“It’s Satinalia. It’s going to be chaotic, and crowded, and-”
“I thought you were a city elf?”
“Doesn’t mean I like it,” Rook muttered, hands on hips and waiting by the Eluvian with Neve, the instigator for the evening ahead.
Bellara and Harding were next to appear, and it struck Rook that this was the first time outside the lighthouse she’d seen them in anything but camping gear. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Bellara looked ethereal, having conspired with Neve for days on their outfits. Settling on a gauzy, cream dress, cinched with a corded belt. A gold mask matched to sunburst tiara. Meanwhile, Neve was competition for the Viper, all greens, blacks, and serpentine charm.
Rook, predictably, was in armour. Although she’d at least gone to the effort of using her ceremonial garb and polished up each plate to mirrors. Harding had surprised her earlier with an, admittedly haphazard, Griffon mask she’d stitched together with leather scraps and discarded feathers from Assan. She couldn’t tell who’d been more awkward when it had been handed over, but wore it now, albeit with the occasional tickle.
The biggest surprise had been Harding herself, in red tunic, gold epaulettes, and blue sash. Bellara asked where on earth she’d found the costume, awed, but she’d shrugged it off as “just some old thing.”
“But, you’re like an Orlesian prince!” she fawned, impulsively stroking the satin sash before apologising profusely. Harding laughed wryly and raised her mask, asking Bellara to tie it in as the perfect distraction.
When Taash appeared, they were even less original than Rook with Dragon-scale armour and the same scaled mask as Neve.
“I’m a dragon. Duh.”
The final trio drifted in at last. Lucanis had relished the opportunity to preen, unmistakably corvid. Emmrich opted for a skeletal glamour over a mask.
“The pair of you aren’t even dressed up!” Harding complained as they gathered by the Eluvian.
“Neither’s Rook!”
“Davrin’s barely even dressed,” Lucanis hissed, glancing across to the Warden.
“Jealous?” he smirked back, teeth glinting under the ghoulish mask he’d carved and varnished for the occasion. Although that was the extent of his effort. Otherwise, he was bare-chested and wearing tattered black breeches.
“Knock it off, boys,” Neve interjected and rolled her eyes. “Save it for Satinalia.”
***
“You can dance?!”
Red-faced, Harding shushed Bellara and glanced around as if expecting Venatori and not the crippling embarrassment of being perceived.
“A little… Yeah.”
“You’re full of surprises, little prince,” Rook teased, fuzzy-headed and nudging her with an elbow . Their grin windened as Lace grew pinker, ignoring her kick under the table.
“I knew I should have thought of a better costume,” Lace whined, considering throwing herself off the pier if the evening continued at the same trajectory. Bellara’s wide-eyed awe made her itch, but it wasn’t as bad whatever that scrutiny Rook had going on was.
“You can’t not show us!” Bellara persisted, leaning across the table. “Just imagine, us all sneaking in to dance, unknown in our masks. You could be swept off your feet by a handsome stranger! He falls for you, as you move together beneath the rising moon, and when the fireworks begin he lifts his mask, and-”
“That’s not happening,” Lace insisted firmly, shaking her head and laughing it off. Bellara’s face fell, but she quickly perked back up.
“You will dance though, right? I’ll dance with you! Please, Harding-”
“Alright! Alright,” Lace relented, “We can have one dance. But you’re so much taller than me, and I’m rusty.”
“YES!” Bellara shot up, needing no second assent. She grabbed the dwarf’s hand and pulled her away. Lace looked back wide-eyed to where Neve and Rook were still at the table before she was swallowed by the taller crowd.
The moment’s silence was broken by Neve’s low chuckle.
“So, the scout can dance? Who’d have thought.”
“Not me,” Rook agreed, raising her ale to her lips. She expected comfortable silence to settle between them as it often had at the fish fry or the Swan. But it wasn’t to be.
“Weren’t you tempted to join them?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Neve laughed then, shaking her head, “Rook, I think you’re forgetting a slight handicap I might have there.”
“I don’t know,” Rook shrugged, “You seem graceful enough to me.”
She rolled her eyes, and Rook got the suspicion they’d said something wrong other than their jest.
“I meant you and Harding.”
That stopped Rook, brow creasing, and she conveniently hid herself behind her tankard with another swig of ale.
“What about us?”
“Come on, Rook! I know it isn’t your forte, but you don’t need to be a detective to-”
“To what, Neve?”
Neve fixed her with a glare now. Rook felt chilled to the bone without the hint of any magic. The pair held each other’s gaze. Rook was first to buckle and glance away. Neve hummed and lifted her own tankard, draining the last of the wine within.
“I’m going to find Emmrich, if he’s still exploring the market. Why don’t you follow Bel? Harding might need some protection before she gets too carried away.”
