View Full Version : Of What Could Be (Solo)
The streets of Scara Brae are a proverbial quagmire of dysentery, dishonesty, and disillusioned individuals, all mingled together with the mutual illusion of importance and place. It is in this city on the other hand, that some of the greatest playwrights of our age have scribbled down some of the most prudent, witty and socially obligated scenes and poems and wondrous carnivals ever witnessed, at least by human and mortal eyes. From Isobar Crane to Joseph Rogelio, each man or woman or elf or beast has placed their mark on the fountain of Market Square, dropped a penny in the well of Old Bakery Avenue, or simply ambled through the Orchard Lined Merchant District to the North of the slums, each of these people in turn have claimed a small portion of the ‘Scara Brae air’ as their own. They are, in the same vein as the adage ‘six feet under,’ very much buried into the foundations of the island and its traditions and cultures.
Sometimes Duffy wished fame and infamy came without the traditional payment of one’s own death. There were statues all over the city dedicated to people who’d been wondrous when they were alive, of fascinating and romantic peons of humble grace, but none of them had been noticed until the dagger had flashed through the dark or the unfortunate incident with a horse and cart had sent them off packing to the next commission. In all eventuality, things were a little different this time, but the young aspiring lad couldn’t help but wonder how many of his ilk had died unknown and unheard, and how many would do so in the future if the state of theatrical and dramaturgical affairs in his hometown didn’t change.
He dropped a copper piece and watched it fall down into the well’s gaping maw, imagining it spiraling and tumbling long after it had disappeared into the gloom below. Sanctity had been forgotten, and the church that had once stood towering over the Old Bakery was long crumbled to dust, but somehow, this weekly ritual made Duffy and several other thousand people who did the same feel that little bit holier, that little bit cleaner from all the dirty deeds they involved themselves with. The brightness in the sky and the gentle breeze were both uplifting. This neither he nor anyone else could deny, but the day wasn’t truly begun until we paid attention to the little idiosyncrasies we endeavoured to maintain.
To and fro the people walked, ran, wobbled and ambled, to and fro to work, to home, to sordid brothel in sordid alley; it didn’t matter to the Tantalum where all the audience appeared from. They were there to watch a performance, and every time they appeared everybody became something entirely castigated from their normative social chains, they became free agents, to enjoy, laugh and cry and scream in the revelation of the written word. Today, Duffy thought, turning around to survey the quiet safety of Old Market Avenue disappear into the jam packed Market Square beyond, there would be much revelation indeed! He stepped forward and walked proudly into the rear of the crowd which had been gathering before the familiar stage in front of the Old Harbour Inn for almost an hour; as he disappeared like a thief in the night into the blanket of faces, on the yonder platform, a red headed woman stepped out from behind a very badly wrought oak tree prop, with ample gait, and proclaimed that ‘Strudel and Crumpets’ was to be the afternoon play. The warning that children and the innocent minded womenfolk of the city should definitely cover their ears came with a slight cheeky grin, a wink, and then she turned to a fanfare and waved her arm.
At the exact moment the woman’s arms went up, and the trumpets reached a brazen peak in the rolling crescendo, Duffy scooped up a hooded cloak from the foot of the stage and stepped up to ascend to his rightful place as the male lead. He needed no introduction, and in the maelstrom of applause between recognition of Ruby and the Tantalum’s Troupe Master, both their mutual chests pounded with the thrill of what some distant otherworlders might call ‘adrenaline.’
“Ladies!” Duffy’s proclamation boomed across the crowd and cut through the uproar like a dagger into steaming Stollen Pie. He turned to Ruby, hand held aloft, and smiled. They flowed between one another, each picking up the tail end of the other’s lines to keep the flow rhythmic and prompt.
“Gentlemen!-” Ruby smiled back, curtly bobbing and bowing with the hem of her azure and red dress pulled taut.
“-People of the esteemed Hierarchy of Scara Brae.-”
“-We implore you, most humbly, to cast away the vestiges of your past lives and become part of this rag tag ensemble, of this strident and emancipated aspect of entertainment.”
Ruby walked to the right, away from Duffy and approaching another tacky oak tree prop. It might’ve been an effective display, if two small brats weren’t holding it up in plain view from behind. Cheeky grins plastered both their faces with obedience, as if they were trying to hide the fact that they’d been picking their noses in public from their approaching matron.
