ph_logs | September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

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September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

**Plain text version here.

WALTZ OF THE HARLEQUIN

ACT ONE: MAKE AN ENTRANCE

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: None }

SCENE: Leeds Estate Ballroom, night. Music can be heard from a small string band in the corner. Enter PARTYGOERS, stage right.

The estate is beautifully decorated, as it always is, in vivid blues against dark wood. Flowers made from blue and golden silk adorn the walls and furniture. Candles burn in tasteful centerpieces on the round dining tables. Delicious-looking foods can be seen on the serving tables, ready to be claimed and devoured. A member of DAHLIA’S diligent staff tends an ornate bar near the door and dancers in fine clothes twirl on the dance floor to upbeat string music.

DAHLIA can be seen in the center of the room, wearing a golden gown embroidered with roses and surrounded by her ENTOURAGE, which consists of DAISY, LAIOS, RADAR, and JEFF. All of them wear the colors of House Leeds---- blue and gold. She welcomes the PARTYGOERS warmly.

DAHLIA, going for an appropriate greeting for the person she is speaking to--- a handshake, a hug, a kiss on the cheek.
Welcome. So glad you could make it. You look ravishing. Please help yourself to something to eat, and enjoy your night.

It is a beautiful night. Formal only in appearances, the energy of the Gala is casual and light, if not a bit decadent. All seems well.

ACT TWO: ALL IS REVEALED

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: rotten food, blood, forced body transformation, unreality. }

SCENE: Leeds Estate Ballroom, one hour later. The party is well underway. When the grandfather clock chimes, it sounds strange and distorted.

The sound immediately draws the attention of DAHLIA, who grows concerned. The sour chiming continues. In the center of the ballroom, a plume of sickly yellow smog bursts as if from a smoke bomb, flooding the room and causing PARTYGOERS to stagger and cough. When it fades, the environment has changed.

Enter MENDEL, from the smoke burst.

The decor in the space has changed drastically. Where once the space was deep, cool browns and shades of blue accented with gold, it is now filled with ruddy browns, jaundiced yellows, plummy purples, and searing reds. The bundles of silk flowers are replaced with bouquets of decaying fishing nets, bloody gauze, and rotten fruit which seems to bloom from splitting bruises. Tattered swags in mismatched patterns line the walls, and each PARTYGOER is now in a masquerade mask designed to fit with their outfit.

DAHLIA, lightly panicked.
What are you doing here?

MENDEL, laughing raucously.
Surprise! Oh, I do so hate to cut in, but I simply could not go another year without doing something special for my favorite niece.

He wraps his arms, which look like graying, exposed meat, around DAHLIA.

MENDEL
You see, everyone---- Darling Dahlia here has been lying to you. Her whole life, even! Can you believe it? You see, her father was never Japhet Leeds. The man couldn’t stand her! Jane Leeds was still her mother, oh yes, but her father---

DAHLIA attempts to cut in, but MENDEL grips her tighter, clamping a hand over her mouth as he presents her to the crowd. His claws dig into her arm and her cheek. He continues to snicker as he speaks, and DAHLIA struggles.

MENDEL
Her father is my own baby brother, Prince Aster of the Dark Feast! Isn’t that a funny prank? But I think the joke has overstayed its welcome. It’s time to show your little friends who you really are, isn’t it, princess?

In a swift motion, MENDEL pulls DAHLIA into a twirl, as if dancing, sending her spinning toward the crowd. When it ceases, DAHLIA stands before her gala, changed. Her complexion is blue now, and her hair, raven black. A pair of bat-like wings adorn her back, and a crown of antlers like that of a deer wreath her head.

MENDEL
Ah, no, that’s not quite what I was going for. Let me try again.

With a snap of MENDEL’S fingers, DAHLIA changes again, her body shifting against her will. Her well-kept black locks morph into wiry ashen hair which covers her body. Her face extends into that of a cow-like skull with sharp teeth. Her hands become clawed, and her feet become cloven hooves. Before the crowd now stands THE PINE DEVIL.

