Orlando
- Masterful Virgin -
If this is love, there is something highly ridiculous about it.
Posts: 17
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Post by Orlando on Feb 23, 2009 10:44:30 GMT -5
Paris, Orlando thought to herself, was another world entirely. There was the language, of course (which she spoke passably but with an obvious accent). But aside from the obvious, the streets smelled differently, the trees along the Champs Elysees seemed to catch the light in a new way, and the babble of half-understood voices fell on her ears like music. She was certain she'd miss home after a time, but for now, France was a new adventure. The new poets spoke of it so highly, as well, and she was convinced they were on to something.
She was dressed as befit an English lady, but all around her swirled the bohemian variety of Gay Paree, attention to such things being far less here than in Victorian England, and she felt her spirit lifting from the rather grey cloud that had shrouded it for some time. She found her thoughts drifting back to the trunk in her rooms, and the variety of costume she'd seen fit to pack, despite her conscious mind admonishing her very strictly for her inattention to propriety in doing so. And everyone around her was fascinating and unique. She thought she might spent another hundred years just studying the streets of Paris.
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Post by Rosalind on Mar 23, 2009 13:44:24 GMT -5
((I know this was meant for Hamlet, but I realized that Rosalind needed to meet her and would probably be easier to write for and so I am going to use this thread to have them meet. Also. Shortest post ever. And she is in boywear but her hat has fallen off.))
Rosalind, as was her wont, was darting through the crowd very quickly in an attempt to catch a dashing tortoiseshell that had gained her attention. Happy-making cats, however, were not always in the mood to be wooed by the sweet words even the most hopeful girl could offer, and so Rosalind had given chase. Naturally, the cat was winning - what else? It had been a swift little monster and had the added advantage of moving through people's ankles, where Rosalind could only shove at their shoulders. The thing was rigged from the start. It did not stop Rosalind from having a grand ole breathless time of it, at least until the toe of her boot caught on a particularly crotchety section of sidewalk and she was pitched forward very dramatically, only the sudden voluminousness of a nearby lady's skirts saving her fall as, no matter where her legs landed, or how painfully, she fell against someone's knees.
"Oof!" she exclaimed, pulling back achingly from a pouf of fabric that had covered her face. She looked moderately mortified about something or other - or maybe that shade of pink was, more accurately, simply embarrassed.
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Orlando
- Masterful Virgin -
If this is love, there is something highly ridiculous about it.
Posts: 17
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Post by Orlando on Mar 23, 2009 13:55:49 GMT -5
Orlando had not been expecting quite so much bohemian flavor on her first walk through Paris. She would learn better, and quickly, of course, but while her expression as she gazed down at the... person... currently sharing her skirts was certainly surprised, it lacked censure.
With her hat on, perhaps Orlando might have taken Rosalind for a boy at first. But what she saw was too close to something she'd long become familiar with in the mirror; a ginger-topped, long-legged figure with a face that was both attractive and somehow ambiguous. So her initial reaction was not to give the person a gender at all, and while that caused some consternation to her subconscious she was not all that aware of it.
"Pardon me," she said in French, for while she was not the cause of the accident it behooved a lady to apologize for nearly everything she did or was done to her, and it was habit by this point. If Rosalind was paying close attention--debatable, certainly, under the circumstances--she might note that while Orlando gave every outward sign of being what she was--that is to say, a lady and a woman--there was something a little too free in her manner, in her gestures. Something too strong about her wrists, and too direct in her gaze.
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Post by Rosalind on Mar 23, 2009 14:01:21 GMT -5
Rosalind pushed herself up on her elbows and winced, knowing dimly in the back of her mind that she ought to push herself up, but also knowing less-than-dimly in the tendons of her kneecaps that she ought to stay on the ground for a few more seconds. While normally a perceptive person, Rosalind was prone to moments of extreme self-consciousness and also tended to miss obvious cues at times, and it only occurred to her that the lady upon whose skirts she'd fallen was being extremely good-natured about the whole thing.
"Why?" asked Rosalind, in slight confusion - also accustomed to being the lady, who must apologize, in addition to having genuinely been the one at fault for this strange and uncomfortable (though that was more due to the cement than the lady) meeting. It then occurred to her that this seemed a very rude denial of the woman's apolog, and she flushed anew.
((I love Orlando. I am being reminded.))
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Orlando
- Masterful Virgin -
If this is love, there is something highly ridiculous about it.
Posts: 17
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Post by Orlando on Mar 23, 2009 14:34:27 GMT -5
When she spoke--for her voice, and her blush, did solidify in Orlando's mind the sex of the person she was dealing with--Orlando smiled slightly, as if amused at herself as well as the situation.
"I don't know," she confessed, "but it seems at the very least I ought to help you up."
She extended a hand, though it was slightly awkward considering the person was still pinning her skirts to the sidewalk. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that this sort of thing never happened in trousers, but then again many things that happened in trousers never showed themselves in skirts.
((I hope I do her justice. I skimmed it quickly one day a few weeks ago, so I'm both hopeful and intimidated.))
