บท 75: Web
Navigating a social web was an intriguing task, I'd come to find.
To get where you want to be in it, you have to travel what feels like an extravagant distance through connection to connection, hopping from conversation, to friend group, to business partner, to family member, and so on. It might not give me the immediacy that I'd like for my actions, being a waiting game in many senses, but you uncovered many little tidbits of information along the way that I found almost endlessly interesting.
Most of my time during the past two weeks, since the whole fiasco with Valeri, I'd been spending my time trapezing through social circles like nothing else. The ease of access I'd been granted as soon as Valeri had even done so much as talk to me, along with the drama of her disappearance, was almost astounding.
Sure, I wasn't so naïve that I thought it would remain this way. I was the shiny new toy on the market, and so I was the one that every rich woman and their dog wanted to invite to one social gathering or another.
But playing along was my specialty.
They weren't looking for a well-mannered, prim-and-proper type, they were looking for the chaotic element that I represented on the day I walked into the Brightspark and effectively notified everyone of my existence.
This meant that there were many reasons someone might invite me to their little get-togethers. One was that they were also a chaotic element within the social strata of the obscenely wealthy and were fostering a little group dedicated to the cause. Another was the type who were inviting me to try and pin the tail on the donkey, as such. Who was I? What did I want? What could they get from me? One more after that was those who simply wanted me to walk into their social gathering and change everything, add a calculated piece of chaos to shake the foundation a little.
All of these types were interesting, to some degree. My favourite so far had been a social event run by one of the first category.
Lucae Milna was a remarkably interesting man, a bit of an enigma when it came to the wider circles of the political and wealthy elite, but also part pariah. I'd been invited to his exclusive estate outside the bounds of Crossroads, hidden away ever so slightly from the direct view of the gated community of the uber rich. That was either by Lucae's design, or by his father's, which really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
The point was, Lucae was just about as rebellious as you could get with the kind of money he had. Think eternal orgy, friends of the lower class, lovers of the lower class, many, many lovers, so on and so forth. Inviting me out to his little estate was almost out of character to the man, who wore an eclectic mismatch of brightly coloured clothes which were placed to create the largest, garish mess he could possibly create.
His general dress and mannerisms reminded me distinctly of drag queens from Earth, with all their pomp and vitality. Though the man was far too rebelliously spirited to bother imitating the female sex, perfectly content with his mind bending 'masculine' clothing, if you could even call it that at this point.
When he had mentioned why he had invited me to his hidden away estate, it was as if the universe suddenly made sense. Oscar. Oh yes, the little tailor who had done such a good job on my suit, and now with my lovely looking purple tie, was apparently excellent 'friends' with Lucae. Which was short for sharing a bed at any chance they got.
In the sort of party that Lucae ran, I was almost entirely out of place. It was filled to the brim with the oddities and interests of society, even a fair amount of those from other races such as Reptilia, the purple skinned race I don't know the name of, and even the towering forms of the giant-like race I'd spied on the first day in the Skinned Lizard.
Thankfully, everyone was relatively respectful of my strict barrier on sexuality for the night, which had considerably confused quite a few men that had approached to proposition me for all sorts of things. I honestly felt bad about the whole thing, oddly, as there were more than one group having as close to sex as you could have without Lucae throwing you into the 'red room'.
Instead of simply pushing the men away and make selective conversation like I normally would, I realised that particular tactic would leave me all on my lonesome for the night in such an overtly affectionate and sexually charged environment. If I let word get out in the party that I wasn't interested, it was unlikely that anyone would bother to approach me at all.
So in a flash of social brilliance, I devised another reason that one might want to interact with me, other than the promise of sex, as flattering as it might be. That reason was a dance.
There was a dancefloor that was being used more as simply a place to stand, the musicians playing music that just meshed with the mood of the party rather than anything you'd classically dance to. It just so happened that the type of music that meshed with the atmosphere bored the musicians to tears, itching to play something more challenging for a crowd.
With barely a few words, I convinced them to do just that, and after finding Lucae and propositioning him with a dance, I led the stunned man to the dancefloor.
Prior to my few weeks of traversing social circles, I had been almost afraid of dancing. It was definitely a holdover from my time on Earth, the idea of dancing being the most mortifying possible concept and an excellent way to showcase your two left feet. Yet, I'd quickly come to realise that I was dumb.
The Sharah was anything you wanted it to be. It was a reflection of life and movement itself, and movement was as multifaceted as your imagination was. That first dance with Lucae had been extraordinary.
It helped that the other man had clearly learnt to dance at some point, though he was used to being the lead, and had tried to commandeer my movements at the beginning. I didn't let that last long, fixing him with a sultry smile, seductive in a way that bordered a sexual innuendo, but mostly just told to give into my own lead.
After the man relinquished his hold on that quiet clamour of control, the subsequent movements flowed across the dancefloor, the Sharah begging in my bones to be let loose past even the confines of the relatively large space. I could feel the movements vibrate the air around us, and I knew that Lucae could as well, each step I guided him through gave him a small pang of, 'oh, I understand'.
Over the course of the dance, it had changed from something almost sexually suggestive on Lucae's part, to a pure pleasure of movement and athleticism—something I'm not sure that Lucae had ever specifically delighted in. When the musicians had finally completed their heated rendition of some famous piece I'd heard at a few other parties, I stopped the dance and pulled away from the man, bowing at my waist formally.
