Ballroom; the edges
Protocol ordered a conversation in the same way that school ordered children; conversation obeyed meekly because it knew nothing else and because the strictures for breaking with protocol were too onerous to contemplate. Joss found she rather liked smashing it -- it was like running away from school and playing all day until utterly exhausted -- so she smiled, and it was a small thing, but like all Joss's smiles, began in one corner of her mouth and slowly spread across it until one moment she had been plain enough and ordinary-looking and in the next, was very pretty indeed. It was that sort of smile. She turned it to Jacks-- Blytech, he had wished to be called it, and it was a name although Jackson was lovely in itself, and Joss shook her head until the little tendrils of hair that had fallen whisked across her bare shoulder.
"I was given an invitation, but I don't know many people at all. I'm Joss," she held out a hand to shake, quite politely and her voice was low and cool and sweet -- husky, as though she didn't talk very much but when she did, people listened.