Not even Ishgard was immune to the allure of All Saints' Wake (though the

Continental Circus had yet to finagle a way past the gates)—indeed, it was oddly
vulnerable, in the same peculiar way some sickly children kept safe indoors just
grew ever more fragile. Every year, the tensions of late summer swelled tighter,
and every year the first northern stormwinds needed to blow the harder to shock
everything back to normal. And while the onset of the everwinter made the seasons
harder to tell apart by temperature, it did nothing to lower the stress overall
inside the walled city. So, in lieu of the entire place bursting open, instead for
this weekend it would overflow with revelry: coarsely-costumed pub crawls in the
foundation, masquerade balls in the pillars.
The costume was the key thing, you see—there was no bureau or institution in all of
Ishgard, military, civil, or ecclesiastic, that could grant that same licensure of
not-going-insane that a good mask during All Saints' Wake could. Those had all
sorts of fiddly pre-requisites, obligatory fees, and awkward deadlines—the mask,
whether bought or made, half or full, simply entitled the wearer to one day of not
being Ishgardian. What else? Whatever else one wanted! There were beasts, monsters,
fairy-story beings, or peoples from somewhere or somewhen far, far away from a
dragon war or an everwinter or the obligations of nobility or the privations of
common poverty—all were, to the citizenry's eyes, fair game.
And so, that was how more diversity of appearance (such as it were) dazzled the
guest list of a Durendaire ballroom during the last days of the fifth umbral moon
than in all the other days of the year combined. With the comfort of long
familiarity with each other and their environs, the masked guests danced and dined
and drank, as the sun sank low—as the daylight vanished, so too did so many well-
worn Ishgardian ideas, replaced with the pretensions of the masks, and those alone.
There were birds aplenty on the scene—noble ishgardian steeds, or lovely
overdressed songbirds (one stargazing owl, flitting about the entrance, welcoming
his guests in with winglike mantle spread wide). There were striped tigers, or
spotted coeurls, and one particularly ornate bandersnatch with cleverly-sculpted
tusks. Some guests had used this occasion to break out the more exotic parts of
their wardrobes—a lady repurposing an (alleged) Thavnairian dancer's silk robes
into an Ala Mhigan fighting fish "costume," a few men posing as sultans in the sort
of Ul'dahn attire that both climate and the Ishgardian Sumptuary and Decency Code
rendered usually verboten, playing their character in a way only men who had never
actually considered what having a harem would entail for the other twenty-three
bells of the day could.
And they were far from the only ones getting "in-character," even if their masked
role was so nebulous, or so contradictory (like the "Thavnairian dancing fish")
that the characterization was only a flight of symbolic fancy—like, for instance, a
regal sun, all but his mouth and chin behind a plaster-and-hammered-gold mask, and
all the rest of him in most dramatic black velvet with gold trim. His opposite,
with whom he had come to the ball, being lost in the crowd (a silver moon, waxing
enthusiastic as the actual one rose in the sky), the sun had almost unconsciously
retreated into high-minded aloofness as an "appropriate" cover for being awkward
when alone at parties. Tall, and with a commanding manner readily available from
his waking life, the sun moved 'cross the floors and 'twixt the rooms, observing
but silent. Here a harlequin, there a magpie; here a sahagin, there a morbol—all
their antics, he could take in easily. The harlequin wasn't as good at roleplaying
as his current partner; she pulled him into a fishy "Near Eastern" dance and he was
more the clown than any proper lead—his cringe safely behind his mask, the sun
turned away. If nothing else, there'd be brandy and sherry; maybe those could
improve it.
(Whether "it" was other people's dancing or the sun's perception of the same
remained to be seen).
The Durendaire vis—...owl could be relied upon to keep his refreshment tables
stocked; if nothing else could be said in his favor (and it couldn't) that was
true. Trays of treats and delights circulated the room, borne by the only non-
costumed people in the house (though, in the guests' eyes, just as anonymous, and
not for their perfunctory mood-making halfmasks); manservants assigned to flutes,
maids to fruits and candies. Tables overflowed with food of more substance or
presence: showpiece meringues and multi-tier cakes, stuffed poultry or whole fish
of enormous size. Yet the sun, perhaps because of nerves, couldn't find the will to
load up a plate—he picked at some cheeses, he tipped back one shot, and wandered
back to the action (at least the harlequin was doing better, adopting a clownish
strategy of pretending to follow his partner instead of properly leading, which was
actually rather amusing).
Durendaire had engineered the primary dancing floor to be near the first thing a
guest would see: leave the carriage, drop off the coat, then shove past some
hobknobbing shoulders to be appropriately impressed with the crowd and the
decorations and the hall itself. It is the entrance that the sun headed towards,
drifting along on perhaps some inchoate desire to—
***
—hide.
***
There's a clamor already among the guests—but there's no holes in the walls, no
plaster flakes falling, no sign of damage—just a lot of raucous laughter.
"Avast, you foolish bilgerats!" A great swarthy blond man, with a cutlass and a
tricorne and a truly lamentable "Lominsan" accent roared. "Hand over yer jewels, or
I'll clog the scuppers with yer entrails!" Twice more, the gun went off (or rather,
"made a lot of noise"), but already the crowd of guests was calming from panic to
delighted laughter and chatter, with even a small smattering of applause. Indeed,
even the sun has recovered, rolling his eyes behind his mask before drifting away
once more. The party is about to get much wilder and much louder. Perhaps he could
persuade his partner to leave... if he can find him again.
