View Full Version : Little Miss Monocle (Closed)
Little Miss Monocle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3K15_PCfn8)
1985
A chill wind rolled over the lake and down across the waterfall to the dreamy foam below. In between the vast pillars holding aloft a bridge to an island of dreams, herons and swallows fluttered to and fro in the last moments of summer. Duffy looked across the sunset in all it's splendour, candidly assuming beauty to be calming. He needed something to drag his mind away from the gutter, from the treachery, from the impending danger to all the troupe.
His hair and white tabbard were cast in a golden light, adding to his pious nature and drawing his gaze down every now and then to Basque in his own sense of self importance. The castle was their last bastion against Lucian should he rise, and it had been chosen as the council chamber for their preparations. The vast hall was full of all the Tantalum and it's allies, the plethora of familiar faces had overwhelmed the plucky thief to tears; and he had fled to compose himself with some half bothered excuse.
Everything he had fought for was being tested. Somehow, despite his innocence, Duffy felt responsible for Lucian's rage, he felt tenable for his ancestor's selfish deed and for the corruption of cityscape and island whole. Perhaps he had taken on that responsibility too much, perhaps, just perhaps, he had to realise and relinquish that shame to ensure there were no mistakes.
"Duffy!" Ruby's voice drifted around the castle parapets, and he glanced over his shoulder to check that she could not see him just yet. He wiped a sleeve over his eyes to scour the tears, and adjusted his hair and tabbard before leaning casually against a tree to wait. "Duffy, come inside!"
Now was the time to step up, to put all the promises he had made in the last year into action.
"Duffy!"
Ruby turned the corner and instantly relaxed when she caught sight of her friend. She strolled over with lazy hips and a delicate smile, clad in a taught red dress with black netting and brown flourishes. Wainwright's Heart caught the sun and shone with radiance in physical waves. "There you are."
"Hey," he mumbled, looking coyly over his shoulder.
Now was the time for forgiveness, of one's sins and failings and inabilities.
"We were getting worried about you, why did you leave?" She rested a hand on his shoulder and held out a small porcelain plate with a single cherry scone sitting on it dead centre. "You'll catch your death out here if you don't eat."
With a candid chuckle, he took the plate and tried to lighten up. "Thank you, I just came out to catch some air before we begin."
Now was the time to kill dreams where nightmares rested, to end curses where blessings grew...
"Before we resign ourselves to suicide..." They looked out across the lake together, nibbling noisily on the warm dough and sugared cherries that worked to ease their woe.
The scone quickly vanished and Ruby became suddenly aware that her skin was covered in goosebumps. She cast Duffy a glare and tapped him on the shoulder. Normally, she would have flattered his ego and dreary sorrow, but they were gathered for a reason, and she would stay strong to ensure that the others held their nerves. "Come on Duffy, let's go back inside and call the meeting to order. You've a speech to be giving and I don't much fancy my sen' out here much longer."
The sun had crested over the horizon and thrown up a wave of orange and gold across the sky. It reflected promise in both their eyes, haughty tales of legendary beings roiled in their minds as The Aria threw caution to the wind and drove inspiration into their hearts. Together, arm in arm like the good old days they strolled back towards the castle. The scrunching of late Autumn leaves sounded their progression, crumby plate in hand and dreams worn like a mantle.
"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?" He glibly asked, uncertainty clear on his voice.
"I think you're doing the right thing for Scara Brae."
"I..."
"No, no need...we promised to sacrifice everything to defend her when we became a part of the troupe. It is who, and most importantly what we are. It is what we have become."
"To die for her unknown, though?"
"Ha! Nobody living is famous Duffy, just think of all the performances of Lucian's Call or Lysander's Flock the children of the future will see - think of all the joy Lillith's comedy's will bring to the descendants of our ancestors!"
"I guess..." They crossed the threshold and the leaves beneath their boots turned into a thick red carpet and a spiral staircase. The council chamber was an amphitheatre at the heart of the castle, once a fire pit and ritual chamber for an ancient faith, it had been converted to the gathering point of Scara Brae's Tantalum for centuries. It had been at the centre of this exact pit that Lucian had first given a speech to praise Tantalus and his glory centuries ago. Yet here Duffy was, praising the death of Gods.
"I'm sorry everyone," he shouted over the general conversation, tracing the outline of several friends and family as he walked and weaved between the seated congregation towards the centre stage.
"Let us begin," Ruby clapped her hands and added vocal flourish to her words to throw her voice higher still.
Silence fell over the castle and the eyes of allies and friends fell onto the thief, who stepped up onto the dais at the heart of all things and turned on a heel to take it all in. His heart beat in it's cage with heavy thuds, and his mind span and revelled in the song The Aria sang to him to soothe his heart. There was no going back now, it was all or nothing to convince those that followed him blindly to actually follow him blind to the last place they could go.
