Yuletide Celebrations -- he cannot count or fathom in truth, the precise number of years spending winter alone, sequestered away with his books and scrolls -- lit by synthetic fireglow. Only aware of a phantom kind of warmth -- there is an entirely real warmth present currently. It’s different to observe the world than to be a part of it -- as he has been since Triana was born.
The party is in full swing -- everyone present seems to know one another well. The two talking away from the rest of the party draw his eye -- He thinks perhaps he’s seen them around, sort of distnatly familiar in the way small social circles usually are -- but he’s confident they’ve never met. He’s lovely -- a specter of the winter beyond the windows, Orpheus thinks he could picture him wreathed in snow, a wraith of ice. Cold is perhaps the most silent and elegant of deaths -- For someone so WINTRY and white, his smile is remarkably warm. Radiant like the sun. Enchanting. Orpheus, amiable as he is, doesn’t hesitate to make an introduction --- in his traditional flare for the dramatic of course. He smiles at the festive sprig of mistletoe his ghostly winter wears around his head and recites a poem from MEMORY.
( his voice lulls low and dulcet, as though intimately familiar with every lilt and lull of the words, the way it was meant to be heard. )
“ Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.
Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen—and kissed me there. “
He smiles, slipping closer to get a better look. “ Your hat, I mean. It’s clever. I’m Dr. Byron Orpheus, and I don’t believe we’ve met. “
