THE HOLLOW , ( grishaverse )

ten: THE KOMEDIE BRUTE

THE HOLLOW
ten: THE KOMEDIE BRUTE

      LILIA FIRST MET RINA IN MOONLIGHT.

She'd been stood on the bridge over one of the smaller canals, watching the water sparkle like crystal beneath the silver light. The night was warm, still and peaceful, unusual for Ketterdam. The air was live with electricity; music humming from the Geldstraat, all the way through the Barrel and down into the harbour.

The celebrations had bled out of West Stave in the early hours of the evening, while the sun was still setting, and now the entire city hummed with activity and celebration. She'd snatched a costume and a mask from one of the stalls that lined the water - the black and emerald of the Scarab Queen, albeit a much less expensive and far-less opulent version of the ones the Merchants and their families wore - and the dark fabric billows out in the breeze. She'd taken the thing to fit in amongst the crowds of revellers, Kerch and otherwise, but the mass of people swelling around her, staring at her even as she shrouded her face in the Scarab Queen's crown-like mask.

It seemed as though everyone recognised her.

She excused herself from the crowds a few moments later, but it seemed as if no one even realised she was missing.

Everyone once in a while, she'd catch a glimpse of herself in the waters beneath, and she didn't recognise the girl blinking back at her.

She was no longer wide-eyed or gentle. She hadn't been for years, now; that was certainly true. But she'd never noticed it before that moonlit night, when her own face seemed like that of a stranger staring back at her without even a flicker of recognition.

The bridge had been quiet. Not many passed over it, save for a handful of merchants' families here and there, giggling and high on the nightlife. Their garments were far more expensive than Lilia's; you could tell in the way they glittered and shimmered in the pale silver moonlight, in the way the fabric brushed the cobblestones, like it was floating, alive within the gentle breeze. They'd barely spare her a single glance as she passed, too wrapped up in themselves and each other and the drink clouding their thoughts. The Geldstaat sat on the other side of the bank, a street filled with merchants houses, each more garish and elaborate than the next. The parties on that side of the bank were much more sophisticated and far less rowdy, so the more adventurous or unruly of the elite — the merchants' sons and daughters, or their young twenty-something trophy wives, for the most part — ventured across the river towards the poorer parts of town in search of a good time and much fouler-tasting, yet infinitely stronger liqueur and raucous parties. A merchant's party was fun, with its fine food and sweet drinks and gentle music, but it was hardly a good time for the more flamboyant of them.

It had been Lilia's first Komedie Brute. The visitors from further astray would always dress up as they perused the West Stave, dipping in and out of the casinos and pleasure houses, but, once every few months, the residents of Ketterdam would join in the festivities for the sake of a good time.

She'd passed through once or twice before, with her father on one of his many excursions beyond Kavatero's borders, but always as the embers of the festival had been smouldering and the residents of Ketterdam returned to their lives as if they hadn't spent a weekend revelling in the ridiculousness and frivolity of masquerade and theatre. The lanterns that swooped over the streets — ruby and emerald and sapphire, shining upon the cobblestones, bathing the streets in a kaleidoscope — were being pulled down and the costumes tucked away for another year, if one wasn't rich enough to buy a newer and far more elaborate costume the next time the city swelled with celebration. She'd seen the end of jubilation and the final dregs of liqueur bleeding back into the streets, as people stumbled home after a long weekend.