The point is not to impress but to conform. We teach dance as a path toward unity, toward community. Only a few seconds are required to see who doesn't belong when they take the floor.

-Proverbs, from the tome of Kadish

Introductions take well over an hour to be made, and by the time we are through, more people have made it into the venue. When neither of us can stomach any more small talk, Jor leads me out onto the dance floor, walking me through the movements of some very basic steps. I don't mind it, nor the glances we attract from others. The anxiety stacking atop my shoulders over the last few weeks seems to melt slowly in his embrace. It is a kindness we pay each other, and the time spent in the middle of the room passes without notice.

I find myself later with another flute of the bubbling alcohol in my hand, lying on a sofa outside while a servant of some kind fans me with a wedge of black canvas. The gathering is a strange one, ladies of all sorts lying reclined on the outdoor furniture spread in the grass, the only men around those either with fans to cool or trays to serve drinks on.

The night air is a miracle, the cool breeze sapping the heat off my skin. The light sheen of sweat built up from all of the dancing turns chilly in the wake of the fanning, but I don't tell the man to stop. Others sit on their sofas, similarly splayed and enjoying the ambience outside of the chaotic and shifting light inside the manor, though the lidded eyes about me tell of clear intoxication. The endowed among the noblewomen are easy to tell out. They seem to suffer similarly to me; all the drinks served are too weak. Either that, or people are displaying temperance.

"Abandoned on the road!" Sil Taranacus, a merchant's daughter, yells, emphasizing her earlier point. "Can you believe that? We hire competent men to make certain that our wagons arrive in the city, and they abandon the cargo at the first sign of trouble. Then, they want to receive the rest of their pay! Criminal."

"You should hire better men," Baroness Iselie says, her words slurred as she peeks at her conversation partner over the rim of a brass goblet. "Always go for the best if you want to see anything done."

"How? With the Duke monopolizing all of the adventurers, how can I possibly hope to arrange such a thing?" Sil questions. Then, the woman's eyes slide sideways toward me.

I almost jump as her gaze lands on me, and the edible bowl I am holding cracks.

As a tangent, the treats the lady of the manor serves at her party are impeccable. It wasn't that long ago I learned about cold cream and the sweet delight that it can bring, but the servers walking through Lady Gaolin's party serve them in tiny, colored bowls made of spun sugar, the bowls themselves made to be edible and flavorful. The sweet pear bowls, a light green, are by far the best, but the other ones are nice as well.

It takes a moment, but I come to realize that I have been looking between Lady Sil and my cracked cold cream bowl for a good five seconds before the idea of addressing her occurs. It might be true that I have snuck a few more sips of the wine. Who's to say?

"Yes?" I ask, accidentally adopting the noble accent of the ladies about me. Lucky for me, no one points it out. I am not so dull as to think they didn't notice.

"You are a professional woman as well, aren't you?" Lady Sil asks. "An Essentia Magician, a silver-rank adventurer, I believe Yul introduced you as."

"Is that high?" Another woman asks Yul'Mari as Jor's sister lies with her eyes closed across the arms of a wicker chair.

"Middle of the road, but impressive for one so young," Yul answers.

"Then you might have an opinion," Lady Sil continues. "When might this business with the monsters be dealt with? The disruption has been awful for the city. Every day, the coffers in the bank run drier and drier. My father and I suspect that they are already issuing promises they cannot financially back. If this continues going on, the Duchy might collapse on itself."

"I don't…" A way to even approach that kind of question eludes me. "I would guess that it will be some time yet. The adventurers have managed to deal with perhaps a fifth of the tide. We are progressing the right way, but it will take time."

Lady Sil harumphs, reclining back and sipping her crystal flute.

"Yet, they said that this nastiness would be dealt with swiftly," another lady, the confidant of a baron, adds. "Lady Mari, I by no means wish to question your father or his plans. We are quite appreciative of his policy forgiving our taxes for the season due to the troubles, but could he not end this business on his own? From what the papers are reporting, most of the liberation of Maidenlake was done by a single man, the commander of the '4th army.' We even have the imperial prince here, shouldn't he be able to handle this?"

