[img]https://i.imgur.com/ktjfk0s.gif[/img][table][row][center][cell][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019da8f2-ff75-7460-a849-f9930a44c6ee.webp[/img][/cell][center][cell][img]https://i.postimg.cc/Hx6VyXLK/generated-text.png[/img][/cell][/center][cell][right][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019da8f2-1c3f-709e-a9d7-7c7f502dc258.webp[/img][/right][/cell][/center][/row][/table][table][row][cell][justify][indent][indent][indent][indent][color=#808080]Saphira watched the king’s hands. They were calloused, and he made no effort to conceal them as a deliberate message to every lord and lady in the hall: [i]I have not forgotten where I came from[/i]. 

The gesture stirred something in her chest, a queer amalgam of grudging appreciation and prickling suspicion. It was a performance, surely, like everything else in this place. A warmer one than most, perhaps, but performance nonetheless. She had spent enough years watching her father work a room to recognize the mechanics beneath the warmth.  The self-deprecating collar, the jovial deflection of tension, the careful framing of a political maneuver as an evening of simple pleasures. Put the politics aside as if politics were a cloak one removed at the door rather than the very integument of every soul in attendance.

Still, the hall breathed differently when Rowan Storvane spoke. She had to grant him that.

Her own lungs had not yet fully relearned their rhythm.

The moment replayed itself: her father's first bow, shallow and proud as desert stone, and then the Queen's voice: 

[center][color=#942641][i]"You should bow before your King."[/i][/color][/center]
A silence that had lasted perhaps four seconds but felt considerably longer in the moment. Saphira's fingers had found Zahara's arm before she had consciously decided to move, nails biting into fabric as the fury crested in her chest. Not at the correction itself, but at the public humiliation of it, delivered before every house in the Ninefold, every rival, every potential future they had come here to negotiate.

She had kept her face still. She was adept at that very thing.

But then her father had bowed, and the King had descended from the dais to meet him, and the moment had dissolved like salt surrendering to water. All of it folded away, replaced with laughter, with warmth, with Rowan Storvane’s peculiar brand of grace that seemed to forgive everything it touched.

Then came Zahara.

Saphira had felt the bait before she recognized it for what it was, and she had answered before she could stop herself. The flush that followed was the worst part because her sister had guided her by the hand to exactly the spot she needed her to stand. All while the King, his golden son, and the laughing princess watched, charmed by the family from the Sunderlands and their [i]delightful[/i] candour.

And so, as always, her sister had won the room. Not decisively, perhaps. Not permanently, certainly. But in the way that mattered here, in the opening phase of a game that would span months, Zahara had been the one who looked poised while Saphira had been the one with colour bleeding into her cheeks.

She kept her expression placid as the hall began to move around her, the formal current of the evening carrying them toward the ballroom doors. Her father’s hand settled briefly at her mother’s back—the familiar shorthand of their partnership—and her mother moved with him. In turn, Saphira looped her arm through Raelan’s, pulling him forward, a decision made and executed before anyone could remark upon it.

[color=#2f5e58]"Saphira..."[/color] he said, by way of acknowledging that he knew precisely what she was doing.

[color=#a34261]"Don't,"[/color] she replied pleasantly.

He did not. He had always been the wisest of the siblings in that particular respect, despite being the youngest. His arm was steady beneath hers, soldier-solid, and she was grateful for it.

The ballroom doors opened ahead of them, and the warmth of candlelight spilled outward, carrying with it the scent of roasted meat and something underneath, clean and cold and faintly sweet, mountain water, she realized, threading through everything else like a reminder that this place was built into living rock. She stepped through and let her gaze move. It was the kind of room that wanted to be admired, and she obliged it briefly because, if she had to admit, it [i]was[/i] quite remarkable.

But then came the tables. 

Two long runs of dark oak stretched the length of the hall, their surfaces gleaming with lambent candlelight that caught the silver fittings and the place cards arranged with the Queen’s invisible hand. Saphira’s gaze travelled the length of them before Raelan’s voice arrived at her ear, low enough that it carried no further than her.

