March Sadness

[daemoniumexmachina]

Who: Efrain, the Prince of Sorrow's Song, and you!
What: Sadboy open mic night
When: March 24th
Where: Empty Pockets
Warning(s): I'm not sure how to describe it other than it's a huge bummer.



-Lover, come to the kitchen floor; the tiles are cold and so am I-

In late March, posters begin cropping up around town and on the bulletin board. They are beautifully made, on gray paper with swooping white letters, advertising a "Sing Your Heart Out" event at the Empty Pockets Performance Bar.

The bar in question, seated in a cozy location in Downtown Hollow, is well known for hosting musical, theatrical, and poetic talent of all sorts on its stage. Many of them are planned, but "open stage nights" are fairly common as well. So when the posters begin appearing, advertising an opportunity for residents to come and showcase or simply enjoy emotionally vulnerable music and poetry as a community bonding exercise, it comes as no particular surprise. The staff aren't sure who planned it, nor were they informed it would be occurring, but hey. It's an opportunity for them to sell more drinks. They don't intend to look a gift horse in the mouth.

And so it is that on the evening of March 24th, performing arts lovers of Pumpkin Hollow come to Empty Pockets to move or be moved by songs and sonnets that tug upon the heartstrings. It's a quirky event, and strange that it'd be so popular. Were this many people looking for an emotional outlet by happenstance? Or did those with sorrow in their hearts feel called by some unheard song?

Empty Pockets is a dimly lit space, intimate and close. A carved wooden bar, polished with care, features a winding piece of wall art, little marble tiles in black and white, cut to look like piano keys, sprawling in a flowing trail along the well-stocked backbar. Cormac Bowen, of Cormac and the Banshees, can be seen chatting excitedly before his act, banjo strapped to his back as he downs a pint and jokes with anyone he talks to. Before too long, he and the aforementioned "banshees" ascend the stage, happy to be the opening act as they play some of their more emotionally stirring pieces.

Get comfortable. Grab a drink. Enjoy the scene. It won't be peaceful for long.


-I can feel your sorrow pouring out of your skin; and I don't want to be alone-

Not long after Cormac and the Banshees excuse themselves from the stage, the bar becomes... strangely quieter. As if a shroud of grey has fallen over the crowd, hushing it by just a few decibels.

A band of strange people file onto the stage, hardly noticed by the crowd despite their unusual appearances. A starkly pale woman wearing a blindfold, dressed all in lace and gossamer finery and wearing a halo-like crown over her veil. A grey-skinned man whose mouth and chest are fitted with shiny brass piping, which looks terribly painful. And lastly, a shrouded figure with four arms, carrying a massive stringed instrument decorated with skulls. The group does not introduce themselves, or even announce the start of their act, they simply begin to play.

First, the man with the heart of brass begins to sing a low note, which presses air through all the pipes to sound like a harmonization between a hurdy gurdy, an organ, and a tuba. The shrouded figure takes a bow to his strange instrument, which creates a unique and eerie sound that blends the deep, rich tones of a bass with the sliding, mysterious notes of a dilruba or sitar. And at last, the woman begins to sing, her haunting voice climbing and descending through numerous octaves with unrivalled skill, her Latin lyrics telling a tale that cannot be understood, but felt.

It is the most beautiful music you have ever heard. You are immediately filled with the urge to weep, your heart breaking for a memory you can't quite reach, a life you never lived, a moment you forgot, a loved one whose face you can no longer picture. The pain overwhelms you. The desire to wrench your heart from your chest simply to get it to stop aching, because the pain of its severance would be tame compared to the emotional torment you suffer, becomes very real in your mind. And then the song ends, and more painful than the sound of the song is its loss.

You must find a way to release it.


-So take from me, what you want, what you need-

Efrain and his band vacate the stage, leaving it opened. It calls to you, even if it hadn't before, though you very well may have come here with a song in mind. However, now releasing your pain into the room feels imperative, like there's something rotting you from the inside if you don't. Or you can simply opt to turn to the person next to you and spill your pain to the nearest person. The idea of leaving simply... doesn't occur to you. As if this is all that matters.

