Midnight Rose

Nickoi picks up the box and open it for her. The flashy gold and black onyx necklace, that is not her style at all. "That is too flashy." he said with a quiet sigh. He know that necklace cost a lot of money, and his younger brother is not giving up. So he put it down, and look back at Toivo. "I wish that everything is said and done, that we can still be together." he said quietly, and gently hold her hand. He wants to put a smile back on her face.

"Its a nice stone." She said, "Shame about the chain though." She moved towards Nickoi
"I know but he's not going to give up. This is just Trial and Error and he's been doing it for years when he can. It's going to get worse now he's king." She picks up the letter again, scanning through the second page for anything interesting.
"Luck he didn't come here actually. This seems like the thing you'd talk face to face about, right?"

"Of course, I want to talk to him about it. If he don't come to me I go to him." Nickoi said with a quiet tone. He pats her hand, and gives her a small smile.

Nimo watchs people in his court, wondering if Lady Toivo will come to him for the festival. He have a feeling that his brother will come, but he don't know how.

"What?!" She said, a shocked anger at how ridiculous that rang in her ear. "No, no, no! Your not going anywhere near Nimo! He might be an idiot but he's going to have the entire kingdom to control. If there's anything we need from Nimo..." She paused as she realised how much she'd hate every minute of it. "I'll get it out of him! If he see's you, you'll be thrown out in the sun before you know it!" With a toss of the bed covers, she rolled out of bed, still in her ruined, white dress. "You need to investigate the room where your Dad was murdered. You need to find anything that would lead back to Nimo or even an assassin. And you'll need a disguise." Toivo yanks open draws and wardrobe draws, pulling things out then stuffing them back in again. She opens a jewellery box and pulls out a chalk white mask with only eye holes.
"With this, you could get in as one of the staff in the palace. Then you can check that room.

His embrace was welcome but a surreal parody of the warmth she was expecting. It was warmth in his intention rather than his arms. The cold flesh under the butler coat clamped heavily around her upper back. It was pitiable in its doomed intention. She looked up to his bone white face to place a quick peck in his cheek.
"We should talk about 'us' but I also need to show you how the Pauper Mask works." Toivo grins as she pulls his arms over her head to move over the bed. She scoops up the mask, holding it up for Nickoi to see.
"A Lucifer Mohanignan agrees to trade places with his sister to win the love of his life by attempting to get close to her. He would learn the perfect way to woo her. He used this." The mask changes hands. "Him and his sister wrote their names upon their masks surface, the sister in the outside and the brother on the inside. It gets the name from the story."
She walks up to Nickoi.
"You can used this but you need to sign the inside but get a member of the staff in the palace to sign the outside."
She hands the mask back to Nickoi.
"Got a pen?"

The peck on his cheek, after their hug made him smile. Like he knows that she understands what he was trying to do for her. Nickoi let her move his arms and lead him to the bed. He quietly listen to what she have to say. "Toi, you are amasing. I don't know what I do without you." he said with a warmth in his voice. Then he pat his butler coat and found a pen in a pocket. "I do now." he said as he takes the mask and wrote his name on the inside.

Once that was done he put both the mask and the pen on the nightstand. He turn back to her with a slight smile playing on his lips. He look into her eyes and see his whole world come back together again and he will give it up for her in a heartbeat. "So what about us?" he ask as he kiss her palm of her hand.

Nimo yawn as the night is coming to a close. "Good day everyone." he said in his smooth style. Once in his room and after changing into his nightshirt, he stay up to think about his brother. "He was a fool. He is too kindhearted to rule, and his court will cut him into pieces." he whisper to himself. Then he sigh as he trys to put him out of his head.

Her level head took a knock as he seemed to zap her to the spot with his look, and the kiss on the hand.
"We're doing this now? Really?!" She said, trying to keep her mind from going completely off track. She hadn't done the 'Now your me!' routine yet! "Because, I should really show you what happens when you put this on." She takes the pen from the pocket on Nickoi's jacket and rushed over, picking up the mask, scribbling her signature on the front. She then raised the mask up and kisses it where the masks mouth would be. The surface rose underneath her lips' contact point to form lips of its own.
"This is easy to do but you might find it hard to get someone to agree to sign and kiss it. I mean, you usually have consent when you do this." She walks back over to him, holding the mask up.
"If you get the person to sign it, then you've given the mask, and therefore the disguise a name. It'll transform you into the person on the front, but you'll still sound like yourself. You have to get them to kiss the mask to give it a mouth. Then, you'll have their voice too." She hands it to Nickoi.
"Try it."

She kind of lied to herself by chickening out like this. She's fought plenty of things before...Although, they haven't been about letting people get close to her.

On the next night, she was walking to the palace.

She did tell Nickoi why and why Nickoi should be worrying more about getting the now clean mask one of the staffs' signature and to get them to kiss it. She said she was about to begin and ancient tradition for her kind. She wasn't talking about witches...

She deserved an award for what she was going to do.

