The Silver Queen [AU]

[Tethras Clan]

"Wrong bad, wrong sad or wrong weird?" Zevran murmurs back, a gay smile on his face.

[Carver Amell]

"Not sure. She seemed... is there a feeling for both afraid and resigned all at once?" The best Carver can manage is muddled confusion -- which is so at home on his face, they could be talking about anything.

[Tethras Clan]

"...broken," Zevran says softly, eyes goes dangerously flat. I'd feared that... such a man could not marry but to have a favorite pet on hand. This time I do not need to flee. This time Ni- Coquette is saved in full.

[Carver Amell]

"She was nice, though," he says, after a moment of uncomfortable shifting. "Polite. Poised. A little stand-offish. Modest. He said she had a migraine, needed to go lay down."

[Tethras Clan]

"...did she do anything... off before that? Something he didn't seem to like," Zevran asks.

[Carver Amell]

"She was a touch slow thanking me for the compliment I guess?" he says, awkwardly.

[Tethras Clan]

Punishment then. Bollocks. "Alright. Which room were you in?"

[Carver Amell]

"The one with the sailboat painting and the twin bookshelves," he says immediately. He may not understand everything going on around him, but he observes it.

[Tethras Clan]

"Direct me?" Zevran asks, not ashamed to admit he's not nearly as good as Carver at making mental maps or navigating in general. "Then head back to Belladonna."

[Carver Amell]

Carver nods, taking him to the little side room -- something of a library, perhaps, with books on sailing and shipping in the bookshelves.

[Tethras Clan]

"Alright, I shall ask around and see if I can find out where he went with her," Zevran says quietly. Pretend to wish to finish a conversation, ask if people have seen him, where he went... should be easy enough really. Until he reaches the private area, of course. "You go back up our beauty, no?" With a wink, the sem-retired assassin wanders off to work the crowd. 

[Carver Amell]

Carver nods, heading directly back toward where he left Isabela...

[NPCs]

By the time Carver makes his way back to Isabela- Belladonna at the moment- she's moved rooms. And is deep in conversation with Olocaryn himself. The new room is set the the theme of flowering willow trees, and the pair are partially secluded on one side, behind a delicately made silk and stone willow branch. The only other people in the room are a trio of old men grumping about shipping prices increasing, not a one of them paying a lick of attention elsewhere. 

"-but you see, the beauty in it is not it's use, but the slender grace, the delicate blossom that nevertheless possess a surprising resilience. Beauty, after all, has diminished value if it is too fragile to appreciate," the party host says smoothly. He's not touching her, but is perhaps just a shade too closer for propriety. 

[Isabela]

"I can see that," says Isabela, frowning in thought. "I rather prefer the metaphor of a falcoln. They must be lightweight, you see, to fly, but they are not half so delicate or easily caught."

[NPCs]

"Not a poor choice. But raptors are lonely beasts. The sky might be a large place, yes, with plenty of room to roam but what is life if life is spent alone? Such a fate could turn the grandest expanse, the widest horizon, into a prison as suffocating as the foulest oubliette."