Major Thread Fortuna Vitrea Est

[Marianna Furotazzi]

Marianna sat herself close to Ivo, watching him with concern. As he complained of the pain, her paws moved up to his shoulders, carefully kneading at the fur and muscles there and at the base of his neck. She was far from an expert masseuse, but she at least was able to warm the muscles a bit with her touch. "Don't worry about that right now," she told him quietly. "You saw the differences; that's good. We'll visit a jeweler I know later, look at some genuine, glass, and low-quality diamonds, and we'll figure out which is which, so the next time you see them in the Vermillion Mansion vault, we'll know which one to grab."

She hesitated, then she murmured, "I'm sorry. I didn't want you to get hurt on my account."

~~~

As soon as the food spilled down the kit's shirt, Mina Rose seemed to spring back to life. Her paws immediately produced a small bottle of clear liquid from a pocket, and she moved toward Finn. The guardbeasts, catching the motion, reacted swiftly, weapons lowering and bringing the vixen to a halt. "It's jus' vinegar, boys," she explained, holding up the bottle between two pawfingers. "I used ta spill drinks an' such on m'self all the time back home, an' white vinegar did the trick. Still keep a bottle on me, given mah reflexes. Y' mind?" She pointed at the stain as she added, "Migh' be able t' rescue tha' shirt if I'm quick enough."

~~~

Daniil smiled easily, relaxing in Caden and Matisse's presence as they moved toward the theatre and the stage. He accepted the food that Caden had pulled together, nibbling at it even as part of him longed to be at home, eating one of Asta's delicious home-cooked meals instead. "Well, I hope my cousin's not expecting much," he commented, gesturing at the numerous beasts on the upper levels in Smudgie and M.A.U.L. uniforms, some of them holding what looked like bows and crossbows. "To be honest, I'm not sure why he brought us all on duty. We're a bit redundant at the moment." He looked to Matisse, glancing over his outfit. "I'm sorry," he apologized, "I think I missed your affiliation, sir. Are you here with one of the ministries as well?"

 

[Ivo Suresight]

Warm, kind touch of Marianna, while firm, did help him decently with soothing the pain at least a bit. It was still there, lingering and burning deep. Ivo after years of physical activities knew it meant at least a few days before he could safely strain his upper back again. But at least for now he was no longer suffering too badly.

"Is part of a job ey? I shouldda have thought about it too." He was smirking just a bit, but his voice was sombre. "I know ya didn't want me t' get hurt. T' fact yer doing ya best to soothe me pain? Tells me enough." He put her tail on her lap, gently patting her with soft wags.

"As fer that jeweller? Sound plan. I need ta scribble them differences though. I may've great memory but rememberin' stuff is another thing. Would'ya mind bringing me anythin' t' write on love? I have me pen, but I couldn't get any paper in through 'em guards fer some reason..." He looked over his shoulder at her with a kind, thankful gaze.

 

[FinnianBrightfur]

Finn, in a panic, began to clean his shirt faster. He'd already endured enough suffering at the well meaning paws of Alwyn, he didn't need to suffer any further indignity from some vixen cleaning his shirt like a little dibbun! "No no, really, it's alright!" he said defensively, smearing the stain further.

@Mina Rose Brewer

 

[Marianna Furotazzi]

Marianna smiled, and leaned in to give him a brief kiss on the cheek. "I'll find something," she promised.

She got up and, looking about, scanned the room for anyone who looked like they might have a writing implement on them. She caught side of a tall, dark wildcat coming in from the hallway leading to one of the bars, and she made a move to cut him off. She caught him quickly look over her with a harsh, assessing gaze, one that made her stop in place mere paces from him. He slowed to a stop in front of her, his paws low by his side - a ready stance if ever she'd seen one. "What?" His voice was low and rough, a broadness to the accent that was difficult to place.

"Er... I was just wondering if maybe you had something to write on," she stammered, trying to swallow the sudden fear in her voice. "You know, pen, paper, that."