"I have asked you all here today for a reason...I guess in many ways, I have asked you here for a show of hands. I want to ask you for a show of strength against an enemy that threatens us all, regardless of the walk of life you're from. I speak of course of Wainwright Jones, the Wraith and dark creature that fashions himself as Lucian Lahore."
Muffled mumblings spread through the crowd, and the crackling flames of the torch fires filled the gaps. The Tantalum knew about him all too well, and the Ixian Knights and allies had learnt enough to know the name, but not the horror that carried it. "There are many things some will know, and some will know little, so I will tell you the truth now to save face and to prepare you all for the eventuality that we succeed."
He clapped his hands and the castle's man servants carried in four books from the shadows, and set them at the compass points about Duffy's feet. As they shuffled away, the thief bent over and picked up the grandest of the tomes and flopped it open in his hands, like a preacher reading from his holy text, a priest consecrating the fallen with ancient words.
"We are Lucian."
Hushed mumblings.
"The lives of the Tantalum are born from Lucian's characters, dreams, ideas...we are entities that leapt from the pages of his plays centuries ago, immortal as the recollection of a line, ever changing as the development of a good plot, fickle and tied to the old ways like a wizened sage. We are as much a part of The Aria as the world is a part of the universe."
This was the secret Duffy had lived with for almost two years. He guessed that he always knew in part that they were bound to Lucian, but it had not been until Lillith's death that he truly realised, that his fears were confirmed. Whilst the troupe mourned the Rain-maker's death at the hands of Lucian's dagger, Duffy had sung a song of Truth, and discovered a small child had been born in Fallien with the same tattoo, the same lineage, and the same prehensile ability to chop onions quicker than lightning. She had been reincarnated, all the memories and lies intact, but body refreshed.
"We have all lived many lives. Destiny should have us never meet from one to the next, but each time we come together as the Tantalum, strangers but old friends. We die before we remember, and we are reborn as we recall. I was once the hero of the civil war Lysander Brandybuck, once the son of kings. Something happened this time however that made us remember all our lives. Something happened this time that made us realise Lucian was a traitor, a heathen, a murderer."
He clenched his fists for a moment to steel his nerves then checked the page to remind himself of his place. "We must gather our strength to kill Lucian because if we do not now, and we die, our new selves will never remember and our chance to save Scara Brae will be lost."
He caught Ruby's expression and dropped his chin agog. She thought she was dead... "If we rid the world of Lucian, we shall lose our immortality. We shall remember and we shall become whole again...only then can we find Lillith...only then can we be reunited and bring the theatre back to the world to cheer and lighten the heart..." He closed the book, dropped it to the dais and sighed.
"I am sorry, everyone. But there is no easy way to say this. I cannot be sure that we will live on if Lucian dies, but in theory, we should gain everything we ever wanted or finally know rest. Whilst the Ixian Knights and our allies will thrive and live in on our absence, this might be our last battle cry."
"You fucking bastard!" Ruby's anger snapped and fire conjured itself around her form without vocal denouement. Without warning she stormed from her seat onto the dais and rushed Duffy with daemonic intent.
"Ruby?!" Duffy muttered, arms splayed with shock.
She cut her back hand through the air towards him and felt a sudden wave of relief and regret as her diamond ring cut into his cheek and knocked him to one side with a thunderous clap.
Silence.
"You fucking BASTARD!"
"I..."
"You made me think my sister was dead, you watched me mourn her passing, you watched her body burn and you knew!" She leered down, looming over his fallen form like a murderous giant ready to crush a fly. The flames spiralled up into a helix and incandescent wings formed behind her tight shoulders.
Duffy had no defence and no tenable reason to deny it. He was through with lying, done with deceit. He looked into her eyes. "You cannot see her...I did not tell you...because you cannot see her..."
"And why not?"
"She will not," he started to push himself upright, a thick line of blood smudged on his cheek and down his neck, "cannot, would not remember us...I didn't want you to see a ghostly remnant of your sister when she would not know who you are..."
The Tantalum and the Ixian Knights watched the drama with silence and sickening amusement. Duffy half expected Jensen and Sei to start wolf whistling and jeering. This was not the best place to have this discussion, but transparency was part of truth and he had to show he had placed all his intentions well...he had to show that he was not the heartless manipulator people thought he had become.
"Mark my words, Duffy Bracken," she jabbed a flaming finger at him, "if you are lying, if you dare cross me again...I don't care how immortal you are, I will burn you alive in the flames of your own making a thousand times until you scream for forgiveness!" She turned on a smoking heel and strode out of the amphitheatre. Her screams of anger echoed back along the corridors into the chamber for several minutes before finally falling silent.
