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[Marion Kay]

62 Spring 515 AV
The Riverfall Amphitheater
15 Bells

Marion hated many things. Roses, for one. And children. Alcohol, dresses, and boats, too, as well as Autumn, knightly virtues, and the vast unknown. Not to mention the color orange. She even held an acute distaste for the art of theater.

But Marion liked the amphitheater.

She liked the hush that seemed to fall across the clearing when she stepped onto the grass. She liked how she could almost feel the stones leaning in when she began to speak, as if clinging to every word, and she liked the magnified sound of her voice, as if her very words were all that mattered in this world.

She liked power of it all. Loved it. Needed it.

Especially after her days in this city had left her feeling so... impotent.

It was her own fault, of course, being too weak to do anything. She wasn't quite sure what she had expected when she had set off for this city. The challenge here was tantalizing, yes, but Sunberth was challenging in different ways, and at least she was clever enough to thrive there. Riverfall, however, was a monolith, and she a woodpecker. Ill-equipped for the task.

She needed to be better than she was now. She needed a new plan.

Until then, all she had was this theater.

"In another place -- " Marion was alone, pages of script laid out before her as she leaned over them, legs folded underneath her. The air was still and almost too hot, the sloped walls blocking out most of the breeze and creating a pocket of spring warmth. Marion had developed a fine sheen of sweat before she'd managed to get her hair to stay in a sloppy knot bun. The sleeves of her tunic were cuffed up past the elbow. A pair of sturdy leather boots, too heavy for the season, had been abandoned some distance away, and Marion drew some quiet pleasure from the feeling of grass on bare feet.

All things considered, it was a peaceful afternoon.

The lines she practiced now were for a number of performances to be put on after the 85th. It was some kind of celebration, something for one Siva Chivan, whose name sounded vaguely familiar, as if Marion was supposed know who she was. But she didn't, and she didn't particularly care too much about finding out. As far as she could gather from the series of scripts, she was some high-profile konti woman. Really, all she needed to know about the woman was here in the plays -- they were supposed to be recounts of certain scenes from her life, after all. And Marion was still only on the second one.

" -- and in another time -- "

She'd only been assigned a couple minor roles but it all sounded too melodramatic, and an annoyed breath escaped her lips. Papers ruffled as she shoved them away and flopped backwards, her torso hitting the ground with a soft huff.

There was a long intake of breath. And a sharp exhale. And she began again.

"In another place, in another time," she repeated, drawing the lines from memory. Perhaps it would be better, more natural, if she rehearsed in her own voice rather than reading dead words on a piece of dead paper. "He'd seen a golden flower grow, or so he'd said. But not here, and not now. Our love did wither, and he left. Cold. Callous." Marion had never realized how much she spoke with her hands until she was alone. One arm reached out to the sky in front of her, fully extended, fingers splayed like some kind of plea. "And I the same, after such cruelty, or so I wish. But the heart continues. The pain continues."

She needed to get this. She needed to make it work. She needed to make something work, to pretend she knew what she was doing in at least some aspect of her life.

Between the gentle sway of trees and the twittering of birds, Marion could almost forget her frustrations. That was bad, she knew, but she didn't want to think about it. Not now. Not here. Here, she was just an actress. Not a particularly good actress, perhaps, but despite her outstanding ego, it was nice to be, or pretend to be, someone she wasn't.

If only for a moment.

[Achenar]

Solid, well-crafted boots shuffled along the roads of Riverfall. They were freshly scrubbed that morning, scraped clean of the rocks and crumbs of dirt compacted in the soles. Maddoch’s compulsion for cleanliness and personal grooming was likely what kept him from being mistaken for a vagabond. But unlike many of his brethren, he preferred this mortal seeming, with all its flaws and ink. The world’s gaze lingered when the moon rose and Leth took his reign of the sky; too long for the comfort and the solitude he sought.

