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rainbowfic2023-08-27 08:42 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2023-08-27 08:42 pm
Nacre #13; Tourmaline #2 [Starfall]
Name: Set Patterns
Story: Starfall
Colors: Nacre #13 (subliminal); Tourmaline #2 (wine/water)
Supplies and Styles: Life Drawing
Word Count: 2238
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: 1313, Portcallan; Viyony Eseray, Leion Valerno, Mierlise Modelen, Diyela Gerro. (24 years earlier sequence. Takes place on the evening after the events of Take To The Streets.)
Summary: Portcallan does what every city should do immediately after a assassination attempt: they hold a dance.
It was too late to change her mind. Viyony turned about in the Modelen guest room, craning to see herself from all angles in the mirror. Not too bad? Quite good, even? She tucked away a stray strand of black hair and wrinkled her nose. It was going to be her first appearance proper in Portcallan society and she wanted to get it right.
She’d spent an hour choosing the night before back at her aunt’s. She aimed to display fabrics coloured with unique Eseray dyes to an audience of the Portcallan elite, as well as looking her best. She’d opted for a white satin dress trimmed with light grey edging and wide silk sash, with drapes over it shaded in dark Eseray purple. The same colour was picked out in her necklace and her sash ornament, made in the shape of the Eseray leaves-and-berries device. Mierlise Modelen helped her fasten up her hair at the back of her head in the current Portcallan style and Viyony’s cousin Ivina had spent an hour or two yesterday walking her through the old-fashioned Portcallan formal dances now rarely danced outside of Grand Opening Day. Viyony pulled a face at her reflection, but she was as ready as she was ever going to be. It was time to brave the crowds.
Nothing, though, could fully prepare her for the impact of the Great Chamber Hall with its vaulted ceilings and coloured glass, nor the richly dressed throng of Portcallan’s upper strata gathering inside. Viyony found herself reduced to one small, insignificant stranger in a way she’d never been before. She refused to let it stop her, though. She straightened her shoulders, and navigated her way through the tide of people to find her cousin Ivina and Aunt Diyela, who had not been at the Modelen house with her earlier. When she finally reached them, Aunt Diyela smiled and pressed her hand in welcome while Ivina bustled about to find a glass of wine for her. The tightness in Viyony eased and she settled for staying there, close by them, while she waited to accustom herself to it all.
It didn’t take as long as she’d feared. Everyone was far more absorbed in discussing the afternoon’s assassination attempt than in one visitor among hundreds. Colonel Eollan Barra – strictly speaking, Colonel no longer – headed straight over as soon as he spotted Viyony and claimed her for a dance. The sedate pace and little variation of movement made it easy to manage with nothing more than Ivina’s brief lesson.
Viyony returned to Aunt Diyela and looked around for the glass of wine she’d left with her, but it had vanished. She set out in search of another, or perhaps a lighter drink – it was growing hot in here with all these people. It took her a while to edge her way through knots of people talking eagerly about firestone and assassins, and who had arrived here with whom, and what in the wide empty world were they wearing, to finally hunt down a member of staff armed with refreshments. The young man in question spotted her struggles as she fought her way through to him and grinned, lowering his tray as she reached him.
“Thank you,” said Viyony. She turned around to carry off her prize, shielding the glass with her hand as she started to edge her way back through the crowd. She paused in a small space to take a sip of something unfamiliar, but cool and tangy, and caught sight of Mierlise Modelen nearby, unmistakable in bright pink. She had her back to Viyony, displaying a line of blue and pink starflowers in her hair, as she chattered away to a dark-haired young man Viyony didn’t recognise.
He had his back to Viyony, giving her a view only of a rich brown jacket and black trousers, in contrast to the more formal robes that many others were wearing. He wasn’t the only one, but it suggested he wasn’t a Chamber official or High Councillor.
“Seah is all right?” Mierly asked, and when he nodded and said something Viyony couldn’t hear, she smiled. “I’m so glad. We heard she’d been hit. I hope they catch them! They’ve made a hole in our wall, did you know?”
He inclined his head down toward Mierly. “I hadn’t heard that. But nobody was hurt, were they?”
“Oh, no. You see, that’s the thing – you know we had Imai Eseray with us –”
Viyony, in the middle of making her way past a large woman in vivid red robes, pulled up short and was cursed at by a blue-robed man behind her who stepped into her and spilled his drink.
“Oh, no, she’s not as bad as we thought,” Mierly was saying now. “Quite all right so far, actually. But that’s what I was trying to say – we were all unhurt because she saw it happen in a dream! Now, what,” and Mierly raised laughing eyes upward to her companion, “do you say to that?”
