Play of Shadows

2.14: Three to Tango

A man tumbled into an overgrown garden. His clothes were torn, his face and body full of scratches that bled sluggishly. He braced himself on his hands and knees in a daze. Red roses bloomed in wild abandon everywhere he looked.

The woman sitting in their midst looked so much like one of the flowers that the man's gaze passed over her at first, only to return with startled ire. The man pushed himself up on his feet and raised an accusing hand.

"You!" he snapped.

The woman parted her red lips.

"Welcome, dear guest," Ann Sufort said.

Frances twitched. Ann hid her mirth behind a bland smile.

The groove between Frances' eyebrows deepened. He studied Ann for a long moment, his sharp eyes passing over every inch of Ann's face.

The smile on Ann's lips slowly stiffened, but she didn't dare relax for a moment. Her cheeks hurt by the time Frances opened his mouth to speak.

"Who are you?"

Ann's heart loosened. "I am the Mistress of Cicada Manor," she said, repeating the lines her NPC programming fed into her ear.

Frances stared some more. Ann was painfully aware of her bare face; she cursed the game settings again and fought not to fidget. A part of her felt ashamed for hiding behind an NPC persona. The rest desperately wanted to run away entirely.

Ann tapped her fingers against a dainty table set for two. The roses swayed and pulled away like a veil parting, clearing a path for Frances to take. The man did so with great wariness. He refused to take a seat despite Ann's gesture of invitation and a chair nearly leaping to one side to make way. Ann didn't press. If the man wanted to be uncomfortable, let him.

"What is this place?" Frances asked. He appeared to have put aside his suspicion over Ann's identity, at least for the moment.

"My sanctuary," Ann told him. "He had it made just for me."

"Who?" Frances asked.

Ann's lips kept moving, her voice not her own, her eyes straying to the sea of roses. "Are they not beautiful? Each flower here is a treasure, carefully grown and pruned and fed."

She stretched out her hand. A rose swayed with an unseen wind to nestle in her palm, the splash of red stark against her pale skin. "They are so lovely, are they not? I watched them wilt with such pain every season, wishing that they could remain untouched by the grinding wheel of time. I did not realize it then, but ah –"

Ann's grip on the flower tightened. The rose was crushed, soft petals slipping between her fingers, tattered and bruised.

Ann patted her hands clean and folded them back into her lap. She looked up at Frances and smiled.

"Forever is such an ugly word."

Frances' expression eased into something more thoughtful. Ann was similarly preoccupied; sadly, she was as ignorant of her avatar's backstory as the rest of the players. It was only logical, she supposed. A character in a game was not a real person, no matter how much they looked the part. An NPC had no memories to carry. Their actions were predetermined, bound not by any stated rationale but the game system that underpinned their static existence.

The roses grew in tangled thickets, some climbing as tall as Frances' shoulders. The man examined a few blooms but kept half of his attention on Ann at all times. The vigilant side-eye was a little humorous. The way Frances poked and sniffed at the poor flowers had Ann hiding a chortle behind a dainty cough.

"This is a painting," Frances declared. His fingers were stained red from handling the roses. "You're not real," he added.

"Are you?" Ann asked.