Demitri shrugged, then glanced down at Cinthia when he felt her tug at his sleeve. No word were exchanged, but it seemed like they didn't need to be. He rolled up his sleeve so his skin was bare, and Cinthia rolled up hers as well. Skin on skin, their arms were still locked, and nothing visibly happened beyond a simple locking of Cinthia's spine and a slight widening of her now-blank eyes. Just like Wolf, her eyes were covered, so the milky whiteness of them was hidden from view. Inside her mind, she breathed that tether between her and the spy, sorting through his memories to find the conversation he had had with Koralia. There. She watched and listened. Demitri kept walking, though he seemed slightly unfocused.
It took only a few seconds, and then Cinthia peeled away from Demitri. Both tugged down their sleeves and went back to the way they were. The princess looked to Lily. "Kora's curious about you, mostly. She wants to get a feel for you as the lover of her brother in law and as a possible friend. But," Cinthia added with an eye-roll, "Kora's also fond of new things and is bored with the royal family. You're a breath of fresh air, a fellow commoner, if you will."
Lily watched Cinthia and Demetri, ever perceptive and noting the similarities between the vision she'd just witnessed from the princess's twin. She didn't get too much time to question it, though, before she was being spoken to. Lover. The word had her slightly pink in the face, even as she focused on Cinthia's other words, brows furrowing. "I'm not sure I'll be able to help with that…boredom. She'll quickly find I'm not that interesting, even if both of us share minor similarities." The commoner similarities were where those like things ended in Lily's mind. Kora was everything Lily wasn't, gorgeous and confident and from what she had gathered, brilliant. You're surrounded by people better than you every day that you're here. You're with two of them now, who either haven't figured that out yet or just don't care. It'll be fine.
"Kora is…" Cinthia swirled her hand around, searching for a proper adjective to describe her sister-in-law. Demitri beat her to it with an amused twinkle to his eyes. "–an interesting individual with interesting tastes. She volunteers to do the most mundane of tasks and makes it clear that she enjoys it. Actually, she often works down at the library in the main city, sometimes in nearby towns as well."
Cinthia lightly elbowed Demitri, huffing with false annoyance at having him take over her statement. He just smirked and fell silent. They were approaching the doors to the ballroom. "The point is, I highly doubt even Kora knows what bores her or entertains her. Just go talk to her and see how things go. If you'd like to leave, tell Magnus you'd like some wine instead of water."
The furrow between Lily's brows eased slightly as Cinthia and Demetri spoke, and she nodded. It would be fine. She was worried over nothing, but Cinthia had even given her a way out. "Just talk to her. I can-I can do that." She nodded a few more times, spinning Rhydar's ring around her finger as she did. "She likes books?" That was something else they had in common, apparently. When all else failed, she could just talk about books."
"Adores them," Cinthia said, then nodded in greeting to the guards at the doors. Then bowed their heads and opened the doors for the trio, keeping their gazes pointedly away from Demitri as he straightened his spine and darted his eyes around the ballroom. Ever the spy, constantly seeking something to find. It was only the royal children in the vast room, Wolf already picking away at the chocolates. Cinthia's eyes zeroed in on the sweets and slipped away from Demitri, holding her skirts so she could dart over to the table—an action that revealed her lack of shoes. The spy sighed in exasperation and offered a kind smile to Lily. "I hope some good comes out of this boorish party. Enjoy yourself, Lily." With that, he bowed his head and went after Cinthia to scold her about her bare feet and chocolate hoarding.
Kora was sipping some wine, dressed in her usual casual extravagance as she examined some of the paintings up on the domed ceiling of the ballroom. The dress she wore was a baby blue, like the color of the foam formed by a wave, and fell over her body modestly without ignoring her curves. It was simple, almost, the bottom layer thin as it hugged her hips and thighs while the top layer was see-through, draped over her body with flowering lace patterns. The lace was clung low to her chest in a sweeping curve, leaving part of her shoulders bare as it traveled down her arms and loosened its grasp. The cuffs of the sleeves fell nearly down to the floor from where she had her arms near her waist, which was hugged by a wide, sandy cloth belt. From her waist down, the lace flowed freely; the front half stopped mid-thigh where the bottom layer ended, while the back half left a wide train on the floor. Her shoes were simple, just elegant enough to do its job and accent her dress.
It seemed every time Lily found herself alone, her fears found her as well. That icy darkness crawling up from the pit she tried so hard to keep it in, encircling her like the vultures in the stories her mother used to tell her of vast deserts and people with magic in their very blood, in their voices. She was nothing but a half dead and starved animal, running on borrowed time.
