Page Three

The rhymes and puns were whizzing overhead like crazed humming... on second thought, making even more avian comparisons would probably be overstuffing the cushion. Vampire remained firmly grounded throughout the verbal ping-pong, stoic and entirely flummoxed.

All the feathers were enough to give him a headache.

"I don't understand a word they're saying, but at least they seem nice and happy," Tropical Fish remarked to Genie, generating a tiny smile from Vampire.

"Ah well, then we've no cause for argument!
I'd hoped that was the case; and, seeing so,
Will pass around your gracious sentiment
To all the Deaths of Birdies that I know," quoth the Red, appearing a hint dubious for just a second afterward.

Looking rather stunned at the rhyming display, owl takes a few nervous steps backwards, promptly bumping into the white dragon. Punch sloshes over the edge of her goblet and her face colours to the exact hue of the wishbringers pink headdress.

Good form, but I got you, no? Now let's see if we can end this before I trip over my tongue... Which was rather keen on the game and already busy.

"I admit I am intrigued
and'd like to hear some more
about those Deaths I never heard of before."

Awkward. Kingfisher missed a beat or two, not deliberately. aaaah!

"I feel I'm far out of my league,
Must I regretfully confess
That for this birdie-brain on mine
Constant rhyming's too much stress.
I shan't waste more of your time,
But bow low to your artfulness."

And it did, taking care to include both of them - it didn't want to offend Black.

Once standing upright again, Kingfisher said, voice again low, soft and non-declamatory, "Mylords, for me this is a night to remember. It is a great honour and pleasure to talk to you. But if you'd excuse me? I rather fancied those liquorice fishes."
On the last sentence it let the polite smile grow wider and cheerful. This was a game that had grown a bit too serious and needed breaking up.

"Come come, you're high in our esteem.
It's not so simple as it... seem."

The mistake Black made with the rhyme seemed intentional. He indicated with a nod that Kingfisher was free to do as it pleased and let it be.

Red surveyed the room. "The turnout pleases me, I must admit."

"Elaborate costumery," Black returned.

"The subterfuge, the matching wit for wit..."

"A motley people-potpourri."

"'Tis strange how my persona seems to fit."

"As does your hat, admittedly."

"How prettily this party hall is lit."

"That scarecrow there misliketh me," Black ended in a slightly incongruous note.

Pumpkin candles flickered. The tropical fish's blue eyes, which had been rather round at the beginning of the evening, were steadily closing. She hadn't touched the party food for a while.

The clock began chiming eight, coinciding with a big yawn from Fara. "I'm not sleepy," she murmured to preempt anyone who'd dare suggest she miss the end of the festivities.

Vampire Lord regarded her with gentle amusement. "With the amount of candy you ate, I'm really not even a bit surprised."

Bustle, quiet clinking and a comingling of savoury smells from the far side of the hall signified that the servants had almost finished laying the long table for the feast.

Vampire, turning slightly so that those leathery wings weren't obscuring his vision, gave the group of fellow guests a once-over. From the look of him, he was more than ready to get on with things.

As Kingfisher turned back to the table, it noticed the Owl looking rather flustered. Maybe a distraction would be in order...

It quickly maneuvered itself back to the table and reached for something. As it touched the plate, there was a zapping noise, a small spark, and a way more noticeable flapping bird.

"Awrrright", it growled, and glanced at its hand for a moment. One fingertip was looking pale and feeling numb. As it continued, Kingfisher's tone quickly subsided from angry to disappointed, and over all was entirely different from the cultivated voice it used before. "Whoever set up this little trick had their fun. Would be nice if someone could make sure no-one else gets hurt." That kind of prank was just rude, unless it had been clear beforehand things like that were to be expected.

Well, you could call that a distraction. Kingfisher had to smile. It apologised to whoever was nearest, scooped up something from a tray and palmed it, and made its way next to the Owl.

During the poetic debate between the kingfisher and the deaths, the swashbuckler wannabe hovered inconspicuously around the hall, drawing little attention to herself during the distraction. In fact, she was busy setting various traps around the perimeter, careful not to visit areas where other people hadn't gone to. She didn't want to be remembered as "the only one who went near that scarecrow", for instance. This severely limited her options, but she preferred it to the increased chance of getting caught. While papa Fochs seemed keen on building a reputation, she considered anonymity more useful.

