“So am I the most beautiful woman you've slept with then?” The words were teasing, playful, but she still took joy at the surprise that passed across his face.

It was quickly covered, concealed by the mask he’d trained beneath the physical mask he wore. She leaned back in her chair, smug to have seen through both even for a moment.

“That’s a trick,” he complained.

“It’s hypothetical.”

“No. It ain’t, cuz if I say yes-”

“I’m just making a point.”

“Two of us can make points.” The party swirled around them, masked figures chatting, drinking, and dancing. Their table was quiet save for the two of them. She couldn’t have said if anyone else was there at all. He continued on, “If I say yes, you wouldn’t believe it anyway, and if I say no-”

She rolled her eyes and leaned forward. His eyes were red and orange like flames. She’d never seen anything like them. He was an elf, certainly, but she’d seen plenty of those in her life. He must have been fey touched, or one of the elves from the Wyldlands. She’d never met one of them before, but this was a fey party, so it’d make sense for some of them to be here. “And my point is that there is a broad range of beauty in this world, so what good are you doing yourself by comparing your creations to others?”

She was so earnest. She must have been very young. The young always wanted to believe that their own opinions mattered so much. He tried not to be cynical, to keep a bit of levity in his own thinking. No one was going to live forever, and who would want to? They were all just brief sneezes of time trying to enjoy themselves. It was cute that she wanted to help, and somehow the words did strike upon him as important. He couldn’t make anything as beautiful as the song of creation, as the song of betrayal played across the ineffable vastness from which his people had come, but he could make something different. There was something yet uncovered in the world, plenty of things. There was a song of destruction in the distance, waiting to be unleashed, there was hope and repair, there was the flitting melody of enjoyment and that is where his mind lingered for the moment. After all, they were at a party and no one had even threatened to stab him yet. It was a tame night.

“And anyway,” she continued as he mulled over his own existential dilemma, “who would want to listen to the same song forever anyway? We need variety to make life interesting. The deer need the grass, and the wolves need the deer, but it works the other way too. If we didn’t have variety the world would collapse in on itself.”

He hadn’t known her long, but he knew she wasn’t comfortable in social situations. A druid, by the sounds of things. She hadn’t said as much, there was magic around to keep people from talking about too many identifying features. After all, what good was a masquerade if everyone knew one another? She’d keep talking and get herself all worked up if he didn’t interject.

Maybe it was the atmosphere, or maybe it was her, but he had the urge to see her again. They weren’t from the same Plane, didn’t seem like she came to the Wyldlands often, but he wasn’t here most of the time either. Maybe he was a romantic. Maybe he was a fool. All the lives he lived stayed in his head, but he hadn’t learned from any of them.  After all, what fun was life if you didn’t make the same mistakes a few dozen times?

He also leaned forward, and her words stilled at his closeness. Her honeyed gaze widened a moment, but she stayed still as he interjected into the new silence, “Do you want to break some rules?”

She giggled. Cute. Her demeanor was brusque in the beginning, awkward, maybe that’s why she was so captivating when she softened. 

Not that he’d minded her the other way.

The girl leaned even closer, her cheek brushing his as her lips moved to murmur against his elongated ear, “I just fucked you in a hallway, have you forgotten already?”

He leaned back to bark a laugh, keeping the sound from being too loud for her. Her own grin was replaced with confusion when he informed her, “That ain’t against the rules, love. This is a fey party. I could take you on this table and all we’d get is a few requests to join.”

Her face flushed and she was grateful for the cover of leaves and flowers she wore on her cheeks. He didn’t love her. They’d only just met that evening, but she was just-

This was why she didn’t normally speak to the people she slept with. Certainly, she had needs, but those could be met quite quickly and then she didn’t need to deal with the person afterwards. She didn’t need to get disappointed by them. She couldn’t disappoint them, which would always happen eventually.

And he was a bard. She couldn’t stand bards. She knew what they were all like. She was raised with them. They were arrogant and cock sure. They were insufferable blowhards. She might not have even been with him if she’d figured it out beforehand but-

Well, there hadn’t really been an opportunity. He’d offered right away and she’d accepted. That could have been the end of it except they couldn’t find a room at first, and then they’d gotten a little turned around in the hallways. Eventually they just settled things there but there was the walk back to the party…

And now she liked him. She couldn’t help it. Sure, he was just as cocky as her brother, but he was also insightful and oddly- No. No that’s what bards always did! They took you in with their charm and then you couldn’t find a way to say no to them. She’d spent most of the night with him at this point, she had barely spoken to anyone else. And sure, she didn’t like striking up conversations with strangers, but she could have used this party as a way to network, and instead she was hanging off of this man’s arm. 

“You alright, love?”

Shit. How long had it been since she’d spoken? She had to think of something to say.

Luckily, he filled in the gaps for himself. “Imagining fucking me on the table?”

She smiled at the jab. “Guilty.” It wasn’t a convincing lie, but one needn’t be convincing when the other person wanted to believe what you were saying. “What did you have in mind?”

There. Back on topic. She took a long pull of the punch. Whatever was in it made her head pleasantly light, and it was easier to not overthink when your brain couldn’t string so many thoughts together at a time.

“C’mon,” He stood and offered his hand like he was asking her to dance. She hadn’t actually agreed to anything, but she couldn’t bring herself to refuse the offer. She didn’t know the rules of this party anyway, so she might break some of them by accident. Her hand slid into his and he escorted her across the room, gliding like he really had taken her for a dance, while she hurriedly kept pace behind him.

