View Full Version : Dancing With Ourselves (Closed)
Dancing With Ourselves (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQsYiSr58aU)
2014
Let's go dancing
Waltz around the rumour mill
In your faded dress with the daffodils
Let's go dancing
Let time stand still
Once your name was but a whisper
A simple wish upon my tongue
Staring at your shadow
Was like staring at the sun
In this dark, dark hour
You still illuminate a room
Oh God give us the power
Gotta keep ourselves in tune
Teitur
Continued From Little Miss Monocle (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=21779)
“You look…different”. Ruby’s tactful observation cut through the silence with acidic malefic.
Lillith rolled her eyes and patted herself down. Her insurrectionist rebirth had cast the clock back a few years, and she looked more like a noble woman of Scara Brae than a daughter of Akashima. She was still unmistakably a matriarch of the Kazumi Tribe. “I look different because five minutes ago I was a young girl in the depths of Salvar’s harsh winter…now I am born anew. I am still Lillith, and I still the prettier sister,” she winked at Ruby.
Delilah brought her hand up as a symbol of office and the sisters stopped their bickering. Duffy crossed his arms over his chest and admired the ferocity, past selves and lovers always made for good and interesting company. The plan to revive those lost and rekindle those lead astray might have worked flawlessly, but now he had to deal with the fall out of the wounds he had carved into the bedrock of the troupe.
“As Delilah was saying, times have changed. People have changed, and most certainly cities and kingdoms are still changing. The longer we dwell on the past, the stronger our enemies will become in our laziness".
“What has that got to do with your trickery?” Ruby darted venom again, utterly unable to contain herself for more than a few fleeting seconds. Her cheeks were still stained with salt and sweat. “I had to watch you die to understand some pathetic little lesson, is that it?”
“Ruby,” Delilah’s voice cut her back again. “I am sorry that what happened had to happen at all, and that it had to happen now. Duffy did only what he thought best, and only what would work. Given the magnitude of the situation laid out before us I would hope you would understand.”
“So why the pretence, why gather our allies and friends to the Council Chamber…why now, why at all?” Still taken aback by Lilith’s new Scara Breen vigour and youthful and now pert bosoms matching those of her sister, Duffy watched the assassin carefully undress Delilah’s defences with carefully picked and emotionally driven words.
The ambient call of the crickets and the distant roar of the waterfall which the thief had plummeted over an hour ago only served to add to the growing tension. He caught Lilith’s smile out of the corner of his eye and felt some small sense of relief. Her reincarnation had worked its charm on her figure and she seemed more laid back.
“Ruby’s connection to The Aria must be ‘triggered’ by sheer emotional stress. That brought both Duffy back to life and me into existence. Just as Duffy has unleashed his memories and recalled one of his former lives, so to have Ruby, and Lillith, and one day, Arden as well.”
“Wait…” Duffy scrabbled at the air, “Arden as well?”
Delilah’s pert lips smacked together as she sighed. “Arden was one of the original members of Wainwright’s Men. The memory of his progeny is sadly lost to time and to his father’s meddling. Even so, he is as much a part of this family as you or I.”
“Then why do I not remember him?” Duffy asked, his childish immaturity shining through with sparkling teeth and an idiotic expression. The last rays of light of the sunset had faded in the density of their reunion, and each of the gathered members of the troupe were visibly showing signs of the cold tearing through their adrenaline bound defences.
“Nor I,” Lillith added for good measure, rubbing her hands over her exposed shoulders.
“Arden’s path diverged from the memories you recall long before Lysander was even born. He travelled to Akashima as a past self to learn the art of his ancestors, and it was there that he created the Lao Sheng Legend and with it, the art of Blood Magic.”
The sudden shock and revelation of the knowledge so casually put before them shut all three of the troupe up. Delilah paused for effect, before stooping to pluck up a pine cone, discarded by winter’s approach to the damp dew laden grass. “It is funny how we spend all our lives imitating others, when we are ourselves are an imitation of another's life.”
“Is now an appropriate time to resort to a metaphor?” Ruby stomped her heel. All the while she darted Duffy daggers with her fiery eyes, ones that wrote delayed revenge into his chest.
“It is an apt comparison. Walk with me to the others whilst I tell you a story.” Without announcement Delilah strolled towards the gaping mouth of the castle entrance. It did not take long for the inner heat of the vast stone structure to start washing over them, thawing their misconceptions and tensions with ease. The vast archways loomed overhead and Duffy counted them silently, one, two, three closer to their destination.