"That was…" he had begun, standing in silence for a few moments more as he panted with exertion, "different." I could remember laughing at the word. so packed full of indescribable emotion, only able to be expressed by a warm hug from the party's organiser, followed by a chaste kiss on my cheek. After that, it was an absolute blur of dance after dance.
Some were battles between me and another who had clearly learnt dancing at a high level, some others were simply a hope to be taken on a trip of a lifetime. It was a surprisingly deep action, stemming from something deep inside me and also meshing so completely with my divinity, of the Hearth itself.
Each dance was interspersed with conversation, from business to deeply personal. It was surprising how much I learned after that; each conversation painting pictures of the social dynamics that surrounded Crossroads' elite.
I talked with Lucae candidly about his father's business, and how he felt as if he was trapped by the intense amount of wealth and the knowledge that it came from slave trade, and possibly worse. He told me of his fears, that he'd one day get too curious and begin looking at the real ledgers that sat in his father's hidden safe, and what he'd find in them when he did.
I talked to a lovely woman, Heri Molts, the estranged daughter of one of the more powerful Officials in Crossroads. Why she ran from her mother's iron grip and how her dive into depression and debauchery had begun with the understanding of what her mother does, or what she ignores to line her own pockets.
I talked with the man who had been the best dancer of the night, Emery Iskan, and the fears he held in his heart about the man he spent his nights with. The fears that one day he'd be thrown away, just like he had countless times before, and be traded for someone who could never say no, or be forced to say yes because of the power the other man held over his head.
I talked with men and woman that lived on the edges of the gangs, the only reason they aren't persecuted and oppressed by them was that they allied with them, to protect themselves originally. But then came the drugs and alcohol, the money that would feed their family for days in a single night's work.
Here is where I found the broken and disenfranchised. An integral piece in the puzzle I was trying to create in my mind.
I had those of the Skinned Lizard and the Gek woman, Lauka, to help me find my way in the world of the hidden and invisible. I had Valeri, Lucae, and the rest of who I'd met that night to help me find my way in the glaring lights that casted the darkest shadows.
It wasn't much of a beginning, lacking contacts and understanding amongst far too many groups to possibly call myself knowledgeable, but it was something. Yet, there was a large piece of the puzzle missing in my brain, something that I wanted to find and slot it in within everything else I had to work with.
"Lucae," I had said to the man, whispering into his ear as the early morning began to spill through the windows, pulling his sharp attention with my tone, "I would like to speak with you, privately."
The man, as frivolous and belligerent as he might seem, was as sharp as a tack. He quickly led me through the many corridors of his estate, shaking himself of the effects of weariness and whatever recreation he may have been partaking in.
He had ushered me into a large sitting room, which was clearly sparse and relatively unused, but across a low table sat two highbacked chairs that looked exorbitantly comfortable. We quickly sat, only confirming their comfort, and he had stared at me questioningly. I had taken my time in answering, settling into the seat, crossing my legs and finally steepling my fingers on my thigh.
"I'm sorry I have to ask you this question, Lucae." I smiled apologetically, "But I want to know what you know about the Shadow Walkers." The flamboyantly dressed man lost any and all humour in his disposition, showing a raw and serious side to Lucae that you'd only know existed if you'd seen it or were an empath capable of feeling the emotions of others. He ran his hand over his mouth, quickly smoothing out the smattering of eclectically styled facial hair that he had almost continuously twirled into different positions throughout the night.
"Maximilian, dear." The man's voice had almost been more of a sigh, "I really wish you hadn't asked that of me." The words might've been worrying if I couldn't see just how taboo the topic was to Lucae. There were a few minutes of the man building enough internal strength to speak, and when he did, they were shaky and full of conflict. "There are a few of them, and they operate within the Brauhm Empire, usually."
"How many?" I had asked, but the man grimaced unsurely.
"Five? At least the ones that have worked here. I can't be sure. All the information I have is from my father's ledger, from the last time I took a look at it." The last time being when Lucae was a child.
"So, they're assassins." I stated easily, and Lucae nodded with a dark expression on his angular features.
"They are masters of it, better than anyone in Crossroads. My father might be powerful financially, but even he can't sway them with all of his wealth. They are a spectre that sits over the heads of the rich and powerful in Crossroads, and even in Brauhm, readying a blade over their necks for the moment that someone pays them enough to kill their target." The man had looked me dead in the eyes after that, the clear hazel disks holding a powerful plea, something I'm almost certain was a very unusual expression on the normally carefree man's face.
"We may not be friends, having barely known one another long enough to say we're acquainted, but please don't chase shadows. They might contain something you aren't prepared for, and I'd hate to see your corpse become gossip for the stone hearted socialites."
How many times had someone worried about me now? A few times at least. They tried to protect me from some unknowable enemy, not understanding that they were exactly what I was seeking out, that the danger was nothing to me. I remember laughing at the man gently, standing to sit on the low table right in front of him and placing my hand on his arm softly.
"I'll be quite alright, Lucae. Don't you worry about me." The small flash of a fire's light in my eyes was all it took for the expression of dawning realisation appear on Lucae's face, though I had already begun my exit before I had been able to see it bloom fully, leaving the man forever on the edge of understanding without true confirmation.
That night had led to many more before I'd found what I was truly looking for. Before I found the man I was currently standing across from with a warm smile, despite the ugly expression on his face and his friend that stood at his side, ready to draw his blade at a moment's notice.
"What do you want, Mister Maximilian Avenforth?"
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