Queen Serenity's Story Chp 8

Nikolaos looked uninterestedly at his partner. She was talking about her childhood and the escapades she had gotten into. He supposed she thought them exciting, but he didn't really care either way. He nodded intermittently, lulling her into the false impression that he was paying attention. Occasionally he would laugh quietly at the jokes she tried to slip in, other than that the conversation ran itself. Overall, he would say, a very boring dance partner, but there was nothing he could do. Nikolaos was forced to while away time until he found the princess again; who had mysteriously disappeared. He chose to dance because it seemed futile to look for her through the dense crowd, and dancing gave him an easy view of the entire room and he turned frequently enough that it was no problem to scour the room from all sides.

They only down side were the girls. They prattled on about unnecessary things and all of them flirted shamelessly with him. They batted their eyes so much so much, it seemed as though they all had an unfortunate twitching problem. Nikolaos breathed through his nose heavily, expression briefly turning murderous.
    
He heard a nervous giggle from the girl he was dancing with, she seemed to have noticed his displeased expression. He looked down at her with a smile, hoping she would write it off as her imagination, but the damage was already done. She smiled back timidly and looked relieved as the dance came to an end. The girl curtsied quickly and left, leaving Nikolaos extremely amused. Oops, he thought. He shrugged and walked away, still looking for the Princess, when he saw a woman gazing intensely in his direction from the corner of his eye. She was wearing a low-cut flaming red dress; her waist length hair was unbound and close in color to his. It caught the light spectacularly, gleaming every which way she turned; at least it would if she stopped staring at him and moved! He brown eyes, almost black at this distance, never left him and Nikolaos had the impression she had been watching him for a long time. That thought disturbed him and he shook it off quickly, breaking eye contact with her.

Nikolaos slipped into the crowd, hoping to lose the woman and her unwavering gaze. He flitted and darted around people, trying to escape her gaze, but still felt her following him with her eyes. Stumbling around a man, he suddenly fell into a small clearing devoid of people. Alarmed by his sudden isolation he moved to step back into the crowd when he saw her. The Princess. With a…cat on her head it seemed… What in the name of…?

The Princess was struggling, trying in vain, to pull the cat off her head. Nikolaos snorted, amused. At least she was entertaining… He moved toward her, thinking perhaps he could gain her favor by helping her, but ran into someone.

"Oh, sor—, " he started to say, but stopped when he met a pair of brown-black eyes. The woman smiled at him.

"So sorry sir! Were you in a hurry?"

"Ah, just a little, if you would excuse me please." Nikolaos made to move past her, but the woman stepped slightly to the left, just enough to block his way. Smiling disconcertingly she asked him: "Were you looking for someone?" The way she looked at him made Nikolaos uneasy; something felt odd about this woman. The uneasy feeling, the piercing glare, and for a moment, he could have sworn her eyes flashed red. He felt as if he had met this woman somewhere…

"No," he lied. "I wasn't looking for someone, but incidentally, I feel as if I've seen you somewhere. Have we met before?"

The woman tilted her head, genuine confusion coloring her eyes. "No, where did you get that idea?" she asked sweetly.

"Hmm…nowhere…I'm sorry, I must be mistaken. Pardon me." Nikolaos bowed and stepped around her. He looked at the spot where Serenity was, but saw she was gone. Nikolaos cursed internally and spun around in a quick circle, hoping to find her. The woman smiled at him. It was sweet on the surface, but really mocked and ridiculed him. Don't fail Nikolaos, don't lose her, it seemed to be saying. "Goodbye," she said sweetly and swept him a curtsy.

"Goodbye," he said distractedly, automatically returning her curtsy. As soon as she walked away Nikolaos immediately walked to where he had seen Serenity last, but she was nowhere to be found, swallowed by the crowd again. "Damn it!" Nikolaos swore to himself. What am I supposed to do now?

Nikolaos could feel the anger building up inside him again. He was wasting time, he knew it, but there was nothing he could do right now. Releasing his fists from their clenched position, he walked away, not knowing where he was going. He wandered, wondering how he could get her alone once—if—he was able to talk to her. He made his way back to the edge of the dance floor, slowly walking around its fringes, observing the dancing couples pensively. Maybe I can ask her to… His thoughts trailed off, devising new ways to get her alone. His scheming was interrupted however, when something collided into his back. What? He turned around, surprised. Who? But his surprise turned into glee when he saw two ocean blue eyes glaring up at him.

"Forgive me," she said politely, but she couldn't hide her grimace as she heard her name being called.

"That's alright," Nikolaos said happily. He hadn't expected her to walk right into his arms. "Princess," he started, "would you like to dance with me, since we weren't able to before?" Nikolaos extended one hand towards her in invitation. She looked at him, eyes calculating, and glanced behind her, an ugly look on her face. Nikolaos raised his eyebrows, surprised by her sudden hostility. He was curious as to who could have incited such a strong reaction in her. His eyes met with a tall man that looked older than him, maybe a year or so, with messy blond hair and warm brown eyes. He looked at him in interest for a moment before he felt something warm touch his hand. Nikolaos felt his eyes widen at the contact and looked down at his hand in surprise, but grasped it tightly, making sure she wouldn't disappear all of a sudden. He smiled down at her graciously and led her onto the dance floor.
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