(author blurt) :

Well, I wasn't going to admit this straight out, because this is a rather scholarly and well-read fandom (for obvious reasons), but yes, I wrote this last year while I was reading Othello and Dangerous Angels at the same time. Looking back on it now, I'm very glad that I did, because it helped expand into a different style of writing that I had never tried before. And my thanks to everyone who has reviewed this, the comments do mean a lot to me. And I do have many things in mind that I would like to edit, but I don't currently have the time to commit. Maybe after I'm done with applications (which should be hopefully next week::performs an excited dance::) I will really sit down and work on it. The chapters I'm posting now were written a while ago, though on the advice of Freya Sacksen I'm posting them one at a time. Anyway. Enough of that.

Part viii: The Way Things Happen

It happens when Oliver is standing under the pink oleander bush watching Charity sitting on the staircase in front of the school, filtering sunlight into her veins. Ian silently appears between one second and the next, like a ghost of all the things Oliver is trying not to think of. Oliver thinks that Ian looks like a butterfly standing there, a monarch boy; milkweed pale and so deadly poisonous (sick). He imagines that if he could only stop from blinking he would be able to catch the ephemeral flutter of Ian's velvet wings- but he can't stop, and it's through the soft haze of his midnight lashes that he watches Ian's outstretched palm. Ian doesn't say anything, he doesn't need to; his intentions are caught up and carried on the warm September wind and wander so gently into Oliver's mind. Come, come with me, speaks Ian's heart-shaped palm, for I am not what I am, and can show you a world un-veiled. Maybe it is his frustration over the absence of Ian's misplaced wings, but mostly it is his fear of Ian's twisted oracle sight that stops him from going with the poisonous boy. He shakes his head slowly, regretting all the things that he will never see with Ian and at the same time shivering in relief. Ever silent, Ian only smiles with one side of his lovely mouth and as he retreats, the dusty oleander scented air, whispers to Oliver that Ian will be back for him. Releasing pent breath, Oliver turns back to Charity and all the brightest things. Somewhere Cass slowly turns the page of a yellowed book, crossing his eyes until the small text blurs and is born again as flowers and shadows and sailing ship clouds.

- - - - - - - (author blurt part two): 'I am not what I am' taken directly from Shakespeare's text, though I am warping it to mean something entirely different, as my portrayal of Iago radically differs. Also, I'm kind of considering leaving this in favor of working on a more conventional (well at least stylistically) piece that follows the plot of Much Ado About Nothing. Any thoughts on the matter? I haven't been sure whether to post it here, or on Fictionpress (because of the fact that it is definitely pretty loosely based).