miles baines: riff-raff! street rat! (mimicks) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-03-24 23:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, arielle chiaro, miles baines |
you're an actor out of work. you're a liar and that's the truth.
Who: Arielle Chiaro & Miles Baines
What: Friends rehearsing for both the Founders Play and a certain shambolic wedding.
Where: Their theatre in the eponymous Theatre District.
When: Today!
Rating: Tame.
Status: Complete.
Miles had more reason to eye his calendar nowadays, marking the various dates shelved for each alias—Miles the bard-thief had attended to a concert/robbery last weekend, Norwood the groom had an engagement ball and rehearsal dinners and a final date ticking down, and Baines the actor had rehearsals leading inexorably towards the Founder’s Day Festival, hours eked out with Chiaro & co. in another type of practice. The two of them weren’t able to have a proper conversation while treading the boards and rehearsing their lines, Arielle decked out in the robes of a mage and Miles inflating his chest as a strapping fighter, but they knew they would soon find time for a chat. Unfortunately, the pyrotechnics for the big battle were still a work-in-progress, and the pair watched sparks fizzling in the catwalks and small flames being frantically beaten out on the curtains high above. They wiped sweat off their cheeks (it was unbearably hot under the lights sometimes, and the special-effects-gone-awry hadn’t helped), watching as a hapless stage tech swung back and forth from a cradle of cables and others tried to snare him back to safety. “Well, suppose that’s a wrap for the day,” Miles said dryly. “What was it we were saying about loving a spectacle?” Ari pushed the damnable hood of the damnable robe back, attempting to fan herself with her hand. She supposed that it must be just as hot in armor, and thought covetously once again of the role she might have had and its considerably more comfortable costume. Not that she wasn’t coming to enjoy this role in its own way -- it was so far out of her comfort zone -- but the costume was not a point its favor. Turning to Miles, she said, “At least we are not hanging from a harness that may or may not be on fire. Look on the bright side, darling -- they’re bound to fix it by the time the show rolls around. Last year, a set piece nearly made me into a very unattractive human crêpe. They’ll iron it out,” she continued, watching the tech continue to struggle, “hopefully without any death.” “Founders’ Play it may be, but it’s not the Sochen Play, after all. So one wouldn’t expect there to be any deaths or terrible maimings or, Faram forbid, chandeliers crashing to the floor.” Miles gave a dry smile but he still tapped the floor lightly with his foot—knock on wood. Actors were a superstitious lot. But as the poor technician swung above them, these two of the three leads turned and wove their way back towards the dressing rooms, falling into an easy pace beside each other. “It might look like a mess at the start, but it always falls into some semblance of order by the time the big day hits,” he said. (Fully aware of the several situations his remark could apply to.) Ari was already fussing with buttons and zippers as they walked; by the time they were in the hall lined with dressing room doors, she was down to a leotard and leggings, the heavy robe draped over her arm. She would need help to get out of the metal contraption across her back and arms, which allowed her to seemingly cast magicks, but what were co-stars for, after all? “If things weren’t a disaster in rehearsal, how could we appreciate the polished and pretty final result?” she said. It was her dressing room that she sought, trusting that he would follow. Once the door was shut behind them, she demanded, “Please get me out of this.” She lifted her hair over her head to give him better access to the clasps, and continued where she had left off: “At least my costume for our other mutual project is easier to move in.” The dress she and Aud had settled on was simple and elegant (and not, fortunately, the satin disaster festooned with ruffles that she had been offered at first). His hands—nimble and graceful as only a thief and pickpocket’s could be—tinkered with the clasps, deftly unpinning one latch after another, fingertips ghosting against the nape of Ari’s neck. With anyone else, the situation might have seemed intimate, but by sheer professional necessity, they often saw each other in their underthings; shame melted away quickly backstage, shed as quickly as a wardrobe change between acts. Arielle had always settled into that comfortable category of cohort, companion, and partner-in-crime, but nothing more complicated than that. There was a reason she’d been such a natural recruit for the crew. The metal sprang back into place, nipping his index finger. Miles yelped, shook out his hand, bit his nail to distract from the pain, and then tried again. “Bloody machinist’s contraption,” he grumbled, but good-naturedly. “Oh, you think it’s bad,” Ari muttered. “Think how I feel.” He’d seen her burn herself time and again, as had everyone else in the cast and crew. Finally, Ari was freed from the straps and the harness dropped into Miles’ hands, where he set it aside on her dressing table. Following suit, he started unbuckling various fake weapons and sheaths from his warrior’s costume. “It’s only polished and pretty because we cover up the blemishes,” he said, picking up their last thread. “Turn a stumble into a twirl, a trip into a feint.” The man spread his fingers into theatrical jazz hands: ta-daaa, the gesture of the perennial improviser. She sighed in relief as she was finally freed of the straps, stretching this way and that before finding the oversized shirt she’d worn to rehearsal and throwing it on over the leotard. “Covering up blemishes ought to be considered one of the most