? There are little dragons that would love a newt, and I do imagine it has been ages since they’ve been so well fed.” Serious. Everything about him is deadly serious as though they are talking of something like a funeral or a wedding, a celebration that requires all their attention to plan and make just perfect so that whoever she is (the newt, he would guess if he had to – which he does not care to go so far as to do) does not have to worry about a single detail of it. ”Or perhaps you’d keep her as a trinket? I could make her into the most lovely brooch for your…” another sidelong glance down his nose, a slight grimace, and then ”clothes…” That is, unfortunately, all he could call it other than a rag. One should not insult another entirely if they were proceeding in a verbal exchange. Well, not usually.
And there was something of pink and cream that could be lovely underneath it all. Something that he now cannot see, but would very much enjoy learning more of when given the chance. It is an opportunity he, selfishly, will not let go, not yet, and so he proceeds to keep to himself the way the cloak is unsightly and unshapely and all-around unflattering. All in all, it is a disaster forcing him into grabbing some sort of cider someone is carrying on a tray that is passing all too quickly by them. If he must be near such a mess, he’d rather not remember the details too clearly, just enough to be charming about it should he ever have the unfortunate meeting again.
Winter, Alecto would tell you, is the favorite of the court. Night, you see, is long. Caligo is closer under the cover of stars that watch as she does, and when the moon is silent or close to – tonight it is barely a sliver of a smile in the sky above – they are the loudest. The merriest. He does not know if Caligo is a deity – she is not his deity, nor would she ever truly belong in his pantheon. But he knows the way her people love her, and that is inspiring. What figure she must be to cause such a stir in their breast, such warmth in their faces when laughter flows as easily as the alcohol and good cheer. It is easy to think her holy then if nothing else.
He moves between bodies like a snake, winding easily among them and through them, pressing against those with charming smiles and even more charming skin. Some notice, some do not. He does not mind being a shadow merely passing by. They all wear their secrets as silk gloves, present for parties, and never talked about. Tonight, they are hidden deeper, for there is no room for fine dining and silk gloves. Tonight, there is color that fills the streets and it is bright and it is beautiful and it screams of life being lived, not hidden away and left to rot. Not stuck behind ornately carved marble doors that are barred every eve for fear of usurpers and other unwanted scum. (Those days he does not miss the most.)
Where there is so much color, it is the softness of one, the absence of another, that pulls him closer and snags him nearer a fire. Just a glimmer of pinks and creams, a flesh of curling horns and then nothing – the absence of it all behind a draped cloak that would be better on a frog’s bride than it would whoever that is – has Alecto veering to the left. He comes up beside the other like a spring shower – quickly and gently and ever so sweet. Peppermint, cinnamon, clove, something foreign and strange and warm radiates from him. It is the smell of home. It is the smell of his mother and his sister and his dreams as they died. It is Alecto in all his mystifying glory as he pauses near enough to Savannah to catch the last of his words.
Should he balk? Magic, it is not so uncommon a thing that one could not turn another into a newt. However, a newt did seem a bit…extensive. One golden brow raises as he looks sidelong at the cloak. "And then what should you do with her? There are little dragons that would love a newt, and I do imagine it has been ages since they’ve been so well fed.” Serious. Everything about him is deadly serious as though they are talking of something like a funeral or a wedding, a celebration that requires all their attention to plan and make just perfect so that whoever she is (the newt, he would guess if he had to – which he does not care to go so far as to do) does not have to worry about a single detail of it. ”Or perhaps you’d keep her as a trinket? I could make her into the most lovely brooch for your…” another sidelong glance down his nose, a slight grimace, and then ”clothes…” That is, unfortunately, all he could call it other than a rag. One should not insult another entirely if they were proceeding in a verbal exchange. Well, not usually.
And there was something of pink and cream that could be lovely underneath it all. Something that he now cannot see, but would very much enjoy learning more of when given the chance. It is an opportunity he, selfishly, will not let go, not yet, and so he proceeds to keep to himself the way the cloak is unsightly and unshapely and all-around unflattering. All in all, it is a disaster forcing him into grabbing some sort of cider someone is carrying on a tray that is passing all too quickly by them. If he must be near such a mess, he’d rather not remember the details too clearly, just enough to be charming about it should he ever have the unfortunate meeting again.
