Chapter Text
Beau had not intended to sign up for a mission when she visited the Cobalt Soul in Zadash. Really she’d only been looking for the library to find a particular book for Caleb, but as soon as one of the monks — one she vaguely recognised but who seemed to know who she was very well — saw her he’d pulled her into another room, explaining that they had a situation.
Apparently, a very important ball was going to be held that night, the Cobalt Soul had received word that multiple someones would be in attendance for nefarious purposes. The only problem was, it was invitation only, and the someones that the Cobalt Soul were keeping an eye on were unfortunately aware of many Cobalt Soul members, making it difficult for them to infiltrate since this particular ball was known to have many magical measures of detecting disguise spells and other such tricks.
But perhaps it would not be so difficult for Beau and her forgery-inclined friends, who were unlikely to be on the radar of the supposed evil-doers.
Oh, and the ball was also one of the most important balls on the yearly calendar for any noble in Wildemount, which made everything slightly more complicated. The Annual Dance. Its official title was far longer and more tedious than that, but just about everyone defaulted to calling it the Annual Dance.
Why? Well, it was really quite simple.
“A dancing competition?” Jester’s face with alight with joy, her hands clapped on her cheeks as she bounced on her toes. “That’s so exciting!”
“It’s way stuffier than it sounds.” Beau grimaced, folding her arms. She’d returned from the Cobalt Soul with notes on the book Caleb had asked her for, and news of the mission, which she hadn’t yet properly accepted.
“Wait, so it’s a dancing competition for rich people?” Fjord scratched his head, squinting. “The Empire is weird.”
Beau shrugged. “Basically. It started off as mostly an excuse to make connections and broker marriage deals, but then some people actually started to take the dancing seriously, made up a prize. Now it’s a whole thing.”
“It sounds so amazing!” Jester had a faraway look in her eyes like she was imagining it. “It would be so fun!”
“Did you go to many of them, Beau?” Yasha had her arms folded, one eyebrow raised the entire time Beau had been explaining the mission she’d been offered.
“Yeah, my parents dragged me to a bunch. The official competitions and stuff were always super bland, but usually, once that was all over they’d let the kids take the floor and have some actual fun.” Beau’s lip quirked up a little, remembering the fleeting moments of fun she’d been able to have before her parents would always drag her away from the dance floor, insisting that wasn’t how proper ladies should dance. It happened every time, but it didn’t stop her and the other enterprising rich kids from across the Empire from trying year after year.
She was pretty sure she’d had her first kiss behind a curtain at one of those dances, actually. With a girl from Rexxuntrum.
“I went to one of those once.” Caleb spoke up, wincing a little.
“Really? I didn’t know you were a ricchhhh kidddd, Caleb~” Jester leaned up against Caleb, elbowing him gently in the ribs and resting her head on his shoulder.
Caleb nudged her away, looking slightly uncomfortable. “It was while I was with the uh-Cerberus Assembly. They often scouted it to establish connections and look for promising and physically fit young people to recruit.”
“Ah.” Jester blinked, obviously a little caught off-guard by that response.
“Of course there’s a conspiracy behind it.” Fjord sighed. “Does that mean we’ll have to worry about those assholes being there if we accept this mission?”
Beau shrugged, and Caleb shook his head. “Not if it is in Zadash this year. They tend to leave it alone unless it is held in Rexxuntrum. It is not that important to them.”
“Wait, are we actually going to do this? How will we even get in?” Nott spoke up.
“The Cobalt Soul has two invitations they managed to get, they just can’t send any of their operatives because they risk being recognised. But we’re all from out of town, so we might be able to slip by. They suggested two of us cause a distraction while the rest of us sneak in to go looking for the whoevers they want us to investigate.”
“That sounds fun.” Caduceus said. “But who gets the invitations?”
Beau folded her arms, fiddling with the ends of her wrapping. “So we’re doing it? You guys are all cool with it?”
