31 December, 1894 — Time Turner Ball, London
There was something the matter with Ezra. He could feel it in the same vague way one could feel a stomach ache coming on, but hadn't grasped the exact size and shape of it yet. Physically he was fine, but he was aware that he was acting... off. Not consistently, not distinctly, but sometimes he just said things and thought — why did I say that? It had been happening intermittently for the past few hours, but he hadn't had time to really stop and think about what was happening because they had been busy these past few hours. Preparations for the party Hanna was dragging him to — Hanna liked parties, he usually didn't, but could at least stand them better than Byron — and then of course with the party itself.
Fancy dress was encouraged, the invitation said, and Ezra had stubbornly donned exactly the same suit he'd worn to the last party, not feeling especially festive or particularly keen to play pretend. And half the guests looked ridiculous, anyway; there was a reason these fashions from the sixteen hundreds or whatever era they were from had gone out of fashion in the first place. He'd spotted someone who seemed to have transformed their suit into a fully functional hourglass, with sand running from top to bottom and then resetting every few minutes. Who had the energy for that? Where did he find the time? People with no real problems in their lives, he determined. People with nothing to do except be frivolous.
He was trying to make the drink in his hand last as long as possible and hovering awkwardly on the ends of conversations — not near the dance floor, he had no particular interest in dancing with anyone tonight unless Hanna forced him to dance with her. This left him very near to the other dance that was going on, the one with the performers and their changing costumes. They seemed to be doing a bit about ancient China at the moment. Ezra spent a beat too long looking at a woman in a kimono and a tail and wondering if she was meant to be a woman or an animal or a goddess or something else entirely — did the performers think anyone had worn that or was this some sort of retelling of a myth? Someone seemed to have noticed him staring, and asked whether he was enjoying the performance.
"Oh, no," he said before he could think better of it. "This whole thing is perfectly ridiculous."
Fancy dress was encouraged, the invitation said, and Ezra had stubbornly donned exactly the same suit he'd worn to the last party, not feeling especially festive or particularly keen to play pretend. And half the guests looked ridiculous, anyway; there was a reason these fashions from the sixteen hundreds or whatever era they were from had gone out of fashion in the first place. He'd spotted someone who seemed to have transformed their suit into a fully functional hourglass, with sand running from top to bottom and then resetting every few minutes. Who had the energy for that? Where did he find the time? People with no real problems in their lives, he determined. People with nothing to do except be frivolous.
He was trying to make the drink in his hand last as long as possible and hovering awkwardly on the ends of conversations — not near the dance floor, he had no particular interest in dancing with anyone tonight unless Hanna forced him to dance with her. This left him very near to the other dance that was going on, the one with the performers and their changing costumes. They seemed to be doing a bit about ancient China at the moment. Ezra spent a beat too long looking at a woman in a kimono and a tail and wondering if she was meant to be a woman or an animal or a goddess or something else entirely — did the performers think anyone had worn that or was this some sort of retelling of a myth? Someone seemed to have noticed him staring, and asked whether he was enjoying the performance.
"Oh, no," he said before he could think better of it. "This whole thing is perfectly ridiculous."
![[Image: 5WWaDR1.png]](https://i.imgur.com/5WWaDR1.png)