Snippet #1742061

Chad wasn't sure when he fell asleep in the carriage ride to Ephanor, but as he was shaken awake by Badic once they arrived, he realized he must have. The ride to the foreign country, although cut quite significantly thanks to the phoenixes’ speed of flight, still took several hours. They left Ruthen a bit before noon, and yet as the carriage came to land, the sun was falling down the horizon, bathing Castle Elphanor in orangey light. Rubbing his eyes to clear away the sleep from them, Chad stepped awkwardly down from the carriage.

Some of the castle's attendants came and began the work of unhooking the phoenixes from their carriages and preparing them for the ride back to Ruthen. Badic, in an apologetic tone that's effectiveness was somewhat ruined by the rushed air in which he talked, said that he had to attend to some things before the ball started, and so he really had to be on his way. Chad mutely nodded, giving him permission to do so. Badic ordered one of the servant women to take him to a room and help him get ready for the ball, and then was promptly off with his men following right behind him.

The maid that was ordered over to him took his arm and immediately began to pull him into the castle and down the hallways. She was an older woman, shorter than Chad and a bit wrinkly, with graying hair and steely eyes. Based on appearance alone, Chad would have guessed that she wasn't a very nice lady; but he didn't have to rely on appearance. She dragged him roughly down the halls, shoulders squared, and mumbled angrily about having to deal with him. She seemed totally put out with him, but he doubted it was anything he directly did. From her words, and knowing what was going on in the castle, he could guess that she'd been dealing with foreigners all day long in the form of visiting nobles, and most of them were probably horrible people.

He was lead into a medium-sized room, colored with darker blues and purples to match the dark wood of the furnishings, with a slightly larger bathroom connected to it. After seeing that he found the room and tossing a towel at him, the old maid left the room without another word and with a slight slam of the door. Chad cringed as the door banged shut, cradling the towel that had been thrown pretty accurately in the direction of his face in his arms.

And so Chad stood in the room, not moving except for occasionally shuffling his feet to shift his weight. The only sounds in the room were the muffled sounds of people-most likely servants of varying degrees-hastily moving through the castle trying to get things ready and prepared for the nobles. From what Chad understood, some of the guests had already arrived, and many more would be arriving very shortly. Badic had bid him to get dressed quickly and join everyone else in the ball room. The problem was...how was he supposed to do that?

Chad looked down at himself and felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. His clothes, although considered decent finery in Ruthen, would surely garnish looks from the nobles. The clothes that Ruthen Mercenaries favored where a mixture of practicality and appearance, and Chad's clothing was no exception. He wore a lizard leather vest, of an earthy brown color, over a linen shirt dyed with a shade of pale green that was made from underlight cacti. These cacti were a bit rare, in that they could only be found in the underlight ravine area of Ruthen, known for housing a number of nasty nocturnal beasts. The plants had been part of a haul that Hiess's Vanguard had made one time, and much of it was used to make Chad's shirt. His pants were of a thicker cloth, also dyed green, but a darker and more commonly found shade. Over his shoulders rested a lizard skin cloak that was an essential part of any good mercenary's outfit.

In Ruthen, these clothes would have earned him some respect, but if Chad's memory of Tibolt dinner parties served...they were more likely to get him laughed at. And it's not like he had anything to change into. These were the best things he had, any spare clothes he brought were even worse, to be honest. Chad sighed, and deciding that it would do no good just to stand there and do nothing, went ahead into the bathroom. Since when was he worried about looking the part anyway? He kept telling himself that as he stripped his clothes and washed the sand and grime from his body, even though he knew the answer in his head. He'd started to care after he'd finally started to look it.

Chad exited the bathroom feeling cleaner and refreshed, upper body bare as he tried to towel off the wetness in his hair. For some reason, the medium-length spikey locks liked to suck up liquid, and didn't like to let it go. It was a bit of a pain for Chad, really, since it took so long for his hair to dry. At least in Ruthen the hot sun would help dry it, but in Elphanor...not so much. In fact, as he stepped out of the bathroom and into the main area of the room, he shivered from the cool air touching his skin. Elphanor felt much cooler already than most days did in Ruthen, and the sun was only just going down.