So instead of procrastinating the inevitable, in an attempt to procrastinate something else, she made her way over to Kora. She released her bottom lip from her teeth, fiddling with Rhydar's ring as she approached. "Um-I was…told you wanted to speak with me?" She tilted her head, eyes settling on a shade that matched Kora's dress for just a moment before continuing their shifting of colors.
Kora looked down and spotted Lily, her blue eyes sparkling like an ocean in sunlight. Unlike her dress, her face was unadorned, no jewels nor makeup. The only thing she did was her hair, and even then it was simply curl it some. "Ah, the breeze within a house of tornadoes." She gestured for Lily to come closer and pointed up at the ceiling she had been looking at. "Tell me, what do you see up there?" The painting was enchanted, a trick the siblings had put to entertain themselves and mess with curious guests. Not many people looked up, after all.
Lily moved a bit closer as asked, turning her gaze up to the ceiling. She studied the painting, a tiny smile flickering onto her lips as she did. "It almost looks like the gardens of the palace, with so many different flowers. A lot of green, grass and leaves and vines. It's beautiful." She said softly, eyes still on the painting as she continued. "You asked me what I saw like I was supposed to see something. Or like I wasn't supposed to."
Kora ignored her last statement as she tilted her head back and studied the painting. "I see…" she started slowly, eyes drifting over the ceiling. "Castles made of coral, an angry ocean, a beast of fins and fangs, a scaled and colorful people. I see fishermen and dockworkers, merchants squabbling over who has the bigger swordfish." A flicker of a smirk. "I see children playing with sticks and rocks on the shoreline, seashells dancing beneath the surface, gulls stealing bread. I see my home and my culture."
Lily furrowed her brows briefly, before huffing a surprised breath of air, near a laugh. So it as enchanted, or something along those lines. "I almost wish I could see that as well. It sounds incredible. Mostly." She huffed another laugh. "I've never actually been to the ocean, or anywhere close." She admitted, reaching up to run a hand through her hair. "That is where you are from?"
Kora smiled fondly and looked back down to Lily. "I'm originally from a poor fishing village from a different country, but my family came here for vacations when we could afford it. I met Rhydar and Magnus on one such vacation, and then I found myself going on more vacations." She scowled at Magnus from across the room, her husband talking with his brother. "And thus begins his attempts at courting the poor fisherman's daughter."
Lily met Kora's gaze, listening as she talked about how she had met Magnus. Her scowl had Lily pressing a hand to her mouth, to muffle the quiet laughter she couldn't seem to help. "I'm finding that most of them have no concern over wealth or status. Can you really blame him for courting you, though? You're…smart, and stunning." She said, arching a brow slightly.
Kora shrugged, loosely crossing her arms beneath her chest as she looked over her shoulder at Magnus again. She didn't look away from him as she spoke to Lily. "He wasn't the only one, by far. And he was failing miserably at first, doing everything the other suitors were doing. Paying for my vacations, sending letters when we were apart, finding out my favorite flowers and sending them to me, blah blah blah. But when I turned seventeen and moved here permanently, he… changed. Not himself, but his approach. He became my friend." Her gaze drifted to Rhydar, and then the twins. "He was himself, gave up trying, and that's when I fell. And that's what I think is so great about those four. They are themselves no matter the company, save for a few exceptions. They're their best when they aren't trying. Don't you agree?"
Magnus and Rhydar fell into a fit of laughter, the brothers catching up since the last time Magnus has been at the castle. The twins were chatting with one another as the raided the food and wine, Demitri off in the shadows somewhere undoubtedly keeping an eye on everything.
"I do." Lily agreed, her eyes on the brothers now. Or, one of them in particular, a warm smile coming to her face as she watched him laugh. For a moment, she almost forgot she was with someone, blinking as Kora's presence was remembered. "Witnessing someone's self is quite possibly the greatest thing. Them alone, around people they care for. When they're genuine." She said, still unable to rid herself of that smile. "You two, you and Magnus, that is, are….forgive me for saying this, kind of adorable. You seem good for each other."
Kora snorted at that, though she couldn't disagree with Lily's first few statements. "I'd like to argue that I am not adorable, even when paired with that teddy bear." She huffed and looked back to Lily, seeing how she gazed at Rhydar. It reminded her of the way the spy looked at the princess, or how her prince looked at her. The thought made small smile twitch at her lips, but then a thought occurred to her and she whirled around, coming face-to-face with Demitri. He had silently approached them, as if summoned by the woman. "You did it," she said flatly, noting the lack of guests thus far.
