Let’s be real here all I post about when I’m IC is just me shipping with Caiaphas @demaciangrandwarlock
--
For charity, it was said. Lux couldn’t hate that. She couldn’t say no to a good cause - especially when one of her superiors took her off duty. “There are other ways to provide light for Demacia,” was all she was patiently told when she protested.
Her superior wasn’t wrong, but Lux didn’t like parties. She hadn’t liked them for a long time. Still...
“Auctioning people off like they’re...things. We’re...this is...”
“Frown for any longer, and the sour look will stay on your face.” The words were accompanied by a gentle elbow in her side, before that same arm was offered to her. “My lady.” His next words were mild, his brow cocked mischievously in an otherwise-deadpan face.
Try as she might, she couldn’t fight the smile that rose up. “Scoundrel.” She slipped her arm into Caiaphas’s, and stepped onto the floor.
“How did you even manage to afford my bid?” she asked as the band began a song.
“I have my ways,” he replied, not bothering to hide the smug glint in his eye. “Besides,” he added, “it helped that nobles were only allowed to bid for commoners, and vice versa.”
Mixing of social classes for greater unity, that was another aim of this auction and ball.
Maybe Lux could support the fostering of community bonds, but balls...
“I didn’t pay all this money to have you thinking about someone else, now.”
Jolted back to the present, Lux blinked - then glared at Caiaphas. “Knave.”
He bowed, and it was only then that she realised the song had ended. “At your service, milady.” He looked her over for a moment, then offered his hand yet again. “You want some air?”
“Please.”
***
The night was cool, as was the stone of the balcony. Lux leaned on the railing, her head turned up to the stars, each a pinprick of silver in the sea of twilight.
A swish of robes announced an interruption to her isolation, and the woman turned her head slightly as her escort for the night joined her, bearing one cup in each hand. “One apple juice, as ordered, milady.”
“Stop it with the name thing,” she replied as she accepted the glass, but her heart wasn’t in it. Knowing the emotion behind her words by now, Caiaphas only answered with a chuckle. “I didn’t know you could dance,” Lux added as she lifted her glass to her lips.
“...Not much,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head, “but since this was a ball, I thought it prudent to learn...something. Did I pass muster?” Giving her a ghost of his normal cheeky grin, he bowed deeply, as a commoner to a noble. Lux only rolled her eyes at his shenanigans.
His smile faded as quickly as it appeared, and the man joined her on the balcony to lean on the railing. “Usually I get an insult out of you for that. You don’t like Court functions, I take it?”
“It’s not you, it’s...” Lux paused, turning her head from the stars to look at him. “Someone, a long time ago...They almost won me. Courting, flowers, all the right words...I thought...” She paused to shake her head before turning to look back out at the view, this time of the gardens below them. She could sense Caiaphas watch her as she stared unseeingly into the night. “...They wanted the name and not the person. This...auction, this treating of people as commodities rather than...well, people...it brings up...”
Another head shake, another deep breath. “The Court is a nest of vipers, and I was a mouse. I guess you could say I do not have good memories of this place.”
The long silence was pierced only by the rustling of fabric as Caiaphas sidled close enough to place a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
She bore the contact for a moment before turning to meet his gaze and nodding. “I have to go back inside. I...I am a Crownguard.”
The man only nodded and offered her his arm yet again. “You have to be in the public eye.”
“As much as I can.”
It was just as he began to escort her back in that she paused to look at him once more. “Caiaphas...one good thing did come out of that time.”
