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The person said, in a low, mumbling voice. They looked down in embarrassment, and then to the side, twitched, and looked generally uncomfortable.

At last, they made a brave attempt at conversation: "Um... so, what's your name?" They cringed slightly, that was a stupid thing to ask, and tried again. "I mean, not your real name, of course. That would void the entire purpose of such an event," they flushed and stuttered, "Just... I mean, what should I call you? If we're making conversation, that is." Their voice began to trail off awkwardly, "Uh... Never mind."

Moments later, you hear the clacking of heels on marble, and feel a sharp tug as space seems to rearrange itself. A spotlight comes on, shining at a balcony connected to the main floor by two staircases, one curving along either side of the room.

In the center of the spotlight stands a woman in a suit - a white shirt covered by a deep red vest, with black slacks and a black suit jacket (though the cuffs were the same red as the vest). She also wears what looks like it could be a small red cravat, tall black boots, gloves - white at the fingers, less opaque the farther up they go - and a mask. This mask is black with red trim below the eyes, and has a smattering of garnets towards its top which glimmer a bloody crimson in the spotlight, but is otherwise rather plain. It does, however, leave her bright green eyes unconcealed.

What surprises you more than anything is her hair. Gone was the long, mostly-straight hair you had seen for the past six months; now, the chocolate-colored hair is cut just short of her shoulders, and is more wavy than anything. You also take a moment to notice that she decided that bright red lipstick was a good idea... how typical of Calliope.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she announces after a moment, “welcome to my birthday masquerade! I thank all of you for coming, though I do realize that we still have a few guests still on their way. Please, enjoy yourselves.”

Her grin at that point unsettles you. The lights come back on, but you barely notice.

"After all, parties don't last forever."

The stranger smiled and held out a hand. "Call me Lights, uh—what should I call you if not your name?"

"I don't get to dress up like this often," she admitted, smoothing the front of her gown. "Figured I'd make it count."

"Yes, I'm quite all right, thank you." The figure dusted his black cloak off after getting up. He hoped he didn't have to properly talk to them; he was mostly here for the intrigue of the thing, and to humor the hostess, more than for the sake of actually talking to anyone (a prospect that, frankly, was rather unappealing to him).

"I've always liked wolves. And the mask was the most interesting one I could find." He grinned a little, glad she seemed a little less nervous. "What about you? You seem to have gone all out for the occasion."

If she could somehow manage to not mess up horribly, this conversation could be saved. "Oh, no, not at all," she assured him. "I'm just a touch nervous. I've never been to a party like this before--well, there was my friend's birthday party, but that was different. Mostly." Actually, that had been a masquerade too, now that she thought about it. "Why did you decide on a wolf?" she asked, desperate to stave off awkward silences.

He was a tall and imposing figure, with a simple black and white tux adorning his lanky body, making him look elegant and poised as opposed to awkward. The only defining features were a bird mask with a long portruding beak covering the upper half of his face above his mouth and a long, almost comical, top hat. An obnoxious grin was clearly displayed as he walked, pausing once as if searching for something in particular before continuing further into the room.

"Is something the matter?" He leaned back a little, resting on his cane. "I hope I haven't offended you, madame."

She turned to the White Wolf, trying to look poised and elegant. "Thank y--" her voice caught, and she coughed. "Ahem. Thank you. I like your cane." She pointed at it. "It's, er, a dragon. That's... that's cool." She remained in that pose for a moment, slowly dying on the inside. Finally, she lowered her hand and seemed to shrink in on herself, looking down and muttering, "Well, bang goes this party."

He tapped his cane on the ground, trying to get the woman's attention. "Good Evening!" He crossed his arms, tucking the cane under one elbow. "I must admit, I really like your dress. Very...noble."

She tugged at the silk of her dress, her self-consciousness easing slightly as she saw the myriad of fancy costumes in the room. She'd worried she'd overdone it, with the ballgown the color of wine and the silver tracing the bodice and down to the hem in a curlicue pattern. A black, satiny mask covered the upper half of her face, and was touched with the same silver pattern as her dress. Her gloves, too, were black and satiny. Her dishwater-blonde hair was pinned back (with ruby pins, no less) so it fell in a waterfall of curls down to her shoulder blades.

She had a secret.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped further into the party, looking for any familiar faces in the crowd.

Mister Turkey planted a single finger over his mouth and leant in, glancing left and right. 'Arright, arright, okay! But this is a costume-thing, don't go bloody howling my name and flaunting it around like it's a bloody flag, right?!' he hissed. 'Really hard not to figur... What - what is even that distinctive about me?!' he asked, boggling, bowling ball mask glinting in the light, clumsy figure bumping a nearby table and sending cups rattling, conspicuously short stature catching him in a realm of eye-level torsos and legs. He couldn't put his finger on it for the life of him.

And then giggled. It quickly turned into a gigglesnort.

"Yep, that's definitely you," they said, their voice slipping back into a more feminine range. "Come on, though, let's be honest—it would be really hard to not figure out it was you."

'Laaaarf? Larf? Lllllllarf?' He said the name, glancing side-to-side, feeling it roll off his tongue. 'Larf,' he concluded. He nodded. He looked up to the newcomer. 'Larf? Who the hell is Larf? That sounds like the name of some person who I've never met and who isn't me, despite it being a very honourable and majestic sounding name which I have never heard of, which belongs to a person who isn't me and who I've never met, though he sounds like a very intriguing and perhaps handsome person that I would bloody love to meet,' he inhaled. 'Which is unfortunate because I haven't met him and I've never heard of him and who the hell is Larf?' He grinned his most convincing grin (it wobbled and faltered,) sure for certain that this ruse had definitely worked.

