Leon suppressed the urge to sigh. He could feel a headache building behind his temples; he wasn't sure if it was a side-effect of his condition or just the stress and frustration that was trying to negotiate this rather perilous, rather ridiculous territory. Perhaps it was both.
So far, he'd had to fend off quite a lot of people asking for the opinion of a High Seeker on the other notable succession crisis of the moment. He'd made it firmly clear he had nothing to say about who should be the next Divine. It was a matter he'd need to think about eventually, but at the moment, he didn't have the mental energy to spare. He wasn't about to lean the weight of his position in any particular direction until he had.
Giving up on suppression, he heaved the sigh stuck in his chest when the latest gaggle of people moved off. Those had seemed much more interested in flirting with the Lord Inquisitor than anything else. It had rather quickly cracked the practiced demeanor Romulus had assumed for the introductions, to the point that Leon had actively interceded on his behalf. At least they'd gotten the hint once he started looming.
"Feel free to take a minute," Leon told him. "We can run interference for a bit here if you need some air or something." Regaining the centered, measured attitude he'd started with might be a matter of more than a few seconds, after all. That was just to be expected of ordinary, non-courtier mortals like themselves.
He looked very much like he wished he had a hood to pull up over his head. "We're wasting time," he said, through partially gritted teeth. "I don't need air, I just need something to do. Something I'm useful at." Obviously he didn't think that trading pleasant greetings or flirting with random nobility was contained in that category of things.
Leon could understand the frustration, though there was little to be done about it. "Unfortunately there will be no such tasks until someone unearths them," he pointed out. "And that is a matter of talking to people." He didn't like it either, but that was simply the nature of the beast, so to speak.
Pursing his lips, he glanced from Asala to Khari. The former still seemed a little dazzled by their surroundings, but few were brave enough to approach her anyway, though she got quite a lot of distasteful looks. Almost as many as Khari, who was making effort to be included in the conversation at least.
Maybe a group like this would have more success with martial types. In Leon's experience, chevaliers were at least a fraction more direct than their non-military counterparts. "Find us some soldiers, Khari?" She'd know how to spot them, and probably not mind doing so.
Khari blinked, as if snapping out of some thought or another. Not a pleasant one, judging by the downturn of her mouth. Her enthusiasm seemed to return a bit in the face of the job she was being asked to do, though, and she crossed her arms over her middle, humming thoughtfully and scanning the crowd.
A lot of the nobles were rather soft-looking, which made sense given their lifestyles, but every once in a while, there were one or two who looked to have more active pastimes. Disambiguating those from the actual chevaliers in the group would be the trickier part. Khari pulled her lower lip between her teeth and chewed for several long moments, then released it and grinned. “Them. Definitely them."
A jerk of her chin indicated who they were. A small cluster of younger individuals, only three. All of them were more modestly-dressed than average, but they were all also in quite good physical condition, and held their arms ever so slightly away from themselves, as though they were used to working around a sword-hilt or something similar. Two men and a woman, the man placed at the center with a slightly more mature appearance than the other two. They had matching tawny hair and similar-enough facial features to suggest familial relation of some stripe.
“Those are chevaliers, or I'll eat my damn dress." She struck off in their direction, shoes striking the marble-tiled floor with authoritative beats, clearly expecting the others to follow her now that she'd found what she was asked to find.
Their approach was obvious, and there was simply no way any of the three didn't notice it. The younger of the two men actually turned his head in their direction, eyes rounding slightly; he leaned down to speak to the woman, who shook her head and glanced at the other. His face remained stony. He scanned over them with an appraising stare, but then his eyes settled somewhere over Leon's shoulder.
“Well met." Khari, either sensitive to the fact the Romulus wasn't much in the mood to keep repeating the same greetings and introductions or else simply forgetting that he was supposed to, curtsied like she'd been taught. “I'm Kharisanna Istimaethoriel. This is Lord Inquisitor Romulus, High Seeker Leonhardt Albrecht, and Serah Asala Kaaras." To her credit, the formalized words were smooth, like she'd practiced them, too. “We're with the Inquisition."
She paused politely for the return introductions.
A heartbeat passed.
Then another.
The younger man and the woman exchanged glances, both of them shifting their eyes to the eldest. He continued to stare right through the whole lot of them. They might as well have been air.
Khari's brows furrowed. She looked from the two to the one, frown deepening. “Hey. I'm talking to you." Still nothing. Her fists clenched at her sides.
If anything, the pounding in his head was worsening, but this time it was just because he was angry. Leon was extremely practiced in the art of self-control, however, and forced a reasonably-neutral expression onto his face. He knew what this was.
"Sers. I am High Seeker Leonhardt Albrecht, and these are my companions, Lord Inquisitor Romulus, Serah Kharisanna Istimaethoriel, and Serah Asala Kaaras." The words rumbled out of him, the slight harshness to them likely excusable as his bass being sonorous by nature.
Romulus had looked like he was about to speak up before Leon had intervened. Whatever his words were going to be, they certainly weren't going to be a repeat of the introduction. For the moment, he held his tongue to see how they would respond.
