Please Welcome to the Stage...

BASTIEN Bastien waited eagerly for Remi to arrive, everything in place except for his newly-assigned second in command. Remi had gotten this role entirely in Bastien's head, and only because he was the one of the church's members most easily persuaded to do things. But this did not mean Bastien wasn't excited for his arrival. He had a plan; Bastien's plans were always wonderful things (or so he thought). As soon as he heard the knock at the door Bastien flung it open, hoping Remi would notice his wonderful performing outfit. A dark blue shirt with sparkling white stars hung open around his chest, framing his pendant. The gold mark on his neck was camouflaged into simple make up by the addition of other marks around it, painted on constellations and planets starting on his neck and running up his cheeks. His pants and shoes were a simple black, but Bastien had good enough legs for that to be a spectacle in of itself if the viewer was so inclined. "Remi!" He said with a large sweep of his hands inwards. "Please! Come in! I have a wonderful chance for you! You see..." Bastien went inside and picked up a large dark blue cloth and a cup. The table before him had rings, dice, an assortment of all kinds of things. "You are to be my assistant! There is no need to thank me, caro." I'm feelin' like a big bang

As the door was flung open with Bastien's normal amounts of artistic flare, Remi silently wondered just what it was he'd gotten himself into. He couldn't help the way his eyes trailed down the man's open collar, and then back up again guided by the painted-on stars and other cosmic additions he'd decorated himself with. With an unabashed look of confusion, Remi glanced wonderingly at Bastien was he was heralded inside, his attention direction to the table containing other performance-related objects. "Your assistant?" Remi asked, his head tilting to the side a tad skeptically. Narrowing his eyes with amusement, he glanced to the objects Bastien was holding, and then again at his outfit in general. "I am not sure if you know this about me Bastien, but I am not...ah..." The alchemist swallowed. "..a performer." R E M I I followed your ashes into outer space

BASTIEN Of course, Remi was anxious about his new position. Bastien was not one to be deterred by another's anxieties, though. He swiftly attempted to take Remi by the shoulders and sit him down inside the church, turning to grab a small box behind himself. From this box he brought make up; some of which he had asked Remi himself to make and some he had made himself from homemade old recipes. "Not yet, you aren't." He told Remi with a smile. "But once I make you beautiful, you shall be. It will be easy." He raised up a brush tinted with the same gold paint he had used for the stars on his face. "Can I paint you? I shall make you more entrancing than the highest star." I'm feelin' like a big bang

Stiffening slightly as the artist placed his hands on Remi's shoulders, depositing him into a nearby chair, the alchemist raised a concerned and confused brow. Glancing nervously towards the assorted bits of face-paint and other makeup that he'd helped to make, he swallowed and gave Bastien a shaky look. "When you said you needed my help...I did not think that this was what you meant." He began, pale eyes growing slightly wide as the artist held up a brush with all together more sparkle than Remi thought was possible. "Ahh but if I am more entrancing than the highest star, then I might outshine you. We could not have that, of course?" R E M I I followed your ashes into outer space

BASTIEN "I meant I needed your help. Which I do." Bastien said simply, then began to paint in the golden planets on his neck without permission. The thick paint would be cold to the skin, but it quickly dried up and shone on Remi's skin. What Bastien would have given for such a quality pigment back in Venice! "Tesoro, you couldn't outshine me if you tried." He said with a smug chuckle, as if it were painfully obvious. "But I do need you to match me." He moved up Remi's chin so he could get a better angle to paint with. After a few minutes Remi had golden stars and patterns swirling up his neck and onto his face; Bastien pulled back with a pleased smile at the effect. "You see. I am going to put on a show for the people. In honour of Safrin. But why perform how I used to when I can use magic? Or: more aptly...you can use magic!" He pointed at Remi and then moved his hands to try and hold his hair back, tilting his head this way and that to see which way he preferred it. "So I thought. I will do all the talking, all the performing. All you need to do is to stand and look beautiful and when the right moment comes...zap. Do what I need you to with your magics. Understand?" I'm feelin' like a big bang

As the chilly paint touched his skin, Remi hissed in a breath and flinched, but made no effort to halt the artist. He could easily have done, given the magic, muscle and animals at his disposal, but instead he gazed up at Bastien with an entirely displeased and submissive expression and sighed. Snorting in agreement, Remi shrugged. "Would it not be better if I was just horribly plain so that all eyes were on you?" At the mention of using magic, Remi quirked a brow and tilted his head, frowning at the way his skin seemed to stretch tauntly beneath the paint. Despite wanting to rub idly at his chin and neck, Remi bit down on the urge and instead looked up towards Bastien with a not-quite understanding stare. "Stand and look beautiful, and then zap?" Remi repeated incredulously, trying very hard to give Bastien a serious and pointed stare, though likely failing to do so because of the elaborate cosmos now spiraling up his neck. R E M I I followed your ashes into outer space

BASTIEN "No, no. Everything must be beautiful. The stage must be beautiful. The performers, even those in the back, must be beautiful. The props must be beautiful. That is how you make an impression, friend. I have many years in this business." Deciding Remi's hair looked best down, Bastien grabbed a brush and ran it through it, tutting at knots. "Yes. Zap. Or whatever word you like to use, caro. I hold up something, you change it to something else. Make doves appear, girls disappear...you know. That sort of thing. It will be a bright moment in the dull days here." He rustled about in the box until he found what he was looking for then smeared it on Remi's lips, pouting to indicate he should do the same. Once this was done he stood up and walked behind the table. "And the best part. I made you an outfit. There is no need to thank me, but you still can." Bastien held up a shirt that matched his own, deep blue with yellow and white stars scattered across it. The shirt was clearly designed to be worn open, a couple of sizes too big with a plunging neckline. I'm feelin' like a big bang

