Just as the two were about to leave the theatre after covering for the missing spot-boy, Alice came back running to stop them. “Hey! Wait… Please,” she yelled, running dramatically towards Keryth. The dark-haired elf froze in his position, wondering if she had changed her mind about giving them the reward. He did do his part well after all. He called out to Zyra and asked her to come back inside, which didn’t seem to sit well with Alice. “Why are you calling her back? I only need you,” she whispered to Keryth while the purple-haired elf was still out of earshot.

Keryth didn’t respond to that, but simply turned towards Alice and smiled before inquiring about why they were stopped. “My co-star is a wuss. He pulled out at the last moment and now I need someone else to fill the role,” she said animatedly. Her expression quickly changed back to the usual sweet and naughty one she has towards Keryth. “Would you like to be my Romeo?” she asked flirtatiously. Keryth gave a nervous chuckle. This was a tough decision to make. He would love to be on the spotlight, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to share that with Alice. It’s not like he had much of a choice. The last thing he wanted was to piss off the star in Marigold and have her fans hate him for it.

“Sure…” he said in a very unsure tone. The diva must have sensed his doubt and quickly reassured him. “Don’t worry! I know you are going to be great. Meet me backstage and I’ll prep you,” she said in a sing-song voice. “And you…” she would turn to Zyra with a vicious look, “Stay out of sight,” she emphasized again.

294/800

How desperate could that Alice woman be? Zyra fumed as she hollered, requesting them... no apparently only Keryth to wait. Nonetheless, her best friend echoed the request, and just because of him, the Elroth stopped midstep and swiftly turned on her heel. She stubbornly stood where she was though, even back in that stupid voice of hers. Zyra folded her hand, and turned, stubbornly standing exactly where she was. 'What?' she hissed, but the woman simply ignored her question and addressed Keryth instead, with all the heartbroken drama that she could muster, she shared with him how the lead actor had vanished. 'No surprise there woman, you seem to drive everyone off...' Zyra murmured to herself. She noticed she felt rather helpless and began inching towards the performer and her best friend after all.

Zyra's eyebrows shot up she couldn't believe Keryth was actually considering the work, with that witch of a woman. How could he go back to her after the way she had treated the duo. Zyra had to protest. 'Wait!' she said as her mind searched for some way to put a pin in this. She scurried closer to Torvan. 'Hang on! You don't even know the lines, or understand the part... Acting is more than just looking the role, you know!' she exclaimed as Keryth was being ushered towards the green rooms. Having spent most of their lives with the other elves, neither of them had any clue what playing Romeo would entail.

247/1000

The dark-haired elf let out a soft sigh once Alice had walked a fair distance away. He only agreed to playing the part because he thought it would be easy money. But when Zyra put what acting would entail into words, he wondered what part of it was going to be ‘easy’; especially if he had to do it with that woman. “Guess we’ll know today if I’m a natural or not,” he said. He knew he could just make a run for it if he wished. After all, they were out of Alice’s sight. But, somewhere deep, he had the desire to be on stage and captivate the audience. There was no passion for acting or performance within the elven boy. It was simply the thought of being a star and having fans worship him that drove him to walk towards the backstage.

“Come! Help me memorize the lines,” he said, calling out to Zyra as he made his way towards Alice’s changing room. Keryth knocked once he reached her door and enter when Alice announced the door was open. Blood rushed to his face as he opened the door and let himself in to witness Alice in her undergarments, trying to fit herself into a long dress. Keryth immediately looked away, but there was hardly anything else in the small changing room to pretend to look at. Seeing Zyra was right behind the dark-haired elf, Alice frowned at her and barked. “Be useful and help me put on the dress.” She then turned to Keryth and sweetly asked him to pick up the script lying on the table next to her. Thankful that he now had something else to look at without feeling awkward, he quickly picked up the script and began reading his part.

