Pieces Of Sky (Closed)

[Duffy]

Closed To Ruby La Roux & Wainwright's Ghost.


Pieces Of Sky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjQgN-PhBEU)

There is the sky; the irrefutable roof of the world, its limit, it’s barrier, it’s sunny borderline blue. There is the ground beneath it, a sprawling array of physical existence, rock and stone and flesh and wood. There is the ocean, and the oceans that pour into and out of it, an eternal cycle of eroding prowess, the god of the rains and the storms and the waves of maritime lore. You cannot escape these things, these elements, for they are the substance of the world and the world is all around you. This is Althanas, and the pieces of sky in the heavens are mere fragments of time suspended in history.

Beneath the sky’s glaring sun rests a small island, bobbing on tenterhooks on a salty meadow of sea water, hidden coves and nestled dreams. Some call it simply, ‘the Island,’ others named it Scara Brae long ago – it’s existence of course is indisputable, it cannot be denied except by those whom claim that Althanas is a flat disc. All that is questionable is the importance of a city such as this, for how can one truly know, when history is forged in every small part of life; few remember why this Island above all others, is a gem in the sands of time.

From Scara Brae’s hubbub rose, in ancient times, a power in the dark that brought a great joy to the spiritual consciousness of the island. Born of hope and glory and song itself, the youngest of the world’s Thayne opened its young eyes and glared down at the world that had given birth to it; it smiled, it opened its maw carved into the stone of eternity and sang the First Song. It was this song, this sublime and devilish verse that tore the great chunks of rock from the Windlacer Mountains that now nestle themselves in the clouds, and it is here that Tantalus, Thayne of Scara Brae’s creative heart, came to carve his grand theatre, to sit on the mortal world in secret and radiance, eternally performing the plays of a million multiverses.

All was according to fate, until Wainwright came. His disturbance in the Order and the Chaos shattered the amphitheatre in the clouds and entombed Tantalus in the throne he’d wrought of gold and iron. As Wainwright became Lucian, the Thayne withered and died, until his avatar turned to a dull granite resemblance and his spiritual presence on Althanas faded into nothing.

Now the grand theatre, once a glimmering beacon for the angels and daemons to dance and observe, is nothing more than a hallow, cold and dusty ruin, vast and empty and abandoned to nihilistic joy. Slowly, the six pieces of sky, the vast plateau of rock that form the platform for such a theatre have crumbled, weakened, and relinquished their strength. Rock falls in small shards to the Island below to shatter more prominent things than the dying dreams of Scara Brae.

This theatre, named Prima Vista by the once living Tantalus must survive. It must be visited, and brought to life once more by a performance of such conviction, that not even Lucian’s foul temperament and wrath can tear it from its mantle; Duffy and Ruby and many others discoursed long into the night of such a performance, and how it would be they once more, to stop the Pieces of Sky from falling.

But little did they know, that more than just their own world would come crashing down around them.

[Ruby]

“We ain’t doin’ it!” Ruby snapped, finally giving into the proper ladylike manner she spoke with, or thought she did. The room fell silent, and tension bridled with success in the air. The theatre house Prima Vista was suddenly not a very sunny place to be.

“We can’t not – if we don’t the ‘ole thing’ll come crashin’ down!”

“I cannot risk your life or mine or Lilith’s or Blank’s on a mythological pursuit Duffy, it simply is not happenin’ – you can go off up into the clouds to dance with gods if you want, but you ain’t takin’ us with you!” The stomping of her heel sounded as a finale to their argument, and Duffy stormed off the stage with a bull charge, and disappeared down the rickety staircase into the dining room beyond.

As far as Ruby was concerned, in her own selfish delusion, this had been a good resolution to a problem. They’d talked about Duffy’s plan for almost thirteen hours, through even song and lark rise, each pulling tiny little punches of persuasion to get one another to see things their way. They should have known such a task was impossible. She leant back and clicked her spine into a healthy position, and worked to remove the aches and pains from her body.

It took a while for anyone to pluck up the courage to speak, and a little voice squeaked from the encircling troupe. “Miss Wuby!”

“Yes-“she glanced over her shoulder mid stretch, peering through Lilith’s chest to the hiding place of a young Pete, “what is it?”

“I can’t ‘elp it, but I think we should go with Duffy.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake Pete, if anybody is going off on an adventure as dangerous as this it’ll be the grown-ups – it’s far too risky and your mother would never forgive me.”

“But,” Lilith continued on the scallywag’s behalf, pushing his emerging head back behind the trail of her dress. “If we do nothing to stop Lucian’s finale then we shall all perish in our own homes – if these pieces of sky do indeed fall down like meteors, then what hope have we?”

“We don’t even know if the performance will save the theatre, Lucian’s already there – the possibility of a confrontation is too much. You only gleamed a fleeting image of that man’s horror Lilith, I assure you, if you’d been dragged into the darkness that night, you’d be reluctant to return to his presence.”

“I would do anything for this city, Ruby, we all would.” Lilith looked left and right at the expectant faces, as if to ask for a show of hands. It came, in perfect unison with a small chorus of ‘ayes.’

“So…” Ruby flopped onto the edge of the stage overlooking the others and wobbled her legs, the sound of her heels kicking the backdrop thundering out a patient response. “You ‘ad to use that ac to get me to listen din’t ya.”

Lilith smiled and patted Pete on the head as he re-emerged, “You should know that compliance is not a word in this troupe’s vocabulary my dearest sister.”

She laughed and ruffled the hem of her dress, tightening the various straps and ribbons that kept the lattice of lace and silk neatly where it should be. “So, it is settled then. We shall show Lucian just how much this city loves us; we will show him the true spectacle of the stage he abandoned.”

