Elissa
Lady Peraz Dumagne
Aaylor's Tongue, Tonate Proper

Peraz chuckled at the childishness of Lutur's insistence on not dancing, she did so like to wind him up and see the boy inside who hadn't grown up,"Don't take the gods' names in vain, brother. I'll have you dancing by the end of the night."

She nudged and prodded at Lutur's arms as if to assist Samsom in his jest. She was the very image of a Terreme noblewoman in all her tall visage but she was happy to reduce back to the childhood nature of annoying her brothers in relative privacy. Though his reply to the prodding only sent her back into her noble gait.

"*Womanflesh* Is what made you, Lutur. Do not be so disrespectful." Her kohl lined eyes narrowed at Lutur in a look, she hoped was, reminiscent of the ones father would give when the children were misbehaving,"You may be a lord but I'll still clip your ear like that of a child."

Peraz felt her mood had been particularly soured by his words but the almost conspiratorial look Samsom was giving her was a momentary distracting. Usually she was in on whatever plan he had come up with - "Thick as thieves" Father had called them - but tonight she was blind to it. An interesting change.

"Of course it is. I was 4 years younger than him when *I* Was married off." She hummed and reached up to move a string of threaded pearls from her face that had moved in the wind,"The Ramna should have been overrun by now with miniature Luturs."

"I will certainly be dancing -" She gave a practiced gasp and leaned into Lutur's space,"Maybe even with common islanders! Then you will have to join me so I won't embarrass you, or risk me running off with an illiterate red head you'll have to call '*Brother*'."
Cedric
Bastien de Lysse
Tonate Proper | The Shrouds

His expression did not change as Calypso slid her hands around his arm. He looked over at her for a moment, then glanced back over at the wares and merchant she had left moments ago. "Hmm. You'll need new clothes for the ball, won't you?" He asked. It was clearly a rhetorical question. One of the corners of his mouth curved slightly, a ghost of a smile, before he led her back to the booth. "Let's see if there is anything worth buying here."

The merchant smiled at Bastien, in a pleasant way instead of the vulturous demeanor of the last vendor they had encountered. Bastien's eyes went over the countless dresses. Their fabric was varied, as were the colors. But all of them were of very high quality, the colors vibrant and beautiful and the cuts, from what Bastien could tell, were exotic but elegant.

Careful to not use the arm that Calypso was holding lest she take her hands back, Bastien reached over to feel the blue dress that Calypso had fingered moments earlier. It was smooth as water, silken to his touch. The color was beautiful, a deep cobalt, and yet Bastien did not think it would do her justice. Though he was sure Calypso would look beautiful in any color, he wanted...

"Ah."

His eyes locked on a gown that was half-hidden behind a deep orange robe. He reached for it, grabbing it. The fabric was a deep, vibrant blood-red. Silken, finely woven and light enough to keep one cool in the dreaded heat of the isles. Bastien saw that there was an interesting, elegant strap design on its back. Though he knew of good clothes and fashion, with women's apparel and silhouettes he was quite clueless as to tastes besides his own personal preference.

"How much for the red gown?"

The vendor's face lit up. "Ah! This one?" He carefully removed the dress from where it was hanging, the fabric shimmering in the sunlight as he did so. He laid it out on the booth in front of them. "She is four hundred gold."
** **

*'Rather expensive for a dress,'* Bastien thought, but he wasn't entirely fazed by the price. He glanced over at Calypso, and saw in her face, despite her masked expression, how much she longed for the dress as she stared at it. The color looked as if it was made for her. And it was very high quality.

Wordlessly, Bastien removed the coin purse from his belt and dropped it on the counter. The merchant, at an expert pace, began rapidly counting the coins. After roughly a minute, he gave Bastien back the coin sack after he had extracted his money. The pouch still with a decent bit of weight in it as Bastien put it back on his belt.

"She is one of my favorite pieces, so beautiful and yet so uniquely designed." The vendor nodded, smiling as he looked over at Calypso then nodded to Bastien as he began to fold the dress up neatly. "The color will compliment your wife's complexion perfectly and further accentuate her natural beauty. You have very fine taste, sir."
Antonio
**Samsom Dumagne
The *Aaylor's Tongue*, Hangman's Harbour**

Lutur's glare grew wider and sharper with every word that Peraz spoke. 'Ha! Charming!' he spat, looking up into her eyes with a mocking but uneasy smile. 'By all means, dear sister, go and let some barbarian pup you.' He reached out and laid a hand on her arm, his smile collapsing and giving way to a look of consuming vitriol. 'With bastards, that is. Bear in mind that *I* Decide who gets your hand.' Without relieving her of his gaze, he clawed his coronet out of Samson's hands, and slid it atop his curls. 'We've gone generations without disgrace, neither by son *Or* Daughter.' He gave her a look over and curled his lip. 'I'll defend our seed to the very last.'

