[center][color=c2a5fd][h3][i]Aymiria Cassiel[/i][/h3]
[sub]Bride of Zakroti Unalim [@darkwolf687], sister-bride of Kasari Liesma [@WeepingLiberty][/sub][/color][/center]
[center][b](Interacting with pretty much everyone; feel free to have your characters react however to Miry’s… outburst.)[/b][/center]

Miry couldn’t help but smile at Zakroti’s comment about hearing her play. It only strengthened her resolve to carry out her little plan…

[color=c2a5fd]“I would be honored to perform for you someday, my lord.”[/color] 

When he mentioned the princess Miry shrugged a bit, not much feeling like relating the long (and rather boring, as she privately thought) tale. [color=c2a5fd]“It’s a long story… best told another time, perhaps.”[/color]

Upon entering the hall and catching sight of the other half of the Unalim party, Miry first approached Ayltam, offering the neatly-folded cloak. [color=c2a5fd]“Thank you for letting me borrow it.”[/color] she said. 

Then she looked to Kasari, her eyebrows drawing together slightly as she took in the way the tall girl cradled her wrist, her knuckles bruised and swollen, eyes full of fire.

Nervously the small girl stepped closer, holding her hands out and slowly taking Kasari’s injured hand in both of hers. The girl’s skin was almost painfully hot, as though she had been using her element. Miry called to the nearest source of water, probably a pitcher being carried by a servant, if the indignant yelp was anything to go by, and drew a small amount of the liquid over her hands and across Kasari’s skin, over her wrist and palm. Of course some of the water vaporized but eventually Kasari was left with what looked like a clear, shimmery glove that would be cooling the area. [color=c2a5fd]“I don’t know the first thing about resetting bruised joints or dislocated fingers, but this is a trick I learned to dull the pain in my fingers when I’d been practicing for too long.”[/color] She smiled up at the taller girl and then retreated a few steps to stand next to Zakroti again, bowing her head.

Miry was no stranger to seeing crowds of servants, but something about the sheer spread of the banquet struck her as awe-inspiring. She frowned for a moment as she observed the scene before her… there was someone sitting next to Zakroti’s grandfather, taking a bite of each of the foods…? Was… Was this family so dangerous that they had to be this paranoid, even at a social gathering?

Hearing the grandfather’s command, she sat down in the seat immediately to Zakroti’s left. Or rather, tried to sit down. The chair, being Drakken-sized, was far too tall for Miry to comfortably sit in. She had to jump to get onto the chair, and even once she’d got seated on the chair, her chin was at the level of the table. With an irritated sigh the girl folded her legs under herself and rose up onto her knees, so that she was kneeling on the chair, and now at a more normal height. At least to the point where her chin wouldn’t drag in her food… this was one of the many times that Miry had noticed that her height was a detriment. 

Miry frowned, concentrating on the exchange between Zakroti and his grandfather. It was some sort of… proverb? From the bored way that Zakroti recited it, clearly one that had been drilled into his head close to a thousand times. She tried to follow the foreign tongue but couldn’t seem to; then, abruptly, they switched back to the common tongue.

She took note of what they were talking about, though she had no idea who the people in question were or why this was important… abruptly she was distracted by a shudder running up her spine. Miry instinctively looked up from the table, right into Nastaki’s cold gray eyes. He had switched into the other language but the word “brides”, at least, was crystal clear.

She held his gaze evenly until he looked away to Kasari, holding a little smirk on her mouth and her eyes carefully blank. Though she knew he was only looking away because he couldn’t be bothered to focus on her, it still felt like a victory.

Miry’s eyes dropped to the table as the conversation moved onto other topics. Not that she was bored, she just… had other things on her mind. Her flute was jabbing into her side, so she adjusted the strap. As she did she felt eyes on her; she scanned the room until her eyes lighted on…

Well, this was unexpected. Astrae Silverheart. One of the violists from the orchestra; she’d never been more than an acquaintance in Miry’s eyes, though she’d certainly been kind. They just hadn’t ever spent enough time together that wasn’t rehearsal time to really bond.

Judging by the spreading bruise down Astrae’s neck, that Miry could see even from halfway across the room, her Drakken had not been too pleased with her. Astrae looked at her, right at her, with pleading eyes and brought both hands to the side of her mouth, miming flute-playing. The massive drakken whom sat next to the girl noticed, and thumped her on the side of the head, sending her sprawling. Miry internally hissed in sympathy though she kept her outside expression blank, lest Zakroti or Nastaki realize what she was thinking.

She scanned the crowd. In just a few minutes all of the servants had completely vanished, the feast laid out on the tables. Almost all of the Drakken were here, with all of their brides, at the tables and generally behaving themselves as well as could be expected.

Miry hesitated for a moment… the last thing she wanted to do was cause more problems. But there was Astrae, looking terrified, other brides with makeup streaks down their faces, hugging themselves or each other.