591/800

Zyra frowned unconvinced. She wasn't sure if her friend could pull this off on the fly. She was about to protest, but there was a slight yearning that she spotted on her friend's face. Despite her jealousy at the idea of Alice and Keryth sharing a stage, she couldn't bring herself to steal the hint of joy that glimmered in the dark-haired elf's expression. Softly she sighed, steeling herself for this ordeal. Perhaps he too, sensed her sadness, since he quickly provided her a part to play.

When the possibility to help him memorize his lines, was offered, she perked up a little bit. 'Oh... okay, sure!' she said excitedly, then coughed, as a reminder to herself that she was still supposed to be dissuading him from this, at least passively if not actively. 'Might as well right?' she said, trying to maintain her annoyance at this situation, but she probably failed miserably, given her desire to play Alice's part, even if it was only backstage.

With a gentle skip in her step, she followed him backstage, as he led them into the green room. She almost walked into him as he stopped in his tracks, she peered over his head and gasped audibly. Quickly, she held onto Keryth's shoulders, in an attempt to turn him away, as the woman made her demands. Luckily, she'd only aided him in moving towards the script. She then grunted and made her way to the actress. Huffily, she took not a moment to slander the woman. 'Maybe you should work on losing some weight, so you don't need help next time.' Her hands sharply pulled the strings of the corset, before working on the hook buttons of the dress swiftly.

534/1000

Keryth happily complied when Zyra attempted to turn him away from the actress. He buried his face behind the script but that view had short-circuited his brain; he could barely read. While Alice’s audacity was quite shocking and scary at first, curiosity took over once the situation sank in. As Zyra walked up to Alice to help her dress up, he peeked slightly over the pages he was holding and the actress caught him almost immediately. She gave him a naughty smirk and he quickly went back to hiding behind the pages.

After a heavy sigh, his eyes finally focused on the words. Having been born an elf and lived all his life in the outpost, Keryth had no clue what the famous play was all about. He had heard plenty of elven stories, but not many human ones. But after reading the script, he was sure he had heard something very similar among the elves before although he couldn’t remember the name clearly. Now, which story was inspired by which? No one knew and Keryth didn’t care. The fact that the story seemed familiar enough gave him confidence and he began reading his actions and lines carefully.

Meanwhile, it would seem the two girls got into a squabble. “At least no one will mistake me for a boy,” Alice hissed back, looking pointedly at Zyra’s chest. With that, she made the final adjustments to her costume and walked up to Keryth. “Now… Let’s rehearse once before we go on stage,” she began, pulling the papers out of his hand and replacing them with hers. But, before she could go any further, the door opened and a lady peeked in. “Alice… It’s the lights. You should come quickly,” the lady said. Alice made a disgruntled noise and left Keryth’s hands. “Keep reading the lines. I’ll be right back,” she said as she walked towards the door. “Take your time! I’ll rehearse with her meanwhile,” he said, pointing at Zyra, which did not sit well with the actress but she was in too much of a hurry to protest.

939/800

She'd definitely missed the glance the woman had shared with Keryth while she was busy stuffing her into the extremely well fitting dress. Had she noticed that her insults would have probably been even worse, but the woman had to resort to personal slanders too. When Zyra's certain underdeveloped parts were unceremoniously slipped into the conversation, to throw shade, her face reddened and her eyes were narrowed. Now, the Elroth was not going to hold back, but she didn't want to lose Keryth's respect either, nonetheless, she responded sharply. 'It is because I'm young and not an old hag like you! I'm still growing okay?'

Zyra quickly retorted, using some words to attempt deflating that ego the woman carried around, while a few more almost defensively. A helplessly unwilling and nervous glance was shot at Keryth. Zyra regretted making eye contact with him following her defense and let them quickly flit to Alice again. The woman gasped in shock, clearly not too used to such contempt from people around her. The star, just huffed at Zyra decidedly not gracing their argument anymore, instead, she pointedly turned to Keryth, almost as though she knew that it would annoy the elf, and it did. Luckily for Zyra, before interactions between Romeo and Juliet began, the actress was called away. Nervously, she picked up the script and the famous balcony scene commences. 'Ay me!' she started, awaiting Keryth's reading of the praise that would follow in Romeo's dialogues.