“Do we get paid?” Nott asked, hands on her hips.
“Yeah.”
“Then I’m in. But I’m definitely not making a distraction.”
“What kind of distraction would they need?” Yasha asked. “I could make a big distraction.”
“They said it needed to be subtle, not… big and massive. Something like just joining the dance competitions. It’s almost always the same people every year, so new faces get rich people and everyone who works for them interested like moths to a candle.” Beau said.
“Rich people love gossip.” Jester nodded knowingly, and Beau smirked at her, knowing that Jester loved gossip just as much as other rich people did. To be fair, she liked gossip as well.
“Well then, who’re the best dancers?” Fjord asked, and they all looked around at each other.
Immediately, Jester thrust her hand into the air, bouncing on one spot. “I am! I’m a wonderful dancer, my Mama taught me and she’s so good I could do it I’ve always wanted to go to a ball and a dance party!”
No one was at all surprised by this, and Jester was quickly confirmed as the recipient of invitation number one. Which then left the question of who would get invitation number two. No one put their hand up, and Beau bit her lip. Sure, she’d taken/been forced into dance lessons when she was young, but chances were one of the others would be better at it than her.
Sure, a part of her actually really wanted to do it, but she couldn’t just say that out loud. One of the others might be better. Yeah.
Nott suggested both Fjord and Caleb, reasoning that one of the two would make an inconspicuous match for Jester and definitely not at all because Nott was deadset on getting Jester a boyfriend. Not at all.
But both men denied being good dancers, even when Jester wheedled Caleb about having danced with her in Hupperdook.
“Firstly, I was drunk. Second, we spun in circles. I don’t think that counts as the caliber of dancing that blending into a competition would require.” Caleb had folded his arms, looking flustered and holding up two fingers as he made his points.
“Well someone’s got to dance with me!” Jester spun in a little circle and pouted. “I’m a very cute dance partner, you know.”
“I’m sure you are. I just don’t know if any of the rest of us can match your skill.” Caduceus was smiling, and Beau could have sworn he was looking right at her. She quickly turned away, feeling her cheeks flushing and praying no one noticed. Gods, he could be eerie sometimes.
“Then I’ll just have to dance with all of you and pick the best one!” Jester proclaimed. “Can any of you play an instrument?”
As it turned out, Caduceus could play the flute, which Jester had to paint using her magical paint. Once he had it, it also turned out that he could play quite a few songs on it, cycling through a couple before he picked one with a tune that Jester was satisfied with, warm with a quick tempo.
“Come on Yasha, you’re first!” Jester called out, bouncing on her toes and grabbing Yasha’s arms, pulling her towards a relatively open space amongst the group. Yasha went along with it for a while, soon proving to not be a very good dancer, but very talented at spinning Jester around so many times she got dizzy.
“I do not think I would be very good for this.” Yasha eventually pulled back, an awkward smile on her face. “Undercover work is… not my style.”
Caleb was next, proving to be at least reasonably competent in exactly one kind of dance, the most boring waltz imaginable. He also claimed an unwillingness to play the part to begin with, and soon enough Jester let him go, where he stood next to Yasha.
Fjord proved similarly incapable of keeping time with any song Caduceus could think of, sheepishly admitting that though he could do a pretty mean line dance, it probably wasn’t appropriate for the kind of event they were hoping to infiltrate.
Nott was ruled out on account of height difference making it a bit difficult, though Jester swung her around in a dance for a few minutes anyway, the both of them laughing the entire time. Then it was Beau’s turn.
Jester let Nott go, spinning up to where Beau was leaning up against a tree trying very hard not to look like she’d been watching Jester laugh and spin and dance the entire time.
“Come on, Beau~” Jester grinned widely at her, her teeth shining as she took Beau’s hands in hers, pulling her into the makeshift dancefloor. She squeezed her hands, taking the lead in a simple dance, full of spins and twirls.