“Allow us, in the traditional method, to lighten your day with a tale of sordid rivalry, lovelorn war and perhaps, just perhaps.-”
“We will show you the true emotion of an ancient play that has enlightened and encapsulated thousands before you!”
The crowd threw up a short wave of applause and huddled together to crane their necks upwards, watching in acidic anticipation for whatever display would enthrall them. Perfect, Duffy thought to himself, dropping his hands to his sides and pulling up the hem of his hood to cover his face in Artemis’s Cowl of Knighthood.
With a clap, Ruby conjured from the red curtained backstage a sprawling mass of extras, children, women, various key members of the Troupe, all clad in pomp dresses and regalia of a royal house few would recongise. Each of them turned in step to a sudden rush of folk music, and the stage, once empty, turned into a Ball Dance in the natural glory of an ancient glade. Between each note and verse, a string of lights and glowing magical orbs was strung up between the left and right ‘oak tree,’ and with the simplest of claps, all the guests paused in perfect unison.
“This tale takes us back to the ancient court of House Frannon, who annually hold balls deep within the forests of Corone.-"
Ruby stepped forwards and teetered on the edge of the stage, “-such a ball, was the highlight of the calendar, and such a ball, is where we set our scene, in Fair Corone on Summer’s Eve, candle light!-"
“-Hatred!-” Duffy smiled, and pulled a mask from thin air in a flutter of fire.
“-And of course,” Ruby mimicked Duffy, and a masque akin to a golden fox appeared from behind her back. Together, they tied them on with simple red ribbon, and waved their arms inwards over the silent array of courtly statues.
“Strudel Wine and womanly crumpets!” They both chimed with ample harmony and the music started once more; the court danced, with such timely vigour as to set the world in motion. Artemis, the Prince of House Frannon, and Lilliana, the Mistress of the Household spiraled into the melee, and they together left Scara Brae behind.
The Aria shone like two pearls amidst a darkened sea.
In the movements of the crowds Artemis spied the red lady with keen disinterest. He could not be seen to be looking, nor could he be seen to be paying her no heed. The folk ensemble slowly increased the tempo of the ditty so that the dancers spiraled ever swifter, and with increasing eroticism, two-step pirouettes swiftly became triple stepped marriages of body and soul.
The dancers changed partners in the crux of a great spiral, and Duffy found himself holding Lilith, who was glad in a white gown and wreathed with ivy for the occasion. With a loud enough heckle to allow the audience to hear, he instigated polite conversations. “M’lady Isabella, ‘tis an honour to be-holdin’ your assets in such high regards,” the crowd laughed on cue as they saw he was not holding her by the hands as one might expect.
Lilith’s slap was pulled, but it still spited the young prince mightily. “If we are to talk m’lord, it shall be on my terms and not with such determined enthusiasm.” She smiled, and they turned once more into the first rotation of the simple courtly dance, that was essentially the same as Scara Brae’s, only wobblier.
“In such a sultry mood I find the sister of my beloved, I wonder, will she impart knowledge to be of the distant Strudel?”
“My sister, good sir, is no mere delicacy, nor is she to be compared to some common accompaniment to red wine and tavern brawling, if you speak of her at all, sharpen your tongue!”
“Will you not tell her a message for me?”
“What donkey eared buffoon would do such a thing?”
Lord Artemis pulled back his hood during the second rotation, and stared longingly into Isabella’s eyes. “Do not deny me at least a chance!”
“Ha!” The third rotation brought the separate arms of the spiraling masse together into two long rows; somehow, as if guided by unseen strings, the men were on one side, and the women on the other. Whosoever had sent the invitations had obviously done so with mathematical empiricism to an astrological level.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” A new voice caused heads to turn and the band sat to the right of the stage to cease their racket. Hushed mutterings and whispers died quickly as a pomp looking man with a twee moustache and an evident fascination with sex of an indiscriminate nature entered stage left. A brawn laden lackey was positioned at each shoulder, and all three were clad in black; Duffy had insisted on making the cliché be every little bit as bad as the audience would expect the ‘bad guy’ to be.
“I believe, that such a dance should not be partaken, until it has been given my blessing,” the man bowed and the crowd saluted, and quickly hurried back into the fourth rotation of the spiraling melee, with each couple swapping partners to their left, then right, then left.
Artemis watched Isabella swing off into the crowd and smiled with a wry little smile as the ivy clad guardian of his secret obsession found herself in exactly the right person’s arms.
