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rainbowfic2026-05-17 08:37 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote in rainbowfic2026-05-17 08:37 pm
Vert #22; Azul #14; Colour of the day - 17 May 2026 [Starfall]
Name: Masks Off
Story: Starfall
Colors: Vert #22 (Waiting on the widow's walk); Azul #14 (Test of time); Colour of the Day - 17th May 2026 (Nacreous).
Supplies and Styles: Silhouette
Word Count: 2076
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Kissing, mild references to sex.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray/Leion Valerno, Laida Modelen. Takes place a few hours after Confession Time.
Summary: Viyony turns up at the masquerade in search of Leion.
Viyony followed Laida Modelen into the Ylies' Riverside house. It was currently spilling at the seams with guests in a bright rainbow array of costumes, their faces obscured by masks. Viyony had come as the Spirit of the Moon, wearing a long dress of opalescent silk, a pale net shawl draped over her arms, and a white and silver half mask covering her eyes. Her heart was beating on overload in her chest as she fought her way through the crowded space, barely even noticing when she lost sight of Laida in her golden star costume. Viyony was here for only one reason—to find Leion.
Viyony raised her head and then stood on tiptoe to try and see over the heads of people without much success, until suddenly a figure in a raging orange robe ploughed a route through to her.
"Viyony," he said breathlessly. He grasped her hand, drawing her off to the side of the room, where there was some small space to talk.
She forgot everything else in the shock of his vivid appearance. "Why are you so orange? What are you supposed to be?"
"It's not orange, it's flame," he corrected her. "And I don't know—some sort of Maralonian priest, or cultist, maybe? Kettah left a selection out for me and I grabbed this—it was the easiest."
She surveyed him with a faint frown. "It's a bit ostentatious."
"Then I'll have to take it off at the first opportunity," he said, flashing her a brief, wicked grin.
He drew her towards him, navigating them towards the centre of the main room where people were dancing. They joined the next set at the first chance they got, but Leion startled her by hesitating over the steps, nearly tripping Viyony up. She shot him a look, and he mouthed an apology—only to narrowly miss colliding with the nearest couple.
Viyony tightened her hold on his hand. "Let's get away from here."
He met her gaze, suddenly solemn, a question in his eyes, which she answered with a nod. She couldn't speak.
He pulled her away, through the surrounding crush of people, out into the hallway. There was more space to breathe there, but no privacy. Costumed guests littered up the place, leaning against the walls, talking or kissing in their brightly coloured silks, starstone beads glittering on masks and fastenings. Leion tugged Viyony onwards, up the stairs, stepping around three masked friends sitting heads close together on a lower step, giggling helplessly at something, until they reached the empty landing above.
"Should we be up here?" Viyony asked. It was only dimly lit by a yellow lightstone lamp, and no one else seemed to be around.
"Don't worry," he said. "We won't be the only ones sneaking about up here, I promise you."
His point was proven when they tried the first door and found another couple already inside, on the bed. Leion immediately snapped it shut again.
"That wasn't Mierly and Kettah, was it?" said Viyony.
Leion held up a hand. "Don't. I refuse to even think about it."
He paused, looking from one end of the long landing to the other, then he grabbed her hand and led her along the polished wooden boards at speed, before turning sharply aside and up three steps to a small square of landing in front of a window. Leion winked at Viyony, and opened the screen. He held out his hand to help her over the window sill.
Viyony, with his assistance, perched up on the sill, then swung her legs around and slipped down lightly on the other side. The Ylie house had been built into the steep incline up to Chamber Square, so a person could enter on the street level from Riverside, go upstairs and still come out on ground level—in this case, a small ledge halfway up High Point Cliff. Viyony was used to the same kind of thing in the Eister Ranges, but somehow it always felt more disconcerting in Portcallan.
Leion, still inside the house, removed his gaudy orange—flame—cloak and bundled it up, throwing it to her. She caught it. Then, in a more subdued shirt and trousers, he climbed over to join her. That accomplished, he pushed the screen back into place, pausing to survey his handiwork, before he pulled the outer shutter partially shut for good measure.
"There," he said, with satisfaction. Viyony stifled a laugh.
