[b]Bella![/b]

Skotia does not flirt with disaster by constructing further on your assertion. That’s the simplest sort of trap! The magic of the stranger unravels if you pin yourself down, if you let your shadow be limned and sewn up tight. That’s why he doesn’t agree with you, he doesn’t explain his presence here, he simply offers a nod and a bashful look at Nero’s Praetor.

“You noticed me?” he asks, and his smile is like the rosy fingers of dawn on a world that is not Tellus as it is, tantalizingly glimpsed through the golden thread of his mask. “I’m surprised. Not that I expect you not to notice people, but even me? [i]Well.[/i] You’re careful [i]and[/i] have a long memory, Bella.”

He inclines his head, neatly lowers himself with a footstep back, an attempt to mimic the submission of serpents. “Allow me to add to your welcome to the Endless Azure Skies, Praetor. I’m sure there is little enough I could add to your understanding of this place, these people, given how clever you are— but I know how to dance, and I have two feet to do it with. If you are in a generous mood.”

He straightens, tries to look nonchalantly away, glances back at you as if he’s worried you might have somehow vanished between heartbeats. His ears, too, are that gentle pink. He doesn’t know where it’s safe to look— at your face? Too impudent. At your body, draped in lace? Too licentious. At your feet? Too meek. He settles, eventually, on your hand, on the wine glass, for the most part.

The boy has it bad, and in a way that might even feel strangely familiar. He honestly doesn’t feel that he deserves to dance with you, but the desire to hold you and try to be a passable partner, to win just a smile from you, would cause his heart to carve a tunnel through his ribs if he didn’t say something. Which makes no [i]sense,[/i] except that he still sees you as a Praetor, and presumably that takes precedence over the ears and tail, or—

Ah. He’s [i]also[/i] into those. When he looks he doesn’t see a servant, he sees a great lady whose approval he craves. Maybe even a [i]Mistress.[/i] If you whispered a command in his ear, who knows what he would do?