Ari ♫ ♪ ♬ (gracenotes) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-11-10 00:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, !plot: faram's mass gala, arielle chiaro, miles baines |
No, don't move her favourite flowers; dinner for one, please, James.
Who: Ari and Miles
What: Rehearsing and talking shop~
Where: Theatre District
When: Sunday afternoon
Rating: PG-ish
Status: Complete!
“You know,” Ari said as she adjusted her posture for prim propriety, “I never actually thought that chemistry reading would go anywhere. And when I lamented being eternally cast as someone’s sweet and innocent younger sister, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, either.” But as she watched him totter drunkenly around the folding table -- it, a few mismatched chairs, and tape on the floor denoting the location of a rug were the only things in the otherwise empty practice room -- she had to admit, it was all likely to be very hilarious. How she had gone in one season from playing teenagers to playing a woman of ninety she would never know, but, well, they were in that kind of business, she supposed. Make-up was good for so many things. The mime knew this fact very well: neither of them were in full stage makeup at the moment, but he was well-acquainted with its alchemical qualities. Come Faram’s Mass, Arielle Chiaro and Miles Baines would be utterly transformed into a doddering old noblewoman and her equally aged manservant, all wispy white hair and stiff walk. “It’s a lesson in be careful what you wish for, I think,” the actor said as he kept walking to and fro, pacing the stage and timing his steps and practicing the comical little stumble that accompanied every turn around the rug. “Still, I couldn’t have asked for a better partner – Faram fucking forbid if they’d paired me with Elladora. The comic timing and chemistry on this one need to be impeccable, or it risks being dull as bones.” “I wouldn’t worry about it terribly much,” Ari said cheerily. “I am many things, but I am morally opposed to dull as bones. As little sense as casting directors seem to have sometimes,” she rolled her eyes, thinking of the likes of Elladora, who didn’t even have Edwin’s hapless goodheartedness to recommend her, “I think we’ll do all right, by which I mean the audience will be howling. Cheat that out a little more, maybe,” she suggested as he took yet another stumble. “Besides,” she said, watching him as he repeated the gesture, “with your schedule as it is recently, I rarely get to see you anymore, unless we’re working -- or drunkenly running from possessed children’s toys. All things considered, I’m rather glad to be here.” “Arielle. I thought we agreed to never speak of that incident ever again.” He was carrying a tray of drinks this time. The benefit of this skit lay in the repetition: the layering of an act done over and over and over, exaggerated each time. The sloppiness and slurred words and loose-limbed movements increased while Miles, as the butler James, became drunker and drunker. “And it is a very busy month, actually,” he said, whirling back around to face the bard. “I’m almost regretting keeping a cover on the straight-and-narrow – sometimes it feels I’m leading a life for seven, about to come apart at the damned seams.” Keeping all of Miles’ names and identities and lives separate had become an increasingly delicate balance as time wore on, like a towering stack of cards; he’d resorted to scribbling notes in notebooks as he grew older. “Godot isn’t wrapped yet, and we’re starting these rehearsals, and I’ve set my sights on something new for our, ahem, other day job. What does your schedule look like?” “Sorry,” she said with a laugh; she wasn’t, at all. It had been ridiculous, but hardly that humiliating by her estimation. “To work, then. Fortunately, the two of us have enough of it.” She could appreciate being overbooked -- she had done it to herself often enough -- but at his exasperation, she said, “Don’t lie, you’d miss the stage if you left for good, almost as badly as the stage would miss you and your antics.” And no matter how well she liked their other day job, as he called it, she wouldn’t ever give up the applause. Skulking around in the darkness was all well and good, and certainly fulfilling in its way, but the lack of recognition was a downside as far as she was concerned. Miles made a noise of grudging assent; she’d nailed his preferences completely, of course. The bards-slash-thieves led a strange double life, simultaneously in the shadows and in the limelight. It was an interesting balance to tread and one he wouldn’t give up for the world, hiding himself in plain sight as he did. “My schedule is less ridiculous than yours, at any rate,” Ari said; “I’m only living a life for two -- maybe three, if one takes into account my many rumored lovers -- so I can make myself available. Why don’t you tell me about it?” It was safe enough to discuss in a soundproofed practice room at the back of the Bards’ Guild guildhall. The butler finally came to a halt in his endless pacing – it would start making him dizzy and nauseous soon enough, if he kept up the speed. And this conversation suddenly required a bit more concentration. “Do you like museums?” Miles asked innocently, his expression cherubic. “Museums?” she parroted. “That