Ruby took Isabella’s hand, and love was set in motion.
Duffy had forgotten how long it had been since he’d gotten the chance to perform. All the worldly woe’s he and the troupe had endured, he and Ruby and Lilith especially, they’d detracted from the one thing they all mutually enjoyed – the stage. After his return from the far flung continent of Ray-har-ia, or something, and Ruby’s return from Saliva, they’d embarked on a whirlwind tour of every favourite haunt of theirs and put on thirteen plays in seven days – a record, through and through.
Strudel and Crumpets was in fact an adaptation for a naughtier time of a simple lord and lady courtly romance, which would have fallen flat on its face at any other time, if it weren’t for the groping of womanly dignity and the come uppance of the ‘good guy’ to a man wearing such tight leather as to chap the groin into Thursday of next week. It was such an old play, everybody know it word for word, to the point where they could’ve whispered their lines and it would still have been understood or super imposed in the audience’s fragile little mind.
Artemis took the hand of his new dance partner and beguiled her with a story about a long cucumber and a rather short afternoon tea, all the while throwing the yonder red mistress a longing glance. He knew that the seed had been sewn, and Isabella would be asking her if he had any chance in all the glades of the woods.
“Lord Artemis!” The woman in his arms spoke, awkwardly, through teeth apparently loaned from a goat. “Itsh an honour!”
“Nay may (succubus) lady, the honour is mine, pray tell me what such a beauty as yours is doing (absent from the ball) here?”
They spiraled into a new rotation of the simple dance steps; both secretly praying time would go just a little bit faster.
The audience sat, enthralled with every word, anticipating the epic duel and full frontal nudity that was the slightest distance away. Whilst Duffy was thankful it was not he that would be bearing all in the name of his art, he wished they’d come to see the performance, the romance, the ‘epic and timely if not comic tragedy’ they were so desperately trying to portray.
But then, he added mentally, in between trying to remember his next line, love’s a bitch without a bone.
“Don’t tell me,” Ruby began, taking Lilith by the hand and speeding off into an unconventional same sex maneuver, “Lord Artemis the almighty has asked you to ask me if I will consider his hand in inappropriate philandering?”
Lady Isabella and Lilith alike both nodded, tucking under Ruby’s raised hand to twirl before entering the second rotation of the spiral. “He did indeed, and I need not consider your reply – after all, how could you resist a man who compares you to pudding?”
“Pudding?” She bit her lip and faltered, what some might call, in politer circles, a ‘swoon.’
“Yes. Strudel. You know of it?”
“Isabella of course I know of it, it is a common dish in the city, perhaps too common to be considered an apt comparison for one as haughty as I, but it is flattering of him to think of me so.”
“He took advantage of his… Position,” Isabella snapped dryly, adding a deadpan stare to give the rapturous laughter from the crowd time to die down.
“Was his grip firm?”
“Mistress!”
“Oh, I am sorry,” she coughed politely, “but, that man is a fiend of the highest order!” She smiled, dreamily, and they both went around once more into the third rotation, moving quicker and quicker as the folk band quickened the tempo once more, a sure sign that the dance was soon to come to an end and the frivolities of Lord Quagg’s entertainment would unfortunately begin.
“Your sarcasm is noted, but I will not try to dissuade you from pitying him with your mentionable. He’s rather fond of, what was it you said…rimming?”
Ruby chuckled, how fond she was of innuendo, “yes, he likes to ring his finger about my glass before discussing darker things.”
“Beg pardon?”
“You know, to make it chime and sing, he’s rather fond of it, it’s rather seductive.”
“Oh-“ Lilith frowned, the audience laughing at the confusion. “I thought you meant rimming.”
The fifth spiral occurred, and ended with a rather abrupt jump and claps and cheers from the dancers. They dispersed quickly, Lady Isabella to Lord Artemis, and the Mistress to tend to greeting Lord Quagg, as was the custom for her title and role.
“It is a great honour to have you with us Lord Quagg, and here I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about us!”
The moustache replied, running ahead of the face to which it was attached. “It is perfectly apt to say I am fortunate you are here, such disheveled women have crowded me since I arrived back in the forest…pray tell me, Mistress, why are you not teething with men far beneath your station?” The man behind the moustache caught up with his own seething creepiness, and smiled as he twisted the curly moustache prongs into a diabolical shape.
Ruby rolled her eyes, Blank may be a mute outside of the stage, but he enjoyed this role far too much.