But in the grand scheme, he was just another feather on the breeze, drifting, unable to find purchase in a world he couldn't trust. Everybody lies. Everyone wanted something. This was learned the hard way, beaten into him until he was left a writhing pulp on a hardwood floor.

Maddoch’s fingers twitched as he walked, his passive blue gaze flicking from one face to the next. Konti, Akalak, Human, Akalak. He could weave simple theories from their initial appearance; their holding of hands; the clothes they wore. Leather studded gloves for fighters, aprons streaked with flour for bakers, even the barest glimpse of two thick blue hands grasped together.

He watched the people as he walked absently down the road, until he felt a respite from the burning sun, and he paused, glancing up at the shadow cast over him.

The tall trees framed the Riverfall Amphitheatre and accented the grassy terraces that formed the center. He hadn't planned to arrive here when he’d begun his excursion from his apartment, but in a way, he was almost content that he had. The place was beautiful, serene; heavy with the promise of performances he’d never, in his short lifespan, had the proper motivation to see.

He strolled down the steps of the terraces slowly, his fingers hooked in his pockets. Sweat glistened on his brow, and he wiped it away just as the breeze whistled above, and brought with it the voice of another.

Maddoch stepped down into the proper theatre center, leaving the sloped walls behind him. It was upon rounding a planted tree that he found a woman reclining on the grass. He glanced curiously at the papers sprawled around her, but from his vantage point, they were indiscernible scribbles.

“You work here?” The ethaefal asked abruptly, gesturing at the stage. “Or just another visitor?” Much like himself.

[Marion Kay]

Her voice hung in the air above her before washing away on the breeze. They were dead words. She had no way of empathizing with them. Oh, despair was easy enough, and hopelessness. Those wounds were still fresh in her gut, even after the years that had passed since they were made. But the heartbreak? The loss? She had only ever been on the opposite side of that situation, the one doing the leaving. For that Marion was glad, of course, but it certainly didn't make her job any easier.

A cynical voice eased its way across her mind, speaking in no clear words but pointing out, wryly and with the sort of dangerous undertone that marked Marion's thoughts, that she was taking this whole "theater" business far more seriously than she would ever have wanted to admit to herself. Even her coworkers had come to expect a certain level of apathy out of her, but at some point Marion had lost track of where the truth ended and the act began.

When did she start needing the escape?

When did she start enjoying it?

She frowned then, once more pushing that trail of thought to the side. She would have to confront it eventually, but not now. She'd deal with it when it all blew up in her face.

The sun seemed to beat brighter in her frustration, as if it were playing her own game, pressing and pressing and pressing to see how far she could go. Marion glared at the thing a moment before the sting shot through her eyes. She flung an arm over her face, some semblance of a respite, and fumbled the other around for the next page of her script. She was expecting the sharp rustle of paper to follow. She was not expecting words or even speech, let alone the voice of a stranger.

Yet here a stranger was, wholly unexpected and reminding Marion again that Riverfall was not made to accommodate her kind. Sunberth had spoiled her. She'd come to expect a baseline of fear from the majority of the population, the kind of trepidation that stems from knowing any one moment could go horribly wrong. And, as a consequence, she had gotten used to being able to sense when someone was about to encroach on a sequestered place.

Here, however, all she could smell were trees and saltwater.

Marion lifted her elbow from her eyes, tilting her head to squint at the fellow. A sun-blind spot still mottled her vision, but she could tell he was lean and clean. Something about him struck her as decidedly feline, even from this distance and angle. Perhaps it was his groomed mustache, curling upward like a self-satisfied grin. Perhaps it was the subtle coy glint in his eye, the kind Marion was used to wearing herself, the kind that distracted onlookers from some sly intent.

Whatever it was it drew Marion like a flame, and she always had a penchant for playing with fire. But this was her game. Her rules.

"Does it matter?" She propped herself up on her arm, brushing grass from her hair with her free hand. She paused, baiting the stranger, gauging his reaction and body language with a look that she hoped seemed more coquettish than analytic.

