[Odelyn D'Eath]

"You rotten git!” The hand that commanded the city balled into a fist and beat a rhythm of authority against the gilt inlaid door panels. Anger boiled her blood and sang a trill, harpy shriek in her bones that did far more to rattle the barrier between her and retribution on her brother. Growling, trembling head to toe in a way that set her decorative quills to quivering, the lovely image of the Queen in all her refinement was quite undone. The expansive ropes of lights overhead otherwise dazzled on the prongs of a crown that had seen too few outings since her coronation, its foremost point a silhouette of the Temple’s main spire though it’s clock face was replaced by a sizeable polished mood stone – it sat at a loose angle that one of her Ladies was trying to adjust.

"Leave me, would you? You may pluck and preen me as you see fit in just a minute!” The girl was new and had heard only the good of the Queen which, whilst not entirely accurate, was made more of a falsehood than needed be under the blaze of Her Grace’s wrath. Marianne, fortunately, was on hand to shepherd the meek one away, chastising Odelyn with a glance for this reprieve of her warrior maiden role. It was too late for an apology but surely her brother would be in for it now when she could get her hands on him and she went back to banging on his door. "I mean it!” Pressing herself breathlessly against the door and listening intently to a vacuum of nothing going on on the other side. "Lumit... Ten Mile.. Subterranean.. “ Listing the seas meant serious business in their household and if the younger Lord was truly in his chambers he would have come shambling to the door by now.

"Incorrigible little boy.” She muttered resolutely. It was one thing when he got up to no good on his own time but he had sworn he would be home and perfectly mannered and his typically slimy, smarming and undeniably charming self for the gala tonight. With no options left to her she pressed her back to the cool of the door and heaved an almighty anchor of a sigh. "So be it.” Calming somewhat as, guiltily, she recognized her frustration for the anxiety that was underpinning it all, making note to have Marianne allow the girl she had shaken so to serve the regents – a coveted position, she was given to understand.

An hour for guests to arrive, she had best set about smoothing the creases her rampage had caused.

---

At the centre of the manor the D’Eath homestead was hollow. Three stories reachable only by the central staircase – or dumbwaiters if you were small and trouble dressed in lilac scales – decked with a purple paisley carpet and fenced with ornate Crysta wood from the North Region Forests. Carved Pearls as big as coconuts peopled the end of each banister, engraved with mottos and dates and favoured flowers and all manner of memory personal to the D’Eath kin that had lived here. At her back the Sunset Gallery framed the horizon and let in a haze of dying light that touched each open level despite the angelic glow being offered by the enchantments that floated by the support arcs, casting it in a shade of gold that drew out the true wealth of the place. For a few precious seconds it was the palace she had thought it was as a child.

Across from her, on the second landing, a huge clock face surrounded by a pair of thrashing kelpies frozen in marble reminded her it was nearly time. Flanking an aisle of black velvet carpet on the bottom floor her staff prepared to greet their guests and Odelyn would need to make haste and be at head of the procession and took to a trot down the steps, excitement fluttering in her chest. She was a Lady of the House D’Eath before she ever was a Queen and the chance to invite so many into her home and her heritage was seldom found between the politics at Court and the full time role of keeping 13 Gallows functioning. Tonight was her night and, on a quieter note, a night for her Father.

Settling herself at the lowest landing before reaching the hallway, she adjusted the sit of the heavy cast, tarnished silver cuff she had chosen, the only accompaniment to the inspired pinstripe creation she had similarly made sure to select for herself and found no need to prepare a smile with one sparkling readily on her lips.

Gesturing the quartet from the foyer to begin their understated introduction, the mechanism for the great granite doorway – a commemoration of the siege almost 100 years ago painstakingly chiselled into its primarily preserved countenance on the interior – thunked into place. Odelyn had learned well the mistakes of her cousins and the house was a vault, impervious to all who would stand before those doors without welcome. Tonight, however, would see all comers to pass through and onto the larger sprawling estate beyond the manor.
Win, lose or draw; gambling wasn’t just for the patrons of Ninth Paradiso.

[Castor Black]

The waiting lords and ladies, aristocrats and merchants and politicians, were all arrayed in a splendor of wealth and color, a murmuring crowd as gorgeous and golden as might have walked through halls of the gods. A scene so perfect that artists, at a distance, with sketchbooks and paints and easels, had begun to work feverishly to capture the moment. Mister Black kept to himself in the crowd's middle, waiting and watching for the stone barrier to finally admit the anxious partygoers.

He was flanked on every side by men and women he trusted, but paid them as little glance as the rest of the crowd. His eyes were on the stone, his gaze so hard and feverish beyond the lines and curves of his mask that the very force of his will alone might have forced it to break, with the passage of enough time. He seemed almost unliving... until that moment when the rocky whisper of its opening breathed movement and life into his figure once more. A tremor, so slight an untrained eye might have missed it, shook him like the remnant of rain from a leaf.

Sedate as stalking cats, the waiting group began to file through, though Castor gestured his party to wait. Others filed past them, sparing curious- and sometimes jealous- glances at the coterie. It was three men and three women which flanked the Kingpin, hand-picked from among the best of them.