780/1000

Keryth was too busy reading the script that he missed the exact words the two ladies exchanged. But the expression on their faces was enough to decipher the conversation was nothing pleasant. When Zyra’s eyes met with Keryth’s, he was afraid he was expected to react to their squabble taking one or other’s side. However, luckily, that wasn’t the case. Alice quickly distanced herself from Zyra and walked towards him.

When Alice was requested outside and Keryth told her he would rehearse with Zyra, he noticed that the actress’ was particularly annoyed. He wondered if she saw this as him taking the elven princess’ side over hers. In fact, he didn’t mind even if she did; so long as she pays for the acting. Once Alice was out of the room, Zyra began the rehearsal. He had read through the script only twice, but he had already memorized all the cues and dialogues. The moment Zyra said ‘Ay me’, Keryth put away the script and began acting like he truly was Romeo.

“O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art...” he recited, with much passion and love his voice, like he was saying those words truly to Zyra. It would seem, Keryth was indeed a natural. As the rehearsal went on, it would only be more apparent how good he was at acting.

Fortunately, Alice was stuck fixing the lighting until it was show time and there was no time for the two to rehearse it one last time before going on stage. She seemed very worried, but had no other option but to trust Keryth. “Don’t worry! I got this,” he said, smiling at Alice and touching her upper arm gently before going to the other room to put on his costume. Before leaving, he turned to Zyra and smiled at her. “Thanks for helping me rehearse! I hope you’ll be on the first row cheering me on,” he said. Alice was never going to allow that; but thankfully, the lady who peeked in before was right there and she innocently agreed to escort Zyra to the front rows. Knowing it would be petty to deny the elven girl that much, Alice simply huffed and stomped away.

Keryth’s acting on the actual play would be tremendously better than the rehearsal. The costume, lighting, make-up, and the audience only made him involve himself further into the role he was acting. Once the play was over, the whole audience gave a standing ovation for the crew, mostly thanks to Keryth’s performance. While Alice was extremely annoyed the dark-haired elf was taking away her spotlight, she was always charmed by his talent. “You should make a career out of this. The both of us could become stars together,” she said, once the curtain fell. Keryth chuckled and shook his head. “It was fun once… But I got better plans,” he said simply.

1419/800
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Zyra had to do everything she could to not break her role. She took helping Keryth very seriously, not to mention, she was really enjoying the seemingly genuine emotions that filled his dialogue delivery. The passion with which he played the role was infectious and she was itching to be the one on stage with him. Of course, that was impossible unless Alice broke her leg or something and perhaps even then, she wouldn't let Zyra be the one to take the stage, she'd probably cancel the show than give it to the elf. Zyra bit her lip as she sadly made her deliveries for the second read through. She gulped every time she noticed the kisses that were to be shared between the protagonists, of course, the two elves didn't get to those... Frankly, while in the deep recesses of her mind the idea of being that close to Keryth was appealing, she just couldn't imagine it happening. Definitely not yet, if it ever did, she hoped it wouldn't be under the guise of a rehearsal. He had quickly been ushered away into the dressing room as well, while she was taken to the audience seats.

At least she didn't have to personally interact with Alice anymore, though the unblocked view of Keryth was accompanied by the unblocked view of the haughty actress too. About midway through the play, before the death of Romeo's friend, Zyra couldn't take the alleged chemistry between Alice and Keryth. Slowly, she got up and slid out of the theater, stomping away to a nearby tree and leaning against it. Alice's fettered looking attending had followed her and gave her a sack of jewels, the woman cleared her throat and said. 'Remember, your friend is only playing a part, you should be glad to have a friend who has such natural talent, it is pretty clear he isn't actually too fazed by Alice...' she reassured, but before Zyra could respond the woman walked away.

1110/1000
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