“What did she say, quickly, put me at ease?”
Lady Isabella rolled up to Artemis’s side with a look of dread, but still, despite her fatigue and discomfort, she replied sharply as ever. “Give me your sword and I will do so gladly. But I assume you mean your question, and yes, I indeed asked her.”
“Did she cast me aside with valkyrie indifference?”
“No, your expectations are high indeed, but she expressed an interest in sleeping with you, I assume you make no false assumption that love is in the eyes of our mutual acquaintance?”
“Love?” Said Artemis, “I know she could never love me, or Quagg, or any other man; a moment with her is all I desire, and all I shall cherish for eternity.”
“Pity,” Lilith chuckled, letting Lady Isabella bask in the moment. She was beginning to understand the changes to the play, and hoped, for the sake of Duffy’s genitals, that Ruby didn’t see past the metaphor. “Lord Quagg will issue his challenge shortly, the Duel of Remembrance as is customary every year. It is for the men of the audience and chamber to put forwards a champion, one voted or urged on the tip of a blade, I suggest, if you wish to win the Mistress’s favour to ensure her mind is made up, that it is you that steps into the circle, blade drawn and temper frayed.”
He clutched the buttons on his cloak and undid them hurriedly, like a boy whose patience had shattered on Chris Tingle Eve. Lady Isabella took a cautious step back, so as to not be seen with him in the way of prying eyes and watched curiously. She had not expected her gambit to work so efficiently…all the mustered gossip of the court had placed Lord Artemis as a headstrong and noble man who would not endanger his pride nor his general well being so recklessly. “Are you…sure, you wish to do this?”
“I will fight for my right, to prove I am worthy!”
“But,” she began, her words falling on deaf ears as the call came for the challenge, and the crowd formed a circle around the centre of the clearing. Artemis disappeared into the hubbub, and Lady Isabella followed, swallowing very hard several times, as she was most amply skilled at doing.
She overheard Artemis shout that it would be him dueling, and the crowd gasped. They gritted their teeth as a blade was drawn and held aloft, it’s tip protruding over the sea of masks and pretense, like the sword drawn free of the ancient and theatrical Camelot stone.
“What have I gone and done this time?” She muttered.
Lord Quagg’s moustache moved, and Artemis supposed the duel underway. He leveled the blade at the statue of leather’s neck and proudly puffed out his chest, in the same manner as knights did in children’s books, moments before being impaled on a lance or crunched to dust by dragon’s teeth. The circle split into an arch so the crowd could watch the duel they’d all been waiting for, to give the impression that they were there, actually amongst the ball goers.
“Lord Artemis!” The mistress cried, shock smothering her more than the tightest restraints. “I will spare you no thought if you die to such a foolish Endeavour!”
Clearly he wasn’t listening; he smiled, slightly deranged, and ran forwards to prove his worth.
Moments like these were meant for the stage, a playwright had said, at some point, somewhere, at sometime. These little moments were the sorts of things that stuck in your head and no matter how old and senile you got, you could remember and perform them without having to improvise or ask for a line check. You lived and breathed and in some cases, excreted them all over the pavements and bed chambers. You became them, wholly, utterly, devoted.
As Duffy tried desperately to remember the second, third and thus fourth motion of the sword duel, he wondered if he’d even read such a thing, or if he’d made it up late one night whilst trying to stroke his ego into writing something remotely worth the paper it was stolen from. He’d only written one play worthy of performance in his whole life, and at twenty three, which was ancient for a playwright; he was starting to wonder if he just simply wasn’t meant to be famous. He was infamous, sure he was, there was even a recent spree of wanted posters up in the docklands pertaining to a certain theft of a cargo ship, and he was still unable to go through most of the downtown market area after he ‘acquired’ several large bags of copper coins from what he called ‘dishonest merchants,’ but it just wasn’t the same.
Someday, he muttered, as he jumped up and spiraled around to find his blade deftly blocked by Quagg’s steady hand. They locked blades and pushed hard as they could, feet sliding back and heads peering over the cross. They both snarled, on cue, and jumped back to disengage.
“You volunteered for this, to prove your worth to the Mistress of Court? You? You are nothing, nobody, a remnant,” the moustache moved again. The last part of that line came, quite literally, from nowhere. Ever since Duffy’s departure to the realm beyond realms The Aria had sung very brightly, as if his connection to Tantalus was somehow either complete or nearing completion. In his dreams at night, languages and words of a thousand different emotive endings all streamed into his head, so much information, it took him weeks even to discover a use for even the slightest snippet. He caught the crowd’s dumbfoundment, and mentally scratched it off the parchment for any repeat performances.
