9:13 a.m....2002-07-24
Mardi Gras.
So it was with a head full of fire and earth that I blinked at the bundle of air and light that simply breezed into Romani's, Carnival afternoon. I'd left off picking a domino until the very last minute; something of a ritual for me. One of very few I adhere to, not being a man of many habits. I'll stick to policies; Law is for Lawyers and let them be buried with it!
Anyway, this cloud of gaiety, this laughing, tinkling mob scene turned out to be Courfeyrac and Grantaire, in the company of a pretty and somewhat familiar looking girl-in-trousers. Romani-- hell, I've no idea if the old gypsy called himself that out of hubris or simplicity-- looked them up and down, and went back to stitching black ribbons on the red domino I'd selected. I grinned at them broadly.
"Ho Courfeyrac! Grantaire. Who's your pretty-- ah, pardonnez, your handsome companion?" I widened my smile for the lady and kissed her hand. She seemed amused, and possibly a little drunk.
"Eliese, beware of Bahorel." Courfeyrac shook a finger at the girl, and there was no doubt of his intoxication. "He's a fiend. Look at his domino!"
The piece I'd selected, I'll not withold praise where it's due, was simply a masterpiece. A Plum-red-wine-colored yawning devil, crowned by wicked horns and a white fleur-de-lys right in the center of the forehead-- mark of the beast, if you will. I was well pleased with the sentiment and with the workmanship, for old Romani is a genius. But all three of my new-come pixies laughed merrily at Courfeyrac's joke, and I merited the sound a good omen for the height of Carnival to come.
Save the little... hardly gris! coulour-ette, for the evening, my friends too seemed to have delayed costuming. They flitted amongst the racks, giggling like shpogirls themselves, while Mlle. Eliese flitted between whatever costume Grantaire pointed her to look at, and the selection of dominoes to go with the rest of her outfit.
I think I'd had something like it last year. She was dressed in a Harleqiun's suit of all different shades of blue, and the streamers at her knees and elbows were blue and white. She had a nice enough bosom that the binding holding them under her tunic did not conceal their presence completely; which, to my mind, made the effect all the more charming. And disconcerting, when one noticed-- one could not fail to!-- the excessively large cerulean-and-sky blue codpeice nestled between her thighs.
In that detail, save that mine were red and black, the girl and I matched, which should bespeak the disproportion of the item on her tiny figure. Other than that, I was dressed largely in a more aristocratic style than typically I favor-- black, black, and great terrible swooping black. I watched her select a domino, finally, of royal blue with peacock feathers-- large for her face, but handsome. I winked to show my approval at her choice, and she smiled at me, favorably, so I deigned. Her eyes flickered over to the dressing stalls, where Grantaire and Courfeyrac were-- so it seemed-- struggling blithely into their newfound garments.
"Eliese-- ach-- Eliot!" Grantaire called plaintively from the stall-- which, from my angle, apeared something like a tempest in a cloth-covered coffin. "Help!?"
Before I could so much as flirt, she scurried over to give assistance of some mysterious nature to our mutual friends. I watched this mission curiously, as the old man seemed faintly amused. I strolled over to the stall.
"Are you lads all right in there?" I queried, after a particularily piercing shriek that verily must have come from Courfeyrac's throat!
"Fine, fine..." There were some snapping and shifting sounds, and then Grantaire appeared from the stall, closely adhered to by his wide-eyed demoiselle.
I knew it was Grantaire because it sure as death and lawyers was not Courfeyrac. That amiable drunk had somehow transformed himself into a devestating courtesean of the higher brackets. He'd wriggled into an ice-blue and white confection of many layers of silk, lacy froth implying a bosom, well... in the place that one is used to seeing such accoutrement. His hair was out of queue, and done up on top of his head in some complicated twist of curls that was almost very fetching. The face threw me off entirely. It might have been related to Grantaire-- one of the sisters he mentioned occasionally. His homely, swarthy, bugged-out features were softened by powder and accented by rouge. His over-big lips, in this costume, and covered by a perfect sheen of red paint looked awfully right, and it was not until then that I noticed he'd shaved his moustache.
"Sacre couer!" I exclaimed, clinging to some measure of composure. "By the devils Grantaire, you're almost pretty!"
"Blanchette." He said, or rather she, because the voice had been changed. "You will call me Blanchette."
I blinked, hard, and took a step back. There had been something that smacked of command in the little wench's voice, and it spooked me. A comment about finding a spine in his corset died in my throat as Grantaire-- er, Blanchette's chin lifted, revealing a very pretty throat, circled by a cameo-on-lace bauble, and gracefully took Eliese's arm. I was almost taken aback. Obviously, Grand-R had chosen a costume to compliment his friend's, but dear God, were they handsome together.
A rustling behind me told me that Courfeyrac too had finished changing. Even with the small preperation that Grantaire's transformation had provided me, I could not believe my god-given eyes.
Courfeyrac looked up at me through demure, half-lowered eyes with the lashes fluttering over his lightly pinked cheeks. His hair was also loose, but flowing elegantly over bare shoulders, gossamer and goose-feather white wings attatched to the middle of his back. The gown he'd chosen was a diaphanous and very Josephine-esque style, and the bosom he'd apparently chosen, also modest. He was, and again, when I praise, it is not in vain-- beautiful.
I'm afraid that I gaped, and Courfeyrac smiled, a rakish grin which relieved me suprisingly. I hadn't known that I'd been tense.
"Dear God, Jean-Baptiste." I shook my head in marvel. "Your own mother wouldn't recognise you, and Napoleon would ask you to marry him."
"Merci" Courfeyrac did a pretty little pirouette, and beamed at the lot of us. "But the Imperial flavor-- save with my waistline-- does not appeal to me. I think that tonight, I shall be called Dominique." She smiled at me, and I swear to god my heart fluttered. "If, of course, this charming devil will escort me. Cher Eliot forgot to bring me a friend."
Losing perhaps, some measure of my mind or the presence thereof, I bowed deeply and offered the vixen that my friend had become my arm. "My pleasure, cheri."
Courfeyrac-Dominique giggled-- quite the pretty sound too!-- and, claiming my domino from Romani, our merry little band sauntered off into the beginnings of Carnival dusk.
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