The sun can't outpace the rising tide of boisterousness—it seemed to have swept up
around him faster than contagion, until he was wading through something almost
bacchanal in search of his sibling celestial body. All around him, the liquor
seemed more abundant (surely it couldn't have been his imagination, and to test it
he'd tried a few and found them very real), the music louder, and the quality of
ambient conversation perhaps... perhaps not noisier but surely more noisome. Crude
and coarse, almost to the point where that harlequin's innuendos (he really was
getting better at acting) seemed innocent by comparison... Perhaps, the sun
thought, perhaps he shouldn't really be looking for the moon. After all, the longer
it took, the more likely he was to find him in the sort of position he really,
really would have been comfortable never ever seeing in all his life.
"Ahoy!" Even though the pirate's voice was hardly something he was unfamiliar with,
the combination of proximity and sheer volume that time was still enough to make
the sun start. "Where be the grog, you bloody poltroons?" That the glass the pirate
held still had rather crisp-edged ice in it seemed to indicate that he knew very
well where it was to be found, and what he was really interested in was...
"Right here," piped up a higher voice—both sun and buccaneer turned to see none
other than the harlequin, cradling a unopened bottle and turning a corkscrew
between his fingers. "But—it might cost one or two doubloons..."
Even though the pirate had painted his face to be wilder and more frightening, it
didn't obscure his features much at all—the change from boisterous brute to the sly
consideration that the sun had seen not only on that face, but on others much like
it, that change was perfectly clear. "Awful high price, jus' for a drink." He
turned to face the harlequin, crossing his arms over his (open-shirted, mostly
bare) chest. "Could be I just take it, instead."
The harlequin had put much more care into hiding his identity than the pirate had—
his outfit left no skin uncovered but for the lower part of his face, under his
black half-mask and three-pointed hat. All the rest of him, from pointed shoes up
his tights and over his tunic and even to his gloves, was covered in diamond
chequers alternating red and black (a pointed choice of colors, considering).
"Could be you sit down and—" He flipped the corkscrew over in his fingers, an
artful sort of move that left the sun with raised eyebrows under his mask (where
had he learned that?) "—just let me pour the red."
The pirate laughed, saying "You're no good at rhymes," but he did sprawl into the
corner of a sofa as the sun backed away from them, uncertain if this was really
something he ought to be watching.
"Do you really care about that—" the harlequin already was unscrewing the cork, "—
more than wine?" Despite what he'd said, by the smell once the cork had popped, it
wasn't any wine but rather more brandy.
"—Pardon." The sun turned at the tap on his shoulder, to see a very curt-looking
vampire behind him and pointedly looking towards the scene beginning on the sofa.
Being that the sun recognized from his eyepatch what this was about, he moved aside
for him with only a murmured apology. With a sort of professional bearing entirely
inappropriate at a party like this, the vampire went to the pirate—who finished his
current glass before offering an insincere apology for losing track of him in the
crowd.
"Have a seat, matey!" He pointed at the opposite end of the sofa (even though the
harlequin had thusfar declined to sit by or on him). "A seat and a drink!"
With an arc of an already arch brow, the vampire declined both, choosing instead to
stand behind the sofa like the chaperone he was. "That won't be necessary."
"Besides," the harlequin piped up—and slid onto the sofa remarkably close to the
pirate, "it wouldn't be brandy he'd like, I should think..." His voice was going
lower as he trailed off, settling into the cushion, so naturally demure in his
bearing that the resting of the bottle upright in his lap had to have been
intentional.
And in that moment—exactly that moment, the sun was certain, he could pinpoint when
he knew exactly where this was going to go. It was in how the vampire turned his
attention from his responsibility to the harlequin seated directly under him, in
the harlequin's refusal to let a little blush under his freckles affect the coyness
of the smile he wore, in the pirate's broadening grin as he let a glass that still
had brandy in it fall from the center of his attention.
"What d'ya think he'd like?" The pirate asked, sounding very amused. "Something
redder?"
"Something warmer," the vampire added, quite clearly curious.
"Warmer? I suppose the weather calls for it, but," the harlequin was pulling his
collar open, a sort of nervous gesture that meshed poorly with his continuing to
keep confident eye contact with the pirate, "it's already so warm in here, ser."
He should leave. The sun was aware that this behavior, regardless of the fact that
he wasn't the only person interested in the drama between the three of them, was
prurient and beneath him. He knew this, it was why he was watching from the
plausible cover of a decorated pillar, why he'd snatched his own flute of champagne
from a passing tray, as if its continued half-full status could actually convince
any passersby he was a wallflower and not an eavesdropper. But—
"Oh—!"
The harlequin's gasp, prompted by the fairly sudden swoop of the vampire to bend
and—and press his mouth against the narrow slice of exposed throat; the sun
couldn't quite tell from here if he bit or kissed—grabbed the sun's attention away
from his own thoughts. The pirate laughed aloud, his eyes bright and very
attentive. "Something like that for me matey."
The vampire stood straight again, licking his fake fangs as if they actually had
blood on them. "Redder and warmer, yes..." It was fiction, it was all fiction, the
sun knew, but that didn't stop his fascination with the vampire's tone, or with the
harlequin's very overacted pout.
"You shouldn't play such mean pranks on a harlequin, of all people," he cautioned,
through darting eyes and a blatant attempt to hide a smile.
"Why? 'Cos it'll make ya forget yer rhyming?" The pirate's smile couldn't have been
smugger, even though his own attempt at a Lominsan accent was growing steadily more
neglected. "Too much of a distraction?"
The harlequin's smile was almost angelic, as he began to pour for the pirate again.
"Hardly—just a little bit of an infraction." With surprising smoothness, both the
bottle and the glass were transferred—not to the pirate, but to a passing maid's
tray, the harlequin's motion so deft that by the time the pirate realized what he'd
done, the maid was too far away to call her back.
"Hang about—" The pirate looked truly offended, and the harlequin was now
suppressing giggles. "That's hardly..."
