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their first meeting had been by complete chance. one step, gaze, or glance to the side, and perhaps scaramouche would’ve gone on the rest of his life not knowing what it felt like to be loved.
there had been some joint event between the fatui and the knights of favonius. a party, to put it simply. ironic, he knows, and he’s 100% certain that of all the smiles shot his way, not a single one of them was genuine.
so, with a red cup full of— hell, he’s not even sure what they were serving.. punch? alcohol? he hasn’t the faintest idea, but whatever it is, it’s helping him deal with the effort of keeping up the calm and composed facade he wears from sunrise to sunset every day.
the sun had set about four hours ago, to be precise.
so, yeah, maybe he wasn’t that much of a party person, but he knew if he was caught heading for the door, it’d only stir up whispers about his whereabouts, and that’d undo all the efforts his boss had put in for this whole thing to happen.
said boss is nowhere to be seen. go figure.
he sits himself down on a nearby couch, feet propped up by the armrest, taking a sip of his mystery drink and looking out the window to his left.
a full moon sits in the sky like a gleaming pearl, overseeing the vast and unending ocean of blinding city lights. he’d probably have found the view calming if it weren’t for the obnoxiously loud pop music blaring in his ears.
he looks up from his drink, eyes fixated on the sky. the view might be nice, sure, but as a result of the relentless stir of the city, there isn’t a single star in sight. or at least, if there were any stars out, he sure wouldn’t be able to see them from here.
it’s a good thing he was never one for stargazing, anyway.
he looks to his right. there’s tartaglia, chatting up four people at once. how that man manages to be so social, he’ll never know— and he’s not particularly interested in finding out, either.
he looks to his left.
instead of the cluster of people dancing he’d expected, what meets his eyes is two glimmering stars, shining and luminescent even in the shadow of dimmed lights.
for a second, all he’s able to do is sit and stare.
the stars, in all their glory, glare right back at him.
that is until she blinks, and he realizes what had caught his eye was not stars, but rather a pair of bright, green eyes.
in another moment, the stars have gone, turned from him to gaze at another. he gets up from his spot on the couch, craning his neck to get a better look at her, at the long, midnight-colored hair that drapes down her back, at that purple glittery dress that only causes her eyes to stand out more the longer you look at her, and—
ah.
she’s holding onto the arm of someone— the name won’t come to mind, but the face is familiar. blonde hair. crystal blue eyes. one of the knights, he’s pretty sure. and that makes sense. because of course, of course, of course, it’s one of the knights. someone with an upstanding reputation, a safe job, a sunny personality. it makes perfect sense.
so why, then, why on earth does he suddenly feel so bitter?
he glances away, taking a huge swig from his cup. whatever it is, it momentarily clears his senses, so he makes his way back over to the drinks table, trying his best to keep his mind from drifting up, up, above, and off to outer space.
it’s another hour before his attention is drawn away from his drink again. the blonde man is long gone from her side, and it seems she doesn’t really mind all that much, seeing as she’d come over to sit by him.
“so, is there a reason you’ve been staring me down for an hour now, or..?”
her voice is like a breath of much needed fresh air. it’s soft, despite her sharp tone, and somehow.. also sweet. it’s certainly not the kind of voice you’d expect to go around questioning the staring habits of fatui harbingers, but here they are.
he finds himself getting lost in the translucent gleam of her eyes, and sure, go ahead and call him cheesy, but it’s as if two of the brightest stars had been plucked straight from the night sky and placed directly in front of him, where he is unable to look away.
she is not what he expected.
he can’t remember what he says in reply. he can’t remember anything from that point on, actually— that mystery drink of his must’ve been alcohol all along, as the next morning he wakes up with a pounding headache, and much to his surprise, a head full of dark midnight hair nestling itself further into his chest, accompanied by arms wrapping further around his bare waist, and a thin lipped smile pressed against his shoulder.
mona megistus, he learns, is many things.
she is the one who’ll wake him up at what he likes to call the ass-crack of dawn, gently pushing the arms that he loops around her waist aside, and leaving the room to do.. whatever it is she does in the mornings.
she’s the one who refuses to sit by and listen when he tries to push her away, to keep her at a distance. to his surprise, she pushes back, blocking each lash of his forked silver tongue with her own fiery dagger.
she knows he’s not perfect, she knows exactly what the true nature of his work is, and she cares not for the burns that dagger of hers will etch onto her skin, with the way she tightly grips it as if it is her only means of getting through to him.
she’s the lighthouse he finds himself running back to as soon as the waves begin to feel choppy, when the clouds above his head thunder loudly in his ears and the strikes of lightning dance as if they are out for his head.
during sunny days, that relentless light of hers somehow manages to shine even through the waves that splash around him, the tide carrying him to shore should his head dip below water.
she had tiptoed her way into his life with all the grace and poise of a trained dancer, the storms and steel walls he’d placed in her path crumbling to dust as soon as they are met with the pure force of nature that is mona megistus.
it scares him, sometimes, being as open to someone as he is with her. how long, he finds himself thinking. how long until that seemingly eternal flame dies out, and he is left with nothing but ashes?
to someone like scaramouche, the word eternity is an empty one.
when it’s falling from mona’s lips, however?
different story.