fandomhigh | Is Love a Tender Thing?, Tuesday

This was, quite possibly even more entertaining than Dojima ever thought teaching was going to be.

"Ohaiyo!" she sang as the students arrived. "Today we're going to give you some practical exercises in how dating - or wooing - can go very very wrong, Fandom-style."

Romeo shot her a swift, amused smile. "For example," he said, "the gremlins. I've heard tell of brilliant nights, burned to ashes because something with fangs decided to make a plaything of half of a pair -- or of both halves."

"Fandom Lesson Number One," Dojima put in impishly. "Video of the aftermath of a gremlin encounter is worth a LOT on the open market."

"However, taking video of your would-be-beloved in such a state is a good way to guarantee there will be no second date."

"Though after a fourth or fifth date, perhaps, a little blackmail may be overlooked in a loving relationship," Romeo put on. "But to go to the larger point -- the amount of time people here spend out of their mind or not in the right body can strain any relationship."

"Even if that relationship is just one of friendship - But! - friendship is not what you're in this class for. So! We've come up with a few scenarios for you to work with," she supplied cheerfully. "First dates gone so, so, so very wrong. Because around here? It's bound to happen."

"First you cry, then you laugh, then you move on," Romeo said solemnly. "And today … today is for practice. Your pairs are Lucrezia and Frank; Rapunzel and Sholeh; Thomasina and Atton; and George and Shira. And, as we've an odd number, Stacey, Hanna and Sparkle will all work together."

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Who are far too amused by this, and still in need of a TA!

Romeo watched the students roleplay, grateful the situations weren't drawn from real life.

Lucrezia approached the young man hesitantly, then dropped a quite elegant bow.

"Might I be so bold as to ask you a question, my lord?" she asked.

He had not said he was nobility; better to assume so and be corrected than to mistakenly insult those who were.

"You seem to be bold enough to already ask one, my lady," Romeo said. He was never one to turn down a title, even if it wasn't -- precisely -- his by rights. "But aye, you may ask another. Do you find the class to your liking?"

His speech may have gotten a bit extra-flowery, to match Lucrezia's dress. he so rarely got to trot out the Verona.

She laughed, for she had quite missed the art of verbal sparring. Not sparring: that was too violent a word. It was more a game. She and Bruce had toyed with words thus, and Dany, but both had left the island this fair summer.

"Perhaps I should have asked atonement as well as permission, then," she said. "You are clever indeed to see through my ruse. I am quite enjoying class, my lord. I am curious what topics we may be discussing in the future. Though merely expressing one's curiosity is part of furthering the conversation, and as such I do not consider my permitted question to have been used."

Edited 2012-05-15 21:39 (UTC)

It was a game, wasn't it? A game, and a dance, and a way of cutting your sparring partner sure as any blade. Dojima was adept enough in her own way, but nothing surpassed the people of Verona. Though this Borgia girl held some promise.

"I shall tuck the question you have left to one side, that you may claim it as you wish," he said. "But, in faith, our plans are loose. We will speak of poetry, I know, and of tragedy; the rest of it we'll take on as we go. Have you something you'd hoped to discuss?"

One could accomplish so very much with conversation. A veiled threat, or a promising note dropped to the properly receptive ear. Alliances made or broken.

Even better to eavesdrop, with an innocent air, and glean as much from conversation as possible.

"And now you would have me place requests," she said, keeping her tone light. "That would leave me heavily in your debt, my lord, if we add those to the question and my presumption before. But I fear my topics may not be of common interest." She had to, for this, reveal at least one of her cards, and she would do so quite carefully. "Marriage, for example. Of the variety where one does not choose one's mate."

"It is true," Romeo allowed, stiffening a bit. "It's -- so rare to this world as to be hardly worth mentioning, but that does not make it the same in every world. I'll match your suggestion with a question: Are you from a place where marriage for love is still all but undreamt of?"

If things hadn't gone so horribly, utterly wrong years before, Romeo would have said the same about his own world.

Lucrezia bit her lip. "It is not ... unheard of," she allowed. "The poor are free to love, though one can scarce envy the poor. Even the powerful may. My brother loved a woman, and liberated her; he would have married her, had circumstances not intervened.

Ursula Bonadeo had joined a nunnery, aghast at what he had done. But she had begged Cesare Borgia to liberate her from a cruel, abusive husband; what had the dear woman expected to happen?

"But to a well-connected man, a daughter is something to be bartered, and sold where it will best increase his alliances. She will not marry for love."

"Ah," Romeo said, and thought, and decided he was still Romeo, even if he was wearing Professor Montague's motley. "'Tis much the same where I'm from, I fear. It has been changing, but that took a dead girl. I'd not wish you the same."

He had answered her question before she had asked; she had suspected that their worlds were similar. A certain manner in his air, how he presented himself, though his clothing was decidedly modern. She suspected she would still be Lucrezia Borgia even in modern garb.

"Nor would I," she agreed softly. "Then how does one ... create love, in such a situation? One's spouse may prove intractable, ill-tempered, or a brute. Love, even simple kindness may prove impossible to discover within the confines of one's marriage. And so one finds one's self ... without."

It was the carefullest of hints. If he expressed shock -- he, too, wore the necklace of the Holy Mother Church, and adultery was a grievous sin -- then she could claim he misunderstood her.

Edited 2012-05-17 07:51 (UTC)

Romeo raised his eyebrows, bit at his lower lip. "I suppose one might learn to live without love, though it may seem as foolish as loving without air," he said. "Though ... people do sometimes run away, or make for themselves other escapes."

Oh, these were all totally drawn from real life! Or at least inspired by old radio broadcasts. One of the two.

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