Nadir was beginning to develop a reputation at the castle. "The Little Match Girl" had gone smoothly enough, though Anne had seemed a bit embarrassed about playing the match girl and Lucia had really not been happy about playing a grandmother, even a ghostly one. But that was just the beginning. In the next production, "William Tell," Roland put an arrow into Nash's shoulder on opening night and went on to wound the understudy, Gordon, during the next performance. That had closed the theater down for a week until the producer decided to start over with a full production of Romeo and Juliet.
He referred to it as an unmitigated disaster. As far as the Twelfth Unit of the Southern Frontier Defense Force was concerned, it had been a masterpiece, if only because it offered the unique sight of their captain doing something he didn't want to do. Geddoe's performance as Tybalt had been surprisingly good, given what they'd expected of him. He spent all his time onstage glowering, which could pass for being in character even if he still mumbled his lines, and his mood wasn't improved by his group's insistence on watching every performance and dress rehearsal.
The rest of the cast had been little better than Geddoe. Cecile and Thomas had stammered through the roles of the lovers. Chris, as Lady Capulet, kept missing her cues and looked like she desperately wanted to flee the stage, and Salome, playing Lord Capulet, delivered all of his lines in a mild, reasonable tone, as if gently lecturing. Juan played Benvolio and spoke most of his lines around yawns, when he remembered them. Percival's performance as Mercutio was not enough to support the entire play. The drama producer forced the cast through two performances and then finally let them escape.
Evidently, he'd overcome the humiliation of this last disaster and was ready to try again. When the word got out, Chris suddenly remembered some vague but pressing need to visit Caleria, and while Geddoe stayed put, he seemed a bit jumpy and had a hunted look on his face. When Nadir actually began sending out messages and sample pages of the script, and one turned up in his cabin, he vanished entirely, not to return until Joker hunted him down to tell him it was for Aila.
Despite the reputation the plays were getting, and despite not being at all certain she would like acting, she turned up right on time at the tavern. And found the whole group, less one still-paranoid Geddoe, waiting at the door for her. Jacques was down at the end of the corridor, looking out the hole in the wall, but he was there with them. "Where else would we be?" Queen asked, off her glare.
She couldn't have expected anything less, of course. Queen had given her the note from Nadir so she knew what was in it, and on top of that she'd run into Ace in the library when she'd asked Ernie for help with the script. And, fool that she was, she'd explained to him what she was doing. He'd led Joker and Queen in a standing ovation the next time she walked into Geddoe's cabin. That was when she'd started trying to avoid them.
Now Aila sat bolt upright on a bench, hands in her lap and eyebrows knitted with intense irritation, while Jacques slouched next to her on the right and, to her left, Ace lounged in a chair balanced on two legs. Queen and Joker were at the bar, but she couldn't fool herself into hoping they'd miss a second of this.
"'Two houses, both alike in dignity...'" Nadir began, his dramatic intonation only slightly muffled by his mask. "Star-crossed lovers, doomed by an ancestral hatred not of their own creation... Lady Aila, if you would come here."
"Me?" she asked, stalling. She'd known she'd have to act something out – why else had he sent her the script pages? – but she felt a momentary flash of panicked stage fright. They'd all be watching her. Then Ace let his chair down with a bang in case there were any eyes not on them. Nadir bowed slightly and beckoned. She took a deep breath and stood. "Okay," she said, and walked up to the stage. The producer handed her a few sheets of paper.
"You are Juliet of the House of Capulet," he informed her. "Beecham of Karaya is your father, Lord Capulet. Chief Lucia is your lady mother."
She had a momentary vision of that marriage and had to stifle laughter. "Okay," she agreed.
"Now, if you will..." He led the way behind a curtain, and gestured dramatically at a ladder. She looked at it, then at him. "Climb it?" he suggested, after a moment.
"And...?"
"And read the first few lines on that page..."
"No."
"What?"
"No," she repeated, more firmly, and audible to those outside.
"But..."
"There are people out there!" And a few of them were chuckling.
"Yes, it will be your induction into performing before an audience... the seductive glow of the footlights, the laughter and tears as with the power of your voice you stir their emotions and move their hearts... the applause...."
