Myrmidon

[Ruby]

The Lupine Hearth
The City of Rodham, 30th Nida, 1004 A.A

The festival of the moon falls on the first month’s beginning of autumn. The city of Rodham holds no other affair in higher regard, it’s citizens planning for the occasion the day the last festival ends. For weeks prior to the opening play, held in Market Square at the city’s heart, travellers pour into the city and the docks never sleep to bring food and supplies and street performers from across the free kingdoms. Nobody is more excited than the leading man of the Restless Fugitive theatre troupe, tasked with the principle role in the festival’s opening event – the performance of the play Lux Aeterna, written long before the three kingdoms were founded, and long before the fall of Almeria and the exodus of its people across the world.

“Wainwright, will you sit down?”

“No.” He winced. “No thank you, Liza.”

His prima donna and conscience sat at the rickety desk in his office with her arms folded across her chest and a withering glare aimed directly at him.

“You are on stage in a matter of hours. Why are you nervous?”

He had performed on stage a thousand times, and knew every line of Lux Aeterna with perfect recall. She had seen him dabble in liquor or warm up on the wings of the stage before, but had never seen him quite this unnerved.

“Don’t you know?” He turned to her and grimaced. “Oh, Oh I thought they’d have told you. I’m such an idiot!” He flapped his arms.

“Know what?” Liza rested her hands on the edge of the desk and began to tap out a nervous rhythm of her own.

“She’s here.” He began to pace back and forth between the bay windows and the open door leading out into the prop room. “I can’t believe she’s actually here.”

“Err, I might need some help here.”

“Valeena!” He turned back to her dramatically and spread his arms wide. He calmed down. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“Of course the queen’s here. Where else would she be?” Liza swallowed the urge to chuckle and relaxed back into her chair. “You’ve been pulling out your hair for this?” She attended each opening performance of the city’s three major festivals diligently. Though Liza had never seen the queen so much as break a smile during any of their plays, her presence was comforting to the troupe – it gave them clout, a royal ascent. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“No, you don’t understand.” He shook his head, eyes wide and fingers shaking. “She asked me if she could come.”

Liza furrowed her brow. “The Queen asked your permission to see a play put on in honour of the royal family? That. That is odd.” She bit her lip, hiding her doubt behind a placid expression and distracting herself by pouring herself a glass of wine.

Wainwright marched to the desk and picked it up before she could set the bottle down and calm herself. He downed it feverishly and held it at arm’s length, as though to suggest she should refill it.