Unsurprisingly, there was a response this time. The eldest man blinked, pale blue eyes coming back into focus, and inclined himself in a minimally-polite bow. "High Seeker. Lord Inquisitor. My name is Thédore Blancheflor. These are my cousins: Ser Marine Blancheflor and Ser Jean Blancheflor. We serve in the Lord-General's fourth regiment."
The other two looked considerably relieved at the slight shift in atmosphere, offering a much deeper bow and curtsy than their cousin had.
“Oh yeah?" Khari's tone was low, almost tremulous. But it was quite clear that it wasn't fear that caused the quake. “And what about me and Asala, huh? The Lord-General fine with you just ignoring people right in front of your face? Bet that works real well on the field, huh?"
"Um—" Jean parted his lips to speak, but Marine's hand on his shoulder silenced him. She shook her head, expression uncomfortable. Théodore didn't respond to her that time, either.
Khari looked about two seconds away from grabbing him by the neck of his doublet and forcing him to acknowledge her existence one way or another.
Marine had apparently caught onto the fact, her eyes moving between Khari and her cousin apprehensively. "Théo..." She let her sentence trail off before it was more than a word.
He turned his whole head to look down his nose at her. "Yes, Marine?"
She cleared her throat. "Shouldn't you...?"
"What? Acknowledge an honorless knife ear and her heathen ashfaced friend? I think not."
That had done it. Khari snarled and threw herself at him, something Théodore seemed to have anticipated, because he caught her outstretched arms in his hands. She still managed to get them in his shirt, yanking down with strength he clearly had not expected her to have. His nose collided with her head and crunched; she released and shoved him backward. Reflexively, he let go, hands moving to his face.
“Fucking look at me when I'm talking to you, you little shit!" Khari glowered at him, lips peeled back from her teeth. “And take back what you said about Asala!"
Asala was the next to move, although she went to Khari instead. Her slender arms wrapped the smaller woman's belly as she began to tug backward and away from the confrontation. "Khari, please. That's enough," she said in her firm, but also gentle way. Her face had a hard line to it, though if that was because of the man's words or because of the effort of attempting to pull Khari away, it was unclear.
Khari didn't resist; arguably, she hadn't looked too much like she was about to strike again, though perhaps safe was better than sorry. Actually at the moment she looked surprised more than anything, as though she'd only just realized what she'd done and was no longer nearly so certain of its wisdom.
Rom watched the pair of them only long enough to make sure that Khari wasn't going to go after him again. At that point he shifted his eyes back to the chevaliers, watching them for the same. Though the night had just begun, he looked more than a little tired.
The altercation had clearly drawn the attention of most of the room; a murmur was sweeping through the crowd, and it sounded distinctly uncomplimentary to Leon's ears. He regretted not being slightly quicker to react to Khari's obvious agitation, but a small part of him wondered if he'd really have stopped her. Necessity would have demanded it, and he'd have answered that, but...
"What's going on here?" The new voice carried a ponderous gravitas with it, and the murmurs were nearly immediately quelled. A man strode towards them, dressed in formal armor, gleaming silverite with a dragon clearly emblazoned on the front. A deep green cloak fastened at his shoulders nearly skimmed the ground behind him. Though his hair was more grey than brown, the flinty color of his eyes was vaguely familiar.
Guillame Drakon didn't look much like his son otherwise, aside from being almost as tall and having a bit of similarity in the nose and jaw. The brow beneath his mask was much thicker, his angles hewn more roughly overall. In his wake trailed a woman in blue, with pin-straight red hair to her shoulders and a slightly pinched look to her features, but the same warriors' build as the three Blancheflors.
"Lord-General." Théodore had managed to set his own nose at this point; he seemed to be tolerating what must have been quite a lot of pain very well. He held the bridge of it between his forefinger and thumb, using his free right hand to salute his commanding officer. "This woman attacked me."
“With provocation." Khari was still not resisting Asala, but she did try to shrug her off so as to be able to stand independently and address the Lord-General. “Bastard wouldn't even look at me, then called my friend 'ashfaced.' Figured he ought to know what happens when you ignore dangerous people right under your damn nose."
"The situation is as described," Leon added. "Please accept our apologies, Lord-General. It was not our intention to begin an altercation." He offered a short bow.
Guy grunted. "Of course not." Crossing his arms, he fixed his attention on Théodore. "The Inquisition has apologized, Captain. Now I'm obligated to do the same on your behalf. Think about that next time you decide to make an ass of yourself in public." His scowl deepened, but he was clearly a man of his word, because he returned Leon's bow with one of the same.
"You have my apologies as well, for the actions of my men." He rose, glancing over the lot of them before sighing heavily and turning on his heel to leave, gesturing the three Blancheflors after him. That took care of the diplomatic motions of resolution, and though the courtiers were still clearly whispering about it, their attention more or less dispersed with his departure.
His aide, however, remained, smiling somewhat uncomfortably at them, particularly Khari and Romulus, whom she seemed to recognize. "Sorry about all that," she added. "I hope this won't damage things too much. Théodore doesn't speak for all of us."
“Doesn't speak much at all, seems like." Khari's tone was sour, but not as harsh as it could have been. Perhaps it had dawned on her what damage she might have done to their cause had the Lord-General not been a reasonable man. What damage she might have done anyway. Pushing out a harsh breath, she offered the woman an awkward smile. “But thanks, Vi. I think if we're not any worse off with you, it's only fair that you're not any worse off with us."
