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You're the moon that glows in the sky
Lighting up the world when it's blue
Stars they dance, though late in the night
Don't you know they dance just for you?
---
There you are above darkened clouds
Smiling at the world from afar
With the stars, you wander around
May they follow you wherever you are
"Dawdling? How unlike you."
Tana's head snaps up, and there, leaning over the terrace railing, her tyrian hair stirring gently in the early summer breeze, is—
"Your Highness!" Tana leaps to her feet and drops into a deep curtsy.
Nadia tsks, one elegant brow rising imperiously. "And so formal, still, despite my many admonitions."
"Princess Nadia," Tana corrects herself, straightening with a sheepish but pleased grin.
"Hm, still not ideal, but I suppose it is an improvement."
Nadia descends the marble steps leading down into the small courtyard, one of many scattered around the Prakran Royal University's campus. The ends of her deep amethyst sari trail behind her, faintly shimmering in the dimming light. Another soft breeze blows through the garden and for Tana it seems time slows to render a perfect painting: the princess in her stately purple; the sky fading into purple twilight; the kachnar trees majestic in their regal purple bloom.
"The banquet will start soon," Nadia reminds her. "Surely it wouldn't do for this year's archery champion to be absent for the festivities."
"It would be even more noticeable for the youngest princess of Prakra not to be there," Tana counters, "and yet here you are."
Nadia smiles, beatific, like that very first smile that Tana had immediately, hopelessly fallen for.
"Perhaps I have been tasked by the Queen herself to locate any wayward attendees."
"It's early yet," Tana says. "Surely I'm not the only one missing."
"No, you are not," Nadia says, offering no other excuse whatsoever. And Tana shouldn't be so pleased to hear something as small as that, and yet she is, anyway.
"How uncouth of me to trouble you, then, Princess," Tana replies, grinning when Nadia rolls her eyes at the formality. "I simply wanted to enjoy the gardens a little longer before leaving for the summer holidays," she explains.
Nadia looks up at the swaying branches, dripping heavily with their striking magenta blooms.
"You will be headed home for the summer break, then?" Nadia asks, with an undercurrent of something Tana can't quite catch. "Students are allowed to stay at the university during the holidays, you know. Your scholarship will still cover your expenses."
"I know," Tana says. "But my family would riot if I didn't, I think. And I always end up missing them by this time of the year, anyway."
Nadia's brow furrows in an unmistakably skeptical way that makes Tana bite back a laugh. "You miss your family, truly?"
"Wouldn't you?"
"If I were allowed the opportunity, perhaps, then I might." The undisguised petulance in Nadia's face makes her look much, much younger than her actual twenty-two years, and Tana is unable to stop the laugh that bubbles up her throat. "For now, even the enormity of the Palace is still too small to get away from them all for more than a short while."
Tana grins. "I understand. My family can also be a bit . . ."
"Suffocating?"
"Erm, clingy, I think, is the word I'd use. Not always in a bad way. Our whole clan has always been very tight-knit."
Up beyond the branches of the blooming kachnar trees, indigo is taking over the sky in full. At the farthest horizon, pinprick silver stars appear one by one. Tana would not count herself as one of the Lisuga's talented navigators, but as the stars unveil themselves across the sky she still feels their call homeward, even as her fingers twitch to reach out and grasp the hand beside hers and remain firmly planted in this quiet garden forever.
"Night is falling," Nadia says, and in the rapidly darkening twilight her crimson eyes blaze like sunset fire. "I could use an escort on the way to the banquet."
Despite her heart trying to climb its way out her throat, Tana calmly holds out her arm. "It would be a pleasure and an honor, Princess."
Nadia shakes her head, still disapproving of the title, but she's smiling anyway as she threads her arm through Tana's and begins leading them back up the marble stairs, the golden lanterns strung up in the halls coming to life ahead of them like so many glittering stars.
---
Here I am, just another boy
Singing songs that others have sung
Trying to find the words to employ
To adore the goddess of love
It must be fate, surely.
Ilya is a doctor and a man of science, and he's always looked at magic a little sideways and to the left, but in this weird, wide, wondeful world he somehow still manages to keep bumping into her, and surely that must mean some unseen cosmic force is at work here.
