queenofheartsrp | second stanza [video]

[Kuja is dressed in her usual garb, and the tail which was evident when she first arrived seems to have disappeared. She offers the Vine a bow. It is a bow without a particularly respectful air, more a dramatic gesture than anything else.]

Now that I have been here for some few days, I've decided to make the attempt to discover whether there are others here like me. Not of my kind, as I sincerely doubt that could be the case, but of a similar bent.

I am a poet, and an actress of no small renown, and I wish to know if there other artists here, like myself. Painters, sculptors, writers, or perhaps musicians? Even a patron of the arts. It would be a great pleasure to discuss aesthetics, as well as the passion and wonder of creation, with like-minded individuals. We might collaborate, combine our talents to reach ever more lofty creative heights. I don't doubt that this Garden would benefit from a stage performance, a concert, or a gallery.

[She pauses, and it is a practiced pause.] Relatedly, I have been browsing in the library, and there I found many volumes of verse. Having read them all, I am curious--does anyone possess more such books? This is a rare and most likely unique opportunity for a poet such as myself: to read verses from another world.

[As a side note, some may find that the library's collection of poetry has mysteriously decreased, as Kuja has ~~stolen~~ borrowed a large number of the books.]

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Then I am even more honoured. [A lifetime of Renaissance politeness and giving the dead their dignity will never be forgotten.]

I am sure it must be strange to find that but still...comforting in some way to know that no matter what place we call our own, there are those we can relate to. We are not so different after all.

[It's nice to say those words with a positive meaning, rather than hearing them from the lips of someone who had a misguided sense of what they were doing.]

I have to wonder just how far she will go to have us pair off together and her true reasons for it. It is normal for it to be a man and a woman, normally agreed on with a bride price by the family and often for power and status, securing family relations far more than for love.

[Ezio's own...dalliances have been kept quiet, nameless, faceless women and courtesans for the most part, Cristina the chaste love of two young girls and Caterina something entirely different that still ended with the other woman riding off into the sunset.]

[Kuja appreciates polite words, so it pleases her to hear them, and she smiles.] Your own words do you honor.

It may be a form of comfort to know that others share certain traits. [At the same time, it was a reminder of what she had done, and what she will never be able to do. Lessons learned too late.] Yet those shared traits can make the differences stand out all the more. People can be so dissimilar, strikingly so. [Even the other constructs, they were not like her.] Those differences can lead to tragedy, and perhaps they should not be masked by sentiments we'd like to hear about how we are alike. [Kuja knows the woman does not mean it as a platitude, but it touches a nerve.]

I do wonder as well. [Her voice sharpens.] I do not look kindly upon being forced into any action, and I will not hesitate to retaliate if this Queen should use direct or constraining methods. [Kuja has not forgotten her claim of being a poet, but she does not see how it necessarily conflicts with her promise of retaliation.]

That is more or less the normal way among the nobility of my world, although there are exceptions, and of course much goes on that is neither known nor sanctioned by the common crowd. As it always does.