A vamp snippet for you guys
"–did you see them dancing earlier?"
A voice from the other side of the large floral arrangement at the end of the table. You kept on filling your glass.
"I did," said a second quiet voice. "She looked very taken with him."
"I cannot imagine it," replied the first voice. "I mean, he is striking, I will grant that, but that pallor-honestly it makes my skin crawl. That condition of his. Can you imagine having children with a man like that?"
"Hm," said the second voice, slightly less committed to this line of reasoning.
You froze in your place. You turned slightly so that you could see through a gap in the arrangement. Lady Hashibira Aoi, whom you had met twice and found precisely as her reputation described. Beside her, Tsuyuri kanao, her younger sister who had the expression of someone carried along by a current they were beginning to have reservations about.
"I shudder to think," Aoi continued, her voice dropping. "Honestly, I would rather–well... She seems content enough, which I suppose says something about her. Though one wonders what she was thinking. Lord Uzui had expressed interest, I heard, and Mr Agatsuma, and she passed over both of them for–"
You moved around the end of the floral arrangement and came to stand at the buffet table directly beside them. Aoi's sentence stopped as though a door had closed on it.
You looked at the table and selected a small pastry while being aware of Aoi beside you going through several stages of colour in quick succession, and kanao becoming very interested in the floral arrangement.
You turned to look at Aoi with the pleasant smile you reserved for social occasions even if beneath it you were simmering with irritation and offense. Aoi looked at various parts of the ballroom aside from your eyes.
"Lady Hashibira," you greeted pleasantly. "How lovely. Are you enjoying the evening?"
Aoi, who had been composing herself, replied "Quite."
"And the music," you added. "Lord Tengen always engages an excellent orchestra. I think that is one of his genuine gifts–he knows what makes an evening worth attending." you sipped your drink and looked at the room around you with appreciation. "My husband was remarking on it earlier, actually. He has a great deal of experience with music over the years and he finds the quality here consistently high."
"I am so glad," you said. “ I have been meaning to ask, how is your husband? Both of you were not in attendance last month at the Ubuyashiki diner, I noticed.”
“He is very well, thank you…”
"Lord Hashibira–he is..." You paused and glanced across the room toward the buffet table on the far side, where Inosuke was engaged in gobbling up the entirety of the food available. He was consuming it with focused dedication, clearly deciding this was the primary purpose of the evening and was not going to be distracted from it by anything as secondary as conversation or cutlery. "He is over there, I think," You pointed with your chin and her eyes followed. "By the other table."
"He seems to be enjoying himself enormously," You remarked while your smile twitched. "It is always a pleasure to see someone fully committed to an evening."
You looked back at Aoi with the pleasant expression still fully in place. "I find, for my own part, that I am very happy with my husband. I know there are those who find his colouring unusual, or his condition concerning, and I understand that–it is not something everyone encounters and people sometimes find unfamiliarity uncomfortable. But I will say that I would far rather have a husband who is pale and quiet and attentive, than a husband who–" you glanced again toward the far buffet table, where Lord Hashibira had apparently discovered the desserts section. "--seems to have been perhaps less attentively raised. One could almost imagine he had been reared by boars."
You smiled and added. "But marriages are such individual things, aren't they. One finds what suits one."
Aoi's face was a deep shade of red from embarrassment and anger, she did give you a glare before departing, Kanao went after her to probably calm her.
"Enjoy the rest of the evening," You said to the two women warmly, and turned back to the buffet table sipping your drink with satisfaction.