"Seems fair to me." Reaching forward a bit, the chevalier patted Khari's shoulder once before drawing back. "Come see me after all this is over," she added. "I've got some... news you might be interested in. Until then... good luck out there." Dipping her head to all of them, she left in the same direction as the Lord-General had.
Along her way, she passed by a familiar face. "I believe congratulations are in order, Lieutenant-Commander," Michaël greeted with a warm smile. There was a bit of pride for his countryman in his words.
She dipped her head, a slightly subdued smile making a brief appearance on her face. "Appreciated, Ser Michaël."
Once she was gone, his attention turned back toward the others, and Khari in particular. There was a thin frown on his face, mild disappointment in place of his usual jovial grin. It was apparent that he had witnessed their earlier altercation, and he didn't approve, but there was something else too. Almost like he felt like he was in a dilemma. The reason why soon became apparent. "I want to say I am disappointed, and I probably should as well, but... I cannot say I wouldn't be any less angry if someone had insulted my friend too. Asala especially," he revealed with a slight shrug of his shoulder.
Khari seemed resigned to her chastening, such as it were, maintaining a silence that she was clearly trying not to make sullen, though her face hadn't quite lost the glower since the Lord-General's aide left.
"I want you to know, however," he started again, tossing his gaze back toward where the chevaliers had exited. "That there will be many others who share his sentiment, and some will not be as polite," He then turned back toward her, and offered a comforting smile. "It is something to think on, to be sure. But I did not come to lecture you," he said.
"I bring news from Marcy and Cyrus. Apparently there are servants that have gone missing, along with a Herald," he said, glancing at Romulus, before correcting himself, "Not ours, of course. They're accounted for obviously," he said with a smile and nod at Romulus. "They've taken to investigating the Herald, but wanted someone else to look into the servants."
Leon stroked his chin, feeling a frown form over his face. "Missing servants? It's going to be a bit difficult to inquire, considering that most of the areas servants would be in are off-limits." He doubted any of them would want to speak within earshot of twenty nobles about such a thing. They were probably quite expected to remain discreet at any cost. Of course... he couldn't say he cared that much about the limits placed on accessible areas of the building.
"Perhaps this last incident will serve a purpose after all. No one will be surprised if we make ourselves scarce for a few minutes at least. As long as we're back quickly enough, it shouldn't be all that suspicious." Leon turned his attention to Romulus, arching an eyebrow under his mask. "Your orders, Lord Inquisitor?" The question was at least slightly facetious, but only in the phrasing.
He'd been looking for something productive to do. This might just be it.
"Sounds like exactly what we should be doing right now," Romulus answered, without much hesitation. "We're obviously not doing much to help here."
Leon nodded. With the decision made, the issue became approaching it tactically. No doubt the highest concentration of servants would currently be moving in and out of the kitchens. He'd been aware of them for most of the night, but now he tracked their movements in particular. They seemed to all be appearing from back outside the entrance to the ballroom, which made sense—most likely some hallway off the main entry to the castle led to the servants' living and working areas.
"Well, our exit's this way," he said, nodding towards it. Their party wasn't exactly the one he would have chosen for sneaking around anywhere, aside from himself and Romulus. Khari had make quite the obvious point about her discretion already this evening, and there was simply no way Asala would go unnoticed anywhere around here. To say nothing of her ability to get around smoothly, which wasn't the best.
But that might work in their favor; perhaps they could draw or divert attention while the quieter half the team actually ventured into the servants' area. For now, Leon led the way through the crowd, which like most crowds he'd ever encountered, parted easily for him. The eyes followed as they moved, but as he'd initially suspected, the departure didn't appear to surprise anyone. It would take a while for them to be missed.
From the ballroom proper, they headed down an ancillary hallway, still apparently quite open to guests, though much less populated. There, Leon paused; there appeared to be a pair of servants waiting outside the door he thought might lead where they wanted to go, occasionally opening the large door for someone burdened down with trays, empty going in or full coming out. Perhaps they would be willing to speak.
Perhaps that would have to do with who addressed them. He was probably the worst choice, by appearance alone, though not in other ways. Still, he glanced at the others. "Anyone feeling confident enough to lead here?"
"I will," Romulus offered. He didn't look particularly happy about it, but then, that had become his obvious emotional state for just about everything they'd done in the Winter Palace. But it didn't seem that Khari was very eager to try out her people skills again so soon, and neither was Asala, though probably for different reasons. Romulus, then, made his way over to the servants slowly and obviously, making his intent of speaking with them quite clear in the approach. He also removed his mask; there were few enough around to see it done, and the servants themselves only had the simplest of disguises.
"I don't mean to bring you any trouble," he began, speaking softly. "I know you're probably not supposed to speak to me, but I was hoping you might be able to spare just a moment." He paused, finding each of their eyes for a moment, though he did not stare at either for too long. "I'm Romulus."
From the ears protruding slightly beyond their unadorned masks, both servants were elves; the one on the left was perhaps a middle-aged woman, the other a boy probably barely in the latter half of his teenage years, thin and gangly in the limbs. They exchanged a look, and then the woman spoke. "Syl. This is Pol." She pursed her lips, glancing behind him to where the others were clearly still in earshot. "If they can look busy, we can talk."
