so_many_balls

To celebrate the upcoming completion of the Redward wizard tower, a ball was held. Originally, it was to be had after the completion, but unforeseen labour costs required delay. The ball wouldn’t be delayed, though. Red Hand, the owner of the venue (and Anisa’s mother) did not care for changing commitments.

Anisa had sponsored the remaining costs. She arrived with the ostensibly not pre-drunk John. She was adorned with her standard blue work pantsuit, John with a loud black blazer. Normally, Samantha would be the one to attend these events; and indeed, Anisa would’ve preferred such, but such an arrangement presently impossible.

“We go to so many balls,” said Anisa.

“What was the last ball you were at?”

“7 months ago. Bank ball.”

“Mine was two weeks. Farmer’s End of Autumn Festival.”

“I know,” said Anisa.

“I’m unclear on what you’re saying, then, I go to plenty.”

She didn’t care to disambiguate. “I’m going to go threaten Redwood,” she said.

“Okay, have fun,” said John. “That’s why we’re here, after all.” She didn’t care to disambiguate that, either. “Do you want backup?” He scratched his chin, and his blazer stretched in such a way to show an outline of something tightly held to his body. Probably either a flask or a knife. She was about 60% certain it wasn’t the knife-flask she had gifted him; the craftsmanship was shoddy, and he had made a show of presenting himself nice. He wore more makeup than she did, a thin layer of foundation to cover his reckless burns and scars. His self description: “adventurous”. She wore none. She’d washed her face.

All to say, his overblown persona, though so overblown it was obvious it was a persona, had a 6 in 10 chance of being genuine enough to not risk contamination with a gaudy bauble. Though, that statistic was a snap judgement. Hmm.

He pulled out his knife-flask, popped off the back of the hilt, and sipped. He’d changed the fabric wrapped around the hilt and the sheath to match the black of the blazer.

She wanted to find fault with him, but this celebration was for the people, and the people loved him. These people, perhaps less so, though. She apparently loved deluding herself into thinking the mages were refined…

“Do you really need to do that, here and now?” she said.

“Do you want some?”

“You saw the itinerary. They will be serving wine. There is a server over there.” She lightly flapped an arm.

“I find I can better swallow wine if my stomach is full of beer.”

It was a knife with a hollow hilt, his stomach could hold 9 knife hilts. She’d workshopped with Hendrik the possibility of a knife with a hollow hilt which was bigger on the inside, for his next birthday.

“Your stomach would only be full if it was nearly full before we arrived.”

He looked at her, lips pursed, like a cat with inky paws proud of trudging over tax documents. She drifted away.

She floated to a cloaked man with grey hair. He looked over and sipped his water. “You didn’t have to come,” he said.

“Nor did you,” she said.

They both stared ahead. Wizards wore their dress hats. Other Vanguardists were at the door, haggling with the security on what weapons they could bring in. John walked over to greet them. A long table had been laid out with hors d’oeuvres, which a woman with grey skin was judiciously observing, approaching people who were taking too many deviled eggs or punch. A group of grey robed, hatless men — presumably the owners of several of the hats on one of the coatracks — were vigourously arguing about something. The band, with its 2 guitars, its percussionist, and someone who was opening and closing their mouth, was barely audible on the other side of the room. A woman beside Anisa bit cheese on a toothpick.

“I enjoy it,” said Greyhair-Blackcloak

“Chaos,” said Anisa. “How is this any different from your day-to-day?”

“Less paperwork,” he said. “I approach people instead of them approaching me. No meetings. No panic from new recruits on how to remove crossbow bolts. It’s cleaner. I don’t need to plan a meal. I can leave when I want.”

“Okay,” said Anisa.

The greycloaks were apparently arguing over what gods could kill what other gods. A man in a bi-pointed hat loudly declared how tasty the pickles were to no one in particular.

“How’s the water,” said Anisa.

“Yeah,” said Greyhair-Blackcloak.

“I suppose I’ll be assuming Samantha’s position on RBB’s pitch board,” said Anisa.

“I’ll talk to you at work,” he said, and he walked away.

“Okay,” said Anisa.

Well, that was. It often was, with Weathers.

She floated through the crowd to Redwood, who was vigourously arguing with the grey-skinned woman that he was the host and should be entitled to as much cheese as he wanted.

“Don’t pull this shit again,” Anisa growled and glowered. “I need accurate timelines to plan anything. With this delay, we need updated advertisements, further traffic redirection, and more tolerance of loud noise.”

“Oh, absolutely,” relented Redwood. “Terribly sorry, never again. I’m with you, absolutely, and I’ll do everything to accommodate. Have you met Dianne?” He gestured to the grey woman who waved and silently mouthed “hi”.

“No. Okay. Hi, Dianne. Never again.”

“Never again.” Thumbs up.

“Good, thank you.”