"I did," he said, angling his head with slight amusement.
Lily's smile dropped, but she didn't spin around the way Kora had, instead glancing over her shoulder at Demetri. The tensing in her shoulders and spine made it obvious she was startled and on edge, but that was where that stopped. "Did what, exactly?" She asked, voice soft and wary. The lack of guests for this long was strange, and from what she had pieced together, Demetri was the cause of it. Whatever it was.
Demitri rubbed the back of his neck as he looked to Lily instead of Kora, the older woman slightly scary with her piercing and curious stare. "Koralia asked me to cause a diversion to give the royals some time to be themselves before the guests arrived, so I did." He made the mistake of looking to Kora, and he shied away some and went right back to looking at Lily as he answered the woman's silent question. "I released the royal hounds. The guests are not allowed to enter until they're all rounded up. Safety, I presume, and to ease the sounds of shrieking ladies."
Lily studied him for a moment, before huffing a soft breath of air like a laugh. "What an ingenious way of doing so. You've saved us all a few minutes until the sea of men and women in fancy dress and their worst attitudes arrive." She said, the corner of her mouth lifting up slightly. "The hounds, though, aren't going to end up in any harm, right?"
Demitri shook his head, smiling softly. "They're precious to the royal family, Magnus mostly. The most harm that would come to them is perhaps a little too much to eat from their independent hunts around the palace grounds." Kora huffed a small laugh, then flashed Demitri a smirk of approval. "Well done, spy. I would never have thought of doing that." Demitri rose a knowing brow. "I know. You would've caused a more… dramatic scene." Kora just grinned cheekily—and perhaps a little dangerously.
Lily’s shoulders, though she didn’t realize it, had begun to relax some. Maybe she was beginning to be able to handle all of them at once. Or at least a few. “While a bigger spectacle might have been interesting, this does the job well.” She said, eyes sparkling with mirth as she twisted Rhydar’s ring around her finger over and over, thankful for the comfort to counteract the dress’s effects while Rhydar wasn’t there to offer it. Just his presence tended to do that, but for now, the ring worked just fine.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, Rhydar swooped in behind Lily and pressed a ghosting kiss to her neck. "Hey there darlin'," he murmured, letting her know it was him before he wrapped two fingers around each of her wrists. He wouldn't hug her waist just yet, mindful of her issues still. And he had snuck up on her, so he didn't want to push his boundaries too much at once. He looked up, and Kora waggled her fingers in farewell, then tugged Demitri to the drinks with her to give the two of them some time alone before the ball officially started.
Lily froze briefly, shoulders relaxing completely as Rhydar's fingers wrapped around her wrists. Nobody else would do that. Anyone else who ever snuck up on her had exactly one reason to, and tended to go straight for her waist. Easier to control. She tilted her head back to look up at him, a small smile ghosting across her lips a her eyes brightened at the sight of him. "You startled me. I thought you were still talking to Magnus." She said softly, her voice the furthest thing from accusatory. "How are you, dear?"
Rhydar smiled and pressed a kiss to her cheek, then settled his head on her shoulder and nuzzled against the side of her head. "Fine, now that I'm back with you. I'd like to be able to do this for a bit before people start swarming through here and likely us." He didn't want to make Lily overwhelmed by the publicity, so he figured it'd be best if they kept their relationship on the down-low—at least, for now. He didn't want to hide forever, he was too proud of his flower to keep her in the dark for long.
Lily hummed happily, leaning back into him slightly. "I'm not excited for all the people, but I'm glad to get some time with you before hand." She said, her eyes drifting shut as she slowly breathed in that familiar and comforting smell of pine. It wasn't just his scent that was comforting, but him. "Oh! I found flowers in the room, today, from the servants! They were sitting in a little vase when I got back from visiting Danzing." She said, her tone growing slightly excited. "Blue chrysanthemums!"
Rhydar smiled and moved his hands to lightly rest them against her belly, not quite holding her by the waist but just enough. He loved seeing that excited sparkle to her eyes when she talked about the flowers she had received. "I'm going to pretend to know what you're talking about and just say…" He grinned and kissed her cheek. "I'm glad they've taken a liking to you. That don't happen much, and it makes life for you easier. No one likes a grumpy servant. They start stealing socks." He chuckled and closed his eyes breathing in her scent. "Maybe you could figure out who it was that got them for you, make a friend besides my siblings—which are a handful individually—and Kora, an even more of a handful than all of them combined."
