[b]Eclair, Who Watches[/b]

...Eclair Espoir dances in tassels and ribbons and scarves and bangles, all unorthodox additions to her maid's uniform. She is calico and patchwork and it is difficult to see the precision in how she dances, but it is there. She moves like an eel, each undulation drawing the eye to the next, and the flash of her, the brightness of her, the movement of her is hard to look away from. You look away from her.

...Eclair Espoir dances in a shimmering dress of individual scales. Is she wearing anything underneath? She dances holding her tablet as a partner, her eyes behind the mask intent on the screen, on the messages from home, on the reassurances from her mistresses. Maybe they aren't troubled, those versions of your mutual lovers; maybe they're free and happy and dreaming contentedly. Maybe she's taking whirling, incomprehensible smear-pictures with her tablet to try and convey to them the experience that she is having. Her smile is desperate for approval. You look away from her.

...Eclair Espoir dances with Timtam. They are fighting with each step, each dip, each twirl - who gets to rule? And the cruel part is that she is looking at the hollows of Timtam - her throat, her wrists, her stomach - but Timtam, in her dragon-crested mask, is looking elsewhere, is performing for an audience, for some other observer, and each victory that Eclair achieves in being a better maid and making Timtam look like she's a miserable excuse for a maid so there is being levied at someone who isn't even really paying attention. They have the same raw desperation in how perfectly they move, the same fervor that maybe, maybe, if they do everything right and more on top of that, they will receive notice, receive praise. Did either of them ask before they started? Eclair looks at you, hollow herself. You look away from her.

...Eclair Espoir plays hopscotch with all the seriousness of youth. This isn't a clue. I just have to be honest and tell you that one of the Eclairs here tonight is playing hopscotch, somehow managing to evade being in the way of anyone else, her detective's journal stuck into a back pocket of hand-me-down trousers, not looking up, counting under her breath, doing the hop and half-spin between seven and eight, bouncing back to three, doing the high hacky-sack knee between four and five. All right, perhaps I lied. Perhaps the way she doesn't look up at any of the others is a clue. Or maybe the clue is to remember when you were young, and what changed between now and then. You, eventually, look away from her.

...Eclair Espoir strides through with medals on her chest: broken crystals, stylized flames, a fleur-de-lis of three familiar heads. Her lace beret is cocked to one side and has a brightly-painted rosette pinned to the side which droops over one ear. Buttons from the habits of Civil nuns stud the face of the shield resting on her shoulder, and are incorporated into her earrings. She is troubled; something has gone wrong, but she has not decided the correct course to take, or if she has the strength to correct it. Her eyes are dim. Her flame has almost gone out. You look away from her.

...Eclair Espoir is stuck in her seat. Mayzie has fallen asleep on her arm, and is murmuring something in her sleep. Eclair cannot get up. She is torn between shaking her partner awake and letting her sleep and miss out on the party. The choice is tearing her open, and you can see the cycle on her face as she argues first for one side, and then the other, trying to decide which one is more loving. It is Timtam, instead, who stoops low and kisses Mayzie awake. Would Eclair have eventually come to the same conclusion? You look away from her.

...Timtam, elsewhere, not in here but through a window, cleans blood off her solid sword. This is happening in a way everything else has not quite been. The stupid paladin is slumped against a bench, trying to hold that same blood inside of her body, which is where it rightfully belongs. Around them are maids [i]but their uniforms are wrong.[/i] This one's knot is not right, that one is letting her skirt trail on the ground, that third one has ostentatious golden earrings. Timtam is humming the tune, and it strikes her, quite suddenly, that she is hearing the music, and she looks up and just as her eyes meet yours a dancer whirls between you and the window is dark. You cannot look away.

[hr]
[b]Yuki![/b]

The doors open - you happen to notice. Who else would be able to notice? Only the maid swept off to the sides.

There are two figures there. One is tall and the other is not. One has thick vines of hair and the other has a bouquet where her chest should be. And one can enter and one will not. Walking Elm is stubborn, and she is supple enough to be able to walk into my clutches, and she is not stricken at the sight of this place filled with music and dancing again. Aria Thendragon sags against the doorframe and weeps dry, ashy tears and will not follow.

Walking Elm sways. Dandelions sprout up through the cobbles in her wake. Bees hum deep in her ribcage. She is looking for weak points here, for Hazel, for Seli and Keli, for Eclair. Someone needs to fight for your right to party, Yuki. And someone needs to pay her back for what happened between you at the ball.