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Post by Rosalind on Mar 23, 2009 16:38:01 GMT -5
Rosalind would not have been conscious enough about what it was she liked about the other person to think so, but had she been, she would have found the disarming confession refreshing. Instead she seemed merely to remain moderately bewildered by the question that had come up between them, and instead of dwelling on it allowed herself to be helped up, stumbling slightly as she got off the lady's heavy skirts. Since donning trousers, she had not been made so very aware of the fundamentals of a dress, and as she released the woman and rubbed at her own sore elbows in an awkward, boyish way - feeling oddly as though her sleeves and the legs of her pants were too short, or something like that, that too much wrist was revealed - which was odd, as in a dress much more of the arm would show anyway - she felt acutely aware of how unusually alien the garment seemed to her. It was one thing she pictured even a real boy wouldn't feel, as she fancied Mercutio did not even pause to consider whether or not a dress was similar or different to him in any fashion.
"Well," Rosalind began after a moment, toeing the ground unconsciously as she kicked her leg back and forth. "I'm - that is - " She was going to say sorry, but fumbled for the words, and, perhaps because it was the only other familiar thing that came to her after that sentence, said instead - "Rosalind."
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Orlando
- Masterful Virgin -
If this is love, there is something highly ridiculous about it.
Posts: 17
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Post by Orlando on Mar 23, 2009 17:13:56 GMT -5
Orlando had been expecting an apology, as well, especially following the awkwardness that reminded her, too vividly, of certain episodes in her past. But some of those episodes were so long past they hardly felt like hers, anymore. There was something slightly disconcerting about standing here, on a public thoroughfare in broad daylight, with a girl in trousers. As if by looking at them people would know that Orlando had done the same--had, at one time, been often in the habit of it--and dismiss her because of it.
But while Orlando often felt, and succumbed to, the pressures of her sex she rarely let them influence her impulses. Her conformity, such as it was, built over time, like the tide. "Rosalind," she repeated, and she said it as a poet might, tasting every syllable for it was, indeed, a pretty name that spoke of gardens gone wild, once tended by the hands of men (or women) and the more lovely for having been left to their own devices.
"I'm Orlando," she said.
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Post by Rosalind on Mar 24, 2009 15:18:28 GMT -5
Rosalind did not even realizing she was doing what Orlando had done when she, too, repeated Orlando's name. She said it, however, with a decided amount of awe as she uttered each syllable.
"It is a strange thing to find someone of that name here," Rosalind confessed, both because Orlando seemed an open person one could confess to, and because she was hardly paying attention to what one could and could not do in the middle of the street after meeting someone. She had opened up the issue of her confused sex with a mostly-girl named Alex at the Opera House, that was true; but she had not quite touched upon the way that confusion had left her with a possibly-broken heart, and so she felt a little light-headed at this strangeness. "You see, I come recently from the fantastic forests of Arden to more or less escape an Orlando. Although I have not escaped him, I suppose it would be accurate to say..."
There was a very distinctly vague quality to her voice, and perhaps a bit of fear in her eyes, although the awe far drowned it. The possibility of opening herself to whatever she was feeling was always strong with her, and Rosalind had been doing a good job of ignoring Orlando altogether up until this point.
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Orlando
- Masterful Virgin -
If this is love, there is something highly ridiculous about it.
Posts: 17
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Post by Orlando on Mar 24, 2009 16:24:00 GMT -5
Orlando watched this with some interest, though the planes of her face were apt to make her interest look somewhat distant. Part of that was probably the centuries she'd already lived--but no one living knew that, of course. The girl's reaction was both inexplicable and intriguing, and Orlando's poetic soul was stirred by her obvious internal distress. And the openness of Rosalind's manner worked upon her in a similar way.
"I am a stranger here, too," she confessed. "But, Miss Rosalind, you are not well. Allow me to find a bench, until you are feeling better again..."
In this there may have been some previously-habitual note of chivalry at work within her, for such impulses, trained in one sex and not the other, were not necessarily native to just the one.
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Post by Rosalind on Mar 24, 2009 16:33:30 GMT -5
While in a dress, Rosalind would have automatically have associated this behavior with chivalry; however, in trousers, it seemed more ambiguous, more like simple compassion, and perhaps something she might have done. And the pitch of Orlando's voice, and the angles of her face, which possessed a classical androgyny, similarly seemed soothing, as familiarity is often bound to. That the similarity here was to the mythologized version of herself - Rosalind versus Ganymede, that epic mystery, which was really quite a bit more innocent and young and less serious than the androgyny of the older and more solemn-seeming Orlando - would not have occurred to her, as she was not really aware of anything. She was not, however, uncomfortable; she surely would have noticed if she was, but comfort was especially comforting in that one's mind was not on it.
"It's just Rosalind," said she, bending to swipe up her cap, which she twisted in her hands. Her knees, she realized belatedly, still ached from their unpleasant contact with the Parisian sidewalk. Thoughtlessly her hand fell upon Orlando's arm for the support. Comforting, too, was this compassion and sensitivity towards others. It was an element of her own personality that had not had much chance to develop in Paris, as it was not one she shared with the two friends she had most happily made, neither very thoughtful at all.
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Orlando
- Masterful Virgin -
If this is love, there is something highly ridiculous about it.