"Oh." There was a pause, and the wildcat reached into his jacket pocket. For some reason Marianna braced herself, as if expecting to be struck or stabbed, but instead the wildcat brought out a pencil and a notebook. "Here," he offered.

Marianna carefully accepted the pencil and notebook, only just then noticing that there was something red, sticky, and partly dried that seemed to be loosely adhering the pencil to the leather cover of the notepad. "Er, you can have your pencil back," she offered, trying to tamp down the queasy feeling in her gut. "I really just need the paper."

"Nah, I'm done with it," the wildcat responded, his eyes scanning the room beyond her, and he cut off at an angle, moving toward one of the far exits.


Marianna stared down at the stained pencil, wondering morbidly, Done what with it? Then, shaking herself from her trance, she returned to Ivo at their table. "Here," she offered, pushing the pencil and notebook across to him. "Got a free pencil out of it too. ...I think I need to wash my paws."

~~~

Mina Rose's eyes widened in panic as Finn made the stain worse. "Please," she pleaded, "at least pour some vinegar on it first! I can get you a damp rag!" She seemed to be on the verge of crying again as her presence made everything worse.

 

[Darragh Harper]

For the first time in his life, Darragh had real money. Not loose change from his parents or older siblings for him to run down to the passing milk wagon before the last bottles were sold. Not pocket money to buy a pulp magazine and a boiled sweet. Actual gilders that clinked and glittered and made a purse bulge. Spend us, they jingled merrily with every step the stoat took down the street. Buy pretty! Buy soft! Buy shiny!

The bell tinkled along to their tune as Darragh opened the door to Stitches and Silks, an off-the-rack clothier and tailor for respectable beasts, if not actual gentry. The stoat shopkeeper turned up his snout at the younger, saltier stoat in the crumpled hat, his fur a-mess, his shirt barely cover his long torso, his breeches absurdly baggy. The snobby tailor began reaching for a stout wooden stick he kept behind the counter, as the scruffy sailor lad began explaining the outfit he wanted in a lilting Tookumberry accent.

It was only when Darragh began playing with his purse of gilders, a knowing smirk on his face, that the shopkeeper returned his affability with an oily smile. Then he was only too happy to fit the youth a new shirt and breeches, and plant a seed in his naive ear. “Sir would look most dashing in a new hat and boots as well, don’t you think? I can make some personal recommendations - just mention my name.”

~*~*~ Six Hours Later ~*~*~​

The Unsmudgeable and the MAUL agent at the door to the Opera House were not sure what to make of the short, skinny stoat that approached them next. He was freshly washed, and perfumed enough to make passing beasts sniff in bewilderment at the excessively fruity scent in the air. He wore a white shirt with big puffy sleeves a deep frilled V-neck that almost scandalously exposed his chest. He had a blood-red sash tied tight around his narrow waist, and form-squeezing black breeches. His boots were shined to military standard. The hat on his head was a cap of crushed blue velvet, with an ostrich feather for decoration that bobbed with his every step.

“And who are you… sir?” the Smudgie asked.

Not to be outdone by his inter-departmental rival trusted colleague, the MAUL agent butted in. “And do you have an invitation?”

Darragh flashed them a grin, and struck a pose, one paw on his hips, the other raised as though he were already delivering a soliloquy on the opera house stage itself. The voice he spoke with still had a little of its usual Tookumberry cadence, but every word was deliberately articulated. “Why, good even-ing, my fellow art aficionados. It is I… Darragh Harper, the poet.”

The door-minders blinked in unison, finally united in one thing - confusion, and growing dislike.

“What’cha call me? A fishy nardo?!” The MAUL agent growled. “I ain’t fishy! I’ve got an alibi!”

“’Sir’,” the Smudgie said in audible quotation marks. “Do you have an invite?”

Darragh could feel a bead of sweat prickling on his brow as he widened his grin to painful proportions. His affected ‘upper-class’ accent began to slip as he tried to maintain his breezy facade. “Um. Perhaps I didn’t make m’self clear. I am a poet, and this is a house of culture. Her doors are open to me by definition, sah!”

Well, Darragh thought. At least I’m dressed well enough to be put in one of the less-crowded prison cells tonight.

 

[SwifttailTheFox]

Swifttail listened, the glow inside him only growing warmer with each word Kaii offered. It meant more than he could easily say... this gesture, this unwavering show of loyalty and friendship. Not just a noble’s pledge, but one of a true companion’s.

He gave a quiet nod, eyes soft. "Aye, I'll toast to that, Kaii. Thank you."

Swifttail then turned to Silvertongue, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile that was still new, but growing more certain by the moment.

"Lead on! I will not leave your side this time." he said, a light chuckle escaping as his tail gave another wag behind him.

@Kaii Nashirou
@Silvertongue Songfox

 

[Ruffano Quickwhistle]

Ruffano Quickwhistle was full on skulking. Lurking. Circling the perimeter of the grand Opera House with all the restraint of a wine cork wedged in a cannon barrel.

