Hide and Seek or Play Tag?

"The Enchantress Sovereign of Redfield circa C. 118, 1E won't lie on any bed unless it is made of sturdy Graygreen Pine or durable Ashwood Mahogany, such are the requirements of her love-making, even in solitude."

-Beauty Fatalities: Old World Edition

©

The private Banquet was emptied of its royalties, Kazer Vallin claimed to have retreated to his locked chambers though his steed is missing from the stables, and so, the Golden Lady insisted on lingering with the Ocmenians to replace his countenance along with Harinthal, the banquet didn't quite sate her appetite yet. The night remains young so the others stayed for the grandeur of the party, the people were oblivious to the revelation on the patio as the festive spirit took over them. Shattered glasses on stained carpets, shattered ears from playful symphonies, shattered windows, chandeliers, bones, and hearts. But as soon as the Young Blackmercy walks into the scene, music would cease and he'll have every guest's alcohol-gaze collected to his entirety.

Sion is new to this power, each time he strolls into any room all the living would be transmuted into lifeless mannequins, and he would find himself apologizing in each step to cross the room, it was close to frightening at times.

He was invited under the protection of Laguna and Hildred, but they were discussing politics with the Golden Lady in the Study Hall so he was given free rein. The first thing that had come to his mind was to find his Mum or even the Sailor who have fled with his alleged stepsister. This night requires him to confront at least half a dozen of people, organizing lists and charts in his mind as he graces the halls of Graygreen. He somehow found a vacant office with a high terrace to hide on, he needs a breather.

"Ah Elliott Whitehaven, I apologize for treating you like shit in the bakery this morning, I'm the shitty one, did I ever mention that you're my favourite mathematician?" He practised on one of the thousand sculptures of the castle's balconies, he feels like a walking cow's manure, pacing around idiotically.

"Ah, Lady Graygreen, I heard you're the provincial court alchemist! alchemy runs in our blood huh? wait... no, I'm adopted... ugh." He paced again, looking at the mossy statue of a bearded man as if it were his stepsister. He took a deep breath, gathering all enthusiasm he had left to a smile.

"Lady Graygreen! thank you for gracing me with kindness earlier at the banquet, are you also an alchemist? I smelled Aspen Morels from your sleeve earlier when you served me food, thank you for serving me food, I hope my... our... mum didn't traumatise you... No! Cock-sucking, stupid cabbage! did I just call her a food server?" He pulled down his hair, tossing its length on the tiled floor as he wince from his own words. Why did the gods forsake him with social anxiety to compensate for his beauty?

He eventually quit and laid on his back, his soft hair cushioning his fall. The night skies opened before him and with slow breaths through the nose he concentrates on the cold air penetrating his lungs. The blue firmament seem too transparent this dusk, clouds exiting farther to the atmospheres with their deep hues of magenta and gold cradling the countless stars above. Reaching for one of them, he implored to the wide expanse before him.

"My friend, why are you in love with me?"

Though he knows why- back then he once heard Ian'drah beg Miriam to take his hand for marriage. A juvenile joke for innocent chaps expected to subside from maturity, but he didn't know that such naive affection would grow through the test of time.

His eyes widened, chest aching as he remember that one painful winter when his cat had gone missing, they spent hours scouring the outskirts of Dirge that Miriam even bothered to help occasionally. That until they stumbled upon a caverned hot spring inside the White Cliff. It became the boys' tiny haven for many winters which helped Sion forget little Eonnii's death, and it was the only instance when they'll both be bear with no malice. But the odd pulsations from the springs whenever they are relaxed and naked within suggest an illicit activity underneath the still waters, he just tolerated Ian because he knows how sexually robust he was in their teens, but looking back on the memory, it's not the same anymore.

"Hello there." A little girl obstructed his view, her hair falling on his face like a damp mop.

"Oh, Hello." He propped himself up with his elbows. The girl reminds him of Chacha, both with wondrous eyes and a reserved expression. Except this little lass is the definition of a pure-blooded Sovenian, with snow-pale skin, brows like mountain ridges, iceberg eyes, wheat-coloured hair and cheeks blushing like apples- a complete set of a Sovenian landscape. She wears a garland of mountain flowers encased within perfect ice, the kind that never melts even in the dessert. This kid must have noble parents to afford such ornament, he thought.

"What are you doing here alone?" Sion asked the little girl.

"Oh, I'm just wandering around... but what about you? what are 'you' doing here alone? aren't you supposed to be at the Glass Palace?" the little girl asked, fidgeting with the blue ribbons of her poofy dress.

