Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-One - Once is Happenstance, Twice is Enemy Action

Amaryllis and I got some looks as we swept around the second level balcony on a route aiming to the opposite side. Or maybe it was mostly me who was getting the looks because I was carrying a plate covered in one of every kind of snack they had set aside.

“What’s this one called?” I asked as I raised one of the... were they called hors-d'œuvres?

Amaryllis glanced my way, then rolled her eyes. “That’s just a bit of biscuit with some cold cuts,” she said. “I don’t doubt the chefs have a name for it, but I don’t think anyone would bother learning it.”

“Well it’s yummy,” I said, plopping the whole thing in my mouth.

Her reaction was to shake her head, but I caught that little bit of a smile she was trying to suppress. “You’re making a scene,” she said with a gesture all around us.

I really wasn’t. There were some people looking our way, but the way they looked wasn’t the sort you’d get from making a scene, more like they were keeping an eye around them while trading gossip with their friends. There were circles around some loud people who were telling stories, often punctuated by tittering laughter, and some of the more fancy people had entire retinues of slightly less fancy people all around them.

Really, other than the venue, species, food, and culture in general, it was just like a barbeque back home.

“Do you want one?” I asked as I wiggled the plate around next to her. It earned me a flat look from the harpy, but she did relent and took a little sausage stuck on the end of a wooden skewer.

“Rose and Awen are over there,” Amaryllis said with a nod to the far end of the room.

“Should we go see them?” I asked. “I felt like this was more an event to, you know, mingle with new people that we haven’t met before. And not people like that Francisco guy. Nice ones.”

“It may have flown past your head, being that you are incredibly dense, but I don’t exactly have an overwhelming number of friends here,” Amaryllis said.

“Aww,” I said. “When isn’t this the best time to make new friends?” I moved to intercept her with a hug, but she was too cunning and mean and she ducked under my arm, moving to my other side so that I couldn't side-hug her without shifting my snack plate around.

“Don’t start,” she said. “I’m certain you’ll find someone to annoy into becoming your friend. You can amaze them with your incredibly pedestrian skills.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

“Idiot,” she huffed. It was a happy huff though, so it was okay. “Rose seems to have found an old fiancee of her own to argue with.”

I looked over to the far end of the room. Rosaline and Awen had found a quiet enough spot right next to the rails overlooking the dancefloor below. They were holding hands, which was very cute, but there was a young harpy man wiggling a talon right in front of Rosaline’s face and talking in a low growl that I couldn’t understand from where I was, but I could tell it wasn’t happy.

“Maybe they need help?” I asked.

And then the harpy took a goblet of wine and splashed it across Awen’s front before spinning on a heel and walking off.

I gasped in time with Awen. Amaryllis’ reaction was a lot more visceral. “Go see Rose and Awen.”

“What? What about you?”

Amaryllis cracked her knuckles. “I’m going to see if the staff can dispose of corpses.”

I yoinked Amaryllis back before she had time to stomp off. “Wait, wait, no killing the mean nobles,” I said. “Let’s both make sure our friends are safe first.”

We arrived to find Rosaline sponging the wine off of Awen’s front while Awen ‘awawad.’ “That jerk,” Rosaline was muttering. “Coming over here and not taking ‘because you’re an idiot’ for an answer. Who does he think he is?”

“Are you okay?” I asked as I stepped closer. The damage to Awen’s dress... was pretty bad. But I was sure I could clean it off in a jiffy. “Oh no,” I said as I tugged at some of the soggy red-stained cloth over Awen’s top. “I can clean this off.”

Amaryllis placed a hand on my shoulder. “Do it in the washroom,” she said before turning back to Rosaline. “Did that come out of nowhere or did you provoke the idiot?”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly friends with him, but that reaction was a bit much,” Rosaline said.

Amaryllis nodded. “Yeah. Francisco was also being a bigger jerk than usual. I’m beginning to suspect some sort of conspiracy here.” She pointed off to one side. “Broccoli, want to bring Awen over to get cleaned? Rose and I will find Clem and compare notes. Food hasn’t even been served yet, World damn it.”

“Uh, alright,” I said. Awen finally let go of Rosaline and stepped up next to me. “We’ll be back in a bit.”

“Take your time,” Amaryllis said.

I was a bit worried, but Amaryllis probably had things in talon, so I walked up next to Awen and we moved away from our friends. “Are you really okay?” I asked Awen.

“Um. Things were really nice until that harpy showed up,” Awen said. She grew a faint little blush. “Really nice. We were just talking about ships and then he showed up and started being very rude. He called me an... uncouth word, and then Rosa started telling him off. It was very sudden.”

“Huh,” I said. Maybe there really was a conspiracy going on? One targeting the Albatross girls? It could be a coincidence, of course, but Amaryllis didn’t think so. “Why do you think people would be mean to the Albatross?” I asked.

“Awa... there could be lots of reasons, but, uh, it’s usually about either money or power,” Awen said. “Back home my parents worked hard to stay at the top, and to make sure that they had a finger in every business that was starting to grow big. Maybe the airship business is becoming that way?”

