[h2]Royal Box[/h2]

There was a tangible pause, a moment of calm where both Maletha and Enrich got an identical look of dread. Then it broke, Elisandre practically vanishing from her seat and letting out an alarmingly high-pitched noise as she closed the gap to Gertrude. "It was the Bloody Lord Rozenalt, truly? Oh, I knew that all the stories were grounded in fact but—"

"Was he like the stories? Red haired and in red clothes? Oh but he couldn't have been wearing clothes, not as a leader of the Midnight Hunt, so red armour instead? Did he say anything? It would have been such an opportunity – ah, please, you have to tell me everything!"

The eldest princess was practically vibrating in place, her interest in their foe almost palpable even as her eyes kept drifting over to the beleaguered vampire across the seating, eager to interrogate her for everything.

"I could scarce believe the original knights would find themselves in a battle against the Midnight Hunt," Enrich managed to find his voice, drawing them up haughtily, "To get caught by them would be utterly foolish. How could the order possibly have a score to settle?"

[hr]

"Propriety?" the vampire hissed, face red. Maybe from the other sister, but they were in the presence of royalty and one of the local religious heads, it should have been – not that Haizea seemed to care, just humming happily and nodding before looking out of the box at where preparations seemed nearly complete, "And [i]no[/i], I don't fancy anyone here! It's just always like that!"

Sure enough, listening to it more didn't help make it any less odd. There was definitely consistency, insofar as the beats themselves seemed to be a rather persistent lub-dub-dub, albeit [i]rapid[/i], more often than not… and, well, incapable of regularity in the [i]normal[/i] sense. But, just on the edge of hearing – and maybe slightly more apparent with how insistently it still beat as a condition of vampirism – there was a near endless [i]hiss[/i].

[@Octo]