strangetrip | [GP] Midnight Carnival

Entry tags:

[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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Regina skirted the edge of the carnival, watching the revelry without joining in. She must have looked the part of a small girl with her nose pressed to the glass of a sweet shop, because an older merchant with kindness and wisdom in his eyes, offered her a mask. "Thank you, but I shouldn't spend the money."

He shook his head and pressed the mask into her hand. "Masks are freedom. In one, you can be anyone you want. Take it as my gift, and may your eyes shine bright from beneath it."

The mask would have to be telepathic to turn her into who she wanted to be, since she didn't know herself. But the word 'freedom' stuck in her craw. She had longed for it since she first learned the word and had but rarely had it. She took the mask with gratitude, then settled it on her face, and tied it behind her head. She didn't feel freer immediately, but she did drift closer to the crowds.

Dyson liked a good party, and this was a very good party. He'd acquired a mask at the behest of some of the revelers and was at one of the stalls that was selling drinks, a decent ale in his hand surveying the crowd.

When he saw her he didn't recognize her immediately, but as she moved closer he was almost convinced that it was Regina.

Curious to see what she made of the party he retrieved a second drink, and walked over to offer it to her.

"You're missing one of these."

Not long after Regina felt eyes on her, a man moved out of the crowds to bring her a drink. She recognized him almost immediately as Dyson, difficult to miss with the image of his naked body emblazoned on her mind. Did he recognize her?

Regina extended her hand to take the ale, even though it wasn't her preference. She could be anyone she wanted, right? Whether he knew her or not, she could be a woman who drank ale with a handsome man and smiled prettily at him. "Thank you. I set my last down, and I seem to have lost it."

"You'll have to be more careful with this one." He raised his own glass in salute, "Slante."

Regina moved near enough to touch her glass to his and tried not to think of other men and other drinks. "Slainte." The ale had a bitter taste, but it wasn't unpleasant, and after she lowered her glass again, she instinctively chased the foam from her lip with her tongue.

He watched her lick her lips, and couldn't help but smile at the unconsciously alluring way she did it.

"not the best I've had, but not the worst either."

"It's..." The words common and earthy occurred to her, but she allowed them to fade back and chose, "Foamier than what I'm used to." True, since she generally drank wine or spirits. She took another sip and tried to find other words to describe it. "It tastes bitter, like a grain that roasted too long."

She turned her gaze up to his and let herself ask questions she wouldn't acknowledge not knowing the answers to, usually. "What makes an ale good or bad?"

"Our taste buds mostly. Good barley, good water, good hops. everyone likes them put together in different ways depending on their own preference."

Personally he liked a dark stout rather than the more bitter taste of an ale.

Subjective, of course. Regina wrinkled her nose in a way that was just visible beneath the mask. "Something else to learn the hard way." A little of her more usual tartness seeped into the words before she reminded herself she didn't have to be the formerly Evil Queen tonight.

"Unless, of course, someone was willing to guide me," she suggested, only mildly flirtatious with the mask containing the usual smolder.

That made him chuckle, "I don't know all that much. Just what I like."

And if there was a double meaning to that, well she may or may not get it.

She did like men to know their own minds, a fact that had surprised her with Robin, but she chalked it up to years of not knowing what was true and what was fear or her control. So she took a step closer, the way she might have as younger woman, so many years ago. "What do you like?"

"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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 3

[GP] Midnight Carnival

Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA

Re: Regina - tag Dyson, OTA