September Event - Waltz of the Harlequin

[pumpkinhollow]

**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.

Comments

ACT ONE

[howtheyshine]

Yellow has never been to a party, never mind something like this. When he walks through the front doors, it's only after he's watched enough other people arrive so he knows what he's supposed to dress like. He fashions the appearance of a gold and yellow three piece tuxedo, the stitching done in lightly contrasting colors and mostly made up of flowers and half-formed signs and symbols he doesn't remember enough to finish. It looks kind of like paisley. If paisley made a person slightly dizzy when they stare at it too long.

He also looks human, mostly, except for the way darkness seems to spill out from the legs of his pants to meet his shadow on the ground, and the way that shadow occasionally uncurls a tentacle or seems to show a cloak fluttering in nonexistent wind.

He sticks to the sidelines, mostly, sampling food every opportunity he gets and goggling at everyone in their fancy clothes, in awe of the life and color in the room. This is so, so much better than anything he saw at Larson's estate. It's incomparable to anything from before that place.

Yellow is focused enough on eating the samples of various foods that he loaded a plate with and staring at the dance floor that he almost full-on runs into Sally and Crichton around a blind corner. He manages not to, but he does drop a canapé. He scowls down at it, then at Sally, because he recognizes her and therefore she's less intimidating.

"I'm still going to eat it."

And he picks it up. So there.

[ss_buttcrack]

Crichton is feeling mildly underdressed in just a standard tuxedo, by comparison, but at the same time, he feels like he'd give himself a headache wearing something as loud as that jacket. Admittedly, he does manage to avoid a complete collisions just based on this guy being the equivalent of a walking safety cone, so there's that. He could do without that scowl aimed at his date, however.

"Five second rule, dude. I won't tell if you don't. Maybe watch where you're going next time, huh?"

There's something about this stranger's eyes that unsettles him, but he can't quite put his finger on it. Maybe it's just the scowling.

[howtheyshine]

"I was watching as much as I could!" Now Crichton is getting the glare. "This only has two eyes, how am I supposed to keep track of everything?"

'This' is accompanied by a finger point to his own head, before he pops the canapé into his mouth with the same hand. His other is occupied holding his plate.

There's a moment where he tries to speak and eat at the same time, chokes slightly, and manages to hold his thought until swallowing.

Except now there's a different thought that needs sharing. "Why do humans have an air hole and a food hole in the same place?" Again, to Sally, because it's an important question and Sally actually answers him when he asks things. "And where's your little-- uh, Gwen."

And also, the original question he was going to ask before the air hole one came up: "What's the five second rule?"

[ss_buttcrack]

"Only?" Crichton looks at him like he's trying to see where other eyes could even go on his head. (He has to admit, looking into this guy's eyes at all is still really creeping him out for some reason.)

"Hey, now, didn't your momma teach you to chew your food all the way?"

Okay, that's strike two on the not-being-human chart. So, if he's not a human, why does he look like one? And why does Crichton suddenly not want this guy anywhere near Gwen?

"Five-second rule is you get five seconds to pick food up off the ground before it gets too dirty to eat."

[howtheyshine]

Well now his unsettling golden-brown eyes are fixed on you instead, Crichton, it's your own fault.

"Why five seconds?"

[sunshinesally]

Sally laughs, shaking her head. "Because there's germs on the floor that can make people sick, but people think if you pick it up quickly enough then it won't have as many. Which is a myth, but also you're not going to die from eating floor food if the floor's not that dirty in the first place," she explains. The way she talks to him is really not helping to beat the not-human allegations. "And Gwen is with a babysitter! My friend doesn't get on with the host and has a daughter of his own around the same age, so they're having a playdate."

Turning to Crichton, she elaborates, blissfully unaware of the context: "Crichton, this is my friend John! He and Gwen had a bit of a moment at the café. John, this is my date, John Crichton."

[howtheyshine]

Babysitter? Someone who makes a baby sit? Or is it someone who sits on a baby? That would at least make sure it didn't go anywhere Sally didn't want it to while she's not there. Keep Gwen in one place. Are babies that durable?? They don't look that durable--

That train of thought gets quickly derailed, though. It feels very weird to have Sally introduce him. Even weirder to be introduced as the ghost he was supposed to be. (A background thought passes by: 'John and John, is it always fucking John??') It's another reminder of how upside down everything is. He's in a body that he controls that is in no way Arthur Lester's, being seen and acknowledged by people whose faces he can see while they talk to him. It still takes him by surprise now and then when he says something and someone answers.

