A/N
Sorry! I'm sorry I haven't updated in forever, and I feel even worse because Stevie Rae and Rephaim don't meet in this chapter either! I'm as upset as you are. On another note, thanks to all who reviewed! Specifically…
-inquiete
-Fan Girly
-guest
-and lapdog
You guys are awesome, and again, I'm so sorry I haven't updated this sooner. However, I have not given up on this story or any of my other poor, neglected fanfics.
Disclaimer: How many times do I have to say I don't own HON, R+J, or No Fear Shakespeare (the site I'm using to help me along with this)?! I just don't own, 'kay?
~Smiley
Act 1, Scene 4
(curtain)
"So what are we supposed to tell them when we show up at their party? Or do we not have an excuse or Plan B?" Rephaim asked, not exactly caring one way or the other. This was a bad idea; he just couldn't shake the haunting feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong. He sighed. His friends didn't care that they were going to get into trouble, so Rephaim was finding it hard to not feel the same.
Heartbreak will help you not be as perky as your friends, though.
Nisroc was the one who answered him. "Rephaim, we are wearing masks, as in, this is a masquerade ball. We're not exactly going to have to give our entire life-story at the door, and if they ask us who we are, we'll just give them fake names. Then we'll dance for a bit and leave. Not too hard, right?"
"I don't feel up to dancing, Nisroc. I'll stand to the side and watch you guys, though," Rephaim offered.
"Ha, that's a good one," Stark said, coming up beside Rephaim. He threw an arm around his shoulders and said, "You, my friend, just have to dance."
"Not me. Not tonight," Rephaim answered.
"Oh, Rephaim, don't be such a stick in the mud. C'mon, we're wasting precious daylight," Stark insisted, walking backwards in front of Rephaim.
"No we're not. It's nighttime," Rephaim countered, but he had no energy behind the words.
"Oh, you know what I mean, smart ass."
"And we don't mean anything by going to this party, but it isn't smart of us to go," Rephaim continued.
"I was invited, thank you very much. So, technically, I'm allowed in, and you guys are with me, so you should be allowed in," Stark said, letting Rephaim and everyone catch up to him so they were side-by-side again. "Why are you so against going?"
"Well, I had this dream last night," Rephaim said.
"Funny thing there, so did I," Stark replied.
"What was your dream?" Rephaim asked.
"It was about dreamers who often lie," Stark said.
"I suppose that's true; they lie in bed while they dream about the truth," Rephaim countered.
"I see you've been with Queen Mab," Stark said.
"Who the hell is Queen Mab, Stark?" Nisroc asked.
"Oh, you know, Queen Mab," Stark said, and continued in words that were not his own.
"She is the fairies' 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 spinners' 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 half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid."
"Worm from the finger of a girl?" Nisroc whispered the question to Rephaim.
"People used to believe that worms sprouted from the fingers of little girls who sat around and did nothing," Rephaim explained as Stark continued his.
"Her chariot is an empty hazelnut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love."
Stark's voice started to fill with power and emotion, and powerful emotion, and he ran in front of their group and kept up the explanation. His voice began to rise and its tempo began to speed up.
"On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit.
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep,
Then he dreams of another benefice.
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep, and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plaits the manes of horses in the night."
By now, Stark was shouting, as if possessed by an unexplainable and undesired need to make these words mean something, even if he wasn't quite sure what the meaning was.
"And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes."
Now he was screaming at the top of his lungs, and he was so far ahead of them yet they could hear every word he said. Rephaim started forward.
"This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is she—"
"Stark!" Rephaim yelled, now caught up with his friend, and he grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "Enough," Rephaim continued quietly, laughing softly. "You are just talking about nonsense."
"True, my friend," said Stark, his voice now his to control. "After all, I'm talking of dreams."
"Yeah, well, this nonsense you're talking about is delaying us too long. What was that, anyway?" Nisroc asked; he and the rest of their friends had now caught up to them.
"Oh, c'mon, Nisroc. Don't you read?" Stark asked, back to his teasing, annoying self.
Nisroc rolled his eyes. "Well, now dinner is over, and we might get there too late."
"Then let's go!" Stark replied.
Everyone started forward, and Nisroc whispered to Rephaim, "I'm sorry I asked," before leaving him to take up the rear. Rephaim paused, and his eyes found the crescent moon surrounded by stars sketched into a black sky.
It was to the moon he spoke. "I fear we will arrive too early, not too late. That dream I had…well, I have a feeling I just can't seem to rid myself of. This party tonight will be the start of my own end," Rephaim said, but then he spoke to the stars. "But whoever the hell is in charge of my life can go ahead and do what they want with it!"
"Rephaim? C'mon!" Nisroc called back to him.
"I'm coming!" Rephaim immediately replied, and shoved his mask down on his face and jogged to catch up to his friends. He had finally shaken that god-awful foreboding he had carried with him since he had decided to attend his enemy's party.
(and scene)
A/N
Review and they just might (finally) meet in the next scene!
-Smiley