Cue Some Timeless Theatrics

[mosthonest]

There's a strange breeze in the plaza. That's not that weird, there always seem to be odd air currents rippling through it, but this one feels warm and Mediterranean--smells like hot sand and heady spices. And if you listened hard enough you might be able to hear the sea birds and polyglot babble it carries in from the jostling marketplace in Cyprus.

It seems to wrap around Iago, sitting at a table on which there are a few empty cups. From all outward appearances, he's no one exceptional. A seasoned, weary soldier on his off time. Simple well-worn tunic, rough hands, wide and honest face with a few scars. Simple, open smile. He gestures to the seats across from him. Classic Nexus set-up, just another soul looking to share a drink.

"I am often long away from my native land. And often do my thoughts linger on it, some parts of it I miss dearly as my heart would miss blood, as my body would miss breath." He's already offhandedly pouring wine into a cup for himself from a drawn leather sack, and now some for you.

"Knowest thou that feeling? Come, tell. I have learned the taste of wine is richer seasoned with tales of home."

[*waves* Old, old timey occasional player here. So glad to see these communities are still popping!]

Comments

[mosthonest]

"Good and gentle lady." Iago knows his manners. As an accessory to the nobility himself, it takes less than a second to appraise her station from her clothes and the way she carries herself, and he adjusts his manner accordingly. Though he can also tell, somehow, she is not exactly a noble lady of the fainting flower type. Perhaps she, like himself, is more than she appears. I am not what I am. High-born women always had secrets of some kind, in his experience. No matter, plenty of time. He may equally enjoy her company for the same reasons--someone who almost made sense in this mad place.

Though he does not get up, he makes a graceful inclination of his head, and wipes the rim of the cup he offers to her after pouring it, careful not to spill a drop.

"I am no enchanter I. This magic, if such it is, is in every wandering wastrel's pocket, like the dust and coins of foreign lands that fall into his hands by chance. But here's the trick of it." He winks and raises his cup to her.

"Hold the cup near your lips." He demonstrates. He holds it close enough to his face to breathe in the scent. It's good Cypriot wine. Not high class stuff, he's not a rich man. But it's dark and it warms the blood, and can taste like Venice if he imagines hard enough. He's being comically reverent with the cup, as if it were the holy sacrament itself.

"And pray tell me of that sky, that air. Pray tell me of the wine you know. Is't sweet? Dark like the sea, or pale as a fair lady's cheek? Did it most make you merry or mourn? In whose house did you taste it last? Did you share it with someone dear? Think well on it. Then drink."

[rogueinladysclothing]

It's unusual to have someone recognize her station without her mentioning it. Her eyebrows rise briefly as he nods to her, and she returns the gesture with a slight incline of her head. The man is even more curious than he was before, and it makes it easier for her to accept the drink without question. Where his words go after she takes it is less pleasant for her, but she can appreciate what someone as charismatic as she was at the height of her power on her world is attempting on her behalf.

Taking the offered glass, she turns it slowly between both hands as she thinks back to the last time she shared a drink with anyone on her world. Her last night with her family, she had refused a drink, as she always did when she intended to take up her blades and slingshot for work deep in the night. But it was something shared often in her home, and even without a single drop on her lips she would know the taste of it from the scent it left in the air. It doesn't make imagining it now easier, but at least she can use a recent memory than force herself to dig deeper to find one that truly fits Iago's ask.

"The sky was dark when I last saw it, filled with bright clouds lit by the waxing moon. Under it, I watched my family drink my share of the table wine, a deep red that left the tongue dry if one had too much. We laughed as we shared stories of our day, little tales I can barely recall now, save my father's insistence on an heir to my family's title. With his hopes for me dashed time and again, my youngest brother became his target. I did nothing to save him from the relentless ask or my mother's offers of matchmaking that night."

She laughs softly as she thinks on it a moment longer, then raises the glass to try a sip of the wine. As someone whose talents have always been in what she can do with her two hands rather than what her mind can plan, the memories do little to affect the wine. But she can imagine, if only for a few seconds, her family's laughter around her as she drinks. It stings more than it helps, but she'll avoid upsetting the stranger with that knowledge.

"It's closer than I thought it would be." That, at least, isn't a lie. The corner of Amelia's lips tug into a smirk as she tries another sip, then sets the glass aside. "A bit darker than I expected, but pleasant nonetheless. Thank you, this was an intriguing idea." And well worth the try.

[mosthonest]

As the woman holds the cup to her lips and drinks, Iago watches her carefully. He watches everyone carefully always behind his genial and kind eyes, but they linger especially for a moment on the dark ringlets of her hair and the angle of her cheek. But it's something about the way she talks about her cozy family and how she curves her fingers around the cup that strums a discordant note in his otherwise unflappable calm.

This little twang within him summons a ghost: a momentary vision of Emilia as she lay dying. Her mistress's head was cradled on her lap and she twined her fingers in Desdemona's dark hair as she wept. She died singing while her blood ran down his hands, weeping for Desdemona and burning with hatred for Iago. Willow, willow, willow; he did not know that tune. It occurs to him suddenly that he'd rarely heard Emilia sing in their many years together. Perhaps he hadn't provided her with enough occasions for song. And now quiet forever. He does not know if that thought is tinged with relief, guilt, satisfaction or some grisly combination of the three. She'd been a good woman, poor wretch.

As if his own body wants to rebuke him too, he feels a sudden smarting pain in his side where Iago was stabbed in turn. In the moment he'd received the wound, Iago had gasped. It felt like a sort of giddy throbbing that became a penetrating agony as the gruesome night wore on. Othello was gone, and Iago would not be long after but he would carry the general's last triumphant wound to the grave. Or had carried it to the grave already? What came after was still in fog. His memory of the whole affair, or at least how it all ended, has been hazy up till this moment.

But this horrific pageant lasts for only a flash, and manifests outwardly only as a momentary too-tight gripping of his own cup. He runs his finger down the length of it, wiping away a stray rivulet of red, before looking again at Amelia.

"Perhaps for some, it conjures more bitter than sweet." Including him. There wasn't much sugar in him, all truth told. He holds his glass up to her again, "To your fine kinsmen, lady, under their dark sky and clouded moon." He takes a deep drink and the lets the wine wine wash away the last of that unpleasant vision.

[[FYI your pup has a similar vibe and almost the same name as Iago's wife, who he killed in an impulsive rage, soooooooooo sorry if he gets a touch weird. He's a complicated dude.]]

[rogueinladysclothing]

It's impossible to miss the shift in Iago's body language. Did she unknowingly mention something that brings him pain? Bring up a similar memory that haunts him? It's easy for the rogue to assume the worst in any situation, and she struggles not to do so now. He didn't say anything aloud, and Amelia knows better than most that prying at wounds someone is ignoring can only make things worse. A frown tugs at her lips briefly as he drinks, though she's schooled her expression into something more neutral when he sets his glass down again. It seems best to simply let it be than to mention it.

"They would appreciate the toast, were I able to pass it to them." A truth, if a slightly unpleasant one. Amelia's determined not to linger on the subject, though, and after a sip of wine she manages a pleasant smile for the man sitting across from her. "They might wonder at how I found myself at a table drinking wine with a complete stranger, though. I usually refuse to sit alone with anyone over a drink, even if I know my companion's name." Winking across the table, she helps helps herself to one more sip of wine before setting her glass aside. "Let's correct this error in manners? My name is Amelia, and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."


((Oh my. O.O Thanks for the heads up! Much appreciated as Amelia walks on eggshells a bit. She's going to try her best not to cause any further upset. >>;; ))