With one last check of her hair, Leiana slipped out of her room, using the servants’ routes to get to the first floor of her house. After all, it would do her no favours for people to know who she was at a masquerade ball.
Music soon filtered towards her ears, and she nervously adjusted her dress. Steeling herself, she peeked into the corridor to make sure no one was looking in her direction, and quietly joined the crowd.
She had stepped into a magnificent ballroom, and observed, under the soft amber light of a massive, angular chandelier, men and women danced in their finery, people mingled, comparing their beautiful, exotic masks, and trying to guess the other’s identity. Panicked, she wondered if she had made a mistake to go down; she did not have the faintest idea on how to mingle with these people.
“Hullo,” a soft voice from behind her spoke up.
Leiana whirled around, and came face to face with a tall, slender young man, about Leiana’s age, with shoulder-length silver hair. He had on a half-moon mask of the same colour covering the upper half of his face, with spikes radiating along the top like stylised icicles.
“Oh,” she stuttered blushing. “Uh, hello?”
The youth chuckled. “First time, then? Don’t worry, everyone’s been through it once.”
“I, well, yes, well,” Leiana fumbled, stumbling over her words.
“Relax,” He assured her, offering her his arm. “I’ll show you around.”
Nervously slipping her hand into his proffered arm, Leiana allowed the stranger to lead her around.
The youth led her around, ‘introducing’ her to people of her own age, and Leiana began to loosen up. When the music started, she even accepted his invitation for a dance.
“Really, you seem to have opened up quite a bit,” he murmured into her ear as they twirled across the dance floor.
“Is that so?” Leiana said distractedly, mentally trying to maintain the conversation as well as keeping in time with the dance. She had not danced in ages.
“Oh yes,” he laughed quietly in her ear. “I am looking forward to midnight.”
“Is that so?” One, two, three, one two three, Leiana counted silently.
“Oh, yes,” he replied, his lips curling into a smile.
Bong
Leiana froze at the sound of the bell, the other man’s words finally registering.
Bong
It was midnight –the time people revealed their faces by taking off their masks.
Bong
The young man was smiling, and had let go of her, reaching for the clasps that held his mask in place.
Bong
“I – I’m sorry, I have to go,” Leiana said, taking a few nervous steps away from him.
Bong
The youth froze. “Hold on-”
But Leiana had fled.
Bong
Using the servants’ routes again, Leiana dashed up to her room, slamming the door behind her.
Bong
Sinking to the carpeted floor, she buried her face in her hands, trembled, listening to the bell.
Bong
Bong
Bong
Bong
Bong
As the last toll faded away, Leiana, with trembling hands, took off her mask, and stood up to face her mirror. She stared at her reflection in revulsion.
The words of bygone days from numerous people echoed in Leiana’s head.
“Don’t look at her, it’s not polite to stare at the less fortunate...”
“...Such a pity, she would have been beautiful if not for that unfortunate defect on her face...”
Across the bridge of her nose, lay a thin, white scar, its length spanning two thirds of her face. A malformation.
“How appalling.”
With a shriek, Leiana threw her mask at the mirror, shattering both the glass and the beautiful mask that had allowed her to live a normal life for one night.
She ignored the voice at the back of her head about seven years of bad luck. After all, what was seven years compared to the whole life of a deformed freak?
In the city of Lithria, beauty and opulence were paramount - an unspoken decree its citizens knew all too well, and were ruled by.