Avalon

•17•

Delicacy

*******************************

Neal was looking down at the file in front of him. His eyes were already glassy looking but so far nobody seemed to notice, or they just didn't say anything.

I fact Neal was just being thoughtful and also deep into some parallel world. Something inside him was feeling odd and he was confused.

It's been happening for a while now and although medically he was okay Peter was slowly slipping towards Neal being affected mentally. Somehow the CI suspected it might as well be a way of Peter letting Neal be, after all the agent seemed to know that his friend wasn't feeling all that great.

Thing was that Neal actually begun suspecting his other thing to get out of control. Not that he knew anything about his little secret part. It was mostly speculation on Mozzie's side from the get go.

And look how far it had gotten them.

With a quiet sigh Neal pulled his eyes away from the pages he never saw and actually made attempt to listen in on the meeting.

There was a new case coming in and this time there were more people being suspicious about the mark and all what was on stakes. So far there was an intel on the Gala that had made all the higher ups edgy and Peter sigh even more than usual.

So far, though, none has approached Neal directly about whatever was bugging them. Although he already guessed they just were getting suspicious and overprotective of their crap.

The reason behind was the display during the event. Since only elite and some royalties (of whom Neal doubted was true) the plan has been to put out some really fancy things to keep the spirits and showcase the whole glamorous stuff. Neal knew from his experience that showcase of fancy things were magnet to the kind he once was. Hell he'd bee most likely the one right now casing the place out to find out of what precious they were going to put out.

So far he had heard (accidentally of course) that there was this very ancient and rare envelope from some days of the first original Gala event and that day they put together a very valuable (or invaluable, depending on your views) special treat as an invitation to the most noble royalties. The count of those things were really small and now the whole invitation set was mostly placed in museums and couple private collections of the heirs.

Neal had seen a glimpse of the thing that actually looked tasteful and held some level of crazy glam. It was a very interesting piece of art itself. The paper inside was some very fine silk and unknown local fabric mix that was worked into layers of the pergament-like sheet. The coloring though. It was matte black and when looked at created an illusion of the viewer being sucked inside it. The letters were some fashionable font made of pure gold and mixed with some ink that made it shimmer holographic effect and if you moved it against light it would create illusion of golden-y shimmer-ish water stream. And the ink was almost sewn in, or it looked like it. Neal gestimated it was supposed to be actually pressed into the paper-fabric.

The material of paper-fabric also had been described as water-feel like. They claimed touching it made you feel like a breeze touched your fingertips or barely there mist. To most descriptions Neal gathered in general it just felt almost untouchable and near impossibly to feel or created illusions of various touch ways that all bordered on air-like or water-like.

Then came the envelope itself. That was also pretty much a piece of art and technology unknown to Earth humans.

The surface was pure velvety feel in also the matte look. It was either black, dark blue or dark red. And when looked upon created this deep feeling as if it was trying to suck you in. It didn't have a single fabric material shine so it deemed to be super matte and absorbing. The black was the most royal and rarest of them. The whole thing possibly could eat you, Neal decided. And then the other colors. The red one portrayed wine illusion as it was rich and deep in hue and saturation. The dark tone made the matte look even more deep and absorbing. The blue one actually made one feel like being sucked into summer night sky. The deep matte effect could simply swallow all the attention. And the lettering on the envelope matched the text on the sheet inside as well.

The inside material was something neither could discern. It was totally mind blowing look- almost invisible and extremely airy. The general idea was that once you looked inside it you'd feel like looking inside something mysterious before you pulled out the text sheet.

In other words one would become extremely mesmerized by such thing.

However that had been one time occurrence and in the following years it slowly became a legend. Neal heard lots of rumors about the invitation and how much it represented something evolution made humanity easily forget. And being Neal it was logical he'd find the whole thing just as attractive as the U-boat treasure.

Well, on one part he was kinda glad Mozzie wasn't around. The suspicion was that he'd make Neal go after it and from Neal's experience it would cause a humongus mess on all sides.

However the young man couldn't deny the appeal to such affair. He was after all a thief among all the things he used to be. And sometimes he allowed himself a small daydream moment.

Because why, couldn't a guy have a fantasy?