"Hardly fair to rue me!" The harlequin managed through his amusement. "I should not
want something to take you off while I set you on, to mar you while I make you." He
was scooting closer to his companion now, beginning to lean towards him.
"...Eh?" The pirate said, slightly suspicious but mostly confused. "Make me what?"
"I'll let you figure that one out on your own." The harlequin was now the smug one,
and practically insinuating himself into the pirate's lap. Leaning close, he said
(in so low a voice the sun barely discerned it, despite how avidly he was
listening), "It's not hard."
The angle from which he was watching could not allow him to see everything—but the
sun could see that the harlequin moved fully into the pirate's lap, that the pirate
started—and then that he relaxed, draping one arm over the arm of the sofa. "It's
not," he agreed, tone suggestive. "You know—I hear harlequins are supposed to
do ...tricks." He paused just long enough for the innuendo to take hold before
continuing with "Acrobatic tricks," proud of his cleverness.
"Flips, leaps, splits," the vampire offered.
"Spread-eagles..."
A soft chuckle that the sun realized must have been the harlequin came from the
sofa—as he watched, the harlequin's long, thin fingers slid over the pirate's
shoulders, then twined around his neck. "And I heard pirates carried off their
booty, yes?"
The next thing the sun heard was a great creaking of furniture underlying a raucous
whoop of laughter—the pirate pulled himself up out of the sofa and the harlequin
over his shoulder in one loud motion, both his triumphant and the harlequin's
delighted laughter catching the attention of anyone whose attention to such
prominent guests had lapsed. "Aye, we do—off to the pirate's hold for you, lad!"
The pirate wasn't quite shouting, but he was still the loudest thing around—and as
he turned to exit the public floor of the party, the only thing more obvious than
the crimson blush on the harlequin's face was his enormous smile.
The vampire brought up the rear in his appropriately subdued way, and as doors and
curtains closed behind their departure, the masquerade chattered a little more
loudly before this too died down, returning to a new equilibrium. Within five
minutes, it was like it had never happened, like the collective had a copperfish or
silverfish's memory, and once the waters were still, there was nothing left of the
old to concern themselves with, and all focus was back on whatever the new thing
was (the Thavnairian dancing fish challenging a silver moon to a drinking contest,
how droll!).
And so, as a result, the feeling of being alone in remembering compounded the sun's
distraction. Even if, it seemed, his fellow attendees could either put it from
their minds entirely or channel it into a new intrigue, he couldn't. The tiniest
and most irrelevant details ran over and over in his mind: how the harlequin's
short blond hair stuck out from under his hat when he was tilting his head in this
or that coquetish manner, the twin dents left in the vampire's lower lip from
unconscious biting of it, the big pirate's hands flexing as the harlequin moved
onto his lap... And yet, it was over, they were gone, so he had better resign
himself to that, and not think about how he knew the layout of this property of
Durendaire's. And how he knew that the three of them had exited through a hallway
that led only to a smaller single wing, and how he knew that they'd not have been
able to leave it without coming back in the way they came, and how he knew they
hadn't done that, and how it was, actually, certainly within his power to follow
them and reasonable to expect he could find them easily.
He could. But he shouldn't. But he could. And so he was.
Finishing the contents of his champagne flute like a shot, the sun discarded the
glass and exited the ballroom, no nevermind being paid to his leaving. The "back"
was oddly underwhelming—objectively as grand as any high house hall deserved, but
clearly not meant to be seen now, not like the ballrooms. And it was, now,
unpopulated—no sign of anyone to see him, no witness to the sun's moment of
deliberation before guessing up the nearest flight of stairs, past one floor but
going down the hallway on the next (it seems like the sort of thing, he thought,
people who were both in a hurry and not wanting to be followed would do). And he
was right. He knew because he could recognize the distinctive high-collared black
cloak of the vampire's costume even from halfway down, and thus duck behind a
decorated curtain before the vampire spotted him as well.
Fuck.
This was stupid. Stupid, and prurient and beneath him to do this. He should have
realized the vampire would be posted on "guard"—whatever else he knew the pirate to
be, he knew he was both greedy and not a complete fool. The potential for
embarrassment was too great (especially given the noises coming out of that room).
The best thing, the sun thought, the best thing for him to do was wait for an
opportune moment, when the vampire was otherwise engaged, and then take advantage
of the auditory cover provided by the sounds the harlequin was making to make good
his escape back to the ballroom. No one would know.
Indeed, no sooner had he finished that thought than his opportunity came. There was
a mighty thudding against the wall from inside the room, and the door shuddered
ajar—the vampire, naturally, turned to address this, and as a result put his blind
side to where the sun was lurking. Clearly, time to leave. Not time to wait,
watching the vampire. Not time to realize the vampire wasn't latching the door. The
vampire, instead, had put his remaining eye to the crack of the open door, and he
was watching.
Just edging out behind the curtain, to peer closer out of disbelief—the sun had to
strain even elezen eyes, but there was no doubt that he was watching. More than his
eye pressed to the gap, but the unconscious furtiveness in the set of his
shoulders, in his neck forward and one hand gently and idly resting on the handle—
that was how he could tell. And—perhaps more, perhaps the sun was correct to make
out that his mouth was slightly open, that there was straining beginning in the
front of his trousers; perhaps he was imagining it, filling in what he would expect
to see. And the obvious—the clear and so obvious shudder when the harlequin's
crying "yes" went high and then trailed off with an honest-to-Halone warble in his
voice, that was simply confirmation.
The unlatched door, the one that the vampire hadn't been closing, suddenly opened
wide—like it had been hit or shoved rather than opened by a normal, civilized high
house son. The vampire was knocked flat on his arse, and the sun quickly withdrew
behind his curtain at the hoarse laughter of the pirate. "I knew you were
watching!"