MENDEL
There’s our birthday girl!

THE PINE DEVIL (DAHLIA) attempts to lunge at MENDEL, but with another snap of his fingers, his streamers and swags lash out at her like vines and lash her tightly.

MENDEL
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some catching up to do with my darling niece. And you all have a party to enjoy! I leave you in the care of my talented assistants.

He starts to turn away, but then holds up a finger to shake and turns back. Oh, one more thing, I almost forgot. I’ve left all of you some party favors in those masks. Have fun!

MENDEL grabs a bound and helpless DAHLIA and disappears once more in another plume of smoke.

Enter BLANCHE and SEEMINGLY (GLEE MASK), opposite sides of the stage. The pair of them meet eyes, and pantomime tugging on an invisible rope in opposite directions, and suddenly the ballroom expands as if unrolled like a scroll, becoming a sprawling labyrinth of tiny ballrooms, winding corridors, and secret alcoves. The PARTYGOERS are separated from one another. At the same time, the magic in their masks activates, inflicting one of the following curses:

Leaky Bucket: deprives the party goer of their short-term memory. They know who they are, and why they're here insofar as understanding it's Dahlia's birthday gala, but all new information tends to leave their mind after a few minutes. (Think Dory from Finding Nemo.)

Amnesiac's Lament: deprives the individual of long-term memory. All new information is retained, but they have no idea who they are or why they're here. How distressing this is can be at the player's discretion. Perhaps they despair at the memory loss and are trying to find a way to escape the ball, perhaps they don't see anything wrong with their lack of context and are just trying to enjoy this weird party.

False Friend: the opposite of Zone of Truth, those with this affliction will be unable to tell the truth and can ONLY tell lies. Any fact from the most mundane to the most complex can only be lied about. Whether or not the person is cognizant of their new habit is the player's choice.

The World Revolving: those afflicted suffer frequent bouts of vertigo which makes the space feel as though it is spinning, sometimes very slowly, sometimes very quickly.

Dirge of Delusion: this particular curse will cause the mask-wearer to struggle to perceive reality correctly. Objects will appear as other objects, people as different people, rooms as some other place, or even the entire ball as somewhere entirely different. These disorienting visions will come and go at times.
Feeling Funny: the wearers of these masks will find that their emotions are completely out of control, sometimes bursting into fits of laughter, tears, or abrupt paranoia, before going completely numb for a while.
All PARTYGOERS will find their masks incapable of being removed. Those with infernal resistance from NEIL or the HOUSE OF CARDS will find their masks are less impactful, but the resistance is imperfect. However, ALICE DYER and SAMAMA KHALID will find that they have absolutely no effect from the masks at all, due to the BOON OF DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY acquired by ALICE.

The party resumes.

ACT THREE: Dance with the Devil

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: rotten food being eaten, imprisonment, impending violence }

SCENE: a distorted Leeds Estate, time unknown. As the party devolves into chaos, a clandestine meeting is arranged to locate the host.

Somewhere in the distorted estate, ALICE locates JEAN. Once she gets the Golden Wolf Mask in their hands, JEAN will be able to remove their current mask to wear the new one, which has a unique effect---- the ability to see the path of MENDEL through its eyes.

JEAN and ALICE, along with anyone they are able to recruit for help, will find MENDEL and DAHLIA on the second floor, which has transformed into a large theater balcony overlooking the party. DAHLIA is caged, and MENDEL seems to be enjoying the view as he eats half-rotten tomatoes as if they are apples.

MENDEL’S assailants choose how to make their approach. When he is destroyed, the party will end.

GRAND FINALE

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: fire }

SCENE: Leeds Estate ballroom, late night. The stage has returned to its prior state, and we are left to the aftermath.

When MENDEL is at last destroyed, the ballroom is restored to its normal size and coloration, as if the events of the night never occurred. Masks fall away, and DAHLIA stands center stage, looking exactly as her friends and neighbors remember her. However, the memory of what has occurred here tonight cannot be wiped away, as evidenced from all the onlookers around her. Are their expressions concerned? Angry? Fearful? Hurt?

