Jim's POV
"…So what's our excuse for being here? Do we apologize if they find out we're Moriartys?" Jim asked Sebastian.
The group was loud in the cobbled streets.
"No, we don't apologize for anything! That's so cliché! Look, we'll dance, laugh, and go before they notice any of us. Besides, it's a masque ball. Half of the fun is being disguised!" Sebastian encouraged.
"I'm not really in the mood to dance…I can help carry torches. You go dance with your friends, Sebastian. I'll just be over there." Jim decided.
"No, our noble James, you must dance! Don't be a stick in the mud!" Sebastian challenged.
"Not me, believe me. You're wearing dancing shoes with nimble soles. My 'soul' is made out of lead, and it's so heavy it keeps me stuck on the ground so I can't move." Jim sulked.
Sebastian sighed.
"You're a lover. Take Cupid's wings…and fly higher than the average man!" He said, patting Jim on the back.
"Ah, but his arrow has pierced me too deeply, so I can't fly high with his cheerful feathers. Because this wound keeps me down, I can't leap any higher than my dull sadness. I sink under the heavy weight of love." Jim sulked again.
"Well, if love plays rough with you, why don't you play rough with love, then?" He said to Jim.
"… Come on, let's go, guys!" Sebastian called to the rest of the boys.
Jeff chimed in.
"The minute we get in, we all start dancing!"
This made the group of young men give a hearty "Huzzah!" in return as they drew nearer to the Capulet's mansion.
"We mean well by going to this ball, but I don't think that it's smart of us to go." Jim sighed.
"Why?" asked Sebastian.
"I had a dream last night…" Jim began.
"Well I did too." Sebastian interrupted.
"Well, what was yours about?" Jim asked.
"My dream told me that dreamers often lie." Sebastian teased.
"They lie in bed while they dream of the truth!" Jim defended.
"Oh, then I see you've been with Queen Mab." Sebastian teased.
"Who is Queen Mab?" Jeff asked.
"She is the fairy's midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi.
Over men's noses as they lie asleep.
Her wagon spokes made of long spinner's legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers.
Her traces of the smallest spider's web.
Her collars of the moonshine's watery beams.
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film.
Her wagoner a small gray-coated gnat.
Not so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the finger of a lazy maid…" He quoted from a poem. The boys laughed in response. He continued, loudly, after a swig of his ale.
"…her chariot is a hazelnut shell. It was made by a carpenter squirrel or an old grubworm; they've made wagons for the fairies as long as anyone can remember. In this royal wagon, she rides every night through the brains of lovers and makes them dream about love. She rides over courtier's knees, and they dream about curtsying. She rides over lawyer's fingers, and right away, they dream about their fees. He rides over ladies' lips, and they immediately dream of kisses. Queen Mab often puts blisters on their lips because their breath smells like candy, which makes her mad. Sometimes she rides over a courtier's lips, and he dreams of making money off of someone. Sometimes she tickles a priest's nose with a tithe-pig's tail, and he dreams of a large donation. Sometimes she rides over a soldier's neck, and he dreams of cutting the throats of foreign enemies, of breaking down walls, of ambushes, of Spanish swords and enormous cups of liquor. And then, drums beat in his ear and he wakes up. He's frightened, so he says a couple of prayers and goes back to sleep. She is the same Mab who tangles the hair in horses' manes at night and makes the tangles hard in the dirty hairs, which bring bad luck if they've untangled. Mab is the old hag who gives false 'love' dreams to virgins and teaches them how to hold a lover and bear a child! She is the one—"
"Enough, Sebastian! You're talking nonsense!" Jim interrupted.
"True. I'm talking about dreams, which are the byproduct of the brain that's doing nothing. Dreams are nothing but silly imagination, as thin as air, and less predictable than the wind, which sometimes blows on the frozen north and then gets angry and blows south." Sebastian said, fists clenched, tears in his eyes.
"The wind you're talking of, Sebastian, is blowing us off our course. Dinner is over, and we're going to be too late." Jeff said quietly.
"I'm worried we'll be there too early. I have a feeling this party tonight will be the start of something bad, something that will end with my own death. But whoever's in charge of where my life's going can steer me wherever they want…Onward, lover boys!" Jim said, mostly to himself.
Jeff cleared his throat, and knocked on the door to the Capulet's mansion.