Samsom felt a tension at the back of his throat. Instinctively, he caught the blade of his sword in a vice-grip through its scabbard. 'Let's not be so coarse to each other, dearest ones,' he said to them, his tone soft as velvet. Stepping forward, he guided Lutur's hand back down to his side. Smiling, Samsom brushed a palm over his brother's shoulder. 'Father wouldn't stand to hear you dishonouring our sister with such words, my lord. You know this.'

Lutur rolled his eyes. 'Enough of this. Both of you.' A retainer came to him with his sword and belt. He took the belt and tied it around his soft waist, then carefully deposited his curved blade in its sheath. Next he let the retainer drape the cloak around his shoulders. It was beautiful, embroidered with a field of myriad golden scallops—the symbol of their house—against the blue-green of deepest ocean. When the look was finished, and Lutur straightened himself up before them, Samsom couldn't deny that his brother had a certain dark radiance about him.

The Archon of Falsa favoured his two older siblings with one of his brutal smile. 'Let get ourselves gone. It won't do to keep the Pirate King waiting.'

Samsom threw an eye at the setting sun and smirked inwardly. *A bit late for that, brother.* He said nothing. Lutur was already walking off to board the quay. Samsom snapped a hand-mirror free of his belt. It was a fine thing, two sulphur dragons snaking up from its handle to dance around a crescent moon on the back, all in bright silver filigree. 

He lifted it to his face and examined his reflection, pouting. His flaxen hair were looking a bit wind-blown. He snapped a matching silver comb from the other side of his belt, and stroked the long teeth through his locks. The stubble he'd grown, having left his razor behind, looked like he could nearly call it a true beard. He didn't mind that, though. The hair of his scalp may have been fairer than fresh wheat, but his eyebrows, his moustaches, and his beards were always a pale dark brown, just like his siblings. He liked it that way, how it made him look more like Father.

Mirror and comb went back to his belt. Peacockish as it was to carry them, they blended nicely against the dalmatic we wore over his tunic. Where Lutur had gone for dark blue silk rife with gems, and Peraz had taken a pale stola over her blue tunic, the outerwear that Samsom had chosen looked almost like the kind of lamellar curaiss he might have worn on the battlefield. Fine, polished plates of silvered steel covered him from thigh to neck to almost his elbows. Filling the narrow between the plates were rubies, garnets, sapphires, and emeralds, all sown into the silk that bound the whole thing into one. No doubt it was the most expensive thing he owned, perhaps even more valuable than Lutur's coronet to the common robber. With the glittering, varied hues of the gemstones, and the reflective silver of the plates, he looked utterly resplendent when he caught the right light. The dress of Falsans did not favour bright colours like other Terremes' did, but they were a people who adored their fine metals, a taste that Samsom had brought to a glorious conclusion.

His squire, a lean young boy with messy, sandy-brown hair by the name of Goyran, brought him his cloak. It was smaller and lighter than Lutur's, only reaching his hip, bright red with a border of gold thread. Smiling at his sister as armed guardsman surrounded them, he offered her his arm. It would be a queer sight, her four inches taller than him, but to Samsom it mattered not one fig.
Elissa
Lady Peraz Dumagne
The Aaylor's Tongue, Hangman's harbour

It must have been a strange sight to see. Lutur looking up to his sister whose usual height and tall headpiece towered over him as he gripped her arm and spoke with acid dripping from his tongue. Peraz wondered; were she to hold a sword before him, would he have the guts to continue his mighty crusade against her?

'*We've gone generations without disgrace, neither by son or daughter*.' He said, and looking at her youngest brother Peraz found herself begging to differ.

Still, as Samsom broke them apart, Peraz went back to the railing of the ship to cool her temper. She would not let her brother be the reason she lost her temper tonight and she would not do so before going into public. Her pale fingers grasped the rail so tightly her knuckles went white while her brothers readied themselves behind her. Her eyes looked to the remnants of sunshine and hoped it would blind her, or that the waves below would rise as a Phoenix would and swallow the ship whole for a moments piece from her annoying little brother.