“Honour is something you would never understand Lord Quagg, and I will have you know, that I an not nobody! I am nobody,” Duffy smiled, “with a very large dil-“
“Enough!” The mistress interjected, seeing the embarrassment she would suffer if she stayed her tongue. That one night last summer was something that would remain forever embedded in the same orifice as the object mentioned.
“If you wish to fight for right to bear my arms to lofty heights, do so! I have no strength to decide between the two of you, so fight! Kill! Maim! You miss the meaning of love and romance if you would hurt me so with these petty words and slices of malice!”
The crowd fell silent, and to the left and right of either stage, the sexually ambivalent sorceress twins Liasa and Minella prepared their coup de grace, their ‘spenshull erfects’ as Duffy called it.
I do enjoy going out with a bang! Artemis swung his blade back, so that it pointed at an angle downwards behind him and cupped his hands together like a rose in bloom. He muttered an ancient word, and his fingertips sparked; the energy surged forwards, and the ‘magic’ came to life in a long bolt of fiery convocation and thunder.
Satisfied with their work, the twins went back to their crumpets and copy of Broad Ways To Singing.
The crowd roared with excitement and leant back from the spectacle.
Oh bother, Duffy sighed, arms resting on both hips at the sight of Blank prone on the floor, shivering and crackling with the after effects of his ‘bid for love.’ He suddenly understood what it was that he was lacking, what it was that was preventing him from being like the other famous poets and actors he’d read about, wrote about, sung about.
“They never had to put up with this!”
Standing still in a crisis was something Duffy Bracken did best, so as the rest of the troupe swiftly pulled the curtain closed and made a hurried announcement that ‘Due To Tech Nick Archal Difficulties’, there would a ‘brief and intermittent intercession,’ he stopped and stood statuesque. In Tantalum Code, this meant a hasty and very cunning retreat was underway.
“You!’ Ruby wagged her finger at the sorceress named Liasa as she inspected Blank’s injuries. “Do something about this right now!”
It didn’t take any more influence, a wave of a hand later and Blank was right as rain, if a little sore. The hubbud of the audience was steadily boiling to ‘violent and catastrophic,’ so the troupe burst into life and a state of automation.
As Lilith and Ruby saw to the movement of the props into the front entrance of the Old Harbour Inn, Blank hurriedly donned his real ruby studded blade and visor and organised a forced march of the little ones, careful to not frighten them or suffer their wrath. Lisa and Minella, looking somewhat sheepish under the glares of the others magically carried several crates under their fingertips and off to they went into secrecy and escape.
Duffy turned around slowly several times, taking in the last of the stage’s ambiance. The rioting that would take place would no doubt bring the stage to ruin, and that was something they could not afford to replace at such a troubled time. He walked over to the cloak he’d discarded as Artemis, scooped it up, and made for the doorway.
“Just once, just once I’d like to see something go to plan!”
Ruby appeared and beckoned him to safety, “Plan? Oh dear me Duffy, you don’t ever expect it to go to plan, do you?”
“It’d be nice, wun’t it?”
“Sure, but this is Scara Brae, and this is the Tantalum – not to mount a high horse and saddle it sorely all the way to market, but you’d do well to learn from the last three performances, and your run in with wotsername, Yuki?”
“Aye, I know I know, wherever we go, trouble goes, ‘nuff said.”
“We will lay low for a few days, perhaps tend to matters at Lady Gregory’s, work on our soliloquies, and be back out on the streets before you can say sausage!”
“Pfft, there ain’t no goin’ back from that – we need summat new, summat bold, summat brash!” Duffy broke out some inappropriately timed jazz hands.
“You’ve been trying to work out the ontological meaning of acting and fame for three weeks, whatever happened to you in Raiaera sure seems to have given you some enthusiasm – I’m not sure I can say the same for my own endeavors.”
“I dun’ some thinking,” he began, pushing the back door of the inn open and waltzing out into the dank alleyway beyond. He watched the tail end of the procession of people and props waggle off into the darkness and chuckled, at least their escape was easy. “Lucian may ‘av beatun’ us this time, and we might be not strong enuff to tackle ‘im; but if Lorenor and tothers take their oath seriously, I reckon we gots a chance!”
