"Oh, it's the princess?"

Instinctually, Xanthe flinched, the contents of her champagne flute nearly splashing out. Even still, a seductive smile rose to her face to match the tone of the man behind her. She turned, to find he cut a fine figure, with dark hair and green eyes. He was holding a much more generous glass of some variety of alcohol. She supposed he was handsome, if one could get past the unnerving, artificial look of someone with such a volume of makeup layers on their face they must scrub it off with a metal sponge at night. Her eyes naturally drifted to his lapel, where she would find his sigil.

Celadon.

Her smile flickered, faltering, but just for a split second. She took back the practiced focus she had been cultivating, cursing herself for the mistake. Everyone is an actor. She gave a small curtsy, batting her eyelashes, flirting. "One would have hoped so," she said, the corners of her mouth twitching into a mischeivous grin. The sensation of this roleplay, empty flirtation, was wrong to her, but it was not unfamiliar. A surge of memories erupted within her chest with every false action, every false step of their careful dance. She had been attending these sorts of political parties among the lower, provincial courts for as long as she could remember, and she most vividly could recall the rules of the great dance it had become. A touch of acting, a touch of argument. A touch of seduction.

The young man offered his hand out to her, his pale, slender fingers stretching with a practiced grace. The grace of a thief. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, but somehow, his eyes were still clear. Xanthe was uncomfortably aware of his fixated gaze as she covered his palm with hers, gently pressing them together. His skin was oddly cool, sending a chill through the length of her arm. He brought his hand to her waist, and for a moment, she lost control. Again? For a moment, she arched away from him, pure fear and adrenaline coursing through her veins. Immediately, she bit her lip and leaned back into the dance. It was to a song she had heard time and time again; it played at nearly any gala like these. She knew the rhythm almost by heart. It started off slow, but its ryhthm morphed and sped up as time went by, as conversation deepened, as the tension stretched further. It was especially designed for parties like this one.

"Your dress is stunning, Princess," he said, his voice thick and clearly meant for seducing. He took the iridescent fabric of the hem of her gown between his fingers, seeming to revel in its beauty. Xanthe couldn't help but tense, her thoughts darting around over the sound of heels clicking against the ground, of seemingly docile conversation being made. She suddenly felt far too hot in her own skin, but when he glanced to her, she tried her best to appear bashful.

"Thank you - I chose the fabric myself." Xanthe anticipated a dip, planting one foor hard into the ground in an attempt to stay in control. Around the Celadon, she found that her heart rate quickened, her chest tightened, her thoughts became more frenetic. She needed this small bit of control in a room of thieves, tricksters, and conners. The song was still slow, still tame, but she recognized the start of the bridge, as did the other dancers. Skirts and gowns swished around her, brushing the polished floor and becoming almost a cacaphony. Each pair was dancing separately, but in a sense, it was the same dance. they were each stepping around the climax, around the bargain that would decide the night.

Her partner let her back up, bringing her close up to him without a moment to get her bearings, to regain her footing. But she was skilled - she was able to follow his steps. He tightened his grip around her waist, and her breath hitched with all-consuming want to remove herself, painfully aware of the way his arm was circled almost entirely around her. Through her haze, she still managed to keep up her role. She tilted her head up towards him to meet his eyes; even with high heels, she was not at eye level with him. "I didn't catch your name," she breathed, her voice airy and almost incomprehensible to the untrained ear. She brought her hand from his side and delicately placed it on his chest, teasing an answer. "How inconsiderate of me."

He laughed, a light sound that could be interpreted as beautiful, by some. He threw his head back, arching away from her, and Xanthe took the chance to take a breath of air. When he looked to her again, she shook her head with mock exasperation, a smile playing at her lips. He mirrored the gesture. "Kael," he said, his voice low in an almost conspirational tone. "Of Celadon. But I would suppose you've already guessed that." He looked back at her to gauge her reaction, an amused expression beginning to take on his face - but Xanthe knew it was purely surface level. The music was beginning to speed up, and Xanthe couldn't help being the slightly bit impressed. He was quick to adapt to the art of social escalation; a skill that had taken Xanthe years to even grasp. But yet again, what had she expected from a member of the Court of Thieves?

