She looked nervous though.
“Um, I'm scared. Will you go down with me?” That got people to hoot drunkenly, even though it meant they had to lay next to each other naked for the trip down, she was about his height at least, so it didn't look that bad in the dusty twilight. Well… he considered and then nodded. Why not? It wasn't having sex with her and she might be older than he thought. Or younger. He'd keep it clean.
They rode down, both screaming and yelling the whole way, holding hands, laughing and making a spectacle of themselves. Then they went again. At the top he ended up trading partners, a tall boy, as naked as everyone else, drunkly asked if he could be next. The guy wasn't a boy really, but a young looking adult noble who kept trying to grab Tor's groin on the way down. Laughing, he slapped the man’s hands. With good humor the man didn't say anything at the bottom after they stopped in the water he just kissed Tor on the cheek and bounded away.
That was off-putting, but he recovered quickly and dressed again, clothing getting wet from his skin, to look into food and drink.
It was there, ready to go thanks to the Ward people and all their hard work, so Tor cast around and found a band that was just resting and eating themselves and bribed them to start playing happy songs immediately and then got more people to come back with him from the milling crowd. One of the Warden women started dancing, a shimmying dance that looked awfully seductive and called to Tor to join her. He didn't know the dance, and looked ridiculous, awkward and he suspected like a small child aping adult behavior, but other people joined in, giving him the anonymity of the crowd. Most were taller than he was so after about five minutes he was nearly invisible. It left him feeling more at ease at least.
His night went on like that, moving from event to event, getting people to try night jumping, the brilliant purple and gold streaming and sparking lights going nearly constantly after a while making the whole night brighter and happier. Then he took on all comers at shield combat, letting the little kids win, the women win if they promised him a kiss, and the men… he did his best against, winning most of the time since he knew the system and wasn't half drunk. Sure, not all the women were cute, most weren't but they were happy, and that was the important part.
He found an adventurous group of young men and women, about half nobles, to help him surround the city with the multicolored glow units. Even giving them away a few were left. A few of them had flying gear, so they didn’t have to scale the wall or anything, making it all much faster. By placing them right under the river on the wall it made it glow, the light carrying down the tube of clear water a good ways for some reason. They decided to use all purple and in about two hours the whole thing lit up. It made a ring of pure purple light around the whole capital. It was vast. Sure, he'd never see the light units after the festival, but he wasn't supposed to anyway, so that would be just fine.
By one in the morning there were about three hundred drunk people dancing in the night, glowing people drawing others like moths to a candle.
Bonita wasn't there, so he set off the fireworks himself, the sky lighting brightly, the display much bigger tonight, because he skipped one level. It was Rich's actual birthday celebration after all. People screamed and yelled a few even made love under the exploding sky or floated in the water of the waterfall slide, a huge area that held over a hundred easily, so it wouldn't hurt their necks to look up. He didn't go to bed at all, but he did go in at about three-thirty and clean up for the mornings work.
The streets were still crowded when he went in, and for once he had to wait for Debbie at the door for a long while. Box wasn't there at all. She looked a bit tired and lonely when she saw him. More than a bit.
“I look like your sister? I suppose you couldn't just close your eyes and pretend I don't? Just this once?” The words felt hopeless, but Tor shrugged and nodded.
Why not? She was his friend. If she wanted him that badly, he could manage. She wasn't his sister, if nothing else and if he started thinking of Terlee halfway through, that wasn't her problem, but his.
Amazingly she didn't look much like Terlee at all with the lights off, and his mind stayed focus on what they did, her hands and mouth on him greedily as if he were some prize, or like he'd back out halfway through if she didn't keep him constantly enthused.
They used the small room in back with a hard cot in it. Last year he'd slept there, not having anywhere in the city to go. This year it was more fun. It wasn't until he kissed her, tasted her mouth, that he realized she was more than a little in her cups. Well, people did that during parties. They even did this, had questionable sex with people they probably shouldn't at them too.
It was another tradition, wasn't it?
After they finished, laughing, they both cleaned up out back, stripping down to wash, it was less awkward than Tor had thought, she was still pleased enough that they'd done it, giving him odd looks as if she wanted to do it again. Maybe they would?
She wasn't as good as most of the royal women at the whole thing, but it had still felt nice, and he knew she liked him as a person. Besides, being good at sex was like anything else, you got better with attention to detail and practice. Which kind of demonstrated why the nobles were all so good at it. They practiced a lot.
Tor started to feel guilty, but let go of it quickly. What if she got pregnant? Supposedly that couldn't happen at all with him, and really, once past the Terlee looking thing, she had everything he wanted in a woman. She was smart, pretty, and hard working. Kind and generous, if in a merchanty fashion that somehow always led to them making even more money.
The work was harder to keep up with since all the helpers were late, but then the crowd was too, which evened things out a lot, not really starting to come in until noon by tradition. Karina showed up at ten looking embarrassed, but Ali seemed pleased. She told him how everything had gone at the King’s party and how everyone had cheered when the river started glowing purple to honor the King. Burks had taken Bonita as his date, and Rolph got Collette in, Petra had gone alone and looked for him, her position and rank getting her in with no problem.
“It was so much fun! I got to dress fancy and eat good food and men danced with me and asked me to have sex with them, but I put them off, because Karina said I shouldn't be too easy until I get adopted, so that people will understand my position and not think I'm a street walker. I can see that, I guess. Counts don't marry street walkers do they? I mean outside of stories? So that's a good plan, don't you think?”
On the good side, her chattering meant no one else had to, since getting a word in was nearly impossible until she ran down. Debbie gave them all hand pies to eat at eleven, since no one was coming in yet. Davie dragged himself in, looking hung over about that time. He mumbled sorry, but got right to work.
Box actually walked in about ten seconds before Terlee, who'd dressed in Two Bends style, backwoods blah, had her hair pulled back in a plain fashion, kind of like he did and walked into the still reeling man when he suddenly stopped, his worn leather shoe's catching on the wooden floor, he half spun, pulling the much smaller girl down on top of him as he fell.
“Sorry Debbie.” He said, trying to help her up.
“Tripped…” The look he gave her was hard and then he shook his head fuzzily. Same hair, same general build, smaller and a little thinner, but even the face had enough similarities that Box could have been her brother without any problem at all.
“It's not problem. I came to see my brother? Torrance?”