MARCH SADNESS - A Symphony of Sorrow

[pumpkinhollow]

SYMPHONY OF SORROW

If the Audience Would Please Take Their Seats

You find yourself at the theatre.

You may be asking how you got here, why you are here, when did you arrive. But none of that matters, does it? Nothing matters. Whether you are shocked at yourself for thinking so or whether you have known that nothing matters for years on end does not matter either. Whatever meaning there was to be had in any of this escapes you now. Who you were and what you wanted, what you valued and stood for, it all seems now like such a hazy dream. Out of reach.

There is a ticket in your hand. It tells you where to go. You follow it dutifully. Ticket stubs are exchanged for playbills. A schedule of performances. Whatever. You numbly proceed to where you belong. Performers and stage crew to their places, orchestra to the pit, workers to their positions. All with the knowledge that there can be only pain.

A four-armed conductor in moth-eaten robes raises his baton, and there is music.

You deserve this.

You deserve this.

You deserve this.

Observer’s Overture

First Movement in E Minor

adagio, con dolore
PP

Lights down on the chorus, who sits in the stands. They are playing the role of the audience. Ad lib spoken word between chorus members seated near one another. Soft music begins to swell eerily.

Lights up on the stage. A performance begins, apparently in media res, where the chorus is meant to observe.

vacillante, improvvisato
cresc. P

The performers on stage play out their acts, appearing fearful. The chorus ad libs quiet uncertainty from the stands. Some of them will look down at their playbill and find their own name on the schedule of acts to come. There is a brief description on the page of the act that is scheduled for them. It is clear by the state of the ones already on stage that this isn’t something they have a choice in.

Chorus members attempt to rise from their seats, but cannot. Not yet. Foreshadowing to a later movement. For now, they must endure the overture.

Opera Infernale

Second Movement in Various Keys
( A medley of vignettes, performed in various styles)

chorale concerto a tutti, con affetto

F

Various chorus members rise between songs and make their way to the green room, where they are costumed. They have some time to talk with other incoming acts. They will find themselves and their loved ones being prepared for their acts.

segue

Those who performed before stop in the green room again. They look drained. A fate which awaits the incoming acts.

segue

On the stage, each act is a musical recreation of trauma. A worst fear, a most painful moment, an act of cruelty, a time of hardship. The styles will vary accordingly. If the other players in a given tale are present, they will receive their role without question. If a cast member has no fellow performers from their own world present, an understudy will be chosen to play any other roles from those that they are close to. Everyone is off book. Vocal quality is adjusted to match the conductor’s standards. Staff ensures there are no interruptions. The show must go on.

CODA: Für Nimona
A Coda in A Minor

There is a stranger in the green room, unmoving. Pale glowing eyes peer out from an ungulate-shaped void perched atop a high end suit. Antlers leer overhead. He is waiting for someone. Staff take no notice of him.

Ensemble's Lament

Third Movement in G Minor

bocca chiusa
PPP

There are other places to be besides the stage. Other roles to play.

pesante

Behind the stage, the stage crew toil under Baritone, the stage manager and the Viscount of Suffering. There is a pipe organ built into the man’s chest, and the bell of a horn where his heart ought to be. It shows. He is as cruel as he is miserable. He runs a tight ship.

declamando, letando

There are others in the pit, if they have the musical skill for it. And while this part of the performance is managed by a kinder sort, the Contessa of False Comforts is not so named for no reason.

The opera is long. There are no intermissions. The orchestra plays until their lungs ache and their fingers bleed, while Sonata assures them that it will all be over soon. Surely she cannot be lying. Surely there must be an end…

freddo, pietoso

Just outside the auditorium, there is work for the chorus serving food and drinks, taking ticket stubs for the endless stream of audience members, cleaning messes, or all other manner of soulless work. Perhaps these ensemble members simply did not interest the Conductor. Or it could be that they were made more miserable elsewhere.

Reprise - Observer’s Overture

Fourth Movement in E Major

impetuoso
FF It would seem that once a chorus member’s concerto is complete, they are free to move about the premises. At least until they are scheduled in a supporting role for another soloist. This means a chance to explore--- or escape.

presto repente, bellicoso
cresc.

