story - part 14 - games - 1111 words

"The trick is not just to blend in."

An evening free. The prince is spending tonight eating dinner with his father, dedicating his time to a delicate meeting of feuding nobles and power hungry young men. I am not invited to join them.

"The trick is to blend in without vanishing into the background." My words blurred, muffled around a mouth full of pins. These are the final touches on a careful peasant costume, that of a servant. The Lady Calidris is completing her transformation into simple Cali before my eyes.

She is still too proud and too pretty to be common. Her skin is too smooth, especially on her hands. Hair shines too brilliantly, even in pale light; it curls too wildly down the back of her neck and over her shoulders, despite my attempts to turn it lackluster and flat.

The clothing is perfect, however. I settle the hem of her skirt into place - too short, it seems to be an ill fit - and pull myself up to stand. A smile, at the faint smudges of dirt she has traced delicately across her nose and cheek. I set immediately to adding more, a fine layer of dirt and grime and oily fingerprints to hide that pale, noble skin.

"I can hardly disappear into a crowd, no matter how hard I try, but that does not mean that people always know I am there." Distant and absentminded. I have been doing this for so long that I cannot see the difficulty in it, or the skill. But there is something strangely wide and awed about her expression, fascinated. It is a look that turns on me far too often, these days.

I pause to smooth the skirts over her hips one more time, to adjust the neck of her shirt, to put everything in order. She tilts her head up and back, a jaunty angle. It is probably meant to be coy, or teasing, or demure - I am not sure, she just comes off looking the way she always has. A mask of noble superiority is all she owns.

"I never tried to blend in; I merely asserted the fact that I did not care what anyone had to say, nor was I a danger." Stepping back to admire my handiwork, the fact that she now looks less noble than I do [except for that gleam in her eyes at the set of her lips, she has to train that out of herself].

"So now, it is not that they cannot acknowledge the fact that I am there, or that they overlook me. They merely do not care if I hear what they have to say, or see their clandestine meetings late at night, or if I watch them exchange bribes and bits of gossip. Who would listen to me, anyway?"

Fingers smooth up through my hair, pulling it back into a neat braid. Then the faintest brush of hand across feathers, attempting to rearrange them, to lose that crumpled and broken look. I have gotten used to shedding my cloak at her door, but I still cannot stand comfortably under her stare. I want to keep them hidden for her sake, so that she does not have to look on and imagine the story, to protect her from her own imagination.

"You know.." Almost timid. I am not sure if she is trying to settle into a role, or if she is honestly uncomfortable As I glance up to her face, it becomes more obvious that this is a game. There is a twinkle in her eyes, something teasing despite her tone.

"For someone who hates intrigue and the games of court life, you certainly are good at them." As she steps forward, fingers at my collar. Pulling me together even as I pull her apart, drag a sleeve down on her arm, crooked, a flash of skin. More dirty fingerprints, down over her collar.

"You...ah. Is there anyone you do not have gossip on?" Her voice has turned a hair breathy, she fumbles over the words as I slide fingers across her throat, leaving dark, dirty lines.

:"Mm. I only know what I need to know. I do not investigate into private affairs unless they affect the public." Pulling back, finishing. I reach for a cloth to wipe my own hands off on. Then I hand it to her, a brief jerk of my chin, almost an order. "Wipe off your face, make it look like you tried to clean up."

It adds just enough color to her skin that she looks worn, that she does not look quite so smooth and noble. It roughens her, steals away some of that porcelain finish, that sense of something not quite real. I prefer her like this.

"Just dinner, you said? I will take you to the kitchens to eat, we will see if you can pull off keeping your head down and your mouth closed?" Careless, absentminded. She looks mildly hurt - but I do not mean anything by it, and she should know that.

Finally a nod, a brief roll of her shoulders in a shrug that seems vaguely uncomfortable. She wipes dirt from her hands and drops the cloth on her dresser, fingers sliding up to fix her hair - and coming to an awkward halt a moment later, she is supposed to leave it down and a mess.

"This is just a game to you. You are bored, it serves as something to fill the time?" Not so much annoyed with her as vaguely amused. I try not to sound condescending, or angry, but she bridles and turns a frown on me.

"I should know these things. We all should know. If every noble took the time to learn how to blend in with the common people, perhaps they would better understand how to make laws, how to pass judgments. It would be good for us." A holier-than-thou attitude that I want to cut down. I want to tell her that, perhaps, the common folk do not want nobles meddling in their business. Perhaps they prefer privacy. But I bite my tongue.

A pause, in the doorway. Her hand settles on my arm, dragging me to a halt, and she blinks up toward my face. Smile flashing across her lips, head cocked to the side.

"I want you to go to an event with me. A party. It is in three days. We will need to get you appropriate clothing." No question in her tone of whether I will be attending or not. I wonder, vaguely, if this was the whole purpose of tonight's game.