Does it matter?

DAHLIA, quietly.
Get out.

There is a moment of stillness and consideration, before she speaks again, louder.

DAHLIA, shouting.
GET. OUT.

As she speaks the second word, a massive burst of blue flame erupts behind her. Glass breaks. Tables topple. DAHLIA’s hair flutters in the force of the blast. She stands stiffly, unafraid as the hot, raging blue flames consume her ballroom, peeling the wallpaper and cracking the wood. She means to chase everyone out, even if it means bringing the room down upon herself.

When everyone is gone, the flames seem to retreat, as if sucked up into their original blast point. DAHLIA, spent, collapses to her knees in the burnt shell of her own birthday party, and sobs.

Blackout. Curtains fall.

After the event ends, Dahlia will be absent from town and her home only open to close CR until further notice. She will not be answering her sending stone or her phone calls.

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A soft mist rises as the ground breathes beneath them. It mingles with Radar's breath and the breath of the monster. It sticks to the grass and falls back down as raindrops, timed perfectly to each word she speaks. Even with his eyes closed, Radar can see it: as they strike her, the color of the light darkens. Blood red. Olive drab.

But as soon as they ripple and dissipate outward, the glow returns to normal. Transfixed, he watches the ever-changing shift of awfulness rising, then fading, only to rise again. An endless cycling return, but one that the monster fights against every time so it cannot destroy her for good.

The choppers growl above them, but only because they know they will find help here. In every war there will be those who fight against it.

"How come I didn't hear anything?" His voice is soft as a bruised peach, but it sounds so clear now. "You never thought about it before. I should've heard what you thought of me."

"Because I hid it from you. I didn't want you to hear it, so I shoved it down when you were around. Tried to drown it out with other things. I didn't want you to get scared of me, before you had to."

Her hands bunch in the fabric of her dress, absent anything else to touch.

"I knew from the day I showed up here, at a point it would all come out to other people. That a lot of them won't want anything to do with me anymore when they know. That's to be expected. But I didn't want to make that day come sooner than it had to."

It's not him, she's trying to say. It's not something about Radar that led to the lies, the secrecy. It's no one here specifically at all, but the great group of them. Waiting for the day they collectively turn and cast her out, and she carries on her existence alone. It terrifies her. It is inevitable. It's a solid stone door on the future.

That something in parallel is happening to Dahlia Leeds, she's well aware. There will be nothing untouched by this. But her past self didn't lash out at Dahlia, trying to uproot every connection there. It's Radar that's been hurt, that's had to shield his wounds.

Funny, she thinks. The same skills that allow her to know where to hurt someone, how to pry them apart, are the same skills that let you put someone back together.

"I can let you hear, but it's...chaotic."

"I heard some of it from her."

The hospital lights flick back on for an instant. They spark and fizzle as if they remember, too.

"I don't wanna hear any more, I just, I just wanna see it coming. What's -- " He lowers his hand from his face, throat tight. "What's the point of me knowing stuff if I can't?"

Fever doesn't have an answer. If things were as they were, she'd encourage him again to see her father, to speak with one who can also know some things before they come. Pull him over and say, my friend needs help. If it was normal, she might reach for that hand and take it. Try to be soothing. Do something that reassures him in some way.

But her touch scares him. She scares him. And her head hurts, and she makes no move to reach for her medicine, because it would look too much like reaching for a weapon. Her eyes look down at her hands in her lap, and she doesn't know what to do. Only be a silent vigil, and swallow the bitter, acidic truth of it all. She's lost the right to do such things.

Eventually, she manages something, but it feels like cut glass in her throat, like she could fall out of her flesh and bones, be merely nerves that scream at the slightest brush.

"Do you want to know what's coming so you can stop it?"

Her voice sounds so strange to herself. Distorted, filtered through miles of hair thin fiber and reverberating as a whisper.

