A palace so over the top that the group was almost sure it had a mind of its own, never trying to pass up an opportunity to present itself. There were multiple entries, and since the palace was in the center of the city, they weren't too far apart. Just like a castle, it towered over the other buildings, taunting them with its perfection and splendor.
After a few rounds, the group had gathered in front of the most southern entrance.
Every passage into the palace was modeled after the entrance gates of the city itself, with the giant crest resting above the proudly gilded doors. It sparkled in the light coming from the streets, revealing many faceless Personas engraved onto it. All of them were kneeling before a throne that was placed above them, while the one sitting on top was hidden from their view by a giant sun and its rays of light.
“Seems like one spotlight isn't enough,” Darius was the first one to burst into a sarcastic comment about the crest.
“Enough, there's at least five of them here as well,” Gieldan interrupted him and focused on the guards at the passage, each of them wearing a blue outfit with blue masks.
“Alright guys, you know the plan. I don't mind that we share a little fun, if at all possible. Also, if the chance arises, we will speak to Pride himself or at least someone that knows something,” Emily said while wishing that it didn't sound all so vague even when said aloud.
“I still don't what we're looking for exactly,” Willhelm added.
“Me neither, to be honest,” Emily answered with a smile. “but, we will not back down from such a unique opportunity!”
“That's my girl,” Gieldan pat on her back while revealing one more trick himself. Upon his own request, the aspect had carved small tears onto each of the masks left eye as a distinctive characteristic. Akin to the design of the Cerberus Guard. With that their final glances went through the round.
The most impressive costumes were worn by Emily and Olivia.
The upper half of Emily's face had been covered by her orange-red mask, while Olivia's enclosed everything with fluted waves embedded into the cheekbones and a black, transparent piece of cloth over her eyelids.
Their aspect had chosen a more subtle approach, which meant a wine red suit for Gieldan combined with a white jabot, wearing a mask that was half white and half black. Ansia had a dark blue dress with the respective flounces on her skirt waving around cheerfully as she followed the group. Her face had been covered by a gold beak mask.
Darius chose the mask of a fox for himself in a glowing orange tone, while Willhelm, after long pondering, decided for a blue mask with glowing yellow eyes and two small horns on top. Balthasar went with a silver mask and white doves cared into both cheeks.
It was odd. Nervously the group stepped closer and closer towards the entrance, anxiously awaiting whether they will be accepted. The blue-faced men were seemingly ignoring them on purpose, while also looking directly at them. A strange aura took over as soon as their feet stepped onto the last pair of stairs and went through the gilded door frames into the palace. It was an air of confidence that gripped their hearts, while also chaining them down. Olivia had trouble breathing but shortly recovered without the help of her aspect, which in turn made Emily a bit more confident in the whole affair. This was truly it – the giant palace of Pride awaited them.
The group was speechless as to how to proceed, none of them had a clue whether they should split up or not, which in turn would've been quite suspicious. Nobody could even tell them where Pride would reside himself in these huge halls that were filled to the brink with guests. It was like a different kind of nightmare compared to what they had already left behind. It didn't take long until things went wrong. As soon as they entered it was Willhelm who disappeared.
“You think Othilia followed us after all?” Gieldan remarked as soon as both of them noticed what happened.
“I trust her, Gieldan. Something much stranger is going on around here,” she answered her aspect.
Everything was sparkling, and the Personas were laughing as loud as they could. Buoyant conversations and wondrous dances surrounded them, while the music was almost blasting their eyes. In the endless sea of stimuli, they began to lose more and more members. First Willhelm, then Darius, and shortly followed by Balthasar. The last one was Olivia who vanished right in front of her eyes. It happened so fast that she wasn't even sure whether to blame Ansia or the ever-moving crowds. Her head began to ache.
“T-this can't be real. W-we weren't supposed to split up so fast,” she was flustered. In mere seconds all of her plans had dissipated as if they were never real to begin with.
Her vision began to blur as she was slowly losing her balance, almost being lost in the sea of Personas like her companions, until Gieldan took her hand.
“Are you alright?” he reaffirmed.
“I… I guess,” Emily took a look around her. They were encompassed by wonderful banquets that took place in each room. There was no lack of delicacies. Even the side dishes were plated with fancy fruits and sweets. A savory barbeque had been prepared right in front of her eyes as she tumbled from room to room, being offered desserts and drinks wherever she went. Bottles of wine were stacked on top of each other, accompanied by other liquors as far as she could see in her current state.
Emily had a hard time not feeling impressed and insignificant. Quickly the sorrow, pain, and fear had been forgotten that she had experienced outside of the palace. She was pulled along the current of colorful lights and joyous songs that were moving through the halls.
“Emily!” Gieldan got close to her as he gripped her hand. “Get a grip! This isn't about us anymore.” And with these words, he managed to snap Emily out of it, though she still felt slightly dizzy.
“W-what was that?!” she asked while tilting her head in pain.
“Looks like we are even greater fools than I had anticipated, going around and underestimating this place just because of how it looks,” Gieldan spoke with a hint of regret in his voice.