“You’d think they would have acted before,” I said.

“There wasn’t a possibility of a war before. That will mean lots of ships, and lots of money and power to the people making those ships,” Awen said. “If the Albatross can decide who gets to captain them, then that’s even more power for them.”

“That’s a dumb reason to embarrass people at a ball,” I said. “How will that help anyone?”

Awen squirmed a bit. “It’s about appearances. For the Albatross to be able to function they probably need contracts and workers and all sorts of things to go right. If people think that they’re not trustworthy, or if they think that the family has a lot of, um, drama going on, then they’ll maybe reconsider working with them.”

I scowled at the floor. “That’s silly,” I said.

“It’s how it works,” Awen replied.

We found a washroom at the back, an open room with a maid by the entrance who asked us if we needed assistance with anything, but I waved her off and said that we were alright.

The inside of the washroom had a fountain and some benches next to banks of flowers in big pots. That was before reaching the sinks at the back or the little corridors leading off to what I assumed were the actual toilets. It was bigger than my home back on Earth.

“Fancy,” I said.

Awen shrugged. “Some ladies spend a lot of time here. It’s... quieter.”

I didn’t ask if she was one of those ladies that ran off to hide during balls back in Mattergrove. “Let’s see about cleaning off that wine,” I said. “I can’t believe someone would try to ruin someone else’s dress like that.”

I heard steps from deeper in the washroom but politely ignored them until someone cleared their throat. “Do you need any assistance with that?”

Awen and I turned and both looked down at the same time as we faced a sylph. She was rather short, a full head and a bit shorter than me, with long black hair that had gone grey on the edges and big eyes that had the wrinkles that some people grew when they smiled a lot.

“Hi!” I said. “And thanks for the offer, but I think I’ve got this one.” I pinched my tongue between my teeth and allowed a nice big glob of cleaning magic to form over my hand. A swipe down wiped the front of Awen’s dress clean of any wine. “See.”

“Impressive,” the sylph lady said. “Most people don’t bother learning Cleaning magic, despite its utility.”

“I learn it for fighting, really,” I said. “It’s handy in a lot of other ways too. You just need to be creative.”

The woman blinked, then smiled a little. “I see. If you don’t mind me asking, what is a bun and a human doing at a harpy ball about visiting Sylphfree?”

“Oh, we’re going to Sylphfree too,” I said. “We have our own ship and everything.”

“Do you?” she asked.

Awen nodded. “Yes. Um. Broccoli is our captain.”

I blinked. We hadn’t actually decided that, but I wouldn’t say no to the title. “Yeah, sure. Awen here’s our mechanic. She’s real good.”

“Interesting,” the lady said. “I’m being rather rude. My name is Evalyn Sunshrike, countess of Granite Springs.”

“Neat,” I said. “I’m Broccoli Bunch, and this is one of my very best friends, Awen Bristlecone.”

“Hello,” Awen said.

“A pleasure,” Evalyn said. “Bristlecone, that’s from Mattergrove? And Bunch... I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the name, but I do believe most buns are from Cinderrun to the far west, so that’s little surprise.”

“Oh, nah, I’m from Earth,” I said. “And I’m a human... was a human?” I gestured to my normal, non-bun ears. “See.”

“Oh,” she said. “Even more interesting. A person that had a racial change and who’s the captain of her own ship at... you can’t be more than eighteen.”

“Around there,” I agreed. “What about you? Why’re you at the ball?”

Evalyn gave me a shrewd look. “Why, to see all the bickering and in-fighting of course. There’s not nearly as much of that back home, so I take what pleasure from the drama that I can.”

“Really?” I asked. “Oh, can you tell us about the sylphs? We’ll be going there soon and it’d be really neat if we didn’t stick out like people who didn’t know anything.”

Evalyn made a noise at the back of her throat that I suspected was laughter. “I’m afraid there’s little chance of that. But I can certainly give you a few pointers. What do you know about the sylph and our culture?”

“Nothing at all,” I said.

“And yet you’re going to fly over to us soon?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell anyone, we’re being all subtle and political about it,” I said.

“Awa, maybe we shouldn’t have said that,” Awen pointed out.

“Oops?”

The sylph made that laughing noise again. “You two are quite charming, I’ve no doubt that my countrymen would absolutely hate dealing with you.”

“Huh?”

She nodded. “Oh yes. As much as I love my nation it’s rather... mired in bureaucracy. Anything that doesn’t fit into its own neat little box tends to get on the nerves of some of my fellows. I think that if you do want to visit, you should try playing up the fact that you’re clueless foreigners.” Evalyn’s smile was almost predatory. “That way you can catch them off guard.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea. I’m really good at looking like I’m clueless,” I said.

Evalyn actually laughed out loud at that. “If you girls are done here, would you like to meet some of my comrades? Maybe they’ll be able to help you on your trip over to Sylphfree.”

I nodded. “I think that would be really nice,” I said.

***