The vampire muttered something under his breath (it was quiet, much quieter than
the sun's own heartbeat and breathing, and thus he was unable to make it out),
which prompted another short laugh from the pirate. "Not at all. Mmm—what'd you
think?" This time a cackle. "You know vampires—can't go anywhere without an
invitation." The sun's jaw dropped open at that, and he waited with bated breath
for confirmation, one way or another... but there were no more words, or none that
he could make out. Just rustling, and footsteps, and quiet.
And then not quiet.
Then, he couldn't make out any words anymore, not through the door (they weren't
being loud again yet), but he could make out that it was the pirate and the
harlequin, not just the harlequin. That their voices were low, that they spoke in a
meter regular (not broken up by being, say, out of breath) but accelerating, that
they were conversing (not arguing), and that now, that was laughter, and that now,
that was a groan of jointed wood, and that now that he'd thought on it, the sun
hadn't heard the door latch shut again.
This time he didn't hesitate long enough to think, he turned straight out of his
hiding place and went directly to the now-unguarded door. He was right—it had been
left open a bare few ilms. As he drew closer, he could hear the sound of clothes
being removed and had to remind himself to keep his steps slow and quiet—the sun
sunk slowly to his knees as if in gratitude once he'd reached the cracked doorway,
and peered inside.
The vampire was seated in an armchair—fully-dressed, but relaxed completely, head
lolled back with his gaze directed at the couch in the room—huge and upholstered
with crushed velvet and on whose arm rested the pirate's tricorne and on whose
cushions rested the other two. The pirate, all that he'd shed was just the tricorne
—the harlequin, his hat was one of the few pieces he'd still had properly on.
The harlequin's bare pink arse was on the couch, and his bare right leg awkwardly
hooked over the back, with his left heel on the floor, tights and smallclothes
hanging off that calf. The sun couldn't see where his gloves had gotten to, but he
could see that right then the pirate was nosing the hem of the harlequin's tunic up
and over his belly—and his askew halfmask made it easy to see the delight in both
his smile and his big blue eyes as he was teased.
"Mmm, it was a good—a good drink—" the pirate was muttering in-between wet kisses
up the harlequin's stomach (and the sun glanced over to check and yes his cock was
mostly flaccid, but still reddened and wet enough to glisten), "but don't you have
a bit, ah, more for me?" His hands were on the harlequin's hips, large enough
relatively that he barely had to shift position to be squeezing his arse.
"Nnngh—maybe, maybe I do..." the harlequin had put his hands above his head, on the
arm of the couch, like they'd been bound there. "Maybe if you tell me what you
want, mm?" He squeaked delightedly at the way the pirate pinched him, rolling his
hips in encouragement.
"Your soft little arse, silly—mmf, silly fool," the pirate growled, pulling the
harlequin down, closer to him—and subsequently making his tunic at last ride up
over his chest. "Fuck it, fuck you sore and cross-eyed..." He latched hard onto one
of the harlequin's nipples, using teeth and tongue as his lover twisted beneath
him.
"Oh—oh, gods—nngh, stuff me?" The harlequin's face was crimson but his smile was
easy and his legs splayed wide; this was (somehow, in some way the sun found
unfathomable) a familiar game.
"Like a goose." He bucked his hips against the other's groin and literally all of
the harlequin shivered, "Like a pretty little songbird—mmm, till you're all..." the
pirate trailed off, obviously too aroused to speak clearly and coherently, his face
still pressed against the harlequin's reddening skin (now with the harlequin
holding it there). "Gods, you soft little—sheltered..."
"Acts bold with a mask, but—" For the first time since beginning to watch the sun
looked over to the vampire, saw that he'd unfastened the front of his trousers,
"Mm, but we know..."
"Know what?" The harlequin's voice was breathy, excited, his cock now hard as he
tried to push the pirate's head down closer to it (the pirate having none of it).
"You gasp real loud when you're entered," the pirate said in a low rumble as he
reached for the front of his breeches, unfastening laces, "every time, and you—ngh,
you squirm on a cock like you've never felt a thing like it, like—gods—" Eager to
demonstrate (or perhaps see it for himself), the pirate pulled his cock free and
was already guiding the head to the harlequin's entrance as the latter nodded
energetically.
He did indeed gasp with that timbre of insinuated innocence the pirate promised,
and the sun was just aware enough to be glad he was already kneeling and braced
against the door. The two of them were getting harder to watch—the pirate so large,
and his harlequin so slight by comparison, they would've had to be performing
deliberately to keep most of the harlequin visible in whole. As it was, those long
thin legs were hooked over the pirate's hips, his fingers fisting and twisting in
the back of his buccaneer's shirt, and his voice mixing with the jingling of the
bells on his hat, shook thoroughly by the pirate's hungry motions.
"Aaahhhh—hhh, but—but, oh, I do, and you—" The harlequin was louder than the sun
ever would have thought, "Nnnngh, s'not my fault you're such a—such a—" He
struggled for words, and the sun was both in no position and the perfect position
to supply them, his brain shorting at the sight and sound of these two—these
inexplicable two, these sons of—
—He finished before he realized he was even rubbing and rocking against his hand,
and the hold broke. Blood returned to his cheeks, and reason returned to his mind.
The sun shut his eyes and leaned against the doorframe, he let his own panting be
masked by the three voicing pleasured moans on the other side. But he didn't leave.
He chose to linger and imagine as afterglow—he departed any attempt at following
the events inside to twist what he overheard into fantasy, into whatever best
complemented the images he'd been left with, that were, for this evening, enough.
Reality proper didn't intercede until the sun picked up a murmur about "arranging a
carriage"—then, he pushed himself up to his shaky feet, and drifted back down to
where the party was winding down. Hailing a carriage of his own, the sun dreamed
his way home before collapsing into bed and sleep almost at once upon arrival.
