Snippet #1559983

To Ian's surprise, the man introduced as Viviannah vanished as quickly as he had appeared, leaving the rather puzzled man alone with his sister. Jetta seemed to be distracted by something though; not in the way that Ian was often distracted, the rhapsodic twisting and undulation of thoughts that demanded attending to lest they be lost to the nether of errancy, but something else. He surmised the bass beneath his feet that she could not feel might have something to do with it, and all of a sudden, he felt like an obstacle. This was not an unheard-of thing for him, but it was rare that he should be so this soon, and on so many counts. His very nature as a time-carded watchman of society seemed to perturb her, but his physical presence also seemed to be some kind of inhibition on something else.

He felt he had overstayed his welcome, but he was not certain there was any polite way to extricate himself from the moment. Deciding that to be seen as overly brusque or rude was better than being thought of as oblivious or unable to take a hint, he bowed again and excused himself. All of this reminded him so much of the world he had grown up in, only now the people dancing and milling and socializing were for the most part just as out-of-place as he had felt himself then, and himself as faceless as he had always known he was. It was almost poetic, the language of a mask. It made literal something which had always been there not in physicality, but in the very core of his being.

To be only himself, always himself, was for Ian a ridiculous notion. There were precious few who would tolerate that, fewer still who would truly accept it, and none who would understand. He could not expect them to, not when he did not either. He'd read each and every one of the books, tried to put a name to what he was, how he felt, the things he perceived, and disturbingly the closest approximation was a schizophrenic with paranoid delusions. He might have come to accept this, had it fit completely, had the medication changed anything about him except to make him drowsy and sluggish. But it hadnotdidnotcouldnot, and so he was simply an anomaly in his own system.

The air suddenly seemed cloying, and he had to get out, out and away. He would have said far away, but it was not so. Something about this house kept him in orbit of it, an insignificant satellite pulled in by the inexorable tug of gravity, were gravity all nocturnes and sandalwood and doe-eyed children who looked at him with curiosity and fear. He crossed the room with some urgency, but he did not lose his studied composure until he was beyond the doors, and in the haze of his rush, alone. There was a railing in his way, but this was no matter; he simply leaped it with the aid of a hand. It was only a decorative one, and the drop from the level of the deck floor to the ground no more than three feet or so.

He had at no point run, and his outward composure clashed hard against the flutterings of half-remembered courtesies and voluminous skirts, gloved hands and a stern, handsome, proud face that would never lose marbled perfection for the flaw of a smile, at least not for him. For a few silent seconds, Ian simply stood there, gathering his thoughts back unto reasonable boundaries with every intake of fresh night air, and threw his head back to stare in solemn contemplation at what really was in the grand scheme of the universe a small, unimportant satellite, but so much bigger then he, than any of this.

It was only then that the observation he had made on his way out- that there was a person seated behind his current position on a bench- registered fully, and he turned his head to glance back slowly. "Your forgiveness if I startled you," he said quietly. "I... was in need of some air."

---

Mischa hadn't thought they made them like this anymore. Of course, she knew that there were still gentlemen in the world; her father and uncle would not allow her to forget it no matter the gamut of her own experience. She knew also that there were people who masqueraded (an ironic word choice, perhaps) as gentlemen, only to be something else entirely. She had also once cared deeply for someone who she had believed the opposite: a gentleman in the glamour of someone else, someone less so.

But there was something genuine to Mike that she hadn't seen often. He did not linger too long when brevity was called for, he did not forget the courtesies that would earn him nothing, and for this she could not help but be grateful. She was indeed happier than she had thought when he agreed to the tango, but she shook her head at the offer of something to eat. It would be rude of her to keep him for much longer, not when the night was still young and there were plenty of other interesting people to be met.

So she watched him go for a few seconds then turned her attention elsewhere. Such an emotionally healthy person should find the company of others like him, not those who took much-needed solace so desperately from the one thing that had kept them afloat. She was just thinking it might be a good time to relax and have a drink when one of the youthful attendants appeared with something shockingly blue in a martini glass, cheesy little umbrella included. If she could have chuckled, she would have, but she did not demean the young man by ruffling his hair or anything like that. She'd never had siblings, so she didn't much understand how to interact with people in such ways, and went for formality instead. A small smile and a nod, and the boy was on his way anyhow.

Mischa slipped into a chair and let her eyes wander the area. There were two men dancing over there, though apparently only one of them really knew how. Still, she smiled as she sipped at the tangy drink. Such things were frowned upon some places in the professional world, and the rules were always that partners had to be of opposite genders. It was a bit silly to her; if one could dance, one could dance, of what consequence was anything else? One younger male apparently accidentally ducked into the women's restroom, and she blinked at that. He'd left his own dance partner behind, which was rather unkind.