Closed shifting (yule)tide

[Artemisa Raven]

Artemisa usually made it a point to attend the annual Nightray Ball. It was an excuse to dress up, see relatives, and obtain all the latest family gossip. While the second she could do without for some people, it was a necessary evil. Besides, as an heir, she was more or less obligated to go. It wasn't really something Uncle Liam nor Aunt Ai heavily enforced, but as she grew older she'd become more and more aware of the importance of keeping up an image. Raven might be her last name now, but she was still very much a Nightray heir. Being one of the heirs hadn't really been important, Jai had been the unofficial lead for the longest time. He was the most driven to take up the position, most primed even if the purebloods in the family would not agree. Jai had learned the ins and outs of the family and the business from the heads of the family. And then he was out of the running, just like that. Mostly by his own decision, but Misa could understand. The remaining heirs were down to her half-siblings, and heads' children. Until tonight.

Considering Artemisa kept a tight network of information on her family both in New Zealand and in Britain, she should not have been surprised by the turn of events tonight. Her aunt and uncle had made sure for years that the heirs were on their side or neutral. The sudden appointment of Evelyn and Sebastian as heirs was not something that she was expecting at all. She found Jai in the crowd during the announcement and he didn't look the least bit surprised. This has been going on for a while and they'd apparently kept a very tight lid on it. She couldn't see any of Jai's siblings yet in the crowd so she'd set out to find them once the ceremonies were done and it was just a lot of mingling for the rest of the night. It was Tizi that she found first. "Did you know about this?"​

 

[Tiziano Edogawa]

Tizi was extremely uncomfortable, he had never liked crowds like this, and most of them were his family, which honestly only made it worse knowing what he knew now. It felt like he was a stranger in his own family, seeing as he'd finally started to learn the truth. He looked up at his... she wasn't actually his sister. It felt weird to actually acknowledge that, since he'd known almost his whole life but never really thought about it. The fact that she knew about it and said nothing only made it a whole lot worse in his opinion. Misa knew everything about everyone in their family, and that meant she would have known, maybe not as long as him, since he'd known since he was six or seven, but she should have told him as soon as she found out, he'd given her ample time to, he thought, and there was no denying how sh*tty it made him feel. Him not telling how about the new heirs was almost like payback. Almost. Not that he was really into that sort of thing, still made him feel better though - the reality was that he'd only just found out himself. "Not for long," he answered in Italian, still looking over to where his mum stood talking to his dad - who wasn't his biological dad, but had raised him from a young age even when they all had acknowledged Jeremiah as his father. "Jai told me about two weeks ago."​

 

[Artemisa Raven]

Artemisa did not like being caught off guard. Being caught off guard was far from ideal. It had consequences, which is why in the years since she and her siblings had grown up, she had made it a point to know everything that can be known within the Nightrays. She knew Uncle Liam and Aunt Ai had their own network of information, but for the next generation’s heirs, Misa strived to be the network. Their generation was at a severe disadvantage. While the heads had their favorites, everyone else had them too, and it was a mess. With half the heirs considered half-bloods and the other half having a single father to different Nightray mothers. Well, enough said about that, the better. The heads obviously favored Jai, and now Mikael. And while Mikael was a questionable choice, it made sense with him showing the desire to follow his parents’ footsteps. If only he weren’t so lazy. Desire wasn’t everything - Laurent’s mother and Alexia’s father were proof of that. With everyone else uninterested with being the heads, Mikael was probably a shoe-in. Until now. Evelyn and Sebastian did not look like they would easily bow out of the running like her half-siblings had planned to do. “What were they thinking?!” Because two weeks ago?! It was obviously not a spur of the moment decision to present them today. They could have easily taken it back until now. But they went through with it. “Have you talked to your parents about this? Mikael?”​