As to what she'd done to the place... It ranged from subtle to juvenile. She moved objects on the floor to positions where they'd be easier to trip on while passing by, coated pitcher handles and other surfaces with unpleasantly sticky substances in the process of filling her own plate with more sweet stuffs, and rigged some of the pumpkins to shriek in maniacal laughter when someone passed by.

She kept her mean streak in check, as she didn't want to ruin the party altogether by frightening off any guests. The spells would dissipate after the first discharge, leaving little to no magical trail to follow. The stickiness would generally... stick, unfortunately, until washed off with water. She kept the semi-permanent stuff firmly unused in her pocket.

One of the scarecrows got special treatment. It was one of her favourite ready-made spells that would animate a humanoid shape and cause it to lumber around the area zombie-like, homing in on the closest moving objects. She could never know when the spell would take effect, but she considered the indeterminable incubation a bonus.

Stored, ready-to-use spells were practically the only type of magic she did nowadays. It was just so convenient and didn't cost much in terms of magical energy when released. It was good to save some energy for a quick getaway if things went wrong. The unfortunate aspect of this style was that she had to take a few days off now and again to recharge the spells, taking a relatively huge chunk out of her resources, both magical and mundane. To the world this was possibly a good thing, as it meant a few days' break from the minor but insistent mischief of hers.

She had returned to the party by the time the kingfisher got zapped, looking suitably sympathetic, disguising her pride in her ability to get away with something like this in front of witnesses.

"Good evening." Kingfisher addressed Owl with a friendly smile, voice quiet - it wanted to cheer her up a bit; making her the center of a show would probably do the opposite. Not that it had any plan for shows, anyway.

"I just noticed the buffet included these, and wondered if you might like one?" The smaller bird opened its hand slowly, and there sat a white marshmallow mouse.

Kingfisher split its attention between the owl and what it could see of the rest of the company, wondering if someone was preparing more tricks. The mask was both help and hindrance: while it prevented the eyes from being seen and thus made it hard to judge for others what exactly the bird was looking at, it also limited the field of vision and obscured some details.

The owl looks surprised and then relieved, sharing a friendly smile and a soft laugh with the beautiful bird. She takes the marshmallow mouse by the tail and studies it.

"It's almost looks too cute to eat!" she exclaims, then take a swift bite from its head, her voice slightly muffled as she speaks with a total lack of finesse around the squishy sugar treat, "Well, almost. Mm. I do love your costume!"

"Thank you." The voice grew more lively and raised a bit it pitch as the mask-bearer followed her lead and slipped out of character. "I guess something this flashy is good when you want to play a bit of a clown. Yours, on the other hand, is so simple and elegant - plainly beautiful." Well, maybe not entirely out of character.

As an afterthought, the smile turning small and crooked for a moment, they added, "And your mask doesn't get as heavy as this one."

A servant clapped her hands for attention. "Unmasking time, ladies, gentlemen and others! Dinner is about to be served."

"I sigh to see an end to this charade," Red said, baring his head to take his mask off.

"Not I; ad-libbing all our lines was hard," Black shot back, in an undisguised voice this time, removing his own mask and shaking out his hair. Fresh air. Those damned masks got hot.

"You did all right," Weft said, "though I'm not forgiving you for that 'foxy fortune-seekers' part. I almost choked."

"Oh, it was adequately delivered. We got applause from vulpine quarters, anyway."

Weft threw his hat at him, which Suitov deflected to land atop one of the straw dolls. Weft was already heading elsewhere, though - towards the servants, it seemed, and grinning like a demon.

Suitov pinched the bridge of his nose for a couple of seconds, looking utterly wiped out. Then it was gone and he was once again 'bright of eye and head up high', as they say. He sneaked a look towards one of the other masked guests.

The servant gave a wink to Weft, then raised a hand. "A moment, sorry," said the servant and cleared his throat before he continued, eyes on the monk and Suitov.

"I've little talent with rhyme (and reason),
but for today's trickeries does my heart beat.
Rash repetition (well done, pet) --" an indication toward the false swashbuckler,
"lovely, delicate veils --" he bowed to Fara momentarily,
"-- or that pumpkin-filled smile..."

A pause. He blinked at Vampire.

"None of these are my style," he continued again with a look at Kingfisher.
"For I do not tell tales
of bird-death, nor of conquests. Yet...
the ball, for me, has been a treat.
With that said, let us welcome the season..."

He smiled, waved it off and nodded to the faux swashbuckler. "...with me saying that I hope I've fooled at least someone. It's tricks all around, perhaps treats, if you ask nicely. Could I have the hat for a moment, dear? I'm missing mine, it seems." Sebastian tugged at a dyed lock of hair a little petulantly. And he grinned. "So, Weft, you had me there."