Duffy rose trembling and sickened with himself. He hung his head in shame and dabbed his cheek with tentative fingers. He could feel the daggers burning into his back, the tension in the air, the hatred falling over him in waves. It did not seem like he could win, each action he had taken and each path he had walked in his short life amongst lives had ended up in pain, heartache, failure...he slumped his shoulders and let out an audible sigh.
"I am sorry everyone...I guess this might be too much to ask, but I need you to trust me one...last...time. I need you to believe in me, I need your help - without it, Lucian will rise from his Necropolis beneath Scara Brae when the next full moon rises. He will rise unattested and sweep away all life in a reigning tyranny that will rival Xem'Zund - but no soul shall be raised as undeath...there will only be infinite darkness."
He looked for Sei, Jensen, William...Talen Shadowalker, Lorenor...all the people had had approached for aid, all the people that had felt Duffy's joy and smiles and enthusiasm. He cast them a rolling glance of truth and then turned back to Arden and the troupe. The torch light flickered as if a door somewhere had opened and the sun fell below the lake outside casting Althanas into night once more.
"My plan is simple. I have given all but one of the artefacts of Tantalus to those amongst you that are bound by the prophecies of old."
Wainwright's Riposte was Duffy's, his wit cutting as ever sharp as Wainwright's, but with stronger commitment to irony and self flagellation as humour.
Wainwright's Heart was Ruby's, shining and pumping glamour, passion and love, but more controlled and human than Wainwright's blackened soul.
Wainwright's Eye was Sei's, showing truth in the darkest of places but steeling it's owner's heart against the corruption such power could bring.
Wainright's Mantle had fallen to William Arcus, drawing on Lucian's charisma to lead the faithful into destiny but not into sacrifice and ruin.
Wainwright's Sword had been reforged in Blank's hands, a powerful cutting weapon that would end Lucian's life, just as it had done Tantalus's in the disciple and teacher's last conflict.
The final artefact remained unclaimed, held by the last of the wraiths that made up Lucian's multi-faceted form. Wainwright's Greed was a small clay ring with runic symbols, carried by a young witch from Albion, the last piece of the puzzle.
"When we find the last artefact we can stand united and wield Wainwright's artefacts against Lucian, driving each of the good things about the man before his fall into his soul...we can remind him, show him, reveal to him the truth...maybe we can turn him back before we kill him, maybe...just maybe, we can bring Tantalus back to life before killing gods and martyrs for our own sake..."
Ruby's heels clipped against the stone of the porch and she gasped for air. She strode further out onto the front lawn of the castle. The sun was long gone but the rising moon cast a faint twilight over the grass and the two singular trees which towered overhead. The roar of the waterfalls which toppled the lake into the depths below drowned out her heart and all her anguish, and she fell away into sudden silence and reverence as she strolled over to the edge.
How could she have been so foolish? How could she have trusted Duffy when he had betrayed her so many times and she had learnt the truth the hard way over and over. She guessed she knew why he had held back all the facts, she had done it with Lillith too many times as they had grown up. It was the sort of sisterly thing you did to protect their innocence and their minds from the horrors and intangible terrors of the world. To retain the life of your sister, though, was another level of deceit. She rested her head in her cupped hands and slumped against a tree trunk.
Corone looked back at her with sorrow in it's eyes and swallowed her troubles in it's magnitude. Whilst the flames of her spell song had sputtered out as she stormed from the chamber, they still burnt strongly in her chest and the land was drawn to her passion. "Why..."
She was getting too old to care about other people, she had spent all her life giving everything she was to the satisfaction of others. Every day she cared for children, Duffy included, and every day she spent hour after hour on the troupe - she had thrown away her marriage, her nobility, her money and her standing in society. Her romance, her passion, her love...she had forgotten why, except that Duffy had asked her to jump...
"And I asked 'how high?'" She mumbled, snapping out of her stupor and turning to admire the architecture of the castle briefly. "Next time...I'll say you first...".
She longed for life to return to normal just as much as he did but the time had come for certainty. She would fight him to the last to return to the days before Lucian had become a monster in their memories. Cucumber sandwiches, play performances and lazy afternoons doting on handsome young men over lemonade avec gin would be her personal reward. "Damned you, Duffy Bracken, for forging in my heart the notion of trust..."
The ultimate irony in Ruby's mind was that she had spent all her life running from the one man and the one thing she loved the most. Yet now here she was, dying to save the thing she loathed the most. He had hurt her, pummelled her with failure, tried her with trying times...now all she wanted was to see him happy.
She wondered if in one of their past lives she had been his lover...
Silence.