“We can’t possibly consider taking the fight to Lucian without the Orb, you know this more than any of us.”
Duffy smiled.
He might not be famous or all that bright, but what he did possess, was a little spark of madness, that made for interesting, if not always practical possibilities.
“’Ere’s what we is gonna do!” They plunged into the slums of Scara Brae, vanishing from life itself.
In a tense situation, all it took was one little knock to shatter reality. This time, the knock came from one member of the audience stepping up onto the front of the stage and angrily peering beyond the curtain. One cry of ‘Oi, they gone!’ later and suddenly, Scara Brae was reminded of the famous riots of Chihuahua Lane.
Several members of the crowd produced bricks from their girdles, and crowbars from umbrellas, part as if by magic, and part as if utterly expecting disappointment. The first stone didn’t take long to be thrown, and the stage did not last long under the scrutiny of its critics.
This was the way of the world, you give, you take, you get given and certainly, if some stories were to be believed, you got taken. Failure had happened so many times the troupe, and many other troupes like them had gotten used to taking a knock and getting up and on with it. Although it was Blank that often took the full force of any mishaps, and it was certainly why he never spoke off stage, this time, Duffy and the others felt ambivalent.
The winds of change were certainly here, they had come a great deal forwards since that first celebration of Lucian’s Call nearly a year ago, but at the same time, they’d taken two steps back. The city needed them, but could not let them be free. It loved them, but hated them with equal and bitter care.
Without realising, what Duffy wanted above all other things was not fame, or to be written into the tomes of history, but recognition, for the here and now from whomsoever gave it. He did not want to be known as the author of Lysander’s Flock, or to be the one that people spoke of at dinner parties, described as the knocker philanderer and all-round philistine. He wanted to be a part of the fame, he wanted to do deeds and be forgotten, a fickle parasitical existence of the true hero, like Lysander, like Brandybuck, like the Captain of the Red Scourge or the hero of the Goblin Wars, he wanted to be the story, he did not want to forever be the one writing it down long after the joy had faded in dusty tomes, reliving old memories until he turned grey and miserable.
This was the true conundrum, or at least as much as could be revealed in such a short space of time. Life was too busy on Althanas to truly analyse the innards of a man to reveal the true nature of living. But if anyone was going to try, then Duffy was damned certain it was going to be him.
Together Ruby and the troupe master walked, coming closer to their darkest desires in a single moment of shared intimacy than they’d ever realise, or ever admit.
‘Shut together in the dark, The Mistress and Artemis embraced their true-‘ The Narrator caught Duffy’s glare, and ran away very quickly, exiting stage metaphor left before it found the blunt end of a footnote.
Ruby stopped dead in her tracks, dumbfounded in stages through idiocy into nihilism. “Let me get this straight, you want to ask him?”
“Yeah?” Duffy flinched instinctually, expecting a swift kick to the nuptials as ever was the fashion in Ruby’s company.
“You want to ask Lucian for the Orb, just like that?”
“Now look ‘ere! Lucian might be…mad, but ‘es’ dear to me and I to ‘im, he don’t need it now he’s rej…regener…” Ruby corrected him with a polite regenerated, “regenerated, so perhaps we just ask ‘im for it, so we can be permanently be reminded of ‘is claim and infinite glory, or summat – goad his ego.”
“I will not condone such a stupendously bad decision!”
“Why?”
“That man wants nothing more than to see the Tantalum, its members, and all its morals burnt to the ground in a twisted hellfire of his own making. There is no reason in those dead skulls of his, there is no future in compassion, Duffy, after all he did to you…after all he put me through in lumping me with Cael and that blasted desert, you want to be nice?”
“It’s wot Tantalus wants it is!”
“BULLSHIT!”
The atmosphere snapped, splintered, and reversed in on itself. Ruby took on the mantle of her name and turned a bright shade of beetroot in her rage, barely contained by her clenched fists.
“Alright! I ain’t gonna ask ‘im, have you got any better ideas?”
“The only way to defeat Lucian’s petty campaign to discredit our name and to tear our lives apart more than he has done already, Duffy, is to ensure that whatever he does, he does not get to see us suffer; we will mourn in private, we will scorn his loss in our dreams alone, but we will not give in to his demands. We will not stop our performances, we will not apologise, and we will certainly not return to him Wainwright’s Artifacts!”
