strangetrip | [GP] Midnight Carnival

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[GP] Midnight Carnival

Once, back at the beginning, Songrans had started the Carnival at midnight and ended it an hour later at one minute past. At least, it was reasonable to suppose they had, but, in truth, it had been such a long time ago, it was an article of faith rather than fact. Nowadays, Midnight Carnival began when the sun went down and ended when it came up again. It had been wryly suggested by many more than one Songran that it ought to be renamed "All Night Carnival," but somehow it never was. It made for convenient fiction on the Day of Kosal that all licentiousness had taken place in a single, short, non-existent hour, and so it remained as it was.

What it was depended on who did the describing. It might be wild twists of fortune at games of chance tended by sloe-eyed men and women in brilliant costume. Or it might be fine rice wine sampled from one end of the street to the next until the world spun like Samnang's wheel. For lovers of the Youngest, it might be greasepaint and cartwheels or blindfold-tag in a crowd or blowing soap bubbles at passersby. Chanda's devotees spent the night in sexual revels or romantic trysts under firework strewn skies, while enterprising followers of Vanna might find selling candy or trinkets or operating currency exchange more to their delight.

As soon as the sun set, buildings vomited forth a brightly festooned sea of humanity lit by colored silk or paper lanterns. The night smelled of sweetened puffed rice, rich and salty fish dumplings, spicy chili-fried insects. Turn a corner and chocolate, sugar, cinnamon, gave way to sweat, smoke, wine and sex. By midnight, the Carnival resembled nothing so much as a bejeweled caterpillar comprised of myriad masked and painted faces, in wild distortions of ecstasy, agony, and joy.

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"I like strength, and honesty." He set aside his glass, and brushed a lock of hair off her brow. "And good music. Dance?"

The familiarity of the gesture, the ease of his touch twisted her stomach in knots and brought the sting of tears behind her eyes. She blinked them back before they could shine and set her own glass aside. "I don't know how."

"It's not hard," he took her hand and tugged her toward the crowd of dancers. "You just hang on and sway."

Regina let him drag her into the crowd of dancers. She didn't like him and she didn't like dancing and she wanted Robin and Roland and Henry and Snow and to go home. She also wanted not to sound like a petulant child inside her head or to keep acting like one.

So she reshaped the frown into a smile, and waited for him to take lead.

She really was one of the most uptight people he had ever met.

Something about that irked him and made him want to break her out of whatever shell she was confining herself in.

Once in the crowd, he placed her hands on his shoulders and then wrapped his own around her waist, and swayed. The dancers around them were a cacophony of sound and movement and he easily found the beat as he moved.

She wanted to remain unaffected. Untouched by his closeness. Out of loyalty to Robin, she did try, but she'd been without touch for so many months. Her skin ached for it.

He'd put her hands on his shoulders, but she moved a step closer and put them around his neck instead. If she didn't think too hard, she could let herself enjoy the moment. If Dyson knew, he was pretending not to, and for now, she could pretend too.

He knew, and he knew she knew who he was. But if pretending kept the haughty queen at bay, he would pretend.

"See," he murmured as she moved closer, head bent so she could hear him. "Easy."

His breath brushed over her cheek and sent a shiver along her spine. "Says you," she murmured, then lowered her arms so that she could move closer and press her cheek against his shoulder. It wasn't easy, not at all.

Nothing worth doing ever is, she remembered Robin saying, and shut her eyes. She was so, so tired.

"Says me," he agreed. Then he just moved and let her move with him, a counterpoint to the masquerade and carnival atmosphere.

Amidst the chaos of the carnival and the unending wail of her longing for her sons and her love, he was quiet and still.

Wolf in moonlight, her mind supplied and assaulted her with a cascade of related images--a darkened wood, icicles dripping from blackened branches, moonlight on a snow-frosted lake, ice cracking, bodies falling, bodies rising, a box with a heart back in her hands and a promise...

Regina shut it down. Refused to think about Graham or Robin, or Roland or Henry. Focused on the guilty pleasure of enjoying Dyson instead. "What else do you say?"

He chuckled, the sound hoarse and husky.

"Not much." He wasn't what anyone would call chatty.

Regina narrowly resisted the urge to touch her fingertips to his throat to feel the vibrations of that already sensual sound. To stop herself, she said instead, "Except when naked in the dark," her own voice velveted in the illusory privacy of a crowd.

It wasn't until after she'd said so that she realized both that she'd slipped out of pretense and that she would probably have been better off touching him for how that sounded.

"Except then," he agreed, but he didn't let her go, just swung her around and continued to dance. Waited to see if she would pull away and become the buttoned up woman who could barely tolerate him or if she would pretend neither of them knew who the other was.

As it happened, Regina did neither. She had committed to this course for the evening and turning aside from it now would open the door to a thousand memories she'd prefer to avoid.

Dyson spun her and she let him, trusted that, for the moment, he wouldn't revert and drop her on her ass. As he didn't, she offered him the same, sly intimate smile she had in the sauna and quickly gesture-cast a dim-sight spell that blocked them both from the lights.

He noticed the change in lighting, and arched a brow beneath the mask he wore.

"They have one of these carnivals every seven days. A little bit party, a little bit ritual."

He had said he was more conversational in the dark, so she shrugged and smiled quixotically at the raised eyebrow. Let him decide whether she was suggesting they add naked to the equation.

"Is that an invitation?" she asked, voice somehow richer and huskier in the darkness.

"We're already here," he pointed out. Though he wasn't adverse to a little naked, but he wondered if she would be when it wasn't dark anymore.

"For next week," she answered and ran her fingertips over his bicep lightly. She no longer knew what she was doing, beyond reacting from one moment to the next.

"If you still feel like making the offer when the sun has come up and the masks have come off, we can talk about next week." But now, this moment it felt a bit like taking advantage.

Still he punctuated the refusal by bending to capture her mouth with his.

Regina had barely enough time to mentally acknowledge that his response was both considerate and perceptive before he was kissing her. In retrospect, she should have seen it coming, should have realized she was angling for it, but in the moment, it caught her off guard.

She stiffened briefly -- not Robin -- but only very briefly. Her lips parted in invitation and she kissed back, the fire that fueled her magic roaring up in answer.

He felt it, the slight hesitation and the heat as she sank into the kiss and his grip shifted, tightened as the kiss lingered and deepened.

Without intending to, Regina brought one hand up to grip his shirt by his neck and the other grasped at his shoulder, fingers curling and clutching to find purchase.

There was fire underneath that icy exterior, something he was profoundly pleased to discover. Gradually though he loosened his grip, and pulled back just enough so his words whispered across her lips.

"Next week, when the sun is up." If she was still interested.

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[GP] Midnight Carnival

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

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