***
Not even Ishgard was immune to the allure of All Saints' Wake (though the
Continental Circus had yet to finagle a way past the gates)—indeed, it was oddly
vulnerable, in the same peculiar way some sickly children kept safe indoors just
grew ever more fragile. Every year, the tensions of late summer swelled tighter,
and every year the first northern stormwinds needed to blow the harder to shock
everything back to normal. And while the onset of the everwinter made the seasons
harder to tell apart by temperature, it did nothing to lower the stress overall
inside the walled city. So, in lieu of the entire place bursting open, instead for
this weekend it would overflow with revelry: coarsely-costumed pub crawls in the
foundation, masquerade balls in the pillars.
The costume was the key thing, you see—there was no bureau or institution in all of
Ishgard, military, civil, or ecclesiastic, that could grant that same licensure of
not-going-insane that a good mask during All Saints' Wake could. Those had all
sorts of fiddly pre-requisites, obligatory fees, and awkward deadlines—the mask,
whether bought or made, half or full, simply entitled the wearer to one day of not
being Ishgardian. What else? Whatever else one wanted! There were beasts, monsters,
fairy-story beings, or peoples from somewhere or somewhen far, far away from a
dragon war or an everwinter or the obligations of nobility or the privations of
common poverty—all were, to the citizenry's eyes, fair game.
And so, that was how more diversity of appearance (such as it were) dazzled the
guest list of a Durendaire ballroom during the last days of the fifth umbral moon
than in all the other days of the year combined. With the comfort of long
familiarity with each other and their environs, the masked guests danced and dined
and drank, as the sun sank low—as the daylight vanished, so too did so many well-
worn Ishgardian ideas, replaced with the pretensions of the masks, and those alone.
There were birds aplenty on the scene—noble ishgardian steeds, or lovely
overdressed songbirds (one stargazing owl, flitting about the entrance, welcoming
his guests in with winglike mantle spread wide). There were striped tigers, or
spotted coeurls, and one particularly ornate bandersnatch with cleverly-sculpted
tusks. Some guests had used this occasion to break out the more exotic parts of
their wardrobes—a lady repurposing an (alleged) Thavnairian dancer's silk robes
into an Ala Mhigan fighting fish "costume," a few men posing as sultans in the sort
of Ul'dahn attire that both climate and the Ishgardian Sumptuary and Decency Code
rendered usually verboten, playing their character in a way only men who had never
actually considered what having a harem would entail for the other twenty-three
bells of the day could.
And they were far from the only ones getting "in-character," even if their masked
role was so nebulous, or so contradictory (like the "Thavnairian dancing fish")
that the characterization was only a flight of symbolic fancy—like, for instance, a
regal sun, all but his mouth and chin behind a plaster-and-hammered-gold mask, and
all the rest of him in most dramatic black velvet with gold trim. His opposite,
with whom he had come to the ball, being lost in the crowd (a silver moon, waxing
enthusiastic as the actual one rose in the sky), the sun had almost unconsciously
retreated into high-minded aloofness as an "appropriate" cover for being awkward
when alone at parties. Tall, and with a commanding manner readily available from
his waking life, the sun moved 'cross the floors and 'twixt the rooms, observing
but silent. Here a harlequin, there a magpie; here a sahagin, there a morbol—all
their antics, he could take in easily. The harlequin wasn't as good at roleplaying
as his current partner; she pulled him into a fishy "Near Eastern" dance and he was
more the clown than any proper lead—his cringe safely behind his mask, the sun
turned away. If nothing else, there'd be brandy and sherry; maybe those could
improve it.
(Whether "it" was other people's dancing or the sun's perception of the same
remained to be seen).
The Durendaire vis—...owl could be relied upon to keep his refreshment tables
stocked; if nothing else could be said in his favor (and it couldn't) that was
true. Trays of treats and delights circulated the room, borne by the only non-
costumed people in the house (though, in the guests' eyes, just as anonymous, and
not for their perfunctory mood-making halfmasks); manservants assigned to flutes,
maids to fruits and candies. Tables overflowed with food of more substance or
presence: showpiece meringues and multi-tier cakes, stuffed poultry or whole fish
of enormous size. Yet the sun, perhaps because of nerves, couldn't find the will to
load up a plate—he picked at some cheeses, he tipped back one shot, and wandered
back to the action (at least the harlequin was doing better, adopting a clownish
strategy of pretending to follow his partner instead of properly leading, which was
actually rather amusing).
Durendaire had engineered the primary dancing floor to be near the first thing a
guest would see: leave the carriage, drop off the coat, then shove past some
hobknobbing shoulders to be appropriately impressed with the crowd and the
decorations and the hall itself. It is the entrance that the sun headed towards,
drifting along on perhaps some inchoate desire to—
***
There's a clamor already among the guests—but there's no holes in the walls, no
plaster flakes falling, no sign of damage—just a lot of raucous laughter.
"Avast, you foolish bilgerats!" A great swarthy blond man, with a cutlass and a
tricorne and a truly lamentable "Lominsan" accent roared. "Hand over yer jewels, or
I'll clog the scuppers with yer entrails!" Twice more, the gun went off (or rather,
"made a lot of noise"), but already the crowd of guests was calming from panic to
delighted laughter and chatter, with even a small smattering of applause. Indeed,
even the sun has recovered, rolling his eyes behind his mask before drifting away
once more. The party is about to get much wilder and much louder. Perhaps he could
persuade his partner to leave... if he can find him again.