Leon took the hint immediately, turning himself around and leaning his back against a wall a little further off. Close enough to hear, but not to look like he had anything to do with the servants or their conversation. He also used his body to block a bit of visibility, gesturing Asala over so she could do the same. He trusted Khari to understand that it would be better for her to remain on Romulus's other side, watching in the other direction.
Asala did as instructed, shuffling over next to Leon, and then proceeded to make herself seem busy by adjusting and readjusting the jewelry and ribbon Marceline had put on her. Or at least, what she thought a busy person looked like.
He sighed. "You don't have to do anything in particular, Asala. Just talk to me as you would normally. The important thing is that we don't draw undue attention to Romulus." Which undoubtedly a large group of distinctive-looking people would do if they just stood in a cluster with him.
"Oh," she stated flatly, letting her hands fall to her side, "Right."
"Thank you," Romulus said to the elves, glancing at them both, but he directed his conversation towards the older of the two. "We're with the Inquisition, trying to make sure nothing burns down the Winter Palace tonight, or kills anyone trying to make peace. We'd heard some of the servants are missing. Have you heard anything like that?" He posed the question somewhat carefully. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility, of course, that some of the servants might be up to no good at all, and that might be why they'd vanished. But it was also possible that innocents among them had simply gotten caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and paid the price for it.
"Perhaps," Syl hedged, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. Or perhaps just disclosing the information to a stranger. "Perhaps not. Why would you want to know about that, messere?"
Khari hadn't strayed far from Romulus, and at that turn in the conversation, she abandoned the pretense of staring absently out a window and grimaced. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching her too closely, she returned to his side, her body language about as nonthreatening as it was possible for someone with her energy and vigor to be. She was not taller than either of the other two elves, but her presence was more impressive by several orders of magnitude.
She took off her mask, too, either following Romulus's cue or assuming her vallaslin might win her some credibility. When she did, she sighed, as though the simple action had relieved her of some much heavier burden. Meeting eyes first with Syl and then Pol, Khari dredged up half a smile from somewhere. “Because it matters." The smile fell.
“I've spent all of two hours in this place, and I don't know how you guys do it all the time. I guess you have to. But I know that if I was in this situation all the time, where people just get to ignore me, to treat me like—" Her voice cracked just slightly; she swallowed and continued as though it hadn't. “Treat me like I don't exist. Like I don't matter. I might start to believe everyone thought that way."
Glancing once at Romulus, she met Syl's eyes and pursed her lips. “But that's wrong. Some people do care. Some people do think it matters. And we're a few of them. If your friends are missing, we want to help find them."
Pol's eyes were rounded in surprise by the end of it. He looked half like he might fall over at the sheer certainty of Khari's words, and half like he might not mind if he did. Syl's response was a little more measured, but even she had clearly not been expecting an answer like that. For a moment, her eyes lingered on Khari's face, as if tracing over the patterns on her skin, and then she nodded, a bit reluctantly, but firmly all the same.
"Three," she said quietly. "Some of us, we... we work for a certain employer. Nothing major usually, just... collecting information. She wanted us to keep an eye on the garden tonight—along with everywhere else. But the first girl we sent, Vela, she didn't come back to report on time."
Pol finally reassembled his expression into something a little less awestruck and grimaced. "We thought... sometimes the guards, if they catch an elf alone..." The sentence didn't really need to finish. "So we sent two more to investigate, so no one would be alone."
"They didn't come back either," Syl finished. "I wish I could tell you more, but that's all any of us know. We're not sending anyone else—we can't risk it." Her lips thinned into a flat line. "If you care as much as you say you do, Inquisition, then... find who is doing this, and make them pay for it."
"That's what I'm best at," Romulus said, slowly lifting his mask back up to his face. He checked for a moment behind him, making sure the screen of Leon and Asala was still in place. He then rounded back on the servants. "Since the garden is restricted to us tonight... can you recommend a route we can take? Some way that will help us keep out of sight?"
Pol raised a hand to his mouth, crooking his index finger and biting down on the knuckle. It seemed to be equal parts a contemplative gesture and a nervous one; he hummed a bit awkwardly. "You know how you went through the entranceway to get here? If you hang a left in the foyer, it takes you into this big fancy gallery hallway. It's not empty, but some of the statues are big enough that you can hide behind them and cross the room without being seen if you're patient and quiet. Should be a door on the other side that'll get you to the garden eventually. I'll have it unlocked in half an hour for sure." He glanced between Romulus and Khari, as if to check whether that would serve their purposes.
"Thank you, Pol." Romulus nodded. "That should be more than enough. And don't worry; we never saw you." Having gotten what they needed from them, they bid short farewells and departed, Romulus and Khari regrouping with Leon and Asala. No longer needing to pretend being busy, they headed back for the ballroom.
"The others will want to hear about this," he said, stating the obvious. "And if I'm going to be sneaking through this palace, I think I might need a change of companions. No offense."
“I dunno what you're talking about." Khari rolled her eyes. “Clearly, I am the most subtle, discreet person ever." The sarcasm in her tone was thick; obviously the previous incident was still close to the forefront of her thoughts.
