(no subject)

[uquars_gadget]

Helen hasn’t been able to understand WHY Jamie was so insistent she never work as the front of the horse. It couldn’t be that hard, she’d thought many times silently—and, okay, out loud—if Jamie managed it so easily. Anyways, it was hot and sweaty at the back of the horse and uncomfortable all bent over. She suspected that was why he forced her to be it.

But she’s managed to bully him into it, so she’s staring out of the horse smugly as they trot discoordinately on stage. And then she sees her, and stops.

Comments

[walksthebounds]

Jamie is feeling more than a little cross already. Even aside from the inherent unpleasantness of the back half of a pantomime horse, being unable to see the audience takes all the fun out of performing.

"Keep your mind on your job!" he growls. If Helen's not even going to do it properly after all that nagging . . .

[uquars_gadget]

Helen, later, will feel stupid for this. As it is she just lets out a small yell and tries to run towards the woman at the edge of the stage.

[walksthebounds]

Jamie, trapped in the back half of a runaway horse, can't think of anything to do except sit himself firmly down on the stage and refuse to be run away with.

[uquars_gadget]

Helen falls over on top of them, and starts kicking as the audience howls in appreciation.

Helen doesn't appreciate it. "Let me get up," she snaps at him, desperately, "that's my mother in the audience! I haven't seen her since I was five!"

She pulls herself upwards and rushes, again, dragging Jamie behind her.

[walksthebounds]

Jamie might be more sympathetic if he were not being dragged painfully across the stage floor.

"No it isn't!" he yells, dragging his feet in a vain effort to halt her again. "Stop! Listen! It can't be your mother!"

[uquars_gadget]

Helen twists violently, losing Jamie in the process, and turns to glare at them as the audience bursts into gales of laughter.

"What do you mean," she asks with equal violence. "It is my mother!"

[walksthebounds]

"No it isn't. Shut up!"

Jamie is trying to whisper this, in deference to the audience, but it's a very loud and extremely irritated whisper.

"Your mother's in your world. She must be, because she can't walk the Bounds. This is someone your mother would have been if she'd been born here instead. She may even have a daughter like you here, but I hope not for her sake!"

[uquars_gadget]

That cuts--I hope not for her sake-- and a hurt expression flickers across Helen's face. It brings her out of her desire to run to the woman, though, who might not want her there.

She lifts her chin. "I don't believe you."

[walksthebounds]

"Think about it," Jamie says, frustrated. "You know the ways of the worlds better than I do. My first world out, I met a hairy herdsman who looked just like the printer down the street from me, but that doesn't mean they were the same! And anyway, you'll frighten the poor woman to death if you go rushing up to her as half a horse. Then the horse opens, and a thing like you pops out. She'd have a stroke. Now shut up. You'll get us booed again."

This is perhaps unnecessarily uncharitable - but you try being kind when you can't breathe inside a horse costume, with someone shouting at you and trying to pull you off the stage, and you're afraid you'll lose your job to boot. It can't be done, Jamie thinks!

[uquars_gadget]

"All right," Helen says, finally. Her voice is dejected and her face clearly doesn't agree with him. "I'll believe you. But you're still wrong."

With this illogical declaration, she turns around and rams the front of the horse back into him. What? He wanted them to go on.

Helen is resolutely not looking at the crowd.