...That has maybe gotten him in trouble a couple of times. But there's something else that needs to be addressed.

"What's a date?" Fruit, he knows, calendar, he knows. Date in the context of two people, he does not know. It's not like Arthur had much cause to think romantic thoughts while Yellow was on board to subconsciously educate himself.

[ss_buttcrack]

At least Crichton can tell by how patiently she explains that she is aware of the not-human status in some way, so that's a relief. Or, it was. Until he heard that name. While "John" goes on a mental journey wondering about the application of babysitting, Crichton is over here having his own mental spiral.

John? That's a common enough name, right? There's tons of John's. Hell, he already knows two others besides himself. It doesn't have to mean...it can't be that John, right? But, he's so inhuman, and he seems to understand so little about the world. And that suit. That Yellow suit? Coincidence, surely? It has to be. It... suddenly strikes him why John's gaze directed on him has been making his skin crawl so much. Those are Arthur's eyes. Fuck. Oh, FUCK. Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.

He doesn't even hear the last question. He might not be capable of answering it if he did hear. He's too busy gaping at "John" with his eyes and mouth both open as wide as they go. You'd think he'd seen a ghost.

He blurts out, almost involuntarily, "You're not Arthur's John are you?"

[howtheyshine]

That is perhaps the single worst possible way Crichton could have phrased that question.

It chases the heels of Yellow's own inquiry, which is the only thing that keeps him from exploding immediately. He's too thrown by Arthur's sudden immaterial presence to do anything but whip his head around and stare at Crichton.

Subconscious instinct isn't doing him any favors. The extra shadows that seemed to follow him inside are coiling up his legs, staining his clothes somehow into inky cosmic darkness. The eyes that were Arthur's are quickly becoming not. Yellow's pupils divide like cells duplicating, once then again, each eye suddenly crowded with three separate irises melting into each other.

His voice drops from 'amusingly deep for a twink' to 'well that's got disturbing reverb.'

"What the fuck did you just say?"

[ss_buttcrack]

"You are." That reaction is undeniable. Only Arthur Lester has the ability to snap someone's head around that fast.

Whoa... now that he's looking, that's an impressive show of creepy shadows, and eyes, and general unpleasantness. Showing his true colors at last, huh? Crichton can't decide if he likes this better or worse than then way John materialized on the ship. At least he's consistently creepy.

"You know exactly who I mean. While we're on the subject of dating, Arthur and I used to be a couple. Didn't go well. But that's why I know all about his... situation."

[sunshinesally]

Sally is quiet as she listens to them go back and forth, missing the context and a little bit alarmed. It's all happening so fast and there's a lot of information here. Yellow's changing form and frightening voice, Crichton having very specific questions, and the sudden explosion of emotion---

It's all overwhelming, to the point where Sally's mind bounced between subjects rapid-fire like a ricocheting bullet before landing on the dumbest possible takeaway from the conversation as she snaps her head to look at Crichton.

"Wait, you dated an Arthur too?"

[howtheyshine]

Yellow throws his hands and a couple of shadowy tentacles up in exasperation that undercuts his scariness a bit.

"What the fuck is a date!"

[sunshinesally]

"It's a romantic outing!" Sally finally answers, a little more forcefully than she means to because she's matching his energy. "Goodness! One thing at a time!"

[howtheyshine]

He flinches and gives a low growl at Sally's response, thrown by her (understandable lbr) forcefulness. It fits with his experience of kindness being a switch waiting to flip, unfair as that is, and he hunkers in on himself a little, the shadows bunching and gathering in and around him. Yeah, in--his suit seems more like a window into some infinity empty of stars than a suit at this point.

[ss_buttcrack]

"Not the same Arthur," Crichton blurts out, not wanting this chaos to spin out any further without more explanation. "His name was Arthur Lester. We were roommates on that torture ship I came from and we got too close because of that. Being with him was one of the worst mistakes I ever made but it's over now and... I'd rather focus on the good times with you, Sally."

He looks directly at Yellow, feeling a little bad for how he's shrinking in on himself, but the best he can do is add, "I think we'd all be better off leaving him in that past. Don't you think?"