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"Oh...."

Too late for that, thought Johannes, as he looked down (at his stomach, firstly) and pondered what in the world was Ouzo.


Johannes had been seating down for a while, moving his legs as to do something in the meantime. "Maybe I should go back in there..." Johannes was feeling bad about missing out on what people were doing in the ballroom by fault of his own drunkeness. Especially when he thinks about what happened with the feathered woman. "Ay-yi-yi-yi...." "Just steer clear of the bar this time."

He got up and put the empty glass previously filled with water on teh chair. He put his helmet back on and straightened his beard and mask a bit.


"Right, let's try this again," said Johannes as he was walking back into the ballroom.

"You should not let Midori hear you speak so. She's quite partial to guns of all kinds. I, of course, have never really understood why."

Surprised, he looked curiously at the burger. "You would say such things of your own city? I have never met a Parisien quite like you." He was distracted once again by talk of Anjou. "Oh, Anjou is a duchy. It is wonderfully green, being in the Loire Valley." He thought of the grounds almost wistfully, forcefully omitting the courts and the palaces that he had left feeling so ambivalently about. He tilted his head at her admission. "But I imagine you've been to some interesting places since you arrived? You have been here for a while, have you not? Myself... you could say that I have seen enough of the world." Many times over, he thought privately. "A ship? I am afraid I am not much one for ships and the sea." He laughed at the thought of him commandeering a ship.



"Consolation, my friend! You should not mope so much. Hopefully we can get your mind off these depressing things." He sensed a sort of hesitation on the other man's part, and turned around to face him, frowning. "If you are not going to help, you could, at the least, unmask another."

Eknephias, rather gracefully for a man pretending to be drunk, inserted himself between Sebastien and Eponine. "May I?"

Without waiting for an answer, Eknephias, grabbed a protruding arm of the hamburger and spun away from a confused Sebastien. Whispering to the hamburger, who he had long ago surmised was the unseen skittish French girl, he leaned in rather close. "Why hide such a pretty face behind all of this?"


Thasios only smiled slightly again at Lai's question as the man was distracted by someone's singing. As Lai turned from them, his attentions clearly elsewhere, Thasios leaned and bent down, imparting a soft, barely audible whisper in Hyo's ear.

"Your story is an interesting one, Hyo. I would like to hear it sometime."

The last word, in lilting, perfect Korean, left his lips without a trace of an accent as he turned without looking back at the boy and strode into the crowd, disappearing without effort as bolder colours drowned out his, and he could not be seen anymore.


Wraith shook his head slowly and mechanically at Estrelas's response. "Really? I never would have guessed." He couldn't help it; it had been on his mind since he'd seen her. Although, in his experience, there probably wasn't an answer. Not one that made any logical sense, anyway. "Why a hamburger?"


Shee giggled as he talked about formality. She knew she was supposed to be acting formal, but she couldn't help it. It was... not something that aligned very well with her nature. At least, not if it didn't have to.

"Dancing, cows, and machines? An unneccessary clue. I already figured out who you are!" Pleased with her success, she gave little thought to his question. "I don't know. Never really had too much time to do anything, much less to find an excuse to dance." That wasn't true. She'd been to countless parties as a diplomat, but had avoided dancing always. Looking like a fool was not all that conducive to any goal she could think of. "Well..." she hesitated. "I don't think I have." But she felt that wasn't quite right.

The hamburger bobbed up and down solemnly. "I won't," she said. Midori... That was the colorful girl, right? She made a mental note not to act so much like the book Eponine if they should meet. Oh, and to wear a hamburger costume- it was like magic the way it made her all calm and cheerful! Within the giant hamburger half, the constant fear about the Manager and her robotic innards blissfully faded away. Hey, maybe she could wear the costume all the time?

"It's ugly," she insisted. "We all say it is. In the summer it's hot and the whole city and in the winter everyone freezes." The hamburger tilted precariously as she pondered his description of Anjou. "That must be lovely," she sighed. Loire Valley- was that in the north? Or the east? Or the west? Thankfully a poor street waif would most likely not know geography that well. "Sort of," she admitted. "Ever since coming here, I've been places I never thought I'd even see. We went to America once! We took a boat- but hey! But I thought all rich people went around on boats!" she exclaimed, feigning surprise. "If not the ocean, do you have parties on boats on the river? I heard that people do things like that-"

Eponine had been acting very normal this evening. And even more stunning, she had been outgoing, as in talking to a total stranger without screaming red-hot panic. She had surpressed her paranoia to a managable level, thanks to the security of the costume and her illusion that no one could tell who she was. Estrelas, in anticipation of Eponine meeting 'lots and lots and lots of good men,' had even taught her how to politely brag about how many sheep her father had. In other words, Eponine had been not paranoidly shy. And she was just beginning to have a good time when someone grabbed her arm.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! THEATRE PROPERTY IS IN DANGER!

With a sharp squeal, Eponine's arm yanked up with robotic force and her legs skittered in different directions. She forgot about 'standards of human behavior' and 'what is physically possible for a human,' including accidently bending her elbow backwards a little to try to escape from the new man.

Naturally, Estrelas suddenly flipped around, falling off of the barstool with half a glass of strong alcohol in hand. The hamburger cushioned her fall, but as she struggled to right herself with her legs kicking the ground, one arm shot out and hurled the glass with depressingly bad accuracy at Eknephias.