And then a knock at the door nearly made him jump up in the air. Turning his head to the door, he saw it crack open and heard a voice, obviously female, call out to him. "Mr. Hearthel? A-Are you there?" Chad stared owlishly at the door. Mr. Hearthel? Well, Chad doubted that he'd ever been called that before. Maybe some time before he'd left home with Matthew, someone may have called him that, but never since.

Realizing that the girl was still waiting on an answer, Chad tossed his towel back onto the bed where he sat his bags, and pulled his shirt back over his head. That done, he moved to the door and pulled it the rest of the ways open. Doing so revealed a younger girl, no older than fifteen or sixteen, dressed in the same maid outfit that the old lady had worn. Although she was a bit young, she already was pretty to look at, and had the promise to be a real beauty when she got older. When she saw Chad, she bent down into a curtsy, and then gently nudged her way into the room.

As he shut the door and turned to look at her, Chad saw the maid come to a stop in the middle of the room. Curious as to exactly what she was doing there, Chad cleared his throat to get her attention. "Umm, excuse me? What are you doing here?" At his words, the girl snapped out of her trance and turned to look at him instead of the room. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm, umm, Mrs. Ruthey sent me to check on you. She said she didn't do much by you when she took you to the room, so I'm to make sure you had everything you needed to get to the ball."

Oh, so that explained it. He assumed that 'Mrs. Ruthey' was the old woman from before, so that meant that she must have felt a bit bad for just tossing him in the room. Smiling a bit to himself, he made to tell her that he was fine, but she'd turned her attention to something else. He walked up to her and tapped her shoulder lightly, and she jumped in response. With a bit of color staining her cheeks, she started to stammer apologies. He waved her off, but gesturing at his cloak on the bead that she'd been playing with, he said "Is there something interesting about my cloak?"

Covering her face with her hands, she shook her head from side to side. "Oh, no, no...I just, I've never seen anything like it. Is it made of snake skin or something?" Chad chuckled and patted her on the head, trying to ease her embarrassment. "Nah, not snake. It's lizard skin, Pit Lizard to be exact. Nasty little buggers they are, I'll tell you that. But the leather is good at keeping off the cool and water, when there is any." She looked at him like she obviously didn't know what he was saying, but she was interested in it anyway.

As if deciding that he wasn’t going to snap at her for touching his things, the maid then quickly reached into his rucksack and pulled at a piece of something that had been sticking out of the flap slightly. Holding up the piece of lynx fur, she ran her fingers over it relishing in the softness that made the fur so valuable. “Ohh, and what is this? It’s so soft, it’s like a cloud.”

Chad snickered at her, finding it funny that anyone would describe a lynx as being ‘like a cloud’. “It’s just a piece of fur, a scrap from the cloak I made, I guess. Keep it, if you want. Can’t fetch a fair price for anything less than a full pelt, anyways.” That made her eyes wide, both from hearing that she could keep it, and that it was a piece of a bigger thing. “What animal did this come from? It feels like my kitty back at home!”

And that caused Chad to burst out laughing, tossing his head back and filling the hall with the sound. Several of the workers that had been strutting about stopped and looked to the ceiling at the sound. The maid cringed, afraid she’d said something stupid, but he held a hand out to her and patted her head to tell her otherwise. “No no, don’t worry…It’s just…ahahaha, that is a cat! But not just any cat, it’s a desert lynx, and honey, that bugger would tear your head off before he’d let you pet him like that. Gosh, it’s just so funny…I can just picture you petting tha’ beast…”

Although she was no longer worried she’d done something wrong, she still seemed a bit weary, and the maid even seemed to be a bit afraid of the piece of fur now. It’s funny how people’s opinions of things change when they learn where it came from.