Duffy turned his attention to the jewelry around Ruby’s neck, realising that she was not so ignorant to the truth after all. He had tried to keep the nature of Wainwright’s Heart from her, for so long, but obviously she had been informed from some other source as to its origins, to its malicious beginnings. There was no going back from this gaping abyss; he had to plunge headfirst into the storm beyond.
“Oh…you know.”
“I am afraid that indeed, I have discovered the purpose of this artifact about my neck. Lilith too has learnt of her role to play in this predicament, I assume Blank is unaware, and that you hold the fourth and final piece?”
“Blank ‘as the sword, so he’s bound to it…and I ‘as the dagger, and the scar with which they’re bound.”
Duffy held up his hand with the palm flattened to prove a point, the scar inflicted by his once mentor so long ago reared its ugly head and proved to them both that the past was not so easily shed. Silence descended for a moment.
“Come on, we can’t waste any more time here, let us move on.”
They started walking along the alleyway, their boots splashing through the rainwater puddles and sluice without any care. They ignored the rotting bricks and the discarded items of equally as dubious thieves and stormed off to whatever destination they were letting nature take them.
“I had no other choice!”
“Of course you had a choice, Duffy, you purposefully came to me that night and you did everything in your power to make me come to adore you, knowing that I would give you the mantle and title of Tantalum!”
“I din’t know that Lucian was called Wainright!” For once, Duffy was telling the truth. How bitter he felt, for having been mislead. He came to the troupe so long ago after a blonde man told him he would find his parent's killers there...he felt bitter at having been used, for having been so easily lead on puppet strings.
“No, but the moment you arrived you discovered it and you had two years to tell me! But no, your own selfish little indulge lead you to ruin all our lives, we could have killed Lucian half a decade ago had it not been for your own selfishness!”
“Do you think I wanted to tell you what Lucian did? What he did to you, to me, to the others? When I found out he killed my parents, and that he killed your first love, I cried so much I re-opened the wound and let the blood touch the four artifacts – it was as if Fate pushed me.”
“Now Lucian has eternal power over us, the only way we will ever be rid of him is if we find the Orb…I assume you now know it’s true name?”
Duffy squandered a moment to listen to the rats as they scarpered away into dark holes and moldy rubbish piles. It was along a tunnel just like this that he’d walked, two years ago, with the vial of blood and the four items that once belonged to the Tantalum named Wainright Jones…
“The Orb of Attainment is known by the name Wainright’s Eye, and through it, Lucian sees all of Scara Brae.”
“So it is most fortunate that it is broken, is it not?”
They turned a corner and stopped at the edge of the alleyway, both of them watched the stream of people slip past the tall crack in nothingness that formed a metaphorical barrier between their private troubles, and the outside world.
“I… Suppose.”
“If we do not recover the fragments of the Orb, which I believe are now in various articles of jewelry on ears of various members of the Scara Brae Court, we will never be able to bring the four together and combine Lucian’s sceptr’d form into one, single, true representation of his hatred.”
“Stoppit!”
“Duffy?”
“STOPPIT! Lucian and Wainright are not the same, the man he was and the man he has become are distinct, separate, we can bring back the Tantalum that served Tantalus, we can restore the troupe to Scara Brae with his help!”
“Is it worth the risk? Is it worth all this torment and toil to perhaps, just perhaps, bring to life a buried light in a quagmire of malice? That man Scara Brae once knew as the Greatest Playwright to Live is gone, Duffy. He is dead in their imagination, he is a vestment to history, and he is forgotten and no more!”
“Must we truly kill him?”
“There can be no doubt –“ Ruby made to unclip the clasp at the back of her neck and gently pulled away the elaborate necklace. “These four artifacts combined and placed on the Tantalum, will summon to his presence the one who once made them,” she offered it to him, almost pushing it into his reluctant hand.
“I…I will do it.”
“Rest, Duffy. Think on all these things, call your allies that you have spent so long gathering, and realise, that you can no longer escape reality. You are Tantalus, you are the artful blood of Scara Brae, and you answer to no-one, not even Lucian.”
With a wink and a longing smile, Ruby disappeared into the crowd and slipped away into obscurity.
For almost an hour Duffy stood, too petrified to move. He watched the people of the city walk by, observing them like an owl in the embracing clasp of an oak tree or barn roof and thought, long and hard. The cold metal of the necklace in his hand reminded him of the dagger as it struck his skin and scattered blood down his thigh when he was young. The duplicity of life made him smile at last, “How does life go from comic frivolity to traumatic revelation and back once more to the mundane without growing tired?”
