"My wonderful Hanae.  You've been paying attention...I guess that means I'll have to leave some extra silver for you when the day is done."  Scarab followed the girl as she turned and stepped into the hall.  One thing he had to give the House: its silence.  Granted, the Essence sight of his eyepatch let him see the flows of the mostly-invisible force, and as one of the Sidereal Exalted, he was quite familiar.  Most - certainly mortals and quite a few Dragon-Bloods, as well - probably thought the House of the White Lotus was just a building, a struture.  How untrue.  The House was a manse, and a fairly potent one at that.  So many things - the remarkable silence, the blooming flowers, even the lanterns with their changing colored lights...all of it the results of properly applied flows of Essence: Air for the silence, Water for the flowers, Fire for the lanterns.  Of these, the strongest currents (no pun intended) belonged to Water, which Scarab knew meant that that was the aspect of the House.  However, the journey from Crane Room to tea house was now completed, and as client and serving girl stepped through the shrouds, they stepped into a world of sound.<br/><br/>The dominant one, of course, was that of the singer and her accompianist onstage.  But there was the dull sound of conversation in the air tonightm as well.  Scarab had found that one could judge the performances of the acts by the general level of conversation that went on during the act.  This level meant that while they were not bad, neither were they good enough to arrest the thoughts and words of all those present.  They were...satisfactory.  And nothing more.  Such a shame, especially for ones who were supposed to be Exalted.  Then again, they were only Dragon-Bloods.  At last, they were at his table.  "Thank you, dearest Hanae," he told her as he took his seat.  Then she was off, presumably to be about other House business.  Reclining in his chair, he looked again at the girls.  They were pretty...but no more so than the girls here.  And the House girls were not so...Scarab frowned as his eyepatch revealed that the Exalts were<em>cheating</em>.  They were using some of their own Essence to help bolster their performance.  How much lower his opinion of them slid...well, at least he knew now not to come back on any other night they were scheduled to take stage.<br/><br/>The girls here were mortals all - well, save one - and they did a better job than these two.  Speaking of the one non-mortal, he saw her across the way, now.  Iselsi Avelle.  The markings on her face and body marked her as a Water-aspected Dragon-Blood.  They were faint, not readily available to the eye, especially in such low-lighting conditions, but between his eyepatch and own natural skill, he had seen them.  She was conversing with a Fire-aspect, who then showed one of the inevitable downsides of working in a place like the House.  Dealing with horny Dragon-Bloods.  Scarab took a moment of pride from his own self-restraint; he would<em>never</em>behave as they did, he had too much control for that.  Nearly every time he had come down, there had been at least one or two displays of this behavior that he had seen personally.  The fact that he did not abuse them in such a way was part of his ability to charm them.<br/><br/>The other part...well, you shall see that right now, dear reader.  Scarab recognized the girl quite easily.  The night before last, she had performed onstage - the flute was her instrument of choice.  It had been a splendid performance, but he had recognized the girl was suffering from a minor case of stage fright.  Afterwards, he had spoken to her...and she had, rather ineptly, flirted with him before scuttling off.  It was the morning after that that he had caught more than a few of the House girls ogling him - this had been post-changing clothes incident with Hanae.  And she might not have recognized it...but Scarab knew that their meeting this night was no accident.<br/><br/>"Bao-li..."  He clicked his tongue and sounded disappointed.  "...come now, you know me.  I was the one who spoke to you after your wonderful performance the other night.  It's not 'sir,' it's Master Scarab, remember?"  Scarab was no ugly man, himself - in fact, were he a girl, he would have been as pretty as they.  He reached out and took her hand, slowly rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand.  "Relax, okay?  You don't need to be nervous around me.  I don't bite.  Now, as for tea?  Green, but strong, please."  He released her hand so she could go about her work.