((I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT WITH HINTS AND ALL THAT, WHAT?))

"Good evening," said the Raven, stepping up to meet the clockwork stranger. "My goodness, your costume is stunning. Might I inquire how long it took you to craft it?"

The newcomer was dressed in a sparkling blue suit that looked like the night sky, their tie a swirling pink and purple nebula. They wore a matching headscarf that covered their hair completely, and their mask was black and studded with tiny silver rhinestones, and revealed only their mouth. They were gripping a simple black and silver cane nervously.

They approached Mister Turkey and cleared their throat. "Hullo," they said. Their voice was low, but hoarse-sounding, like they were trying to make their voice sound deeper than it normally was. "No need to guess who you are, Larf."

((If the writing style wasn't enough of a hint, I don't know what would be!))

The man in the plain mask noticed the person fidgeting by the wall and decided to make conversation.

"Hello," he said, adjusting the sleeves of his jacket for the umpteenth time. "Do you, um... have any idea what we're supposed to actually be doing here tonight?" he asked. To his mind, it was perfectly logical to ask the most uncomfortable person at an event what one ought to be doing. This had led to some... interesting... experiences in the past.

He was squat and round, wide-shouldered and bumpy, padding in awkwardly, bumping against guests and knocking poorly shined shoes against table legs and saying 'Phwor, pardon!' He resembled a bowling ball in both dignity and appearance. This was a fact that he was deeply aware of, and he took advantage of it. The bowling ball theme for his mask, he thought, was a brilliant plan, and the only thing that could possibly go wrong would be a chance meeting with somebody else, or, even worse, a chance meeting with exactly ten somebody elses themed after bowling pins. The havoc would be unstoppable, maybe moreso because he was terrible at bowling. The mask covered his head, went over and around and stopped right at his mouth. He was grinning like he had seen something funny. He was grinning like a wiseguy punk who found many things funny. The jacket was red, the shirt was black, the tie was white. He had seen Billy Joel wear something similar, and it had looked very good on Billy Joel. How good it looked on him was a subjective matter that he, for now, had let slip from his mind. He was still very proud about the 'bowling ball' theme. So he stood there, looked around, and grinned. He knew his friends. He'd recognise them in a second. All he needed to do was wait for all these blithely wandering strangers to move out the way, give him a clear path of sight. That was all. He grinned like he had seen something funny.

A teenaged... person (for their gender was indistinguishable) nervously slipped through the doors, clearly not wanting to be there very much. Their delicately cut suit was made of complimentary shades of white and blue, fading into each other where the colors met, and shot through with silver and black. The pants and jacket hung loosely off the person's slim frame, and the shirt was made of a flowing gray material. Their mask was an intricate affair of dark blue and black feathers flowing up from ornately filigreed black metal that covered most of the person's face except for the bottom quarter. The exposed part of their face didn't reveal much about them. Short, fluffy gray-brown hair could be espied on the back of their head where the feathers stopped. Their eyes behind the mask seemed to be all different colors; blue, then green, then grey, even brown. This person, after coming in, found the nearest unoccupied wall space and stood there fidgeting, obviously impatient to be gone.

The lower part of their outfit seemed to be a dress that had several layers to it, each a subtly different shade of deep red. The layers all touched the floor, completely concealing the person's legs and feet, although somehow, it never seemed to give them any trouble as they walked through the room. Not once could they be seen to even pause as if the dress had caught on something. The shirt was also rather feminine, and the sleeves were slightly loose, dangling a little and with frilly cuffs that concealed whatever might be inside them. However, if they were indeed a girl, they were an incredibly flat-chested one, given how the shirt seemed to fit. They wore a mask that completely covered their face. It was of a slightly different shade of red from the cowl that the figure had drawn over their head, which conveniently prevented anybody from seeing the color of their hair, and had a number of silvery-white lines running across it. These lines seemed to run from the mask onto the cowl, and from there down and across the entire costume, giving it the impression of trailing small lines of mist wherever it went. The mask wore a gentle smile that disguised the true expression of the one behind it, and the eyeholes had mirrored, silvery lenses that allowed the wearer to see others with perfect clarity, but did not allow even a hint of their true face through. Not even the figure's hands were visible, for they were covered in red gloves that also bore the white lines of the rest of the costume.

The figure surveyed the room, true opinions hidden behind the serene smile on the mask. Finally, they started gliding along the wall, but before they could do... whatever it was they were doing, they bumped into a man in a simple black cloak with enough force to send them stumbling back a little, although amazingly, they didn't trip on their dress and fall down. "I'm sorry," they said once they regained their balance. "Are you alright?"

An adult slipped into the building, dressed in a formal white suit and wearing a wolf mask. His dark hair poked out from the sides of the mask, and he had a wooden cane with a dragon head for a handle. "Tonight should be fun." His brown eyes danced around the room, taking in everyone, seeking someone in particular.

Though you wouldn't be able to tell behind his mask, the man was smiling. He pulled his black cloak close around himself as he entered. Upon seeing the crowd, he decided to move to the walls, where there was less chance of accidentally bumping into someone else.

The Concerned One entered soon after, dressed in a simple yet formal black suit and red tie, with an undecorated half-mask covering everything above the tip of his nose. His dark hair was shaved on the sides but long enough to curl a bit on top, but no other features were noticeable. He looked around the party scene, clearly uncomfortable for some reason; an observant person could have heard him mutter, "Here we go," before he walked further into the room.

((Here goes nothing!))

Someone slips into the house.

Dressed in a suit the colour of wine, the person's face was almost completely hidden behind an intricate clockwork sculpture that slowly ticked and shifted about. It was quite honestly a miracle how it didn't break the person's neck, based on how complex it was.

He, for he was male, moved to mingle with the crowd.