Darn, how many hours had she slept? Serving that 10-course wedding dinner had been exhausting; by the time everyone had helped clear the stuff it was past midnight... and then she had sat down in a little corner intending to rest just a little while, and... ugh.
2am... well there would be no public transport available now... perhaps the staff lounge would provide a more cushioned place to rest till morning. Yawning, she got up and... hey, wait, the ballroom lights are still on! There was a definite glow coming from under the edges of the heavy doors; by the looks of it the lights are turned on full blast. At this hour...?
Ah, yes, she remembers now. The couple for tomorrow night's dinner had been rich enough to hire THAT event-deco company to do the ballroom decorations. She had seen their work a few times before... it had involved mostly gorgeous paper installation pieces; worked in ways she never imagined possible. What was most curious, though, was that consistently the company sent over only one worker, who insisted on doing the job late at night and alone in the ballroom due to "trade secret". She had seen the guy - a young chap, ordinary looking enough, with a mess of gray-blue hair(what a horrible dye job, the poor thing), artificially blue eyes(I wonder where he gets his contacts), and dressed in rather loose overalls and with a large T-shirt over it.
And except for rolls of differently coloured paper and sometimes cardboard he brought no tools. But the ballroom is always elegantly decorated by the next day.
Gosh, is she ever curious. And here's her chance. Cautiously she peeked through the keyhole. Oh yes, the ballroom had been cleared; and the tables moved to the sides against the wall, just like the decorator had requested. That made the kneeling figure in the center of the room totally easy to spot. He had taken off his shirt, and seemed to be poring over a large piece of paper on the floor.
A cursory examination of the ballroom confirmed her suspicion that the decorating job is underway; strips of paper hung down from the ceiling in various lengths in different clumps at different places. The poor guy is probably looking at the design instructions and trying to figure out the next step...
The kneeling figure stood up. And stared hard at the hanging paper strips. Unconsciously she stiffened; there was something about the way he stood... the way he stared so intently... it was like the lull before a storm; the quiet before a performance....
And then it happened. It happened too fast for her to recall in coherent order.
There was a whirr of machinery; a blue glow from that... person/thing's back... that sudden realisation that... that there are shiny metal things on this person and they seem to be a part of him... and then...
... beauty
The beauty of wings made of light. Of shimmers and glitters coming from seemingly a thousand pieces of thin crystal glass moving and throwing reflections. And the sound. Like the tinkling of many, many glass chimes... but...
... with the beauty there was terror too
The tinkling sound... higher pitched and in an unnaturally urgent rhythm. Paper falling... falling like snow, razored/carved so precisely by the feathers of light. As beautiful as the dancing light show was; if a living thing were to be caught in that dance... that thought terrified her. And that... thing's eyes. They were glowing. Glowing an artificial bright blue just like the bits of metal that sprouted from his back. It was all she could do not to scream.
As abruptly as it started; it stopped. The light-wings faded. With a quiet whirr the little wheel-cog like things that had been controlling the light lodged back into his back. Again he was still, seemingly surveying his handiwork.
She caught her breath. Those were no longer just plain strips of paper that hung from the ceiling. They were an intricate, airy lace-network of vines, flowers, leaves; birds; butterflies. A gorgeous, fascinating mass that could bear a lot of staring at. She stared; lost in the graceful lines and pretty patterns.
After a while the figure turned away. There was no expression on his face that she could discern; seemingly no appreciation at all for the wonder he just created. He put on the familiar large T-shirt, picked up a nearby broom, and with a very human sigh, commenced sweeping paper debris off the floor.
She could only remain sitting where she was.
2am... well there would be no public transport available now... perhaps the staff lounge would provide a more cushioned place to rest till morning. Yawning, she got up and... hey, wait, the ballroom lights are still on! There was a definite glow coming from under the edges of the heavy doors; by the looks of it the lights are turned on full blast. At this hour...?
Ah, yes, she remembers now. The couple for tomorrow night's dinner had been rich enough to hire THAT event-deco company to do the ballroom decorations. She had seen their work a few times before... it had involved mostly gorgeous paper installation pieces; worked in ways she never imagined possible. What was most curious, though, was that consistently the company sent over only one worker, who insisted on doing the job late at night and alone in the ballroom due to "trade secret". She had seen the guy - a young chap, ordinary looking enough, with a mess of gray-blue hair(what a horrible dye job, the poor thing), artificially blue eyes(I wonder where he gets his contacts), and dressed in rather loose overalls and with a large T-shirt over it.
And except for rolls of differently coloured paper and sometimes cardboard he brought no tools. But the ballroom is always elegantly decorated by the next day.
Gosh, is she ever curious. And here's her chance. Cautiously she peeked through the keyhole. Oh yes, the ballroom had been cleared; and the tables moved to the sides against the wall, just like the decorator had requested. That made the kneeling figure in the center of the room totally easy to spot. He had taken off his shirt, and seemed to be poring over a large piece of paper on the floor.
A cursory examination of the ballroom confirmed her suspicion that the decorating job is underway; strips of paper hung down from the ceiling in various lengths in different clumps at different places. The poor guy is probably looking at the design instructions and trying to figure out the next step...
The kneeling figure stood up. And stared hard at the hanging paper strips. Unconsciously she stiffened; there was something about the way he stood... the way he stared so intently... it was like the lull before a storm; the quiet before a performance....
And then it happened. It happened too fast for her to recall in coherent order.
There was a whirr of machinery; a blue glow from that... person/thing's back... that sudden realisation that... that there are shiny metal things on this person and they seem to be a part of him... and then...
... beauty
The beauty of wings made of light. Of shimmers and glitters coming from seemingly a thousand pieces of thin crystal glass moving and throwing reflections. And the sound. Like the tinkling of many, many glass chimes... but...
... with the beauty there was terror too
The tinkling sound... higher pitched and in an unnaturally urgent rhythm. Paper falling... falling like snow, razored/carved so precisely by the feathers of light. As beautiful as the dancing light show was; if a living thing were to be caught in that dance... that thought terrified her. And that... thing's eyes. They were glowing. Glowing an artificial bright blue just like the bits of metal that sprouted from his back. It was all she could do not to scream.
As abruptly as it started; it stopped. The light-wings faded. With a quiet whirr the little wheel-cog like things that had been controlling the light lodged back into his back. Again he was still, seemingly surveying his handiwork.
She caught her breath. Those were no longer just plain strips of paper that hung from the ceiling. They were an intricate, airy lace-network of vines, flowers, leaves; birds; butterflies. A gorgeous, fascinating mass that could bear a lot of staring at. She stared; lost in the graceful lines and pretty patterns.
After a while the figure turned away. There was no expression on his face that she could discern; seemingly no appreciation at all for the wonder he just created. He put on the familiar large T-shirt, picked up a nearby broom, and with a very human sigh, commenced sweeping paper debris off the floor.
She could only remain sitting where she was.