Her eyes widened with shock, and she chuckled. When she had met Celia she had told her she had been Lysander's wife...how could she have missed the obvious for so long?
"Oh Duffy," she smiled with a warm compassion, and leant her head back against the bark with a defeated joy.
"You're just a little lovestruck puppy!"
"I will give you all till the morning so you can tell me when the sun rises. Give me your answers in the light of a new and final day of decision. Those of you that have fought alongside and against me will know I mean well, you know I mean all I could and all I speak of...words might not be my strong point at times, but I implore you..." He spread his arms wide as a show of brotherly love, "this will be the last time I ask..."
He bowed politely and pointed at Blank. It was a signal for the troupe to follow him outside. He strolled up the stairs in the direction Ruby had stormed and in a little procession, the Tantalum trailed to bring itself together again.
Blank tapped Duffy on the shoulder as they neared the great front gates of the castle, and beneath the marble arch carved with tales of old he cast him a glare that he normally reserved for his victims in the cold dead of night.
"If you hurt her..." he said simply, stolidly, dangerously.
Duffy nodded.
"This is the last time...I'm sick of who I've become in the name of heroism. I'm sick of my constant hypocrisy...I've chided Sei so many times for the same things I'm doing now...soon, Arden, soon...the Prima Vista can fly through the air and cast theatre and joy across Althanas...we will hit the road on a tour to end all tours! Soon...it will be as it always was, and we will live in obscurity once more."
"That is good enough for me, but Ruby has a more long standing hatred of your ways...help her to understand," he waved Duffy out of the door and barred the other troupe members from pursuing. "We will discuss the plan you set out to us and tell the others, you get her back on your side...without her, we cannot kill him...without her, we cannot remain alive once he is gone...she must learn to love again, before she can sing The Last Song."
Duffy nodded, smiled at the troupe and strolled out onto the cold lawn and the tentative tight rope over the last chance gulch.
"Come to gloat, have you?" Ruby chuckled as she caught sight of Duffy strolling over the grass. His gangly waltz never ceased to cheer her up but she snapped a stern glance at him when she remembered why she was angry. "Don't bother!" She turned her head away and he smiled. The game was on.
"I'm sorry Ruby - I know in my heart I cannot ever change what I have done. I know I've hurt you time and time again but I'm sorry..." He stopped a few feet away, far enough to give him time to react in case she flew off the handle, but close enough to make his presence felt, to make his passion tangible through the chill of the night air.
The stars shone down through the pallid moonlight and cast both their youthful appearance in a favourable light. Ruby started to wonder if this had been how Celia and Lysander had met, or if this very castle had been the place they had vowed to enact revenge on The Empire before their final, desperate confrontation at the head of the rebellion. She wondered if this was her life, or another's, an echo bouncing through the millennia in a constant loop.
"Tell me, Duffy. Do you live your life as if it were your own, or as if it were a scripted drama, a pathetic little accretion to your repertoire?"
Ouch, she thought to herself, not realising what she was saying and how accusatory it was until she had said it. She lolled her head to watch his response.
"I...I guess both. It's hard to live independently of destiny once you know you've done it before, and you're doing it over and over. As I've come to understand myself, and The Aria, I've realised I'm not drawing on my own characters in my Method Acting ability...but I'm remembering my past lives, drawing on the memories locked away. Lysander is me, and it's scary to think I've been 'alive' for centuries..."
"We both have..."
"Precisely. Lucian is moving to take away that gift...he has worked so hard to ensure we never get what we truly want, each time he has been successful. But not this time...not us - we will not allow him to steal away our dreams and kill us over and over!"
"Dreams?" Ruby thought long and hard, and started to guess that he meant opportunities, and their sacrifices over the years. "What dreams has Lucian denied you, Duffy Bracken? You are Captain amongst Kings and the greatest bard, arguably, to have walked the streets of Scara Brae - what has he taken from you?"
The birds in the pine trees tweeted a melody and the moonlight intensified. Beneath the pallid glow, Ruby saw Duffy's expression, the tears in his eyes, and realised once again how wrong she was.
"It's me...isn't it..." She lowered her head and fondled Wainwright's Heart. "It's me he's taken from you..."
"It always was you...always will be you...in each of our lives he worked hard to ensure we had only a brief moment. Then he took it away. He orchestrated the Magister's appearance in Celia's last battle and killed her before my eyes...it was Lucian that ensured you saw your first husband before you had time to realise you loved me...and it was he who ruined your life to ensure you had to choose the troupe over that happy place..."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"How could I...you're like a sister to me in this life, you deserve more than this petty thief, this fool amongst the intellectuals bouncing on haunches of hope...I ain't nothing to you, Ruby La Roux, but I'm everything you need now - hope, friendship, companionship and trust."