"Diaspora," Yul lazily comments.

"Pardon?"

"We can't do things that way," I say, answering for Yul'Mari and attracting the attention of the ladies gathered about. The answer Illigar gave me when I asked him this very same question less than a week ago comes to mind. "The monsters are concentrating in parity with the cities in the Duchy. What we did at Maidenlake was focus their attention on our army, whittling down their numbers until it was time to combat the leaders of the monsters directly. If we had a single individual enter their ranks and assassinate the leaders of the monsters, we believe that they would disperse, going in every direction.

"If something like that happened, the Duchy would spend the next twenty years trying to root them out, never being certain that they got all of them. Worse, if any of the rank-three monsters escaped, the devastation they might wreak when they reappeared years from now could be unimaginable. What we are doing now is the best approach. It is slow, but it will work."

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Despite spitting up Illigar's words, I find them hard to believe. The man himself directly contradicted his own plan, destroying the last hive on his own after Maidenlake. As expected, the surviving termites in the hive scattered after their king was killed, but I doubt any of the papers circulated in Danfalla are reporting that. No matter what we do, the Duchy will be spending the next few decades digging out monsters spawned during this tide. This is a problem that will not disappear soon.

"Ms. Devardem has it exactly correct," Yul says, finally opening her eyes and pulling herself to sit in her chair. "But, I have to be honest, ladies, I have been listening to this kind of talk for weeks and find it incredibly tedious. Why don't we play a lawn game to pass the time while the gentlemen enjoy their smoke, or at least we might scrounge up a spirit a bit more powerful to imbibe."

"Here, here," a rather drunken lady says, holding aloft her empty hand and waving a server over to her.

In almost no time at all, a dart course is erected out on the lawn. It strikes me as rather dangerous to be playing lawn darts in the dead of night. Not for me, of course, but for the inebriated women who occasionally knock into one another while lining up their throws, hurling heavy and pointy steel darts into the air, trying to hit the target some twenty feet away. Half of my attention is spent on trying to make certain that no one ends up with a dart in their head.

After a few rounds filled with giggling and hollering, it becomes obvious that Yul'Mari and one other woman are endowed, displaying supernatural accuracy. No one else seems to care, cheering for the two women as loudly as they do those failing miserably to even come close to the target. Some part of me feels like I should care, but that part, the competitive spirit born from growing up with an older brother and his best friend, is muted by the alcohol. I don't do very well, but I make sure to cheer the loudest, especially when Jess starts getting into it.

Jess appears seemingly from nowhere in the middle of the third round, her rendezvous with Dovik in some place in the manor over, and her makeup slightly smudged. She throws herself into the game, managing to put up stiff competition with Yul'Mari and Baroness Iselie. After it becomes apparent that only those three care about the outcome of the match, the rest of us back away, watching and shouting as they continue to back further and further from the target. The three make it seventy feet away from the target before Baroness Iselie barely misses the center ring with her dart. The remaining pair compete for a good twenty minutes longer, throwing darts from more than a hundred and fifty feet away before Jess finally misses a toss.

We all cheer for the duke's daughter, falling back into the garden furniture to enjoy more sweets and a round of the stronger spirits Yul asked for. The round proves too much for many, leaving them passed out in their chairs, a slow procession of gentlemen coming out from the house to rouse their dates and lead them back inside for a proper place to rest.

Jess and I enjoy the muted atmosphere, her regaling me of her time with Dovik, not sparing any details, no matter how often I ask her to. It is just when she is describing what exactly it is she likes about his scars and the feel of them under her fingers, that our conversation is derailed by another of the ladies.

