Calliope Corvin (sweetsandtarts) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2019-03-17 12:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | !narrative, * terri, c: calliope corvin |
WHO: Calliope Corvin → Catherine Pinkerton and Jest
WHEN: Early Sunday morning, March 17, 2019
WHERE: The Corvin Household
SUMMARY: Calliope has her first dream of Cath.
WARNINGS: Spoilers for Heartless if you care about that sort of thing.
She really needed a breath of fresh air after the exhaustive dance with the King. Perhaps she could also manage to sneak just a bite of one of her lemon tarts. Her cheeks were likely the color of the ostentatious gown that she’d been tricked into wearing that evening. She had been making her way towards that balconies with every intention of that momentary reprieve when the candles flickered and plunged them all into darkness. Several someones cried out at once, surprise and a ripple of fear pulsing through the crowd at the unknown. A spark erupted above them and the center chandelier began to glow once more. From that chandelier there was now a hoop spinning slowly. It lit the figure lounging inside of the hoop in haunting shadows and angelic luminescence. She wasn’t sure which one was to be believed. He was dressed head to toe in a black motley, his kohl rimmed eyes studying them all. His black joker’s hat was tipped with small silver bells, though she hadn’t heard any ringing before the candles had gone out. The hoop turned slowly as if he was observing his own subjects in the kingdom below. He spotted her, there in that stupid red dress amongst a sea of white and black. She almost waved, though she was grateful when his attention pulled away from her so that she didn’t make a fool of herself with a flutter of her fingers. It wasn’t until he had made a full circle that anything sounded other than the quiet murmur of the crowd. He smiled and tipped his head, making the bells on his hat jingle. The crowd was at once delighted, “Ladies. Gentlemen. Your most illustrious Majesty.” He addressed the guests of the King below him, and the King himself could barely contain his excitement. He was bouncing a little, though Cath tried not to pay attention to him at all. The Joker moved so quickly and seamlessly that Cath wondered at how he did it at all, now standing in the hoop as it made those still-slow turns, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” The hoop somehow stopped spinning with the question, though Cath wasn’t certain how he managed to control it so. They were all silent, but he was facing her now...looking right at her. The candles above made his eyes dance like fire in a hearth. A murmur came up from the crowd finally as those around her tried to come up with a solution to the Joker’s riddle. No one even cared to try for the answer aloud. Perhaps they didn’t want to be incorrect. The Joker stretched out his hand in a fist, and anyone beneath him stepped back, whether out of concern or to get a better look, Catherine wasn’t certain. “You see, they can each produce a few notes.” His fist opened, and tiny black and white papers spewed outward. It was not just a few, but a whole cloud full of them, streaming about the room and falling towards the guests. There were so many of them that it was as though a storm had erupted in the ballroom. The ceiling seemed to have dissolved into paper notes, and the crowd was awed. Men tried to catch the scraps in their hats, women grasped for them in the air. Catherine laughed and tipped her face upward as though she might try to catch the paper notes on her tongue like falling snow. Instead, she held her hands out to her sides and spun in a slow circle, delighted at the snowdrift of paper that kicked up around her twirling skirt. She turned three times, and reached up to tug a note out of her hair where it had caught. The confetti piece from her hair was white and printed with a single red heart. Her own heart thumped dangerously in her chest. The Joker was still inside of his hoop above, surveying them all in that ankle-deep drift of confetti. The hat he had worn was no longer upon his head, revealing black hair that curled around his ears. Her heart gave another hard thump, “Though, admittedly, the notes tend to be very flat.” A giggle rose up from the crowd with that addendum, though the guests had quieted again enough to hear the tinkle of the bells on his hat. An enormous bird rose up from that hat and cawed as it soared near the ceiling. The audience gasped and awed. The raven was so large that the beat of his wings stirred up the paper below, but it made two turns around the ballroom before settling on the lit chandelier with the Joker. The crowd applauded, and Catherine found herself amongst those that were clapping, though she barely knew her own actions she was so mesmerized. The Joker placed his three-pointed hat back on his head, and swung himself to the bottom of the hoop so that he was holding on with one gloved hand. Catherine almost stepped forward, worried suddenly that he would fall, but when he let go, a red velvet scarf appeared and the Joker spun lazily toward the floor, black and white scarves appearing seamlessly until he had reached the ground. The moment that his boots touched the floor, the rest of the chandeliers came back to life all at once, the candles igniting like a wildfire above. The crowd applauded once more and the Joker took a bow. When he straightened, he was holding a different hat altogether, though his own was still upon his head, “I beg your pardon, but does anyone seem to be missing a hat?” He held the ivory beret aloft, spinning it on the tip of his finger. For