They were standing in a small, mossy nook on the hillside, barely more than a square length or less in size, with nothing but one twisted, stubborn tree growing against the wall between the rockside and the house. On the other side, the ground fell away to where, on the level below, Viyony could glimpse the house's proper back garden, illuminated, casting fragments of coloured light upwards through the thickly leaved trees. Here, hidden by the greenery and the dark, they must be close to invisible.
Leion laid out his cloak over the moss and then bowed to her with a flourish.
She laughed again, and he gathered her into his arms, his body warm against the cool night air. She pressed in against him tightly enough to block out everything else, her fingers unsteady against his skin and the linen of his shirt. They'd been waiting for this for so long, and it was so nearly too late. She hardly trusted herself to breathe in case it all fell apart again.
"Are you sure?" he said, suddenly pulling back between deepening kisses, dark eyes searching her face. "Given, well, everything."
Viyony shifted her head against him; he still had his arms wrapped around her waist. "I know we shouldn't, but—yes. I'm here. I want this. I want you. I don't think it can really make things worse. If it does, I don't care."
"And on that romantic note, it goes without saying that I like this plan much better than any of the others you've come up with," said Leion, his voice husky. He touched her cheek lightly and then kissed her on the same spot. "Stars. I wish I could find a way out for you."
"Don't talk about it," she ordered. His shirt was tied near the top, so she put all her attention into undoing it, while he slid one hand down to her hip, kissing her cheek again, then her neck, her shoulder, before halting at the fastening of her dress.
"Is this for show," he murmured as he fiddled with the shoulder clasp, "or does it come undone?"
Viyony smothered a laugh. "It comes undone."
"Oh. So it does."
They exchanged a smile at Leion's minor triumph, but before they could get any further, someone rapped on the other side of the screen and then rattled it, so sharply they both started as if they'd been caught in the middle of raiding the Ylies's money chest.
"Leion! Viyony! I know you're there, I can see that weird orange... thing of Leion's through the lattice. I'm going to open this, and you had better both be decent when I do."
Viyony shoved one hand over her mouth, smothering giggles, while Leion refastened her clasp, grumbling and cursing into her ear all the while, his other arm stubbornly still around her waist.
The person on the other side pulled the screen back, and then batted the shutter open. It was Laida—standing there in the faded light of the hallway; a warning mythical vision in gold. She leaned forward, resting her hands on the window sill.
"Go. Away."
Laida ignored Leion, looking straight at Viyony. "I'm sorry, but Imoren is here for you."
Viyony gave a soft cry of protest. "But he didn't want to come!"
"Well, apparently he's changed his mind," said Laida. "You'd better tidy yourself up and come downstairs with me unless you want the wedding to fall through here and now. Personally, I don't think that sounds like a bad thing, but you obviously don't agree."
Viyony sighed. She should have known she and Leion would never be allowed to get away with this. Something always happened to ruin their assignations, even if it was more usually their own doing or someone trying to kill one of them rather than a deliberate intervention. She stepped away from Leion towards Laida, but he caught her arm. Viyony turned, eyebrows raised.
"One minute," said Leion hoarsely. "Laida, go—keep watch, stall him. One minute, two at the most, Viyony. Please."
Viyony brushed back her hair and straightened the way the fabric of her dress hung from the mishandled shoulder clasp. "Oh, Leion, no. What is there left to say?"
"Wait for me," he said. "When all of this is over, and you've filled every last letter of your cursed agreement with that man, come and find me before you marry anyone else. I'll wait for you. I promise."
Something inside her crumpled, touched, but it was such an absurd claim to make. She couldn't allow herself to fall apart over it. She pressed his fingers before withdrawing her hand. "Leion, you won't. It'll be years, you know that—you'll move on. That's how it should be."
He shook his head. "No. And if I do, I'll let you know. Otherwise, don't you dare marry anyone else without finding out whether or not we have a chance first. I wish I could stop this whole charade, but since I can't, I'll just have to be here when you're done. I mean it."
"All right," she said, humouring him.
