Louis & Harry

Act I: Scene IV

Louis, Martian, and Ben walk up the path to the Styles house, dressed in masks and capes.

"What will we say our excuse is for being here? Or should we enter without apologizing? Louis asks his friends.

"It's out of fashion to give lengthy explanations like that. We're not going to introduce our dance by having someone dress up as Cupid, blindfolded and carrying a toy bow to frighten the ladies like a scarecrow. Nor are we going to recite a memorized speech to introduce ourselves. Let them judge us however they please. Well give them a dance and then hit the road." Ben replies.

"Give me a torch. I don't want to dance. I feel sad, so let me be the one who carries the light." Louis offers.

"No, noble Louis, you've got to dance." Martian pleads.

"Not me, believe me. You're wearing dancing shoes with nimble soles. My soul is made out of lead, and it's so heavy it keeps me stuck on the ground so I can't move." Louis sighs.

"You're a lover. Take Cupid's wings and fly higher than the average man." Martian says.

"His arrow has pierced me too deeply, so I can't fly high with his cheerful feathers. Because this wound keeps me down, I can't leap any higher than my dull sadness. I sink under the heavy weight of love." Louis shakes his head.

"If you sink, you're dragging love down. It's not right to drag down something as tender as love." Martian nearly cries.

"Is love really tender? I think it's too rough, too rude, too rowdy, and it pricks like a thorn."

"If loves plays rough with you, play rough with love. If you prick love when it pricks you, you'll beat love down. Give me a mask to put my face in. A mask to put over my other mask. What do I care if some curious person sees my flaws? Let this mask, with it's black eyebrows blush for me." He says and puts his mask back on.

(Martian suggests that Louis cure himself of love by having sex)

"Come on, let's knock and go in. The minute we get in let's all start dancing." Ben tells the other boys.

"I'll take a torch. Let playful people with light hearts dance. There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose if you don't play the game. I'll just hold a torch and watch you guys. It looks like a lot of fun, but I'll sit this one out." Louis still rejects the offer.

"Hey, you're being a stick in the mud, as cautious as a policeman on night patrol. If you're a stick in the mud, we'll pull you out of the mud-- I mean out of love, if you'll excuse me for being so rude-- where you're stuck up to your ears. Come on, were wasting precious daylight. Let's go!" Martian pushes past Louis and walks ahead.

"No we're not-- it's night." Louis replies, being a smart ass.

"I mean, we're wasting the light of our torches by delaying, which is like wasting the sunshine during the day. Use your common sense to figure out what I mean, instead of trying to be clever or trusting your five senses." Martian rolls his eyes and continues on.

"We mean well by going to this masquerade ball, but it's not smart of us to go." Louis says.

"Why, may I ask?" Martian asks, thinking this is another way for Louis to try and convince them not to go.

"I had a dream last night."

"So did I." Martian shrugs.

"Well, what was your dream?" Louis asks him.

"My dream told me that dreamers often lie." He replied.

"They lie in bed while they dream about the truth." Louis says quickly.

"Oh, then I see you've been in bed with Queen Mab." Martian laughs.

(Queen is slang for whore and Mab is a stereo typical prostitutes name)

"Who's Queen Mab?" Ben interjects.

"She's the fairies' midwife. She's no bigger than the stone on a city councilman's ring. She rides around in a wagon drawn by tiny little atoms, and she rides over men's noses as they lie sleeping. The spokes of her wagon are made of spiders' legs. The cover of her wagon is made of grasshoppers' wings. The harnesses are made of the smallest spiderwebs. The collars are made out of moonbeams. Her whip is a thread attached to a crickets bone. Her wagon driver is a tiny bug in a gray coat; he's not half the size of a little round worm that comes from the finger of a lazy young girl."

(It was believed that worms sprung from the fingers of young girls who sat about doing nothing)

He continues, "Her chariot is a hazelnut shell. It was made by a carpenter squirrel or an old grubworm; they've made wagons for the fairies' as long as anyone can remember. In this royal wagon, she rides every night through the brains of lovers and makes them dream about love. She rides over courtiers' knees, and they dream about curtsying. She rides over lawyers' fingers, and right away, they dream about their fees. She rides over ladies' lips, and they immediately dream of kisses. Queen Mab often puts blisters on their lips because their breath smells like candy, which makes her mad. Sometimes she rides over courtiers' lips, and he dreams of making money off of someone. Sometimes she tickles a priest's nose with a tithe- pigs tail, and he dreams of a large donation."

(A tithe-pig was a pig given to the church to support a priest)

"Sometimes she rides over a soldier's neck, and he dreams of cutting the throats of foreign enemies, of breaking down walls, of ambushes, of Spanish swords, and of enormous cups of liquor. And then, the drums beat in his ear and he wakes up. He's frightened, so he says a couple of prayers and goes back to sleep. She is the same Mab who tangles the hair in horses' manes at night and makes the tangles hard in the dirty hairs, which bring bad luck if they're untangled. Mab is the hag who gives false sex dreams to virgins and teaches then how to hold a lover and bear a child. She's the one--" His explanation is cut short.

"Enough, enough! Martian, be quiet. You're talking nonsense." Louis interrupts him.

"True. I'm talking about dreams, which are the products of a brain that's doing nothing. Dreams are nothing but silly imaginations, as thin as air and Less predictable than the wind, which sometimes blows on the frozen north and then gets angry and blows south." Martian laughs, thinking he's proved his point.

"The wind you're talking about is blowing us off our course. Dinner is over, and we're going to get there too late." Ben tells them, tired of their bickering.

"I'm worried we'll get there too early. I have a feeling this party tonight will be the start of something bad, something that will end with my own death. But whoever's in charge of where my life's going can steer me wherever they want. Onward, lover boys!" Louis calls.

"Beat the drum!" Ben agrees.

They march on up the rest of the way to the Styles mansion.

End of scene...

A/N:

Alrighty, two chapters in one day!!

I lied last chapter but this time I mean it, see you guys tomorrow!

Questions, comments, or concerns?