And that thought cut him suddenly and quickly in the chest, with its cool irony. What did it matter how he dressed up? What did it matter how he looked? People might look at him nicely, and some may even like him, but as soon as they learned where he was from-a desert rat from Ruthen-well, they’d change their tune right fast. It didn’t matter if he was Tiboltian Nobility, his time in the desert will have dirtied him in their eyes. If they found out, they’d look at him like the girl was now looking at the fur. His humor now officially killed, he decided it was time to kick the girl and go to the stupid ball, dressed as a noble or a savage, it didn’t matter anymore.

“K, well, you can still keep the fur, you might be able to swap it for a pawfull of coin if you don’t really want it. I just gotta find something to wear now, though I’m likely to just walk out looking like this…” The last part was said mainly to himself, but the girl perked up and looked at him expectantly even as he turned his eyes from her and to his meager belongings. “Excuse me, sir? You said you didn’t know what to wear?” Turning to her again and arching an eyebrow at her, silently telling her to continue. The girl’s face lit up, and she pulled the corner of her lower lip between her teeth, a visible sign of her excitement. “Oh, I have an idea…”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

When Chad stepped into the ballroom, he did so outwardly confidently, but inside his nerves were wracking. He had to admit, he looked better than he could have made himself look. That maid had done herself justice, in his opinion, by turning a rogue from Ruthen into someone who could pass for nobility again.

Chad wore his pale green shirt, which was being worn differently than normal. It was a bit big for him, giving him room to grow in and stretch room to use during battle, but she’d arranged it to where it hung loose and puffy on him. Over his shoulders and hanging down to his waist was a brown coat, made of cloth, not leather, that was colored a dark brown. It reminded Chad of fresh heartwood, the kind that could be found in abundance in the forests of Tibolt. A similarly shaded brown pair of slacks fell down his feet, also breezily cut, and pooled over his leather boots-which had been polished to a satisfying shine.

His skin was cleaner than it had been in a long while, and the tan that he’d formed from his time in the desert could finally be shown clearly. His hair had been fixed with a lot of effort from the girl, and although it was still ‘spikey’, the spikes were much gentler and softer than he could make them. His hair actually looked…fluffy, and the state of freshness it was in made it a lighter shade of blonde. She’d had to finagle him into it, but around his wrist was a simple band of pale gold, the only jewelry he wore besides a pendant around his neck that was a parting gift from Lugh. On the end of the chain was a little indiscriminant shape with a small, round tiger’s eye gem in the middle.

He seemed to pass their original inspection, for several of the nobles that turned to look at him either regarded him neutrally, or even with a hint of respect. He released a breath that he hadn’t been fully aware he was holding, and was blown away a bit as a few ladies came up and asked him his name. He answered their questions, flirting a bit back, but without being too descript of where he came from. After a few minutes, he untangled himself and moved off to the middle of the room, trying to decide where to go next.

He didn’t know anybody, and he didn’t really feel like making unnecessary conversation with the suits. He still wasn’t feeling too friendly around these nobles, not after harboring such hatred against several of them for years…

Other than that, there was the food table, but he doubted that he could handle eating anything; he still felt a bit squeamish. There was a bar, and while that was slightly more appealing, he also doubted he could take much alcohol with his stomach the way it was. But there seemed to be a few appealing prospects over at the bar, namely a few ladies who looked to be far fairer than the ones he’d just talked to.

And then his eyes caught on her. The dark color of her hair, the red of her eyes that he could just make out from here…there was no doubt. She likely wouldn’t recognize him, he even doubted she would remember him, but he hadn’t forgotten the appearance of the demoness he grew up beside.

Chad sauntered over to the drink table, a bit of a spring in his gait from the prospects of surprising the girl, and plopped himself down in the seat beside her. He turned the chair so that he could put his back on the counter and face outward towards the center of the room. He did just that, siting with quite poor posture, and crossing one leg over the other. His head turned towards her, Chad offered Ariadne a wicked grin and said, in his strange mixture of proper noblespeak and ruffian talk:

“Why hello there, Princess Ari. It has been a long time since I’ve laid eyes on you, hasn’t it? Time has been quite kind to you over the years, ma’ Lady, you look absolutely stunning tonight.”