A Reveler's Guide to Etiquette
Contrary to mortal masquerades, at fae balls it is the custom to wear one's true face on the surface, while maintaining the facade of one's choice just beneath. Attendees are unmasked twice, thrice, a dozen times a night, either privately or in public, contorting mercurially over the course of the evening or else the same every time, a shifting tapestry of social hierarchies and relationships played out through pantomime and caricature. Like many other fae festivities, the masquerade serves as a burlesque of mortal affairs, those poor wretches who must tramp around with their identities in plain view at all times, concealing all sorts of resentments and insecurities and ambitions underneath.
Given the frequent masking and unmasking, faces interchanged like dance partners, it is also a prime opportunity for the enterprising rapscallion to make away with a fae's true face.
Tyros at the art may opt for a simple snatch and grab, but quickly find that fae, when not ready to be unmasked, tend to keep a hostile demeanor behind their faces. Many an attempted theft has gone awry when the unmasking reveals not an ex-lover or historical visage or the queen defaced with goatee and mustache, but instead the face of a rabid barking dog, a coif of vipers, a rotting skull teeming with wasps, the sun.
Such gaffes make up scattered spots of entertainment among the partygoers, the resulting shrieks of horror or agony calling attention to the scene. It is true that a thief both bold enough and swift enough might be able to snatch up a mask and disappear into the crowd, leaving behind their victim as distraction, but nonetheless this method cannot be recommended to those who have yet to dedicate their convictions to the craft.
Rather, the more widely accepted technique is to charm one's victim into voluntary revelation, hopefully in a private alcove somewhere, with windows flung open wide enough for one to make their escape. "But enough of who you are - why don't you show me who you want to be?" is the traditional, if trite, approach, and if the ball is in full swing should be more than enough to land you a tête-à-tête. More elaborate intimacies may be inappropriate if your intention is to simply ransom the true face back, but if blackmail is to be involved, we trust you to have enough familiarity with your target to conduct yourself accordingly.
(A word of warning, though, of the fae with ambition. While not as nakedly antagonistic as, say, a steel set of jaws, removing an immaculate ivory mask to reveal the blazing countenance of Our Lady of the Firmaments might come as equal, if not more of, a shock.)
To reduce the unpredictability of such revelations, there are those who opt instead to make a parlor game of the unmasking, with rules and contrivances and so forth. "Show me my mother's face before she had a name," is a perfectly acceptable feint in these scenarios, as are "Show me the animal Aesop last ate", "Number your eyes by my wives and your teeth by my years", "Who would you be if you were my lover", and various riddling games in which one's partner must shapeshift into the answer.
The disadvantage of this technique is that such games are commonly played in groups, but with a sufficiently boisterous set of players and enough free-flowing wine, any half-decent rapscallion should be able to find an opportunity to make a grab for a face and scarper, or else discreetly secret one away amidst the festivities. The most vital thing is to keep careful track of who are wearing their true faces and who are not, for as the games and intimacies among players grow more involved, the distinction is apt to get blurred.
Having acquired a true face as trophy, you may now indulge in the luxurious phase of negotiation. Most fae will be more than happy to haggle for their face back, still warm in the afterglow of the party and magnanimous in their offers. Given, we trust, that you have not followed the example of the hapless thief who attended a masquerade, and of all the masks on display, chose to make off with a wrought iron one featuring curling horns and an ominous disposition. The fool kept the mask mounted in his study, and was unnerved to find its visage growing more ominous and grotesque with each day, while its owner, freed from the constraints of a true face, rose through the echelons of society as a gust of petals, the Lord High Minister, Lady Morivingen, a stampede of elk, a shower of sunbeams and gold, etc. As the mask glowered down at the thief relentlessly, grown hideous and malevolent, he became helplessly paranoid of its protean owner, seeing retribution lurking in every face and lack thereof.
In the end, his house burned down with him in it, and no such mask matching that description was ever recovered from the ashes, at least according to the report that the Lord High Minster penned.
Assuming you have exercised better judgement in your choice of quarry, the mask doubtless remains in your possession, its countenance perfectly pleasant and unmarred. You may be tempted to try it on for yourself. If you do, etiquette demands you attend the next masquerade, if only to pay the opportunity forward. Your body will be new to you at first, likely less lithe, less graceful, but that can all be remedied. Return home to your estate. Bathe in dew. Wash off the dust of mortality. Rehearse the facades you will wear, underneath your true face.
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