Emeral In Shadow

The Umbra Masquerade (PART 2) [#10.5]

Evelien had just gotten to the corner of the room as the music swapped to a waltz.
She waited for Gustaaf for what felt like ages.

She wondered what he had been doing until...

Until she saw them.
Two lovebirds, dancing and... And giggling like they had done it a million times before.
Gustaaf and another girl.

She wasn't even furious. Just exhausted.
After trying again and again to win his affection, never prying into his personal life, letting him hurt himself again and again just to be tossed ragdolled onto her doorstep just because she didn't want to nag him to be more careful.

She slumped to the floor, and waited until Gustaaf finished off dancing with her.
He gave her a kiss on the cheek goodbye.

That same foreboding tightness returned in her chest, she felt sick to her stomach.

Gustaaf was smiling when he walked up to her. Actually, genuinely, smiling.
"Found the Madam?" He asked Evelien, all business.

Evelien stood up off the ground, all of the energy sapped out of her.
"Yeah." She couldn't meet his eyes,
"Let's go."

The Queen was dressed in a glittery silver dress and an extravagant and exotic white tiger mask, twirling around with her servants, the many dressed in basic white dresses and masks, in a sort of group dance unseen before. They each took a few seconds with the Queen's hands, and then swapped to another servant to the rhythm of the piano. Each danced as if the many days of hard and thankless work did nothing to their energy.

All the other dancers had made a radius of clear ground between them and the Queen and the servants, perhaps because they didn't want to dance near the servants, or to show reverence to the Queen.

Gustaaf and Evelien stood on the edge of this perimeter looking in on the Queen, feeling the other dancers move around their backs.

Gustaaf took a few moments to scan the crowd for an opportunity to jump in, maybe act as a worried citizen of the kingdom or a scandalous suitor looking to steal the Queen away from the king, but he didn't have to;
The dancing circle dissolved as the Queen tired of dancing and she began moving towards the dining hall upstairs.

A few servants tried to follow her probably to, well, serve her, but she waved them off.

Gustaaf looked to Evelien and nodded.
Target found, time to get to work.
Evelien forced herself to put on a dreamy smile, like her mind was up in the clouds, as she walked up to the Queen.

"Hey, heading up for a drink? I was thinking I wasn't qu~uiite drunk enough." she said, before giggling maddenly.

The Queen, smiling beautifully beneath the striped mask, laughed while patting Evelien's back, "Young lady," she rebuked playfully "The night is still young. But, yes. Care to join me?"

Evelien went through another forced fit of drunken giggles, "Yes, ma'am!" And they begun to make small talk as Evelien tripped over herself up the stairs.

At one of many tables set up with crates of many bottles of wine, Evelien put up her glass full of red liquid to a toast to Queen Nova, who held her glass high as well,

"To new friends, and long life!" Queen Nova said, and Evelien repeated the toast, inwardly flinching at 'long life'.

The two clinked glasses, and after a few seconds of constrained sipping, the two of them downed the whole glass, Evelien glancing guilty at Nova for it.

Nova mimicked her guilty expression, before pouring a another whole glass and downing it like a bandit. She smiled deviously, before pouring another and doing it again.