"This is an audition," she reminded him. "And I don't think I'm that good an actress."
"It can never hurt to get used to an audience early."
"If I don't do well, you don't cast me, right?"
"Mm," he said, noncommittal. "Do your best."
"Okay..." she agreed, skeptically, handed her script pages to him, and mounted the ladder. He reached the script up to her, and she took it, leaning her elbows on the top of the ladder.
"Ay me," she began, uncertainly, and then she looked out at the audience. Ace was sitting forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. Queen had turned around at the bar to watch. Jacques hadn't changed position, but his eyes met hers. She dragged her gaze away, looked back at the still-unfamiliar letters on the page. The next few lines were Romeo's. She looked down at Nadir, who nodded, and she skipped over to her next lines.
"Oh Romeo, Romeo. Where...fore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or if thou wilt not, uh, be sworn my love. And I'll no longer be a Capulet." That hadn't been so bad.
"Continue, but try to project your voice," Nadir stage-whispered below her.
"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy," she began, not projecting her voice in the slightest, and then she glanced up at the creak of the door and a distinctive clank of armor.
"There you are, Lord Borus," the producer called out, emerging from behind the curtain. She stared at the two Zexens – Borus and Percival, both armored and looking a bit sweaty and winded.
"Late for something, Borus?" the dark-haired knight asked, looking over his shoulder at the blond.
"Er. I'd forgotten. Yes, I suppose so."
"Well, good luck," Percival said, clanking past the oncoming producer and making his way to the bar. Nadir put a sheaf of papers into the chosen knight's gauntleted hands, though Borus was looking past him, giving his friend exactly the same glare that she'd shot at Queen when the woman had handed her Nadir's note and said "Lucky you."
"You're just in time," the producer said.
"I am?"
"Speak Romeo's lines. Juliet is already at her balcony, musing over an ill-fated love..."
She wasn't leaning on the ladder anymore; she was standing on it, tensed and angry. He looked up, and his eyes widened as he took in the stage. "I'm supposed to play a love scene with him?" she demanded, her voice projecting beautifully across the entire room.
"Yes, of course. How better to communicate to the audience the enmity that—"
"This is not a good idea," Borus said, holding out the script as if to get it as far from himself as possible. The producer, hands behind his back, wouldn't take it. Percival turned away from the bar, back to the other knight.
"No, it's not," Aila said, and vanished from view, down the ladder. Her steps echoed on the makeshift stage as she found some back way out.
The second thing Aila had done after arriving at the castle to stay (the first was changing back to Karayan clothes) was to drag Jacques around the grounds looking for a tree he could teach her to climb. When he asked why she wanted to learn, she'd just responded "because." So he'd helped her search out a few scattered maples and a lone oak, all young and probably planted deliberately a generation back. His lesson had consisted of telling her just to grab a branch and start climbing. Then he vanished, melting into the pines nearby so he could watch to make sure she didn't break her neck. She managed to survive, but she hadn't stayed up any given tree for very long, either.
In the unlikely, hypothetical event that he'd just stormed off angrily and now wanted to hide from the world, he'd have climbed a tree. He wasn't sure she would have, but he didn't know where else to check, and trees were as good a place as any to start. That was how he found her, perched surprisingly high in one of the maples with her back braced against the trunk and one knee pulled to her chest. He didn't say anything, just started climbing himself. "I don't want to talk about it," she said, when he was about halfway up.
"....fine with me."
"Yeah, I guess it would be. Nobody else was looking for me?"
"Queen was."
"Is she still?"
"She gave up. Decided you wanted to be alone."
"Yeah. I did. Kinda." She hugged her knee as the branches rustled around her, but didn't speak until he'd settled in, on the other side of the trunk and slightly below her. "So you're just here to spite me?"
".....no...."
"Well, I guess it's not like not being alone." He didn't say anything. "I know we're all supposed to be working together for the greater good and all. But I just can't... I mean, how can you forget?" He still didn't say anything. She craned to look around at him.
"I couldn't," he said, finally. "And I didn't even live there."
"You see?"
"No one was arguing," he said.