The tankard was replaced on the table and she stood, offering nothing more than a wave as she left Rook behind with beer and inadequacy.
***
“Oh no, oh no… Harding?” Bellara took another jog around the square, squeezing apologetically between bodies and embraces. “Lace?!”
Harding had left to grab a drink, but two quadrilles had passed and she’d not come back. She couldn’t tell if she was more anxious for herself being left alone in the crowd, or that her friend had seemingly vanished.
Harding, however, was more confused than she had been all night.
She’d been pouring apple juice, praying it wasn’t cider, when a whisper bid her to follow. The hand on her shoulder made it clear it was no request. She tried to glance behind her to see who was steering her away from the square, but her peripheral vision was blocked by the mask.
“Who are you? Where are you taking me?” she asked, steeling herself.
“Now, now, Nara,” the voice murmured. It wasn’t coming from above her so it had to be another dwarf. “Gherlen’s been waiting for you. He thought you weren’t going to show up,” he continued, and she could hear the sneer in his words. “I admit, the costume threw me. Fantastic choice, though. No one would ever suspect it was you.”
Lace’s mind raced, too busy trying to piece together the little he’d given away to dwell on the farce that was mistaken identity. At a masquerade. Nara must be another dwarf, and Gherlen was a noble house…
“Why didn’t he leave without me?” she asked, playing along, baiting for more information. The other dwarf chuckled.
“After everything you’ve put him through?! There’s no way he could leave without his little Noble Hunter. Even to the last, you’re testing him. Good show.”
Now Lace panicked. Nara was eloping.
“I’m not Nara,” she tried, knowing it was weak, to be anwered by a hearty laugh, the sound rough and throaty like the depths of the earth, not his stomach.
“Oh! Still, you’re testing! By the Stone-”
“No, really, I’m not!” she repeated, firmer now and tried to twist her arm out of his grip, but he held fast.
***
Rook had caught Bellara in her arms, mascara-streaked and vibrating with nerves, and tried to soothe with a murmur of Elven.
“Harding’s gone!”
“She’s probably just tried to escape another dance,” Rook chuckled, but Bellara's head shook, gripping the other elf’s wrists and dragging them back towards the square.
“No, she wouldn’t! She said she was getting a drink, and never came back. I haven’t seen her for nearly an hour. Rook! Please-”
Rook was still dubious but knew that it wasn’t the most unbelievable thing to happen to them. And Bellara’s persistence did fan an ember of fear in her gut.
“Okay, we can look. Let’s get Davrin to help, he’s better at tracking. Or Neve?”
“We’ll find Davrin faster!” Bellara insisted, slipping her hand down her friend’s wrist to her hand and pulled her along to find the third elf of the Veilguard. How hard would it be to find an ogre amongst the pomp of the evening?
***
Lace had tried to follow each twist of alley as they moved, navigating escape routes as they walked and realising pretty quickly they were heading for the slipway. She'd also noticed there were two men behind her, not just the dwarf at her arm.
It was the quietest she’d ever seen the docks, stalls shut up as vendors peddled further in the city where the party was. Most of the boats waited sailless, but one was trimmed and poised upon the waves for shores anew.
“Nara! I thought you’d got cold feet.” Another dwarf stepped off the gangway and made his way towards them. No mask, but outfitted in a costume that Harding could only guess was meant to be a titan. She could've laughed at the audacity.
He reached for her hands as he met them, leaned to kiss her cheek. She shrank away with a grimace. “Now you’re playing coy? Isn’t this everything you wanted?” he asked, his teasing not entirely hiding the spite behind his words.
“I’ve tried to tell your goon here, I’m not Nara,” Harding growled, tugging her arms away, but his grip tightened. Plus with the pair who’d led her there, and another on the boat, even she wasn’t sure of her odds if she managed to break away.
***
“Someone saw two dwarves and a human heading for the docks. Said one of them was in a red coat.”
Davrin jogged back to Bellara and Rook, who didn’t seem to pause before steering towards the waterside.
“Can’t we have one fucking night without something happening?!” Rook muttered as the trio hustled through throngs towards the slipway.
Once they got to the waterside, it didn’t take long to realise where Harding had to be. Only one ship was tacked, a cloaked man untying the rope mooring.
“What’s the plan?” Bellara asked, slowing to a walk with Davrin, but Rook passed them at a sprint.
“ROOK! Maker’s breath-”
The elf launched herself at the man, the pair almost tumbling into the water. She’d come at him with a flying pace, but he was evidently no stranger to brawls and large. They grappled on the cobbles.
“What have you done with her?!”
“Fuck off, knife ear-”
“WHERE’S LACE!”
Both sides were elbows and knees. Rook managed to land one solid blow to his jaw before Davrin pulled her off, feet briefly kicking at air. The unknotted rope, forgotten, began to be dragged under its own weight to the water.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” the man snarled, a satisfying split in his lip.