“Arden created his own troubles. Unlike ours which were orchestrated by Lucian, he fabricated his own empire in Akashima. There he forgot his legacy and his ties to you Lillith, and your father’s ancestry.”
“I have heard as much we are related, though the immortality certainly confused me in that regard,” Lillith sashayed alongside Delilah, as if she had known her all her life. In a way, she had, and the similarities between sister and matriarch allured her into obedience.
“His blood magic and his father’s personal vendetta are manifestations of his ignorance. He must however be left alone to remember who he is, what he is, and why he wields such tremendous and dastardly power in every drop of blood. Why his pain is lessened by the emptying of everyone else’s veins.”
“Should he be left to do this now?”
“Oh, worry not, Duffy. This personal war will come in the days after Lucian is gone, or we shall all be born anew without past lives to worry about and that will be the end of it. Please, tell me of your preparations before I addle you all further?” She glanced over her shoulder as they entered the castle, and the dull thud of their boots and heels turned into a rattatatat on the chequered marble flagstones.
“All of the artefacts bar one have been recovered, and that last piece of the puzzle is being…procured, I guess is the word.”
“Which?” Delilah cocked her head regally, as if curiosity had overpowered her etiquette and upbringing.
“Wainwright’s Ring I believe,” Ruby interrupted. Delilah glanced between thief and matron before snapping back into her composed stance.
“You two are simply going to have to overcome your differences if this is going to have any hope of working.”
“I beg you”- Ruby did not finish her sentence beneath the scolding glare.
“You two are doomed to fall in love, unrequited or unfulfilled. Do not, and mark my words,” she jabbed a ringed finger at Duffy, “do not let Lucian’s devilry consume you. Wherever or not your parts have been written, as mine were and your next selves shall be, we are people, soulful, living, breathing entities. Our hearts, our minds,” she rested her hand back onto her chest, above the breast, “and our spirits are ours, and ours alone.”
Ruby and Duffy hung their heads in unison, and the group walked in thrifty silence across the entrance hall. In the distance, the tall elliptical doorways that lead to the Council Chamber and the congregation of allies and orphans and attendees to the troupe awaited them. Whatever mood or sense of elation that waited beyond that door, Duffy thought, would be nothing compared to the feelings tomorrow. He remembered the flickering embers of the torchlight and the faint smell of Lisa and Minelli's cooking, and wished they could quicken their pace.
“We aim to collect the ring at dawn when the final lost son of Wainwright’s Men is awakened. We have good souls to wield all of the others, and a willing sacrifice to end Lucian’s attempts at immortality when he consumes the essences of the artefacts…this time, he will not revive himself on the hopes of his creations.”
“We will be his avatars no more, but the children of Tantalus once again!” Ruby, Lillith and Duffy cheered together in unison, pumping the air with their bejewelled and dagger laden fists.
A Week Later
Well here we go at it three years later. Tired of the same songs, lies and moments, we have come to depart the city of shining lights and laughter for pastures new. We have dragged our fears aboard our vessel, and beneath its sails we shall soar across the world and over the horizon into another.
It is suddenly and wonderfully exhilarating to be so free. It uplifts my heart and flutters butterflies in my stomach to finally be able to do nothing, all day, and enjoy every moment of that adventure. Times change, or so they say, and only now am I coming to accept that so to must I.
“Duffy?”
Ruby curtly peered around the doorframe of the Prima Vista’s stage curtain and waited for her cue.
“Enter,” he rolled his eyes, the sound of his would be sister’s voice dragging him from his daydream. He set down his quill and for now, abandoned the progress he had been making on his manuscript.
“I heard you talking to yourself, are…are you okay?” She strolled onto the dusty red carpet of the raised platform and stood a few feet to his right, hands held in a courtly fashion behind her back and feet tightly strapped together with affectionate order.
“I’m fine.”
“It is just,” she glued her words onto his, a continuance of annoyance and urgency more than one lacking in the social skills of what one might call ‘banter’. “When you talk to yourself, it means something is wrong.”
“Does it, Ruby? Does it?” With a twist of the wrist and a rising spiral, Duffy rose to face the matriarch of the Tantalum troupe with deadpanning aggression. He dropped his quill without candour and sighed. She was right, but that was not what irked him. He hated being found out, he hated having to share his secrets with her all the damned time.
“You cannot take on this burden alone, not after everything we have been through together, not after everything you have given up.”
“I know…” he hung his head and took a moment. “This time, though, it is just something I have to do.”