“Practically invisible, even."
So far, he'd had to fend off quite a lot of people asking for the opinion of a High Seeker on the other notable succession crisis of the moment. He'd made it firmly clear he had nothing to say about who should be the next Divine. It was a matter he'd need to think about eventually, but at the moment, he didn't have the mental energy to spare. He wasn't about to lean the weight of his position in any particular direction until he had.
Giving up on suppression, he heaved the sigh stuck in his chest when the latest gaggle of people moved off. Those had seemed much more interested in flirting with the Lord Inquisitor than anything else. It had rather quickly cracked the practiced demeanor Romulus had assumed for the introductions, to the point that Leon had actively interceded on his behalf. At least they'd gotten the hint once he started looming.
"Feel free to take a minute," Leon told him. "We can run interference for a bit here if you need some air or something." Regaining the centered, measured attitude he'd started with might be a matter of more than a few seconds, after all. That was just to be expected of ordinary, non-courtier mortals like themselves.
He looked very much like he wished he had a hood to pull up over his head. "We're wasting time," he said, through partially gritted teeth. "I don't need air, I just need something to do. Something I'm useful at." Obviously he didn't think that trading pleasant greetings or flirting with random nobility was contained in that category of things.
Leon could understand the frustration, though there was little to be done about it. "Unfortunately there will be no such tasks until someone unearths them," he pointed out. "And that is a matter of talking to people." He didn't like it either, but that was simply the nature of the beast, so to speak.
Pursing his lips, he glanced from Asala to Khari. The former still seemed a little dazzled by their surroundings, but few were brave enough to approach her anyway, though she got quite a lot of distasteful looks. Almost as many as Khari, who was making effort to be included in the conversation at least.
Maybe a group like this would have more success with martial types. In Leon's experience, chevaliers were at least a fraction more direct than their non-military counterparts. "Find us some soldiers, Khari?" She'd know how to spot them, and probably not mind doing so.
Khari blinked, as if snapping out of some thought or another. Not a pleasant one, judging by the downturn of her mouth. Her enthusiasm seemed to return a bit in the face of the job she was being asked to do, though, and she crossed her arms over her middle, humming thoughtfully and scanning the crowd.
A lot of the nobles were rather soft-looking, which made sense given their lifestyles, but every once in a while, there were one or two who looked to have more active pastimes. Disambiguating those from the actual chevaliers in the group would be the trickier part. Khari pulled her lower lip between her teeth and chewed for several long moments, then released it and grinned. “Them. Definitely them."
A jerk of her chin indicated who they were. A small cluster of younger individuals, only three. All of them were more modestly-dressed than average, but they were all also in quite good physical condition, and held their arms ever so slightly away from themselves, as though they were used to working around a sword-hilt or something similar. Two men and a woman, the man placed at the center with a slightly more mature appearance than the other two. They had matching tawny hair and similar-enough facial features to suggest familial relation of some stripe.
“Those are chevaliers, or I'll eat my damn dress." She struck off in their direction, shoes striking the marble-tiled floor with authoritative beats, clearly expecting the others to follow her now that she'd found what she was asked to find.
Their approach was obvious, and there was simply no way any of the three didn't notice it. The younger of the two men actually turned his head in their direction, eyes rounding slightly; he leaned down to speak to the woman, who shook her head and glanced at the other. His face remained stony. He scanned over them with an appraising stare, but then his eyes settled somewhere over Leon's shoulder.
“Well met." Khari, either sensitive to the fact the Romulus wasn't much in the mood to keep repeating the same greetings and introductions or else simply forgetting that he was supposed to, curtsied like she'd been taught. “I'm Kharisanna Istimaethoriel. This is Lord Inquisitor Romulus, High Seeker Leonhardt Albrecht, and Serah Asala Kaaras." To her credit, the formalized words were smooth, like she'd practiced them, too. “We're with the Inquisition."
She paused politely for the return introductions.
A heartbeat passed.
Then another.
The younger man and the woman exchanged glances, both of them shifting their eyes to the eldest. He continued to stare right through the whole lot of them. They might as well have been air.
Khari's brows furrowed. She looked from the two to the one, frown deepening. “Hey. I'm talking to you." Still nothing. Her fists clenched at her sides.
If anything, the pounding in his head was worsening, but this time it was just because he was angry. Leon was extremely practiced in the art of self-control, however, and forced a reasonably-neutral expression onto his face. He knew what this was.
"Sers. I am High Seeker Leonhardt Albrecht, and these are my companions, Lord Inquisitor Romulus, Serah Kharisanna Istimaethoriel, and Serah Asala Kaaras." The words rumbled out of him, the slight harshness to them likely excusable as his bass being sonorous by nature.
Romulus had looked like he was about to speak up before Leon had intervened. Whatever his words were going to be, they certainly weren't going to be a repeat of the introduction. For the moment, he held his tongue to see how they would respond.
Unsurprisingly, there was a response this time. The eldest man blinked, pale blue eyes coming back into focus, and inclined himself in a minimally-polite bow. "High Seeker. Lord Inquisitor. My name is Thédore Blancheflor. These are my cousins: Ser Marine Blancheflor and Ser Jean Blancheflor. We serve in the Lord-General's fourth regiment."