[color=#2f5e58]"Try to enjoy yourself."[/color]

[color=#a34261]"I always enjoy myself."[/color]

[color=#2f5e58]"I meant without drawing blood."[/color]

She turned to look at him. He was wearing the expression she most wanted to wipe off his face. That particular blend of affection and amusement that he had apparently decided was his permanent contribution to every occasion.

[color=#a34261]"I have no idea what you're implying,"[/color] Saphira said, with great dignity.

[color=#2f5e58]"Play [i]nice[/i], Saphi."[/color] He said it the way one might say it to a child who had bitten other children before and showed every indication of doing so again. Then he nodded down the length of the table toward the far end, the very opposite of where his own name undoubtedly waited. [color=#2f5e58]"I presume your name is somewhere along here. I can walk you to—"[/color]

[color=#a34261]"I see it from here,"[/color] she said, already stepping away, her hand sliding from the crook of his arm with a pressure that was gentle enough to be gracious and firm enough to be final.[color=#a34261]"Go and sit down, Raelan."[/color]

He held his ground for exactly one moment, then conceded with the pragmatism of a man who had learned which hills were worth dying on. Saphira heard his steps recede behind her as she turned, and she covered the remaining length of the table alone. She passed name after name without interest until her gaze snagged on one that stopped her entirely.

[color=#d8a7b1][i]Zahara Al'Seren.[/i][/color]

And beside it, placed with a neatness that felt almost architectural in its intention:
[color=#846d49][i]Prince Dorian Storvane.[/i][/color]

Saphira's eyes moved to find her own card. A few seats further. The very end of the table.

The frown arrived before she could prevent it with the faintest pull between her brows and a slight compression at the corners of her mouth. She managed to smooth it away almost immediately and told herself, with some firmness, that she was not surprised. She wasn't. The logic was cruel but clear enough: Zahara was the elder, if only by the margin of minutes that had apparently determined the entire rest of both their lives, and so Zahara received the more advantageous placement. It was not personal. It was understandable. The kind of cold yet efficient understanding that had been applied to them since birth, parcelling out precedence and expectation while pretending the division was completely natural.

And it was not as though she had been seated poorly. She was at the table. She was present. The distance between her card and Dorian’s was not so vast that it precluded conversation or notice or any of the dozen small maneuvers a determined woman could execute over the course of a long feast.

She was simply not the one beside him. 
Zahara was. 

Saphira reached her chair and extended a hand toward the back of it, her mind still half a step behind her body. 

The sound of approaching steps was lost beneath the rising commotion of the Lords and Ladies filling the ballroom beneath the gentle cadence of the musicians playing an airy tune along strings. Before she was able to take hold of the chair’s back a hand slipped between like a quiet intrusion, catching her fingers gently in the warmth of his palm. [color=846d49]"A lady should not have to seat herself,"[/color] Prince Dorian’s voice was gentle like a shared confidence, not chivalrous for attention’s sake. His attention fell to the name card that had stolen her attention, seated at the edge of the table like a last thought. There was a pensive sound that hummed from behind his pressed lips as he guided her one step to the side without any rush and a light touch she could be free of at any moment she wished. [color=846d49]"My mother’s doing,"[/color] was his only comment, simple and plain with a warmth of understanding that laced his words as his thumb swept across her knuckles before releasing his hold. 

Saphira did not visibly still as she was far too well trained for that, but there was a fraction of a second where every thought she had been running went quiet, interrupted by the warmth of a hand she had not heard coming. She let him guide her the single step without resistance, which was its own small concession she chose not to examine too closely until–

[i]My mother's doing.[/i]

She turned her head to look at him then, and up close he was….well. She had not been wrong, exactly. The mouth was still too soft for a man who was supposed to know how to swing a sword, and there was something about the symmetry of his features that belonged more to a painter’s imagination than to any battlefield. A girl’s face, she had said in the hall, and she stood by the assessment.

Though, she conceded privately, it was a very [i]fine[/i] girl’s face indeed. 

[color=#a34261]"Of course it was,"[/color] she replied. Her tone contained nothing that could be called impolite and nothing that could be called warm, either. [color=#a34261]"How gracious of you to say so."[/color] She watched his face as the words landed, alert for the particular flicker she had learned to read in powerful men when they felt themselves dismissed. If he were anything like his mother, that imperious, thin-lipped harpy of a woman, then graciousness would only extend so far. 