Those attempting to escape will be met with resistance, however. Guarding the doors are shades, creations of the Conductor who can wear the faces of those held dear by those that look upon them. Escape, more likely, will come from within.

Members of the chorus who attempt to do battle with the Conductor, however, will find themselves up against something far more dangerous. Figures of glass, in all different shapes. Some abstract and solid, some hollow and human-like, and everywhere in between. Perhaps some chorus members will find one to be familiar.

The Hero will need an ensemble of her own to make it through and strike at the Conductor. Perhaps a resistance can be formed in a hidden location near the green room.

Homeward Aria

Fifth and Final Movement in C Major

tiempo di fanfara, vittorioso
F

When a dagger of Aster is driven into the heart of Prince Efrain of Sorrow’s Song, at last, the illusion fades. The members of the chorus relinquish their roles and find themselves on the summit of Crane’s Ridge.

It will be an arduous journey home, but it can be done with the solace that there is one less Demon Prince to trouble Pumpkin Hollow. Music in a joyful major key swells, then decrescendos.

enfatico, mancando poco a poco

| CONTENT WARNINGS: altered states of consciousness, entrapment, grief, depression, mood control, loss of bodily autonomy |

Comments

[skeletonkeay]

From a darkened portion of the stage, "York" appears from the shadows. Sandy brown armor, of a similar costume quality, obscures the face and form of its wearer as he walks in deliberate, pointed steps at half-time toward Carolina. He strides to meet her, hand extended, as he pulls her into their pas de deux.

He is silent, but his movements tell his story, plaintive and pleading. Let's not do this. It doesn't have to be this way. A twirl, that ends in her spinning away from him. His arm is outstretched. Urgent. But their fingers disconnect and he must give chase again in a grand jete.

[cyansoldier]

Fury rolls off her in waves. Indignant betrayal; why are you helping her? in every jeté and cabriole. She refuses York's hand again and again, 'striking' him at head and shoulder and hip with her foot. There's a hair's width between each blow— this is only an act, after all.

An act.

This can't really be York, then. Not really. Let it be some poor facsimile, more puppet than cognitive man. But not York.

I'm going to stop her. I have to.

Carolina moves across the stage like a shark. A second's pause and she'll drown.

She could never abandon the Project. Not like they did. Not so easily. Her situation was complicated. Most agents come in with nothing; criminals looking to catch a break or soldiers who hadn't fit elsewhere, who'd already lost everything to the war. Not her. She'd come with a role to fill. A precise purpose; achieve perfection or die trying.

She never could say no to her father.

Another faux strike, angrier than the last. York catches her ankle in tender hands and draws her backward across the stage.

[skeletonkeay]

The imitation of York reacts to the stage combat in sweeping movements that prevent any real impact while creating drama to each movement. Each blow is met defensively, a lack of return blows that borders on desperate. Silently imploring her to just listen.

He pulls her in, grabs her waist, and lifts her into the air, swan-like and elegant, only for her weight to be thrown forward, which pulls him backwards. She tumbles out of his arms one last time.

Then the final blow is landed by Carolina, and stage wires obscured by shadows abruptly hoist Carolina's dance partner skyward. The motion dislodges his costume helmet, which clatters to the floor, and a mass of dark hair spills out.

He reaches for her one last time, grey eyes finding hers even through the visor, before disappearing into the darkness once more.

[cyansoldier]

We can help you.

He couldn't possibly.

She's never needed help.

We can get those damn things out of your head.

Maine saw to that himself. Spartan hands gripped her by the throat, ripped out her AI like severing her spinal cord from its fatty column and sent her over a cliff's edge. A well-hidden grappling hook is what saved her. She'd sent its hooks into the earth and dislocated her shoulder on the way down, down, down...

A long fall, it was.

Long and cold and cruel.

York's helmet is lost in his limp and crestfallen ascent. She can't be sure if it's her own volition that sends her chin skyward or invisible stage hands fixing her position. Where Carolina dreads to find the short crop and dead eye of her companion, she's met by an oil spill of hair.

Him.