[i]“The human spirit can be calmed by music when words fail.”[/i]

Miry wasn’t entirely aware of what she was doing as she unfolded herself from the table, muttering some excuse about needing to go relieve herself. Of course, the emptiness of those words was revealed the moment she stood up from the table and walked towards the center of the massive room. As she did she removed the halves of her flute from the satchel across her body and fitted them together, warming the instrument in her hands.

Stopping exactly in the middle of the room (and as far away from all of the tables as she could be), Miry paused for a moment, at attention, holding her flute vertically in front of her (until she was sure that most of the people in the room would be looking at her). She heard a person behind her draw breath as if to perhaps shout for the guards, and so she snapped the flute down to playing position, drawing in a breath as she did so. A quick race up the scale, the tone of the flute surprisingly loud even in the large room, was surely enough to draw the attention of people, and to stop the Drakken behind her from yelling for the guards. Miry felt a flash of nervousness but suppressed it; she’d performed for bigger audiences than this before. Granted, she’d never performed for an audience that could snap her neck in a fraction of a second, but she figured she just had to play well enough to stun them.

Before the echoes of the scale had entirely faded away, Miry had settled on a song. The melody that she’d known she was going to pick anyway; the fanfare of the Gemminite royal family. The boisterous, bright scales and high staccato notes floated out of her flute almost on their own… how many concerts had she played this fanfare at, anyway? Five hundred? Not even counting the countless hours of rehearsal spent perfecting them.

As the last note cut off crisply, Miry opened her eyes. A good number of the brides (And Drakken) were staring at her with their mouths open. Before the spell was broken, before everyone started moving around again, she turned to face the dais, holding her flute at attention in front of her chest, and curtsied deeply.

[b][color=c2a5fd]“Your highness, your graces, my lords and ladies, it has been an honor to perform for you tonight.”[/color][/b] Miry was proud of her voice for not shaking, for projecting as clearly and loudly as it did. Then she stood up to her full height and scanned the crowd.

Astrae was smiling, her eyes brimming with tears; the black-haired girl stood up, clapping, but managed that for less than two seconds before her drakken lord seized her by the neck. Miry couldn’t look away as the Drakken calmly picked Astrae up with his one hand, and with a twist of his fingers, snapped the girl’s neck, the sick crack echoing through the room. Then the lord dropped Astrae’s now-lifeless body, which hit the floor with a wet thud, and leaned back again in his chair and raised his wine goblet, almost in a salute to Miry, and took a long drink.

Miry was frozen in shock and horror. For a second she couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. Then it hit her like a ton of bricks and she stumbled slightly, face having turned bone-white.

She didn’t much care about how juvenile it must look, she just… had to get out of there. If she wasn’t in the room then surely the lords would forget what had happened…what she’d caused… right?

She turned on her heel and ran from the room, shoving through the massive doors. She had no idea where to go so… she ran for the stairs to the storeroom, the one place she could think of where she might really be alone. As she bolted up the stairs, bare feet catching painfully on the rough wood of the steps, she figured she might be crying but couldn’t actually tell. Her ears still rang with the cracking of Astrae’s neck, her body thumping on the floor, how in seconds she’d gone from the vivacious performer to… well, to dead.

Miry had forgotten there was a guard at the storeroom door, but she pushed past him without a word, going into the room and kneeling down next to her basket. Setting her flute carefully on the floor in front of her (not trusting her shaking hands enough to try to pull it apart without dropping part of it and breaking it) she reached into her basket and pulled Bunny out. The white-furred bunny looked at her in the light from the dust-covered window, pink nose twitching; with a cry Miry wrapped her arms tightly around her pet, burying her face into Bunny’s soft fur and petting her head and ears with shaking fingers.

She was definitely crying now, her whole body shaking with sobs. [color=c2a5fd]“I killed Astrae, I kill..k-k-killed Astrae, I can’t… I don’t… I n-never wanted a-a-anyone to—to d-die… Liiren… Liiren l-lied… music doesn’t bring… m-music doesn’t make p-people [i]h-happy[/i], it makes them kill each other, i-it’s my f-fault… I’m s-sorry… I’m s-s-sorry, A-Astrae… I d-didn’t… I j-just wanted to make you sm-smile, I just… I’m s-so-so-rry...”[/color]


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[hider=summary]
[color=c2a5fd][b]Aymiria:[/b] Miry works some magic with water to make the pain go away from Kasari’s wrist. Has a bit of a midget crisis. Passive-aggressive @ zak’s granddad. Sees one of her old orchestra acquaintances which is what convinces her to do something stupid. Namely playing the Gemminite royal fanfare from the middle of the Drakken hall. Again with the suicidal water gem… rip Miry… She then flees the hall before someone can decide to snap her neck, goes to the baggage storeroom and cuddles Bunny and has a mental breakdown. [/color]
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