The ridiculous building stood like a painted pastry, all polished marble and gaudy embellishment, and tonight it was reserved for that beast’s celebration. Minister Afton Kilaris. The poster child of the Ministry of Niceties. The very todd who had blacklisted Ruffano from every legitimate performance house in the Imperium proper. All it had taken was one misinterpreted monologue and suddenly he was “a corrupting influence.”

“Talentless waif,” Ruffano muttered aloud, eyeing the lantern-lit windows with loathing. “Wouldn’t know nuance if it tap-danced up his velvet-cloaked backside.”

Afton had single-pawedly turned the entire art of stagecraft into a glitzy pageant of social preening. Gone were the gripping tragedies, the biting comedies, the double-entendres hidden in candlelight and smudged ink. Now it was all makeup and posture, every line delivered like a debutante apologizing for breathing too loudly.

“Oh, how I’d love to crash his little soirée,” Ruffano seethed. “Just one good monologue. Something sharp. Something with teeth.”

He spun, tail flaring, and nearly collided with a passing aristocrat. A mumbled apology, a pirouette, and Ruffano retreated again to the edge of the torchlight, just as movement at the entrance caught his eye.

There, flanked by two stone-faced guards, standing absurdly proud in a scandalous frilled shirt and boots buffed to within an inch of their lives was a stoat. Not just any stoat. A Tookumberry-accented, artistically posturing, over-perfumed stoat who seemed just slightly more terrified than his grin could account for. And the guards looked seconds away from dragging him off for his own “cultural misunderstanding.”

Ruffano grinned like a beast spotting an unattended dessert tray. He swept forward with the flourish of a stage entrance, interjecting himself between the stoat and the situation with effortless grace.

"My my!" he exclaimed, voice ringing with theatrical delight. "Surely you recognize Sir Darrence Parker, esteemed poet and champion of the arts!"

He gave the stoat a conspiratorial wink, then turned to the guards with mock scandal.

"Why, you must be as uncultured as toads to not know of such an esteemed, young beast! For shame!"

@Darragh Harper

 

[Aiken Brudenell]

@Orina Emberkin @Dusk Rainblade @Talinn Ryalor

Adelyn seemed unaware of Aiken’s displeasure, or else paid it little heed. As Dusk drew close, she shared a grin with the older vixen, sparing a look over at Aiken as she sipped from her glass. In the end it all timed out well, letting her catch the downward flick of his eyes as Dusk mentioned the reign of Vladimir Ullyanov. The stoatess gave Aiken a nudge, bringing his attention back to the Ryalors before Dusk had finished asking them about how they’d met.

Aiken breathed through his nose, Adelyn mustering a small laugh.

“Did you want to tell it?”

“Shouldn’t it be you? It was your knife to my throat.”

Adelyn just grinned and took another sip from her champagne, watching her mate carefully. Finally, Aiken seemed to relent, looking back to her with the slightest of smiles before starting with a sigh.

“Well, it’s something of a long, confusing story.”

In truth, the stoat wasn’t sure which parts to mention, or which parts to omit. He’d killed a beast his first week in the harbor – cut a pirate down with his saber right in the middle of the street while he’d been trying to locate one of his family’s old safehouses. His family, of course, had been the de facto rulers of the Imperium since before he was born, his father since 1737 – and then had a good stint as ‘de jure’ rulers through the time of crisis, acquiring many enemies in all that time and after. Adelyn was one of the few beasts to know his parentage, though not because he’d had any intent of telling her at first. It just happened that long abandoned safehouses didn’t actually stay abandoned in Bully for long.

"I think it's fair to say that we were two beasts in the wrong place at the right time."

“You could say that.” Adelyn said with a smirk. Aiken made as though to continue, only for the beast who was ultimately his employer, MinoNice Kilaris, to walk in on the conversation, clearly intoxicated, but having a good time. The Minister of Niceties addressed his fellow ministers, and so Aiken held his tongue while they talked among themselves.

One of Afton Kilaris’s entourage – a battle-worn looking squirrel he thought he recognized as one of the ministry’s vice ministers – seemed to take an interest in him and Adelyn, and he offered her a deferential nod and a smile.

“I think my colleagues are probably still busy with the refreshments! Or else, perhaps, there was some issue getting them their passes. I… didn’t exactly get in on one of the paper’s allotted tickets.”

“Courtesy of Ye Olde Boiling Vats,” Adelyn whispered, her tone playful, perhaps starting to feel the effects of the champagne. Aiken would have been annoyed to betray the source of his access, but his mate’s words let him ignore the potentially sensitive matter of disagreement between the Minister and Vice Minister.

“Yes… One less rich fox and his wife, the two of us instead… Hopefully Mister Gamun isn’t being missed.”

Faced with – presumably, given Kilaris’s comment – another one of the beasts responsible for planning the night’s security, Aiken felt a question rise to his tongue once more, one he’d asked Dusk in a different enough way.

“If you don’t mind my asking; has there been some threat to the event’s security that merited the additional MAUL presence? Whatever the spirit of inter-ministry cooperation, it does appear rather unusual to see so many of our friends from Misanthropy working at a Niceties function.”