Rage blisters her skin. She fishes a hand into a compartment in her counterfeit armor and takes out a lighter. Not York's red-capped one, but his. Gerry's. She hurls it up into the anti-gravity.

She doesn't need him. She doesn't need anybody.

On resolute foot, Carolina turns and bolts off stage. The piano tapers six soured notes and the lights go dark.

[skeletonkeay]

The curtains drop before Gerry is set free, wires lowering him back down to the stage. He feels... hollow, somehow, when his feet hit the ground. A pair of demons come and release him from the harness, and he trudges off the stage, faux armor suddenly feeling a lot heavier. His lighter feels heavy, too, weighing down his hand with the thousand-ton anchor of a little copper lighter engraved with the phrase "Mama Tried" on the side.

By the time he reappears in the green room, he's shed the top half of his costume armor, leaving a black under-armor suit bare, but sand-colored plates still hang from his legs and feet. He stares at her.

"Who was he?"

[cyansoldier]

Carolina strides franticly from back-stage to Green Room. Go, go go. In, out. Breathe. Breathe. Ignore how the world teeters, how her vision begins to cave. Panic and exhaustion roll down her skin in thick beads that collect at the base of her neck, suffocating her inside her own helmet. Making her damp. Uncomfortable. She wants to rip her skin off.

She charges into the Green Room two minutes before Gerry arrives. Two minutes to unload the meager weight of her costume off her shoulders. To spit out bile. To crush the cheap recreation of her helmet like a party piñata. Plastic and Papier-mâché splinter, depress unrecognizably. The action draws an animal noise from her throat.

She can't see him. She can't.

He's seen enough of her already. She doesn't know what he wants her to say—

Two minutes of furious pacing. She doesn't get to spit or take off her costume, isn't able to calm herself down adequately. Her throat inflates with air forced right back out through her mouth.

This isn't fair. She shouldn't be here at all. She should be moving, doing, acting. Washington and the others will be wondering what happened to her, if they haven't found her body already. They'll be idling for all eternity wondering what the fuck to do next, whether or not they should abandon the mission. All while the Director lives another worthless day. They need a leader. They need her.

She storms a vanity. Thrusts the remains of her helmet's skullcap against the mirror. It shatters.

His voice sounds behind her. She thinks she'll start breaking out in hives.

"He's no one—" It comes out strangled. He isn't buying it. She wants to attack him— which is ridiculous and stupid and undeserved so she doesn't. Carolina makes an aborted noise before continuing.

"York. His name is York." He knows that. Obviously. "He— we were in the same program. A special unit with special armor and AI—" She paws reflexively at the empty chip-slot at her nape, not facing him. "—He deserted and— he asked me to leave with him and I couldn't."

[skeletonkeay]

"...That makes sense," Gerry reasons. "When I was acting as him, I felt... desperate. I dunno. Like I had all his feelings without any of the information. It's usually the other way 'round."

For a long moment, he just stands there. Silent. The sting of his sharp eyes wither as his gaze drifts down. He's seen all kinds of terror the world over, everything strange the mind can conjure and many things that it can't. But something as human as heartbreak is still so foreign, even fresh off of his own.

"...He was like me," Gerry surmises on his own. He doesn't need Eye powers to figure that one out. "I remind you of him."

[cyansoldier]

"He was desperate." A misshapen laugh roils through her, mean and fond and horrified. She grips the vanity's edge. "I couldn't fathom why he'd put himself into danger helping her. Why he'd choose her over doing the right thing." It's not about her; York's voice. Scolding, imploring. She didn't believe him.

"Deserting is the worst thing a soldier can do. Abandoning your duty in the middle of a war we were well on our way to losing. We needed everyone."

So she stayed.

And fought.

And got herself thrown off a cliff in the matter of minutes.

Like an idiot.

"I'm the one that ruined things, not him."

Gerry's silence settles over her like a spray of gunfire. She's locked where she stands, unable to turn her head for fear of what expression she might find. To meet the eyes of someone, anyone— especially him— and have her eyes met in return. If she doesn't look, he's not real. He'll go away, maybe. He'll forget he ever saw any of this, take the hint and disappear. Hold it together. Hold. It. Together.

I remind you of him.

