notfaking_it | (no subject)

The gala had been a bit of a bore.

Lily was used to it, mingling with investors, the people who essentially paid for her to be a dancer, and she was usually good at it. Even tonight, she doubted anyone noticed that she was bored, but it had gone on long and all the champagne in the world couldn't make it end any quicker. She passed by Nina several times, pausing long enough to talk to her, to laugh about something that had been said, but she knew it was encouraged for them to be as social as possible and so she moved on after a few minutes.

It was something she was good at, even at her worst, and Lily smiled and laughed as she knew she was supposed to.

Between conversations, she set down her champagne flute and slipped toward the bathroom, her purse in hand. Raising her hand as she passed Nina, she grinned, then slipped through the bathroom door, glancing down into her purse for her compact as she crossed toward the mirror. Her heels clicked against the tile floor and when she glanced up, at first it seemed that nothing was wrong.

But the bathroom was gone.

Beyond the mirror she had glanced into stretched a long, golden hall and Lily shifted, moving away from the mirror to stare at what had appeared. She blinked, then turned back toward the bathroom door only to find it gone, replaced with a beautiful hall, the walls adorned with art she'd never seen before, rich looking and lush.

"What the hell?" she murmured.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Even with their group larger than before, even though she felt a little safer as a group of four instead of just a pair, Lily didn't particularly like Atlantis and it wasn't anything she could quite put her finger on. There was nothing wrong with it on the surface. It was rich and decadent, over the top in some ways, though that actually might have been a little endearing had she still not felt some strange undercurrent of discomfort.

"Everyone's headed to the same place," she said, watching the flow of people move through the halls. The people she'd spoken with had mentioned a party of some kind, a gathering, and that seemed to be where everyone was going now.

"Should we..." she trailed off, watching a group of young women hurry down the hall, talking in hushed whispers and giggling between them. At a glance, the only things that set them apart from the girls she knew from her ballet company were their clothes, and the servants trailing hastily behind them.

"I guess we might as well see," she said, uncertainty tugging at the corners of her lips. It was just a party, it couldn't hurt to go and see, but something about the city didn't feel right. Since they'd gotten there, she'd hardly been able to move away from Lily's side, keeping her within an arm's reach, afraid that...

No, not afraid. She was sure that something awful was going to happen. Why else would they have ended up in this place?

I don't particularly agree with this plan. There's something about these people that worries me and I can't quite put my finger on it. But you're here now and if you want to go, I won't second-guess you. Perhaps it is just my nervousness about being in crowds, I was never really allowed in Rapture and I try to avoid them in Darrow as much as possible.

"Perhaps we can learn something there? More about this place?" although I wonder if the time might be better spent searching other spaces while there was no one around. "What do you think, Father?"

He wasn't sure what he thought. Instincts that he had learned to rely on were pulling in multiple directions, whispering warnings at the same time as they made suggestions. There was definitely something about this place that didn't feel right, and it hadn't just been how the woman had spoken to them.

And maybe he had learned to mistrust beauty like this, after Rapture.

"I think we should go," he said slowly. "But I think we should be cautious."

For the first time in a long time, part of him wished for his old weapons.

"I'll avoid letting any of them buy me drinks," she said dryly, trying to smile a little though she didn't entirely feel like it. There was something off-putting about the entire situation, which was strange for Lily. She could usually fit in anywhere, find a place for herself, bend the people around her to make it easier to fit, but that wasn't happening here.

Or maybe she didn't want it to happen.

"Drinks?" a man asked, as he passed them by. "There will be plenty of drinks, you'll be happy to know."

"Great," Nina said flatly, with a hint of uncharacteristic sarcasm as she cut Lily a look.

"I wonder what they're celebrating," she said, her voice pitched low. What was more disturbing was why they were there at all, present for some party where they obviously didn't belong.