Efrain himself sits in the corner. He reaches out a hand to you. "You poor, miserable soul," he croons, his voice soft and breathy but somehow still crisp and clear. He beckons you near. "Come to me. Sing your song of pain. And I will give you what you need."

Comments

[daemoniumexmachina]

"Come to me," Efrain beckons. "Let me hear your song. You already know every lyric and note."

His arms are open wide, all four, as if he means to embrace you. Cling to his chest and bear your heart. Release your anguish and be free. Perhaps you will get something in return.

[spaghettification]

There is no hesitation in Siebren, tears already streaming down his face. As he begins to sing a wordless melody in a rich baritone voice, the unoccupied chairs and even a few of the tables in the room rise up into the air, before plummeting to the floor quickly as if suddenly burdened with more weight than they ever had before, showering bystanders with splinters.

He doesn't seem to notice himself doing this, though, clearly lost in the sauce, the music of this universe and that demon peeling back the layers of defensiveness and bringing his pain to bear for all to see. He is above the stage, looking up at the ceiling as if he's considering tearing it from the building entirely.

[daemoniumexmachina]

After a few bars of repetition, Sonata joins him in an operatic soprano, having easily picked up the tune. She approached not in step, but in a glide that pulls her gossamer gown along the floor evenly, and offers him her hands, slender and pale with long fingernails painted blue. The Contessa of False Comforts offers her aid. A clear message--- "let me take your burdens from you."

[amourtician]

Anzu steps forward, shakily, and looks Efrain square in the eye. He steps forward, hesitating only for a second, takes a deep breath, and begins to sing, in a hoarse baritone, aged by four decades of chain-smoking, a voice with a deep crack running through its length, to let the light in.

Al naharos bavel...

And he things, if thou'rt as thou appear'st to be, thou'll know'st I sing of the Tzar's Court, and the decades I spent in service to a gentile king, the decades I spent dead to myself.

[tehilim127_1]

Seated in the audience, Zivia sucks in a sharp breath at the first words of Anzu's song.

She doesn't know this melody -- it doesn't surprise her, coming as they do from different worlds -- but anyone sitting close enough, anyone looking in her direction, will see her silently mouthing the words along with him.

Sham yashavnu, gam bechinu --

[graphomaniac]

If Anzu accepts the terms of this game, Lev/Lyubov seems to be enraged by the invitation. They look down at Efrain, then demonstratively turn their back to him, close their eyes, take a deep breath and, fighting the unease they feel at reciting such a thing in the presence of less than ten Jews of an age to accept the Yoke, with the vigor and force of one two metres tall with lungs to match, and with the despairing abandon of one who fears they shall remain as dry bones, and rise not when the Redeemer calls them by their name, begins:

Magnified and sanctified be the Holy Name ...

And in their heart of hearts, knowing it is no blasphemy to despair, and knowing that it is no blasphemy to grieve, they hold, if you are the dealer, I'm out of the game.

[tehilim127_1]

With their eyes closed, they won't see Zivia rise to her feet at the first words. It's nearly as automatic as breathing; she knows this prayer, to this tune and many others. She's recited it herself often enough, in services and elsewhere.

Her "Amein" is loud enough and sharp enough, she hopes, to carry.

There Is A Dog On The Stage

[i_ink_therefore_i_ammy]

Okami Amaterasu, Best of Dogs, Guardian of Nippon, Goddess of the Sun, knows something is off, here... But that does not make her immune to it. She pads onto the stage with her tail low, and walks up to the front of it, looking out over everyone. There's a short moment where one might expect her to sing, seeing as she has used words for much of her time here...

But then she sits back on her haunches and tilts her nose to the sky, towards the moon, and howls. It's deep, it's mournful, it's familiar to at least one person in town, who may or may not be here. A deep, mournful howl, this time without the note of optimism. It echoes through the bar, it may even escape the walls themselves, and in it...

All the pain of an immortal goddess of oh, so painfully mortal children. One whose opportunity to know her people in person was gained only at the cost of so many lives, so much darkness. A Goddess Guardian who truly, deeply cares. Amaterasu is the mother of Nippon, and she has been months from her land, and this one still needs her here...