Viyony closed her eyes momentarily. She moved to rush forward and silence her new friend at once, but someone else elbowed her aside, trapping her between the blue-robed man and another small group of people. She’d told the Modelens not to talk about that! She hated speaking about the dreams at any time, and Aunt Diyela had strictly forbidden her to do so while she was in Portcallan. People never understood – they either didn’t believe her, or were far too interested, or they’d avoid her ever after. She had never made up her mind which was worst.
“… quiet about anything like that!” Mierly’s unknown friend was scolding her in lowered tones. “You haven’t been telling anyone else, have you? Stars, Mierlise, I’d have thought you’d have more sense. It’s not safe.”
Mierly hung her head and muttered something.
Viyony took advantage of an ebb in the tide of people around them to take the last step towards them. She was too close to do anything else. It’d be worse if they saw her, making a slow retreat from eavesdropping on them, however inadvertently. “Mierly,” she said, inclining her head.
“Oh! Viyony!” said Mierly. “There you are. I was telling Leion he ought to meet you. Oh – and I’m so sorry! I forgot – I said things about – about what happened earlier. But only to my friends, and I don’t think they believed me anyway. So, it’s really not that bad,” she added, more to Leion than to Viyony. “I won’t do it again.”
“Imai Eseray,” said her companion, turning around and holding out his hand to Viyony. “I’m Leion Valerno – a friend of your aunt’s as well as of this scatterbrained soul.”
Viyony took his hand. From the front view, he was good looking enough, she supposed resentfully – pale-skinned, with black hair inclined to stand up in tufts, and brown eyes currently holding an amused gleam. She’d heard her aunt and the Modelens mention his name. (He was, Ivina had told her, a useful person to know. The Modelens had agreed. “Everyone likes Leio!” Laida had said.)
“Imai Valerno,” Viyony said, giving him a stiffly correct nod.
Leion Valerno raised arched brows at Mierly, and Viyony flushed as she remembered what she’d overheard: not as bad as we thought. She supposed she couldn’t blame them. It must sound odd to most people to be making a Copperfort bargain of a marriage in this day and age. There were usually plenty more civilised ways to work your way around these things. Mierly might have decided she was all right, but it was only to be expected that other people would still call her mercenary. When you came down to it, she probably was.
If Leion was thinking that, he had the grace not to say it. “I wanted to meet you, as it happens. I’d heard about you – and this afternoon – from elsewhere.”
Viyony set her mouth and deliberately said nothing further, waiting for him to speak. She had no idea what business he thought he had with her, but when it came to the matter of her dreams, that was nobody’s affair but hers.
He didn’t elaborate, either. He only glanced aside to where new sets were forming for the next dance and then threw a smile in her direction. “Shall we?”
“Why not?” Viyony said, maintaining a disinterested tone as she held out her hand. He took it, but shot her a quick, curious glance as they headed through a group of talking guests to join a set forming nearby. Viyony lifted a polite eyebrow in return.
The dance was even more lifelessly traditional one than the first, set to appropriately funereal music. Leion and Viyony, with the rest of the dancers, marched slowly, palm to palm, in the middle of a row of couples until they broke away into two lines. That was accomplished with a turn and a flourish, as if to try and justify its definition as a dance rather than a stylised walk. As the two lines marched back around to find their partners, Leion reclaimed her with a smile lurking on his face.
“I’m sorry,” said Leion in an undertone. “Dreary, isn’t it? It’s a terribly ceremonial occasion.”
“We have already had quite enough excitement for one day, I suppose.”
“Speaking of which, we need to talk.”
Viyony widened her eyes. “Then you shouldn’t have asked me to dance instead, should you?”
“I’m being discreet,” he murmured, before they broke away from each other.
Viyony moved through the set, interminably slow motions of the dance until it brought them back together. “Oh?”
“How would you like to visit the Empty Temple tomorrow?” he offered. “It is worth seeing while you’re in Portcallan.”
Viyony remained carefully uninterested. “I don’t believe I have any other appointments. What time do you suggest?”
He flickered a look at her but she held his gaze, her expression unchanged. “Just like that?” he asked.
“I’m told you’re a useful person to know,” said Viyony. “And my guidebook rates the temple highly. What time?”
Leion gave a short laugh, but they had to reform into their lines for one more march through the proceedings. When she pressed her hand to his again, he leaned in to say: “Early afternoon?”
“Acceptable,” agreed Viyony and concentrated on the dance’s final steps, finishing on the turn, leaving her facing Leion with his hand lightly resting under her elbow. He smiled down at her, and she stepped back sharply. “You dance quite well,” she informed him with an air of condescension Grandmother Eseray couldn’t have beaten.
