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The door did not open, but Mark turns to meet his visitor anyway.
"Knock knock," he chides her, head tilted both forward and sideways, with an unreadable smile. "What are you doing here? Get back to your corner."
"I came from a mass grave," she replies, with a tongue like curled milk. So — she's going sour.
"It's not your turn yet! Return to your position."
His tone does not betray from his grin. From the shadow of the theatre's audience, her dirt-trodden eyes watch him. From the shadow of the theatre's audience, she curls her fingers before her chest, the way she'd humble herself before the Humbles.
"Theatre," she says, "is to be experienced under the sky."
"I wouldn't turn down an open theatre," he replies.
"Does nobody see the bones you have created?"
Oh? Oh! "The blisters? The cancerous earth?"
"The dying earth."
"Why, mud-woman; that was not by my hand. That was the work of our mutual acquaintance." Mark's teeth strain with excitement. "Would you like to scorn the man of fate?"
Ospina blinks slowly, one eye and then the other. She clenches her jaw, on and off, once and twice, to flex her own teeth. She looks like desiccated clay. Not a single bone in her shabnak body belongs here.
"You do not respect the earth," she muses. Her bit back fingernails crawl over her muddy gown. "Do you dream?"
"As tall as the glass can allow me," Mark replies.
"The sky is not made of glass."
"But it is rather pretty up there. Almost like you can see the hands—"
"Or the meat."
"—Or the meat! Devoured, boweled, inside the bull-beast."
She grinds her teeth again. "I don't like you. The earth doesn't like you. You're dreamlike; you're fake."
"Neglecting to accept the ideologies of your others is what keeps history as it is," he tuts. "Archaic, unchanged, and isolated."
"The earth only changes when its people cause it," she says, "not by the will of a dream."
"Why are you arguing with me? You and I have both lost, by the word of the script." Mark takes several long steps along the stage, to its edge, heels pressing into the wood and dangling over the melted candles. "By what we've willed, I failed with the collapse of the tower. Why, I'm the only one left standing in my corner of the book."
Ospina makes a face of disgust and frustration. "The earth is bleeding. Soon, it will be dry. Selfish man of fate, won by the Changeling. But neither of your dreaming architects made it."
"And that is the loss! But, production is production. We can speak in metaphors, or I can ask you plainly."
Mark Immortell drops himself from his stage, landing on the flat of his feet. Somewhere in his history, there is a tale of a man left for dead in a cold mound of earth. But here, his body does not flinch, and he wanders forward to the dirt-bound woman, bringing the stage light with him. It draws over Ospina, who casts no shadow - for she is made of shadow.
"Where do you think you'll go, when you're finally buried?" he asks.
Ospina blinks unevenly once more. Though she is small, and must look up at the man of great zeal, she betrays no uncertainty. She watches him the way the actors watch the magic of the hypnotic changeling - resentment and honesty.
"Back to the earth, where my body will feed worms and Worms," she replies. "A metaphor is all your story is. History is more than allegory and allusion."
"Your beast men are beastmen. Isn't that enough of an allegory?"
She takes the shadow step to match him, a shuffle of patches and shoebones. Mark presses the end of his cane to the inlet of his shoe, and sways it away to allow her space.
"History exists in the place of a story," she says. "I cannot learn the history of men who do not exist outside of a stage. Through blood, you can. 'Actors', as you call them, have a bloodline. Bloody line. You can trace those."
"Are you trying to convince me, or appeal to me?" Mark asks. "I'm considering a chapter on wardens before I am clay women."
"I hear you're made of clay, too."
"I think I'm more of fine leather. Stretched out skeleton, and wholly ready to admit what I am."
Ospina lowers her head and coughs into her fist.
Mark smiles.
"The earth catching up to you?" he asks. "Dusty lungs?"
"If death is what comes, then so be it," Ospina rasps. "Time cannot be changed, nor rolled back. I came to talk, but you don't have any words I want to hear."
"I know a doctor or three you could go to, if it gets worse."
"Don't you bother." Ospina turns, shielding herself momentarily from the harsh stage light. Her shadow is too long, and casts far into the dusty room. "If I come back because of your pen, I'll remember you."
"And what else?" Mark asks, almost bored. "Stagger across town to make me regret earthly matters?"
Ospina continues her stagger towards the door. The soft light of the entrance shapes her unevenly. She doesn't look back to look at him. "Perhaps talk about the casting of a director. Grow familiar with the hands that caress your step."
Mark turns away from her. Much like her arrival, the door does not close.