Jedda Boss was born into crime, and Castor counted him lucky enough to have known her family for three generations-- four, if he could manage to live out the year. Arthur Penn was a Hand newly made, a young man with a silver tongue that could talk him into- or out of- anything. Trilby Nouvelle was an old ghost from topside, who'd retired from parlor tricks and magic shows to more serious spells and art theft. At his front was a thin but strong shifter who went only by 'Narrow'. Nobody asked him questions, and he didn't talk much... but he was hardworking and thorough, both traits Castor enjoyed in a young man. Rhodes was a reedy woman who hadn't aged as long as Black had known her... and looked as stony and ageless as Cas believed her to be. Laszlo Kovacs, the proverbial tank and designated rear guard, was another story entirely- so hulking that he cast a long shadow even over Castor... and had a mean streak that even the old wolf didn't like to test. They'd worked as a team for other tasks over long years-- stealing holy artifacts, the hordes of dragons-- and by now, their communication was so thoroughly unspoken that they functioned as solidly as a pack on the hunt.

The seven of them were marked as a unit by the clothes they wore, which were of a faultless black that seemed to dim the light around them, accented by stitching in blinding white that swirled strange patterns around the cuffs of their sleeves. Even the three women on hand wore the same strange uniform, its harshly cut lines flattering even their curved figures.

"You all know what we're after." His lips barely moved as he breathed the words. As one, they nodded. "You remember how long we have." Again, a nod. He felt and knew the small signals of anticipation. A clench of a jaw. A twitching hand. Slowed breathing. He didn't have to look to see the smile crawling up on Jedda's sharp features.

He drew a breath of his own.

"Let's crash this party, shall we?" He smiled, dazzlingly, beneath his paper mask, which was shaped with loving care into the long, delicate and pointed features of a smiling fox. It was warm to the touch, he knew, its black-eyed gaze hard and almost alive, ruddy fur black-tipped and handsome. But the stubbled line of his jaw was visible beneath the mask, revealing it for what it was, and when he tilted his head just so his mouth might flash as well.

Two of the woman had thrown their lot in together to select masks like cat's faces, long whiskers arching delicately beneath their small noses and above their eyes, and the party also boasted a stag, a fox and a raven. Laszlo, rather than bother with a mask, had skinned the face and mane from a black lion, and wore the hide like a hood over his face.

They filtered in with an eerie synchronization- lifting their hands at the same time to smooth the ivory ruffles of their cravats, and then the lapels of their jackets, the black kidskin of their gloves so well cared-for and glossy that they shone in the low light. And then, as if all operating under a hive-mind, the individuals that comprised the group's periphery dispersed among the crowd. Black remained to stay the course.

Castor made no bones for going about the Lady D'Eath, and his dark presence seemed to halt others in their tracks on their way to do the same, and conversations died as he passed. There was something undeniably sinister about the way he moved, as slow and confident and pointed as if he were sure of an easy meal. And there was the smell that hung about him- cologne, well-made and foreign, bergamot and oriental hardwoods, accented by notes of death new and old, the almost-sweet scent of clean, warm fur. His gloved hands slipped, the thick fingers of his broad hands curling around two glittering flutes of champagne offered from the carefully-held platter on the arms of a waiter. He carried them with an elegant, almost leonine dignity.

He stopped perhaps closer than any usual well-wisher might have to the hostess- prompted even to maintain that distance only by the silver she wore. If not for that he might have pressed close enough to press their foreheads together, breathe the same breath, feel the slow beat of her heart through her skin as it pressed against his coat.

"It is a pleasure," he rumbled from beneath the mask, giving a small bow to the Lady, the gesture languid and formal in a way that was both beautiful and antiquated, "To see the House re-opened to visitors... if only for a night." He straightened, head bowed as if in thought.. or prayer, perhaps. "I was not acquainted with your father myself, but we... shared circles, so to speak. It's good to see him so honored." The words rang with honesty because they were true; and he offered his elbow in an unspoken request to speak further on the subject. "And your particular efforts to follow in his footsteps haven't gone unnoticed." His gloved fingers pressed one of the cool glasses into her far hand.

"A little liquid courage," the fox added in a whisper, his broad, sharp-toothed smile flashing beneath the mask.

[Odelyn D'Eath]

Dusk sighed through the doors, the light catching on its rough squared surfaces so that the faults flashed like rainbow trout or oil on tarmac and she had never been more pleased with the craftsman ship as when it gained due attention from the crowd. One or two traced over the work and there was at least one comment from a emissary she knew to be of the mer-folk that mentioned how it reminded her of the walls of her trove; her kind were not given to reverence or quiet contemplation and it garnered appeal from others in turn. Her heart swelled.
Soon enough the crowd thinned out as the last stragglers wove over the threshold and were shown the way through corridors wide enough to let six-horse carriages pass without disturbing the oil paintings. Through the carvings of the banister a breeze tickled her arm and she knew the curtains had been pulled back from the patio to reveal the celebrations awaiting them between the topiaries and Swan Song lake. Not quite so lavish as the Temple gardens but far more impressive than one might find in your typical residential home.

