time | early evening, about an hour into the party location | Strauss family estate, ballroom @bazatlas
It wasn’t that Fox was looking for them, necessarily. More that they were keeping an eye out. It was definitely the way to go, in this kind of situation- the party setting, the sensitive nature of the mission, & quite honestly, the character they’d created. It was the type of environment Fox thrived in, honestly, and they were confident the evening would play out just as it needed to. After all, this kind of performance in front of a crowd was what they were truly a professional at. Of course, when the opportunity did present itself, they knew enough to take it in the most spectacular way possible. Baz, in an impeccable and distinctive costume, had just entered at one end of the ballroom from somewhere, as evidenced by the wall of people already beginning to form between them. And, rather than lose both the attention of the crowd and the chance to impress their mark all at once, Fox took action.
As they finished their previous trick and took a bow while the audience politely clapped, they spotted a bar nearby and formulated their plan in an instant. Turning with a dramatic flourish of their coat, they approached the bar and took an unopened bottle of champagne and two glasses. Showing them to the crowd, they proceeded to begin juggling the glasses delicately with one hand, eventually introducing the much heavier and more cumbersome champagne with the other. The crowd stirred as they watched the crystal sparkle above the bottle, all of them knowing just how disastrous it would be if Fox dropped anything. As they juggled, they made their way boldly across the room, stopping only when the chattering crowd parted in front of them to open their way to Baz.
They finished the trick by throwing the champagne bottle a little higher, doing a spin before catching the glasses, and then triumphantly catching the bottle again as it turned heavily end over end through the air. Applying a little helpful pressure to the base of the cork when they caught it helped it escape with a satisfying pop from the built-up pressure. And after a brief spray of bubbly poured forth, with some excited chatter and applause from the crowd, Fox stepped into a deep bow towards Baz. “Champagne?” they offered, pouring some of the remnants of the bottle into the two glasses they’d brought along.
The masquerade, for them, was less about enjoying the evening, and more about doing any pre-incident damage control, as well as laying the groundwork for the clearing of their own name, and the tarnishing of another. Which was hard work, to say the least, when they would’ve rather been drinking, and dancing, and hunting for a golden goose in the gardens. Here they were, though, going through their carefully crafted list of targets to hit by the end of the night, doing what they could to make certain everyone was on the side of the Atlas name. The night was young, but it felt as if it was going well so far, as they reentered the party from a quick aside with the host himself.
In search of their next mark, Baz was interrupted before they could land on a decision, by a smattering of oohs and ahhs coming from just behind them. They turned in time to see a familiar face, the performance artist they had met outside of the tailor’s, juggling a champagne bottle and two glasses, heading for them, for some unthinkable reason. While they had, of course, noted just how attractive this Fox was, they had little desire to be apart of their performance. Luckily enough, it was over before anything undesirable was thrust upon them, instead leaving them smirking lightly, the slightest bit impressed by the ruse, even more so as they offered one of the now full glasses to them with a bow.
“All that for me? Well, cheers, then, Fox. It seems your little show is going over well amongst the masses,” they smirked, before taking a delicate sip of the champagne.