The filaments of the monster's web tremble. Droplets scatter, refracting the light. As her misery wraps around his own, Radar finds himself fighting down a sob.

"I don't know." His voice wobbles and splits just like the prismatic light. "I know if we fight you're gonna win and I'm gonna die. I-I-I'm not gonna be able to stop anything. The way she was talking though it was like it'd definitely happen but I'd never know, and I thought, well, if you're so good at hiding stuff what else can you hide, maybe I'm just no good at my job if I don't know any of it, or maybe you didn't ever wanna be friends in the first place and were just playing along the whole time, and now I just have to wait and wait and I'm never gonna know anything for sure about you anymore."

He has no idea if he's making any sense. Nothing else here does, so why would he?

Before she can second guess herself, she takes a leap.

"Listen."

As soft as they are, it holds the weight of an order. And it hurts, and she's scared, and maybe he can feel it in the urgency with which she takes his hand. In absence of the tadpoles, maybe touch will help amplify it, let him hear.

Her mind is overlapping channels playing at once, all too garbled to make things out of, but change position, angle, like shouting across an ocean to be heard -

buried too deep not enough and it's all going to fall apart wait for winter but winter's too far this is my fault and it'll always be my fault it's never enough you'll lose everyone you know you know you know you knew it couldn't last this is what comes from wanting anything i know i know i know it's my fault i know i want to live i'm sorry friends friends friends i'm sorry sorry doesn't solve it doesn't stop it keep moving if you stop moving you'll die and you'll be his and you'll die without a home keep moving keep moving it's not enough you knew this would happen how fucking dare you act so shameless it hurts it's sick i hate her i hate her i should go away nothing fixes anything keep moving keep going i'm so tired

tuned into the right frequency

it's them, it's him, and she comes into work, and she sees the change on him, and it's the silence that the doctors get when they know someone's slipped away, when everything's tight and funny in the chest and her hands feel all wrong and she knows that he knows

what do you even say? will he say anything? he doesn't, and every glimpse of him raises her hopes anew and sees them deflate

there's nothing good about it, there's nothing about it she wants, just pain in her chest in the shape of grief.

Telling him hurt him. Hiding it from him hurt him. She's fucked up both ways. She knows. What do you do but carry it around with you, with the rest? He doesn't need to grant her forgiveness, to accept the apology, any of it. She just wants him to know the truth.

She takes his hand...

...and the sound of the choppers falls away.

The rainstorm patter of thoughts washes his mind clean. Like settling his glasses on his nose first thing in the morning, the monster slides into focus. It's just the two of them, kneeling among the gigantic blades of grass that tower over their heads, surrounded by the smell of petrichor and the sound of her relentless grief.

A twitch of his hand. An adjustment of the antenna. He sees the memory like two televisions side-by-side, one for him and one for her. Fear on one, pain on the other, a pit of loss where they overlap in the middle.

And even as the rest of his senses careen and stumble until he cannot trust them anymore, he knows what he hears is true.

Radar sniffles. He squeezes Fever's hand so tight it might hurt a little, and nods. Just once.

She doesn't pull away, doesn't tell him to loosen his grip. She just holds onto his hand back, and finally meets his eyes again. Whatever happens next - whatever he decides, he'll at least have this. No more lying about it.

"I really did want to be your friend."

She still does. But that hardly matters.

"I still want to be yours."

There's no hesitation, no more flinching. Radar has always been the sort who forgets his own hurts as soon as he sees someone else in pain. What else is he gonna do, keep giving Fever the cold shoulder even after she said she was sorry, when she's proved she's really trying to be better than she was? That won't fix anything. It'd just make both of them miserable until whenever the barrier comes down.

There's a look in her eyes like she can't really believe it, like she was expecting anything else. Perhaps to be chased off, a stray thing with sharp teeth and scars that you shouldn't feed or bring into the house, lest it hurt you, lest it get you sick.

(She was.)

"...can we?"