"Why must one of the greatest men of all suffer such a cruel and vicious sentence?"
He pulled the dagger from its belt and tapped the necklace with its tip. Duffy knew now that his destiny was not to be the actor, nor the writer which he’d spent so long mimicking.
Duffy’s Destiny, was to always dream Of What Could Be…
Spoils:
Wainwright's Heart - possession of this necklace has now shifted to Duffy.
Wainwright's Dagger - Duffy's Iron Dagger is now Wainwright's Dagger, a masterwork Iron Dagger with a ruby in the pommel. It cannot be sold.
*Parry Catch - Duffy's combat skill has excelled enough for him to attempt a parrying catch once per thread. In doing so, he brings his weapon into his opponent's swing and pushes against it, wrestling his opponent in a duel of strength and skill. This is restricted to realism, as twin daggers could only realistically clash and parry similar weapons, short swords or longswords, or similar length weapons. It's skill is that of his Dagger skill, which is presently Above Average.
Infamy (Duffy & Ruby)- The Tantalum's name in the city of Scara Brae is now one of hot gossip and discussion, both because of it's skill and excitement, and because of it's tendency to go missing, just like the purses of it's audience. This Infamy has a reciprocal effect, in that most will know Duffy and Ruby's face, and some will respect them greatly; but others will be nervous at their sight or outright aggressive to them. The price of fame, 'ey?
* - A branch-off from Duffy's combat skill/style.
In the honourable fashion of the theatrical tradition,
THE END
Amaril Torrun
01-06-10, 12:22 PM
Of What Could Be
STORY
Continuity ~ 4 This story didn’t have enough backdrop for the characters involved and didn’t stand on its own very well. I know most of your writing, but you asked for someone unfamiliar with The Tantalum to judge this. Keeping that in mind, someone reading this without reading your other threads would have a hard time knowing what was going on.
Setting ~ 6 You write about Scara Brae as Duffy feels about his home city, giving your readers a unique perspective. You also add small tidbits of historical value to your world. There is still a lot of description missing though, considering the five senses.
Pacing ~ 5 I wouldn’t say that this story was rushed, but it did feel as though it went by faster than it should have. This is most likely due to the thread being part of a much larger story, but as I mentioned in continuity, each thread should be able to stand on its own.
CHARACTER
Dialogue ~ 8 There were some areas where I wasn’t sure who was talking, due to several paragraphs or lines of pure dialogue. You do know how to make your characters wink after a sly remark or let a quiver escape one’s lips in anger or fear. Use these types of things a bit more to help make it clearer on who is saying what. You have your characters speak brilliantly, fitting to who they are.
Action ~ 7
Persona ~ 9 You know who exactly who Duffy is. You know what you want your other characters to accomplish and who they are. Anyone who reads your writing will learn the same thing. Add a bit more flesh to your third tier characters such as Liasa and Minella. If a character in your story is important enough to name, then he or she is important enough to draw some attention.
WRITING STYLE
Technique ~ 8 Things such as “tech nick archal difficulties” and “spenshull erfects” came across as a tad too comical. Coupled with the Sword In the Stone reference, and Duffy’s interaction with the “Narrator,” the story seems to be written in two very different styles at once (comedy and fantasy). I love your style of writing, but it seems a bit too… excited? I can’t think of a better word right now, but that seems to fit.
Mechanics ~ 5 I’m just going to toss in a few random mechanical issues I found, in no particular order:
“…who was ‘glad’ in a white gown…” instead of clad in a white gown. Forward not “forwards.” Some misspellings such as “realising” instead of realizing. You capitalized “endeavor” at some point, with no real reason to do so. Some word confusion, such as using “lead” instead of led. A, lot, of, co,mmas,,,,,. ;p
Clarity ~ 6 During The Tantalum’s plays, it is sometimes murky as to whether one of your characters is thinking or acting in a manner that pertains to their character or to the character that the character is pretending to be. The confusion of who is talking at times also hurts here.
MISCELLANEOUS
Wild Card ~ 7
TOTAL ~ 65
Duffy earns 1408 experience and 75 gold, as well as his spoils!
Taskmienster
01-24-10, 12:15 PM
Exp and GP added.
Duffy hits level 2!
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