The sun can't outpace the rising tide of boisterousness—it seemed to have swept up
around him faster than contagion, until he was wading through something almost
bacchanal in search of his sibling celestial body. All around him, the liquor
seemed more abundant (surely it couldn't have been his imagination, and to test it
he'd tried a few and found them very real), the music louder, and the quality of
ambient conversation perhaps... perhaps not noisier but surely more noisome. Crude
and coarse, almost to the point where that harlequin's innuendos (he really was
getting better at acting) seemed innocent by comparison... Perhaps, the sun
thought, perhaps he shouldn't really be looking for the moon. After all, the longer
it took, the more likely he was to find him in the sort of position he really,
really would have been comfortable never ever seeing in all his life.
"Ahoy!" Even though the pirate's voice was hardly something he was unfamiliar with,
the combination of proximity and sheer volume that time was still enough to make
the sun start. "Where be the grog, you bloody poltroons?" That the glass the pirate
held still had rather crisp-edged ice in it seemed to indicate that he knew very
well where it was to be found, and what he was really interested in was...
"Right here," piped up a higher voice—both sun and buccaneer turned to see none
other than the harlequin, cradling a unopened bottle and turning a corkscrew
between his fingers. "But—it might cost one or two doubloons..."
Even though the pirate had painted his face to be wilder and more frightening, it
didn't obscure his features much at all—the change from boisterous brute to the sly
consideration that the sun had seen not only on that face, but on others much like
it, that change was perfectly clear. "Awful high price, jus' for a drink." He
turned to face the harlequin, crossing his arms over his (open-shirted, mostly
bare) chest. "Could be I just take it, instead."
The harlequin had put much more care into hiding his identity than the pirate had—
his outfit left no skin uncovered but for the lower part of his face, under his
black half-mask and three-pointed hat. All the rest of him, from pointed shoes up
his tights and over his tunic and even to his gloves, was covered in diamond
chequers alternating red and black (a pointed choice of colors, considering).
"Could be you sit down and—" He flipped the corkscrew over in his fingers, an
artful sort of move that left the sun with raised eyebrows under his mask (where
had he learned that?) "—just let me pour the red."
The pirate laughed, saying "You're no good at rhymes," but he did sprawl into the
corner of a sofa as the sun backed away from them, uncertain if this was really
something he ought to be watching.
"Do you really care about that—" the harlequin already was unscrewing the cork, "—
more than wine?" Despite what he'd said, by the smell once the cork had popped, it
wasn't any wine but rather more brandy.
"—Pardon." The sun turned at the tap on his shoulder, to see a very curt-looking
vampire behind him and pointedly looking towards the scene beginning on the sofa.
Being that the sun recognized from his eyepatch what this was about, he moved aside
for him with only a murmured apology. With a sort of professional bearing entirely
inappropriate at a party like this, the vampire went to the pirate—who finished his
current glass before offering an insincere apology for losing track of him in the
crowd.
"Have a seat, matey!" He pointed at the opposite end of the sofa (even though the
harlequin had thusfar declined to sit by or on him). "A seat and a drink!"
With an arc of an already arch brow, the vampire declined both, choosing instead to
stand behind the sofa like the chaperone he was. "That won't be necessary."
"Besides," the harlequin piped up—and slid onto the sofa remarkably close to the
pirate, "it wouldn't be brandy he'd like, I should think..." His voice was going
lower as he trailed off, settling into the cushion, so naturally demure in his
bearing that the resting of the bottle upright in his lap had to have been
intentional.
And in that moment—exactly that moment, the sun was certain, he could pinpoint when
he knew exactly where this was going to go. It was in how the vampire turned his
attention from his responsibility to the harlequin seated directly under him, in
the harlequin's refusal to let a little blush under his freckles affect the coyness
of the smile he wore, in the pirate's broadening grin as he let a glass that still
had brandy in it fall from the center of his attention.
"What d'ya think he'd like?" The pirate asked, sounding very amused. "Something
redder?"
"Something warmer," the vampire added, quite clearly curious.
"Warmer? I suppose the weather calls for it, but," the harlequin was pulling his
collar open, a sort of nervous gesture that meshed poorly with his continuing to
keep confident eye contact with the pirate, "it's already so warm in here, ser."
He should leave. The sun was aware that this behavior, regardless of the fact that
he wasn't the only person interested in the drama between the three of them, was
prurient and beneath him. He knew this, it was why he was watching from the
plausible cover of a decorated pillar, why he'd snatched his own flute of champagne
from a passing tray, as if its continued half-full status could actually convince
any passersby he was a wallflower and not an eavesdropper. But—
"Oh—!"
The harlequin's gasp, prompted by the fairly sudden swoop of the vampire to bend
and—and press his mouth against the narrow slice of exposed throat; the sun
couldn't quite tell from here if he bit or kissed—grabbed the sun's attention away
from his own thoughts. The pirate laughed aloud, his eyes bright and very
attentive. "Something like that for me matey."
The vampire stood straight again, licking his fake fangs as if they actually had
blood on them. "Redder and warmer, yes..." It was fiction, it was all fiction, the
sun knew, but that didn't stop his fascination with the vampire's tone, or with the
harlequin's very overacted pout.
"You shouldn't play such mean pranks on a harlequin, of all people," he cautioned,
through darting eyes and a blatant attempt to hide a smile.
"Why? 'Cos it'll make ya forget yer rhyming?" The pirate's smile couldn't have been
smugger, even though his own attempt at a Lominsan accent was growing steadily more
neglected. "Too much of a distraction?"
The harlequin's smile was almost angelic, as he began to pour for the pirate again.
"Hardly—just a little bit of an infraction." With surprising smoothness, both the
bottle and the glass were transferred—not to the pirate, but to a passing maid's
tray, the harlequin's motion so deft that by the time the pirate realized what he'd
done, the maid was too far away to call her back.
"Hang about—" The pirate looked truly offended, and the harlequin was now
suppressing giggles. "That's hardly..."