It had been a fair while since they had departed the Castle, and Delilah had finally stitched the relationship between Duffy & Ruby back together again. Whilst the troupe made it's preparations to ascend the Dark Tower and deal with Lucian once and for all, Duffy had retreated into the study and stage room of the troupe's hideaway to continue work on his opus...or what he believed one day would be his remembrance in history's long march into nothingness. He glanced down at the parchment he had been working on whilst Ruby prattled on.
“Jensen might agree with your ideals. You may have convinced him to take the blade in that final, euphoric moment…but I do not think you quite know what you have asked of him. I certainly hope you will consider the consequences if either he turns out to be not so immortal, or you fail in executing the trap that lulls Lucian into that false sense of security of weakness to begin with.”
“I know what I am asking, and how hard it was to come to terms with…I am not a child anymore.”
Ruby took that as a sign of need, and she stepped into his personal boundary and ran her hand through his hair. With a delicate tuck, she folded his hair behind his ears and tried to smarten him up. The motions reminded Duffy of his formative years in the troupe and it eased his heavy heart.
She had been a striking, fiery tour de force of seduction then. Duffy’s life on the streets had been harsh, more so than the dirty rotten scoundrels of the Thieves’ Guild, one full off pain and suffering and constant neurotic competition. As the memories flooded back of the hope the Tantalum had given him, he held up his hand flat to the sun emblazoned dome of the theatre house and turned it slowly.
“Wounded by your own ego,” Ruby said flatly.
“It wasn’t that that gave me the scar.”
“No, but it is your ego that keeps it from healing, it is your stubbornness that keeps you moving on.”
“Ha, ever the optimist…ever the believer,” he pulled away from her attention and turned his back to her. A tear rolled down his cheek, a delicate, salty reminder of their past lives and their constant threats to tear their world apart if ever they should resurface. It was an echo of Lysander’s will piercing his memories to allow Duffy the strength to finally remember who he really was, and to carry the Western blade into battle.
“It will never heal, in which case," she sighed.
“Neither will you, if you do not learn the lesson Sei has been trying to teach you!” She stomped her foot, which carried a heavier thud in the wake of her resurrection and more hefty figure. The magic that had kept Ruby La Roux young all those years had faded, but her youthful spirit, bound in eternity, refused to age with her.
“We do not see eye to eye for his words to mean anything, and I doubt he listens to me much neither.”
“He listens more than you know.”
Duffy let the words sink in for several anguished moments before turning very slowly to stare at Ruby. Her tone had implied that she had spoken to him, and that lead Duffy to the natural conclusion that she was here speaking either on his behalf, or at his unconscious, unbidden behest.
“What do you mean by that?”
“He has given up so much to protect his family, Duffy, do not just assume you are the only one making sacrifices, nor that you are the only ‘hero.’ What matters, is that whoever you are, you are a hero to the people you care for…”
“I…”
She stepped closer and held out the floral brooch that had been attached to her belt since she had acquired the armour. It caught the light and burnt with the midday sun. He took it, not entirely sure what to do or say.
“I…”
“All you have to do to be a hero is protect us, and that is something you were born to do.”
“You make it all sound so exquisitely easy.”
She chuckled, a light hearted rampant laugh that filled the dusty prop room with life. He looked around the sanctuary he had come to call home with admiration, allowing the momentary euphoria and happiness to carry him through his darker thoughts. The piles of crates and broken balcony rails abandoned to time and lack of use brought things back. He remembered, if only fleetingly, the days when the entire troupe gathered here to rehearse, the days before all the sacrifices and wars had begun in their happy oblivious lives.
“You are right.”
She cocked a smile that said ‘of course I am.’
“I am right, because I have been through this cycle many times, as have you. Sure, we were different races, ages, mind sets…but we have lived this life of servitude to a higher cause each and every time we have been fortunate enough to grace the glory of the world. Who are we to break form and pattern for our own selfish desires?”
“Especially when we have so much more alongside…”
“Exactly, we might slave over every annunciate word of the latest dramaturgical disaster, and we might fight devils and dark bards in the shadowy under crofts of this very city…but we have something strong to guide us through.”
“I hope the answer to that is Gin?” He raised his eyebrow with sardonic undertones.
Ruby chuckled, and propped her hands onto her hips disapprovingly. “No, Duffy, not gin…though now that you mention it I am rather parched.” She glanced at the book and decanter at Duffy’s feet, his afternoon aperitif, and continued with “I mean of course one another…friendship is the answer.”
“Oh, I was afraid you were going to say that…” He turned away and looped around his possessions. He sat cross legged with an agile drop and beckoned Ruby to sit opposite without looking up at her. A sunbeam struck the rear of the stage at the same time, marking the striking of the grandfather clock in the parlour on the floor below at 1 o’clock.