But a mother misses her children, and everyone who listens to her howl knows it, feels it, perhaps feels inclined to join in. It keeps going. Several minutes long, backed by immortal lungs and an ancient sorrow. It shakes the tables, the glassware, the walls, until at last, she draws it to a close.

Amaterasu sits there for a moment, letting it all sit, before standing to her paws, giving a single nod, and walking off the stage.

[yournewsidekick]

Within seconds, another howl joins Amaterasu's.

Where the goddess cries out with the pain of a mother separated from her children, this is the wail of a lost child in reply. A thousand years of loneliness, seeking in vain for someone who will love them. A thousand years of rejection and hatred at every turn. No mother will ever find them; no guardian will ever comfort them.

A few glasses nearby shatter as the matched frequency of their howls shakes the room.

[preacher_in_reticence]

Degas is among those who join in the howl unrepentantly. It does not make the well of deep pain in his heart any less full. But it is a necessary thing for him to do, in this moment.

[preacher_in_reticence]

Degas had thought going to see live music would be doing as the goddesses had instructed him. Taking a rest, letting Angel tend the Temple for the night. But here it is, another demon incursion, and his heart is heavy and the ache of missing not just Melly, but most of the Leeds family, and other dear friends sits on him like a weighted blanket.

He stands. He sings. It's a simple melody, and one which both locals and newcomers might find familiar. He knows it as an old southern Glassighe song. Others might peg it as Scottish.

"Should old acquaintance be forgot..." His voice is trained, but thick with tears, faltering over the melody. Perhaps others who know it will help pick it up?

[yournewsidekick]

Not long after Amaterasu's howl shakes the rafters, the other wolf pads to Efrain, tail low and ears pressed back, her breath hitching with barely contained sobs.

"I," she begins. "I -- "

This isn't the right shape anymore. Nimona curls in on herself, shrinking down. The fur darkens; vanishes everywhere except the top of her head, where it grows and grows until it almost brushes her ankles. In seconds, a little girl stands before Efrain, still hiccuping with despair.

She doesn't sing yet. She can't find any words, let alone the tune to carry them.

[cacophonish]

Jeff had come here ready to perform. He's got his guitar (his, after several months without any instrument to call his own) and he doesn't need any magic to coax him to stage.

But what he performs isn't the song he'd intended. The tune isn't familiar, it's totally new to him, but his fingers play it without effort, like he's always known it by heart. It isn't anything slow or sorrowful, and when he sings, his voice is light and playful, rather than mournful.

He sings about a boy who caught the eye of a demon-- an angel-- a faerie-- something else entirely, something that defies definition. It loved him, and he hated it. It hated him, and he loved it. It moved in with the boy and made him see: unreality overlayed with reality. Endless possibility, magic without boundaries, worlds in shadows and reflections and all the things that exist just beyond the corner of one's eyes. He hated it, he loved it, he would burn his life to the ground for it.

The boy was full of fear. The boy was going mad. The boy wanted to crawl into unreality and live in an impossible place.

Instead, the boy died, and when he awoke, It was gone. Now the boy lives in silence, chained to reality, with nothing but fading memories and nightmares of worlds beyond, magic without boundaries, and terrifying beautiful things he can almost see, just out of the corner of his eye.

He sings about this stupid boy and his stupid fucking yearning for some undefinable Thing to break his world again with a smile on his face and wonder in his voice, while his heart feels as empty and hollow as ever. And some part of him wants others to feel that wonder, that magic, all that could have been but will never be, and maybe that's why some in the audience may feel Jeff's magic worming its way into their hearts, different but not so dissimilar from the demon's.

His own magic twists with the sorrow, infuses it with ecstasy, to give others a chance to feel those highest of highs, before they're ripped away.

[onyssius]

Jarod can hardly breathe through the agony.

He didn’t need to be led: he was curious. He loves music…but now he’s in the grips of something he can’t understand, confused by why he’s here and why he can’t stop thinking about everything he’s lost.

Everything he never had.

He sits through a few songs in order to understand the mechanics—breath, tonality, to find the place the feeling lives in the act of singing.

