Page Eight

"Shouldn't be too bad unless you, too, ran into trouble with Santa's little helpers in person, I'd guess." She smiled, and spoke just a tad more quietly than usually, not wanting to rub the incident under Sebastian's... ears, in this case.

"Sorry, Perry."

Perry leaned over and carelessly hooked a couple of bottles, throwing one to Suitov. "You first."

Baskerville rolled over on his back and wagged on general principle. Suitov uncorked the thing carefully, half ready to mute his hearing in case there should be more screeching or delightful explosions.

It looked like a light breeze carried snow, no, apple petals out of the bottle. They swirled around in a loose cloud, accompanied, not quite fitting, by a smell of ripe apples.

He laughed in delight. "And that's Applestone Early if I'm not mistaken. Wonderful."

The upside-down Baskerville snapped at a few falling petals, insubstantial though they were.

The uniformed one looked around shiftily before opening her bottle. She'd absolutely no clue what would come out, and, well... you know.

Nico beamed when she saw Suitov's reaction. Well, that seemed to be a success.

What came out of Perry's bottle (which happen to be green), was a biblical plague of modest proportions. About a dozen small, bright green frogs crawled and hopped out of it and started a croaking concert. A few of them landed on the piano.

Perry began conducting them.

A guffaw could be heard from the general direction of the Fox.

Nico sat down suddenly. The effort of not laughing loud and thereby disturbing the concert and staying upright was a bit much. It brought her face to face with one of the frogs, who was climbing onto the stopper of one of the unopened bottles.

When it reached the top, it seemed to watch Nico curiously. This was not helpful.

Sebastian coughed and regained his composure for the most part. He decided to just smile as it was amusing after all. The pale half-elf squinted at the scene and felt a bit sad that he didn't have enough artistic talent to paint the sight in a way that did it justice. Despite all his years, there were few socially useful things he was good at aside from his general charm and ability to navigate in the stormy waters of society.

Other than that, being extremely hard to imprison, kill or capture were not very interesting or likable qualities, although they were of course a comfort of sorts.

Sebastian gave a sigh and wandered a little closer to appreciate the detail of the situation. He stopped to smile at Nico's amusement absent-mindedly before changing his mind again: he made his way to the piano, where he set his glass next to a frog and sat in front of the piano.

This done, he turned around momentarily to raise an eyebrow at the others and to smile. His fingers soon found the keys.

A hop, no splash, and then a frog was sitting quite happily in Sebastian's glass. It gave its croaking a slight echo.

It was just as well Nico didn't see that. She had calmed down and was only occasionally chuckling, and now listened to Sebastian playing. Sitting very nearly under the piano wasn't that ideal a spot, but she stayed put.

So did Sylvie, watching and listening from a bit of a distance. Her interests, as far as her own learning was concerned, had mostly been just random or, even more, just plain useful things, rather than socially useful ones. It left her feeling a bit out of place in company occasionally.

He wasn't a great genius of a pianist but put quite a lot of feeling into a song - whatever it was he was playing. It had a melody that was about as modern as an undead music academy professor, which of course was no indication of the quality of this particular piece. It was at first merry with low notes, but as it progressed, the higher notes came to sound bittersweet.

Just as quickly, the melody changed into a more reserved, quiet one. There were a couple of places where the melody seemed a little disjointed. The pianist hardly noticed this. He simply smiled at the frog in his glass, his pale face hinting at reserved amusement.

His glass wasn't half-empty or half-full, it had a bloody frog in it!

Suitov glanced upwards and tweaked the lights (no great feat there; the controls opened up to the slightest mental touch).

The artificial starlight grew softer, more intimate - and faintly coloured in a slowly-shifting spectrum.

Perry'd stopped waving her arms around, electing just to listen instead.

Nico curled up and bit into her sleeve trying not to laugh again and ruin the mood. The thought damn, and I have no lighter to wave on top of it all was just too much.

There was no pause in the music despite the half-elf giving the lights a cursory glance of both amusement and approval. Unlike Nico, he wasn't above a little laughter, soft and amused. "No dancing, no conversation?" he called over the music as it changed into waltz momentarily. "Show some festive spirit, ladies, gentlemen and hounds," he smiled. "Talk away."

And the music continued, returning back to reserved, easy to listen background music (that had a devilish hook). Sebastian cast a look at the frog in his glass before realising he wasn't really thinking about what he was playing anymore. It flowed.

He just tossed his braid over his shoulder absent-mindedly.

Nico shot Suitov the kind of amused-angry look you give someone who made your ribs ache with laughter. A deep breath later she looked around. Nothing to talk about came to mind, so she turned to the nearest person, smiling brightly.

"Baskerville! Do you dance?"

Suitov's response to the accusatory look was an expression of part impishness, part innocence. Can't imagine what makes you think it was me, but all right, I couldn't resist a private joke with the scenery. Just not one any of you would appreciate, even if I explained... But that was all right; he'd got used to that.

Small talk with Sarina had dried up as the sorceress increasingly obviously wanted to be alone with her thoughts. He looked round for Sylvie: by the window, another one seemingly pondering the universe.

It went without saying that you weren't allowed to tell people if they looked particularly cute as a brown study. Killjoy.

In the few seconds these and other thoughts took to come and go, Baskerville had rolled to his feet, tail thrashing at the air as though trying to drive off a snake. "You asking?" he said, and his inability to keep his feet still left no doubt that he would if she was.

So Nico was engaged; that left Perry, and she was watching Sebastian play with a kind of lazy interest. Music was one of Suitov's areas of near-complete ignorance. He knew a fair slice of theory, understood the mechanics involved, could relearn to read the notation easily enough, but had daydreamed through his appreciation lessons.

When your childhood consisted of mostly reading, long walks alone outdoors and tutelage interspersed with occasional formal gatherings, you got to think of music as something that was there in the background, or wasn't.

At least here nobody's boring, twiggish daughter had got up to sing. He'd never been able to meet their eyes.

Royal duty discharged, unless one of the contemplatives woke up and rejoined the gathering; that meant he was able to chat with a clear conscience to one of the servants.

Nico bounced to her feet, only to bow with a flourish and, naturally, a grin.

"Sir, I would be delighted if you deigned to grant me the honour of a dance."

Baskerville playbowed in turn before rearing on his haunches. If he could hook his front feet over her forearms he'd be able to balance without leaning too heavily on her. There was enough grip underpaw.

Nico extended her hands, so that her underarms were held horizontal, and her palms pointed up. It was just the first thing that came to mind; a bit like trying to catch someone who might fall over.

Thus supported, Baskerville scampered around on his hindfeet as nimbly as he could, which was surprisingly so, and roughly in time to the music.

His mouth was open, tongue uncurled in a silent laugh.