“You make it sound like you do not value what we have?” She pulled up her dress so that the many folds of cloth that formed the long lower hem came up and out of the way. With a noble stoop, she conquered the edge of the stage and draped herself over it.
“I guess I am still too immature to grasp the finer points., I know what we have Ruby, we went through enough emotional turmoil in the castle to have proven the worth of our friendship, do you not think?”
“It is bound in silver and set in gold, as Lilith would say.”
They sat in silence as he pulled the stopper from the crystalline decanter. With a flick of the wrist he poured two modest measures of gin into the two small glasses that mimicked the latticework on their larger cousins. “I am afraid to say that there is no lime, you could say we have fallen on hard times of late,” Ruby chuckled at his mock noble accent and took her glass.
“Then I toast not only to the success of our endeavours, but also to the reclamation of the most noble house of Tantalum’s fortunes in the wider environ of the world.”
Their glasses chimed together, and twirled together with their laughter to echo in the glass panes of the sunlit dome overhead. The slight hint of almonds and fire slipped down their throats in unison as they took their first, exhilarating sip. Gin had been Ruby’s tipple in her formative years of discovery in the devilish acquiescence of her sister, and Duffy’s since he had met Ruby and been instructed in the ways of pretending one was inebriated whilst retaining your entire faculties.
“She is doing well, all things considered.”
Duffy clocked what she had been trying to steer the conversation onto and spluttered, trying to get the drink out to apologise. “I am so sorry, I am miles away.”
She smiled, “I did not think there would be time to talk it over properly yet I guess this is the perfect opportunity to clear the air.”
“You know why I did it, do you not ?” He asked pleadingly. Devoted to Ruby as he was, this had been the one time he had not been able to trust her with his plan to defeat Lucian. “You know why I could not tell you she was still alive?”
Ruby took a deep breath, a long sip and a moment of her own to compose her thoughts and answers. Her suddenly wizened years had taken a few weeks for Duffy to come to terms with, but now he understand the crow’s feet and haggard and tired expression told him just as much as her rouge cheeks and cheeky grin had once done…she was scared.
“I have never felt so lonely in all my life. Not even when I was a debutante, not even when I was married and bound to the first year of socialisation can I say I felt so segregated.”
“Oh Ruby…if you had not…”
“What If I had not come to suffer so?”
Duffy set his glass onto the silver tray and sat upright, alert and attentive. The nausea he felt and swooned with as he rose was sign enough of his seriousness and his sudden clarity and forth wright nature. His lips cracked and unstuck from the dehydration of alcohol, but he spoke firmly and lowly.
“The Aria demanded it. You had to be brought to the brink of emotional death in order to receive the gifts of the Phoenix…”
“I could have sung that song anyway…”
“No…you would never have heard its cry without feeling as if the only thing left was to sing a new scenario. You, above all of the children gifted with Tantalus’ might have the ability to change the very fabric of Althanas. Until you realised that the one thing you could never change was death, you would never have been able to see that.”
“But why can I not sing to life the fallen?”
Duffy stooped to pick up his glass, “Celia asked the very same question.”
“When did you ask her that?” Ruby finished of her glass and held it out to be refilled. Duffy complied with her request as he spoke, the chiming of crystal acted as an accompaniment to his inbound moral recant.
“When Lysander was killed, Celia fell to his side in tears. She was, as one might imagine utterly distraught.” He put the stopper back into the decanter. As she took the glass back and set it on the tray next to his notebook he had a flash of fire and felt, for a brief moment, as if he were on the battlefield once more. “She looked around her, and saw the many hundreds of bodies of ranger and citizen and rebel and empire soldier alike.”
“What did she do?”
“She sang. She sang The First Song, just as Lysander had done to save her from the brink of death. She sang it too beautifully and the Empire soldiers left her. Despite her transgressions against their regime, and her hand being so mighty in pushing the forces into the conflict, they could not strike her down.”
“Did it work?”
“No. Lysander was already dead, and so too were they, lost souls drifting into the afterlife as a result of their dreams. She sang for four days, with so much passion in every note she too slipped into death, drained and formless and unsatisfied.”
“That sounds very and remarkably familiar to me…”
Duffy chuckled, “Well, that remains to be seen – but, the point is you had to learn that death becomes you if you do not master the truth that it is the final curtain call.”
“I guess then, that the irony of our existence is that we cannot control death. Even though we cause it, we can never truly die ourselves…”
Ruby's thoughts trailed off into an ominous silence, and they sipped their drinks together in unison. Duffy cursively bit back the desire to tell her that her wish would come true should Lucian die...if they managed to defeat him forever, they would gain the one thing they could never have...mortality.