He only needs twenty minutes to settle on the arrangement before he takes the stage. He stands, still for a long moment, and silent. The only sound is his shaky breathing, slow and labored.

When he begins, it’s a song he heard during his retreat after his brother died. Mourning Kyle, he heard the song, so bright and filled with life, with hope.

When he sings, a modest bass, the tempo has been cut in half, and he’s changed the otherwise classic song to a heartwenching, mournful minor key.

”What I feel
I can't say
But my love is there for you anytime of day
But if it's not love
That you need
Then I'll try my best to make everything succeed…”

Every word of uplifting love and joy becomes the sound of grief and regret for a life so lost it never got to be lived, sorrow for a love of family that will never be shared.

And by the time Jarod is done singing, his voice is still steady—but tears are streaming down his face, and he has to lean against a wall for several moments before he can make himself continue his way off the stage.

so take from me.

[abhorrently]

It hurts. It hurts like everything hurts, like her head hurts as she fights off the worst of her thoughts, only in her head and her chest, and she feels it as shards of stone. She needs to weep, and she cannot - she hasn't, not in the scant few pieces of her memory she has, not in the months since. Even when her soul aches, she cannot, denied that form of release. Perhaps she was just created without the ability, though the wish to do so is as strong as it ever might be. This is wrong, this is wrong, and yet, and yet -

Is it not fitting?

Despair and sorrow is as a veil, the soul carving itself away into regret, into cold links of a chain gone to rust from the salted tears of so many forgotten eyes. And that's what it is, isn't it? Forgetting. Losing it all. That poison streak that means she isn't settled, born from absence, everything that others have that has been denied now and ever. Emptiness, a grave waiting for a body to fill it, but even that is lost.

"What...are you doing-"

The single candle flame of anger of any of this being dragged out shines in her eyes and grinds in her voice, as Fever makes her way closer to the four armed figure. The one of the band she can see needs to answer for it. Reflexive defensiveness, the bloody sword that sees vulnerability as death. He's doing something. Why he's doing it, it's unreachable through the pain and the sorrow alike. Make it stop.

cw christian hymn in the link

[lovethyneighb_or]

He’s spent the past week deathly sick in bed, and as lovely as Hawkeye’s care is, he’s had enough of that. He’s not better, no, but damn it all, he’s here. He needed to get out of that bed, out of the house. So when he finds out about an open mic night at a bar, to the bar he goes. He’d sing if it weren’t for his sorry state. Not only is he absolutely nothing worth listening to, but he wouldn’t get everyone else sick by projecting onstage either. He goes with the intention of resting in the corner with a face mask.

Except something else is going on.

Sorrow is a caged bird in his chest. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no good to anyone; so there it stays, alone and alone and alone, singing forever into nothing. Only, now this strange band sings back, and that, the company in misery—well, it’s not doing much good for his already-stuffed nose, suffice to say.

He’s. Not entirely sure what to make of it, no. He doesn’t like it though. It’s forceful. It’s compelling. He’s had enough of being compelled, and he rankles at the pull of it. Mulcahy crossed himself as soon as he felt the pull of the song. He does it at the end.

… He holds out against the temptation, for a while. Enough time at least for air to flow in one nostril. When he crosses the room to the creature in the corner, he decides to do so on his own terms in some way; he settles onto his knees and bows his head in prayer, turned to the side. Efrain may listen, but this is not for him.

Like this, it’s impossible to capture the force of the hymn. There are no acoustic ceilings, no congregation and no harmonies, only Mulcahy’s sick and quiet tone that’s more breath than it is voice; but Efrain, if he is so in tune with grief, must surely recognize it for the single long and strained caterwaul that it is. The unheard chorus is bodies in the dirt. Hundreds of thousands of children and men and women who died for a lie, and just as many thousand ghosts ground into dust for a broken spirit’s own ends. Everyone and everything that’s ever been thrown into the mouth of the machine, the belly of the furnace, for a reason with no meaning and a life spent as spent fuel.

Mulcahy has not walked in a place beyond blood and violence for almost ten years.

He crosses himself a third time with an open hand. ”Dona nobis pacem,” he mutters, and unsteadily rises to go.

content warnings inline, OTA

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

You already know every lyric and note.