She's sitting at the bar of an inn in Port Tremaire, her sharp profile backlit by gilded lamplight. The roots of her hair are silver up to the tops of her ears, and then stark black all the way down to where it ends, curling ever so slightly, at the small of her back.
He puts on the most roguish grin he can muster and sidles up next to her as suave as he can—which is to say, hardly at all.
His boot catches on a stool's leg, and his forearm slams onto the countertop for balance, but he leads the movement seamlessly into a side-leaning, chin-in-hand pose, waggling his eyebrows at her. She laughs, and he takes that as a win, all in all.
He signals the bartender for a drink, never taking his eyes off her. "It's a travesty, surely, for a lovely lady to be drinking all alone."
"Is it?" she says, and hells, even the sideways smirk she throws him is gorgeous. "Perhaps you might suggest a remedy."
"Ah, and how fortuitous that I am a doctor! Certainly I have an array of remedies at my disposal."
She turns more to face him now, propping her chin on her hand. "A doctor now, are you? Finished medical school, finally?"
"Ehm," he says. "I have finished my apprenticeship, yes."
She laughs. "I feel like I should be more worried at having been treated by an apprentice."
"And yet here you are, healthy and hale! Surely that must count in my favor."
One corner of her sharp mouth twitches up. "Not completely hale," she says, then traces the deep scar slanting across her nose and down her cheek. The flesh is still faintly red, and not fully healed.
(It must be fate, too, surely, that neither of them have seen Lucio since, either.)
The bartender comes with his drink then, and Ilya drops a generous number of coins on the counter. "For the lady's drink as well, barkeep," he says, then winks at her, and when she laughs again he's hopelessly entranced.
"Still being alive ought to count for something," he says, eyes lingering over the still-angry scar. It's not a bad look, he thinks. Honestly, it suits her in an oddly appealing way.
(Then again, he finds nearly everything about her appealing, odd or not.)
"Yes, but perhaps if you'd been further along your studies, I might've made it out of that battle not only alive but also still irresistibly gorgeous."
Already the heat is creeping up his neck even before he says, "No help needed there, I would say."
She's caught off guard for just a split second, but he sees it, and he thinks to himself that he'd really like to see it again. But instead she tips her head and smiles. "No?"
"It, um—" He coughs, then takes a swig of his drink, then coughs again at the strength of it. "It adds character, I think."
She leans closer, lashes dipping low as she smiles and says, "And that's a good thing?"
A lock of silver hair falls forward with her movement, brushing over a shoulder bared by her sleeveless top, and he gulps.
"A very good thing."
"I see," she says, then smiles into her drink as she finishes it and sets the glass back down onto the counter. "Well, thank you for the drink, Doctor. And the company. I do agree that it's a highly effective remedy." She hops off the bar stool and nods her head.
He watches her go, so entranced by the swish of her skirt, the sway of her hair, that it takes him longer than it should to realize that she's paused by the doorway leading up to the rooms. He meets her dark eyes and suddenly he feels heat not just in his cheeks but all over.
"Ah, good night, then," he says. "Embri." Somehow, feeling the shape of her name in his mouth sends tingles down his spine.
She laughs, then, something low and rough that makes him shiver.
"Oh?" she says, tipping her head inquisitively. "Aren't you coming?"
Oh.
He nearly falls out of his own seat, stumbling over to her in two, three gangly strides.
She only smiles wider, winking over her shoulder at him, and leads him by the hand, unprotesting, further into the inn.
---
I see the galaxies when I look in your eyes
And I can't speak, no I can't speak at all
I swear to Zeus you're Aphrodite in disguise
Don't think that you can hide it from me
How, Asra thinks, could anyone be so damn pretty?
He doesn't think he's looked away once since she'd stepped into the living space of the shop looking the way she does.
They had argued playfully about what she should wear; he'd told her that she looked gorgeous in every outfit she tried on (because she did) and insisted that every color is her color (because it is). And she'd rolled her eyes before finally coming out in the absolute stunner of a dress she was now wearing, the soft lavender fabric clinging perfectly to the dips and swells of her torso before flaring elegantly at her hips. The slit bared her smooth, tan leg up to the thigh, and a golden metal snake hung suspended from the delicate chains crisscrossing her otherwise bare back.
She'd winked over her shoulder at him as she showed off the dress, and he's sure he had his jaw drop open like a fool.
