#regency verse.

[recitedemise]

Dear Blistering Anne! Dear Spirited Anne with a tongue like a whip! Say what you will of this blistering lady, but of all the qualities in the whole of the world, dull, uninteresting, can never be one. At ease, Gale idly sips his tea, indulging in some column waxing on the stars. Science, tea cakes, and her shadow shambling on over... Few things, Gale decides, can best Wednesdays like these.

"Keep as you are now, and I'm rather convinced you'll inspire this country to war over your hand," he greets, sat there at the gazebo at their favorite park. "In a fashion, you can very well be our next Helen of Troy. I heard you've gone and broken the heart of our favorite suitor." Ha. "Lorroaken, was it?" / @paddyfuck.

[recitedemise]

For the umpteenth time, Gale looks himself over in a mirror. A breath, unbidden, leaves his lips. Oh, Mr. Dekarios, Tara's voice yet grouses in his head, I've had more than enough with all your fussing! You're really quite presentable—dashing, even, were it not for that monstrosity. Now, before I take umbrage to that whiskered chin, you best go and mingle with polite society. He had tightly grimaced, nerves plain all about him. I've sharp claws, Mr. Dekarios, and you should know.

In the end, he supposes dear Tara, threats abundantly unnecessary!, was right. Straightening his tailored blazer into place—a deep indigo, a touch like the cosmos with a sliver of plum—Gale admits to being somewhat nice. It's the best he's looked in months, over a year if honesty still holds any worth. Still, he's but a fish out of water, the crow of laughter like the hiss of derision, but it's only a party. It's only just a ball. And no one, surely, has learned his identity... Enough. Steel yourself, Gale. He turns around.

⸻of course, his glass of wine chooses then to spill right over.

"Oh! My apologies! I, um, my mind was admittedly preoccupied. Quite a lot to take in tonight. Right, well. May I?"

Prestidigitation. Gale whirls his wrist. With hardly a whisper, the spot of red wine suddenly vanishes, and he looks to the man in that dashing suit. Oops. Alarmingly, a feverish anxiety floods in the pits of his bones. Those clever eyes like jewels come whittling like daggers, and though wreathed rather finely in that ornate mask, Gale, half a mess, is thoroughly stunned. He wrestles his nerves and tempers his rambling, and shooting for something a quiver winsome, the wizard finally flashes a grin.

Goodness, did that year of solitude do him in.

"There. Good as new. Not here as a magician for party favors, I assure you, though, with that twinkle in your eye, I'm gathering that you're abundantly aware. I suppose you can say I've a good sense for those of the arcane leaning." / @proditeur.

[recitedemise]

A hall of curiosities, isn't it? a perfumed dowager says.

Most certainly, hums another in a white laced ensemble. A half-dead gentleman, and a half-dead girl.

Gale's legs, restless, long madly to bolt. 

For a whole of a year he has been a phantom, a well-rumored one, drearily isolated and viciously scarred. His chest still aches, his high-collared outfit by that pulsating wound, but evidently, humoring his sorrows made for miserable company. Go, his mother ordered. And attend that dance. He's still polite and mannered, has yet four springs worth of charm to glow the room, but in fearsome measures that he has never once felt, the need for books, for quiet, settles in thick. God. Gale lies with a grin, leaving a lord for what he says is the washroom. When he slips instead into a too-shadowed study, its the shimmer of her gown that makes him stop. "Ah. Apologies. I--" Was hiding? Fleeing? Am a most ill-mannered man to wander this home? Gale leans against the door, scouring for answers. He rightens, straightens, starlight scant in his hair. "Was feeling difficult, I suppose." Ha! "As rousing as tonight's conversation is, I was yearning for a debate with one Sir Elameth. A great mind, his. Perhaps you've met." / @highevar, liked.

[blacknighted]

He doesn't know what any of this means. He can't read cards. Ask some, and they'd think it but a dalliance in sin and an act of devilry. However, Henry — eyes gone wobbly, her touch startling, warm, his trembling heart spooking as though a foal caught stumbling — wouldn't think that, his bones trembling more from the way she would spill her answer. Really, it all felt silly, admittedly, when he had believed her gift to be charming tricks at their best, but the depths of her staring bore far too deeply, hadn't it? Exposing. He feels half a chest rent apart with his soul laid bare.

"I am." Really. "I'm bearing it as I should," he tells her. He is. Those men he has slaughtered and those men that await him...! Frown deepening, it'd seem as though he had sat his conscious like a weary jury. "I'm nothing like them," their defendant would argue, his frenetic made gold with the lick of the flickering wicks. And it's true. Whether God or his sanity sat to argue him or not... "They have what's coming." Have earned it. And his thirsty dagger longs. Certainly, were this truly a confessional, he's sat before her blaspheming as he swears to act like God. How dare he. To act as though a judge who'll guide men unto their death, as no angel, she, her eyes so seeing, can't guard him either. / @ivessa, continued from here.