Leon's not a musical person. He doesn't sing, not even to himself in the shower or anything like that, too embarrassed by the idea of even trying (and failing) to allow himself. But there is something in him that's haunted his every step for six years now, and by some means unknown to him it coalesces into...

He doesn't get up on stage, but when there's a lull he starts to half mumble something to himself, that rises in intensity and volume until he's singing proper. His voice is unpracticed, but by grace(?) of whatever power's brought him the words and the melody, it's not bad, somehow.

Click to receive song.
[ cw: needles, medical experimentation on children, zombies, police corruption, viral epidemics, cannibalism, nuclear destruction ]

"It starts in the dark
In a needle, shining, sharp
Plunging into dying tissue
And the virus finds its mark

It starts in the dark
A scientist remarks
"You can't take my work from me!"
And in his desperation starts -

The end of all things creeping slowly in
The city unsuspecting begins
The descent
The virus that was meant
To weaponize the dead
In an uncontrolled spread
Finds its way into the water and that's how it starts to end

It starts in the dark
In a gas station mart
A rookie cop investigates
A cannibal assault

It starts in the dark
The police station starkly
Empty but for zombies
Searching for uninfected marks

The chief accepts with bloodied hands
The bribes from smiling company men
For what?
To keep the cops' eyes shut
To dark experimental acts
Done to orphans to extract
The data necessary to keep their pockets packed

The rookie cop finds all of this, but only way too late
The city's overrun and distant suits decide its fate
He gets out just in time but for others no such luck
In the hours before sunrise they'll be well and truly fucked

It ends in the dark
The apocalyptic spark
Whistling over Raccoon City
Cleansing missiles hit their mark"

[decohere]

She sees the advertisements around, snags one for herself so she can allow herself more time to consider attending the event. Ava had spent so many fond evenings on the Serena Eterna performing karaoke with friends, ones that didn't make it here. It had taken her a long time to warm up to it, shy as she is. But luckily there was rarely an audience. Just a safe place to let out the conflicting emotions she didn't want to otherwise put into words.

This place seems far more crowded, so Ava remains faded into the background as much as possible to simply listen. There's already so much pain bubbling just underneath the surface, the very physical pain of her body succumbing to disequilibrium. That just a sad song or two is enough to bring her to tears. As much as she wipes at her wet cheeks to try hiding the evidence, they keep coming.

What she doesn't expect is being beckoned to sing herself. Ava stills, shakes her head, nervous and trembling. Covers her mouth with a hand that's barely there, and closes her eyes.

But still succumbs all the same, voice barely above a regretful whisper.

[be_seeing_you]

Number 6 finds his eyes glassy and his heart aching as he rises to Efrain's call. He's standing on stage before he truly realizes what he's doing. Now that he's here, inches from an embrace, a twitch of worry runs through him.

"I don't often sing in public..." he starts to say, but somehow this four-armed man is right. He knows the lyrics that spring forth, as if he'd always known them.

Softly, he starts to sing Who knows where the time goes?

Song Lyrics

Across the evening sky
All the birds are leaving
But how can they know
It's time for them to go?

Before the winter fire
I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore
Your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know
It's time for them to go

But I will still be here
I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

And I am not alone
While my love is near me
I know it will be so
Until it's time to go

So come the storms of winter
And then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time

For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?

CW: death, grief, illness, infertility, blood

The lyrics draw out of him all the sorrows and worries that have settled into his bones. Despite how he tries to hide it, they bubble up like blood spilling from a fresh wound. The friends and family he aches to see again, the ones he knows he never will, and his fear for Ava, too. His wife is here at his side but he is watching her grow sicker every day. Just as he always feared, she is dying slowly and he has no way to stop it. No way to save her. Only the knowledge that she will rise again keeps him from raging at the sky. But deep inside that sorrow is another. As long as she must inhabit a body in slow decay, will there ever be a possibility of creating new life? They spoke of a cottage, an apple orchard, and now they have both. But they also spoke of children. Can such a thing be possible? Can either of them bear it if it's not?

cw: death, blood, nuclear destruction, medical trauma (incl amputation), suicidal ideation

[not_a_traitor]

The first thing he notices is the pain.