"What do you think?" she'd asked, boldly assuming he could still think at all, with her looking like that. "It's your color."
She'd even put her hair up, baring the delicate slope of her neck, and Asra wants nothing more than to mark a necklace of bruises around her throat.
He passes the evening in a daze. He watches her wander the Celestial Room of the Masquerade, meandering through the maze of clouds and stars. The gentle twinkling of star-shaped lanterns washes softly across her cheek, painting her skin in scintillating shades of blue and purple and gold. She brushes a hand over a cloud, marveling at its cotton softness, then looks over her shoulder at him and smiles.
Oh, Asra thinks, she's going to drive me insane for the rest of my life.
And the thing is, he would absolutely, positively let her.
"Asra?" she prompts, head tilting questioningly. Evidently he'd taken too long just staring at her, but could she blame him, really? Could anyone?
One, two strides and he's right beside her, tugging her closely by the waist, and the way she giggles sends warmth bubbling down his chest and into his stomach.
"I'm onto you," he warns, skating his lips down her neck, making her giggle even more at the ticklish sensation. "I know what you're doing."
"Oh?" she says, and he feels more than sees the curve of her smile against his temple. "And what am I doing?"
He kisses her shoulder, his fingers tugging lightly at the delicate chains across her back. "Making me lose my mind."
"And?" she breathes against his ear. "Is it working?"
"Too well," he admits, kissing her jaw, followed by the barest scrape of teeth. "You might regret this later, you know."
She pulls back a little only to grin shamelessly at him, her hands sliding up to lace her fingers together at the back of his neck. He thumbs brush back and forth tantalizingly slow, just grazing his hairline.
"No," she says. "I don't think I will."
He kisses her then, unable to help it, and all around them, the stars dance.
---
Oh no I never thought I'd get this close to someone so divine
Oh I can't breathe, no I can't breathe at all
Aphrodite could you, could you please be mine, oh,
Could you please be mine, oh, mine?
He shouldn't let himself be this distracted.
His sister Rei—who has already died once—is somewhere in this maze of a (haunted!) palace, and her damn magician sweetheart is not, and so Arion should be keeping a close eye on her, lest she die on him again.
But Portia is just so damn distracting.
"I could show you around," Portia says, very obviously batting her eyelashes at him, and damn it all, it's working. "I know all the secret passages around here. If you're up for it?"
He thinks that he'd be up for anything, as long as she keeps smiling at him. And, well. He did say he would help Rei investigate the murder. This counts, surely.
So what if he doesn't need to walk quite so closely to Portia while they're exploring? She's not moving away, either.
And there's something incredibly addicting about the fresh-laundry smell of her clothes, the roughness of the pads of her fingers brushing along his arm, the curve of her mouth as she grins, mischief incarnate, and pulls him along the winding, hidden halls of the palace.
Their impromptu tour ends, somehow, by emerging from behind a tapestry just across the door to his room. Or rather, that should be the end of it, but when he heads into his room, Portia follows, and he finds it honestly a little thrilling and not at all unwelcome.
She heads for the window overlooking the garden, and pushes it open to the balmy summer evening. The scent of night flowers unfurling creeps into the room, carried by the same breeze that ruffles the wayward auburn curls skimming the side of her neck.
"There's one other cool thing I could show you," Portia says, leaning on the windowsill with a hint of challenge in her feline smile, and he shouldn't be so drawn to that but is. "If you're up for just a little climb."
He laughs as he crosses the room.
"I have a better idea," he says, and Portia pauses with one leg already out the window.
Arion grins, playfully sharp—two can play at this game, after all, and it is a very fun game to play. He sits on the windowsill, pulling her back up to sit next to him.
"Oh," Portia grins back at him when his arm wraps around her unfairly soft waist, "I'm already liking your idea much better."
He laughs again, ducking his head, a flush blooming across his cheeks, although his grip on her doesn't loosen even a little bit.
"Hold tight," he says, before he mutters under his breath, words Portia doesn't quite catch and probably wouldn't understand even if she did—
And suddenly he pulls them forward off the windowsill, a burst of wind rushing up to meet them as they fall, slowing their descent and settling them down gently on their feet.
"Oh," Portia says, laughter and exhilaration stealing her breath. "Oh, wow!"