depends. I often find them too quiet and generally dull, but if anyone can enliven the experience, I trust you can.” “I think this particular museum outing will be more to your liking, then. Lots of exercise – very healthy, good for the heart. Some lively interactions with the locals. And most enlivening of all, the receipt of some shiny objects at the end. We love our shiny objects, don’t we?” As if to illustrate his point, Miles brandished the fake prop goblet they’d been provided for the holiday show. “Oh, well then, shiny objects.” The smile that spread across her face was a great deal sharper now, her mind already working. She could imagine just how lively the interactions with the locals could get, if she was understanding him correctly. “Nearly anything can be improved by the receipt of shiny objects. Just how shiny are these objects, out of curiosity?” “Don’t you read the...” He stared at the woman in slight befuddlement. The thought was alien to him: he read the paper every day, and his eyes had nearly fallen out of his skull upon spotting this particular headline. He’d have highlighted and underscored it three times over, if Miles weren’t a paranoid lunatic when it came to leaving a paper trail. “It was in the Standard,” he said, voice dropping instinctively despite the fact that they were most assuredly alone. “There’s a new gems exhibition at the Museum of Natural History. The Crimson Coeurl will be here. It’ll be here and I already know some foreign buyers who would love to display such a thing. In whatever secret parlours owned by rich, powerful, and shady collectors.” Miles’ voice took on the wistful, distant tone of a starving man staring at a steaming turkey; he was practically salivating. “Mostly, the newspaper is as dull as most museums; that particular story, however, I am sorry to have missed.” She put her elbows on the table now, leaning forward with obvious interest. “I have heard of the Coeurl, naturally, so you may at the very least be at ease about that.” It would have been hard not to, with a stone so infamous -- and so large. “Mind you don’t drool on the imaginary tablecloth, darling,” she said, though in truth, she could see why he would. “You do always set me the most interesting projects; are we all meant to engage in this healthy exercise and lively interaction with locals? If they don’t trap it floor to ceiling and set half a dozen guards around the clock, they’d be incredibly stupid. Something like that is just begging to be appropriated by enterprising parties.” “Which is exactly why I’ll need all of you.” Miles’ grin was toothy. It was as if someone had sparked a light in the man, kindling a familiar hunger behind his eyes. “It’ll be trapped to hell and back and we’ll need to get past the guards. Much as I’d love to have the payoff all to myself—it isn’t a one-man job. It took much therapy, but I’ve reconciled myself to this fact.” He’d settled on the chair opposite her, flipping it around and straddling it backwards. Were this the full performance, they’d have an ostentatious twelve-foot-long table, meant to simulate a noblewoman’s dining room – instead, they had to content themselves with one folding-table and some tape on the floor. “I toyed with the idea of leaving behind a replica, so that the theft isn’t even discovered until it returns to Ordalia.” Miles shrugged. “But I scrapped the idea soon enough. You have a point about the applause, my dear: it just isn’t the same unless people acknowledge your work.” “That and having one made wouldn’t be a quick job -- at least, not if you wanted it done well.” She’d used replicas time to time, and knew the usual suspects who could be counted on to create one. For something of this magnitude, though, she agreed that this was a step best skipped. The rehearsal was all but forgotten as she focused on this new, shiny thing he had dangled before her. Really, he knew her all too well. “We will attempt, at least, to be gracious co-stars; there seems enough glory to go around in this particular case,” she said. “So tell me, mighty and ambitious leader, just what is your plan? Or do you intend to tease me with it and then make me wait until you’ve gathered the rest?” “The latter,” he said. “I’m still working out the kinks. First step is obtaining the architectural plans of the museum—I have a couple leads, but if you can think of any useful approaches on that front, well. It’d be much obliged.” It was one thing to memorise and recite lines per someone else’s script; it was another thing entirely (and much more thrilling) to improvise and go wildly off-map. “I’ll see what I can dig up,” she said. Her network wasn’t quite so extensive as his, she suspected, but a few people did owe her favors. “I’ll get back to you in a few days.” “Perfect.” Then, as if someone had whisked a curtain aside, James the Butler crept back into Miles’ face and demeanour; the man instinctively segued back into the role, all quavering querulousness and the fondness of long acquaintance: “The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?” She gave him a look, the one she had been practicing in the mirror since she had received the script: equal parts fondness and exasperation with a touch of imperiousness and a dash of glee thrown in. “Same procedure as every year, James.” |