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Of course she was fine. The city was wrapped in the grip of some weird sickness, its citizens reduced to sniffling, bed-bound lumps. People said the school system was considering closing to give everyone a chance to recover. Fleur was fine. No, she didn't get to snuggle down on her sofa, sipping Sprite and chicken soup and wrapped in blankets for a few free days of TV. The actual being sick part wasn't great, especially if you really couldn't do anything. But the attention was nice. Not having to do anything? And they thought she was lucky? Far from the cozy atmosphere of any type of sickroom, she was staying after class trying to get her substitute math teacher to explain the lesson properly. Trying. It was hopeless. But with two days of movies, she guessed the real math teacher had to try something. She gave up with a sweet thank you and drifted down the halls to her next activity.

Drama club. Yay. Much better than math. Still, something still seemed wrong. It was all too quiet. With all Crystal's clubs, it was weird for the halls not to be bustling. She noticed the click of the door when she walked into the drama room. Bad sign. She should have been getting almost tackled about now, not thinking about the lack of noise. Of course she'd been first there before, but this was different. She was late. Well, not really, but she shouldn't have been the only one there. The numbers had been dropping off, but now there only seemed to be one other girl here. Well, at least she wasn't alone.

"Oh, hey," Fleur said, smiling softly. "It's... Marybeth, right?" The situation was borderline awkward, two girls who didn't know each other together in the same room. They weren't really trapped, but leaving would be pretty rude. An adult would say it was a great opportunity to make a new friend. Fleur wasn't an adult, but still. "I'm Fleur." She walked over, looking at what the girl was reading. "You're practicing alone? That's cool," she noted, turning around. She considered doing the same, but instead dropped her stuff by the wall and turned back around. "Kinda boring, though. Right?" The room was strewn with old props. There was the half finished horse, which was just for their next skit, but some basic swords and cool hats were kept withing reach. "There must be something we can do..." She neatly slipped a plastic tiara between her pigtails and curtsied, then picked up a sword and fought the air bravely. It was pretty fun... For a couple seconds. She put the sword back neatly, then dropped with a tiny sigh. Well, maybe there was something to do, but drama wasn't nearly as fun alone. She stared at the other girl for a few seconds, then went over to get her own script.

"Yes, that's me." Fleur nodded, opening her script. Her eyes skimmed the paper, settling on her lines as she forced herself to think about them. In this scene, her character was angry. Should she say the lines in a loud yelling voice, or a harsh whisper? Should she storm towards her friend, or turn away? She was trying to picture it, what would she do if she was really in the situation? Then she realized that the other girl, Marybeth, was talking to her. She looked up, slightly startled.

"Pick up lines?" Fleur looked at the other girl. "Like, 'I never saw true beauty till tonight?' That's from 'Romeo and Juliet,' I think." She smiled a little at Marybeth as she slipped her script back into her bag. If the other girl just wanted to study, that as one thing, but as it was... It would be kind of awesome, doing whatever they wanted for once. "It's the stereotypical romance. Classic. People would probably be a bit weirded out if you started talking to them in Shakespearean." Marybeth was back in the props. Fleur went to follow her. "It's not like one liners work much in real life though. Well, real life's not split into parts like a play." I hope I'm not babbling Fleur thought. I'd better shut up.

Well, now she wanted a duel? Fleur grabbed a sword, running her hands over it, checking for splinters first. She didn't even remember what these were for. It was probably for some big thing in the future. The shape was nice, but it wasn't even painted silver yet. Most stick duels Fleur had been in were reduced to annoying repetitiveness pretty quickly. Lunges and parries sounded cool, but Fleur didn't really know how to do them. Still, it was much better than nothing. She brought up her sword, like in the movies. It looked a bit comical, pr it would if Fleur wasn't right there being part of it. "On your guard, I guess..."

Fleur lazily blocked the over dramatic lunge. She really thought Marybeth was taking this way too seriously. But still... It was drama club. What did she expect. "Oh, please." The voice was hers. She was filtering her emotions into a character- an evil queen, in this case. She stepped back just a little, the hand that wasn't on the sword on her hip. She held the silent pose for a split second, then broke into an evil giggle. Those were fun, but hard to pull off. "It will take far more than that to defeat me."

She started walking around Marybeth, eyes on the play sword. There was no way she was going to lose this fake duel. Well, since she had chosen to play the part of the bad guy, her chances weren't looking great, but still. "Posh? Wonderful? Trust me, dear. I've seen it all before." Then, in a bit of a silly way compared to her little speech, she attempted a spin attack. There was probably a reason it was only in games, but it was better than just hitting their swords together until they got bored.

Fleur broke character for a second to give a small gasp of surprise and concern. Marybeth seemed fine though, which was good. But... what was she supposed to do now? A real evil queen would kill her, or maybe have her locked up, but obviously neither of those were options, especially as she was supposed to be losing. Even swinging the sword at all seemed a bit wrong.

Instead, smiling a little, she approached the other girl, pointing the sword a bit awkwardly in her direction. Then, starting slowly and ending rather loudly and dramatically, she preformed a really fun evil laugh. It was a little too long, but only because she was trying to think of what to say.

"Your town told you to do this? Told you to attack me? Well, that's just not nice, is it?" She frowned slightly, shaking her head. "I'll just have to kill them all." She smiled then, though this was more genuine. She really was enjoying herself. "Including you." Then, she gently swung the sword.

"Oh?" said Fleur, partially in character and partially in surprise from the blow, which was fairly hard for mock dueling. She blocked it in a proper dramatic manner, though, then stepped back. "Glory? The Royal Army? Please." She shook her head slowly in an attempt to be condescending, lips pursed.

"That's my army. I know all their secrets. And there's something else you're forgetting." The condescending expression was replaced by a genuine smile, the sword clattered to the floor, and the voice, when it came, was not icily smooth but natural sounding and cheerful. "You can't actually kill me."