He gave a minute, mocking bow. “Thank you. You’re not too bad yourself – for a newcomer to our ways.”
When he brought her back to her party, Viyony found Mierly was with her aunt and cousin, sipping away at a glass of light-coloured wine that made Viyony realise with a pang that she’d lost her second drink of the evening to a dance.
Aunt Diyela turned as they approached. She smiled immediately on seeing Leion, greeting him with a kiss to the cheek and an enquiry after his mother’s health.
“Imai Valerno has offered to take me to see the Empty Temple tomorrow, Aunt Diyela,” said Viyony. “I take it you and Ivina won’t mind?”
Mierly screwed up her face. “Leio, no! What are you thinking? She hasn’t even been up to Chamber Square and seen the view yet, or any of the usual sight-seeing things. Take her somewhere better than that gloomy old temple!”
“Well, you’re not invited, so you don’t need to worry,” Leion said. “Besides, it has to be the temple. Imai Eseray’s guidebook rates it highly, I’m told.”
“Very highly,” said Viyony. “My heart is set on it already.”
Leion held out his hand. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Imai Eseray. We can talk then.”
Viyony resorted to another small, discouraging nod of acknowledgement, watching closely as he walked away.
“Don’t you like Leion?” asked Mierly, lowering her glass. “He is all right, you know. He’s Kettah’s brother, and Seahra’s. We’ve known them forever. He must have liked you, to ask you to the temple.”
Viyony frowned after him. “I think that was all he wanted in the first place, regardless of what he thought of me. Oh, don’t worry, Mierly – we’ve barely spoken yet. I won’t make any hasty judgements.”
Leion vanished into the mass of guests. Viyony sighed. The thing she’d minded, the thing that had made her be so cool with him, was that he’d wrapped a matter of business up first in a dance and then a social invitation and tried to cover both with nothing but a charming smile. Viyony didn’t see why he couldn’t simply have asked to come and see her outright. He ought to get on with Mother, she thought darkly. Mother had decided that Viyony’s business here – her marriage – ought to be dressed up in the frills and ribbons of this trip to Portcallan, as if that could change what was going to happen at the end of it all.
Viyony went in search of a drink again and regretted not demanding an explanation. Now she’d only have to worry about what Leion really wanted until he turned up tomorrow. But it was exactly the same as this trip to Portcallan, whatever it was – made up to look as if it was a good thing, when it wasn’t.
Story: Starfall
Colors: Nacre #13 (subliminal); Tourmaline #2 (wine/water)
Supplies and Styles: Life Drawing
Word Count: 2238
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: 1313, Portcallan; Viyony Eseray, Leion Valerno, Mierlise Modelen, Diyela Gerro. (24 years earlier sequence. Takes place on the evening after the events of Take To The Streets.)
Summary: Portcallan does what every city should do immediately after a assassination attempt: they hold a dance.
It was too late to change her mind. Viyony turned about in the Modelen guest room, craning to see herself from all angles in the mirror. Not too bad? Quite good, even? She tucked away a stray strand of black hair and wrinkled her nose. It was going to be her first appearance proper in Portcallan society and she wanted to get it right.
She’d spent an hour choosing the night before back at her aunt’s. She aimed to display fabrics coloured with unique Eseray dyes to an audience of the Portcallan elite, as well as looking her best. She’d opted for a white satin dress trimmed with light grey edging and wide silk sash, with drapes over it shaded in dark Eseray purple. The same colour was picked out in her necklace and her sash ornament, made in the shape of the Eseray leaves-and-berries device. Mierlise Modelen helped her fasten up her hair at the back of her head in the current Portcallan style and Viyony’s cousin Ivina had spent an hour or two yesterday walking her through the old-fashioned Portcallan formal dances now rarely danced outside of Grand Opening Day. Viyony pulled a face at her reflection, but she was as ready as she was ever going to be. It was time to brave the crowds.
Nothing, though, could fully prepare her for the impact of the Great Chamber Hall with its vaulted ceilings and coloured glass, nor the richly dressed throng of Portcallan’s upper strata gathering inside. Viyony found herself reduced to one small, insignificant stranger in a way she’d never been before. She refused to let it stop her, though. She straightened her shoulders, and navigated her way through the tide of people to find her cousin Ivina and Aunt Diyela, who had not been at the Modelen house with her earlier. When she finally reached them, Aunt Diyela smiled and pressed her hand in welcome while Ivina bustled about to find a glass of wine for her. The tightness in Viyony eased and she settled for staying there, close by them, while she waited to accustom herself to it all.