"Hardly fair to rue me!" The harlequin managed through his amusement. "I should not
want something to take you off while I set you on, to mar you while I make you." He
was scooting closer to his companion now, beginning to lean towards him.
"...Eh?" The pirate said, slightly suspicious but mostly confused. "Make me what?"
"I'll let you figure that one out on your own." The harlequin was now the smug one,
and practically insinuating himself into the pirate's lap. Leaning close, he said
(in so low a voice the sun barely discerned it, despite how avidly he was
listening), "It's not hard."
The angle from which he was watching could not allow him to see everything—but the
sun could see that the harlequin moved fully into the pirate's lap, that the pirate
started—and then that he relaxed, draping one arm over the arm of the sofa. "It's
not," he agreed, tone suggestive. "You know—I hear harlequins are supposed to
do ...tricks." He paused just long enough for the innuendo to take hold before
continuing with "Acrobatic tricks," proud of his cleverness.
"Flips, leaps, splits," the vampire offered.
"Spread-eagles..."
A soft chuckle that the sun realized must have been the harlequin came from the
sofa—as he watched, the harlequin's long, thin fingers slid over the pirate's
shoulders, then twined around his neck. "And I heard pirates carried off their
booty, yes?"
The next thing the sun heard was a great creaking of furniture underlying a raucous
whoop of laughter—the pirate pulled himself up out of the sofa and the harlequin
over his shoulder in one loud motion, both his triumphant and the harlequin's
delighted laughter catching the attention of anyone whose attention to such
prominent guests had lapsed. "Aye, we do—off to the pirate's hold for you, lad!"
The pirate wasn't quite shouting, but he was still the loudest thing around—and as
he turned to exit the public floor of the party, the only thing more obvious than
the crimson blush on the harlequin's face was his enormous smile.
The vampire brought up the rear in his appropriately subdued way, and as doors and
curtains closed behind their departure, the masquerade chattered a little more
loudly before this too died down, returning to a new equilibrium. Within five
minutes, it was like it had never happened, like the collective had a copperfish or
silverfish's memory, and once the waters were still, there was nothing left of the
old to concern themselves with, and all focus was back on whatever the new thing
was (the Thavnairian dancing fish challenging a silver moon to a drinking contest,
how droll!).
And so, as a result, the feeling of being alone in remembering compounded the sun's
distraction. Even if, it seemed, his fellow attendees could either put it from
their minds entirely or channel it into a new intrigue, he couldn't. The tiniest
and most irrelevant details ran over and over in his mind: how the harlequin's
short blond hair stuck out from under his hat when he was tilting his head in this
or that coquetish manner, the twin dents left in the vampire's lower lip from
unconscious biting of it, the big pirate's hands flexing as the harlequin moved
onto his lap... And yet, it was over, they were gone, so he had better resign
himself to that, and not think about how he knew the layout of this property of
Durendaire's. And how he knew that the three of them had exited through a hallway
that led only to a smaller single wing, and how he knew that they'd not have been
able to leave it without coming back in the way they came, and how he knew they
hadn't done that, and how it was, actually, certainly within his power to follow
them and reasonable to expect he could find them easily.
He could. But he shouldn't. But he could. And so he was.
Finishing the contents of his champagne flute like a shot, the sun discarded the
glass and exited the ballroom, no nevermind being paid to his leaving. The "back"
was oddly underwhelming—objectively as grand as any high house hall deserved, but
clearly not meant to be seen now, not like the ballrooms. And it was, now,
unpopulated—no sign of anyone to see him, no witness to the sun's moment of
deliberation before guessing up the nearest flight of stairs, past one floor but
going down the hallway on the next (it seems like the sort of thing, he thought,
people who were both in a hurry and not wanting to be followed would do). And he
was right. He knew because he could recognize the distinctive high-collared black
cloak of the vampire's costume even from halfway down, and thus duck behind a
decorated curtain before the vampire spotted him as well.
Fuck.
This was stupid. Stupid, and prurient and beneath him to do this. He should have
realized the vampire would be posted on "guard"—whatever else he knew the pirate to
be, he knew he was both greedy and not a complete fool. The potential for
embarrassment was too great (especially given the noises coming out of that room).
The best thing, the sun thought, the best thing for him to do was wait for an
opportune moment, when the vampire was otherwise engaged, and then take advantage
of the auditory cover provided by the sounds the harlequin was making to make good
his escape back to the ballroom. No one would know.
Indeed, no sooner had he finished that thought than his opportunity came. There was
a mighty thudding against the wall from inside the room, and the door shuddered
ajar—the vampire, naturally, turned to address this, and as a result put his blind
side to where the sun was lurking. Clearly, time to leave. Not time to wait,
watching the vampire. Not time to realize the vampire wasn't latching the door. The
vampire, instead, had put his remaining eye to the crack of the open door, and he
was watching.
Just edging out behind the curtain, to peer closer out of disbelief—the sun had to
strain even elezen eyes, but there was no doubt that he was watching. More than his
eye pressed to the gap, but the unconscious furtiveness in the set of his
shoulders, in his neck forward and one hand gently and idly resting on the handle—
that was how he could tell. And—perhaps more, perhaps the sun was correct to make
out that his mouth was slightly open, that there was straining beginning in the
front of his trousers; perhaps he was imagining it, filling in what he would expect
to see. And the obvious—the clear and so obvious shudder when the harlequin's
crying "yes" went high and then trailed off with an honest-to-Halone warble in his
voice, that was simply confirmation.
The unlatched door, the one that the vampire hadn't been closing, suddenly opened
wide—like it had been hit or shoved rather than opened by a normal, civilized high
house son. The vampire was knocked flat on his arse, and the sun quickly withdrew
behind his curtain at the hoarse laughter of the pirate. "I knew you were
watching!"