“It is a little bit too much I guess.” The young woman gazed at the crowds rushing by, swearing not a single mask looked like the other.
In their moment of serenity, the atmosphere was broken up by a loud clink of plates hitting the ground.
“Oi! OI! What the hell was that?!” a man shouted from the crowd to the nervous waiter that fell with the plates in hand.
“Excuse me, sir. It was all my fault. I didn't bump into you on purpose, I swear. Please, forgive my inability to provide a proper service to you,” the servant bowed as he quickly stood up.
“Do you want to fight me or what?” the aggressive guest answered as he grabbed the servant by his collar, holding him a few inches above the ground.
“Don't tell me what I have to do. Are we fuckin' clear on that?! I don't want to be a part of your reality. I'll forge my own!”
“U-understood. My deepest apologies, sir,” the servant mumbled empty phrases as if he had said them a thousand times over and over, while his bland looking, white mask almost slipped from his face.
The ruffian let him go while adjusting his own mask, which looked, from Emily's point of view, like it was forged out of metal. Single wires were bolted around the eyes, not to her taste, yet they sparkled in the light of the room just like the other masks.
Out of the sea of Personas, a petite hand with blue gloves emerged that pulled the man away from the spotlight.
“Let us go, honey. I know how much you hate this kind of stuff. We will find ourselves a quieter place.” It resounded from a female voice as she led the man as if he was nothing but a little boy.
Meanwhile, the blue masked men had arrived on the scene. Four of them were encircling the two imposing strangers.
“Is there a problem, madam?” they asked coldly in unison.
“Oh no, not at all. We are enjoying this wonderful ball, don't you as well? Why don't you join us for a dance?” With her kind words and no other sign of trouble, it was enough evidence for the guards to leav
e. The servant from before had already vanished as well, and everyone was moving on with their lives.
“Guess both sides of the coin are present here as well,” a sigh escaped Emily.
“Hmpf,” Gieldan's nose wrinkled. “Isn't that the good thing though? It's the same as it's ever been, with all of its beauties and brutalities. Whether you see that as a good or a bad thing is up to you.”
Her aspect knew exactly what buttons to push, as Emily usually engaged in the kind of teasing that challenged her own beliefs. Bestowing a smile towards Gieldan as she knew what his motive was, both of them went on.
If it had been up to her, she would've taken pictures of every little detail to forever remember this palace. On her way through the festive halls, she met quantities of strange, yet cheerful guests that were gasping in awe at her dress, inviting her to dance and to drink with them. For a moment she paused as she witnessed an even more odd couple. A man and a woman dressed in a simple white cloth, with masks sewn up, which felt like their faces had been sewn up as well. Respectively two buttons depicted their eyes, and every piece of the mask was made out of a differently colored piece of cloth.
The woman held tightly onto the arm of the man as Emily stared at them from afar before she had been surprised herself. Without noticing where she went, she pumped into something hard with her chest and was taken aback a few steps.
“Oh no, please excuse me. I wasn't looking where I was going,” she burst forth immediately.
“Don't mind it, young lady. I wasn't looking myself,” a deep sounding voice answered with joy. As Emily raised her head, she could see two persons before them. Firstly a sturdily build man in a neat suit, covered in a purple robe with gold embellished embroidery, whereas his face was covered by a yellow mask in the form of the sun.
“Come my, dear cutie, don't be shy,” he waved his company towards him.
It was a woman with a slim figure and a rose-colored dress with frills, matching the man with the silver mask of a crescent moon.
“Call me like that one more time, and I will rip your head from your shoulders,” she answered coldly.
“Oh my, don't be like that, my little kitty,” he tried to wrap his arm around her, but with a skilled move, she evaded to the side.
“It's a bit complicated as you can see, ehehe,” he said turning to Emily and her aspect while both of them were looking at them with flustered expressions.
“If you would excuse us,” the woman respectfully bowed before them. “We are not here for our own amusement.”
With these words, the man with the sun mask waved them goodbye and what only could've been interpreted as a smile, as he was being dragged away.
“You think he was a human? If so, they may not be as rare as we previously thought.”
“That would be deeply unsettling, because it would mean even more unknown variables that roam this world,” Gieldan intervened with a conceited look on his face.
Hardly recovered from their previous meeting, another tremendous object was already on his way towards them. A few moments later both of them heard new shouts, but this time they were louder and more cheerful.
“Make way! One of our most honored guests, Lord Gluttony, wishes to pass through.”
A whole row of blue masks was dividing the crowd into some kind of catwalk that was wide enough for a whole boat to pass through.
“What the?!” Emily and Gieldan were dumbfounded as they got closer.
With heavy steps and panting lungs, thirty men were carrying a palanquin that almost reached the dome of the hall. Nobody saw what was inside, yet it seemed like an impossible feat.
“Gluttony.” Her eyes filled with hatred as she recognized the crest on the carriage. The symbol that was embedded onto each side was in the shape of a clockwork where every gear was visible, moving alongside each other. With every move, there was a tiny green sparkle shimmering out from underneath only clearly visible when the gears reached a certain point. It was an emerald in the form of a plate with fruits, liquor, and meat.