Dorian chuckled, the coldness of her indifference not unsettling him, but landing somewhere strangely familiar after spending a lifetime in the same halls as his mother and Maeve. He moved slowly around her, being sure not to step on her long skirts of black and gold as he circled around to stand behind her seat. His hands curled around the polished wooden posts at the top of the chair’s back as his gaze drifted back over to her. [color=846d49]"Before my brother joined the guard, I too was sat amongst the second sons and daughters like an afterthought,"[/color] he commented as he slowly pulled the chair out for her, never one to let someone’s guarded disposition deter him. [color=846d49]"Although that usually entailed getting lost somewhere in the middle like my sister."[/color] His gaze drifted down the table to where Rhea had already been seated, surrounded by the place cards of other second sons whom their mother found unworthy of Maeve’s time. 

The tension in Saphira’s shoulders eased somewhat as Dorian had done something interesting: make himself briefly equal to her, a prince who had once been an afterthought at his own mother's table. She was not certain whether to believe it as genuine or calculated charm, and perhaps it was a little of both, given she had no idea of his character. Nonetheless, her gaze followed his own down the table to where Princess Rhea sat, and Saphira studied her for a moment with something that lay uncomfortably between sympathy and recognition. 

[color=846d49]"Your view is far better,"[/color] he countered as his gaze found its way back to Saphira before nodding his head toward the falls. Dorian’s smile was sincere, tinged with an almost juvenile mischief as that one stray curl bounced softly against his temple like its own quiet act of defiance. While he could see multiple advantages to being seated at the edge of the table—a quick getaway or significantly lighter social burden—the true benefit was having an uninterrupted view of the cavern and the crystalline waters that cascaded from the ceiling. [color=846d49]"Or perhaps it shall make my view better seeing you framed in moonlight,"[/color] he added with a directness that no doubt would have infuriated his mother if she heard.

[color=#a34261]"Far better,"[/color] Saphira repeated, turning to follow his nod toward the falls.

The water caught the moonlight as it descended, fracturing it into an ethereal spectacle that had no business being as beautiful as it was. She regarded it for a moment with the expression of someone who had not expected to be moved and was mildly annoyed to find herself so. Where she came from, water did not fall freely into pools for the pleasure of a ballroom. It was rationed, negotiated, withheld and dispensed like every other resource the Sunderlands produced. Its scarcity was the very source of their power, some might argue. But here it simply ran. Spilled out of the living rock, caught the light, and was apparently considered a mere decorative feature, such as a sconce or a rug.

Then his last words registered fully.

She turned back to look at him with the sort of regard she reserved for things that had surprised her and had earned no outward indication of it. [color=#a34261]"You are very forthcoming for a first evening, Your Grace,"[/color] she said, walking the line between a rebuke and invitation. The corner of her mouth did not quite curve. [color=#a34261]"It seems I shall have to watch myself."[/color] 

[color=846d49]"How fortunate that we already share something in common, for I too will be watching you."[/color] Dorian’s brow lifted with quiet curiosity with the air of a challenge to see if he’d be met with more distance, or perhaps—if he was lucky—a smile. A woman’s smile truly was the greatest gift and he would consider himself lucky indeed if he could manage one from Saphira, if for no other reason than because she seemed reluctant to let herself.

The corner of her mouth moved. It was not a smile, not quite, but it was the closest thing to one Saphira had produced since setting foot in this place. She suspected they both knew it.

[color=846d49]"Life is fleeting,"[/color] Dorian continued with a casual innocence, as if he knew no other way to exist beyond honestly, whether for good or ill. [color=846d49]"Far too fleeting to be anything other than forthcoming."[/color] Lies, deceit, or the courtly games his mother and sister like to spin were exhausting and took far too much effort—and intelligence—than he possessed. He released his hold on the chair, stepping around it to hold out his hand, palm turned upwards in a gentle offering to assist her into her seat, one she could accept or decline and his smile would not falter either way. 