"Your majesty!" An announcer bellowed, clearly. "Lady Toivo False." And so in she swept, in her black, Lolita dress, white lace hung under the skirt, lining the corset. Her skin was still deathly white. She curtseys.
"Your majesty."

A long tradition of trickery and antagonising to teach the proud humility. She had that in him.

"I, would like too." She seemed just about into it. She would have winced as those words came out, partly because of how bad she said them. She just needed to keep all his attention on her so that Nickoi could check the place of the murder and the body. Should be unbelievably horrid... The Onyx necklace sat on her upper chest, some how feeling colder in Nimo's presence. So, of she goes. Walking with the enemy. She can only hope he stays so polite and keeps his hands where she can see them.

Teasing him is easy work, sadly...

What? The garden, the night, the moonlight. He's done everything right, and then he asks me what I think in the wrong way!
"Yeah. Its really nice." He steps quickly forwards, into the garden and ditching Nimo's unwelcome hand. She rushes to the nearest flower bed, fishing out a pocket watch. With it open in one hand, and her hand hovering over one of the flowers, she waited for the seconds to tick by. It had to be perfect. Just a few more seconds to go. Aaaaaaaaaand, she snapped the flower's stem, its petals curling round like a rose, turning a blood red.
"Its a tradition with these flowers. You have to pick your Midnight Roses on the stroke of twelve. Your true love is meant to be attracted by the smell of them." She bided her time, foreshadows and suggestion. She smelt the petal's cup.
"Mmmm....Misfortune is meant to befall those who pick to early or too late. They only turn red at Midnight." She took the rose and added it to her neat, tied back hair.

(Happy that I worked in the title of the RP? :3)

"I thought as much." A coy smile and she turned on her heal, swaying her hips as she walked towards another flower bed of the Moonflowers. She was going to play it 'hard-to-get' for a little bit. Strutting through the show the plants where giving, she turned back to him. "Hmmm....These look almost ready to polinate. Hmmm....maybe I will. "A turn on her heal, a move by move copy of her sister. Then, she said over her shoulder: "Just maybe". Then proceeded to swagger out of the gardens, hoping that he wouldn't follow. She felt like a tramp...

(Yes, very.)

Nimo watch her with hunger in his eyes. Everything that follows out of the coy little mouth made him want her more. With a final word from her: she walks out of the garden. He had to stop himself from following her out. He don't want to make it ovices to her that he wants her, but he is not hidding it well. He is taking deep breaths to try to calm himself.

Nickoi watch the whole thing and he feels sorry for her. He watch her leave the garden and his brother didn't follow, which is a good thing for him. He move out of the garden thru the shadows to the other side of the wall. He step out of the shadows in front of Toivo, hoping that she don't scream.

He bow to her like a good butler and said, "The thing to wanted done is finish, My Lady." He have to act like her butler because his brother will be out any moment.

"All right, all right." She said, shoeing Nickoi onwards, shoving him onwards. She took quick glances back at the gardens to make sure Nimo wasn't following her.

The guards would be on them both if he found her fugitive boyfriend.

Huh....Did I just write that? Errr, I mean, did she just think that? At least give him the chance to say something first.

The chill down her spine was for how close the brothers came so close to seeing each other. She turned, keeping most of her composure intact.
"What? I don't like to be rushed." She thought a giggle would be good but nah. Just a coy grin. It probably would work. It wrinkles the corners of her mouth a little as she smiles. She was going for seductress/ forbidden fruit thing anyway, not bimbo. She needed to stop soon or the wind'll change and she'll be stuck talking like this.
"I'll give you an answer after I've had a chance to think about your offer."

For Toivo, frantically sprinting across greens and hills towards her home, time was of the essence.

Quietly she studied the clue that placed Nimo at the crime scene. She looked at the mask, static sparking from her finger tips into its surface, scarring and charring the brilliant-white face.

Her family and her race were people that stirred up trouble for the wicked. Antagonisers to antagonists, enemies of the enemy. They tricked, teased, fought, died, lived, stole from, battled, terrorised. The tailed pranksters could slip in anywhere, do things without consequence or care. They simply do as they please for their deity.

Daylight shoved its weight against the window-shutters but could not get in, only just able to send through its glow. Shutters that aren't near the bed burst open to show a long, thin, spindly-looking shadow on the fine floor.

A manic and maniacal cackle came from this slender form made hardly a noise as it swept across the floor. It stood at about seven foot, covered in a black dress made of loose sashes that hung around the creatures thin arms, stark contrast to its ghost white skin. Its face could not be seen. In its place, was a ceramic mask with a long pointed muzzle, two triangular ears on top and two black lines for eyes that fell straight on Nimo. The shutter slammed shut next to...it. With a wave of the furred hand, the hairs changing in a gradient from the elbow like a glove, the sheets on Nimo's bed fly off. The bare feet make more silent steps towards the current king.
"Good Morning, Nimo Dormwood the First." The voice was Toivo's. A red tipped tail sweeps behind her, displaying her intentions.