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dailyprompt: "Warning."
May be Reiassan, post-Rin-and-Girey and pre-Steam!Callenia. Written in 15 minutes on Write-or-Die, with distractions.
She snapped her fan out to cover the lower half of her face, the bright red patterns enameled in the black lacquer like a butterfly's warning patterns: danger, poison.
The wise men in the room didn't need the signal. They knew who she was; even veiled, even obscured, even properly hidden, her presence was such that she would have been obvious even wrapped head to two in wool blankets.
The foolish men in the room would see the signals and ignore them. After all, others of her type wore such colours and such patterns in an attempt to mimic this woman, in an attempt to seem something they weren't: exotic. Erotic. Expensive. And most of them were nothing of the sort, house-wrens in cardinal feathers. The fools would not know the original from the imitators.
She stepped down one step, and then another, her hesitation-walk a deliberate counterpoint to the music. Custom determined her escorts. Bravado determined the exact amount of skin she deigned to show. Showmanship determined how she showed it.
Another step. Pause. Another. The music faltered. The conversation stopped. Three wise men stopped a foolish man from coming nearer. Her escorts stopped another. Someone would go home with her tonight, but not like this, not here, and not until she decided whom.
"Lady Honore." The grey-haired man stepped up in front of her without breaking her rhythm, stepped into her dance as it if had been choreographed for him; she offered him a gloved hand, and he bowed over it as if greeting the Empress herself. "Lady, you gift us with your presence."
"Sir, it is an honor just to be invited." She snapped the fan shut, leaving only the sheer veil between her features and the world. "Is this your lovely fete?" The dance was as much the words as it was the movements, and he had not yet released her hand.
"I am not that grand, no, Lady Priestess. But I would not mind playing host to you, should you wish it."
She eyed him through the black netting thoughtfully. His jacket was brilliantly blue, the color one's fingertips got when one was going to start losing parts to frostbite. The silk fabric was laced through with patterns in a darker blue, a moonless-midnight blue, and she, too, could read warning patterns.
"It may be that I might wish that," she allowed. Dangerous and daring she might be, expensive and elegant, but there had been no-one that had ever said she was also wise.
dailyprompt: "Warning."May be Reiassan, post-Rin-and-Girey and pre-Steam!Callenia. Written in 15 minutes on Write-or-Die, with distractions.
She snapped her fan out to cover the lower half of her face, the bright red patterns enameled in the black lacquer like a butterfly's warning patterns: danger, poison.
The wise men in the room didn't need the signal. They knew who she was; even veiled, even obscured, even properly hidden, her presence was such that she would have been obvious even wrapped head to two in wool blankets.
The foolish men in the room would see the signals and ignore them. After all, others of her type wore such colours and such patterns in an attempt to mimic this woman, in an attempt to seem something they weren't: exotic. Erotic. Expensive. And most of them were nothing of the sort, house-wrens in cardinal feathers. The fools would not know the original from the imitators.
She stepped down one step, and then another, her hesitation-walk a deliberate counterpoint to the music. Custom determined her escorts. Bravado determined the exact amount of skin she deigned to show. Showmanship determined how she showed it.
Another step. Pause. Another. The music faltered. The conversation stopped. Three wise men stopped a foolish man from coming nearer. Her escorts stopped another. Someone would go home with her tonight, but not like this, not here, and not until she decided whom.
"Lady Honore." The grey-haired man stepped up in front of her without breaking her rhythm, stepped into her dance as it if had been choreographed for him; she offered him a gloved hand, and he bowed over it as if greeting the Empress herself. "Lady, you gift us with your presence."
"Sir, it is an honor just to be invited." She snapped the fan shut, leaving only the sheer veil between her features and the world. "Is this your lovely fete?" The dance was as much the words as it was the movements, and he had not yet released her hand.
"I am not that grand, no, Lady Priestess. But I would not mind playing host to you, should you wish it."
She eyed him through the black netting thoughtfully. His jacket was brilliantly blue, the color one's fingertips got when one was going to start losing parts to frostbite. The silk fabric was laced through with patterns in a darker blue, a moonless-midnight blue, and she, too, could read warning patterns.
"It may be that I might wish that," she allowed. Dangerous and daring she might be, expensive and elegant, but there had been no-one that had ever said she was also wise.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-26 05:08 pm (UTC)I wonder who he is.
Typo: "wrapped head to two"
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Date: 2011-04-26 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-29 10:01 pm (UTC)It's almost a war of the colors, red versus blue. Are these the religious colors, one wonders.
Every evocative, and it feels like it could go somewhere.
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Date: 2011-05-02 04:15 pm (UTC)Is that a "moar pls?"
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Date: 2011-05-02 10:29 pm (UTC)I am curious, especially to see if she has met her match or if she is in over her head.
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Date: 2011-05-02 10:52 pm (UTC)