Step Right Up... | James

[Cyrille LeFoux]

It had been some time since his last little spat of trouble with anyone, so the guards and staff had finally stopped looking at Cyrille as if he were going to start throwing spells at anyone who looked at him funny. Honestly, get into one little fist fight with a crown prince, and suddenly you're some kind of - of villain. The thought made Cyrille pause, then shake his head, amused at himself. Though the fight was a vivid memory, memory is what it was; he and Florian had been avoiding each other, in the rare chances they caught sight of one another. As the cliches around schools were pretty much naturally divided anyway, it wasn't too hard a thing to accomplish. The ache in his ribs and jaw had almost entirely disappeared even.

Of course, strange things - like the disappearance of one of the schools crown jewels, for instance, in the form of a fish-prince from under the sea - had a way of letting fate shuffle the deck however it wanted. Things rolled inexorably forward; the King and Queen of Eli's world were plenty angry that their son had gone missing in one of the safest places in the whole inter-verse, but, Cyrille mused, they'd get over it. Give 'em a year or two, they'd be having another little tadpole to raise up and take over the hardships and trials of the royal and filthy rich. Now he actual snorted, pushing open the door to the theater. It was supposed to be empty this time of the day; Cyrille wasn't there to do a solo while he had the time, though. No, the signing birds were princess stuff; something he so far removed from it was almost funny. He was there to, bizarre enough as it might seem, study for his classes.

The librarians were still mad at him for breaking the window, and the library was packed, anyway - the royal types, heroic and villainous alike, moving in little packs, with whatever lackeys and early sidekicks they had following behind them like frightened ducklings. Therefore, Cyrille had taken his books and papers and, trading glares with the stiff-backed librarian, found somewhere else to study. His room was stifling; never mind someone in the hall was having a party, so even if he could have stood the heat, he wasn't going to be able to concentrate anyway. With a sigh, the dark Frenchman settled down in the first row, thankful for the mostly well-lit theater lights. 'When to Draw the Line: Sidekick vs Minion' wasn't going to read itself.

tagged: James Florian -- notes: yaay, first post back

[James Florian]

Whenever James said that his main interests in life that had nothing to do with a crown, he always left one thing out; singing. It was just another thing he got from his mother that the rest of his family had fostered when he was younger. After all, James is Snow White's son. It would be quite a shocker if he didn't have some sort of musical talent as a result. Back home he loved joining in whenever his family started a song whether it would be his parents just murmuring the lyrics of some sort of childish song for James or just a little duet supposedly between the two of them, but that would change when James's little voice rang in, either chanting the next verse or making up the lyrics if he didn't know them, earning peals of laughter from both his mother and father as one of them would scoop the little boy up into their arms to finish the song as a family. However James's favorite sing-a-longs growing up were the ones that occurred at the dwarfs' cottage where the songs would be about stupid silly things and the boys could come up with nonsensical verses on the spot that would send them into fits of giggles even though nobody else in the room would understand what they were singing about. Or sometimes James would just be content just sitting on the floor with Grove beside him on the bear skin just listening to his mother have her turn at singing. Whenever they were at the cottage she was always given a solo, and everyone would just stop and listen. Her voice was just that beautiful and all these years it had stayed the same, even though there might now be a few wrinkles on her skin and a few crinkles around her eyes. 

The point is, James grew up around music and singing, so clearly it was an important part of his childhood. Strangely enough though he rarely sang at the school. Why? Simply because James was a bit self-conscious of his singing voice. Truly he did inherit his parent's talent, and he had a wonderful voice, but he just never felt it suited him. It was a bit higher than his normal speaking voice, and try as he might he couldn't get it to go lower like his father could do. It made him feel as if he was a mouse even though everyone around him barely noticed the change at all. He noticed it though and that was all that mattered to him. So he avoided singing around people if he could, James was openly defiant in the romantic duet class, but he did this under the guise of his parents never having any sort of duet in the story, and he never joined in group songs unless he was positive that his voice would be drowned out by the others. However that didn't stop the boy from belting his heart out in the shower, and occasionally sneaking off to the theater to give no one a little concert during the few free minutes he spent between his classes and the stables. However ever since Eli went missing James had been finding himself drawn to the Casey Jr. Theatre more often than usual. Maybe it was because it was always empty and there was no chance of anyone seeing him crying if he got a little too emotional. Or maybe it was for some other reason, James didn't know. All he knew that he was drawn there, like a moth to a flame, and the quiet darkness of the wings was strangely comforting. 

So that's why James found himself walking down the cobbled path to the theatre instead of the stables for the umpteenth time this week, As he pushed the heavy oak doors open, James honestly expected to find nobody there so he could climb onto the stage and just sing till the ache over his missing friend left his heart so he could down to the stables so he could ride till his legs ached and he could then fall into an exhausted, dreamless sleep that he needed ever since his nightmares returned. He knew it wasn't good to push himself like that, but then again it took his mind off of things for a little while. Little did he know that he was going to have a cruel reminder of what was missing when he walked into the theatre with his footsteps echoing off the seemingly empty walls. What he didn't know was that there was somebody already in the theatre and he was far from a friendly face. 

James was about halfway between the doors and the stage when he saw that all too familiar mop of brown curly hair up near the front of the stage, and when he did he instantly froze in his tracks. James may not always be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but then again it didn't take a genius to figure out who was sitting there; Cyrille LeFoux, the kid James got into a fight with all those months ago. James instinctively reached a hand up to his pale face, remembering where Cyrille had thrown that first punch on that fateful day in the library. Although James may have been begrudgingly welcomed back into the library by the lady at the front desk because of his rank and otherwise pretty docile school record, he had heard that the villain's sidekick hadn't been given the same welcome as well. To be honest James didn't really care, in fact he was kind of glad that he was regarded as some sort of delinquent, that meant there was one less place the prince would run into him. However to be honest he hadn't given the sidekick a single though in months, their different schedules kept them vastly apart which was good thing. But now they were both in the same room and there was no chance of any guards coming if there was any trouble. James was utterly alone with the psycho. 

He honestly wanted to run. James may be a stubborn lad, but right now he was rather emotional having lost his second best friend who understood him almost as much as Grove did, if not more being a prince as well, but also the nightmares were coming back leaving him weak and weepy in the morning when he could finally escape from that dark forest with those cold monsters with claws sharp like knives that tore into his skin when they caught him, and that voice! That uncaring voice that screamed insults and other cruel things from the past beyond the grave. It was the worst nightmare that plagued James ever since the whole Daae affair and ever since Eli went missing it visited him every night with a scary new addition. He now saw all his friends snatched by the shadowy monsters too. As awful as these nightmares were, he could never wake up from them on his own. Not unless he began to choke on his own tears, or Briar shook him awake when he began to scream and yell. They left him emotionally drained to begin with and crying over his missing friend certainly didn't help that either.

In fact his eyes were still red and puffy from the latest bout of crying, which he tried to hide from the villain's sidekick when he turned to face the prince. He took a step backwards towards the door he came from and uselessly said with a cracking voice, "Just leave me alone." As if Cyrille would just leave him alone. He was going to leave, he wanted too now actually, but something kept his feet firmly in place. He watched the sidekick wondering what his next move was going to be, and whether or not it involved throwing punches again.