~~~

@Jeshal the Ironclaw @Morgan Liu

Vihmastaja Rhoodie

Vihma smiled at the older fox’s joke. Well, she assumed it was a joke. Did richbeasts not only put food in drinking glasses, but also wear them as nose ornamentation?

The weasel was beginning to wonder about just what peculiarities about high culture were actually plausible, only to notice the metalwork claw the todd wore on his paw… or over his paw… or – no, it seemed it was his paw, or at least what went for it these days.

She winced, imagining the circumstances that might have necessitated the prosthetic moments before Morgan got them their answer. The fox was halfway through another story she didn’t fully believe when there was a crash of glass that cut him off.

Vihma looked back to Morgan, pulling herself close to the ferret as she tried to make a joke.

“May’aps its ‘ow ‘e gave up ‘is monsterin’ days, gone ‘n went ‘n fished no more.”

 

[Kaii Nashirou]

@SwifttailTheFox @Silvertongue Songfox

Kaii raised the glass and then took another cautious sip from it. He wasn't going to get even tipsy today, that he was making sure of. Instead, seeing as both of his friends were ready, he waited for them to act. Last thing he would do was to rush them, albeit he was ready to give them a nudge if they were to get stuck.

Instead he took a look around. Now refreshed after being able to talk in a manner that was more normal to him, Kaii could focus himself on finer details, just beyond the sea of nobles and beasts alike. He spotted some commotion in a distance. There was one noble and warlike looking fox courting a vixen that was seemingly at the verge of tears. Kaii mostly focused on them because he could swear he saw one Finnian-shaped kit by them before the crowd shifted and obscured them. It wasn't possible for Finny to get into here himself right? For sure he wouldn't want to come, and even if, he would speak to at least one of the three foxes from the Hide. Right?