a moment, the crowd was quiet and curious, but a roar rose up from across the room. Jack was patting his hair with his hands, his hat no where on his person. Catherine remembered then that Mary Ann had told her that Jack intended to steal the Joker’s hat as a means of initiation. It seemed that he had turned the tables, and publicly no less. “My sincerest apologies,” the Joker said, though his smile was gleeful, “I haven’t the faintest idea how this hat came to be in my hands. Here, you may have it back.” Jack stormed up to the Joker through the crowd, but as he reached for it, the Joker pulled it back and tipped it upside down, “But wait -- I think there might be something inside. A surprise? A present?” He peered inside the hat with one eye, “Ah -- a stowaway!” He reached into the hat, his arm disappearing nearly to his shoulder which shouldn’t have even been possible, and when he pulled his arm back out, two white ears were clasped in his fist. The crowd gave him their attention, “Oh my ears and whiskers, how cliche. If I’d have known it was a rabbit, I would have just left him in there. But as it can’t be helped now…” He pulled the rabbit from the hat, but it was none other than the master of ceremonies, the White Rabbit. He emerged sputtering and shocked as though he didn’t know how he had gotten into the hat in the first place. Catherine couldn’t help her laugh, but it emerged as a snort so she pressed her hands over her mouth to try to cover it. “Why -- I never!” The Rabbit cried out as the Joker set him onto the floor. He straightened his tunic and sniffled up at the Joker, “The nerve! I will be speaking to His Majesty about this blatant show of disrespect!” The White Rabbit was a prideful creature, after all. The Joker bowed, “So very sorry, Mr. Rabbit. No disrespect was meant at all. Allow me to make amends with a heartfelt gift. Surely there must be something else in here…” Jack reached for his hat once more, but the Joker pulled it out of his reach, “Oh yes. This will do.” He reached into Jack’s hat once more, but this time his hand emerged with a pocket watch of fine manufacturing. He presented it with a flourish to The White Rabbit, “Here you are. And see there, it’s already set to the proper time.” Mr. Rabbit sniffed once more, but when the glitter of a diamond from the watch caught his eye, he took it and stammered, “Er -- well. I’ll consider...we shall see...but this is a fine watch…” He gnawed upon it as if to check its authenticity, and then slipped it into his pocket. He did cast one more glare at the Joker, however, before disappearing into the crowd. “And for you, Sir Jack-Be-Nimble, Jack-Be-Quick,” the Joker now offered the hat out to Jack, who took it and slammed it back upon his head. The Joker raised a finger, a word of advice on his lips, “You may wish to--” Jack’s eyes widened and he whipped the hat off again. A lit candle was sitting in a silver candlestick on top of his head, the flames already having burned a hole into the beret. “Hey, I’m trying to get some sleep!” the candle protested. “I beg your pardon,” the Joker reached out and pinched the top of the candle so that the flame extinguished. Jack seemed to be ready to launch himself at the Joker in an attempt to throttle him, “That’s peculiar. I thought for sure you’d be jumping over the candlestick, but this is all upside downward indeed.” The guests were all laughing, but the raven left his perch and swooped toward them. Catherine took a step back as the raven brushed by her ear and settled onto the Joker’s shoulders, but the Joker didn’t flinch, unsurprised. “With one last bit of wisdom, we must bid you a goodnight,” the Joker said with a smile, tipping his own hat toward the crowd, “Always check your hats before donning them. You never know what might be lurking inside.” The bells jingled once more as he turned to look at everyone in the audience. As he turned, Catherine straightened her spine. When he saw her, she could have sworn that he winked in her direction, but perhaps she had imagined it. His mouth lifted in a crooked grin, and then his entire body melted into blackness. Within the next breath, the Joker had transformed into a winged shadow - a second raven, and the two birds fluttered towards the window and were gone into the darkness of night. Calliope woke with a small jolt, her heart beating harder in her chest than should have been strictly right for someone who had just been asleep. She could still see that slow smirk of the Joker in her dreams, and the wink as he turned his golden eyes to her, flames dancing there. She instead only saw the creeping glitter of sunlight trying to peek through the blinds early in the morning. The dream had felt so real. She could still feel the flush in her own cheeks, and she looked down to her hands as though she might find a single red heart on parchment there, but there was nothing. She was not Catherine. She was not in some ballroom in a bright red dress, dancing with Kings and awed by a Joker. Turning over, she caught sight of Thomas, still peacefully sleeping with his dark hair mussed from sleep, curling over his ears. She shifted closer to him, stretching her arm over him as she put her head against his chest to listen to his steady heart. Sundays were for sleeping in as long as possible, so she wouldn’t wake him with the tale of such a strange, fantastic sort of dream, but perhaps that morning she would make them lemon muffins instead of any of the St. Patrick's day things she'd had planned, and convince him to dance with her in the kitchen while they baked. That was, after all, much better than a black and white (and red) ball, anyway. |