It didn’t take as long as she’d feared. Everyone was far more absorbed in discussing the afternoon’s assassination attempt than in one visitor among hundreds. Colonel Eollan Barra – strictly speaking, Colonel no longer – headed straight over as soon as he spotted Viyony and claimed her for a dance. The sedate pace and little variation of movement made it easy to manage with nothing more than Ivina’s brief lesson.
Viyony returned to Aunt Diyela and looked around for the glass of wine she’d left with her, but it had vanished. She set out in search of another, or perhaps a lighter drink – it was growing hot in here with all these people. It took her a while to edge her way through knots of people talking eagerly about firestone and assassins, and who had arrived here with whom, and what in the wide empty world were they wearing, to finally hunt down a member of staff armed with refreshments. The young man in question spotted her struggles as she fought her way through to him and grinned, lowering his tray as she reached him.
“Thank you,” said Viyony. She turned around to carry off her prize, shielding the glass with her hand as she started to edge her way back through the crowd. She paused in a small space to take a sip of something unfamiliar, but cool and tangy, and caught sight of Mierlise Modelen nearby, unmistakable in bright pink. She had her back to Viyony, displaying a line of blue and pink starflowers in her hair, as she chattered away to a dark-haired young man Viyony didn’t recognise.
He had his back to Viyony, giving her a view only of a rich brown jacket and black trousers, in contrast to the more formal robes that many others were wearing. He wasn’t the only one, but it suggested he wasn’t a Chamber official or High Councillor.
“Seah is all right?” Mierly asked, and when he nodded and said something Viyony couldn’t hear, she smiled. “I’m so glad. We heard she’d been hit. I hope they catch them! They’ve made a hole in our wall, did you know?”
He inclined his head down toward Mierly. “I hadn’t heard that. But nobody was hurt, were they?”
“Oh, no. You see, that’s the thing – you know we had Imai Eseray with us –”
Viyony, in the middle of making her way past a large woman in vivid red robes, pulled up short and was cursed at by a blue-robed man behind her who stepped into her and spilled his drink.
“Oh, no, she’s not as bad as we thought,” Mierly was saying now. “Quite all right so far, actually. But that’s what I was trying to say – we were all unhurt because she saw it happen in a dream! Now, what,” and Mierly raised laughing eyes upward to her companion, “do you say to that?”
Viyony closed her eyes momentarily. She moved to rush forward and silence her new friend at once, but someone else elbowed her aside, trapping her between the blue-robed man and another small group of people. She’d told the Modelens not to talk about that! She hated speaking about the dreams at any time, and Aunt Diyela had strictly forbidden her to do so while she was in Portcallan. People never understood – they either didn’t believe her, or were far too interested, or they’d avoid her ever after. She had never made up her mind which was worst.
“… quiet about anything like that!” Mierly’s unknown friend was scolding her in lowered tones. “You haven’t been telling anyone else, have you? Stars, Mierlise, I’d have thought you’d have more sense. It’s not safe.”
Mierly hung her head and muttered something.
Viyony took advantage of an ebb in the tide of people around them to take the last step towards them. She was too close to do anything else. It’d be worse if they saw her, making a slow retreat from eavesdropping on them, however inadvertently. “Mierly,” she said, inclining her head.
“Oh! Viyony!” said Mierly. “There you are. I was telling Leion he ought to meet you. Oh – and I’m so sorry! I forgot – I said things about – about what happened earlier. But only to my friends, and I don’t think they believed me anyway. So, it’s really not that bad,” she added, more to Leion than to Viyony. “I won’t do it again.”
“Imai Eseray,” said her companion, turning around and holding out his hand to Viyony. “I’m Leion Valerno – a friend of your aunt’s as well as of this scatterbrained soul.”
Viyony took his hand. From the front view, he was good looking enough, she supposed resentfully – pale-skinned, with black hair inclined to stand up in tufts, and brown eyes currently holding an amused gleam. She’d heard her aunt and the Modelens mention his name. (He was, Ivina had told her, a useful person to know. The Modelens had agreed. “Everyone likes Leio!” Laida had said.)
“Imai Valerno,” Viyony said, giving him a stiffly correct nod.
Leion Valerno raised arched brows at Mierly, and Viyony flushed as she remembered what she’d overheard: not as bad as we thought. She supposed she couldn’t blame them. It must sound odd to most people to be making a Copperfort bargain of a marriage in this day and age. There were usually plenty more civilised ways to work your way around these things. Mierly might have decided she was all right, but it was only to be expected that other people would still call her mercenary. When you came down to it, she probably was.
If Leion was thinking that, he had the grace not to say it. “I wanted to meet you, as it happens. I’d heard about you – and this afternoon – from elsewhere.”