When her heart stilled to a normal pace she turned back to find Lutur already walking off and Samsom had just put his mirror back on his belt and was being helped into a cloak. A chuckle escaped her as she went to accept his arm.

"Is that vanity I spot in my favourite brother?" She teased as he led her, her smile dropped suddenly and so did her voice,"Father was a fool to make him lord in his death - though I hate to say such a wicked thing. You would have been perfectly capable. Fie, even Sun!"

She was looking down to her brother's face and in the setting sun he looked ever more like father. Peraz always thought he looked the most like father out of all of them but maybe that was because he didn't have any of their mother in him.

Of course, Peraz knew that they did not share a biological mother but it never felt right to give the title to the woman who birthed him, for she had never met her and never raised him. It was him who should have worn the house Coronet. 

"Maybe I *Will* Take an Islander for a husband and run off just to spite him. I hear they dance naked in the streets at weddings."
Antonio
**Ser Samsom Dumagne
The *Aaylor's Tongue*, Hangman's Harbour**

Samsom could sense the faint aftershocks of her raised temper, and laid a hand on her wrist. 'In this sort of heat, I wouldn't be surprised. To think I would have called *Brugallion* Balmy before.' 

He thought back on his kingdom's southeastern province. The great trade city of Posoxe was the closest thing Terresol had to a place like this, he mused. Posoxe was more refined, though. Its the medley of goods and stalls and crafts that pervaded the city was tempered by a high population of Araedians, who made up much of the city's merchantsblood council, and managed to keep the city clean and respectable enough to honour Xolile and the rest of the gods.

In contrast, Tonate was pure life and passion, with no apparent godliness to keep it all in check. Fish nets were draped over doorways, silk canopies flapped in the wind, crates were stacked high behind tall, barbed walls. There were children playing on the docks, running around and diving between sailor's legs, prompting gruesome curses from salty mouths.

'And please, sister, don't stir that old broth again.' He patted her arm as they crossed the deck. 'The days when a Terreme lord could legitize his bastard son with merely a word and the right motions are centuries behind us. And gods, how would Sun feel if she had even a minute less time to spend with her studies?'

They came to the ramp. Some of their guardsman walked behind them, some were already down on the ramp. The men wore coats of plates and conical helmets with shots of horse hair, mouths covered by mail aventails. Each had a kite shield bearing the Dumagne crest: pure black, and perched high on the face, a red chevron upon which were painted three golden scallops. Some men had the snow-white 'dragon moon' below their chevrons, horns facing upward. Their gods were with them, even this far into the the lands of heathenry.

Samsom saw one of the guards gesture openly to Peraz, turning his face to the nearby Islanders. He was already grimacing by the time the man bellowed, 'Behold, the Dragon! Behold, the Dragon of Falsa! Great Duma tempered in—!' One of the Ibbish Red Guardsmen who were attached to their god threw a backhand at the man's helmet, cutting short his zealous announcement.

Samsom stopped, and leaned closer to her. 'And needless to say, I'd try not to excite any of your *Fancy boys* With talk of someone else becoming Lord of the Ramna, hm?' His tone was grave, but he couldn't help a crooked smile. It was funny. A little bit, anyway.
Elissa
Lady Peraz Dumagne
The Aaylor's Tongue, Hangman's harbour

Walking down the ramp, Peraz took in her surroundings. The crooked shanty town houses piled high near the docks and she watched as a topless woman with long hair stuck her head out and called across to the house beside where another woman hung clothes out on a line between the two windows. Peraz felt herself flush at the sight and she looked down once more to her brother.

"Sun would likely feel a lot better knowing her fool of a brother wouldn't embarrass the family name," She muttered, squeezing his arm gently,"I mean really, who gave him the idea that the king seemed to be *Personally* Awaiting him?"

Her head whipped around as a guard began to bellow to the crowd, nearly knocking Samsom's nose with her kemenike, her eyes narrowed and glared sharpened daggers at the man until he was knocked over the head.

"Stop smirking," She all but snapped at him,"You're far too smug - it's embarrassing."

It *Was* Embarrassing, knowing all of Terresol (or at the very least, all of Falsa) knew the exact time she popped from between her mother's legs and how they loved to shout it at foreigners who barely spoke common. 