Carolina clamps a hand hard over her mouth and forces a noise down. Her eyes burn.

York is gone. Dead. If she had left with him that day, done the right thing, she could have stopped Wyoming from gunning him down. He'd be alive. This is her fault. All her's. No amount of ballet or lighter tricks or magic lock-picking will bring him back. She won't find him anywhere in ink-black hair and swarms of tattoos.

She can't bring herself to confirm or deny.

"You — you shouldn't have seen any of that."

[skeletonkeay]

"I get that a lot," Gerry jokes dryly. There's no humor in it.

Air fills his lungs slowly, then releases. He doesn't have the heart to tell her how fucking stupid he thinks war is. Senseless violence for violence's sake, breaking the minds and bodies of the poor or the misguided or the unlucky so that the rich assholes playing with them like toys could use their lives as a dickwaving contest. Meanwhile the people actually fighting gain nothing but a fear so deep it birthed the Slaughter. It disgusts him. Perhaps York was right. But that's no comfort to her now.

She cared about him, and she lost him. And now Gerry stands here as a cheap substitute. One that resents what she stood for.

The lighter... The way she stared at his hands when he would stim with it...

Fuck.

"I think I understand why you hate me so much. And why you keep talking to me in spite of it," he says quietly. "I'm sorry."

[cyansoldier]

This is ridiculous. She's being ridiculous. She needs to pull herself together and strip this stupid Halloween costume off her body and— breathe, breathe goddamnit. Get ahold of yourself.

She feels fragile. Thirty-odd years of indurating undone just like that, and suddenly she's the awful, morose little girl tamped down into the mud. If you cry too hard, you'll become complacent. You'll sink and sink and sink and you'll never be able to crawl your way back up.

And now she's beginning to regret having turned her back on Gerry at all. Now she's morphed it into a bandaid, cemented to her skin. One she holds fast between two fingers but can't bring herself to rip off. Carolina can't be sure if he'll leave like she wants him to, and she isn't going to spend all day standing here doing nothing. More than that, she's horrified by the part of herself that wants him to stay.

"I don't hate you."

She says it like she hates him.

Rip it off.

The vanity is cool against her hands. The edge stings where it digs into her fingers. Her opposite hand holds fast the helmet she's shattered against the mirror, caved in like a dead soldier's skull. She's stalling.

Carolina drops it and whirls around. Her eyes are almost as red as her hair, creased where a scowl forces her cheeks up. "And I don't need your pity, either."

A pause. Increased desperation. She claws anxiously at the seams between pieces of costume armor. "Now— now please help me get this crap off."

[skeletonkeay]

"Okay."

Gerry's voice is quiet as he finally moves from where his feet had very nearly fused to the floor. He approaches, helping her find buckles and loosen hard to reach straps, until all that's left is the same black morph suit he's wearing. His own leg armor is still on, tan plastic clattering noisily. No good for ballet.

War, he thinks again, is so stupid. It took a strong, determined girl, and destroyed her. Someone talented, funny, and interesting, rebuilt as an ouroboros, building herself anew just to have the strength to consume and destroy older parts of herself that she deems unworthy. Unable to realize that this isn't progress. The size of the circle hasn't changed. Does she blame herself or does she blame York? Does it matter?

"...It doesn't feel like it right now. Because of shit like this. But you're free here, you know that right? There's no war, there's no one to tell you how to live your life. Your past is just your past and nothing else. No chains."

[cyansoldier]

Cyan gear falls away piece by piece. She's glad to have it gone. Wrong to wear something so insufficiently built, turning her into a soldier of equal inefficiency. Easily broken. A waste of material and paint. What good is armor if it can't withstand damage? What good is a soldier who can't survive battle? Carolina rolls her neck. Grates her teeth at the sound of Gerry's greaves and thigh pads clattering. She needs it gone— every trace of York gone.

No war—

She stoops onto one knee.

No one to tell you how to live your life—

Starts busily at the straps holding his costume together. Touching him feels dangerous. Like she'll send him flying ten feet into the air. Push and push and push him away until he's gone for good. You can't trust me; playing on repeat in her mind.

No chains.