"I'm making a mess of it again," he said, doing up his shirt. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all of it, but I'm serious. It's -" He halted, and looked around him, as if the right words might be hanging from the tree or pinned to the cliff side. "I do love you. And, you know, I've been running around, not really sure what I've been doing with myself for years. Mother keeps telling me so. But since you arrived, I feel like I finally understand what I'm trying to do—that this business with people's affinity really does matter. And I happen to think you'd be worth waiting for anyway."
Viyony backed up against the window, pressing her palms against the sill. "I can't believe I ever thought you were a practised flirt."
"Did you really?" said Leion, brightening. "If only I'd known. But I'll wait, and hope, and I won't tie myself up in marriage before you're free. If you ever need me to do more than that, let me know."
He clearly wasn't about to be argued out of his nonsense, so she merely nodded. "Yes, then. I promise."
She scrambled back inside through the window. Laida caught hold of her, helping her over and Viyony, momentarily blinded by tears and mindful of her white skirt, was grateful. She couldn't help turning for one last look, even though she shouldn't—it wouldn't take much for her to lose the will to leave. But Leion didn't follow her, and Laida hastily pushed the screen closed with what felt like a decidedly final click.
Viyony shivered in the warm corridor.
Downstairs, Imoren was waiting. He acknowledged Viyony's arrival with a formal nod. "Viyony. I am sorry. I should have accompanied you earlier—it was ungracious of me to decline. I shall do my best to rectify that now, although I'm afraid I don't have a costume."
Viyony schooled her face into a smile. "You're not the only one, don't worry. Thank you, Imoren. Shall we dance or would you rather not?"
"This once," he said, inclining his head to her again, "I believe I will."
It was already too late for an affair with Leion. Viyony should be grateful to Laida and Imoren from saving her from folly, but she wasn't. She counted her way through the steps, keeping her face and heart blank, banking down frustration and fury at what had been stolen from her into mere embers, burying any sense of loss. Welcome to your future, she told herself.
Against Viyony's warm skin, Imoren's hand was cold, and his reserved demeanour a world away from Leion's urgent kisses, the foolish endearments he'd breathed into her ear. Viyony closed her mind to everything but the set pattern of the dance, while in despite of the heat of the press of bodies and activity, she slowly turned to ice.
Story: Starfall
Colors: Vert #22 (Waiting on the widow's walk); Azul #14 (Test of time); Colour of the Day - 17th May 2026 (Nacreous).
Supplies and Styles: Silhouette
Word Count: 2076
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Kissing, mild references to sex.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray/Leion Valerno, Laida Modelen. Takes place a few hours after Confession Time.
Summary: Viyony turns up at the masquerade in search of Leion.
Viyony followed Laida Modelen into the Ylies' Riverside house. It was currently spilling at the seams with guests in a bright rainbow array of costumes, their faces obscured by masks. Viyony had come as the Spirit of the Moon, wearing a long dress of opalescent silk, a pale net shawl draped over her arms, and a white and silver half mask covering her eyes. Her heart was beating on overload in her chest as she fought her way through the crowded space, barely even noticing when she lost sight of Laida in her golden star costume. Viyony was here for only one reason—to find Leion.
Viyony raised her head and then stood on tiptoe to try and see over the heads of people without much success, until suddenly a figure in a raging orange robe ploughed a route through to her.
"Viyony," he said breathlessly. He grasped her hand, drawing her off to the side of the room, where there was some small space to talk.
She forgot everything else in the shock of his vivid appearance. "Why are you so orange? What are you supposed to be?"
"It's not orange, it's flame," he corrected her. "And I don't know—some sort of Maralonian priest, or cultist, maybe? Kettah left a selection out for me and I grabbed this—it was the easiest."
She surveyed him with a faint frown. "It's a bit ostentatious."
"Then I'll have to take it off at the first opportunity," he said, flashing her a brief, wicked grin.
He drew her towards him, navigating them towards the centre of the main room where people were dancing. They joined the next set at the first chance they got, but Leion startled her by hesitating over the steps, nearly tripping Viyony up. She shot him a look, and he mouthed an apology—only to narrowly miss colliding with the nearest couple.
Viyony tightened her hold on his hand. "Let's get away from here."