"Then why would he stick me in that love scene with him?" she demanded.
"....I think that's the point of the play."
"You can't just fall in love with somebody you hate!"
"She didn't know. In the play."
"It's not hard to tell a Zexen from a Karayan!" More silence, until she spoke again. "Why are you taking his side, anyway?"
"I'm not!" He wondered whose side she meant – the knight's, or the producer's – but didn't ask.
"Hmmph."
".....why'd you run off?"
"Was I supposed to stick around and yell at him? I couldn't do anything other than that," she said. "Last time I tried to kill him he nearly broke my arm, and that was when I had the element of surprise. And you wouldn't let me stab his friend," she continued, resentfully. The sound from the other side of the tree was unfamiliar. "Did you just laugh?" she asked.
He heard rustling, and glanced over his shoulder to see that she was moving, now sitting on the branch with her side to the tree's trunk. "Not at you." He'd seen what happened when she thought Ace was laughing at her.
"Hmmph," she said again, but she didn't sound all that angry. "You thought it was funny."
"We've had to stop you from killing half of the Six now."
"Hey, you're right!" Now she just sounded a bit pleased with herself. "Who should I try next? The elf?"
"....Aila...."
"I'm kidding. I know better by now. I mean, I didn't shoot either of them, did I?"
"No."
"Even though I wanted to."
"I know," he said.
"Of course I didn't have my bow."
"That'd make it harder."
"I did have a knife," she pointed out.
"You always have a knife."
"And I still didn't try anything."
"We're all very proud."
He'd hoped she'd laugh at that, but she didn't. "You're all always telling me to choose my battles, so I did this time."
Earlier, she'd sounded like she'd cheered up, but something about her tone had changed. He considered it. "That's good," he said, a bit doubtfully.
"Yeah," she said, sounding dejected again. "I know everyone says I should let it go. It just seems wrong not to get some kind of revenge." He wondered if he wanted to say all the things he'd heard people say about revenge, or if he should just ask Geddoe to do it since he seemed to be good at that kind of thing. Or maybe she already knew. She probably did. He listened to the wind rustling through the leaves, and said nothing. "Guess I just have to live with it," she added. He was silent for so long that she leaned around the tree, slugged him lightly in the shoulder. "Aren't you supposed to be trying to cheer me up or something? You're not doing a very good job."
"...I just wanted to see if you were okay."
She was silent for a little while at that. "Thanks," she finally said, softly.
He shifted on his perch himself, until he was facing the same direction she was. He opened his mouth to say something, to tell her he was sorry, or that there was nothing he could say, but there really was nothing, and he kept silent.
"Don't worry about it, Jacques. I know I can't just kill all the ironheads or anything. I mean, if I tried, Geddoe would kick me out of the group, so I'd better not... wait, can he do that? I mean, I'm not really in it in the first place, am I? I'm just tagging along."
There was something to that. Since they'd come to the castle to stay she'd spent more time with the other Karayans, and no one ever seemed to wait for her when they were getting ready to go somewhere. She always seemed to catch up, and once he'd caught Queen looking over her shoulder for Aila too, but she wasn't really a member of the unit. She must want to be, though. "You could join," he said. "If you want."
"Huh." She sounded surprised, and pleased. He watched her swing her sandalled feet thoughtfully. "You think they'd let me?"
"You're a good fighter," he said. "And we needed a healer." He could hear Ace's voice complaining about her charging into battle, Joker calling her a little girl. Nothing but an expressive sigh from Geddoe. She and Queen seemed to be friends, though. They all seemed to like her well enough, but that didn't mean they'd want her to join. "I'll ask."
"Huh," she repeated, happily. She kicked at a branch nearly out of her reach, and wobbled for a second before regaining her balance.
"Careful," he said. "Want to go back?"
"Nn. There's soda, but then again, ironheads..."
"The knights left. Then Queen decided she wanted to try out for Juliet."
She giggled. "Really?"
"So Ace is reading for Romeo."
"Okay, I'm definitely going back." She was off the branch already, hanging from it while she felt around with her feet for one below her. "You coming?"