She started to cry, allowing her wall to tumble at long last. Ruby La Roux did not cry, she lived to scorn and lived to hate with fiery passion. She realised that just once, just maybe, she might have been like her sister...she might have loved and lived and cared for people truly, not through matriarchal demand, but through passionate paean.
She understood now why she embodied the Phoenix; she burnt everything around her with her passion, and rose from the ashes alone and bereft...not this time, she vowed, pushing herself upright and leaning against the tree like a sordid lover. This time she would burn Lucian away and give life the others with her fire.
"For that I cannot thank you enough. Hurt me as you might I am alive only through your happiness. What must I do to have my sister again?"
"What you must do is learn to love yourself again." It sounded so simple but Duffy wasn't the sort to be anything short of blunt.
"Love myself?" She cocked an eyebrow and fiddled with the feathers in her hair.
"Show me the way to be your friend in the absence of love...I don't want you to lie, or pray pretend...just show me."
"How?"
"When Tantalus gave Wainwright all his power, Wainwright in turn gave his troupe his. Our powers come from facets of a Thayne's creative talent...we are connected to that power throughThe Aria. It is through drawing on that we can see Lillith again."
Ruby paused for a moment to think, before proclaiming "spell-singing?"
"Precisely! You have within you the power to sing The Last Song and The First Cantor. When Wainwright sang the First Cantor he gave us immortality. When you sing the Last Song you will rescind that power, but gift to us one final life. We shall remember all our chances and fight on one last time to rectify our ills."
A delicate breeze rushed through the needle heights of the two pine trees and both matriarch and patriarch of the Tantalum stared at one another for a long time in silence. They mirrored one another's understanding and one another's desire. Like the two trees, they stood side by side for centuries without question, never truly concious of one another's presence for too long.
"How will I learn of this song?"
"You already know it Ruby. The words are in your heart. The Aria gives us everything, every song, poem, verse and rhyme and book ever written in this world and every other - it is buried beneath that mercury sea, but it is there!" He began to express his urgency with his hands, moving them cupped up and down to add pronounced danger to his words.
"You expect me to just pluck it from the aether and save the world?" She raised an eyebrow.
Duffy sighed. He began to walk from the tree's cover towards the end of the cliff and stopped to teeter on the edge.
"Duffy...?" Ruby said calmly, her body suddenly tense and stiff.
"Duffy??" She started to run forwards, but stopped a few steps in case she frightened him.
"Let me go, as I have learnt to let you go. We can never be together and we can never hate one another. So show me the way to be. Show me the passion in your heart is as strong now as it ever was. We have been given life by a soulless being but in time, we have gained our own souls. We have every right to live now as any human, elf, god, or martyr..." Duffy looked over his shoulder and Ruby instantly started to advance in desperation.
"So live, Duffy, LIVE!" She screamed.
Duffy Bracken, Captain of the Nine and Tantalum of the Gods fell delicately over the edge. With a rush of wind he felt the distant foam of the churning rapids splutter against his cheeks. The blood trail on his cheek, now dried and cracked, fell away like all hope. He descended without struggle to his end.
Ruby crested the edge of the cliff and she peered down amidst her screams of horror. She fell to the edge and leant over, scrabbling at the air as if she held the power to stop his death in her hands. She saw his eyes briefly flash in the darkness as he turned mid-air and let his arms hang out to his sides before vanishing into the abyss.
She felt his light go out in The Aria, and she lost all sense of being.
Ruby did not cry. Even as the tears rolled down her cheeks and she felt her body go limp over the edge of the cliffs, she did not cry. She refused to believe it. Time had a funny way of catching up on you, but even as it did, she refused to agree with it.
For several minutes she watched. She hoped and prayed that he would rise from the darkness on wings of love and hope. She hoped it was some cruel trick of the light or a pathetic joke full of camaraderie and last minute morals.
"Please," she whimpered.
She flopped onto her back and looked up at the stars through the wisps of mist that trailed upwards from the
waterfall. Her breathing was heavy, turgid, painful. Had she thrown out all hope herself?
"Why..."
With grace permanently embroidered onto her brow she pushed herself upright and brushed the dust from her pinafore. She coughed. She smiled. She strolled across the grass towards the grand entrance to the castle.
An echo of a past life flickered before her eyes as she reached the halfway mark and suddenly, she felt a dagger strike her in the chest and tear up through her throat and into her nasal cavities. Fire burnt in her, lava poured through her, life gave her meaning. Her arms and legs buckled and stretched out wide as every passionate shudder she had experienced returned and struck her with euphoria.
