When he walked into the room he was struck by the arches of its ceiling, the chambers of a seashell to Daedalus' ant. Then the murmuring reached his ears, and he excused himself to find a rock above the breaking waves of gala-goers to watch the patterns they made in movement. More bees than anything else, finding groups to touch antennae, swarming around the places where nectar gathered, droning to fill the room.
Someone slaps him on the shoulder, a thunderclap, and he turns to look. "Uneg! My boy! You must join in. I won't have you sitting up here, you new-moon. Come and try the hors d'oeuvres. The gods themselves would delight in them."
He allows Ghent, an acquaintance of three years and galas that numbered like grains of sand, to lead him to the tables and put a glass of wine in his hand. He watched it swirl against his fingers: nectar made by wasps. Ghent doesn't see his hesitation, though. He steers Uneg with a hand on his back--"Have you met Vani? The evening star of Olmen City!"
Vani, a woman with a dove's face down to the rings painted around her eyes, smiles at Ghent. Though Uneg doesn't understand it a bit, she seems to like him. "You flatter me, sir. Sir Uneg needs no introduction either--I have heard you called the titan of the sun."
"I didn't ask for it," he says, kissing her hand and trying to call up the smile that says not 'This gala is a one-week corpse' but 'You shouldn't flatter, you charmer.' "I call myself Uneg, and I hope you will as well."
"We are friends already, I see!" says Vani, and kisses his hand in return.