It won't be the same, of course. It can't be. This place is ever changing, and she's only holding onto herself because there's been so much practice in it, against this or that kind of storm.

"I mean it's either that or we're enemies, and -- and I don't wanna do that."

Maybe it's not that simple. (It definitely isn't.) But that's the clearest way Radar knows how to put it when everything's tumbled around like a flight in freefall.

She takes a breath and nods, once, twice. When she speaks it's calmer, more confident - the guide, the friend, the navigator.

"...this place is messing with us. I don't know what it's doing to you, but if it's anything like what it's doing to me, it's sending everything into disarray. I can help you, if you listen to me. I've been through things like this before."

Let her help, now, instead of harm. When he's stable, then she can get him to safety. People are gathering into groups where they can - better to stay together, and keep away from whatever might be in the corridors and ready to strike.

"Tell me what you perceive."

There's so much that he doesn't know where to start. Radar takes a breath and does his best.

"It's loud." The most obvious bit. "N-not as bad though, there's no choppers anymore. I dunno what there is instead. Um." He squeezes his eyes shut, like that'll make it easier to process the noise. "There's talking, and yelling, a lot of that. There's you, but that's not too bad anymore either. Something's breathing. I feel it."

What else?

"There's real tall grass around us, like, like we're bugs, there's rain but I can't feel too much of it, just see it and hear it. It used to be blood but it's not anymore. Stuff's glowing all weird. You weren't you but you are now."

"Hmm. That sounds right. Does it feel like it'll stay like this for a while, or is it on the verge of change? You'll know - the edges will feel less defined."

It's easier to move between changes, when the ground isn't at risk for collapse.

"And tell me if it starts hurting."

Plaintive: "It's been hurting."

He forces his eyes open so he can look up, trying to get a better view of the grass. A yellowish tinge has joined the bioluminescent glow, pulsing in time with the rise and fall of the ground.

"I dunno. I can't tell. I-I don't think it was like that when the hospital disappeared though." His nerves start their wind-up again. "What if it just stops without me noticing?"

"It won't. But you have to relax a little more. The pain's a sign you're fighting it instead of letting it move through." Her hand is still in his, which gives her a thought. "I want you to try and match your breathing to mine. And at the same time, listen to yourself. You'll notice when a change is coming."

In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five. The rhythm she uses to focus her mind on fire, on a candle's flame without disturbing it.

"When it comes, let it happen. At its own pace. Tell me what occurs."

All it is, it's guesswork. But if it works for her tattered brain lying in its own brine, it might do something for his, in far better shape.

"I think the pain's just 'cause my ears hurt," mumbles Radar, but without any rancor. He does as she instructs. Five counts in alongside her, then five counts out, just like the doctors ask patients to do sometimes when they're checking their lungs. In. Out. He keeps it up even when she talks. (Is she talking out loud? Does it even matter at this point?)

He tries to adjust his reception, searching for any signals inside himself. What's he even supposed to be looking for? All he hears is his heartbeat and the quivering, useless part of himself that he cages up every time he hears choppers on the horizon. How's that gonna help? Nothing helps. Nothing. It's just blood and fear, racing around and around his circulatory system like a receiver picking up its own transmission over and over and over and over and over and

(the glow sharpens to something harsh, cold, and clinical. beneath him, the movement of the ground slows. stops.)

"I can't," he starts, with no idea how it'll end. And then, voice rising in a panic, "I don't think it's breathing anymore, I think it's dying -- "

The grass starts to wilt around him.

"But not dead yet. Tell me what to do, Radar - we're going to bring it back."

Play into it. Move with the shifts, instead of arguing about what is or isn't real. He's worked in a hospital with doctors, been there a hundred times, if what she remembers is right. Breathe, even as she feels another shift happening for herself.

I don't know, I don't know, he wants to scream --

No. He does. What else was basic and two years in Korea for? He's not a doctor, but he knows enough to keep a whole MASH unit running. Radar hasn't lost all of himself to the chaos and incoherence. He knows.

