winter ball balcony off the main ballroom perdita with isaiah
there’s a story about the king of gods swallowing his children, and perdita thinks it’s all wrong. in her experience with fathers - which is none - they have no reason to put their kin down their throat. it’s mothers that do the carrying in their belly to begin with. it’s them that would keep them inside until they can reach the hammer to break out. that’s dita’s experience with mothers.
there are hundreds of people in the genovian palace’s ballroom, and for all the sidelong looks and verbal tokens of appreciation dita receives, what she hears is her mama asking why she hasn’t been taken aside yet. she sees dafne from a far, beautiful, tender dafne that had seemingly caught a prince with hands alone. she hadn’t even had to use all the other body parts.
she goes outside despite the winter cold. dita can feel the exhaustion creeping in on her, the drain of pushing light to the the place right below her skin, so she gives the appearance of shine, and she needs a moment of quiet. the night through the gilt-panelled glass french doors is too dark to see anything beyond, but she hopes its snowing. she would love to stand in the snow.
when she steps outside and closes the door behind her, she finds it is -- and with it is the tall cut of a man and the smoke that spills out of him. she takes to the opposite corner of the balcony to concede to his partial ownership of the formerly solitary and consolatory space, turning her head after she’s reached it to give him a smile of acknowledgement, but instead she leads with recognition. her brows twitch at the inner corners.
“you’re the man from drury.”