Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was actually two children who entered following the tiger man. The first was a teenaged boy, tall and lanky, with something distinctly feline about him. The second, following a few paces behind him, was comically petite beside the older boy. She was probably a girl, but her clothing was decidedly gender neutral and she had her hair tucked up under a newsboy cap, which made it hard to tell.

"I'm Nahuel Cooper and I'm auditioning for the role of Tybalt," said the tall boy.

"I'm Orli Cooper and I'm auditioning for the role of Mercutio," said the short girl in a voice that was surprisingly loud.

The two auditioners gave each other a grin and took to opposite sides of the stage.

"O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!" declared the girl, clearly finding the Shakespearean english a bit of a mouthful. "Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?" With this, she pulled a plastic sword from behind her back. It had been tucked into her belt, apparently. In truth, Orli and Nahuel had filched the weapons from Ranza a few days ago, and they were lucky she hadn't missed them yet.

"What woulds't you have of me?" asked the boy, also drawing a sword. He was better spoken than his sister.

"Good king of cats," replied the girl, bowing. After a bit of a rough start, she was getting in to it. "Nothing but one of your nine lives." She gestured with the sword, getting the hang of the character. "That I mean to make bold withall, and as you shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the eight."

The boy watched her intently, a bit tense, a sort of predatory aura gathering over him. His tail swished dangerously. The girl struck towards him with her sword. "Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher by there ears?" she challenged. "Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out."

"I am for you!" cried the boy, drawing his sword.

"Come, sir, your passado!" cried the girl. They lunged at each other with the sort of barely-contained fury only siblings could possess. What followed could only be described as a frightening display of haphazard choreography that had probably been cooked up the night before. Altogether not a bad display; it ended with the girl dying in a manner that verged on 'chewing the scenery'.

"A plague on both your houses!" she shrieked, and died. The boy watched, panting a little bit from the fight. She got to her feet again. The siblings looked expectantly out into the auditorium, waiting for further instructions.

((prior to Joshua's Audition))

Aila clapped for both children, grinning,
"Very good, all of you." Really, it didn't matter to her that Orli was a girl trying out for a boy's part. If she could pull it off, what did it matter? Mercutio's gender wasn't critical to the play anyhow. She motioned to Ryuk and the man led them out, grinning,
"Hey, good job guys!" she told them, ushering Joshua in for his try.

((Post Joshua's audition))

Aila smiled,
"Quite lovely and believable, Joshua, thank you. You can go ahead and go back with Ryuk so the next auditioner can come out."

She wrote down a few things on a notepad, and Ryuk came out to lead Josh back and bring the next child out,
"Hey, sounds like you've done Shakespeare before," the man patted him gently on the shoulder.

Nahuel and Orli took their time getting back to the waiting area - they were still kind of sword-fighting as they went. When they got there, Nahuel flopped down beside the boy who had just auditioned for Romeo, and Orli made a point of flopping down on top of Nahuel, which got her promptly dumped off his lap, jostling the boy beside her in the process.

"Sorry," giggled Orli. "Geez, Nah, look what you did!"

"I never asked you to sit on me," retorted her brother. "What's mom feeding you? You weigh like a zillion pounds!"

"I do not!"

"I'm Orli," explained the girl. She took her hat off and let her hair down, then pulled an elastic off her wrist with her teeth and started to braid it. After doing that, she took a moment to jerk her thumb towards the teenager on the floor. "He's Nahuel. You're Josh, right? I think I met you for a bit at the Christmas party. We were both a lot smaller then, weren't we?"

"Don't let the sweet face fool you," hissed Nahuel. "My sister's a good-for-nothing brat."

"Am not," said Orli, and kicked him halfheartedly. "Your audition was really good," she said to Josh. "Hey, if you both get the parts you want, you'll get to kill Nah!"

Apparently this was hilarious.

"I knew you looked familar." Joshua said with a smile. "You were with Lucien." Of course he'd remember who'd been with one of his friends. "You gave him the football, right?" It was strange that he could remember small details, you think he'd be able to remember names.

He paused, killing someone hadn't been on his to-do list. "Don't worry," He told Nah. "The main characters die too."

As the other processed Jace's avant garde interpretation of Romeo's grand passions, another teenager stepped from the wings. Delilah had clearly taken time in preparing for her role physically. She wore a longer dress than usual and her slim arms were covered by the full-cut sleeves. The sides of her hair were pulled back and twisted, her usual flower sitting delicately behind her ear. She wore no jewelry to distract, having decided that her exotic coloring and the pale violet of her dress was enough. She advanced to the center of the stage and smiled placidly out at the audience. "My name is Delilah ba Lindo," she announced in a low, carrying voice. "I would like to audition for Juliet, please."

The boring bit of business finished, Delilah inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly. Her eyes closed for a moment.

When her eyes reopened, they were dreamy, focused on some middle distance slightly to her right. She shifted to face the imaginary person and held out her hands, expression a crooked little smile. "Well," she sighed, "do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight." She half-turned and held a hand to her chest, fingers curled into a fist as she bit her lip anxiously. "It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say 'It lightens.'"

Delilah turned back suddenly to where her imaginary suitor stood and extended both hands in longing supplication. "Sweet," she breathed, voice carrying well despite its lowness, "good night! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet."

She smiled, full and sweet and bright, before touching her fingers to her lips and miming a kiss. "Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast!"

There was a pause then and she dropped her hands before taking a few steps forward. She swept into a graceful curtsy. "Thank you."

Then Delilah walked offstage with another slow, sweet smile. Now that had been really a lot of fun, she thought.

Josh only shrugged. He had never heard that, though he supposed it was an accurate statement. In Hamlet, everyone died. Everyone being the main characters, the minor ones didn't count. "In Midsummer's Night Dream, I don't think anyone dies. Except in the play within a play." Joshua told Nahuel knowledgably.

He was quick to add, "Though, I think it's the exception to the rule." He had only read two of Shakespeare's plays with his mother, the rest, he didn't know that much about. His mother had Shakespeare's collected works on her bookshelf, most of them covered in dust. Occassionally she would tell Joshua that he wasn't allowed to read certain ones, such as Macbeth.