[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/zQXUPoA.png[/img]
[h3]&[/h3]
[color=goldenrod][i][h2]Gerard Segremors[/h2][/i][/color][/center]
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Back step and twirl. Quickstep across. Lean in, pause. Beat strikes and they jump. Heels clicking against wood flooring. Swing for effect and to evade. The crescendo of the band rises, and their movements exaggerate.

It crashes. They end.

…

The Brass Panther.

A middle-class establishment located in the bustling mercantile district of Aimlenn, it was well-known for its assortment of bite-sized entrees, designed for curated bites and broad palates. With a slender fork, one could tease out a variety of imported seafoods from their shells, or indulge in cubes of game meat wrapped in bacon or puff pastries. Soups were held in smaller cups, meant to be downed in a single go and experienced in its entirety as a medley of harmonious and contrasting ingredients and flavours.

Of course, all this ease-of-eating was so that its guests could be dressed to the nines without worrying about getting any food on their fancy outfits…which also meant that they would be encouraged to step out on the dance floor, perhaps snag a couple of non-complimentary drinks along the way. A woodwind quartet were present today, playing music of a different flavour and tempo compared to a string quartet’s sweeping waltzes, and it was for that reason that Serenity had brought Gerard out.

They had hit the dancefloor first, of course, for it was always sensible to work out before one dined, but after that, Serenity had handed Gerard the menu and let him have a go at it. Now, ten minutes had passed, her glass of chilled fruit juice was half-empty, and the lad was still staring at the first page.

His foot tapped beneath the table, following the time of the unfamiliar instrumentation as he let his eyes slide over the menu. It was a damned sight different from the slow, grandiose waltz that had dominated the background of the ball, but funnily enough, that had made it a quicker study by comparison— the more jaunty tempo was reminiscent of the folk tunes back home. It suited his sense of movement better. For all his affirmations of “using his brain now”, the half-decade of kineticism was hard to shake out of the system in full.

Well, the goal was always gonna be synthesis.

More to the point, more worth concern, about five minutes ago he’d realised he’d not said a word nor really paid attention to the writing on the page in his grip. Looking, but not reading.

[color=goldenrod]“Sorry about that.”[/color]

Quickly, he plucked out the names of three interesting-seeming entrees from the page as a whole, and set the thing down. Only path from there was forward— no sense stewing over the awkward silence and prolonging it.

[color=goldenrod]“Just enjoying the music— thanks for the lesson, again.”[/color]

[b]“I’m the one making these invitations,”[/b] Serenity replied. [b]“For all you’d know, Gerard, I’m doing this just because it’d be unseemly for a lady to dine out alone.”[/b]

Not that she would ever care for such things herself.

She swirled her glass in her hand, a practiced manoeuvre learned from watch the members of her household, then took another sip before leaning in. There hadn’t been much time to talk about it, not when the assassination and the monstrosities within the crypt lended themselves much better for post-training conversation, but now? While they were waiting for baked snails, potato swirls, and chicken heart skewers?

[b]“So, tell me. How [i]was[/i] the ball for you?”[/b]

[color=goldenrod][i]”Enlightening.”[/i][/color] he admitted, leaning back for a moment. [color=goldenrod]“In a lot of ways. Ran into Sir Sergio almost immediately.”[/color]

Within the tumult of that night, between assassins and crypts and Demonbreakers, the slow and careful burn of the Ball had practically become a footnote to the rushing chaos. Funny how he’d been so nervous that he’d spend the evening out of his element.

[color=goldenrod]“We ended up swapping stories with some kids— he tried to sneak off on me halfway through, but I managed to wrangle him.”[/color] He chuckled softly, bringing his glass of water in for a drink. Lucky for that— his lead had proven a good example to follow.

[color=goldenrod]“Being on the other end of the adoration was actually pretty humbling, to be honest— How about you?”[/color] he asked, setting the glass back down. [color=goldenrod]“I don’t think I ever caught what you were up to— all I managed to keep track of before everything went tits up was Sir Renar’s duel, the Princesses arriving, and Fionn chatting up some Hundi pretending to be a noblewoman.”[/color]

[b]“Felt like you weren’t deserving of their adoration?”[/b]

Serenity raised a brow.