Duffy leant back on his right palm and lolled his head back. He watched the distant black specks of light move across the sky to the backdrop of great big fluffy white clouds and tried to think. His tongue tingled with the remnants of gin, and his throat felt minty and fiery as he waited for inspiration. It was, perhaps, just a little bit ironic, but at the same time their immortality was a gift worth treasuring.
“No, I do not think it is irony.” He set his gaze back onto Ruby and did away with the glass, feeling the effects were his sign to slow down. His head span as he returned to normal, a touch of vertigo to drive humanity home. “I do think that we need to entrust ourselves to the world, to the city, the very brick and mortar temple that keeps us alive.”
“Will servitude make it any easier?”
“Can there be any better way to live? Scara Brae is as much a part of us as we are a part of Scara Brae.”
“It stopped feeling like home…it stopped a long time ago,” she pursed her lips. She did not mean it, but she wanted very much to hear what he would have to say.
“That is only because of Lucian, Ruby…when he is gone, we shall have the freedom and the spirit and all of our family back together to make this little shanty district and the vast city beyond ours.”
“You assume,” she pushed herself upright and started to stretch, “that we will be successful.”
“Of course,” he bounced upright after her, and swooned. He snapped his limbs out for balance until he sobered into enough sobrieties to walk. “We have made too many preparations for it to be a failure."
“Thank you…” She said suddenly to Duffy’s surprise, and stepped in to kiss him on the forehead before retreating. “Thank you for finally being honest with me. We will have our way with the world yet again, but we must make sure our victory is assured…Lilith dreams and Blank expects that much, but I want much more…much, much, much more from you Duffy, do you understand?”
He nodded and gruffly plucked up his notebook and quill. He tucked them into the folds of his jacket and returned the glasses to the silver plate. He had scorned the typical tightly wrapped bandages of his energetic lifestyle to wear a doublet, loose pants and tall boots to relax and feel at ease as he wrote. For those trained in theatre, he appeared the spitting image of the famous lead Lord Artemis, a dashing but braggart fellow who had his way with women wherever he went, and often the men too.
“I want to show you something. I guess it is to impart a little knowledge of my own in return for the favours you have done in giving me my true self back…for giving me my voice, my heart, my fire it’s heat and blanching power.” She stepped aside and Duffy drew to the natural conclusion that he was to follow her through the doorway she had uncovered. The steps leading down into the parlour were mesmerizingly welcoming.
“Where are we going?”
“Just get your coat and scarf, and we shall take a walk.”
“Why do I get the feeling that this is going to end up with me drunk in a barrel and you coveting innuendo with half the West End?”
Ruby rolled her eyes and turned to step down from the stage. “I want you to come with me to the Obsidian Tower, and to stare it in the face and promise me…promise me that when we assault it as one coherent unit, that it will fall, that it will tumble, and that our dreams and hopes for a future unbound by his malice have not been all for nought. Most importantly, there is no fun to be had in dancing with ourselves, so come with me to the ball!"
Duffy nodded, and stepped after her with a kick to his step. "After you Madame, lead on!" He was finally starting to feel like a leader, an inspiration to his friends, instead of a running joke.
Silence Sei
05-22-11, 10:57 AM
Story (8/10): Honestly, after the first couple of posts, I couldn’t stop reading this.
Continuity (5/10): Some areas needed further explanation, but some were perfectly fine. Example; Who was Celia to the Troupe?
Setting (5/10): You didn’t really give much focus to the area around you much, but the description of the gin helped you here.
Creativity (8/10): I love ‘sit and talk, everyday’ threads, and this one was more grip[ping because it was also a ‘Last chance to talk’ kind of thing.
Character (8/10): In all honesty,. I think Ruby outshined Duffy in this story, but since both were integral, you get mad props.
Interaction (10/10): Dialogue was fully believable, and I couldn’t stop smiling at the extra little touchs here and there, like Duffy’s smart assness.
Strategy (4/10): Really nothing much here but a little bit of talking here and there.
Mechanics (8/10): As always, it’s hard to catch any mistakes you make, and I’m not sure if you could count ‘rattatattat’ as an actual word, even if it is an onomatopoeia
Clarity (6/10): Sometimes, I got confused by your choice of words in the thread. Remember that sometimes the simpler route is best.
Wildcard (8/10): Absolutely loved it.
70/100
Duffy Bracken gets 3000 Exp, and 50 GP (Sei gave some money to Ruby for Duffy’s salary.)
Silence Sei
05-29-11, 08:32 AM
gp-exp added
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