He met her gaze, suddenly solemn, a question in his eyes, which she answered with a nod. She couldn't speak.
He pulled her away, through the surrounding crush of people, out into the hallway. There was more space to breathe there, but no privacy. Costumed guests littered up the place, leaning against the walls, talking or kissing in their brightly coloured silks, starstone beads glittering on masks and fastenings. Leion tugged Viyony onwards, up the stairs, stepping around three masked friends sitting heads close together on a lower step, giggling helplessly at something, until they reached the empty landing above.
"Should we be up here?" Viyony asked. It was only dimly lit by a yellow lightstone lamp, and no one else seemed to be around.
"Don't worry," he said. "We won't be the only ones sneaking about up here, I promise you."
His point was proven when they tried the first door and found another couple already inside, on the bed. Leion immediately snapped it shut again.
"That wasn't Mierly and Kettah, was it?" said Viyony.
Leion held up a hand. "Don't. I refuse to even think about it."
He paused, looking from one end of the long landing to the other, then he grabbed her hand and led her along the polished wooden boards at speed, before turning sharply aside and up three steps to a small square of landing in front of a window. Leion winked at Viyony, and opened the screen. He held out his hand to help her over the window sill.
Viyony, with his assistance, perched up on the sill, then swung her legs around and slipped down lightly on the other side. The Ylie house had been built into the steep incline up to Chamber Square, so a person could enter on the street level from Riverside, go upstairs and still come out on ground level—in this case, a small ledge halfway up High Point Cliff. Viyony was used to the same kind of thing in the Eister Ranges, but somehow it always felt more disconcerting in Portcallan.
Leion, still inside the house, removed his gaudy orange—flame—cloak and bundled it up, throwing it to her. She caught it. Then, in a more subdued shirt and trousers, he climbed over to join her. That accomplished, he pushed the screen back into place, pausing to survey his handiwork, before he pulled the outer shutter partially shut for good measure.
"There," he said, with satisfaction. Viyony stifled a laugh.
They were standing in a small, mossy nook on the hillside, barely more than a square length or less in size, with nothing but one twisted, stubborn tree growing against the wall between the rockside and the house. On the other side, the ground fell away to where, on the level below, Viyony could glimpse the house's proper back garden, illuminated, casting fragments of coloured light upwards through the thickly leaved trees. Here, hidden by the greenery and the dark, they must be close to invisible.
Leion laid out his cloak over the moss and then bowed to her with a flourish.
She laughed again, and he gathered her into his arms, his body warm against the cool night air. She pressed in against him tightly enough to block out everything else, her fingers unsteady against his skin and the linen of his shirt. They'd been waiting for this for so long, and it was so nearly too late. She hardly trusted herself to breathe in case it all fell apart again.
"Are you sure?" he said, suddenly pulling back between deepening kisses, dark eyes searching her face. "Given, well, everything."
Viyony shifted her head against him; he still had his arms wrapped around her waist. "I know we shouldn't, but—yes. I'm here. I want this. I want you. I don't think it can really make things worse. If it does, I don't care."
"And on that romantic note, it goes without saying that I like this plan much better than any of the others you've come up with," said Leion, his voice husky. He touched her cheek lightly and then kissed her on the same spot. "Stars. I wish I could find a way out for you."
"Don't talk about it," she ordered. His shirt was tied near the top, so she put all her attention into undoing it, while he slid one hand down to her hip, kissing her cheek again, then her neck, her shoulder, before halting at the fastening of her dress.
"Is this for show," he murmured as he fiddled with the shoulder clasp, "or does it come undone?"
Viyony smothered a laugh. "It comes undone."
"Oh. So it does."
They exchanged a smile at Leion's minor triumph, but before they could get any further, someone rapped on the other side of the screen and then rattled it, so sharply they both started as if they'd been caught in the middle of raiding the Ylies's money chest.
"Leion! Viyony! I know you're there, I can see that weird orange... thing of Leion's through the lattice. I'm going to open this, and you had better both be decent when I do."
Viyony shoved one hand over her mouth, smothering giggles, while Leion refastened her clasp, grumbling and cursing into her ear all the while, his other arm stubbornly still around her waist.