"Just a second." He watched her awkward descent until she was safely on the ground before he started climbing down himself. He thought she'd have gone on ahead, but she was waiting when he got to the ground. She grinned at him, and grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him along as she headed to the tavern.
When they came back, they found that the ladder had been cleared away and Queen was lying on a bench in the middle of the stage. "Thus with a kiss I die!" Ace announced cheerfully. Then he pulled the wooden sword from his belt, stuck it between his arm and his side, and jumped. For a fraction of a second he was practically horizontal in midair, then he hit the ground with a tremendous crash. Queen sat up.
"Juliet, you're feigning death, try to behave like it," Nadir said. "Romeo, you did not actually kiss her."
"That's okay," Queen said.
"Perhaps more importantly, Romeo does not fall on his sword."
"I told you, you can't cast this idiot."
"Is he dead?" Joker asked, from the audience. He was, in fact, all that was left of the audience.
"I'm not sure. Ace?" Queen prodded him with the toe of her boot.
"That was a really good death scene, though," Aila pointed out, as Jacques handed her a soda.
".....ow," Ace finally replied, very quietly.
"The Lady Queen does have a point," Nadir said.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Ace said, from the floor.
"What, playing Romeo or dying with a belly-flop?" Queen asked. Ace rolled over onto his back and groaned faintly.
"Perhaps another Romeo," Nadir mused, raising his voice so to be heard over them. "Master Jacques?"
Jacques backed away until he bumped into a barstool, and shook his head. "Now that's just mean," Aila said.
"What about you, Lady Aila?"
"For Romeo?" she squeaked. The producer shook his head. "Besides, if you're going to make me act with Zexens—"
"Of course not," he interrupted smoothly. "But if you might be enticed to play Juliet... I believe the Lady Queen could do well with the role of Romeo..."
"Excuse me?" Queen demanded, stepping over Ace on her way to collar the producer.
"Who said I want to be in the play?" Aila asked.
"If I'm not supposed to fall on my sword I don't know why you gave me one," Ace said, only to be roundly ignored.
"Your acting is superb, of course, that's why you could be convincing as a youth, not yet a man, a—" the producer broke off with a strangled whimper as Queen grabbed him by the lapels, and Aila hopped up on a barstool to drink her soda and enjoy the show.
At some point in all the fuss Jacques had managed to slip away unnoticed. Aila didn't get away for some time, but when she did start looking for him she found him in the second place she tried. She'd checked trees first, but he was leaning against the railing of the ship, on the upper deck at the prow, looking out at the lake. The sun was setting, turning the smooth bank of clouds near the horizon a vivid pink and dyeing the glassy surface of the cove near them almost entirely the same color.
"Are they done?" he asked, as she approached.
"I don't think so. I just wanted to look for you."
"....why?"
She took the spot next to him, leaning against the rail, not quite close enough that their shoulders would touch, and she didn't look up to notice that he was watching her. "I... I guess I wanted to thank you. You know, for coming to look for me, and cheering me up and everything."
"....you're welcome."
She stood in silence for a moment. "So... I guess that was it. I'll leave you alone now."
"You can stay," he said, and she stopped with her hand still on the railing. "If you want," he added, quietly.
"You sure?"
"...yeah."
"And you don't mind if I talk?"
"Sure." It almost sounded like he was smiling, but it didn't look that way when she peered into his face.
"Promise?" He nodded, and she grinned, hopped up onto the railing and swung her legs over, the way she'd been sitting in the tree. She sat without speaking, the only sounds the creaking of what was left of the rigging and the quiet thumps of her heels against the side of the ship. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said, finally.
"Yeah," he agreed.
They stayed that way for some time, while the sky shaded to deep blue, the drama in the tavern died down to some bickering between Ace and Queen, and dinner neared readiness in the mess hall. They were still sitting that way when a combination of those three items led Queen out to look for them. Aila was chattering – something about Caleria – and Jacques was next to her, looking up at her instead of staring out at the lake as she'd have expected.
She waited until Aila came to the end of her story or speech or joke, and she watched them sit in what looked like companionable silence. Then she left as close to silently as she could manage, not wanting to disturb them.