For weeks now, he's had a reprieve from the phantom pain that dogged him after his amputation; the way it gnawed at the remains of his leg, making it impossible to function. When his stump twitches suddenly, Gaeta lets out a wince -- and freezes as the pain blossoms, spreading like fire down nerves that no longer exist.

No. No.

It grasps tight. Wrenches, hard, like it's trying to rip the muscles away a second time. He gasps, but the physical pain's not the worst of it. Having found its opening, the music eagerly worms deeper and starts tearing open any other wounds it can find.

This is not a drill, said the paper he held four years ago, and for a sickeningly suspended moment, he realized he was the only one who knew the Twelve Colonies were dead.

A picture of him and his family at his graduation from Fleet Academy, stuck to Galactica's memorial wall alongside billions and billions of the dead. Incomprehensible at scale. An entire civilization gone, and his little piece of it all he could manage to wrap his head around.

Gaius Baltar, surrendering to the Cylons on New Caprica. Gaius, signing the death warrant of hundreds. Gaius, seizing him by the hair --

-- an Eight, smiling by lamplight, and the same Eight regarding him dispassionately in the flickering lights of a dying Raptor --

-- Louis staring at him in incomprehension -- Helo telling him, gentle but firm, that he knew damn well they wouldn't jump back to the Fleet before the clock ran down all fifteen hours -- Dee, gods, Dee -- the Admiral's pins digging into his hand, the wet of blood on his BDUs as his leg shattered, the smell of blood on Colonial One, the gleam of blood on his hands, the choking sensation of too little air, gods, he can't frakking breathe, there are so many dead littered behind him and there is nothing but death ahead of him, be it the slow death of humanity itself or the quick death of a bullet --

How could he ever have thought this place might give him a second chance? There are never second chances. And even if there were, Gaeta doesn't deserve one after all he did.

The grief swallows him, and Gaeta, without rising from his table, does what he has always done when the pain becomes too much.

He sings.

OTA

[lovinglefthand]

First Aid isn't normally much of a singer, just like he's not normally much of a dancer or a public speaker or lots of other things that aren't directly related to his born profession as a healer. Just like he's not normally great at relationships outside the loving circle of his combiner team. But something pulls him up onto the stage, seven feet of slightly trembling metal, and he sings --

It was originally a bouncy pop song, but he sings slowly in a minor key, turning it into a painful ballad. He sings with a tone of deep bewilderment, as if he himself barely understands what's happening to him -- because he doesn't. He doesn't understand it at all.

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/CONCERNS

[daemoniumexmachina]

(I forgot to put this on top like a dummy)

OTA, CW: murdered parents & neurodivergent ableism

[pineapplesalmon]

César can't sing, won't sing, but he will let tears stream down his face. It's an outlet that he's desperately needed and one that he's denied himself. He came with no one, sits alone at a small table for two, and is slouched back his chair turned perpendicular against the table, staring at stage in uncontained grief.

When someone walks by him within earshot, he's compelled to speak through his tears. "My parents were locked in by our colleague and obliterated into atoms saving the world. And because it was too dangerous and no one thought someone like me could mourn them, they don't even have graves."

[i_ink_therefore_i_ammy]

And Amaterasu is there. Soft and warm and giving him all of her comfort. Because the best way for her to feel better, is to help. Is to be there.

Not a word is needed to encourage him to let it all out further, just the gentle floof of her tail. Ammy is listening.

cw: reference to nuclear strikes

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Well, if that doesn't sound all too familiar. By now Leon knows the odds of someone else being here from his same world are kind of slim, but. For one thing, he sure hopes there aren't a lot of atomizations to go around in the multiverse, and for another he's still dealing with the surreal haze of his own performance.

Cleansing missiles hit their mark

He exhales slowly, watching César's expression as he tries to figure out what to say in the face of all that.

"They thought you couldn't mourn?" is what he settles on, soft and surprised and confused but with an undercurrent of outrage on his behalf. There's a lot to address here, and they'll get to that, if this guy wants to, but in the moment that's what stands out to him.