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[color=firebrick]Time:[/color] Morning Ignis 2nd
[color=firebrick]Location:[/color] Charity event
[color=firebrick] Interaction: [/color] [@oso]Cassius
[color=firebrick] Mentions:[/color] [@FunnyGuy] Alexander [@Tae] Mina [@helo] Callum
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Violet moved through the crowd like a shadow stretched across the sunlit lawn. Her gown, loose and black, shifted with each breath of wind, stark against the brightness of the morning. Her raven hair fell long and unbound, though she had swept one side back with a red flower. It left her face bare, her eyes catching the light, red and unyielding, lit like rubies. They gleamed with every turn of her head, as though fresh blood burned at their depths.

Her body bore no trace of what it had endured with Cassius. No bruises, no marks. As if nothing had ever happened. But Violet carried it still, buried where no one could see. Just as she carried Alexander’s voice, threading into her thoughts even now. That night with him had left her unsettled in ways she hated to admit: his calm, his sharp truths, the way he had forced her to see herself without her excuses. 

Applause rippled through the park, drawing her eyes to the stage. Alexander stood at the center, Mina beside him. Sunlight gilded him, catching the fine cut of his suit, turning his smile into something dazzling. Every inch the master of ceremonies, he spoke, and the crowd bent to listen. Violet felt the pull of it, that easy gravity he carried. 

Mina shone in her way, flame-haired and radiant, as though she belonged to the stage itself. The crowd leaned in, eager, their voices low with anticipation as Sorin’s auction began. Violet caught the glances exchanged between the two of them and felt the knot tighten in her chest. She hated that most of all.

Alexander was magnificent. Every word deliberate, every gesture practiced. A predator circling its prey, beautiful and merciless. Violet watched as he and Mina worked the crowd with ease, drawing laughter, coaxing purses open. The people leaned toward them as if they were caught in a spell.

But Violet wasn’t Mina.

He never looked at her the way he looked at Mina, with that bright smile and easy warmth. Yet she had seen sides of him that she could only assume no one else had. The mask stripped away, the charm gone. What it left was something else. Something she couldn’t name, a feeling that lingered like heat too close to the skin. She didn’t understand it, not yet, but it stayed with her all the same as she watched him shine on the stage. 

Laughter broke across the lawn, loud and misplaced. Thankfully, it pulled her from her spiraling mind onto Callum. Drunk already, though the sun was still climbing. His glass tipped dangerously in his hand as his voice rose over the music and chatter. Reckless, as always. Too loud. Too exposed. He was a storm with no direction..

Then she saw Cassius.

The smell reached her first: drink, sharp and heavy, tangled with the cloying perfume of some whorehouse. She nearly turned her head, nearly walked past him, but then Charlotte stepped onto the stage. His face changed.

Violet stilled. She knew that look. The hunger in it, the shame stitched to it. A raw, unguarded longing. She had worn it herself once, and seeing it mirrored on her brother’s face made her chest tighten.

She moved without thinking. Crossing the grass, she slipped into the chair beside him. She did not speak. She did not need to. Her eyes stayed on the stage where Alexander’s smile shone like polished glass. Quietly, Violet reached for Cassius’s hand. Her fingers found his, cool and steady, holding him with a gentleness that said more than words could.

She did not look at him. She did not have to. Her hand was enough, an anchor, a promise. Even in the full light of morning, she could still be his shadow.

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