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[Lance Noble Coleburn,
[Lance Noble is underlined and there are 4 exclamation points above it]
You have been cordially [underlined 2 times] invited to attend the Ball of Del and Bri as the escort of Primo Aubrey, Artificer Mundane ["I have titles now!"] of the Boy-King Samot, the Knower of Things. Please return this card with your preference of fish or no fish ["no fish" is underlined with the words "Pick this one"] for the dinner.
[There are two boxes, one with the word Fish next to it and one with the words No Fish next to it. There’s a red X is the “No Fish” box]
[a note at the bottom reads "Isn't this exciting Sige?? I'm looking forward to seeing you there!!!"] ]
Sige had never been much for fancy events. Becoming a Lance Noble hadn't even been that big of an affair. He'd already had the gun and Rebecca had just handed him a jacket and the map of his parish and that had been just about it. This meant that he had very limited choices when it came to formal outfits. It was either his Lance Noble uniform (now slightly blood stained with some rips on the sleeves) and what Primo had made for him on High Sun Day. Was it bad taste to wear an outfit that had last been worn on the day of the host’s husband’s murder? Was it in worse taste to show up wearing something stained and ripped? Hitchcock would know, but it was about six months late for asking his advice on anything.
He decided on a compromise. He kept the shirt and pants from the outfit Primo had made and the jacket from his Lance Noble uniform. The shirt and pants didn't fit as well as they had six months ago, but the fit was still close enough to not be noticeable as long as he wore dark socks and kept his jacket on. He adjusted his cravat in the mirror. This was going to be fine. It was going to be a smaller event than High Sun Day, and no one had asked him to kill or prevent the deaths of any gods. He was going to see Aubrey for the first time in months and they were going to have a good time together.
The place that Samot had chosen to hold the Ball of Del and Bri was stunning. The floors were a white marble, fluted columns soared up to support a vaulted ceiling, and stained glass representations of the gods filtered the last bits of daylight into shafts of colors. The thing that struck Sige most about it, however, was its emptiness. Samothes's volcano hall had been packed with all kinds of people that Sige had never seen before and hadn't seen since. Here, there were mostly humans with a few elves and orcs scattered around, all clumped into groups on the edges.
"Sige!"
He was broken out of his reflection by a small blue bullet hurtling towards him, nails clicking on the floor. Sige turned just in time to catch Aubrey in a hug as she leapt at him.
"Aubrey!"
Their voices were the loudest in this hall (who had built it with such good acoustics?) but Sige had made a living out of being the biggest guy around. He was used to getting strange looks.
He put her down and got a good look at her. She looked older, the nubs of her horns slightly sharper and the scales on her head starting to go from blue to a sea green. But her smile was still the same. She still wasn't wearing shoes ("That's why I have scales, Sige!" she’d said the first time he’d brought it up) and there were still remnants of whatever elixir she had been working on stained on her hands. The dress she was wearing was in the same style as the one that Primo had designed for her, now in an golden ivory. Still the same Aubrey.
She laughed. "It's Primo Aubrey, Artificer Mundane now."
"Primo?" Sige arched an eyebrow.
"It's technically a title, I guess? It's on all the official documents. But enough about that, come on! Let me show you around!"
Aubrey took him on a circuit of the hall, pointing out the stained glass windows ("This color took ages to do right," she said, pointing at the sun behind the broken glass mosaic of Samothes. "Samot was very specific. It took a week to get close to what he wanted and he wants it re-done before the next event here.") and the sideboard which held a bewildering number of bottles ("Three hundred and seven," she said when Sige asked her how many were lined up) and the musicians who were tuning their instruments ("One of them let me examine the spare reeds for their clarinet but wouldn't let me take it apart. I think I could tweak the sound if they did."). By the time she was done, Samot had arrived and become the center of attention.
The speech was standard as these things went in Sige's experience. Samot wished everyone a good time, made a few jokes about how it was expected that everyone would have a glass or two of wine, and thanked Aubrey for her work on the windows, which she blushed at.
It was only after these formalities were out of the way that the party really started. The musicians picked up their instruments and started to play a waltz. These dances were traditionally started by the host but Samot, partnerless, sat at the head of the hall and watched as a different pair of dignitaries took to the floor.
