never_promised | (no subject)

"O, the rough sports. Not the gentler ones. --But thou art still a page, is't not so? Thou--still hast thy duke--?"

"I--" She pauses, apparently to concentrate on tying her shoe. "I do, I have. I-- have lingered long here. But I shall return to him. I cannot ever idle in this place that is no place at all."

"No." No, you really can't. "Thou hast as well thy dragons. But 'tis no life-long appointment for thee, Princess-in-Waiting?"

She laughs. "Well, if naught else, I am no princess."

He laughs as well, rubbing the back of his neck. "No. What wouldst thou do, were you a princess?"

"Why, as all princesses do, I venture." She stands and nods to the door: shall we? "Marry well, and bear me as many children as I may."

"Ay." He sits a moment longer, rubbing the back of his neck, before shaking himself and getting up again.

In the hallway he kicks the ball over to her feet. He's not actually trying to trip her up or anything, really...

God damn it, Hal. She manages not to trip! But she does send the ball careening off down the hall.

"Well!" she says, when she has mostly regained her balance. "What wouldst thou do, if thou wert a princess?"

"Why--"

He runs off and corrals the ball to dribble it back before answering. "Marry well and bear me as many children as I may. Unless I cut my hair short and ran off in the guise of a page-boy."

Viola grins and picks up her pace to catch up to him. "And think'st thou a princess would not be missed, should she so flee?"

"I went three months or more without seeing my father the king," he ventures. But it's...not the same for girls. Is it. "Wouldst not be a princess, then?"

Viola shrugs. "I confess I have grown fond of my liberty. To be even a gentlewoman shall seem-- small, and strange, methinks. But better than a princess."

He toes the ball up, catches it, drops it again and kicks it hard down the hall. "A king is constrained no less."

"More and less," Viola says. "Still art thou a man, and hath a man's freedom."

"O, a man's freedom! I know not the word freedom since I am become king--but let us not quarrel."

It's...not that he's avoiding an argument that he suddenly suspects he might lose. It's not.

Really.

"Quarrel! I, sir! I have better care of my head than to quarrel with a king."

"Thy head! Thy head, Cesario, is in no danger from this king." He taps his hand irritably on his leg a few times, then strides down the hall again to catch up with the football. "There, thou seest it, a king cannot even fall out properly with a friend; his friends will have it that any little thing will lose them their heads--"

Oh. God. His tongue has run ahead of his thoughts, and suddenly he's back in Southampton. The mercy that was quick in us but late, by your own counsel is suppressed and killed.

"Come sir!" Her tone is mostly light, but there's a hint of sharpness beneath it: don't pick a fight with me. She trots after him and lays a hand on his shoulder. "Come, friend. I am not thy subject, I shall mock thee to thy heart's content."

He can hear that sharpness; his shoulder tightens a little under her hand.

Come on, now, Hal, find a smile. "Heh." That's better. "Heh, pray do, sweet Cesario; didst thou flatter me, I would fear some treachery. Mock me most roundly."

She keeps her hand there, on his shoulder.

"If I must mock you to mirth, I shall do it," she says. "Or indeed, be sad, if it please thee be so-- but mask not thy moods by claiming 'tis I who doth provoke them."

He doesn't have an immediate answer. (If only because the only honest answer is that Viola is quite right; he would do exactly that.)

"Well--well, then, let me lay these humors at other feet than thine. I found myself lately disappointed in a man who had heard every least thought of mine, every doubt; and it has set me all contrary to the currents of trusting, candid friendship."

"I am very sorry for it," she says sincerely. "There is little sooner lost and harder found than trust, methinks."

He touches the back of her hand, on his shoulder, very lightly and briefly before laughing. "'Tis so. Just now thou didst task me with the losing of friends' heads, saying that thou hadst better care of thine than to quarrel with a king, and I did laugh at thy fears. Well, if thou art not right there, thou art not so far wrong neither. I can hardly say that thy trust might not be misplaced in me."

She realizes how long her hand has been resting there, and pulls it away. "And wherefore would I be?"

"Well--'tis true you cannot in any way commit high treason against me, no capital crimes. There, now, thy starling's-nest is safe from me--"

He reaches tentatively over to ruffle her hair? Because they're goofy friends like that?