Viyony set her mouth and deliberately said nothing further, waiting for him to speak. She had no idea what business he thought he had with her, but when it came to the matter of her dreams, that was nobody’s affair but hers.
He didn’t elaborate, either. He only glanced aside to where new sets were forming for the next dance and then threw a smile in her direction. “Shall we?”
“Why not?” Viyony said, maintaining a disinterested tone as she held out her hand. He took it, but shot her a quick, curious glance as they headed through a group of talking guests to join a set forming nearby. Viyony lifted a polite eyebrow in return.
The dance was even more lifelessly traditional one than the first, set to appropriately funereal music. Leion and Viyony, with the rest of the dancers, marched slowly, palm to palm, in the middle of a row of couples until they broke away into two lines. That was accomplished with a turn and a flourish, as if to try and justify its definition as a dance rather than a stylised walk. As the two lines marched back around to find their partners, Leion reclaimed her with a smile lurking on his face.
“I’m sorry,” said Leion in an undertone. “Dreary, isn’t it? It’s a terribly ceremonial occasion.”
“We have already had quite enough excitement for one day, I suppose.”
“Speaking of which, we need to talk.”
Viyony widened her eyes. “Then you shouldn’t have asked me to dance instead, should you?”
“I’m being discreet,” he murmured, before they broke away from each other.
Viyony moved through the set, interminably slow motions of the dance until it brought them back together. “Oh?”
“How would you like to visit the Empty Temple tomorrow?” he offered. “It is worth seeing while you’re in Portcallan.”
Viyony remained carefully uninterested. “I don’t believe I have any other appointments. What time do you suggest?”
He flickered a look at her but she held his gaze, her expression unchanged. “Just like that?” he asked.
“I’m told you’re a useful person to know,” said Viyony. “And my guidebook rates the temple highly. What time?”
Leion gave a short laugh, but they had to reform into their lines for one more march through the proceedings. When she pressed her hand to his again, he leaned in to say: “Early afternoon?”
“Acceptable,” agreed Viyony and concentrated on the dance’s final steps, finishing on the turn, leaving her facing Leion with his hand lightly resting under her elbow. He smiled down at her, and she stepped back sharply. “You dance quite well,” she informed him with an air of condescension Grandmother Eseray couldn’t have beaten.
He gave a minute, mocking bow. “Thank you. You’re not too bad yourself – for a newcomer to our ways.”
When he brought her back to her party, Viyony found Mierly was with her aunt and cousin, sipping away at a glass of light-coloured wine that made Viyony realise with a pang that she’d lost her second drink of the evening to a dance.
Aunt Diyela turned as they approached. She smiled immediately on seeing Leion, greeting him with a kiss to the cheek and an enquiry after his mother’s health.
“Imai Valerno has offered to take me to see the Empty Temple tomorrow, Aunt Diyela,” said Viyony. “I take it you and Ivina won’t mind?”
Mierly screwed up her face. “Leio, no! What are you thinking? She hasn’t even been up to Chamber Square and seen the view yet, or any of the usual sight-seeing things. Take her somewhere better than that gloomy old temple!”
“Well, you’re not invited, so you don’t need to worry,” Leion said. “Besides, it has to be the temple. Imai Eseray’s guidebook rates it highly, I’m told.”
“Very highly,” said Viyony. “My heart is set on it already.”
Leion held out his hand. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Imai Eseray. We can talk then.”
Viyony resorted to another small, discouraging nod of acknowledgement, watching closely as he walked away.
“Don’t you like Leion?” asked Mierly, lowering her glass. “He is all right, you know. He’s Kettah’s brother, and Seahra’s. We’ve known them forever. He must have liked you, to ask you to the temple.”
Viyony frowned after him. “I think that was all he wanted in the first place, regardless of what he thought of me. Oh, don’t worry, Mierly – we’ve barely spoken yet. I won’t make any hasty judgements.”
Leion vanished into the mass of guests. Viyony sighed. The thing she’d minded, the thing that had made her be so cool with him, was that he’d wrapped a matter of business up first in a dance and then a social invitation and tried to cover both with nothing but a charming smile. Viyony didn’t see why he couldn’t simply have asked to come and see her outright. He ought to get on with Mother, she thought darkly. Mother had decided that Viyony’s business here – her marriage – ought to be dressed up in the frills and ribbons of this trip to Portcallan, as if that could change what was going to happen at the end of it all.
Viyony went in search of a drink again and regretted not demanding an explanation. Now she’d only have to worry about what Leion really wanted until he turned up tomorrow. But it was exactly the same as this trip to Portcallan, whatever it was – made up to look as if it was a good thing, when it wasn’t.
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