The other two looked considerably relieved at the slight shift in atmosphere, offering a much deeper bow and curtsy than their cousin had.
“Oh yeah?" Khari's tone was low, almost tremulous. But it was quite clear that it wasn't fear that caused the quake. “And what about me and Asala, huh? The Lord-General fine with you just ignoring people right in front of your face? Bet that works real well on the field, huh?"
"Um—" Jean parted his lips to speak, but Marine's hand on his shoulder silenced him. She shook her head, expression uncomfortable. Théodore didn't respond to her that time, either.
Khari looked about two seconds away from grabbing him by the neck of his doublet and forcing him to acknowledge her existence one way or another.
Marine had apparently caught onto the fact, her eyes moving between Khari and her cousin apprehensively. "Théo..." She let her sentence trail off before it was more than a word.
He turned his whole head to look down his nose at her. "Yes, Marine?"
She cleared her throat. "Shouldn't you...?"
"What? Acknowledge an honorless knife ear and her heathen ashfaced friend? I think not."
That had done it. Khari snarled and threw herself at him, something Théodore seemed to have anticipated, because he caught her outstretched arms in his hands. She still managed to get them in his shirt, yanking down with strength he clearly had not expected her to have. His nose collided with her head and crunched; she released and shoved him backward. Reflexively, he let go, hands moving to his face.
“Fucking look at me when I'm talking to you, you little shit!" Khari glowered at him, lips peeled back from her teeth. “And take back what you said about Asala!"
Asala was the next to move, although she went to Khari instead. Her slender arms wrapped the smaller woman's belly as she began to tug backward and away from the confrontation. "Khari, please. That's enough," she said in her firm, but also gentle way. Her face had a hard line to it, though if that was because of the man's words or because of the effort of attempting to pull Khari away, it was unclear.
Khari didn't resist; arguably, she hadn't looked too much like she was about to strike again, though perhaps safe was better than sorry. Actually at the moment she looked surprised more than anything, as though she'd only just realized what she'd done and was no longer nearly so certain of its wisdom.
Rom watched the pair of them only long enough to make sure that Khari wasn't going to go after him again. At that point he shifted his eyes back to the chevaliers, watching them for the same. Though the night had just begun, he looked more than a little tired.
The altercation had clearly drawn the attention of most of the room; a murmur was sweeping through the crowd, and it sounded distinctly uncomplimentary to Leon's ears. He regretted not being slightly quicker to react to Khari's obvious agitation, but a small part of him wondered if he'd really have stopped her. Necessity would have demanded it, and he'd have answered that, but...
"What's going on here?" The new voice carried a ponderous gravitas with it, and the murmurs were nearly immediately quelled. A man strode towards them, dressed in formal armor, gleaming silverite with a dragon clearly emblazoned on the front. A deep green cloak fastened at his shoulders nearly skimmed the ground behind him. Though his hair was more grey than brown, the flinty color of his eyes was vaguely familiar.
Guillame Drakon didn't look much like his son otherwise, aside from being almost as tall and having a bit of similarity in the nose and jaw. The brow beneath his mask was much thicker, his angles hewn more roughly overall. In his wake trailed a woman in blue, with pin-straight red hair to her shoulders and a slightly pinched look to her features, but the same warriors' build as the three Blancheflors.
"Lord-General." Théodore had managed to set his own nose at this point; he seemed to be tolerating what must have been quite a lot of pain very well. He held the bridge of it between his forefinger and thumb, using his free right hand to salute his commanding officer. "This woman attacked me."
“With provocation." Khari was still not resisting Asala, but she did try to shrug her off so as to be able to stand independently and address the Lord-General. “Bastard wouldn't even look at me, then called my friend 'ashfaced.' Figured he ought to know what happens when you ignore dangerous people right under your damn nose."
"The situation is as described," Leon added. "Please accept our apologies, Lord-General. It was not our intention to begin an altercation." He offered a short bow.
Guy grunted. "Of course not." Crossing his arms, he fixed his attention on Théodore. "The Inquisition has apologized, Captain. Now I'm obligated to do the same on your behalf. Think about that next time you decide to make an ass of yourself in public." His scowl deepened, but he was clearly a man of his word, because he returned Leon's bow with one of the same.
"You have my apologies as well, for the actions of my men." He rose, glancing over the lot of them before sighing heavily and turning on his heel to leave, gesturing the three Blancheflors after him. That took care of the diplomatic motions of resolution, and though the courtiers were still clearly whispering about it, their attention more or less dispersed with his departure.
His aide, however, remained, smiling somewhat uncomfortably at them, particularly Khari and Romulus, whom she seemed to recognize. "Sorry about all that," she added. "I hope this won't damage things too much. Théodore doesn't speak for all of us."
“Doesn't speak much at all, seems like." Khari's tone was sour, but not as harsh as it could have been. Perhaps it had dawned on her what damage she might have done to their cause had the Lord-General not been a reasonable man. What damage she might have done anyway. Pushing out a harsh breath, she offered the woman an awkward smile. “But thanks, Vi. I think if we're not any worse off with you, it's only fair that you're not any worse off with us."