Aubrey and Sige gravitated back towards the edges as they caught up with each other. Sige talked about the work that he had been doing with the Golden Lance, the latest modifications he'd made to his gun ("They have it set real slow, y'know? Some of the Lance Nobles don't know what the hell they’re doing and usually you don't need more than one shot to get someone down. But if you get in there you can change all kindsa things."), and the new drinks the Southern Bucket had on tap. Aubrey talked about how her family was doing, how weird it was to be actually working for a god, and her latest studies into sleeping draughts ("I've almost got it this time. See, the problem in the past has been that I couldn't get the right ingredients. But now, with all of," she gestured widely to the hall and indirectly to Samot, "I can!").
Sige had redirected Aubrey from the wine table twice by the time they'd started to run out of things to talk about, and Aubrey's gaze lingered longer on the people dancing.
Aubrey trailed off from talking about how different kinds of fibres burned differently and which waxes were actually best for making candles. He cleared his throat. "Do you want to dance?"
"No!” She paused and glanced from him to the dance floor and back again. “Sort of. Yes. I do.”
Sige offered her his hand. She took it with a gracious curtsy and he escorted her out on to the section of the hall that had been cleared for dancing.
It was awkward. He was a good deal taller than most humans, let alone cobbins, and they haven't danced together like this before. A marble hall was different than the basement of the basement of a dancing school with a stolen record playing on a stolen gramophone and one of the Hitchcocks counting a bit too loudly to try and keep them on beat. It was different than the wild cobbin parties in too crowded buildings that Aubrey had attended when she was younger, always louder than she expected. It was different than the few half fancy events Sige had attended with Castile. They shuffled around each other before Aubrey offered up her hands. Sige has to lean down a bit to take them properly. Her hands had new callouses, new scars where she'd caught a fingertip with a knife while slicing something thin and his hands are different too. The callouses he'd built up while trying to escape Marielda on a boat that was half dreams were fading and there were a few burns from when he'd touched his gun before it was done cooling down.
She shot him a grin and lifted up on to the balls of her feet in the pause before the downbeat. She jumped into the air on the downbeat, her dress flowing around her. She slid her feet back to move out from him, leaving faint claw marks in the floor. She kept the tips of the fingers of her left hand against his and swept out her right arm. Aubrey looked up at him, expecting him to do something in return. Sige paused and waited for the next downbeat before sweeping forward, picking her up by the waist and swinging her around. She let out a laugh and landed gently on her feet as he set her down.
They fell into a comfortable rhythm. Aubrey had more flexibility on the dance floor, but Sige could be graceful in his own way. He knew what his body was capable of. He knew how fast he could sink down to a knee so Aubrey could put her hands on his shoulders. He knew how fast he could stand back up to swing her around again. She laughed every time like it was still new. With a bit of prompting and guidance she got him to hold one of her hands up above her while twirled, her skirt flaring out around her like the petals of a flower. When she stopped, dizzy, he dipped her down. She laughed at that too, kicked one of her legs out to exaggerate the pose.
By the time the ball was winding down and people were starting to filter out, Sige and Aubrey were some of the few people still on the dance floor. They’d moved to clasping hands and moving in a loose waltz in endless spirals inwards and then outwards. Sige had forgotten what it was like to have someone there and to know exactly what they were going to do and the movements they were going to make and how to react to them. The Golden Lance was about moving individually, taking care of your parish, not someone else’s. It was a lot of long nights and not a lot of time spent working with people like he had with The Six. But dancing with Aubrey? This was a good reminder.
She made him kneel down when he was about to leave so she could give him a proper hug around the neck. She squeezed a bit tighter than was comfortable and then let go, punching him in the shoulder.
“Hey!” Sige rubbed his shoulder. “What was that for?”
“Just because I’m working for a god now doesn’t mean you can’t write me a letter now and then! I want to know how you’re doing.”
“I’ll write if you come and visit.”
“Deal.” She stuck out her hand and he gave it a firm shake. Both of them did their best to hold in their laughter and Sige broke first. He pulled Aubrey in for another quick squeeze before he got to his feet.
“I’ll see you soon, Aubrey.”
“Yeah, yeah, go on, guard your parish!”
Sige walked home feeling lighter than he had in months, the rhythm of the waltz echoing in his head and in his steps.