Nonetheless, just assuming it was some very similar looking kit, his gaze wandered to the Duke. They didn't seem happy with the beasts they were talking with now. The Duchess and their wife was clearly more at her element, and it was showing. Kaii, due to some interest in actual politics, knew one had to be careful dealing with the Duchess, he wasn't even sure if the three foxes from the Hide should approach the Duke with her nearby.

Seeing again how eager were his two friends, the marble fox decided to at least slightly be the voice of reason. "I shall stand by your side, but please, let the Duke finish with his current interlocutors before we approach him. They don't seem happy and well... it would cause a slight bit of drama for beasts like us to interject into the conversation between the highest of the realm. I don't see why it would myself, but I don't want to risk the social slander for you two. Let us wait in close distance. Duke may probably approach us to escape his peculiar situation..."

 

[Ivo Suresight]

Ivo took the notebook and instantly his nose felt a pang of blood. He looked at Marianna with visible confusion. "Uh, dear, I ain't judgin' but... ya didn't kill someone fer those?" He turned his confusion into a joke, letting out a few unsure laughs before pulling out his nicest pen, one that was actually worthy of showing in such public. Then he started sketching while speaking again. "I'll be there, waitin' fer ya. Just... I wanna know where didja get these?" The red fox was more worried about Marianna really than anything that she could've done. It wasn't her style to be brutal like Falun, but how else could she get items that smelled of blood?

 

[Izakis]

@Kal Goldtail @Liza Fairpaw

Izakis giggled jovially at the notion. "Neither and both. My act lets beasts more capable to make the events, yet I only watch them myself." She picked up a little impromptu concerto from the backstage, her hips swaying to the rhythm. "I am a confidant to some, a ssssoothing presence to others, but a sssslave to few and a beast of desire and disgust alike." She grinned, her reptilian teeth shining in the dim light that was reaching up here, her pose fluid and masterfully manifesting her words. "My impact on the world is meagre, were it not for me, ssssomeone else would do my work. But I know at least of a few that just needed a warm encouragement, gentle push or a caring word. With those? They were able to reach for the greatness and do what I could never, change the world. And I was there to give them those."

Slowing down her act, she sit down on her haunches, letting her tail dance in front of her. She knew well that her words were maybe a bit too exaggerated, but that was her goal in recent life, to bring good to the ones around her. And there were a lot of beasts that needed not the pleasures of the flesh. They just needed tenderness and kindness, that too, she offered, just as willingly.

"Forgive me for my lengthy monologue. I rarely get to sssspeak of myself... Fuhuhu." She winked and giggled slightly, unfaltering despite the fact she just admitted how lonely such life was.

 

[Minerva]

@Cricket

There were not many words that Minerva knew that could describe how miserable she was. She was a daughter of winter itself. Born from frost and cold to guard the frozen lands of her home, her ancestry.

Coming here to this... City? It was already a shock to her.

Getting into the army in order to find this whole "employment" thing? It cost her a lot to get used to living under rules.

Now she was send in to assist in guarding opera. She had no clue what opera was nor why it should be guarded. Coming inside earlier that day, it just looked like a big building filled with glittering things.

Then the beasts came. Lots of beasts. Too many beasts.

The place got loud and stuffy. A lot of beasts spoke gibberish that she couldn't understand. The food was all way too prepared for her taste and the drinks burned her tongue.

After some time, she wished nothing more than to return to the quiet dark of her bunk. What was even there to guard? There was so many beasts that one would have to send a whole army to endanger this place really.

That is why she had her guard lowered, she just walked over to the table with various meats. That was the food she could understand. To her understanding too, she wasn't exactly not allowed to eat or drink as long as she kept her guard. It was in a way, some reward for her pains.
Peeking her head over the crowd just as something broke loudly, trying to make sure there was no danger, her paws were still reaching for a bit of fowl.

When she grabbed however, instead of a bone with a tasty mean on it, Minerva felt one scaly appendage. Looking down, she realised she grasped a tail.

Kneeling, she looked under the table, holding the tail still, she spotted one of those scaly beasts. Lizards they were called to her memory.

"What are you doing here. Why do you hide." She asked sternly, ready to draw her spear or use her knife if needed.