"Glass Palace? is that where the awkward king lives?"

"You should know! how would I know?" the girl crossed her arms.

"Alright, what's your name?" He asked, but the girl just looked at him confused.

"Answer the king of Glass Palace this instance, peasant!" Sion played along thinking he needs to find the parents of this lost child.

"Ah! They call me Ingrid! Please don't be angry Snowberry Man!" the little girl ran back inside the room squealing her lungs out.

"Ingrid, wait!" Sion ran after the energetic child. His back aching as he stood up, he missed burying his nose in books, he missed his laboratory, this day is too eventful for his body to handle that his mundane day-to-day routine seems like a luxury right now.

It was a difficult chase, the little girl tend to run between the legs of walking guests and trot under tables with ease. But Sion is a swift sprinter himself, he has an athletic childhood friend to thank for his agility. But it also helps how the guests are left unomving even if he only passed through them like a crimson blur.

"Ingrid wait! we need to find your parents!" he shouted through a smaller corridor, Sion was left unhinged when an obscene sight met his virgin eyes. It was a whole breath of unclothed strangers moaning and pleasuring each other, slapping skins, bounding limbs and lifting hips. Tongues travelling to places where sunlight seldomly touches with alcohol and human liquids dripped everywhere, from the carpets to the open windows. He had no idea how a jet of cum stained the high ceiling above but it was none of his business.

"No way..." he signed in disbelief as little Ingrid continued to run away from him, she was almost enjoying it so, giggling as she skipped through the naked bodies on the floor.

Not moments long and his presence arrested every fornication in the room, making the little girl stir past them with more ease, but for Sion, this feels like walking on thin ice. One woman stepped closer to him, naked like the rest with her breasts exposing her tender and overly-suckled nipples, her nose littered with Crestine Salts. "Oh, the Divinities we can touch..." Her jaw twitched and trembled, making Sion step back when she reached for him with slack fingers. He could sense the intoxication dwelling around from their reddened eyes and loosened posture, their desire for him growing in each second so he needs to find another way around before he gets ravished.

"Ambassador Blackmercy!" an orotund voice called from behind him, it was his favourite mathematician running in his direction clad in his usual black leather uniform. Elliott pulled the young alchemist by the hand, quick enough to protect the boy when the inebriated fiend-of-a-woman clawed for him. From his pocket he brought out a handful pouch which captured the woman's senses, he threw it behind her which she followed ferally, landing on the floor to spill white crystals of translucent glimmer. Crestine Salts, making all naked nobles in the close radius sniff the substance off the floor straight to their brains.

"Let's go!" they ran through a hall compressed with leather harnesses and metal swings hanging from the ceiling, Sion didn't notice these details when he was chasing the little girl. Elliott locked the moonstone doors behind them, catching their breaths as they rest at its bottom. They found themselves outdoors where the snowy gardens start. underneath the wide patio, a few nobles and merchants from the entrance of the hedge maze glanced at them, going back to their discreet conversations after a few scans of the boy's features.

"You're safe here for now, by the gods! It was a poor idea that you went here exposing your face!" Elliott stood up, offering his single hand for the boy on the floor to get back on his feet. The white-haired scholar gestured over one of the servants on standby to come over. "Mueih Drujhe, zaros ratuyte weis caber fauz-plencatte schcho ist Shea Drujhe?"

(My friend, could you bring a hooded fur cloak for our beautiful friend here?)

The old servant nodded, scurrying off to the tailor parlour of the castle. Sion had understood every word Elliott spoke, he knows native Sovenic-tongue as well as Akanish, a few Mezenese from Chacha and Sinjo and Ocmenic-tongue from Hildred and Laguna.

"Sir Whiteraven... Thanks a lot, I misjudged your character when we met at the bakery this morning." Sion bowed down before the man, earning him a chuckle from the scholar. "I didn't even know that you authored my favourite texts! Infinity's Brim: Patterns of Dimensions, Jezov's Algorithm, Modern Models of Mathematics. Even Miriam based her formulas from your equations!"

Elliott scratched the back of his white head, embarrassed that they get off on the wrong foot. "Yes, I was quite the prodigy when I was young, much like you and your childhood friend. By the way, Ian'drah Dawnsnow was searching for you all over the castle, I believe he already scaled this place four times for the past hour."