[b]“I was engaged with Lady Veilena Cazt for the evening. Some light conversation, a dance, and then we were off to introduce ourselves to the two Princesses.”[/b] Before everything else happened. She never did learn what it was that the Cazt heir wanted with Princess Elisandre, did she?

He couldn’t blame her for that one. Of all the knights he’d forged friendships with, Dame Serenity probably dealt the most in crushing those kind of doubts. Her and Fionn.

[color=goldenrod]“I don’t think that’s for me to decide. In the moment, at least, it felt more like ‘wow, this is what it would have been like talking to me back then’. They were asking if I’d fought a dragon before, if Jeremiah was fallen divine, so on.”[/color]

He blinked plainly, then let his brow furrow, as a fourth image arose from that night, fading into focus. A moment and little more caught in the interstice between shrill voices and booming heralds, but something he had spotted from afar.

[color=goldenrod]“Actually, one more. I only got a glimpse of it, but it looked like someone was giving the Captain a hard time right before the Princesses made landfall.”[/color] Idly, his index finger began to tap the varnished wood of their table as he sorted signal from the noise that had cloaked it. [color=goldenrod]“Dark hair, slicked, carried himself noble. Wore a lot of black and a little silver. I think he shadowed her on the way over to greet them— Ring any bells?”[/color]

If he was to continue being introduced to the new skills expected of this station like this, then he figured it’d be wise to get a feel for the new faces he’d be keeping track of, too. A minorly alien sensation, but so was everything else.

[b]“Edvard Velbrance,”[/b] Serenity said. It wasn’t as if ‘dark hair, slicked, carried himself noble’ was all that meaningful of a descriptor considering the current state of men’s fashion amongst the nobility, but it was easy enough to pick out [i]who[/i] would catch the attention, and perhaps the ire, of the Iron Roses.

Still, what the Velbrance heir did was minor at best. If one picked a fight with every noble that found fault in the order, they would be starting off another War of the Red Flags.

[b]“He hails from a House in northern Thaln, with three significant traits.”[/b] Better to make a list, for Gerard’s own sake. [b]“One, their association with the wine trade. Not much to say there, you’re drinking one of their exports. Two, their loyalty to the crown. For a minor House as his, they’ve sent a fair number of soldiers to fight for the Royals during the War of the Red Flags. Three, their distance from religion as institution. They hold beliefs and visit cathedrals, but do not involve themselves in the more…political aspects of the Church.”[/b]

As if perfectly timed, Serenity’s points were punctuated by the arrival of the plates. Baked snails, the white wine bubbling within the shell. Chicken hearts, seasoned with sauces and spices in sequence. Potato swirls, deconstructions of a common vegetable fried in fat and arranged like a rose.

[b]“Edvard himself is ambitious, but considering his family’s gradual rise in power over the last decade, it’s ambition with substance.”[/b]

[color=goldenrod]“Hm,”[/color] came the reply, having the good decency to remain muted in its vexation— after all, Gerard wasn’t sure what he’d expected, if much of anything. It wasn’t like he had much with regard to the context of that sighting to begin with, so…

He plucked a potato swirl from the platter and popped it into his mouth whole, chewing the thought over as he did the golden, savoury morsel. On the face of it, none of that suggested any basis for stance in real opposition to the Order… As far as he knew. Adding in the consideration that Captain Fanilly [i]herself[/i] hailed from a noble house, and thus was subject to personal ties atop those inherited by her rank? There was no telling. Not with so little to work with on the outset.

[color=goldenrod]“Ambitious… Guess we’ll see if anything becomes of that.”[/color] For the time being, he’d commit what she told him to memory, inwardly thankful that it had broken down into a simply itemised list. [color=goldenrod]“And what about Lady Cazt, then? My company kept north for most of the War, so I’m a bit out of touch— how’s a kid like that fronting the aftermath? Can’t be easy.”[/color]

He was no believer in inheriting the sins of ones’ blood, of course, but he also knew better than to believe the world was monolithic in sharing that ideal.