The person on the other side pulled the screen back, and then batted the shutter open. It was Laida—standing there in the faded light of the hallway; a warning mythical vision in gold. She leaned forward, resting her hands on the window sill.
"Go. Away."
Laida ignored Leion, looking straight at Viyony. "I'm sorry, but Imoren is here for you."
Viyony gave a soft cry of protest. "But he didn't want to come!"
"Well, apparently he's changed his mind," said Laida. "You'd better tidy yourself up and come downstairs with me unless you want the wedding to fall through here and now. Personally, I don't think that sounds like a bad thing, but you obviously don't agree."
Viyony sighed. She should have known she and Leion would never be allowed to get away with this. Something always happened to ruin their assignations, even if it was more usually their own doing or someone trying to kill one of them rather than a deliberate intervention. She stepped away from Leion towards Laida, but he caught her arm. Viyony turned, eyebrows raised.
"One minute," said Leion hoarsely. "Laida, go—keep watch, stall him. One minute, two at the most, Viyony. Please."
Viyony brushed back her hair and straightened the way the fabric of her dress hung from the mishandled shoulder clasp. "Oh, Leion, no. What is there left to say?"
"Wait for me," he said. "When all of this is over, and you've filled every last letter of your cursed agreement with that man, come and find me before you marry anyone else. I'll wait for you. I promise."
Something inside her crumpled, touched, but it was such an absurd claim to make. She couldn't allow herself to fall apart over it. She pressed his fingers before withdrawing her hand. "Leion, you won't. It'll be years, you know that—you'll move on. That's how it should be."
He shook his head. "No. And if I do, I'll let you know. Otherwise, don't you dare marry anyone else without finding out whether or not we have a chance first. I wish I could stop this whole charade, but since I can't, I'll just have to be here when you're done. I mean it."
"All right," she said, humouring him.
"I'm making a mess of it again," he said, doing up his shirt. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all of it, but I'm serious. It's -" He halted, and looked around him, as if the right words might be hanging from the tree or pinned to the cliff side. "I do love you. And, you know, I've been running around, not really sure what I've been doing with myself for years. Mother keeps telling me so. But since you arrived, I feel like I finally understand what I'm trying to do—that this business with people's affinity really does matter. And I happen to think you'd be worth waiting for anyway."
Viyony backed up against the window, pressing her palms against the sill. "I can't believe I ever thought you were a practised flirt."
"Did you really?" said Leion, brightening. "If only I'd known. But I'll wait, and hope, and I won't tie myself up in marriage before you're free. If you ever need me to do more than that, let me know."
He clearly wasn't about to be argued out of his nonsense, so she merely nodded. "Yes, then. I promise."
She scrambled back inside through the window. Laida caught hold of her, helping her over and Viyony, momentarily blinded by tears and mindful of her white skirt, was grateful. She couldn't help turning for one last look, even though she shouldn't—it wouldn't take much for her to lose the will to leave. But Leion didn't follow her, and Laida hastily pushed the screen closed with what felt like a decidedly final click.
Viyony shivered in the warm corridor.
Downstairs, Imoren was waiting. He acknowledged Viyony's arrival with a formal nod. "Viyony. I am sorry. I should have accompanied you earlier—it was ungracious of me to decline. I shall do my best to rectify that now, although I'm afraid I don't have a costume."
Viyony schooled her face into a smile. "You're not the only one, don't worry. Thank you, Imoren. Shall we dance or would you rather not?"
"This once," he said, inclining his head to her again, "I believe I will."
It was already too late for an affair with Leion. Viyony should be grateful to Laida and Imoren from saving her from folly, but she wasn't. She counted her way through the steps, keeping her face and heart blank, banking down frustration and fury at what had been stolen from her into mere embers, burying any sense of loss. Welcome to your future, she told herself.
Against Viyony's warm skin, Imoren's hand was cold, and his reserved demeanour a world away from Leion's urgent kisses, the foolish endearments he'd breathed into her ear. Viyony closed her mind to everything but the set pattern of the dance, while in despite of the heat of the press of bodies and activity, she slowly turned to ice.