"And, princess, what you may be unaware of is the happening of some... important developments through my court." He pushed her in front of him, flicking her into a spin. Her eyes widened - he was quicker than her - as the ballroom blurred around her, a haze of color. The motions that usually came to her naturally felt blocky, chaotic. As if she were a stranger in her own skin. In an instant, it was over, and he had her pressed close to his chest once again. She had to take a moment to remember her place, her role in this dance. She allowed a devilish smirk to come over her face. "And what such developments may these be?" Her voice was a hair above a whisper, seductive, conspiratorial. Kael's grin widened, dimples deepening in a way that would have made some girls sigh. He looked from left to right, playing his role of sharing a secret to the core - it wasn't truly necessary, if this were anything but a political trade. Every other couple in the room was deep in their own conversation, their own bargain.

"Well," he murmured after his beat, his voice low. "There will be something of an announcement we are making tomorrow morning. One... worth hearing." He stepped away from the throng of swaying skirts and clicking heels, and leaned closer to Xanthe. "One that might concern you." 

Xanthe blinked once. Twice. Face to face, she found herself short of breath, the anxiety from before nearly overpowering her. If this were another Court, if this were a normal Dance, she would have found something quick, something witty to say. Something smooth. 

But as quickly as he had pulled her close, he was gone. She was left with only the memory of his cool, quick fingers deftly waltzing with her, in a way she had never seen before. Standing in the middle of the floor, Xanthe's head started to spin. Colors moved around her, but everything was blurry and out of focus - like it was when he had spun her in their dance. This isn't right. This isn't right, this isn't right. Something wasn't clicking for her. No Dance was left unfinished - that was all she knew, all she had ever known. A deal must be struck. A story must be told. A threat must be made. But Kael, of the Court of Celadon, had left her mid-dance, disappearing into the crowd, still at the climax, the peak of the bargain. Something was happening that Xanthe didn't know; she couldn't possibly know. 

Xanthe had to tell someone.

But there was no one she had to tell.

She needed air.

Xanthe burst out into the balcony, ignoring the scandalized eyes of the other revelers that clung to her like trailing shadows. Her face was hot; veiled in a sheen of sweat from the heat of the room and her own frenetic panic. Her heartbeat seemed to reverberate throughout her entire body -- she felt shaken by each vibration, coursing through every vein, every tendon in her. It was a strange sensation; her senses were both dulled and sharpened at once, as if she were outside her own body, simply spectating. She had never felt like this before, not even when she was a young child, new to the world of the Courts and basic politics. She was just so out of control in such a starkly familiar place -- she had been to this ballroom hundreds of times. She knew every inch of it, from the porcelain to the rose vases in the corners of the room, to each chip on each tile, to every painting on every stained-cordisite window. And yet, it all seemed different, like she was experiencing it all over again.

The cool air was a welcome change from the almost stuffy interior, full of strobing lights and an organized chaos, of sorts. She sucked in a deep inhale of breath, glad to be free of the ballroom, of all the stress it had brought. Trying to distract herself, she looked over at the skyline. The sun had not yet set, and the sky was a rich, beautiful, almost decadent orange hue that perhaps she might have appreciated in its fullest, had it been any other circumstance. Traces of the night to come were a fringe of purple high up into the sky; Xanthe had to crane her neck to make it out. It was a harmonious beauty, oddly soundless despite the rampant noise from inside.

No one else was out on the balcony, not even on the others that surrounded the rest of the building. There was a sort of peace to it, of the utter seclusion, aloneness, that a part of her relished. If only she did not have the pinpricks of fear, of anxiety biting at, sawing at the beauty it had brought. If only she could get past the glaring fact that the reason of the peace was because no one but her had been abandoned mid-Dance; it was only now descending from a rushing climax, the Dancers gradually slowing until the interval between. Even still, the cool breeze was a respite. She tried to clear her mind, her still-scattered vision, but she found it did not calm her. It simply put her situation into a sharper, clearer lens. 

When Xanthe was young, not even having been inducted into nobility yet, she would take astronomy lessons with a Court of Stars scholar. She was just the daughter of a moderately wealthy family, at the time, but she already had her heart set on becoming a noble. She would often spend -- or, depending on how one viewed it, be forced through -- late nights staring at the stars, in the vain, fruitless hope of finding deeper, truer meaning in the constellations. She was hopeless at the art -- to her, it was as if she was trying to read an ancient script in a language she didn't understand. She had heard of those who had gone mad from their inability to master the skill, and only then did she truly experience how difficult it was. Even still, she would end her sessions with nothing but frustration.

Now, watching the yolk of a setting sun bleed into the skyline, Xanthe, above all else, wished she had something divine as the stars to guide her.