"Hold it together," he whispers to himself, barely audible. Then louder, steadier: "Chest compressions. You, you keep the heart moving until it works on its own again. Where's the heart?"

He lets go of Fever's hands to feel along the ground. The faint grittiness of dirt and pollen feels sharper now, scratching at his palms, thorn-like.

Breathe. Find your way into the gaps and breathe, being consumed and consuming, and it really feels like trying to dredge up a dream at high noon, and it's probably going to exhaust her more, but-

There.

Them in a room, and there's an operating table, and a body with the face of

who is that

It doesn't matter. What matters is what he just said, keeping the heart going with those compressions. And that means-

"Here, it's here - we'll work together. What do I do next?"

Radar makes himself look at the soldier's face. It flickers between a hundred features, then none at all, while moss and lichen creep across his skin to try and cover his mouth.

"Right here," he says to Fever. He grabs both her hands and plants them on the center of the soldier's chest. "Press hard. One, two, three, like that. Keep going. I'm gonna get him breathing while you do that."

He sidesteps up the table to start yanking the lichen off the kid's face. There's gotta be a breathing bag around here somewhere, but it won't do any good unless the airway's clear first.

As instructed. She nods once, and then starts. One, two, three, it's a rhythm to follow. Try, try, try to keep the heart going. To let their patient who is everyone and no one keep living. Get him breathing, and everything else can keep going. They're doing this together. Radar being able to give these instructions, the situation going as he wants now. They're fighting it without fighting.

Keep it up, come on. They're not dead yet. Come back to life, she thinks, investing herself in his fate.

Most of Radar's experience in the OR has been a swift entrance and exit: move this patient, get these supplies, relay that message. A few extremely memorable times, he's been a spare set of hands for one of the doctors. It's his job to fade into the background and not get underfoot; to fill in the gaps on a bumpy road. He keeps wanting to look around for someone else so he can ask, even if silently, what do you need from me, sir?

But there's nobody else. Just him, Fever, and the patient. And the patient's telling him pretty plain what he needs Radar to do.

So he does it. He gets the lichen clear. He finds a breathing bag that sits kinda weirdly in his hands -- it doesn't feel like plastic, more like a spongy film that tries to stick to his palms when he squeezes it -- but it fits over the soldier's nose and mouth with no problem. He starts giving him air. One, two, three. Breathe. Scratch away another layer of moss that tries to get under the mask. One, two, three, breathe, matched to Fever's chest compressions.

"Come on," he whispers. "Please."

Another three-count. Another. The walls of the operating room bow inward the next time he squeezes the bag. They expand again when he releases it.

And then they move again without Radar touching the breathing bag at all, as beneath Fever's hands, the soldier's heart begins to beat on its own.

She can feel it, knows it in her blood when it happens, a pulse that rises and falls. Strong, steady - continuous. The compressions stop, but she keeps her hand there, making sure it doesn't decide to slip away again. A relieved sigh, and she looks over to Radar.

"His heart's going."

They did it. They saved him, pulled him away from death, and the rest is up to the doctors to take care of. Breathing - the rise and fall of the chest, that the heart remains strong, no sign of faltering. They've done what they had to do, what they could do. Death is inevitable, sure. But that doesn't mean it has to come today.

As soon as Fever says it, he knows it. He feels the pulse like it's his own heartbeat, the three of them in sync, the walls moving like they're in the lungs of the whole world itself. Radar lets go of the breathing bag and buries his face in his hands, too overcome with relief to do much else.

The table creaks. When Radar looks up, vines have risen from the ground and begun to wrap around the patient. But it's okay, he thinks; that's what's supposed to happen. He's alive, he's alive, he's growing and changing but he lives. That's the important part. Exhaling, he reaches out to lay a hand on one of plants.

As soon as he touches it, the flora explodes around them, spreading lightning-fast over every surface and blossoming in a riotous spray of flowers. Radar laughs, a tiny, giddy sound that catches him off guard, as he looks up to follow the flowing path of greenery.

September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

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