"Seems fair to me." Reaching forward a bit, the chevalier patted Khari's shoulder once before drawing back. "Come see me after all this is over," she added. "I've got some... news you might be interested in. Until then... good luck out there." Dipping her head to all of them, she left in the same direction as the Lord-General had.
Along her way, she passed by a familiar face. "I believe congratulations are in order, Lieutenant-Commander," Michaël greeted with a warm smile. There was a bit of pride for his countryman in his words.
She dipped her head, a slightly subdued smile making a brief appearance on her face. "Appreciated, Ser Michaël."
Once she was gone, his attention turned back toward the others, and Khari in particular. There was a thin frown on his face, mild disappointment in place of his usual jovial grin. It was apparent that he had witnessed their earlier altercation, and he didn't approve, but there was something else too. Almost like he felt like he was in a dilemma. The reason why soon became apparent. "I want to say I am disappointed, and I probably should as well, but... I cannot say I wouldn't be any less angry if someone had insulted my friend too. Asala especially," he revealed with a slight shrug of his shoulder.
Khari seemed resigned to her chastening, such as it were, maintaining a silence that she was clearly trying not to make sullen, though her face hadn't quite lost the glower since the Lord-General's aide left.
"I want you to know, however," he started again, tossing his gaze back toward where the chevaliers had exited. "That there will be many others who share his sentiment, and some will not be as polite," He then turned back toward her, and offered a comforting smile. "It is something to think on, to be sure. But I did not come to lecture you," he said.
"I bring news from Marcy and Cyrus. Apparently there are servants that have gone missing, along with a Herald," he said, glancing at Romulus, before correcting himself, "Not ours, of course. They're accounted for obviously," he said with a smile and nod at Romulus. "They've taken to investigating the Herald, but wanted someone else to look into the servants."
Leon stroked his chin, feeling a frown form over his face. "Missing servants? It's going to be a bit difficult to inquire, considering that most of the areas servants would be in are off-limits." He doubted any of them would want to speak within earshot of twenty nobles about such a thing. They were probably quite expected to remain discreet at any cost. Of course... he couldn't say he cared that much about the limits placed on accessible areas of the building.
"Perhaps this last incident will serve a purpose after all. No one will be surprised if we make ourselves scarce for a few minutes at least. As long as we're back quickly enough, it shouldn't be all that suspicious." Leon turned his attention to Romulus, arching an eyebrow under his mask. "Your orders, Lord Inquisitor?" The question was at least slightly facetious, but only in the phrasing.
He'd been looking for something productive to do. This might just be it.
"Sounds like exactly what we should be doing right now," Romulus answered, without much hesitation. "We're obviously not doing much to help here."
Leon nodded. With the decision made, the issue became approaching it tactically. No doubt the highest concentration of servants would currently be moving in and out of the kitchens. He'd been aware of them for most of the night, but now he tracked their movements in particular. They seemed to all be appearing from back outside the entrance to the ballroom, which made sense—most likely some hallway off the main entry to the castle led to the servants' living and working areas.
"Well, our exit's this way," he said, nodding towards it. Their party wasn't exactly the one he would have chosen for sneaking around anywhere, aside from himself and Romulus. Khari had make quite the obvious point about her discretion already this evening, and there was simply no way Asala would go unnoticed anywhere around here. To say nothing of her ability to get around smoothly, which wasn't the best.
But that might work in their favor; perhaps they could draw or divert attention while the quieter half the team actually ventured into the servants' area. For now, Leon led the way through the crowd, which like most crowds he'd ever encountered, parted easily for him. The eyes followed as they moved, but as he'd initially suspected, the departure didn't appear to surprise anyone. It would take a while for them to be missed.
From the ballroom proper, they headed down an ancillary hallway, still apparently quite open to guests, though much less populated. There, Leon paused; there appeared to be a pair of servants waiting outside the door he thought might lead where they wanted to go, occasionally opening the large door for someone burdened down with trays, empty going in or full coming out. Perhaps they would be willing to speak.
Perhaps that would have to do with who addressed them. He was probably the worst choice, by appearance alone, though not in other ways. Still, he glanced at the others. "Anyone feeling confident enough to lead here?"
"I will," Romulus offered. He didn't look particularly happy about it, but then, that had become his obvious emotional state for just about everything they'd done in the Winter Palace. But it didn't seem that Khari was very eager to try out her people skills again so soon, and neither was Asala, though probably for different reasons. Romulus, then, made his way over to the servants slowly and obviously, making his intent of speaking with them quite clear in the approach. He also removed his mask; there were few enough around to see it done, and the servants themselves only had the simplest of disguises.
"I don't mean to bring you any trouble," he began, speaking softly. "I know you're probably not supposed to speak to me, but I was hoping you might be able to spare just a moment." He paused, finding each of their eyes for a moment, though he did not stare at either for too long. "I'm Romulus."
From the ears protruding slightly beyond their unadorned masks, both servants were elves; the one on the left was perhaps a middle-aged woman, the other a boy probably barely in the latter half of his teenage years, thin and gangly in the limbs. They exchanged a look, and then the woman spoke. "Syl. This is Pol." She pursed her lips, glancing behind him to where the others were clearly still in earshot. "If they can look busy, we can talk."