She opened her mouth as was her custom and let out the first line of the song she heard from the waves of The Aria. This time she did not know what she was singing, nor did she know why or how. The vocals were pitch perfect and rolled out across the immaculate lawn, striking the trees and the rocks with bright tendrils of orange and red colour. The pitch rose and the staccato arrangement finally burst into true words, a vocal empowerment first sung five centuries ago.
"We're turning out, like little lies...we are burning, we were burning...
Now the day runs into night and love is out of sight...I'm hurting....
So what!
I guess we're over, I accept it but I need you somewhere, In my life...
Forever!
Show me the way to be your friend, your friend,
I don't want you to lie or feign pretend,
Caus' I need to hear your pretty voice, hear you callin'...hear you callin'..."
The stars erupted and from the heavens fire fell. Spiralling energy gathered about Ruby's tattered, torn and sundered body, her dress split and burnt away in the melee and at the zenith of the verse, a powerful recollection built into the fabric of the universe itself pulled on the past, future and the present...
Her heart pinged and her limbs flopped in a lull. Something stirred in the shadows.
Blank stopped suddenly and the troupe stopped with him. With Duffy's departure he had suddenly been left in charge of rallying the troops and informing the Council of the Tantalum's plot. The sparkling tiles and the grandiose architecture of the entrance hall provided a suitable back drop for the sudden melodrama.
"Can you hear something?" He cocked his head. The debating chamber was visible in the distance at the end of the long corridor, which was as high as any building in Scara Brae bar the Tower. His question echoed in the rafters for several minutes.
They all shook their heads.
"Never mind..." he continued his brisk walk, "you all know your roles in the coming engagement. With Duffy and Ruby pre-occupied with fighting Lucian himself you must gather the possessions the troupe has from the Prima Vista and secrete them away to Radasanth."
"Wot for?" Pete mumbled, his plucky enthusiasm for all things dampened by the severity of their circumstances. Lisa and Minelli flanked the youth, each with a caring hand on his shoulders and the other fanning their delicate appearances with opal feathered gloves.
"When all this is done, if we do not make it...Sei will look after you." He dampened his own emotion and let the cool and calm façade of a killer smother his need to fear. As they finally approached the doorway to the debating chamber and the warmth of the torches, he looked briefly over his shoulder to the small hole in the distance that lead out into the night.
"Duffy..." He whispered, before striding into the warm embrace of prosperity and announcing their arrival with a flurry of claps and coughs.
Lillith
10-14-10, 06:06 PM
A small girl with burly red cheeks and a temper waddled through the village with a basket under one arm and a monocle dangling from the other. Her long black hair was tucked back into a bun, marking her as a washer woman's daughter without much to call her own in the autumnal range of Salvar's wilds. The bitter bite of the snow that drifted down from the shattered peaks seemed to have little affect on her as she padded towards the frozen lake at the village's heart, her eyes burning with a bright demagogue.
For almost three weeks her mother had been tormented by heathen dreams, flashes of another life in her daughter's mind. She had screamed false names and lies, and so much of her words had affected the daughter that she too started to believe she was not who she thought she was. Her tattoo had long been the topic of conversation amongst the village elders, and she had been inspected, prayed for and prof-erred to the Thayne many time without success.
Who was she?
She bent at the knee at the edge of the lake and took a small hammer to the frozen waste. It was tea time, her favourite event of the day, and she had perfected the art of preparing the finest drink in all the world. With several chips, she pulled away a small chunk and dropped it into the basket with naked fingers.
As she bent to start for her second she felt suddenly warm and exonerated from the harsh weather of her home. With innocent eyes she caught her reflection in the lake, which seemed to shimmer and turn to a gentle pool of water before her eyes. Spirals of steam and hissing water roiled up about her, as if she had turned to fire under the strain of her overly attentive need for perfection in her work.
For a brief moment, she burnt with a fire so bright it seemed as if the whole of the village would burn, until she vanished into it's heart and left a crater in her wake. Her basket rolled out into the semi melted lake, splashing through the puddle and discarding it's contents to the scavengers and thieves.
Then she was gone, as quickly as she had arrived.
Duffy slammed into the gangway of the jetty and felt alive once again. His descent through the spray and the night had been his most foolish action, but as splinter and nail dug into his semi-tangible flesh his success came to life. With painful motions he rolled away from the debris before he fell through into the mercury below and looked up at the monotone sky.
For the first time in a long, long time, Duffy Bracken laughed and meant it. He had been so used to hiding behind his humour to masquerade the pain he had forgotten what it meant to be happy, to be radiant, to be glad. Sure, he thought as he clicked his limbs back into place and pushed himself into a seated position, I 'ad to die to feel it...but it's worth it! As he went about recovery the silence of The Aria deafened him, leaving him with his memories and his pain in a sombre show of force.
Now all he had to do was wait.