"I have been trying and trying to understand," Lady Callio says, dropping into a chair on my right and almost spilling into my chair. Jess and I look at her, trying to puzzle out her words, and finding that our attention is exactly what she was after. "I keep turning it over in my head, and I can't understand. If you ladies have the means to purchase essentia for yourselves, why would you choose to spend your life adventuring, travelling through the wilderness, fighting monsters that might kill you? Certainly, there are better uses of your time. I am not trying to offend, please believe me. I merely wish to understand."

The question catches me by surprise. Luckily, Jess is right there, jumping in immediately. "I do this because I want to," she says. "I have had a dream since I was little of exploring the world, seeing what is out here. My parents never would have let me do that if they didn't think I could take care of myself. Becoming a magician was natural. Now, I can go wherever I want, meet new people, and see new places. Some of it is scary, sure, but there is a thrill to putting your life on the line. That, I think, is where you feel life at its most keen. The vibrancy in those moments is…well, I don't know how to describe it. I'm living a dream, which isn't really an answer, I suppose, but it is the one I have."

"There are three kinds of people," Yul'Mari adds from her chair nearby. "People who run toward what they want, people who run away from what they are afraid of, and those who don't do much of anything. In my opinion, the third group isn't even worth mentioning."

"Oh?" Lady Callio says. "What dream are you running toward, Lady Mari?"

"Me?" Yul scoffs. "I'm in the third group. I'm content to stay around here, attending parties and dealing with the bureaucracy of a Duchy. I may have had a dream once, but I've gone and forgotten what it was. You, Lady Callio, what is your dream?"

"I'm not certain if I have anything as grand as that," she says. "I have always wanted to have my paintings shown in the imperial capital. They aren't so nice as to find a place in a gallery there, but maybe one day."

"I think that is a fine dream," Yul says. When her eyes settle on me, I feel the weight in her words. "And you, Ms. Devardem, to what do you aspire? I think my brother should have a companion that can match him, don't you?"

The question hits a vulnerable spot in my heart. How many times have I asked myself that same thing? How many times have I searched for an answer, something to drive me forward, other than the inertia I coast on?

"I need to reach the third rank," I tell her.

"Need to? That sounds more like a commitment than an aspiration," Yul'Mari says. "I have seen the reports of the battle at Maidenlake myself. According to your commander, you were instrumental in destroying an entire hive of monsters. Wasn't it you who stood in front of beings far stronger than yourself and found a way to lay them low?"

"There were so many people there," I say. "Jess fought them more than I did."

"I did," Jess says in, never one to put earning a bit of glory for herself. "But Charlene is too modest. If she hadn't collapsed the chamber, I don't think I could have lasted long against that creature."

"But that just proves my point, I think. Surely, if you are willing to risk your life and join friends in such deadly struggles, you must have more than a vague commitment to grow stronger. Perhaps your feelings of duty are especially strong," Yul'Mari continues.

"Not especially," I admit.

"Then why? If you don't have a north star to chase, well, perhaps you don't fall into the first category at all. Maybe you are one of those running away. Tell me, Ms. Devardem, what are you af–"

"Ladies," the voice of Jor'Mari greets us loudly as the man comes striding down the stony path leading to our lounging spot on the back lawn, the stub of a cigar still smoking in one hand. "I have come to rescue you from the lack of my presence."

"Consider me rescued," I say, practically jumping out of my chair and making my way to him, grabbing hold of his arm. "Perfect timing. I was just thinking that I could go for more dancing."

"You heard the woman," he says to the ladies left lounging, speaking loud enough to attract far more attention to himself than necessary. "I hate to leave you all again without me, but it is a poor gentleman that turns down a beautiful woman asking him to dance."

"Go then," Yul says, waving a dismissive hand. "I was growing tired of this party anyway."

"Are you forfeiting your duties as chaperone?" Jor asks, smirking. She waves us off, and we waste little time in heading back inside. I didn't lie, I do want to dance more with this man. Yul's questions have nothing to do with my escape from the garden.

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