Too earnest by half, he asks: "Did you like it?"
"That was so cool!" she gushes. "You can control the wind!"
"Uh, not really," he admits, rubbing a hand down the back of his head. "It was more like, a respectful request?"
"Oh, you've got to show me again sometime," she says. "It's only fair."
She smiles up at him, her blue, blue eyes bright in the starlit night, and by the mix of mischief and challenge in them he thinks she's probably never played fair a day in her life.
But still he grins, agreeing, and thinks to himself that whatever happens, as long as she keeps smiling at him, he'll come out the winner every time.
---
Here you are, I've waited so long
Hoping you would sit down to stay
'Cause with these stars, I've been dancing along
Like a fool, so you'd look my way
Muriel is stoking the fireplace in Rei's room at the Palace when the door opens and she steps inside, a look of surprise on her face when she sees him there.
And suddenly Muriel's not so sure he should even be in her room, given that he has his own next door, but any fear melts away when she smiles, pleased, and closes the door behind her.
"Where's Asra?" he asks, rising. Muriel had retired earlier than them, fully depleted after everything that had happened. Rei and Asra had been unable to immediately extricate themselves from their families, and Muriel had headed back to their rooms ahead of them.
"Still with his parents," Rei says, stretching her arms above her head as she crosses the room. "Figured they had a lot to catch up on; but I, for one, am ready for that nap that I was promised."
He chuckles as she falls inelegantly face-first into the pillows, Masquerade dress and all. He probably shouldn't find it all so endearing, and yet he does. She's weird like that. She makes him weird like that, and he finds it's not such a bad thing to be.
Muriel, having long since shrugged out of his own stiff coat and boots, pads over to the bed to tug at her ankle.
"At least take off your shoes," he says.
Rei only lifts her foot higher, the hem of her dress sliding further down her leg. He snorts, ignoring the way the exposed skin of her thigh sends warmth creeping down his neck, and pulls her shoes off for her, first one and then the other, letting both drop unceremoniously to the floor.
When he's done he looks up to find her looking over her shoulder at him, with tendrils of her hair escaping the neat bun and something bright sparkling in her dark eyes that only makes him flush harder.
"What?" he says.
She only laughs, pushing herself upright, and begins unselfconsciously undoing the stays holding closed her kingfisher-pattern outer dress. When she shrugs out of it, he takes it from her to drape over the chair holding his own impractical gauzy-caped coat.
He doesn't hear her bare feet padding on the carpet, and it's a (not entirely unwelcome) surprise when her arms wrap around his waist from behind. He turns in her hold, and as unfamiliar as the movement is, it still feels right, somehow, to settle his hands on her back, holding her lightly against him.
"Are you alright?" she asks, cheek against his chest. "I know it's been a long night."
And it has, but when he runs his palm down her back, feeling the silk of her gown beneath his fingers, and the warmth of her skin beneath that, he can't help but feel alright in every way.
"It has," he agrees. "But I'm alright."
"Mm," she says, then sighs against him. "Good."
"Are you alright?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Tired?"
"Oh, exhausted," she says, then nuzzles into him.
It tickles, a little bit. Still, he doesn't really stop her.
"Go to sleep, then," he says, and begins walking her backwards towards the bed. She stumbles a little bit, but it doesn't really matter; he's got her, his hands a steady support against her back.
She giggles just as they're halfway there.
"What?" he asks.
She looks up at him, eyes twinkling in the firelight as she teases, "And you said you wouldn't dance with me."
He frowns at her, but he's sure the heat pooling in his cheeks gives him away. "This isn't dancing," he insists.
But she only rests her head back against his chest and says, "Well, I'll take it, anyway."
He sighs as though much put upon, and even though he knows he doesn't have to, he wants her to have this, anyway. And so he shuffles to one side and then back, swaying her gently in his arms.
"Muriel," she gasps, delighted, looking up at him with a wide, pleased smile. "Are you actually dancing with me?"
"Don't get used to it," he says, but still they sway there, side to side, cocooned in the quiet of their room as outside the moon shines down on the Masquerade in full and raucous swing.
---
You're the moon that glows in the sky
Lighting up my world when it's blue
And here I sing, though late in the night
Hope you know I sing just for you.