crucial skills in the actor’s toolbox.” She turned and knelt, beginning to help him in turn with his armor clasps. They’d be done three times quicker this way, and be on their way long before their colleagues. “Smooth over the rough edges, present a smiling face to the crowd, add in some smoke and mirrors… and you can get away with nearly anything.” She rose, stacking armor pieces against a wall, marveling at how light they were compared to the actual armor she had gotten accustomed to removing in much the same way. “I’m certain I don’t have to teach you these things,” she teased. “What, are you actually worried?” The question gave him pause. A fake wedding, with hundreds of noble eyes suddenly narrowed and focused on the wallflower that was Basil Norwood, inevitably sweating under that scrutiny and spotlight as he never had on the actual stage. Was he actually worried? “I don’t know,” he finally said, and it was more honesty than Miles tended to give. “But it’ll be a magnificent show, won’t it?” He turned a brilliant grin onto his coworker, the temptation of the challenge causing his mouth to curl up at the edges in incorrigible cheekiness. For a moment, he looked all of twelve years old again, a mischievous orphan with his hand in the cookie jar. It would technically be his biggest solo heist ever, and carried off in plain view. “Oh yes,” she said, her own expression a mirror of his. She thought of Aud, too, but her thoughts were of a drunken chocobo ride and days at a clinic under the watchful eyes of mages and worried friends. She had to commend Aud for building a life based on so many lies; considering that fact, it was all going surprisingly smoothly thus far. “I do enjoy a good show, especially before an unsuspecting audience. I’m looking forward to seeing what you decide to show us.” As for Aud, well. Hopefully she wouldn’t approach the altar with a tragic expression upon her prettily painted face; lately, she had been acting as though her life were at an end. Really, that was all Ari expected there. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “you aren’t the one who worries me.” “Oh?” His eyebrow rose. “How so?” She gave him a look that said, quite clearly, really? Then she began ticking off on her fingers: “Rhys is being a prissy idiot, Chloë may well sneak popcorn to the altar under her gown, Audrey’s sister is… well, she is who she is, and that’s worry enough, and Aud herself may take the crying bride gimmick just a bit too far. Oh,” she added, “and then there’s the benevolent gaze of our beloved guildmaster blessing the whole thing.” She didn’t mention Darius, and she didn’t mention Damia, either. She thought those two names were better left unspoken here. Miles was bemused as she rattled off all the obstacles in their way (and if she wasn’t mistaken, that glint in his eyes simply grew sharper, more eager—the man practically salivated at a challenge). “Well, point,” he said, now shimmying out of his faux-leather vest and hardy boots, one shoe shed to the floor then another. “But what’s a wedding without a few last-minute complications and a few hysterical guests?” A beat, then: “But I am taking it seriously, mind. We’ll try to prepare all angles.” “Oh, I’ll just hope that the complications are the entertaining sort,” she said airily. “I’m grateful to have a front row seat to the most spectacular performance of your life. Though I hate to break it to you -- I must break with tradition, as I have utterly no interest in having drunken sex with either Lord Basil or his best man. Alas.” “Fine enough, considering Lord Basil will have his hands full with the delicately-greased machine that is this entire affair, and the best man is—” Similarly uninterested, Miles thought but didn’t say. Instead, aborting the thought, he turned a canny eye and suggestive arch of the eyebrow to his comrade. “But what about the groomsmen? Rhys, Thomas? I daresay their hearts will be broken.” “Well,” Ari said lightly, “Thomas has already helped me out of my bridesmaid’s dress once; it seems excessive to allow him to repeat the feat. And Rhys,” a laugh. “Well, I daresay he will have other things on his mind, if the last few weeks are any indication at all. I’d say I’d go for a bridesmaid instead -- I’m notorious that way -- but one is sixteen and the other is Chloë.” She laughed again as she fetched her mandolin case, pulling the strap to rest across her chest. “It seems I will have to bring a date or remain chaste for the duration, such a pity.” “Ugh. Don’t say the c-word in my presence.” Miles grimaced. His promise to Albrecht hadn’t been going so well; the flicker of distaste across his face said everything he needed to. But with their clothing now effectively switched out (while their coworkers still bustled up and down the halls outside, hopping and squirming out of their pieces), the two were just about done packing up. Miles slung his costume over his shoulder and glanced back at Ari as he started stepping towards the exit. “I’m ravenous. I need to fetch my wallet, but want to grab a bite after this?” he asked. She was a perpetual (and uncomplicated) delight to spend time with—that also went without saying, written in their casual banter and the relaxation in the mime’s shoulders. “Chastity,” Ari said with relish. “Your burden to bear, darling, not ever mine. Don’t worry, you can fill the void in your life with food.” She ginned and added, “Probably, as long as your tin armor still fits at the end of the day. Let’s go before our wonderful and caring director decides he could use us for another hour. I’ll wait for you by the door.” They left the dressing room and Ari hurried down the hall, just in case that unpleasant prediction became true. All in all, she far preferred dinner (and teasing Miles -- who would most likely tease back) to more rehearsal. Fortunately, both of them were experienced at slipping out of all sorts of locations unseen. |