A wave of heroic nausea rolled into the back of her throat, as if the weight and strain of Lucian’s secret was lifted at last in the troupe knowing all. Whatever part they all had to play in the grand performance in the sky, she knew that they would pull all the stops to achieve as close to perfection as mortal artists could.

Her smile sealed the deal, and the troupe embraced its destiny.

[Duffy]

Duffy skidded into the downstairs living room like a bull in a china shop, his head beaten with sweat and his chest mimicking the exhaustion with heavy repetition of pulsating blood pumping. He hated being undermined, and he hated being undermined by her even more.

“Argh!” His boot connected with a wooden crate and caved in the side, the brittle wood long abandoned kicking up dust and splinters. “Why’s it so ‘ard?”
It dawned on him that he wasn’t alone, and he turned to greet the shadow following him down the spiral staircase. They looked at one another in silence, both tensing their hands to punches and relaxing in a nervous cycle of uncertainty. The smell of arse-sodden furniture, stale soup and the overbearing odour of lavender perfume were swept aside by fear and the unknown. “Ermm, hello?”

Without any notion of movement or presence, the shadow stepped out from the twilight cast by the lights of the upstairs stage and formed fully in the azure and citrus glow of the living room’s fireplace. The tendrils of shadow flickered, and for a moment, terror and dread scared Duffy’s eyes and mind. “Oh, I’m sorry; I thought you were som-”

“-Someone else?” The shadow spoke, knocking the uncertainty from the thief’s lips. “I am afraid you are both correct, and incorrect.”

“I’m…sorry?”

“I am Lucian, and I am not, we were Lucian, and we are not.”

“I, I don’t understand what you…what are you saying?”

“I…have become Lucian. He has departed my mind and taken life for his own, I am what you call Wainwright, I am his Ghost – his effigy, the last trappings of his former self. I need to tell y-” a footstep broke the spirit’s concentration, and it looked nervously over its shoulder up the stairs to the light, like an expectant pensioner waiting for Time to come.

The hem of a red dress appeared, breaking the fade out with well timed steps. The ghost snapped back to Duffy and held out what appeared to be its hand. With a low and shrill voice, and a dispersing rush of black mist, it scattered to nothingness and imparted a simple command. “Open-your-eyes.”

Silence descended, and then a low roll of feet connecting with planks followed it. Ruby raised an eyebrow and rested a hand on her hip, still reeling in the uncomfortable but enlightening discussion between herself and the rest of the troupe. Suddenly, upon seeing Duffy’s dumbfounded expression and tense stance, her dreams of keeping in touch with the domineering personality she’d discovered slipped away.

“Duffy, what’s wrong?”

“Oh,” he shook his head, as if to scatter the clouds, “it’s…nothing, I was just lost in thought…what do you want?”

“I just came to tell you, that the troupe is behind you…I am sorry for going against you, I just care for the others too much to go into something like this head first.”

“Head first?”

Head strong, she corrected, smiling all the same at his sudden return to cheeky enthusiasm. “Without considering the implications of our actions, without acknowledging that we’re flying blind, without a real sense of what will happen when we get there.”

“When did we ever care about what would happen to us?”

“Duffy, let’s not pretend that things haven’t changed these last two years. The game, once a simple gambit with dice in the streets has become something that is far too deadly to play recklessly. We’re wagering lives, actual people now, we can’t afford to lose.” She stepped onto the last of the steps and looked over the living room, at the darkness and the murky clutter. “If we play our cards right, this place could be returned to it’s former glory – imagine a table with matching legs, real candles and lanterns, a fireplace not smothered in soot and eternally burning whatever we can spare to keep our fingers and toes from freezing. Imagine the Prima Vista on high, recreated right here – a seat of the Tantalum’s glory in Scara Brae.”

“A gambit…?" He let the word linger between them like an electrifying spark, castrating any doubt and giving formative life to a rising hope. Something occurred to him, that he had surpassed a long time ago; the idea of Tantalum, of avatar and leader was what had caused Wainwright to deviate from the mandate of the gods themselves. Perhaps, in the best interests of all the troupe, they should make the effort to lead not as each other, but in the collective of one. They would all be Tantalum, all recite the will of Tantalus, all hear the joyous dawn chorus of the Aria in the night.

“Yes, Duffy, if you will allow me the insult of being at the helm for just a while longer, I will make sure we are ready to win this war. I have witnessed the catastrophe and destruction an ideological quandary can wreak, I will not let what I have witnessed happen again – I will not let you come to harm, nor myself, nor the troupe.”

Silence fell once more, permeated only by Duffy’s heart pounding in his chest and two distinct breaths whispering in the heat. He supposed that there was more to this situation than could meet the eye, although his judgement was clouded by the simplest of phrases. What did ‘Open-your-eyes’ mean? He was wide awake and vividly paying attention to all that transpired. If anything, he needed to close them, to shut off the horrors and the nerves that assailed him.

“Very well, whilst I have failed in finding allies to fight Lucian, I will not fail in finding a way to the Theatre in the Sky – do all you can to prepare everyone for the coming performance, I think your choice of play to perform is nigh perfect for the occasion.”

“Thank you – I have made the choice, the troupe succeeds nobility, and so will honour my decision. Now come, we must clear the stage and assign roles, the night may be turning to dawn in swift measure, but we cannot rest, not whilst so much is at stake.” With a warm smile that could tinder even dragon scales, Ruby held out her hand to Duffy and he skipped over to embrace it.

Together they ascended the staircase, two little drumbeats announcing the Phoenix and the Bard to the theatrical world. Behind them, in the comfort of shadows and abandonment, Wainwright Jones watched his last hope for salvation disappear into the musical majesty of his former family’s bustle – he watched them rejoin the world he longed to experience once more.