"That's quite ironic, I was searching for him as well. But I ended up chasing a mischievous little girl, what responsible parents would leave a child unattended at this kind of party!?" Sion descends the marble steps, assessing the gardens to see if the girl is hiding somewhere.

"So you were the madman screaming the Queen's name through the halls? I'm afraid there are no children here except for Sir Bluebeard, you must have seen a ghost."

"Me seeing ghosts? perhaps I'm a Medium much like my mum?" Sion tried to joke through his nervousness, whatever the correlation of Mediumship with Alchemy is, he'll never know.

"I can see a probability but I don't adhere to laws that much. It's not my business if you can illicitly speak to the dead, Mediumship is already a punishment as it is." Elliott grabbed the hooded cloak handed by the servant which he placed on Sion's back. It was a heavy cloak of black, hooded with soft bear fur, his fingers warmed when he lock its golden latch across his chest. "To be honest, I'll even hire your mother if ghosts can somehow bring business to Sovenia."

"You really do jest."

Elliott accompanied the hooded lad to the foyer of the castle thinking that the little girl waited there for her parents. The frostguards attended to them upon Elliott's request, "They've informed the Captain of the Frostguards about the Kid's description, I assure you if they haven't found her by midnight that only means that you've seen a ghost, equating you as a medium too."

"Ah for fuck's sake, I'm adopted, that doesn't make any sense." Sion, lightened the mood, "Much like this party- it too doesn't make any sense, how in the world is this province so rich? Ian even attended the party here the night before." he changed the topic near the man's interests, he knows that Elliott serves as the economical adviser of Dirge, Syrosh'jhaal and Graygreen, the provinces of Western Sovenia.

"Right, that is because Graygreen is the second-largest provider of lumber in the world, The Merchant Tri-state, Zhoutania, and Akan being their regular consumers since the wood here is perfect for ships and construction. So money flows like a river..." Elliott buzzed on and on which filled the silence between them. "The Gray lands bordering the Syrosh'jhaal Tundras up north is where the oak and pine comes from, the Green borders are full of Cedarwoods..."

Sion lamented that he instigated the man's interests, his mouth never dries... he finds it amusing.

"With all the export of wood, nightly parties like this are but a small portion cut from their seasonal budget. I calculate them myself and Graygreen's economy just keeps rising, besides, festivities like these raise morale..."

"Oh interesting haha, I'm going to search for the kid inside, you keep an eye here I'll come back in half an hour." Sion had left him, silence filled the Main Hall when he entered.

"Was I cool? Yeah, I think so..." Elliott looked at his gloved hand. "But he's not yours to keep Elliott, not yours to keep... speak of the devil." The Heir gripped the dagger hilt on his waist as the Sailor approached him, his eyes seemed restless and dreary that even ancient Sovenian ghosts would hide from him.

"On what pleasure do I owe your company, Hyden?" he welcomed the devil.

"Sion." Ian'drah simply muttered.

"He went back inside, trying to find a little girl named Ingrid, you'd best hurry Sailor."

Elliott released his breath as the monster ran up to the Castle's granite stairs. He can't imagine how the sweet Blackmercy grew up with such a frightening colossus, but that's not his business, his business rests with West Sovenia's Economy alone.

The Young Alchemist found himself on a corridor overlooking the patio, his body catching the particles flying through the moonlight as he roamed through the crop circles in the carpets. Torch bugs and fireflies brightening the shaded area, nature taking over what men tend to neglect. There are no lit-candles nor guests around here which indicates a perfect hiding spot for a kid.

And he was right, he could spot the Colourful crown of ice glistening behind a far chair. Even her giggles were echoing through the long corridor.

"I know you're behind that stacks of chairs, Ingrid."

"No!" The girl giggled before rushing out to the darker edge of the corridor, Sion ran after her shortly.

Through the vine-riddled hall where grey meets green, the overgrowth of thick vines climbed through the cracks of the stone walls holding every piece of furniture in place. Ingrid managed to hop and skip through the obstacle of roots and curls, veering around to the spiral stairs of the castle tower. Sion followed her up there, he won't afford moons of good sleep if something bad were to happen to this child.

As he ascends the spiral stairs his feet strode slower, entranced by the earthy scent of Aspen Morels emitted from the rosy door above. And when he reached the top, he saw Ingrid, tip-toed on the tower's window ledge- his heart jumped out of his chest.

"Sirga, Sovenmuzcha!"

(See you later, Snowberry Man!)

She jumped off the Window.

"Ingrid! No!"

Without any hesitation, the Young Alchemist followed and jumped off the ledge to save her.