miles baines: riff-raff! street rat! (mimicks) wrote in emillion,
miles & ari | late afternoon, post-fight | complete!
All told, it was a relief when he spotted Ari later.
“Bride calmed down?” he asked quietly, once they’d found a relatively private corner.
“Calmed, coiffed, and set loose with no one the wiser,” Ari responded. They didn’t sit too close -- Ari and Miles were old friends, but Arielle and Basil did not need to start rumors. “As they say, crisis averted. If we consider tonight the dress rehearsal, the wedding should be perfection.”
He immediately found the nearest piece of furniture made out of wood (an endtable bearing some artfully-arranged vases) and neatly rapped his knuckles against it. “There, now you’ve gone and done it, Arielle. You’ve probably jinxed it.”
“You’ll want someone to blame if anything goes awry, and here am I, kind and willing to be the target of misplaced ire. Though…” a pause, a slightly reproachful look, “we may perhaps attempt to lessen the number of corsairs on the guest list, as an additional precaution.”
Miles winced, behind the spectacles of his disguise. “Evidently. For her sake and ours.”
“Don’t look so glum, dear,” she said. “Rather, consider this: how very rude of you would it be to pass an entire afternoon without taking the maid of honor for a spin on the dance floor?”
And, as always, she effectively banished his gloominess without singing a note or strumming a single instrument. Miles perked up, and slipped back behind his mask as if he’d never dropped it: he was Basil Norwood once more, and it wouldn’t do for him to shirk on paying respect to the maid of honor. “You are absolutely correct. How neglectful of me. Loathsome. We’ll amend this immediately, shall we?”
A crook of the arm, a gentlemanly turn of the foot (a little foppish, exactly as intended), and then he was carting a laughing bard off towards the dance floor, both actors ready to play their roles once more.