She drifted like a puff of smoke, moving between the masked figures.

They spun, round and round, swayed this way and that to the music which intertwined with their bodies.

They made love to it.

They made love to each other in darkened corners, private chambers, their voices echoing down the narrow servants passages.

They didn't care who they were behind the gilded masks in this feast of sin. Literally, figuratively.

Gluttony.

Lust.

Greed.

Envy.

Sloth.

And most of all; Pride.

Pride and that Ysdale woman went hand in hand. She could spot her from across the room, blond hair shining in the candle light. Only she, would feel the need to parade herself about, betrothed in tow like a faithful dog, her fingers stroking him as he proved himself obedient to her whim. Silently, she hated her.

Envy, Merripen's calling card these days as she toted the heavy, silver trays to and from the massive tables. Envy, that Cordelia dripped off of him, closer than his own sweat. Envy that she did it in front of all of them. Envy that Will, seemed to be enjoying her attentions.

Hand in hand with Envy, however, came her sister.

Sorrow.

It was a poetic companioning.

William, had another life now, with his dainty, pretty, pale haired, wife to be and left his tall, broad, dark haired mistress to watch from afar.

So she slipped through the crowd, like a fish through bottom dwelling weeds as the wine flowed. As virginities were lost, as the evidence of greed flowed like the spilled wine that embroidered slippers avoided. Yes, she saw. She knew this wasn't a fight anymore. Mereavus had won, the king had won.

So why did she still feel Wrath.

Why was it that all she could think about was how she'd like to smash that mask into that woman's perfect little face? Why was all she could think about the fact that she, couldn't touch him tonight? The fact that he'd be bedding her tonight? Ma was right, this was killing her. It would continue, to kill her.

The sound of shattering glass, laughter like silver bells. Sparkling wine spread across the floor with gleaming shards of broken crystal. The dancers shuffled away from it's fragment, reaching fingers. It was only fitting, that William's mistress, be the one picking the shards off the floor. It was only fair, that she imagined shoving them down Cordelia's laughing throat as she and Will danced. Each little shard, like a glittering gem in Cordelia's mask, in her flaxen hair, in Mereavus's necklace, on Roslyn's finger. Her hand curled around the broken stem of the glass, crushing the broken bits in her black, kid skin, gloved, hand until the points punched through.

"I'm bleeding," She told the steward, harried man in his faceless silver mask, counterpart to the servant's plain, white, porcelain. "On with you," He snapped, pushing his way past the kitchen staff who peered through the door way at those lucky few who served the party.

She left the gloves at the door, but she carried the resentment off to the stable yard. She clung to it as she saddled up the grey-dappled mare. She needed it. If she couldn't have him by god she would dance. He couldn't dictate where she went. He couldn't make her watch him lick her ankles all night. She lead the horse from her stall, paused to pay her respects to the great, black, monster who resided beside the mare, as man did not woman. He didn't have a choice, he was her pet now she reminded herself as she swung up into the saddle.

But Merripen, was nobody's pet.

Perhaps she had been, for the better part of her life, William's little plebeian toy. Something pretty to pass the time. Things were different now, maybe not by earth shattering standards, but there had been words. There had been rings. They were nothing like the thing on Cordelia's hand, but it meant more to her. It meant more that when he said he loved her, he meant it.

The trees, were not dancers, though their limbs swayed in the breeze, touching each other like lovers in the light of the moon, rustling leaves just beginning to blossom outwards to form the jewel green sea of her childhood. This was home.
She rode until the castle seemed little more than a distant dream, it's lights, it's sounds, lost in the sound of rushing leaves.

Don't go into the forest. He'd said. Don't even think about it. She brought the horse to a trot, then to a meandering clop and finally, to a halt. She threw the mask, hard against a tree. How dare he. How dare he.

She slipped off the horse's back, tied the reins and stripped. Glowing, pale skin in the moonlight. Wild black hair loosed to her waist.

How dare he.

She kicked the bundle of wine scented fabric off under a bush and reached towards the bold face of the moon, caught in the trees. She danced to the sound of leaves, the song of the emerging wildlife, the wolves' fullthroated melody in the distance. Her bare feet beat the moss, the well worn circle her mother had danced, her brothers danced, her grandfather danced. There were no drums or flutes or ringing gut strings. There was no wine, no incense or candles. There was just the moonlight, just the trees. There was no nightmare scape of silent snow and naked bark. There were no roots reaching up from the mossy ground. If she could only stay forever. If only she could abandon all of them. Them and their dancing partners.

Each one of those seven deadly sins.

Each one of those golden masked lovers.

Airless.

Empty laughter. Overdone compliments. Fiancee on one arm. Mistress across the room. Mother going home with Osanna in chains. Father ill.

It was for no apparent reason that William Alexston's last string snapped in the midst of the masquerade. He excused himself startlingly politely - a friend, you understand, he'd not seen in a while. He vanished into a crowd of people he apparently knew. And when he came out the other side, he was in the fresh air.

Hose and pomp. He couldn't breathe in this cloth. He couldn't breathe in the mask. He couldn't breathe when he looked at her, and it was the wrong her. He unbuckled the mask and flexed his brow, arms leaned against the stone wall of overdone steps.

How had it come here? It had all been so easy. War, and Merripen, and what he was made to do. Not this incessant falsehood, faking himself to his fiancee, and his friends, and her newfound friends, and whoever else stumbled across him. Not building up ancient and perverse palaces for his wife to feel better in. Not deciding which home they wanted together. Not shunning the woman he wanted to be with for the sake of other people.

He wanted his tent, and his 'camp cot' she mocked so damned often. He wanted to come home filthy having done something with his day rather than as fresh as he'd left his bath. As fresh as she'd only accept him. He could hear the words dripping off his mind in the same voice that had cast out transparent compliments all evening; 'go bathe, darling'. All the furniture that had to be just-so and the room placements and keeping his art to their own quarters.

Yes, darling. Because everything must be closeted away so it doesn't embarrass you or show a little too much.

He wanted to feel like himself again, and even if all of this faggotry fell down around him, he knew he never would. He knew it was gone. Stuck in history as some smiling, fluff-faced boy who had golden dreams and no darknesses. It was becoming some hideous half-life. Able to function and please her and give her all she wanted because it only required half a man. And the rest was simply gone, and for the first time since it had been blown out, he realised the depth of it properly.

He couldn't cry for it. He could barely feel it to cry for it. It didn't hurt, it was just a state of non-function.

A state made by the other her. The other her who liked his camp cot provided he was in it. The other her who should be the her. She wasn't the 'other' and yet she was cast in the role of it.

How dare she.

His irrational anger at everything and apparently everyone extended to her, too. He'd put her first and he'd done as she asked, how dare she turn back and take this away from him. How dare she drag the last pieces of himself out and throw them beneath hooves as though they'd meant nothing.

How dare any of them. He hadn't been rendered half lifeless because of himself. He hadn't done this to himself. They had. And they would always continue to nip chunks and blow out entire pieces at whim.

How dare she try to leave him. If she hurt now, she could hurt. It was no more than he had hurt knowing she had done exactly the same without his knowledge. Without necessity, without reason. If this killed her, then they were even. They were square.

Did he honestly believe that?

No. He just wanted to breathe. Breathe the way he had done before, instead of being a cripple.

He was going to drown in this frivolous half-life.