Leon took the hint immediately, turning himself around and leaning his back against a wall a little further off. Close enough to hear, but not to look like he had anything to do with the servants or their conversation. He also used his body to block a bit of visibility, gesturing Asala over so she could do the same. He trusted Khari to understand that it would be better for her to remain on Romulus's other side, watching in the other direction.
Asala did as instructed, shuffling over next to Leon, and then proceeded to make herself seem busy by adjusting and readjusting the jewelry and ribbon Marceline had put on her. Or at least, what she thought a busy person looked like.
He sighed. "You don't have to do anything in particular, Asala. Just talk to me as you would normally. The important thing is that we don't draw undue attention to Romulus." Which undoubtedly a large group of distinctive-looking people would do if they just stood in a cluster with him.
"Oh," she stated flatly, letting her hands fall to her side, "Right."
"Thank you," Romulus said to the elves, glancing at them both, but he directed his conversation towards the older of the two. "We're with the Inquisition, trying to make sure nothing burns down the Winter Palace tonight, or kills anyone trying to make peace. We'd heard some of the servants are missing. Have you heard anything like that?" He posed the question somewhat carefully. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility, of course, that some of the servants might be up to no good at all, and that might be why they'd vanished. But it was also possible that innocents among them had simply gotten caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and paid the price for it.
"Perhaps," Syl hedged, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. Or perhaps just disclosing the information to a stranger. "Perhaps not. Why would you want to know about that, messere?"
Khari hadn't strayed far from Romulus, and at that turn in the conversation, she abandoned the pretense of staring absently out a window and grimaced. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching her too closely, she returned to his side, her body language about as nonthreatening as it was possible for someone with her energy and vigor to be. She was not taller than either of the other two elves, but her presence was more impressive by several orders of magnitude.
She took off her mask, too, either following Romulus's cue or assuming her vallaslin might win her some credibility. When she did, she sighed, as though the simple action had relieved her of some much heavier burden. Meeting eyes first with Syl and then Pol, Khari dredged up half a smile from somewhere. “Because it matters." The smile fell.
“I've spent all of two hours in this place, and I don't know how you guys do it all the time. I guess you have to. But I know that if I was in this situation all the time, where people just get to ignore me, to treat me like—" Her voice cracked just slightly; she swallowed and continued as though it hadn't. “Treat me like I don't exist. Like I don't matter. I might start to believe everyone thought that way."
Glancing once at Romulus, she met Syl's eyes and pursed her lips. “But that's wrong. Some people do care. Some people do think it matters. And we're a few of them. If your friends are missing, we want to help find them."
Pol's eyes were rounded in surprise by the end of it. He looked half like he might fall over at the sheer certainty of Khari's words, and half like he might not mind if he did. Syl's response was a little more measured, but even she had clearly not been expecting an answer like that. For a moment, her eyes lingered on Khari's face, as if tracing over the patterns on her skin, and then she nodded, a bit reluctantly, but firmly all the same.
"Three," she said quietly. "Some of us, we... we work for a certain employer. Nothing major usually, just... collecting information. She wanted us to keep an eye on the garden tonight—along with everywhere else. But the first girl we sent, Vela, she didn't come back to report on time."
Pol finally reassembled his expression into something a little less awestruck and grimaced. "We thought... sometimes the guards, if they catch an elf alone..." The sentence didn't really need to finish. "So we sent two more to investigate, so no one would be alone."
"They didn't come back either," Syl finished. "I wish I could tell you more, but that's all any of us know. We're not sending anyone else—we can't risk it." Her lips thinned into a flat line. "If you care as much as you say you do, Inquisition, then... find who is doing this, and make them pay for it."
"That's what I'm best at," Romulus said, slowly lifting his mask back up to his face. He checked for a moment behind him, making sure the screen of Leon and Asala was still in place. He then rounded back on the servants. "Since the garden is restricted to us tonight... can you recommend a route we can take? Some way that will help us keep out of sight?"
Pol raised a hand to his mouth, crooking his index finger and biting down on the knuckle. It seemed to be equal parts a contemplative gesture and a nervous one; he hummed a bit awkwardly. "You know how you went through the entranceway to get here? If you hang a left in the foyer, it takes you into this big fancy gallery hallway. It's not empty, but some of the statues are big enough that you can hide behind them and cross the room without being seen if you're patient and quiet. Should be a door on the other side that'll get you to the garden eventually. I'll have it unlocked in half an hour for sure." He glanced between Romulus and Khari, as if to check whether that would serve their purposes.
"Thank you, Pol." Romulus nodded. "That should be more than enough. And don't worry; we never saw you." Having gotten what they needed from them, they bid short farewells and departed, Romulus and Khari regrouping with Leon and Asala. No longer needing to pretend being busy, they headed back for the ballroom.
"The others will want to hear about this," he said, stating the obvious. "And if I'm going to be sneaking through this palace, I think I might need a change of companions. No offense."
“I dunno what you're talking about." Khari rolled her eyes. “Clearly, I am the most subtle, discreet person ever." The sarcasm in her tone was thick; obviously the previous incident was still close to the forefront of her thoughts.
“Practically invisible, even."