"How will you entertain yourself tonight, brother? Will I save you a dance or will you gorge yourself with Lutur?" She was trying to bring back the lightheartedness of before as they walked along with the guards. She couldn't wait to hide on the opposite end of the hall from Lutur and glower for the rest of the night.
Ora
Arin Cragton
Southern isles 

Arin was floating. Lights flickered around him, as if he was suspended in the night sky. He reached out and grabbed a nearby ball of light, and swore loudly as his mother laughed at him. He looked up, and she took the small cup out of his hands. 

"Never touch the cup when it's sitting over the fire without covering your hands." She said, unwrapping the cloth from her hand. She handed him a wet piece of a rag and he placed it over his hand before looking up at her. 

"Oh, and if you don't hurry, you'll miss the ships entering harbour. They are due any moment now. If you leave, take Herin with you. He's been quiet ever since the other day. You never explained to me exactly what happened." His mother said, scrubbing the plates she used to cook on. 

The scene around Arin changed as his memory went back even further. It was as if everything was pulling him back into his own past, and he couldn't do anything but hold on. As everything suddenly stopped, he realized he was standing in a crowded street. A large crowd was beginning to form nearby, and Arin turned to investigate. He began shoving his way into the crowd, moving in between the people around him, twisting and turning as he narrowly avoided elbows and arms. As he crawled under a rather tall man, he noticed what was going on. 

"If I get me hands on tha li'le shit i'll be tha last thing he eva saw." A portly man was trying to grab something that was moving between the market stalls. People watched as the man reached behind the small counter that made up a small jewelry shop and grabbed the head of a small boy. Arin squinted, but before he could see who it was a bright light filled his vision.

Arin groaned as his eyes fluttered open. A soft noise.. Music was playing by him, and his skin felt cool, completely unlike the burning sensation that had plagued him since landing in the trash. 

*Am I.. Dead?* He thought for a moment. He didn't feel dead, but how does it feel to be dead? How can he be sure? He slowly tried to move his broken arm, but a sharp pain raced through his entire body. He bit down, trying to fight the scream building in his chest. 

He looked around and backed up suddenly, pain running through his body as he moved. It woke him up, and he realized the music was coming from the masked person sitting beside him. He faintly remembered him from earlier. 

He coughed as he tried to speak. "You must.. Have been the one to do this for me." He said, struggling to move his injured jaw. "If you were, I thank you." He said, sinking into the trash but retaining consciousness.
Antonio
**Samsom Dumagne
The Irons, Tonate Proper**

The question brought a great and sudden tiredness upon Samsom. He pursed his lips for a moment. He knew exactly what would occupy his time tonight, if all went to plan. 'I doubt I can eat a great deal after that voyage.' He rubbed his stomach through the silver plates and studded gems.

There must have been fifty in their party altogether, a host of armed retainers. Samsom alone had two men-at-arms and young Goyran by his side; none of the three were armoured save for light chainmail shirts between tunic and brocade dalmatic, since they would be accompanying him to the ball, but all carried their swords.

Samsom turned his gaze west as they went. Through the flanking file of guardsmen, he spied an opulent mansion near the docks, and a shipyard sprawling out next to it. *The womb of this great seaborne empire.* The Pirate King fancied he could have the South to himself if he could seed it with enough silver.

He looked to Goyran, noticed a haze of disconcertion on his face. 'What's wrong, boy?' he asked gently.

'They're eyeing me, sir,' Goyran whispered, even though they spoke in their native tongue. Samsom looked to the side of the street, and saw swarthy men in dark, whaleskin coats leaning against walls, leering at them as they walked. Samsom supposed he looked like something of a dandy to them.

'What do you make of these people, Goyran?'

The young squire pondered the question a moment, then looked up at his master with bright eyes. 'I know not, ser, but I'll tell you what I *Would* Make of them.'

'What's that?' Samsom asked.

'Ribbons, ser.' Goyran smiled. 'For you, ser.'

Samsom chuckled, and ruffled the boys curly, dirt-and-sand hair. 'There's the makings of a knight. I'm sure all our gods are barking and baying for you to take the oath, lad.'

Lutur looked back at him. 'What happened to all that talk of *Fair words*, brother?' he said, terribly sardonic.

'They can hardly make sense of the tongue, my lord.' Samsom felt a pang of doubt after saying that, and gave one of the Islanders a rueful eye. He peeled his mind away from them, looking back to his sister. A fluster of memory struck him then, and he smiled. 'Oh, do save me a dance. But try not to overimbibe if you plan on taking the floor. We can't have you prancing around and knocking your heels like it's the night of the dragon moon.' His voice fell apart into a breathy titter.