“The female dwarf,” Davrin snapped. “Who I suggest you let out before I let my friend here go,” He threatened, Rook looking positively feral in her gleaming plate, feathers falling from her mask with every thrash towards the strange dwarf.
The stranger just scoffed, and without a word, turned and kicked the last of the rope away, casting the boat adrift.
“No, no, no, no!” Bellara sprang forward to catch it, but the waterlogged length below pulled deeper, and she had to let go before she was dragged with it into the sea. Davrin swore and dropped Rook. She leapt at the boat. Davrin hesitated, unsure whether to follow the leader or stay with Bellara, not wanting to leave her with the dwarf. But when he glanced back, her hands were aglow.
“Go!”
He jumped, an explosion flattened him to the deck. Drawn by the clamour, a dwarf emerged from below.
“What the-”
He didn’t finish. Davrin’s fist sent him reeling back into the darkness below. Rook shouldered the cabin door, and he stepped up beside her. As one, they barged it down with a crack of splinters and stumbled. Rook went straight into the solid form of another dwarf, whose arms grabbed onto her for balance, and after a beat, tightened with realisation.
“Thank the maker!” Harding panted, clinging to Rook. Behind her, a blond dwarf with a gold-beaded beard lay prostrate.
“What the hell happened?!” Rook began, squeezing Lace in return before she finally broke away.
“They thought I was with them… Can we leave? I can tell you on dry land,” she insisted and made for what remained of the door.
“You might need to swim,” Davrin answered dryly, ushering the two women out on deck ahead of him.
“You found her!”
The relief was clear in Bellara’s voice, but she was cut off by Davrin.
“Push that plank out. See if it’ll reach us before we drift away!”
Straining, Bellara dragged the timber to the pier’s edge and heaved outward, Davrin strained over the side of the boat to grab it. Seeing it coming short, Harding pushed past to grab a coil of rope.
“Bel, Catch!”
The plank splashed into the water, the rope taught as Bellara hastened to wind it around the pillar, planted her feet firmly. Braced. “And how am I meant to stop a boat?!”
Davrin was already overboard, cut through the water in three strokes, and clambered up onto the pier beside her. While she anchored the rope, he began hauling the boat back toward the slipway.
The two leapt back onto the pier. Bellara tumbled into Lace, hugging her quickly. “Thank the Gods! I was so worried.”
“I’m alright,” Harding promised.
Davrin stood dripping beside them, arms crossed over his bare chest. “Then why did we just have to drag you off a boat?”
She sighed. As the group began walking back towards the centre of Dock Town, she began to explain.
***
After an hour of reassurances, the group began peeling away in twos and threes again. With the ease of breathing, Rook found herself with only Harding in the Swan. They’d barely shared a word, something hanging between them, pulling like a Fade tear.
“So…” Rook began, smirking to cover any awkwardness. “Kidnapped by a noble? And you didn’t fancy stepping up a caste?”
“Absolutely not."
“Was it the threat of nobility that turned you off, or his beard?”
“Both,” she teased back, managing a smile now and grateful for Rook’s insistence on joking, whatever the circumstance. It lifted the mood, as much as she was still trying to get her head around what had happened. “This has to be the most chaotic Satinalia I’ve had so far.”
“And the fool’s not even made any proclamations yet.”
Harding glanced down at her mask again, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Silence seeped syrup-thick between them once more. Even without her there, Rook felt the frost of Neve’s glare on the back of her head.
You and Harding.
Rook swapped to the chair beside Lace. She plucked the griffon mask up off the table, now patchy from feathers lost in the scuffle, and held it towards her.
“Mind helping me get this back on?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Rook turned away and while she held the mask in place, Harding carefully tied it under their disheveled bun.
“Thanks… And again, for the mask.”
“You’re welcome. And, you don’t have to. It’s silly…”
“It was thoughtful.”
Something crackled other than the fire in the grate behind them. Rook felt prickling like lyrium across the back of her neck where Lace’s fingers had brushed against her.
After a moment, she cleared her throat nervously and stood again, offering her hand.
“Scout Harding… I heard you’re a bit of a dancer?” She teased, smirking beneath the griffon’s beak. “Would you grant me the honour?...”
“I thought you didn’t dance?” Lace answered, raising an eyebrow but took the offered hand and stood. Rook picked up the burnished mask in her free hand and helped Lace put it back on.
“There’s a time and a place for anything.”
Without the rest of the party there, she allowed herself a moment to admire Lace. Who looked away coyly but seemed to glow as blush rose in her cheeks.
“I can’t really reject my Warden in shining armour,” She quipped back, bumping a shoulder into Rook. Fingers entwined with hers, they began a slow walk back into the festival.
“You rescued yourself. ...But I’m certainly not going to complain.”