Posts: 17
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Post by Orlando on Mar 24, 2009 16:55:44 GMT -5
((Poor dear Alex and Mercutio. They really aren't, are they?
...and what is with us and redheads?))
Something about the girl touched Orlando, and she thought about that as she guided her over to a nearby bench, navigating the indifferent crowd with as little thought as Rosalind was currently giving her. Rosalind, perhaps, represented both herself on her sometime jaunts about London in decades past, meeting and delighting strange ladies (and women who were not) with her trousered antics, and simultaneously the ladies she'd met, in her youth and freshness.
How odd, she thought, that such a thought would even occur to me.
She sat Rosalind down on the bench, and took the seat next to her, her knees turned towards her at an angle and distance of concern and interest and not so far as possession or other intent. "There, just Rosalind," she said, her voice faintly amused but not really as the girl's expense--she'd said much the same thing, to others. Orlando was quite enough name by itself. "You had something of a spill."
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Post by Rosalind on Mar 25, 2009 10:15:29 GMT -5
((Hm. I only play five - Valentine (family resemblence, doncha know), Rosalind (of course), Aubrey Beardsley (auburn-haired historical figure), Loki (personification of flames and change) and Carmilla. So maybe, what is it with sexual ambiguity and red hair?))
Rosalind spared a moment to look around the square. It was a nice and sort of sleepy place, and there was a lovely tree surrounded by small but pretty flowers growing on the corner. Far from being a pastoral Eden, as Arden had been, and Rosalind still missed it; but the bench was wooden and curved in a pleasantly classical fashion and for a moment Rosalind could pretend like no one else was here - herself included, for that matter - and feel as though she were away from her body and floating in the clean sunshine and look at the veins on the flower petals. The pain in her kneecaps was vanishing swiftly enough. She found it the ache becoming dull, although were she to bend them again, doubtless that would change easily.
"Yes, you could say that," said Rosalind, almost cautiously, not realizing immediately what Orlando was referring to. It occurred to her after she said that that, of course, Orlando had no idea what Rosalind could mean, and had not at all meant her difficulties with the last Orlando. "Oh! Right. Yes. Well, one tends to fall down when one is moving swiftly. It is better to be thrown unceremoniously to the ground, though, than to be lifted into the air without one's consent. I shall not complain of it."
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Orlando
- Masterful Virgin -
If this is love, there is something highly ridiculous about it.
Posts: 17
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Post by Orlando on Mar 25, 2009 10:54:22 GMT -5
One tends to fall down when one is moving swiftly.
Indeed, Orlando mused. Though it seemed to her, looking back, that she'd had to fall first before recognizing the fluctuations in time; the patches of stillness only became obvious in the long view, and it only occurred to her later that there had been stretches where so little had changed and she hadn't been moving at all.
"Does that happen to you often?" Orlando asked with genuine curiosity, for it seemed both exciting and somewhat unpleasant, and she thought she ought to know as much about this new place as possible. Perhaps she'd just been through one of those long, still passages, and things had moved on apace around her. She had best be prepared for whatever was coming. There was a new reticence in the girl's manner; or rather, Orlando was now reading a reticence into her vagueness. Whether it was the similarity of name, or the unceremonious manner of their meeting, Orlando wasn't sure. And she wasn't sure how proper it was to meet people in such a fashion. She was fairly certain it would not do in London, but at the same time, it seemed entirely natural to her now.
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Post by Rosalind on Mar 26, 2009 7:59:23 GMT -5
Rosalind turned towards Orlando a little more, slightly, being brought back to the moment only to be pushed into ponderances of better days, or, at the very least, days that were filled with stranger and more hilarious things than falling harshly upon cement. She was unconsciously well-disposed to Orlando, which was not at all difficult for Rosalind to be, for she decided very quickly when she liked people and behaved as though she did. When those people did not rebuke her, however, Rosalind was in danger of taking things very much too far, capable of treating every new person like a very old friend under the right circumstances. Mostly, however, people did not reciprocate, and she was reminded of herself.
"It would seem to," said she in response, rather interested in this topic. "You see, while I am not so small a person - " referring to her height, now - "I would appear to be very light, and so I have a friend who appears to be more than capable of hoisting me over his shoulder like a very pretty and unhappy sack of potatoes. He is a stagehand at the opera. I suppose he should be able to pick things up, but he oughtn't practice on me."
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Orlando
- Masterful Virgin -
If this is love, there is something highly ridiculous about it.
Posts: 17
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Post by Orlando on Mar 26, 2009 11:23:16 GMT -5
Orlando's lips twitched in a smile she wasn't at all sure was becoming, given the circumstances, but since coming here she had felt much more free in her expressions than she had in England, and it was only second-guessing that held her back. The charming, childish way in which Rosalind related this story, as if it were both of great import and yet not so out of the ordinary, touched her. Thus far, the girl seemed a combination of free spiritedness and uncertainty, which was a potent formula for someone like Orlando. It made the girl wild and vulnerable at once, and to some degree Orlando was a different combination of those same elements.
"He seems rather forward," Orlando agreed. "I suppose you've told him you are not, in fact, a sack of potatoes."
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