"I am an actress," she admitted after a moment, adopting a lopsided grin to mask her distaste at the word. Actress. It still made her grimace, despite all the days she'd had to get used to it. Marion the actress, Marion the liar, it was a persona she'd adopted too easily. With a sigh, she leaned forward, gathering her papers just before a stiff but balmy breeze threatened to scatter them. "But this rehearsal's not going anywhere." She shook a particularly evasive page in his general direction as if to emphasize her point.

"And you? Do you have business here," she quirked an inquisitive eyebrow, the ghost of a smirk dancing on her lips, "or are you just some mysterious rogue sent to rescue me from bad scripting?"

[Achenar]

His lips twitched in a wry smile.

The young woman blinded herself by the sun. How positively defiant. He would have laughed, but such a thing would have spoiled the moment. Instead, he eyed her, just as she eyed him. His sky blue gaze lingered over her blonde hair, smooth, pale flesh and sleek form. As she was, there was nothing remotely intimidating or dangerous to her. Nothing but the glint in her eyes that promised something more. But what that was, the ethaefal could only speculate.

He leaned easily against the rough surface of the bark, his arms folded. “It matters to the curious,” the ethaefal told her.

His lips easily twisted into a crooked smile at her answer. An actress. He could have claimed he’d met many actors and actresses in his day, all under the guise of a dynasty. His eyes flickered toward the papers she gathered, then back at her inquisitive look.

“Does it look as if I fit in here?” He answered with an undercurrent of amusement. With tanned flesh branded with ink and scars, he doubted anyone would be hard pressed to consider him anything other than a Svefra vagrant or a wily mercenary. In truth, the ethaefal was unfamiliar with physical combat, which meant he needed a façade of self-assurance to deter anyone else.

But the façade of the false warrior was not present here. Instead, he guarded against an actress, who seemed to be disgruntled by what he assumed to be the papers held in in her hand.

“That bad, is it?” Maddoch’s tone was apologetic, but he hardly felt it. He stepped two paces towards her and crouched in fluid gesture. He was within reach to grasp the papers, but refrained from doing so.

“I came to this city with no business,” he told her, a wide smile on his face. “But I found that frees me to make anything my business.” He extended a hand for a shake. “My name is Maddoch.”

[Marion Kay]

Marion was struck by the distinct feeling that he was goading her on. It was a peculiar talent, to speak and say nothing, and one that she often liked to think she utilized well. But to have it turned on her? It left a strange and sour taste on her tongue. Did she enjoy it? No, not particularly. But neither did she dislike it. In a way it was refreshing, a change of pace, a drop of something new and invigorating in the stagnant pool that was this Rivarian chapter of her life. But in another way, it set her on edge.

He danced around her questions with his own like a distraction, an insidious challenge to her wit. Did he look as if he fit in here? No. But did she? ... Well, perhaps. But appearances were certainly deceiving -- Marion, of all people, understood that -- and she was not so sure that he was all he seemed to be either. What did he hide, beneath those tattoos and twisted grins? Maybe he was just a sailor. Or maybe that was just what he wanted everyone to see.

"That so?" she returned his greeting with a cheeky quirk of her brow. Rather than extending her own hand, she slapped a page of the script into his palm. A name, an exchange started, a bridge built. It would be left hanging. She wouldn't give him hers. Even to a girl who could have as many faces and names as she so pleased, there was an inane power in dangling the information just out of someone's reach. A sense of static clung to the air, crackling with energy. Oh, she did love games.

But they couldn't last forever when there was business to attend, and this "Maddoch" (No last name? she noted almost belatedly, and wondered if he either didn't have one or simply refrained from giving it -- or if he provided an alias of some kind) apparently felt adequately suited to any business he saw fit. Or so he'd said. "It certainly is that bad," she affirmed in a low voice, eyes widening and chin tilting downward in a sarcastic display of mock horror and dramatism.