The vampire muttered something under his breath (it was quiet, much quieter than
the sun's own heartbeat and breathing, and thus he was unable to make it out),
which prompted another short laugh from the pirate. "Not at all. Mmm—what'd you
think?" This time a cackle. "You know vampires—can't go anywhere without an
invitation." The sun's jaw dropped open at that, and he waited with bated breath
for confirmation, one way or another... but there were no more words, or none that
he could make out. Just rustling, and footsteps, and quiet.
And then not quiet.
Then, he couldn't make out any words anymore, not through the door (they weren't
being loud again yet), but he could make out that it was the pirate and the
harlequin, not just the harlequin. That their voices were low, that they spoke in a
meter regular (not broken up by being, say, out of breath) but accelerating, that
they were conversing (not arguing), and that now, that was laughter, and that now,
that was a groan of jointed wood, and that now that he'd thought on it, the sun
hadn't heard the door latch shut again.
This time he didn't hesitate long enough to think, he turned straight out of his
hiding place and went directly to the now-unguarded door. He was right—it had been
left open a bare few ilms. As he drew closer, he could hear the sound of clothes
being removed and had to remind himself to keep his steps slow and quiet—the sun
sunk slowly to his knees as if in gratitude once he'd reached the cracked doorway,
and peered inside.
The vampire was seated in an armchair—fully-dressed, but relaxed completely, head
lolled back with his gaze directed at the couch in the room—huge and upholstered
with crushed velvet and on whose arm rested the pirate's tricorne and on whose
cushions rested the other two. The pirate, all that he'd shed was just the tricorne
—the harlequin, his hat was one of the few pieces he'd still had properly on.
The harlequin's bare pink arse was on the couch, and his bare right leg awkwardly
hooked over the back, with his left heel on the floor, tights and smallclothes
hanging off that calf. The sun couldn't see where his gloves had gotten to, but he
could see that right then the pirate was nosing the hem of the harlequin's tunic up
and over his belly—and his askew halfmask made it easy to see the delight in both
his smile and his big blue eyes as he was teased.
"Mmm, it was a good—a good drink—" the pirate was muttering in-between wet kisses
up the harlequin's stomach (and the sun glanced over to check and yes his cock was
mostly flaccid, but still reddened and wet enough to glisten), "but don't you have
a bit, ah, more for me?" His hands were on the harlequin's hips, large enough
relatively that he barely had to shift position to be squeezing his arse.
"Nnngh—maybe, maybe I do..." the harlequin had put his hands above his head, on the
arm of the couch, like they'd been bound there. "Maybe if you tell me what you
want, mm?" He squeaked delightedly at the way the pirate pinched him, rolling his
hips in encouragement.
"Your soft little arse, silly—mmf, silly fool," the pirate growled, pulling the
harlequin down, closer to him—and subsequently making his tunic at last ride up
over his chest. "Fuck it, fuck you sore and cross-eyed..." He latched hard onto one
of the harlequin's nipples, using teeth and tongue as his lover twisted beneath
him.
"Oh—oh, gods—nngh, stuff me?" The harlequin's face was crimson but his smile was
easy and his legs splayed wide; this was (somehow, in some way the sun found
unfathomable) a familiar game.
"Like a goose." He bucked his hips against the other's groin and literally all of
the harlequin shivered, "Like a pretty little songbird—mmm, till you're all..." the
pirate trailed off, obviously too aroused to speak clearly and coherently, his face
still pressed against the harlequin's reddening skin (now with the harlequin
holding it there). "Gods, you soft little—sheltered..."
"Acts bold with a mask, but—" For the first time since beginning to watch the sun
looked over to the vampire, saw that he'd unfastened the front of his trousers,
"Mm, but we know..."
"Know what?" The harlequin's voice was breathy, excited, his cock now hard as he
tried to push the pirate's head down closer to it (the pirate having none of it).
"You gasp real loud when you're entered," the pirate said in a low rumble as he
reached for the front of his breeches, unfastening laces, "every time, and you—ngh,
you squirm on a cock like you've never felt a thing like it, like—gods—" Eager to
demonstrate (or perhaps see it for himself), the pirate pulled his cock free and
was already guiding the head to the harlequin's entrance as the latter nodded
energetically.
He did indeed gasp with that timbre of insinuated innocence the pirate promised,
and the sun was just aware enough to be glad he was already kneeling and braced
against the door. The two of them were getting harder to watch—the pirate so large,
and his harlequin so slight by comparison, they would've had to be performing
deliberately to keep most of the harlequin visible in whole. As it was, those long
thin legs were hooked over the pirate's hips, his fingers fisting and twisting in
the back of his buccaneer's shirt, and his voice mixing with the jingling of the
bells on his hat, shook thoroughly by the pirate's hungry motions.
"Aaahhhh—hhh, but—but, oh, I do, and you—" The harlequin was louder than the sun
ever would have thought, "Nnnngh, s'not my fault you're such a—such a—" He
struggled for words, and the sun was both in no position and the perfect position
to supply them, his brain shorting at the sight and sound of these two—these
inexplicable two, these sons of—
—He finished before he realized he was even rubbing and rocking against his hand,
and the hold broke. Blood returned to his cheeks, and reason returned to his mind.
The sun shut his eyes and leaned against the doorframe, he let his own panting be
masked by the three voicing pleasured moans on the other side. But he didn't leave.
He chose to linger and imagine as afterglow—he departed any attempt at following
the events inside to twist what he overheard into fantasy, into whatever best
complemented the images he'd been left with, that were, for this evening, enough.
Reality proper didn't intercede until the sun picked up a murmur about "arranging a
carriage"—then, he pushed himself up to his shaky feet, and drifted back down to
where the party was winding down. Hailing a carriage of his own, the sun dreamed
his way home before collapsing into bed and sleep almost at once upon arrival.