Saphira watched him, considering the upturned palm for a moment. Then she placed her hand in his and allowed herself to be guided into the chair. He had not yet said anything she could fault, which was itself a kind of fault. Men who said nothing faultable were either very good or very careful, and she had not yet determined which applied here. But then––

[color=846d49]"Beauty should be cherished, not merely regarded."[/color] He held her gaze, studying the darkness of her eyes like a bitter chocolate with a sweetness hidden beneath, almost too decadent for the likes of him. [color=846d49]"[i]Especially[/i] a desert rose that has lived in the shadow of her sister."[/color]

The surprise arrived and departed in the space of a single breath, though it wasn’t so much at the compliment; she had received those before in various registers of sincerity and had long since developed the means to receive them without being particularly moved. No, it was the second half of the sentence that reached somewhere the first half could not, causing her to look at him with something unguarded moving just beneath the surface of her expression before her composure settled back into place like a drawn curtain. 

[color=#a34261]"You are either very perceptive,"[/color] Saphira said quietly, [color=#a34261]"or very well informed, and I find I cannot decide which concerns me more."[/color]

Dorian helped scoot her chair in as she settled. A warm smile permanently graced his lips as he stepped around to the unoccupied head of the table, being sure to give her space but still remain close enough until the conclusion of their conversation. His eyes sparkled like the falls behind him as he chuckled with quiet amusement. [color=846d49]"I promise I am not wise enough to be perceptive nor patient enough to be properly informed."[/color] While his words did not lack self-deprecation, he seemed to have accepted those truths about himself without embarrassment. 

Before he could overstay his welcome, Dorian pressed his right palm to his chest and bowed deeply, low enough that his head fell lower than Saphira’s where she sat. He held her gaze for a beat or two then slowly stood back upright. [color=846d49]"I do not wish to keep you from your meal any further, but I hope you would consider saving me a dance when the feast has ended."[/color] His smile grew, just a fraction, curling slightly higher on one side as he flashed her a quick, almost missable wink before drifting back around the table toward his seat.
 
She watched him go, though her chin did not swivel to make it obvious. It was at most a glance from the corner of her eye, nothing more. But she watched him all the same.

A dance. Such a small thing on the surface of it. The kind of offer that was bound to be exchanged a dozen times over the course of an evening like this between people who meant nothing by it and people who meant everything. She was not yet certain which category applied to Dorian, and that uncertainty was itself an answer of a kind. Not that it mattered. He had asked and then removed himself before she could respond, which was either very good manners or very good tactics.

There was something a little irritating about that. But only a little. 

In any case, the alternative—being made to answer on the spot with half the table in peripheral view—would have been considerably worse. So, in a way, he had given her the gift of time to decide without making a show of giving it. Saphira was not sure she was grateful for that either, despite having spent the entire evening reading performances in every gesture.

Her fingers found, without her permission, the back of her own hand. The exact spot where his palm had rested.

Saphira stilled them immediately.

[i]Not wise enough to be perceptive. Not patient enough to be properly informed.[/i]

At least one of those things was a lie. The question was…which one? She turned the thought over like a sedulous examiner, looking for the tell, the small tear in the blindfold of his honesty. Because no one was that guileless, surely. Not in this room. Not in this game.

And yet, for a single moment, she almost wished he were.[/color][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/justify][color=2e2c2c]..............................................................................................[/color][/cell][/row][/table][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/9qIY4OK.jpeg[/img][img]https://i.imgur.com/9qIY4OK.jpeg[/img][sub][color=9b9b9b][b][i]Location: Ballroom  
Interactions: [color=#2F5E58]Raelan[/color], [color=#846d49]Dorian[/color] ([@Mjolnir])
Mentions: [color=dbbc77]Rowan[/color], [color=#942641]Valenya[/color], [color=#C97A2B]Kaelan[/color], [color=#d8a7b1]Zahara[/color], [color=#A8A77A]Samira[/color], [color=42557d]Declan[/color], [color=2d5a32]Maeve[/color], [color=10636f]Rhea[/color][/i][/b][/color]
[color=#A34261][b]#A34261[/b][/color][color=2e2c2c]...[/color]|[color=2e2c2c]...[/color][url=https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/019bdf53-4a67-71cc-830e-5be018e01e6b.webp][color=9b9b9b][b]outfit[/b][/color][/url][/sub][/center]