"I mean, look at this." She leaned forward, rolling onto her knees and closing the gap he'd left between them. She with a huff, she slid an index finger along the paper to the lines she'd recited only moments ago. "'Our love did wither?' 'And I the same?' Who talks like that?"

Marion scoffed, passing a hand over her brow to wipe away the frustration and perspiration that lingered there. Some part of her was quietly grateful for the chance to at least partially vent her frustrations to another person. But even so, she wouldn't bring herself to air all that troubled her, especially not to a stranger, not when she had a painful enough time admitting it to herself. There was a constant push and pull in her mind: Put on a good show. This is child's play. It's a healthy escape. How dare you try to forget.

"Or maybe it's the delivery, I don't know." She twitched her lips in what was meant to be a rueful grin but ended up as a grimace. Her next words help alleviate the bitterness, however. "Either way, I'm assuming you won't be much help." A gentle prod at his pride, something he would be free to parry back at her if he so wished, unless it was too obvious. "You dance nicely around the topic --" He had answered her questions, after all, and she couldn't complain about that, but he'd given her nothing to indicate his intent here. Effectively, the only thing she truly knew about the man was his name, or, at the very least, something to call him by. "-- but I gather you don't have much experience in," she tossed a gesture across the field-stage with a roll of her eyes, "theater."

[Achenar]

It wasn’t lost on him that the woman purposefully deflected her own introduction. He couldn’t say he’d ever met an actress or performer before, and was unsure if that was a part of some unspoken protocol, or she simply considered herself above such things. She could have realistically leaned toward the latter, but who could guess with a professional liar? He shrugged it off easily and glanced at the script in his hand.

“Hopeless romantics eat that drivel up, from what I understand,” Maddoch laughed. In some ways, he would have as well, had he not been molded and warped into a false persona that sought to stamp out any trace of caring. He couldn’t afford to care, not when the world was out to petch you over.

There was a pause, and Maddoch’s gaze lifted, watching her wipe the sweat from her brow.

For all his effort in garnering information, all he could deduce from her was that she was an actress, and she very well could have been lying, but the script was evidence. Whatever else he could wring from their exchange was that she seemed disgruntled by her work, which amused him. But most curious of all, was that she did not give her name.

Everybody lies.

The ethaefal’s head tilted slightly when she spoke, noting the shadow of a grimace. “No,” he answered with little resistance. “I probably wouldn’t be.” And then he laughed. “You didn’t give me a name, I’d call that dancing around a greeting,” his grin was wide, and through a natural compulsion, he gathered her papers for her in a neat pile.

The cogs in his head turned, as he sought a way to utilize this exchange to benefit himself. She was cryptic, purposefully as enigmatic as he was, and to be fair, that intrigued him. But what he sought most were her talents. He wanted to learn.

“It’s true, however, I’m as useful as a two-copper whore in acting,” He made a dramatic gesture toward the stage. “But I could rescue you from that script; teach me how to act. I’ve an interest, and you’ve the talent…. Unless I’m mistaken?” His dark smile was inviting a lash.

[Marion Kay]

This was dangerous. Marion's instincts may have been dampened to the sensation, dampened to the fear of risk, but she recognized it abstractly in his laugh and the glint of those too-blue eyes. Perhaps that was what had tipped Hirem off to her deeper intentions all those days ago, the inexplicable sense that something was not quite right about the situation. It was a mystery she'd turned over and over in her mind, and the only answer she'd found was that she wasn't a good enough liar to pull the wool over the eyes of intuition. Perhaps Maddoch wasn't either.

But the questions still remained: Who was he, and what was he doing here? He laughed again, snapping her out of some short and narrow-eyed reverie. Marion mirrored his grin out of reflex, noting the effort at organization with a half-grateful nod. Some petty part of her was peeved, that he would assume she wanted the papers stacked, that she was so willing to have what small and temporary modicums of chaos she could impart in her life erased. She bit back the indignation that rose in her throat, instead masking it with an amused smile that she forced to reach her eyes. When she did that, even she could imagine it was real.