[b]“A prodigious mage, as those of House Cazt are wont to be, and guarded by a knight like Sir Haelstadt.”[/b] Serenity grinned, an uncharacteristic smile that showed her canines. [b]“Almost a shame that I didn’t have the same opportunity as Renar did, owing to the circumstances.”[/b]

She was certain she could put on a better show than he.

[b]“Lady Veilena handled herself well enough in the aftermath, as the [i]head[/i] of her household. I’d recommend you discard the notion that she’s a ‘kid’, unless you would apply the same moniker to our Knight-Captain or myself.”[/b] One could even say that Veilena had political power surpassing that of the Knight-Captain or the Arcedeen scion, after all. House Cazt may have fallen from grace, but their head still had a bond with one of the future rulers of the kingdom, and still had her place in the Mage’s College.

[b]“But enough.”[/b]

She took a skewer of chicken heart, popping it in her mouth.

[b]“Tell me about the ladies you conversed with. Surely you remember, at minimum, their names?”[/b]

Even only a month ago, he would have blithely answered the rhetoric in the affirmative. That the youth of the three examples presented before him trumped rank, trumped upbringing, trumped the necessities of station.

[color=goldenrod][i]And yet. [/i][/color]

At their age, he was off making war in foreign lands, contracted to a corps of soldiers-for-hire. Throwing the end of his boyhood to the tips of enemy swords— not much of a leg, if any to stand on there. Though their worlds were leagues apart, it would have been short-sighted to ignore this point of intersection. That growing up came swift and sudden, when the world decreed it was time.

[color=goldenrod][i]But enough.[/i][/color]

He nodded, and spoke. 

[color=goldenrod]“Angenese Tulburn, Tenessa Heinlein, and Violette Scarnsbek. Lady Angenese is the oldest of them, Daughter of a ‘Sir Galfont’ beneath the Crown. She described him as minor, but he’s recently taken out the captain of a slaving ring. Tells her stories of his exploits from time to time like that— I think she’s proud of him, and ought to be.”[/color]

Reaching for the platter of baked snails, a garden pest turned into an apparent delicacy, if the rest of the fare was anything to judge by. One that he was somewhat vexed in approaching, a frown crossing his expression as he contemplated the thing.

[color=goldenrod]“Lady Tenessa’s a fan of histories and myth. She regaled Sir Sergio and I with a retelling of the Witch-Queen’s rise and fall. From the sounds of it she might get too carried away in the fanciful side of any story, but she doesn’t lack for enthusiasm. It was her that if I had fought a fallen divine, seen a dragon, and so forth.”[/color]

Was he supposed to crack it open, or just slurp it out? The latter seemed crass, but the former impractical.

[color=goldenrod]“I couldn’t say the same for Lady Violette. I don’t think we got more than three sentences out of her through the entire conversation. She’s an enigma, and moreover one that seemed exasperated to be there. Like the other two had dragged her along when they caught sight of us. The commotion had begun before I could get a bead on the why of her dissatisfaction— My best guess is that I [i]wasn’t[/i] the Princesses she had hoped to speak with.”[/color]

[b]“Smallest fork,”[/b] Serenity spoke, before demonstrating. She took the slim silverware in one hand, one of the shells in another, and then slid the fork in, teasing out the meat in one quick wrist twist. Now loosened from its shell, the meat flowed easily out of the shell alongside the soup as she tipped its contents into the mouth. [b]“If there’s something you don’t know how to do, look before you think.”[/b]

This was a restaurant, after all. There were plenty of others who ate similar dishes. She waited for him to try it out, before continuing.

[b]“Good that you remember them. Sir Galfront’s contributions to the Crown aren’t as spectacular as those of Sir Adeforth’s, but there are more common criminals in Thaln than there are villains and heretics.”[/b] That, at least, shouldn’t be something Gerard was wholly clueless about. Dragons were wonders, orcs were monsters, but in the end, it was mountain bandits and highwaymen who offered the greatest worries for travellers and farmers. [b]“You’ve any interest in these ladies?”[/b]

Mayhaps they could cover even courting, tonight. That’d certainly be fun.