“So, it really was one of his cities after all.” In the spur of the moment, her head turned to her aspect while the men hauled the carriage along.
“Don't look at me like that, Emily. I’m just glad we made it out of there alive.”
As the carriage passed the situation normalized itself. Wildly the guests pivoted past them, sparkling masks with colorful feathers and cloth around their head were encompassing the whole area. Like a current, it swept through the halls, just like the moment where they had entered the place. A never ending, dreamlike scenery that was washing away anything it didn't regard as pretty or acceptable. Gieldan increasingly took notice by how much Emily watched the dancing crowds as they moved from hall to hall.
After a while, even those two had hit a wall where they had to rest. It was that threatening feeling of not accomplishing anything that was slowly creeping up on them once more. Both of them took a deep breath and sighed loudly, almost intact of the music that was playing.
“Looks like we've hit another obstacle. Hm?!” Emily interrupted herself as she looked past Gieldan and saw a group of musicians that were resting next to the side of some guest, inspecting their instruments.
Before Gieldan could even stop her, she already scurried across and joined the performers, marveling at their craft.
“Haha, finally someone took notice of your weird style, Renard. Even though it looks like the admiration is only targeted at your cleaning skills,” a voice joked next to Emily who was closely watching over one of the musicians who cleaned his violin.
“Very funny, Saye. Didn't you promise me to have him under control, Yasha?”
“What did you say?” shouted a diminutive voice behind a contrabass and with these words emerged a likewise diminutive head from the side.
“I can hardly watch over him all the time, can I? Why aren't you glad that someone finally admires your meticulous nature.”
“And here I thought you couldn't hear me,” objected Renard sulkily and puffed up his cheeks.
“Haha, don't be like that. It's a shame that not everyone could join us in this wonderful moment, but have no fear, Renard,” the other man tapped lovingly on his shoulder. “I will make sure that everyone will hear from this unique and once in a lifetime event.”
He began to laugh so cockily that he almost started to cough.
“Well, how can we help such an admirer of wonderful cleaning skills?” the man who's called Saye followed up and directly spoke to Emily. Gieldan managed to get within an earshot of them, leaning against a nearby wall to watch over her.
All three musicians were dressed in fashionable costumes with colorful feathers and stripes of brown leather. But their most remarkable feature were their masks, each of them had their right side completely in turquoise with wave patterns alongside, decorated with small diamonds.
Emily was getting a bit flustered as she joined them without thinking about it.
“Ehm, well, this is awkward.”
“Ohoho! So you are an admirer! What did I tell you guys?! Magnus is the place to be.” Saye came back to Emily's side and folded his hands around hers.
“Tell me, when did you hear from us for the first time? I'm sure you're here just because of our fame, right?!” he asked in euphoria, and through the thin gaps of his masks, she could see the glowing in his eyes, while the yellow and gray colored pupils were glistening at her.
“N-not really,” she said cautiously and took a step back.
“Let the lady be, Saye. Even if she's a fan, you surely turned her away by now,” another turquoise mask rebuked him from behind in the company of another one.
“Elrar! Moy! I'm so glad you're back, even though you're pretty mean. I thought you were scrambling before our big performance.”
“As if we could leave the fame to you, Saye. You're already overreacting,” said the second mask and pointed towards Emily.
“Please, don't argue because of me,” she answered, “I
was only fascinated by your instruments and came without thinking.”
“Ha! Of course you did! After all, we traveled from far away just to present our immense talent on this stage. We, the well-known, and exceptional 'Twisted Waves!'”
A painful shout followed after Saye has been hit in the back of his head by Elrar's backhand.
“To make it short – we are a band. Were mostly from Lucrum and Lussuria, with the exception of Saye, his parents are from Gola.”
“I know of Gola, but what is Lucrum?” she asked perplexed.
“My bad. I thought you knew. Lucrum is the city of Greed.”
“Oh,” Emily followed up. “All of you came from totally different places, and yet all of you are not there anymore.”
Saye took over. “As this beautiful young lady can see, this is one of the biggest and most esteemed stages that one could imagine. Many different artists are coming to this city, even more so in times of the festivities, to present their art, hopefully making it to the top.”
“And I guess that wasn't possible where all of you come from?” she followed up with interest.
“That's the point, young lady. Don't get us wrong, we love our homes, every last one of us. Hell, we even understand our friends and loved ones that stayed, but there is something unquenchable inside of us... something different. Maybe even a desire that drives us to be more than who we actually are, and now we are here!” Saye extended his long, thin fingers and spun in a circle before the group.
Even though it felt like the others were teasing Saye, she could still feel how all of them were looking at him with admiration, agreeing to his statement. As it turned out, he was the leader of the group and played the guitar, while also singing if necessary. The small lady with the high pitched voice that was called Yasha played the contrabass, followed by the much larger Elrar, who was almost too large for his trumpet. Renard was more of a silent type, he preferred to look after his violin. Last, but not least, they were accompanied by Moy, a woman that played the piano, which brought back the sparkling inside of Emily's eyes.
My Insanity Page 33