At first, Jester kept it a little slow, but when Beau was able to easily keep up and avoid stepping on her toes as Fjord and Yasha had, she shot her a mischievous grin and called for Caduceus to play something faster. After a few moments, an old folk song that had been famous in Wildemount for centuries began to play, something that both Jester and Beau knew well, a song that was designed to get faster and faster as it repeated, with the dancers speeding up accordingly.
Beau knew a challenge when she saw one and grinned, the both of them pausing for a moment to get into the proper position to dance to the song, staring at each other in a silent promise of competition. Jester’s eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were a light shade of purple, and if Beau was blushing too, well she’d blame it on all the spins Jester had already put her through.
They began to dance, Beau’s left hand holding Jester’s right and their other hands resting on each other's waists, their feet moving back and forth in a complicated step that had taken Beau weeks to get right as a child. Every now and then they’d separate, spinning away where usually they would find a new partner to dance with, but instead coming back to one another to start it all over again.
Jester’s melodic laughter carried through the air and soon Beau was laughing too. She could hear a few of the others cheering them on as they got even faster, felt her cheeks getting hotter from the thrill and the exertion. Every time Jester’s hand found its way back to her waist again she felt her heart leap into her chest, and every time they met to restart the dance she locked eyes with her, smiles wide, and Beau’s stomach twisted into knots. She chalked it down to wanting to win.
Finally, the song stopped abruptly, and Beau and Jester jolted to a stop in the middle of a spin, breathing heavily but neither willing to be the first to declare defeat. Caduceus coughed lightly, taking a drink from his waterskin.
“Sorry about that.” He said, a slight smile on his face. “I’m afraid I’m a bit out of practice.”
“I think that settles it.” Caleb was smiling too. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits actually, a little bit of fun being just what they needed after a few long weeks of travelling. Even if they were going to be jumping right back into high-stakes adventure, perhaps this could hopefully be a bit of fun too. “I think you’re the only one who can keep up, Beau.”
“I would’ve beaten you eventually if Caduceus hadn’t stopped,” Beau smirked and winked at Jester, who covered her mouth with a hand, sidling up next to her.
“We’ll have to find out at the Dance, partner .” she hip-checked her and Beau felt her cheeks flush again. Oh, gods, she was going to be Jester’s dance partner. And undercover partner.
“Does this mean you will have to pretend to be a couple?” Caduceus asked innocently, and Beau shot him a look of betrayal. He knew exactly what he was doing, dammit.
Jester gasped like she hadn’t considered the idea yet, but she looked genuinely excited about it. “Oh, that would be so great! We can pretend to be loveeeeeeers-” She drew out the last syllable for as long as she could and Beau had to hide her face in her hands, hastily trying to disguise it as a cough.
Pretend. Hah. Yeah.
“Sounds great, Jes!” She choked out. Gods help her.
“This is going to be so amazing!” Jester shouted, throwing her arms up in the air. “A super fancy dance party with rich people!”
“Yeah, you two get to dance the night away while the rest of us do the real work.” Nott stuck her tongue out at them, folding her arms but not looking entirely serious.
“I feel like you missed the part where I said how boring most of it was.” Beau couldn’t help but smile at Jester’s infectious enthusiasm.
“Then we’ll just make it fun! We’ll have to be a distraction, won’t we?” Jester turned to face her, striking a pose that was unfortunately attractive, her voice dropping low in a facsimile of seriousness. “Attract the attention of all the rich people, make them wonder who we are ~ where we came from ~ what two mysterious strangers are doing at the most important dance of all of eternity.”
Beau snorted, stifling it with a hand. Yeah, they’d manage to attract attention simply by virtue of both being girls and Jester being a tiefling.
Jester’s face lit up, and she broke her pose to hold her hands close to her chest, jumping up and down on the spot and squealing.
“Plus we get to crush the competition.” Beau pointed out, and Jester stopped, her eyes lighting up.
“We will destroy the competition.” She said solemnly. “They won’t know what hit them.”