"We're both dancers then," she resolved. It was only to be expected. Her avoidance was perhaps more blasé than his own, but just as stymieing. "Does that make this a waltz?" And Marion, finding herself legitimately funny, gave a genuine, if curt, laugh.

As useful as a two-copper whore. His choice of words were certainly interesting, and she found herself wondering, only for a tick, what had compelled him to use them. It was almost a Sunberthian crudeness, though not nearly vulgar enough. Even so, if she were a proper lady she might've taken offense, and as it were, she wasn't wholly certain that she shouldn't at least pretend she had. But she kept her expression carefully left of neutral, amusement toying with the corners of her mouth.

His request was a simple one, and for a moment Marion had to question whether her suspicions and gamely prodding were for naught. This man could simply be some aspiring actor who thought himself more charming or clever than he actually was. But... no. That smile was too dangerous. There was something deeper at work in his mind, and while he request may be only exactly as it seemed, there were darker machinations at work. Or so Marion speculated.

"Maybe you have an interest, but I wouldn't call what I've got 'talent'," she quipped in a way that wasn't self-deprecating but strikingly honest. It surprised her, and she stood then, rolling onto her heels and pushing herself to bare feet. "I may be an actress, but it wasn't my acting that got me hired." Her voice came loftily as if the words were a riddle, punctuated with crossed arms and a raised brow that hinted towards provocation. "Either way, I think people overestimate how difficult acting is. It's all just an..." she paused, trying and failing to keep the word from feeling dirty on her tongue "... illusion. Acting is just lying -- sometimes dramatically, sometimes not so." She fixed him with a narrow-eyed and searching look, probing the mystery that was the stranger Maddoch. "I'll wager you've acted plenty."

She didn't let the words linger, waving a dismissive hand as if the air was suddenly too heavy. "In any case, what exactly are you interested in? Scripted or improv?" She pointed to where her papers lay with a frown that likely betrayed which of the two she preferred, "Dramatic or not-so?"

[Achenar]

He never realized how exhausting it could be interacting with such an enigmatic person. It suddenly reminded him of Zaelsen Radacke, and the way his aura crushed the will and energy of his disposable peons. It was clear, however, that she was no Radacke, but he idly wondered if anyone could have had the propensity to reach such a level.

Though essentially unreadable, he was grateful that she was not another simpering woman seeking the protection of the grossly massive blue-skinned giants that inhabited the city. Or perhaps she was. He couldn’t rightly guess with the way she kept her distance and deigned to answer in any way that could define her. In a grudging admittance, he understood he was playing the same game, even if his endeavors were amateurish at best.

By her laugh, he assumed her comment was meant to be taken as a jest. It was lost on the Ethaefal, and he eyed her with a bemused look as she continued with her quip. The mention of being hired for reasons other than acting made him smirk in amusement; lecherous thoughts not far from his mind.

“I could say I’ve lied plenty of times in my life,” he admitted, shrugging, “But to convince others that I’m something I’m not, well, I can see many uses for that.” Many of which would be considered the trades of deceit. Something he’s yet to learn.

“Not that I’m a very good liar,” Maddoch continued with a laugh, rising to his feet, kicking a stray pebble down the steps of the terrace. “I get by with half-truths.” He glanced at the script he’d unceremoniously stacked for her, noting the look of disdain. He would have almost said scripted, just incite a reaction, but even the prospect of that bored him.

“Improv,” He answered. Though he wasn’t familiar with the term. “Is that short for something?” He mused over the options she gave. The word almost made him laugh. He tugged lightly on the edge of his curled mustache. “If I wanted to pretend I was a despondent mummer looking for his next meal, I wouldn’t want to be so dramatic, would I?”

