The Chessboard (Izdihar & Ifran)

[Ifran]

"Hence our race's use of makeup and masks," he reminded her quietly. He dared glance away from her to look up at the stars, his strong jawline in studied profile: there were new heights to dream of. Then he looked back at her. "The family is paramount, but so one must assure the best leadership of the family, else one harms one's family by willful inaction." He elongated his neck and dipped his head, a move inspired by an ostrich with its head in the sand. He smiled to share the joke. "We are potential and we are action."

[Izdihar]

Izdihar giggled -- a frighteningly enchanting sound -- at the ostrich demonstration, an entire mouthful of meaning conveyed in the elegant shift of muscles. It was impressive, but then Ifran was of the Northwinds and such was to be expected. "Yes, exactly." Only she said nothing further, for the moment content to wallow in the rare vocalization of her thoughts by another, ignorant as they may be.

[Ifran]

He smiled in return, charmed by her behavior, perhaps, but didn't fill the night with needless chatter. At least a few moments could be passed in companionable silence. For that short space of time, though muted conversation, music, and laughter could be heard breezing out from the doors, outside one could hear the varied hums and songs of nocturnal insects, and the sleepy sounds of weary birds roosting in the garden's trees. The wind sang, too, of far away dunes, of burning sands. In jewel-like moments such as this, he felt a quiet urge to strip away masks, to deal honestly and with straightforward intention, but he let that urge die away before he spoke again. "We should leave," he said. "I have a present for you." The combination of mode and undermode were so archaic as to remind one of pre-Valterrian precursors to the Syliran order of knights -- in other words: chivalry.

[Izdihar]

"King's pawn to e4?" Was his present an opening gambit? Classic move, writ in words rather than on skin or gold, punctuated by a cat-in-the-cream smile. Glitter-glanced curls trembled in the desert breeze as she spilled out of her slouch to spin lightly in the direction of the door, head tilting in a questioning manner. There was no evidence of surprise at the idea of a gift. To reveal such would be gauche. There was, however, an air of delighted expectancy, waiting for this personalization of the north winds to tumble her happily in an entertaining direction. The world was there for their amusement, and sometimes so were the winds.

[Ifran]

"A sudden overflowing of the spirit of generosity," he said, voice modulated into self-mocking humor for her benefit. He offered her his arm, the one below it touching the small of her back, and the one below that in a fist at his kidney, the very picture of an Eypharian gentleman escorting an equally Eypharian lady. "Prepare yourself," he said. "You are liable to squeal." That warning given, he led her out to a palanquin that would take them to his Noble House.

[Izdihar]

OOCPermission granted to complete thread. Izdihar's uppermost hand tucked into the crook of Ifran's elbow, small and fragile as the rest of her. The greater heights of their race had escaped her, but it had done so in an artful and pleasing way. It caused her to be delightfully different yet still entirely pure blooded. The silk hem of her skirts brushed against his legs as they walked, the tilt of her shoulders towards him companionable but not inappropriate. They did not walk as close as lovers, and they were not. They walked as close as friends, and maybe they were. Maybe it was just that they could be, these children of the great houses. They would have spent years surveying their options, weighing the merits of numerous potential companions or allies before stepping into the wind that might bear them toward it. They were watched as they left, gossiped about behind gilded hands and glittering cups with equal parts admiration and disdain. There would always be men with jealous hearts who looked upon the glory of the Houses of the Four Winds and could not but help to ache. Settling indolently back into the jewel colored cushions of the palanquin, Izdihar adjusted the fall of her gown with the smoothing tug of hands. A toe pointed out, the glowing opals studding the straps of her sandals winking in the cozy dim. She slid her chin to rest in the cradle of a palm and tilted painted eyes up to Ifran, humor still stamping her face. "How do you plan to make me squeal?" She teased him. "Should I call for my brother to chaperone?" The slant of her smile suggested the possibility that she would not have dared, much rather made to squeal.

[Ifran]

"Shall we play the guessing game?" he asked, whimsy modulated with undertones that might have hinted at trespasses or plots. Now his words and the way he said them became purposefully vague, a dance of lips and teeth and throats. She was clever; it was known. He had the pretensions of a poet, it was said, and could wage a war of words or summon up a paradise of wonders. For now he obfuscated the identity of this gift, surely nothing so gauche as the art of lust, though his eyes were frank in their admiration of her. "Were I to seek your fair hand," he said, with an inclination of his head to that beautiful appendage, the conditional tense modulated such that it was teasing, but not untrue, "I would say that my gift would trump Ozik's, but he is a man of little imagination." Imagination, his under-mode indicated, was of utmost importance to the both of them, drawing her into collusion. His sixty fingernails were lacquered a blue as dark as the midnight sky and his hairline was painted with gold, but he wore less artifice than most men at the party they had left. He looked a proper Eypharian nobleman, even one who might woo the Pressorah herself, but looks could be deceiving, usually were deceiving in Ahnatep, and anyone trained in the Eypharian opera would make it their sacred duty to persuade someone that they were someone else. And yet he was giving her a gift. Surely there was an angle.

[Izdihar]

“And all the imagination housed in your opera trained soul has cast its eyes at me,” Izdihar pronounced with a tone of delight, but the undermode once accompanied by the sidelong tilt of her eyes remarked dubiously. Gifts were expected by a daughter of the Westwinds, but thoughtful, personal gifts could be a different tale, especially when they sprung from so sophisticated a source. On any other woman, distrust might have been an ugly, wearying thing; but on her it rather charmed in the most unsuspecting of ways, suggesting at the depths to which she played her hand rather than the shallows of a nervous ego. A smaller hand spread, fingers splayed in the air above his, the gold lacquer dusting her nails a dull glow in the cozy dim of the bustling palanquin. “How fortunate it is I’ve six hands. I suppose I could spare the risk of one to an imaginative present that may make me squeal,” she mused, but it was tongue in cheek, her eyes laughing as they lifted to him. “Tell, how does your grandfather?” She was curious to know, hand dropping as she wilted back with a jolt of the palanquin.

[Ifran]

"How could any man strive for less once he has seen your grace?" he asked, this time in the plainest of speech, though of course some called a Pressorah by such an honorific. But his smile bespoke only enjoyment of her company. "My esteemed grandfather grows in wisdom and years, but the shoulders that support the throne remain strong. It is a blessing for all of us," he opined. Surely the Northwinds' stock had only risen since Sadiki had set the Eypharian monarch's slender behind upon the throne, and they were all quick to point out that the wealth of the nation-state was the greater for it. Certainly the Noble Houses remained affluent, though the power shifted. "I hope my own shoulders prove as strong." The dance of words was exciting, but he found himself looking forward to the look on her face when the gift was revealed. Sometimes slaves just did not run fast enough. It was so difficult to find good help.

[Izdihar]

“Do you?” It left an eyebrow rocking prettily upward, a shade of thought gaining passage through otherwise clear eyes. Sadiki of the Northwinds had been pivotal in the catastrophe of the Westwinds disgrace and proceeding rise of their present Pressorah. What Izdihar, daughter of Dirames and niece of Dimourla, personally opined on the entire matter was a thing best left for gamblers and thieves. None other was like to earn unfettered truth from her in that. Of course, the fact that it was Sadiki’s grandson accompanying her tonight had left some of the most paranoid and insightful political plotters of Ahnatep thoughtful. “Strength comes in a variety of costumes,” she admitted at last, the curve of her mouth flashing a dimple with the offered compliment and concession. “Now where are we?” The wind shifted, rippling her mood back into girlish buoyancy as their palanquin rocked to a halt.