"Did you just call me a prop?" The alchemist asked with an amused smirk, both liking and wanting to shy away from the feeling of Bastien's hands in his hair. However the feeling of the brush was far less desirable, and the alchemist grumbled under his breath as the artist went about trying to tame his curls. Every now and then just to be difficult, he'd let a few feathers crop up to halt the progress of the brush. "Girls disappear? I cannot do anything of the sort, Bastien." Remi said, hoping that would be enough to dissuade whatever performance he'd someone been roped into, until his lips were silenced by what felt like a thick coating of paint. Skeptically, Remi looked at the costume and crossed his arms. "As flattered as I am, I think perhaps you got my measurements wrong, Bastien." Would this finally be his way out? R E M I I followed your ashes into outer space

BASTIEN "No, Remi. I called you an assistant. But if you insist on acting so demure and shy I shall have to degrade you to prop." He roughly pushed past the feathers in Remi's hair, years of prepping difficult actors for performances leaving him with little sympathy for difficult knots. Bastien laughed at Remi's insistence he could do 'nothing of the sort'. "I can do it, so you can. It is just a matter of moving things about and hiding others. The reason I need you is that you can do it without your hands." Mirrors and smoke seemed like so much work when there were people with actual magical powers in this place. The things he could have made with such powers in Venice...! "The measurements are just right. If they are wrong, you won't know til it is on, caro. Stand up and take your shirt off." He motioned for Remi to get up impatiently. I'm feelin' like a big bang

Given what being an assistant seemed to entail, Remi thought being a prop would suit him a good deal better. That being said, Bastien seemed quite determined to force Remi into this role whether or not he liked it. With a grumble the feathers all but disappeared, though Bastien would find a few fluttering from the side of the alchemist’s head or stuck in his brush. “Without my hands, mm?” Remi said with a raised brow, a vaguely suggestive smile on his lips as he chuckled under his breath. With a resigned sigh—arguing no longer seemed at all like it would get him anywhere—the alchemist did as he was told. Besides, Bastien had seen him mostly naked by this point, so removing his shirt hardly seemed something worth feeling awkward about. Pulling his shirt over his head, and being surprisingly careful of smudging the paint on his neck and the side of his face, Remi gestured for the garment he was meant to be wearing. R E M I I followed your ashes into outer space

BASTIEN "You are free to do it with your hands too, of course." Bastien returned with a no less flirtatious smile, though he'd long given up on seducing Remi. The boy needed someone with a gentle hand who could really romance him, he thought. Bastien's style of quick, intense love affairs would likely damage him further. With a happy nod as Remi stripped, Bastien passed him the shirt and then went to look at himself in the window's reflection to make sure he was looking acceptable himself. Of course, he was beautifully handsome and toned. He made sure to tell himself that, then turned back to Remi. "Ah, Remi! You look caldo! Really sexy, yes? But mysterious too." Remi would find his chest and navel entirely on display, the fabric easily framing his body and tightly hugging his arms. "Will you let me paint stars on your chest? If I thought more of your confidence I would paint them lower down too, but I feel convincing you to strip at the end of the performance shall be too great of a hassle for the show we'd get." I'm feelin' like a big bang

Remi chuckled low under his breath, shaking his head slightly as his eyes dropped beneath the weight of Bastien's salacious gaze. Slipping into the ensemble, Remi felt the way that the fabric ghosted against his body and shivered slightly. He knew that he was covered, and yet he felt as if he might as well have been naked for how airy the textiles seemed. Given the stars already on his neck and face, Remi thought having them cascade down his chest likely wouldn't hurt, though he did have to stifle the breath that caught hastily in his throat as Bastien mentioned continuing lower, and indeed having him strip. "I think I will leave that sort of finish to the professionals." Remi said with a slanted smile, hoping that Bastien would finally let him off the hook for this, if not for anything else. R E M I I followed your ashes into outer space

Ronin was covered in that sort of finish, though if you asked him, he wouldn't be able to tell you how he had got it or quite when he had fallen asleep in the backroom of the church. He remembered drinking - a lot of drinking - and Bastien must have forgotten he was there because when he came around with a blazing headache and a case of the giggles, he was beneath several layers of bright and filmy fabrics, effectively masking him from the barkeep. When he emerged to find Remi wearing a very revealing shirt indeed, and Bastien his usually shiny self, the guildmaster couldn't help the laughter that came bubbling from his throat. Ronin wasn't wearing a shirt. There was glitter in his ruffled hair and smudged stars all over his chest and arms and neck, and his trousers were unfastened and risked slipping from his hips at any moment. It was pretty obvious, too, that he wasn't wearing underwear. "Hi!" he said cheerfully. "What are we doing?" ronypony it's always nice to make an impression

BASTIEN "Oh believe me, if showing my cock will improve the show, I will show it in seconds." Bastien promised, nodding with an amused smirk as he gathered gold paint on the brush again and walked forward to place more golden stars down onto Remi's chest, not too many (there was such a thing as too much glamour, surprisingly). He almost created a streak across Remi's nipples as Ronin entered and made him jump, the paintbrush in his hand stuttering as he turned to see the other man dressed...well. The sight made Bastien's eyebrows raise. Had he been there long? "We are preparing for a show, Signore. I must say you do not look much like a married man right now; if you would like to help here...Remi needs someone to ravage him so he can stop being so anxious." Bastien rubbed at a smudge of gold on Remi's chest with his sleeve. "...Or if that is off the table, you could always help with the performance." I'm feelin' like a big bang