"YOU RUDE MAN YOU LET GO OF HER! YOU RUN! YOU RUN! I HURT YOU IF YOU TOUCH HER! YOU GET HANDS OFF OF HER! I HURT YOU!" Estrelas shrieked furiously, using the other arm to founderingly roll over to the pair. "WHY YOU NOT PROTECT HER, FRANCE MAN? YOU SEE GIRL BEING ATTACK SO YOU HIT OTHER MAN! WHY YOU STUPID?" She managed to close half of the distance before flopping over the wrong way. "Oof!"

Well now, this was turning out to be more fun than Einar had thought. He didn't really have to do anything in order to get the harpies raving on and on like they were, the larger and louder o the two making enough fuss to rouse the dead, and when the burger bits went flying he couldn't help but suppress a chuckle. It didn't do though and it burst out, his hand cupped over his mask like that was going to do him any real good.

His laughter was loud, louder than it needed to be, but then again Einar needed to laugh a lot more than he had been. Lately he'd just been reading book after book and forsaking the contact of others, and what with Lai earlier all but snubbing him off because he didn't know who he was, this was like food for the soul. Of course his mask still muffled a good bit of it, but it was able to echo around the room like the cawing of a crow in flight - a haunting sound. Did Einar really have such a creepy laugh, enough to turn any thoughts of who he was away from him?

"Ah, man, this is...a little too much. The harpies, the drinks, it's better than watching a comedy show. Man, all we need now is for someone to trip and fall and hurt themselves, or some clothes to come bursting off."

But on that note, Einar took a look and noticed a certain someone was making their way back into the room, someone he didn't really want to see much of for the time being. While he knew Lai was just being honest because he didn't know it was Einar under the mask, the fact that he had said what he'd said made no difference - not to mention Einar had been just as much of an a**. It wasn't right at the moment, so it was time to go.

"On that note, I'll take my leave. I've got better things to do now that I've gotten my fill of drink and laughter for the night."

"Why did I come in here again?" "Oh, that's right. To attempt to converse with someone again."


Unfortunately, Johannes wasn't even sure whether someone might be interested in that -- due to the fact that apparently the thing[/] and its other half (he heard it was a hamburger, who knows?) were making more noise than hens and many people seemed to be either screaming or yelling in response.


"Right...I expected too much. Again."

"Oh, well" said Johannes as he shrugged his shoulders and made his way to a seat. "I'll just fix my boots and make my way to the bar again." "I'm assuming this might all be over soon enough."

Eknephias winced as the darker woman's tirade swept over him. Blah blah blah. He'd heard it all before. He hadn't counted on her bursting into tears though. He thought he might feel a tiny bit of remorse for that. But he had just been having fun, trying to liven up the mood and make it a real party. No one could blame him for that.

He was on the ground, sprawled out in a mess of silks and hamburger foam. He stretched languidly, and looked up at Estrelas's furious face, flicking his eyes almost immediately to the more distressed one of Eponine.

"Hey, it's your choice whether you wanted to be humiliated or not. If you'd just be more receptive to," and here, he have a little, punctuating cough, "fun, it would have worked out much better. Besides, who blames the drunk?" He gave them both a lopsided grin, cat-like and presenting a challenge.


Sebastien blinked slowly. The sounds around him were slowly fading, being blocked out into a dull roar by Estrelas's screaming voice, which was distorted, changing pitch and volume regularly, morphing into someone else's voice altogether. Useless. Trash. That was more what he was accustomed to, he thought bitterly. He had never been any good, as the Duke had reminded him incessantly. And he'd almost begun to believe that maybe the Duke had been mistaken.

It had been his choice to let Eknephias interject, and it was his fault that the poor girl Eponine was standing there, tears running down her face. He had ruined everything.

His eyes blank, they followed the pair as they walked out of the room, leaving Eknephias on the floor and a group of people who had been surrounding them rather shocked.

He felt like himself again in an instant, the Duke's voice, mingling now with Henri's, vanishing from his mind and the noise of the masquerade replacing it easily. He glanced quickly at Eknephias and then towards the door as he began to run in the direction that Eponine had gone. Outside in the hallway, he slowed as he saw it deserted and his footsteps shattered the silence that he now found himself in.

"Eponine?" His voice, a touch of desperation colouring his intonation, echoed through the hall.

He was not used to doing things without thinking; he realized belatedly that she hadn't even told him her name.

The first yell made her jump and she resisted the urge to hide behind her new friend. Instead she balled her the skirt of her dress in her hands and tried to peer through her befeathered mask at the commotion. Estrelas seemed to have things in control, though she couldn't really see from her spot in the dim light. Well screw it, most people had left the ball anyways and if she couldn't see she couldn't pass on the gossip later. She hadn't seen Lokari yet, and the girl would likely find the story amusing. Careful of the glue and string she pulled the mask off her face.

It certainly served the drunkard right- getting the rough side of Estrelas' tongue was something she would like to avoid. Mokoyis was tempted to laugh aloud, but it would be rather bad manners so she managed to keep her face carefully blank and turned back to her forgotten companion as the two women left the room.

He looked uncomfortable, and her mirth faded. Poor boy, she had been with LOTUS for a long time and was used to...scenes...like this. "Bed time?" He was wet from the water and that couldn't be fun to sit in. She picked up her mask and slid off of her bar stool.