Ariel + Ettore, on a hill
"Puh! Fine, alright. Fine, since you must be dying and at - in need of some final kind of- some final kindness." No one really asked, but actors need scenes, you know. Besides, Ettore just feels she should justify to anyone. For example, justify Ettore stuttering Laikor's crude written word, justify Ettore being flustered by it, then irritated by it, and on and on.
"If you insist." , says Ariel, who, one and a half hands away from her, was curled up on his coat. The coat, in turn, was curled up on the wet grass, which was curled up on the hill. She clucks her tongue against a fissure in her mouth. Grabbing idly into a pocket on the inside of a (far too thin for Barovia or for Laikor both, if you ask him. She left in a hurry.) summer jacket, she produces a silly little pair of round reading glasses.
Holding the glasses just away from wearing them, the paper stiff and far from her nose, she uses them to hit it several times and begins to read. "My clue-less - my cruelest beauty, though we both know what he meant by that," She gags a few times, mimicking a sick cat with unneeded accuracy. "It really is just a bundle of trite about my supposed vanity, some half-arsed black-mail based upon rumor of a rumor."
The glasses are swaddled and find their way to her pocket to rest once again.
"Coquettish", such a phrase to use! Is just the smallest *drop* of class really so above someone like me? Is it?" Again, the paper is struck several times.
Ariel holds his ears away from the sound of a letter becoming a made man. "I don't think it's any good, Ed. I think my brain's hurt worse now. Tha must be a darling with thy troupe." He knows damn well it's not the circus, but he also knows damn well that a story never helped a migraine. The company does, at least.
Or not, since being swatted on (even with a letter, even covered) ears with all the force of a hungry cat just makes him feel like a piece of sausage. "Owwwuh! What I do!?" He rolls away from her, into wetter grass.
She takes a cigarette, lights it, and flicks it onto him. "Aw, sorry. So, you hate it? You hate my reading? You think I'm joking? A jester? An awful little jester? Like you?" She's not mad. She doesn't even sound irritated. She takes another cigarette out for him and taps his head with it. Maybe it'll help his head.
"Huh? Thanks." He takes the cigarette and digs around for a coat pocket, and his matchbox therein, to no avail. "Ugh. Can I get a light off thine?" Ariel rolled over and propped himself up on one elbow, holding out the cigarette.
This, apparently, made her happy enough to smile and set it in the gap of her teeth without insult or injury. A tower leans over a mid-16th century giallen city (She takes a puff and his chin in her hand - gently, mind.) The some 350 meters of stacked iron, steel, and overabundant gas lights - for all Giallens love a good number of open-source flame above a flammable area - would fall over onto the area below. The ends of their cigs meet.
Ariel flopped back over onto his back, taking a drag from the cigarette and throwing his other arm over his eyes. "That'll do the trick. Any moment now." He took another drag, and made no motion to sit up or even move.
She takes this (finally) as her signal to stop. She's taken the cigarette from him, and her jacket off, to cover his eyes with. "That bad, eh? Poor thing. Maybe we can do something else. How about your letter? Would that be better?"
"Hey!!" He reaches for the cigarette, peeking out from under his arm and the jacket she's thrown over his head. After a moment, he retreats back under the jacket, arm still outstretched. "...I can't. It got destroyed. It's illegible. Pleeease?"
"Oh, that's too bad-- no letter, no cigarette."
"No Fair! I'm in terrible pain, and this is how I'm treated." He's just hamming it up at this point. He peeks out again and paws in the cigarette's direction once more, but to no avail-- her keep-away skills are too strong.
"Ah, fine. Luckily I remember it... at least a bit of it." He clears his throat and mimes holding a sheet of paper, slapping at the air with the back of his other hand in imitation of Ettore. In a sort of scary-old-man, child's-imitation-of-a-ghost voice, he begins:
"Dear... skillful magician, ah... Your tricks have gone on long enough! Come to my big scary castle to do menial tasks for me, or I will have you ruined... and send ravens to peck out your eyes!" He waves his hands around like a scary wizard as he finishes. "Something to that effect." He peeks back out from under the jacket again. "Can I have my cigarette back now?"
She puts her hands to her chest, folded like a shadowpuppet-bird. "Alas, poor Ariel. It may even be enough to bring a tear to your eye. Liars don't even get cigarettes."
"My head hurts! How am I supposed to recite under these conditions?" No luck at all. Well, two can play at that game. Pulling her jacket around him, he rolls over… and over, and over, until he's gained enough momentum to roll all the way down to the bottom under the power of gravity alone. "How about a jacket for a cigarette?" He shouts back up to her.
"Cretino! Gwah! Prancer!" Biting down on her own cigarette, she pockets the case, takes her shoes off, runs down and after. Then down - trips, and gets back up immediately. Reaching him, she grabs the bundle of stones and squeezes him. Grass stains her jacket and socks. "You must have really been suffering!" His back cracks. She picks grass out of his hair. "Alright. I can agree to it."
"Ah, really?! Tha' art too kind, Ett, much too kind!" His voice sounds a bit strangled, but he lets Ettore pick him up and sling him around like a ragdoll. "I suppose I should find my matches, unless someone might give me a light again.."
"Hmph. Freeloader." Taking the cigarette back out, she puts it in his mouth for him. She doesn't light his, but relights hers and holds the tips together. Smoke plumes out her nose. She's still a bit too close.
He grins at her and hands her her jacket in return, now that his feet are back on the ground and his cigarette back in his mouth. She's practically blowing a cloud of smoke in his face, but he manages to suppress a cough. "Thanks."
She pats his back firmly a few times. Roughhousing has adjourned. "You've been a good sport." She takes one last puff and puts her coat back on, straightening the sleeves and dusting it off. "All right, where would you like to go? Just a bit cold out here." She sniffs.