Vampire looked a little annoyed until he realised, with a grin, that people were unmasking. He sighed pleasurably and stretched his wings until something inside the wing attachments snapped and the leathers fell down, revealing blue wings. They stretched and folded, unfolded, and Serpentine gave another sigh, this one of relief. "Damn, that feels good. Didn't guess they'd chafe that much," he muttered to Fara, the sleepy countenance of whom still amused him.

He appeared a little surprised that the Deaths were this Sweet-off guy and that monk person, but the winges wasn't quite as surprised when the damnable servant had turned out to be exactly who he had suspected him to be.

Funnily enough, it was his scent that gave the half-elf away, though.

"Kingfisher" had the mask off in time to listen to the "Servant"'s little speech, and gave him a bright grin. A guise like that spoke of someone with an interesting sense of humour.

The face under the mask belonged probably to a young woman, even if jaw, nose and eyebrows were rather pronounced. She tousled her shortish brown hair; if she knew there was a red stripe across cheecks and nose left by the mask, she did not care, and it would fade on its own, anyway.

Real wings hidden under fake ones, now there was a joke that made her laugh loud in appreciation. What a great party!

The mask tucked under her arm, she looked around if the other guests had surprises of that calibre up their sleeves. She did not expect to meet anyone she knew here, but if there was interest in introductions, that could wait until after unmasking.

Fara gave a double, then triple take at the wings. "...now that's pretty," she pronounced, too surprised to yawn.

With a laugh of pleasure, the red-clad Weft said "Nice denouement. We didn't really fool you, did we?" He was grinning round all the while at the others. The winged man who really was winged made him pause slightly, but he recovered; whoever-it-was certainly wasn't an angel.

When the unmasking was announced, the rogue disguised as another rogue put down the plate onto which she had gathered assorted tidbits. One could wonder whether she could fit in any of the main dishes after sampling practically every sweet stuff she could lay her hands on.

She removed the black robber's mask by tugging loose a convenient string at the back, after being addressed by the post-servile Sebastian. Putting it in her pocket, she reached up for her hat and spoke with mirth and a clear, rather high-pitched, voice. "Hold on, I'll pop it back to size." She took the hat off with unnecessary flourish and reached inside for a second. It did indeed make a small popping sound as it became slightly larger. She tossed it over to its rightful owner.

"I'll need to undo some needlework if you want your clothes back as well", she informed him. "You really shouldn't leave them unguarded while bathing."

She had gone through the trouble to shrink the hat and boots into size because leaving them as they were would have created the type of comic relief she wasn't aiming for.

"I'll do it myself if you just tell me how. And at any rate, I'm not sure I could stop you if you wanted to steal my eyes," Sebastian retorted and pressed the hat on his head, grinning at her and then Weft. "Well, yes, as a matter of fact, yes. Fooled me. Good job. But here..."

He took a few suave strides and ended up behind the false swashbuckler. Sebastian laid his hands on her shoulders, grinning at Weft from behind her. "I'd like you to meet someone special. Goes for the both of you."

Serpentine on the other hand was stretching his wings, back and arms, producing varying snapping and popping sounds. "Thanks. I've got to have something to make up for the face and nose, don't I?" the winges grinned unevenly. "Just don't wait for me to preen. I don't do that. How're you feeling, little one?"

A yawn and a sigh were the only response from the fast-fading Fara fishie.

The hatless red killer put one thought aside to concentrate on being introduced, his face friendly (and amused - that had been so cute). "Ah, yes. I take it you are some relation, then?" he addressed the girl.

Suitov, ever courteous but considerably less austere than his Black persona, made his way over to talk to the kingfisher. He'd quieten down the instant anyone else claimed the limelight to unmask themselves.

Said birdie was delighted, having wished to talk to him, but felt it rude to leave the apparently somewhat shy Owl all alone. She felt slightly uncomfortably out of place herself right now, noting that many of the guests seemed to be good friends already.

Shifting position so they would form a small circle including Owl, she turned to the black-clad beanstalk, raising to her full height of 4'10'' and said, "I hope real introductions all around are in order now. My name's Nico. Again, or still, take your pick, pleased to meet you."

She extended her right in a habitual gesture that sugggested a handshake was a welcome option right now, but could be turned in a rhetorical wave without looking like a complete fool should the other party not feel like it, or have other customs entirely.