[blacknighted]

@viciousgrace asked: i believe this belongs to you. / from kate sharma for ur regency verse! / ↪ 𝐀 𝐘𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐄: still accepting.

"Ah! Kurva!"

Startled -- it was quiet, after all, if not for the soiree singing strong out the dance hall -- Henry jolts, his head clattering against the table with its flowers and vase. They would shiver oh so precariously, a gaggle of those season-ripened petals clutching hard to their pistil. She had moved like a shadow even in spite of the clap of her faberge heels, and when he grimaces and squints from where he's strut there kneeling -- it's her. The dear lady. Fuck. The dear lady herself with whom Hans had eyed.

In her hands, she's holding his commissioned perfume, something costlier than the coin he'd make in a year! Her eyes glitter. Again, Henry thinks that his lord is aiming far too greedily. Getting up, sheepish, he's the curious feeling she'd eat him alive.

"Thank you, ma'am." He bows a little. "You've just gone and saved romance tonight, you had. I'd call you a Cupid if you hadn't delivered me. If I went to my lord empty-handed, I would've gotten a proper earful. A girl's got his eye and all. Seems an evening for that sort of thing."

[recitedemise]

forgive me for taking up so much of your time. (regency au!)

PRIDE & PREJUDICE STARTERS: still accepting.

Huh. He's not following anymore. In fact, for a long while now, so long that the season is now nearing its end, he has felt a twinge buffeted like a boat at storm.

Secret, stood there in a way he believes is half-panicked, is acting--and has been!--abundantly strange. Things have been easy, of course, in all manner of their friendship that had grown so beautifully, but suddenly, there are thorns and barbs and the curling grasp of vines. Gale, baffled, could only stare. She'd found him at his lowest. In fact, she'd been his singular joy in his grey-dark days. However, now substantially close, her favorite poems in his head slotted fondly by her stories, she's now withdrawing in the likeness of the ocean at the shore. And she's pulling. Rushing. And far away.

Gale can scarcely grasp it. He eyes her, confusion as clear as day. He turns from his spyglass, the stars all glimmering in the nighttime cold. This, he had thought, would be a marvelous showing, an hour lit prettily with the rarest constellations--but now, there comes distance, an ocean, and an endless gulf.

You-- "You haven't taken anything I hadn't happily offered," Gale starts. He's a good man. She must hurt and use him. She must make him a fool and tear on out his heart! (Up above, another disastrous betrayal...can his dear heart bear it?) "Right. As you know, loathed am I to start making my demands, but I believe this...whatever this is has been going on long enough. If you're amenable at all, I'd like to know what's bothering you."

[recitedemise]

It was to be an occasion as grand gatherings in the college vied often to be. The greatest minds have gathered, hearty debate already rising up the too-crowded chambers, every soul there for but two possibilities: to stroke mad one's ego, or to fan bold one's pride. Of course, Lord Dekarios hasn't much by ways of either. Additionally, Lady Ranne hasn't come for such vanity herself, but perhaps most secretly, for reasons more sinister... For reasons, hums the silence, that might break his heart.

Hold! Ultimately, that's yet to be seen, their fated meeting having yet to come to fruition. Gale feels his skin prickle fierce, the gazes of his colleagues gnawing foully at his nerves. He's the only one by this bookshelf and has been for a moment. (It's pity.) She, the first, is one who comes near.

"A lovely day, this," he greets, just loudly enough to nab her attention. "I can't recall a more pleasant afternoon in more recent memory. It makes it all the better to spend it here amidst the voluble company of exceedingly important men. I'm sure you've had your fill of more engaging conversation."

That'd been a jest, hadn't it? By gods, it was. After all, not a man here had paid her the courtesy of ever believing she liked these studies. She's a woman with charm and so loves her books, yes! But books, they're sure, on strictly fairer topics. / @stilettobite, liked.

[recitedemise]

Gale Dekarios is a lord of innumerable talents. He's exceptionally read, can philosophize and theorize with the sharpest of their age, but for all of his gifts and celebrated brilliance, botany, the gardens, were not his lean. Still, the man's yet a lover, expression gentling when presented with spring. He's no skill for its language, would fail to determine what a hyacinth entails, but what care has the man to study their symbols? As he walks through the gardens with its Lady Baratheon, he believes to find them charming is apt enough.

"Handling the bounty of spring with one's very bare hands? To most, I imagine they'd describe your eagerness as hasty," he greets, noting those thorns. "However, as an admirer myself, you have my utmost sympathy. The temptation they hold, that which is forbidden...I'd be a dishonest man to say I've never felt it." / @stormsflower, liked.