If Ruby was not ready to realise her destiny and her feelings for the character she had fallen for time and time again in their many lives Duffy would sit on the jetty for an eternity, or until Lucian felt his presence and came for him in person.
If she was, then the castle would suffer one momentary flare of fire and all the pieces of his careful, dangerous and risky plan would come together.
His death was his sacrifice but through it, Scara Brae would feel again.
"Greetings once again and thank you for your patience," Blank ushered the troupe into the amphitheatre and waited for them to all be seated before continuing. He walked around the outer circumference of the chamber, annunciating his thoughts with his hands but never really looking at anyone in particular for long.
"Duffy and Ruby are discussing a few last minute arrangements, and they have asked me to gather my wits about me to tell you the plan. You've all been informed of the nature of the artefacts, and in turn, of us, so I shall cut to the chase. We will require one last fight from those who have the Wainwright Items...you will have to fight one of the six remnants of Lucian, powerful wraiths who possess mastery over death, shadow and a unique talent unique to the aspect of sin each of the shadows personifies..."
He realised he might sound utterly mad and that it might sound more pleasurable and easier to swallow coming from Duffy's mouth..."You must use the artefact to defeat the shadow, and in it's last moment, capture it's essence in the item. Once all six are defeated the six artefacts must then be worn by one person, who shall lose their body and mind to the true form of Lucian. Whilst captured in that mortal vessel Lucian can be killed, and his death will be permanent, irreversible, curing."
The last detail of the plan had yet to be discussed. Who, exactly, Blank had asked himself a thousand times, would take that mantle and sacrifice themselves truly to end Lucian once and for all? Not even Duffy could bounce back from hell...
"What of those of you who do not have an artefact but still want to help? We will require help evacuating from the island. Those who can bare arms are free to help fight the shadows...but only those who are bound to prophecy can deliver the final salvation bound blow."
It had not been more than a month since Blank had sacrificed his own life in the crypt of his ancestors. Only through his mother's love had he been allowed to live, a former shadow of himself cursed to thrive on the death of other's until his own destiny was fulfilled. He felt confident and happy that Duffy had forgiven his foolishness and given him the key to that destiny. This he knew was his last battle. He would leave killing behind along with the Thieves' Guild. He had ensured the institute that had made him who he was would have a new Master in his absence
"If we survive we shall be forever in your debt. If we do not, then the troupe and our orphans must be cared for...so I guess that burden will also fall to all of you."
Lillith
10-14-10, 06:31 PM
Sickness.
Nausea.
Pain.
"Where am I?"
"Who am I?"
"What am I?"
The shadow in the ether asked itself a multitude of questions as it drifted through the afterlife, a delicate plume of substance amidst a vast sea of souls. It warped a thousand times between it's many forms until at last it settled on one that was familiar to it. With a delicate push of energy, it slipped back into the realm known only as reality and formed a body to inspire familiarity in the minds of others.
Lillith opened her eyes, but instead of tundra, she was greeted with a jetty and a silver sea. Memories came flooding back and her leather dress and battle-hardened kimono sparked a resurrection of principles and stubborn humour. She was at the north end, that much she could remember, but there was no longer a corner cutting off onto a short overhang. There was simply a long stretch and at the far end there was now a small figure.
The figure caught her eye and a moment of happiness sparked in the tense air. Somehow, at the back of her mind, Lillith Kazumi rekindled her love of the world and felt absolved of her sins. Her death seemed like only moments ago, and as the fear and sudden reprisal of her final moments flooded her veins, she and the figure vanished in flashes of blue light and evensong. The Aria fell silent once more, suddenly empty of thought and life.
Ruby blinked.
Her heart had, until a few moments ago felt empty and distraught. All the little clichéd moments her characters underwent in her plays felt so surreal part of her reality then they faded, and all was well.
Fire grew from the fingertips she scorned so and fluttered out from her feet and her chest. Pangs of convocation gathered about her and started to spiral in a great whirl of flame so bright it touched the stars and went far beyond for centuries to come.
She started to float and her back arched and her head darted up to the night sky.
All around her, the flames gathered and crossed like desert winds carrying sand and soul into three concerted forces, three life vessels reborn from nothing.
Duffy appeared first, his characteristic goofiness and plucky bandy-legs bounced up and down and flashed, fully formed but different.
Lillith stepped from her cocoon next, more voluptuous and raunchy than ever and horrified at the sudden realisation she was alive and not bound in infancy and snow.
The third flicker-flame formed a shape Ruby did not expect. From the fires a perfect copy of Ruby emerged, all be it an older, more sophisticated and stern version. She bowed as she walked into the world, wearing a long black dress and carrying a violin that could not have been anything less than master work - it sparkled with mahogany veneer.
