AU for _deadlydance_, set immediately after "The Price"

[birthrightgreen]

She wasn't nervous. She had nothing to be nervous about. It wasn't like it was a romantic evening. They'd just worked so hard on the case, working to catch the rabid witch who'd been slaughtering innocent males. And they had, with Jaenelle's help. Now Jaenelle and Daemon were back on their honeymoon and she...

She was here in Amdarh, back how she had been, nursing the bruises Falonar had left. So, why, exactly was she changing her dress? The one she had on was perfectly acceptable. She was going out dancing with a friend. She could use a friend right now. What she couldn't use was a male thinking he was just going to sweep in and carry her off.

Not that he was probably thinking that, but she was suspicious.

He was a male, and years of seeing them abused by her own sex still hadn't made her trust them as a gender. Then again, she didn't trust most people.

With a growl at herself, she finally settled on a black dress with enough slink to impress and a enough swirl to make a statement on the dance floor, no matter how elegant and formal. Hair pinned half up, the rest left down. If people stared at her ears, so be it.

She was ready. It was going to be fun. She kept repeating that. Fun. With a friend.

Just a friend. He wasn't expecting anything. He wouldn't be that foolish.

She just wished she knew what he wanted.

Comments

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

Surreal glanced at him through her lashes again, her lips curving in a purely feminine smile. Nothing might ever be going to happen between them, but that didn't mean she wanted him oblivious to her.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"So." Looking at Surreal, he repeated the only words he could find. "No maid."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"No. Saetan insisted on it at the Hall, but here..." She shrugged. "Well. I can do more as I please. And if I need help for a more formal function..." She tried to think. "No. I can't think of why I would. Do aristo women really not draw their own baths?"

Now she was just being wicked.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

Rainier could breathe. He reminded himself of that fact, physically forcing himself to cool down. As long as he breathed, it eased. Because he wondered if taht pleased spark in Surreal's eyes would fade if he actually responded to her flirting. He didn't want that to happen.

Rainier smiled for her.

"I doubt they even know how the water gets there."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She snorted. "I'll never be one of them." It was almost a warning. That her mother was a Queen and her....the man who speared her a Warlord Prince didn't matter.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

Rainier looked puzzled.

"Did I miss the part where I said you had to be?"

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

Her smile was slightly dark. "Aren't I supposed to be? High Lord's niece. Cousin to the Warlord Prince of Dhelman. Don't you think I'm expected to be?"

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

If her smile was dark, his eyes were.

"I think it is more than enough to live up to our own expectations."

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She paused slightly at that, nodded. "I always thought so, too."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"But someone else disagreed with you?"

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She shrugged slightly. "If they'd just let me come in as 'Surreal'..." She sighed. "But no. They insisted on a surname and...I ended up with an aristo family who keeps insisting I'm one of them." Possibly it was the wine that loosened her tongue, or the flailing need to make him understand. See.

She wasn't like him.

He had to understand that before he started escorting her around town.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"Surreal." Rainier tried to keep the smile from his face. "Speaking as someone who has had the benefit of standing back and watching ou with them? They aren't just intisting they are your family. They are your family."

There was the smile.

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"Maybe they're family. But I'm not like them."

She was sticking to that point.

"I'm not like you."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

Rainier finished the last of his wine.

"What am I like, then?"

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"Aristo." No scorn in the word, but something....different. Apart.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"You're saying that you are not like me." Rainier surmised. "But why would I want to spend time with myself? Dance, with myself?"

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She looked at him narrowly, unsure if she was being teased.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

He recognized that look. It was time for another question.

"What does the word Aristo mean to you?"

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She shrugged slightly. "Money come by in some respectable fashion. Family with entree into society. Growing up with that. Breeding that shows, not tainted by..." Her eyes flitted away. By time on the streets. By never knowing where your next meal would come from. By letting people do...whatever to you. "Ties. It's a different world."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

Rainier always admired grace, even off the dance floor. He paused to watch the delicate lift of Surreal's shoulder. And then there was concern. She thought she was tainited?

But the look in her eyes warned him off.

"If I have given ou the impression that I am someone that is overly concerned with pointless frivolities, I'm sorry."

And he wanted her to know that. Society had a place, but not every place. Protocol however? Mattered. The deep-seated need to serve? Called.

He had promised that he wouldn't snarl.

But, tainted?

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She tilted her head, watching him. "I didn't say you were overly concerned with pointless frivolity. Nor that aristos are. You run the Blood. Run the Territories. You form Courts and Circles. There are hundreds of Blood who do not have that opportunity considering their birth. Society is where the world is run from."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"I won't lie Surreal. I take pleasure in the world I was born into, but I wasn't born into that pleasure. I had to work for it, to find it. And truthfully I find that countless members of the Aristo class that take their Blood and their birth for granted? For even more than it is worth? I have no respect for that. Who am I to say that those who rule are any more important than those who are ruled."

He poured them both another glass of wine.

"You don't consider yourself Circle?"

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

She shrugged slightly. "Jaenelle says I am, but I..." She sighed. "I suppose I am. But it's..."

It's not the same, she wanted to scream at him. You don't know.

Possibly it flashed in her eyes, but she glanced down to hide it.

"Your attitude is not one I've seen much among aristos."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_deadlydance_/]

"It's not about what Jaenelle says, and you know it. Either you are, or you aren't." There were some things Rainier wouldn't back down from. "She doesn't command that you give her your heart, she simply waits for you to offer it, freely. Because she knows how much more powerful that bond is. And once you do, it doesn't matter if you are sitting, standing, or walking on four legs when you do."

He didn't have to see Surreal's eyes, to feel the heat from them.

"If none of that matters to her, how could it possibly mean something to me."

There was another sip of wine, and a breath.

"Did the lady just imply I have an attitude?"

[birthrightgreen.livejournal.com]

"Jaenelle has my love and my loyalty," she practically snarled at him. To even imply that she didn't, when she'd given up everything she'd ever dreamed of for her, to serve her...Surreal nearly broke the wine glass. "She's had it since she was barely twelve. I've never said she thought or said..."

She sat back, taking a deep breath. "Just because who and what I was doesn't matter to her doesn't mean others see it the same way, sugar."

"You do."