Mid-welcome to some of the last of her guests tonight her eyes were drawn past to the dark pool of shadowy figures swimming amidst the Lords and Ladies. Sharks, the thought came without prompt, straightening her back as if to remind herself the fortitude of her spone. The Queen's smile was no different as she watched the 6 peel away but it did falter as a seventh berthed from their center and approached her. The passing of bodies around them had disrupted his scent at first but she knew it now and with it came torches and an undulating battle cry that would whip a city into frenzy. In her mind’s eye this man was painted red. Even when he stopped his presence kept coming, invasive and testing as it probed about her aura from beneath his benign, smiling mask. The pink of her tongue tip wet the inside of her lips discreetly before she closed them and turned her smile into something neutral and wary but not yet unfriendly. Those that had run with the Warrior Siren did not need to be named to be known in some way to her but not all were grateful of the bond she had naively woven with the song of her bones.

The bow she reciprocated with a neat, hardly perceptible drop that even when she rose out of it would not bring her level with his stature. At mention of her father and his likeness she could not help some softening, her eyes leaving his shaded ones sharply to gaze at the floor modestly. She stroked the newly grown, jet-black waves of her hair over her shoulder tentatively before looking up again.
"Thank you, M’Lord,” unable to place his societal rank she aimed high and waited to be corrected. On legs that were slender and flawless and pale as slivers of moonlight falling on silk when they peeked from between the folds of her skirts she began a descent. With each move of her hourglass shape the details billowed like jelly fish, floating and complimentary to her rhythm. She did not pause in taking his arm, tiny digits and glossy dark-plum nails a bright contrast against the fabric of his suit. "My hope is at least to have done half so well for 13 Gallows as I have for my Father’s dreams.”

A slender boy not yet grown into his shoulders and sporting a mousey-grey shadow above his lip parted from the rest of the staff who were waiting for the Queen and the last of her revellers to leave the foyer to once again lock the Manor and disperse to assist his colleagues on the lawn. A satin drape covered his arm and balanced atop was a masque that was an elaborately crafted mosaic of mirrors. The seams between them were almost unseen but for the angular quality it gave to the surface. Light struck the shapes of glass and danced over the Royal and her unexpected escort, an imitation of the scales the Queen sported when in her natural habitat. Plucked from its resting place there was no time to dismiss the boy as he took flight from the Amethyst of her gaze, though she did call to thank the youth and in so doing caused him to stumble over his polished loafers. The accessory took to her face without strings or clips or ribbons, finding a perfect sitting immediately.
Customarily pressing her fingers at the edges to ensure its security, she continued them along at a casual pace that chased the chatter of laughter of the others.

Too far from the hall to hear the servants clatter and the patio doors another corridor away meant the two were left quite unguarded for a moment. Accepting the glass delicately by its stem as though some rare bloom she found his choice of wording odd but decided she would not deny him the dance if he that is what he wanted.

"Courage for those who've none of their own; a D'Eath is never too foolish to fear nothing but, most things...?” Her tone she kept ambiguous. She could have been vain, coy or vexed but the expressionless set of her mouth and the neutral shield of mirrors loaned her much. She looked at him across the brief gap between them and tried to make some measure of the man who towered over her shoulder. A wolf wearing a fox' face was never a more obvious liar, everything too ill a fit and not least his mask.

[Castor Black]

The broad-shouldered man, in silence that wasn't cool so much as expectant, let the lady lead. He kept so well in stride that only the keenest observer might have guessed, and though his arm looped 'round hers, the grip was feather-light, the weight and feel of him barely-there.

But the warmth was there, the raw heat of the skin beneath radiating through the smooth fabric of the suit. The man might've had a small furnace for a heart. And he did not correct the high title she offered him, nor return the acknowledgement of rank.

"I've heard it's a dangerous thing, livin' in the dreams of others. Easier t' get lost there, even, than between mirrors." Soft as a lion's purr, weightless as any other idle commentary, without the weight of the warning it might have been. But his dark-eyed gaze was drifting elsewhere, noting some shadow in the veined marble that tiled the floor.

He did look up, however, at the approach of the boy, his chin inclining somewhat as he looked the young fellow over. The glance went unreturned, and he waited again in silence while the mask was fitted... covering the act of looking away again in taking a soundless sip of the champagne in his free hand, as if the act of masking one's self were an intimate and private affair not to lightly be borne in the company of others.

"The most intimate things about us, Lady, are our loves and our fears." Ah. A quiet, unguarded place.

He turned, just so, his back to the party, and in a smooth movement used the lip of his glass to tilt up the face of the smiling fox and reveal his own. It was far more grim, his dark brow drawn into heavy furrows, the skin at the edges of his eyes and mouth drawn tense and taut with the weight of concern. There was an edge of silver just beginning at his temples, lightening the jet of his hair... but he wore it with a leonine sort of dignity.

His dark eyes searched her masked face with quiet but avid intensity, as if it might reveal some truth to him. "And courage often the means to protect the one and defend against the other. In vulnerable moments, a little more isn't anything I would turn down." His own glass rose, indicatively.