Ruby's feet touched the scorched grass as the echoes of her song faded and she fell to her knees in the wave of weakness that followed. Tears had already overwhelmed her, the sight of her lost love and her sister and mother all too much for her usually stone mind to bare at once.
The four figures remained in silence for several minutes before Celia spoke.
"No more tears, child, we do not have much time..."
Duffy relinquished his momentary glamour to the woman that had appeared from the annuls of history but smiled wildly all the same. Everything had worked and he could see from the expression on Ruby's face that she was pleased and suddenly enlightened all at the same time. He crossed his arms, his youthful enthusiasm for life a shield against the dark horrors he had witnessed in those painful seconds of death at the bottom of his fall.
He had come a little closer to understanding his own motives for doing what it was he did, and he felt akin to a born again saviour or perhaps a renewed fool. Lillith too seemed suddenly aware and they stared at one another with a knowing nod as Celia spoke.
Lucian could not possibly stop them now, could he? Their triumph was short lived, for the night was still so young and there was much more to discuss.
End of Part One.
MetalDrago
04-25-11, 08:32 AM
Story (6/10): The story introduced me to just about everything I needed to know. It was lacking in some specifics concerning the backstory of some of the characters, and the climax, while interesting, seemed to come out of nowhere. I know the story of the Tantalum Troupe fairly well, all things considered, and you did highlight a good majority of what people needed to know. There were a few problems, but overall I think you did fairly well. Considering this is an introduction, I don’t fault you for what you did.
Strategy (6/10): Overall, considering the lack of use of many areas of each character’s skills (Ruby excluded), I’m going to say you did fairly well integrating their overall personalities into the thread as a whole. I haven’t read much where Blank talked, so as far as his actions complimenting the overall story, I think it was pretty well done. Overall a good job.
Setting (4/10): The setting was pretty low grade, considering everything. I know for a fact that you’re capable of more than the paltry amount of setting you gave in this thread. If it weren’t for the fact that I knew what I did about the Tantalum Troupe, I probably wouldn’t have known where they really were in the grand scheme of thing. I assumed that everyone was in the Prima Vista prior to Duffy and Ruby going off into the Aria, but still, it was rather vague. Incorporate at least some amount of detail that lets the reader know where you are and what’s going on. Overall, it was acceptable, but I know you’re capable of more, and indeed, I’ve seen you do better.
Continuity (7/10): Considering your extensive knowledge of Scara Brae, not to mention the fact that almost all of your threads have taken place either here or in Corone, I know you know what you’re talking about when you talk about Scara Brae. This takes the cake as one of your highest scores simply because you’re playing to the Region and making it seem exceedingly interesting in its own right. I applaud you for this, but incorporating a little more of the history of the nation, or some general layout for what’s going on would immensely improve this score.
Character (8/10): This was an easy call. You always get into the heads of your characters, and always allow what’s going on to make sense. You didn’t fall into the character trap that comes with a multiple character solo, so overall well done. There are a few things you could improve on, but they’re a bit nitpicky and I really don’t feel like listing off each minute thing you could do to improve on this. If you really want me to, catch me on Yahoo or AIM.
Interaction (6/10): Overall, except for the parts between Blank and Ruby, it seemed a little dry. Blank’s speaking parts seemed more exposition than anything, and the fact that none of the other characters he was speaking to interacted with him did little but solidify this belief. I’m sure at least a few of them would have allowed you to bunny their characters making some kind of comments or body motion indicating that Blank really was speaking to an audience.
Creativity (6/10): A hard one to call, but it was good. Not great, but good. You used some technical stuff, but not enough to really make it stand out, and the creativity of using Lucian’s Wraiths was a bit creative, but it could have used a little more embellishment, to give it that dramatic flair your threads usually bring forth. On another note, Duffy’s ritualistic death was a very nice touch. This thread is merely a prelude to the madness to come, though, and I expect you’ll wow me with your encore.
Mechanics (6/10): A few errors here and there, but nothing a word processor won’t catch. The most glaring one was at the end. You spelled “annals” “annuls”. Call me picky, but that really caught me like a deer in the headlights.
Clarity (7/10): I got lost occasionally, like between Duffy’s death and Lilith’s revival, but overall you kept the story clear and concise. Just try not to leave the reader in the dark about things that would make them scratch their heads in confusion.
Wildcard (6/10): Typically I like your stories, and this is no exception. I look forward to seeing, or participating in the rest of the project.
Overall Score: 62/100
Duffy Bracken receives 850 EXP and 200 GP
Ruby La Roux receives 500 EXP and 180 GP
Lilith Kazumi receives 200 EXP and 70 GP
Blank receives 220 EXP and 70 GP
Breaker
04-26-11, 06:22 PM
Rewards added.
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