He quirked an eyebrow as the adventurous morsel slid free from the shell and into his gullet, awash with tart wine and rich butter. That was a question that could be spun any number of ways. 

[color=goldenrod]”They were pleasant to talk to, the two that deigned to speak.”[/color] he allowed, placing the empty shell onto his plate. [color=goldenrod]“Like my sister, if she were born to their circumstances. I suppose I’m also a little curious as to what it was that was on Lady Violette’s mind.”[/color]

He never did have an opportunity to get that answer— a mere moment was all that had passed before he was barking orders and urging them beneath cover.

[color=goldenrod]“If our paths crossed again, I’ve no reason not to try and be friends.”[/color]

[b]“You have their name and appear to have made a favourable impression.”[/b]

Serenity tapped her fork against the empty shell.

[b]“Why leave it on an ‘if’?”[/b] Well, there was no value in forcing it. [b]“Unless you were only interested in order to be polite.”[/b]

[color=goldenrod]“I’ll admit it [i]was[/i] mainly me not wanting to end up with an egg in my face, at the outset.”[/color] These talks had a way of sticking with him. He’d wished to prove they weren’t wasted, at the very least. [color=goldenrod]“Beyond that… Hm.”[/color]

Another potato swirl. Salty, starchy, rich, the familiar wrapped in an exotic coat. He chewed it over.

[color=goldenrod]“I’m a little unsure of [i]how[/i] I would go about the alternative, for one.”[/color]

While he knew this was probably a symptom of his circumstances before the Order—a life following constant march, never settling long enough to make a proper friend outside The Unit— he knew too that invoking such would be allowing it to chain him to it, to build in an excuse. Those wouldn’t fly.

[color=goldenrod]“I know some of our comrades write letters to keep in contact with people,”[/color] he ventured. Best to just rip the bandage free right now. [color=goldenrod]“But those are often for friends already long made. Would it be appropriate in this instance too?”[/color]

He reached for a chicken heart.

She moved to extract the flesh from another snail shell.

It was a rare enough situation; even the more noble knights that she had the pleasure of speaking to saw such encounters and opportunities as [i]conquests[/i]. And for all the female leadership that was present in the Iron Roses, there weren’t too many who could serve as good conversation partners in that regard either. The Knight-Captain needed to be better, the Paladin was simultaneously too old and too young, and Cecilia…well, Cecilia acted very much like a male in those regards.

Put in another light? Gerard’s hesitation was precious.

[b]“Yes, it would.”[/b] Serenity put on a blase expression. [b]“If they do not reply, then so be it. If they do, you’d be better than if you hadn’t.”[/b]

The lioness took a sip, then frowned. The waiter that had passed by to refill it had mistaken its contents for alcohol.

[b]“By doing nothing, you protect your pride. By doing something, you may gain a friend.”[/b]

The way the scales tilted were obvious to her.

And it made for a simple, clear argument to him.

Gerard nodded, popping the spiced knot of muscle into his mouth and chewing, a medley of unfamiliar, interesting flavors bursting to life on his tongue. He was right to take the leap on these for certain— right to choose adventure.

[color=goldenrod]“Then it’s something to be done, clearly. I’ll have to track down some ink. Sir Steffen and Renar are always caught up in balancing budgets and the like, I’m sure they’ve supply to spare.”[/color]


[b]“And bother Fionn for proofreading your draft.”[/b]

[color=goldenrod]”So long as I can keep him from editorialising.”[/color] He quipped. [color=goldenrod]”Goddesses love the guy, but he’s so damn [i]insistent[/i] sometimes.”[/color]


It was a toothless one, as far as they went. It was quickly chased by the subtle rattling of coinage— Librans being fished for with one hand, as another went for one of the last disappearing morsels.

Serenity winked. An uncharacteristic move for her.

[b]“Just shows he loves you.”[/b]

His eyebrows rose, just a bit.

[color=goldenrod]”[i]Careful[/i], now. I don’t need that ex of his getting jealous of me.”[/color]

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