Her eyes roamed the party while they cut across it, figures of different sizes, all alien in design with magic and masks to change their appearances. They could be anyone- anything and they just seemed like normal people. She’d heard that fey parties were dangerous, but she hadn’t witnessed anything untoward here. Maybe that’s what was so dangerous about them; everything looked okay on the surface, but underneath- maybe a fey party was just like a deal with faerie where you couldn’t see the trap until it was sprung. Her eyes returned to the man in front of her. She’d seen plenty of him, maybe more he’d intended her to. She trusted him, even if she knew she shouldn’t trust anything here. It could have been that he wasn’t any different than the rest, but she was good at reading people, and she trusted her instincts more than what she’d been told.

His eyes weren’t on the party at all, aside from how it interfered with his route outside. This place had more turns than a bardic literature lesson, but he had been to this manor before and remembered a few of them.

Apparently not enough of them to find a bedroom, but he was confident that he could find the gardens. And all he wanted was some fresh air and a technicality strong enough to protect them if they got caught. He kept her hand light in his, but maintained a firm enough grip not to lose her. She was obviously new here and there were plenty of partygoers willing to take advantage of that fact. It was a part of why he’d approached her- she was an interesting new face and newness was coveted in their realm. Sure, technically all the faces were new, it was a masquerade, but she didn’t have any of the tells he’d seen from others. Even those of the Wyldlands had tells that showed through glamor and masks. Some couldn’t hide their speech patterns, some had visual ticks. Lerany was just really fond of peacocks. He gave the “stranger” in the peacock mask a little nod as they hurried by.

Most of the creatures here hadn’t spent as much time in other worlds as he had. They hadn’t gotten to know other races, or cultures. Some of them still thought they could keep other sentient races as pets, some of them wanted to crush whatever joy another had, just to make themselves feel a little better. So when he’d seen the newcomer he’d approached and they’d gotten on. 

One thing led to another and no he liked her. What’s wrong with that? And if she was with him then she was protected too. Not like he’d force her into anything. Probably wouldn’t matter anyway, but if they did meet again then he wanted them both to know it.

No, he was more honest with himself than that. He just liked her, and maybe that would be a disappointment. Hells below, it usually was, but anything that started had to end. Maybe that’d be tonight and maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t.

They reached a pair of intricate stained glass doors that stood closed on the far end of the hall. He turned and held a finger to his lips, winking before he pushed them open just barely enough for his lithe form to slide through. She followed, her hand still clasped in his, her eyes flashing once more across the party to see if anyone was watching.

Once they were out of the grand hall he picked up the pace, encouraging her on before adopting a light jog through the hallways. She lifted her dress with her free hand, wondering if she should remove her footwear for added speed, but he kept a pace she could match, even with her heels clicking along the stone tiles.

“Where are we going?” Was she allowed to know? Or was this all to be a secret?

He glanced back with a grin. “The gardens. Could use some air, yeah?”

“And that’s against the rules of the party?”

He chuckled at that, but she received no further answer.

  One hallway led into another until they finally came to the end of one that ended in an open arch to the outside. They drew short of crossing under it and stared out into the rain that poured from the sky above. He let out a swear and this time it was her turn to laugh. “Afraid of getting wet? Didn’t seem to mind it before…”

Immediately his eyes turned wolfish, matching the silver feathered mask he wore. “I never mind it, love. Rather enjoy it in fact, but the rain…” He frowned back out at the water, pouring down from the heavens like it intended to wash the Wyldlands away entirely. “Can’t pretend we didn’t come this way.”

“And that’s bad?” Everything he said was so cryptic. Why couldn’t he just come out and say what they were doing?

He shrugged. “No, not too bad.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

He scratched at the back of his head, slightly ruffling the long, straight red hair that cascaded down across his shoulders. “Just don’t like being placed is all.”

She rolled her eyes and peered out into the darkness. The garden had a series of hedges for privacy between pockets of flowers and fountains. “Give me a moment.” She couldn’t see colors in the darkness, but her eyes were well adapted to make out the shape of things. That’s all she needed for this anyway.

Her feet stepped to the edge of the dry tiles, just on the precipice of where they were soaked with rainfall. Droplets splattered against her toes and the bottom hem of her dress, but she embraced the feeling. She always liked the rain, the way it trickled through the treetops and made everything look washed clean. The smell of everything after it had passed, and how renewed it could make a forest feel.

Her hand reached into the curtain of water to brush at the hedges and she closed her eyes to focus her attention on the waxy leaf between her fingers. There was so much life there, drawing from the soil both nutrients and the rain that fell so heavily from the clouds above. All of nature was represented between her fingertips, and that knowledge made her smile as she murmured the ancient words to make these plants grow. She focused on her power, more potent here in the realm from which it manifested. In her mind she imagined a canopy above her, willing the hedges to leave their trimmed precision and grow outward over the path, arching to protect them from the rains. 

He stood back and watched as she approached the archway, reached her hand into the rain and told the plants to grow for her. He held his tongue until she’d finished her magic. It was impressive stuff, the way the hedges stretched out to create a cover for them. “Yeah, that’d work on me too, plants. Called it, by the way.”

She turned around in confusion. What was he on about now? She thought back to- Oh, she’d told the plants to grow. “Well, next time I’ll just tell you to grow for me and we’ll be ready that much faster, will we?”

He grinned, pleased to not need to explain the quip. “Gotta rub it too, love. Can’t forget that.”

“How could I?” she murmured dryly as he stepped forward to usher her under her newly created canopy.