dawn

When I received an invitation to one of the future Princess's salons, my first thought--after the obvious ones, I suppose--was that I was almost certainly there as decoration. Someone had seen one of my performances and liked my voice or just thought I was pretty enough that they wanted me there, and I had to stop myself from continuing down that line because along that road cynicism runs wild. Of course I accepted, and of course I dressed in the finest dress I had, and of course I was so nervous that for the first hour or so I could barely string a sentence together. It was a small gathering--half a dozen people or so, many of whom came and went as casually as if this were not the most prestigious gatherings in the city--and though the wine flowed freely that night I drank only water and still felt drunk on everything--the atmosphere, the ideas. 

At some point one of the city's eminent philosophers asked me a question--I couldn't even tell you what it was now, except that it was clear he had expected a demure "I don't know" in response. Instead, summoning what composure I could from my stage training, I answered honestly, and thoughtfully, and in my opinion insightfully. And then there was a stunned silence, someone laughed, and someone else said, "I told you she'd be interesting to have around."

I understood then. The allure wasn't the prestige, but the sense that here, status meant nothing. It didn't matter if I was just a singer; so long as I had something interesting to say, I would be accepted as an equal here. And what an allure it was, that a room full of the city's sharpest minds could continue planning their campaign against the darkness, the malaise that we all sensed settling over the city, and that eventually by wit and reason alone that darkness could be purged.

As the night wore on most of the guests retired, but a few of us stayed, talking, joking, arguing--none of it mattered, or perhaps more precisely, it all mattered. No matter how exhausted I got, I felt like everything we said or did there would somehow shape the world for the better.

We stopped, both of us who still remained, when dawn came. One of my companions walked me back home, and the sky was such a brilliant red when we finally reached the sad little tenement I called my lodgings. To my surprise I invited her in--"It seems rude to make you walk all the way back to the palace when the sun's already risen"--and to my even greater surprise she accepted. And though we were both too exhausted to do anything but sleep, at least, with dawn watching over us, I fell asleep feeling, for once, warm and hopeful.