[Marion Kay]

It was curious to see what held this man's amusement, she noted, when her true jesting hardly stirred more than a blink while the vague details of her employment brought a crooked and shaded grin to his face. She couldn't decide if he felt he could speculate what she meant or if he simply understood that there was something deeper at play and didn't want to seem unaware. Whatever the case, she derived some sense of accomplishment in knowing that his musings were far from reality -- if they weren't, this conversation would've likely taken a much different turn. A man who wanted to convince others he was something other than what he was wouldn't keep his interest solely on acting if he knew there were other talents to be had.

Would he?

This interaction was quickly growing twisted in her own head, knotting back in upon itself in odd loops that she felt tangling in the most frustrating way. They were two liars. Marion had yet to directly admit to being such, but acting, as she had just explained, was lying, and she was an actress. And he, by his own words, had lied plenty. And if this was a liar's game, who was to say the man wasn't lying right now?

But that thought was too much of a strain for a warm Spring afternoon, and she set it aside. Later, if her suspicions were proven correct, she could collect on some small victory in knowing she wasn't wholly blindsided.

Even so, she couldn't help one jab, one small prod, to let him on to her suspicions. "Of course, a good liar does well to let others believe he's not a good liar," she pointed out with a cock of her brow and turn of her lips that suggested she was, perhaps, only teasing in her misgiving.

But he was right in one thing, that he could save her from the gods-awful script she'd discarded at her feet. Later that night she would have to notate it, take notes on what exactly she felt should be altered or cut in order to present it to the rest of the troupe in a way that would prevent them from disregarding her complaints, but she could do that when she was alone in the candlelight of her Kulkukan room. It was easier for her to concentrate on such things at night, she had discovered, when the city was asleep and she could pretend to be the only person left in existence.

"Improv," she repeated, turning the word around on her tongue herself. She had only heard the word during rehearsals at the theater here, and therefore only understood it in the context the Rivarians had used it. She knew, on some base level, that it was an abbreviation, though she'd never had cause to wonder of what. Then again, it only made sense -- their improv practices were largely ad libbed, made up on the spot, and therefore... "Improvised," she expanded, adopting a marginally sardonic tone, as if it were ridiculous that he couldn't have pieced it together himself when it only took her the past couple ticks to do so.

With a one-shouldered shrug, she turned away from him and took a few paces along the terrace, raising her hands to work at the knotted bun that held her hair. She couldn't rightly recall what a mummer was, but she did recognize the word vaguely from her childhood of ducking and dodging around Alvadan street performers. "I haven't the slightest," she hummed in a lofty tone that implied that she couldn't be bothered to answer, though she identified that the question was largely rhetorical. "But I can tell you that subtle acting is certainly more fun." There was an implication somewhere in her words, but she kept herself from considering it too closely, instead turning to attention fully to the task at hand.

Teaching was something foreign to Marion. She knew how to show but she had never shown how. Her idea of it chiefly stemmed from her experience learning, which revolved around her father's efforts to throw her headfirst into the thick of things. But that approach could only work for so many things. How had she learned to act? Her fingers continued to work at her hair, slowly and methodically, while her teeth worried her bottom lip in thought. Through necessity, the thought dawned. She had learned to act -- act invisible, act important, act menacing, act frightened, act -- because she needed to, because certain situations called for certain behavior that she was not prepared to assume in her natural state of being. How was she supposed to recreate that?

"How would you feel," she began slowly, rolling the syllables over her tongue, "about taking a field trip?" Blonde hair fell about her shoulders then, fingers having worked it free, and she brushed her hands through it as she spun to face him once more. A wry grin snaked its way across her features. "Have you heard of the Rat Hole? It's a lovely little place. I imagine it wouldn't take too much effort for you to fit in there." The image of the place came to mind, with its sagging stone walls and host of vulture-men with dangerous eyes that scouted about for any excuse to break the uneasy peace of the place. Yes, she could see Maddoch settling in there just fine, with his crooked demeanor and almost eager willingness to play her game. But she didn't want him to fit in. "So I want to see you try to stand out."