"Everything I did in the Project, I did for the man who created it. He gave me everything. He set expectations, but they were rewarded. I became a Commanding Officer. I held my rank. I led successful missions and things were good." A click as plastic clasps come undone. She sets his right greaves and thigh guard onto the ground. "I realized then, later than everyone else— too late— that he was a cruel, dishonest man with his own agenda, who'd do anything to see that agenda met. He didn't care about me and he didn't care about any of the soldiers he assembled. We were toys to him. Worthless."

The left pieces fall away. Carolina stands up straight. Her expression is fixed, determined. Misguided. Exhausted. A daughter's hurt writ plainly on features she shares with her father dearest. His tight brow, sharp nose and emerald green eyes reimagined.

"The minute the barrier comes down, I'm going to find him and I'm going to kill him."

[skeletonkeay]

Gerry does not vanish. He doesn't fly upward, back slamming against a titanium alloy wall. He stands firm. It's almost comical, given how physically frail he must seem compared to Carolina, compared to York. That the stronger should flit away like paper in the breeze and the weaker should stay. But he remains firmly rooted to the spot as she unhooks him, telling him a story that sounds all too familiar.

When she meets his eye again, he looks past her marks, her scars, and just sees her. Wearing an expression Gerry sported often, back home. Wordlessly, a pair of thin, wiry arms laced with thin strands of muscle made a sort of raggedly strong by work without discipline wrap around her.

"Hope I get to see it," he finally murmurs.

[cyansoldier]

She shouldn't be this close to another human being. Ever. It isn't safe. She'll keep her hands at her sides and that way, she isn't really touching him. If she isn't touching him, it's acceptable. She can enjoy his arms, flimsy and weak around her shoulders, without feeling so stupid. Stupid for falling into another trap. Putting her faith in a person— a stranger— who'll do fuck-all with it.

He should work out more. How's he ever going to protect himself? Pointless thoughts like a diversion from what really matters.

Carolina tenses. She's a brick wall to Gerry's piece of straw. All bulk and muscle and strict routine. And then she yields.

It's okay as long as she doesn't touch him. But her chin, her cheek— those aren't her hands. She can do whatever she wants with them. Fits her nose into the crook of his neck, pulling all her weight from her legs into her face and burrowing.

"It'll get ugly," She warns.

[skeletonkeay]

"Ugly doesn't scare me," he answers honestly.

Very little does. He's been buried, beaten, set on fire, chased through impossible mazes and hurled into the stratosphere. He's met things picked straight from nightmares, wooden clowns wearing human skin and mounds of meat and walking insect hives disguised as human beings. Things bent and twisted beyond imagination, war ghosts with knives still sharp enough to kill and creatures born of pure darkness. And while it hits a little close to home, the understandable hurt of one woman--- one beautiful, powerful, disciplined, intelligent, loyal, valuable woman--- wouldn't be enough to scare him away.

She buries her face in his shoulder, and he, like a garden, finds contentment in being dug into.

"I can see the ugliest parts of anything," he informs her. "And anyone. If there was cause for me to look away, I would have by now."

cw descriptions of gun violence / head wounds

[cyansoldier]

Will he feel the same when he sees what she does to him? When she puts barrel to forehead— cold, cruel, a daughter's fury packed snug in its metal chamber— and pierces the Director's skull? That's if he makes it easy for her. If he choses to run, she'll subdue him. Knock his kneecap out. Trap him between her boot and the floor. It'll be ugly. And if he begs, she won't be kind. Not that he'd ever debase himself by groveling at his daughter's feet. He's stubborn, and she hasn't fallen far from his deadened tree.

In her dreams she kills him like a soldier. In life, she's afraid she won't be so fortunate. That maybe it'll be her groveling. A daughter beside herself at her father's feet, asking why? Why? Then what will Gerry do? Pick up the gun for her? No, she'd never let that happen. It has to be her, no matter what.

"When York asked me to leave with him, I don't think he was prepared for what actually meant. I don't think any of them were. Everyone scattered and after that, they were picked off like flies while the Director hid like a coward. I hid too. I could have helped them, but I didn't. I was furious. You made this bed, so lie in it—"

The words spill and don't stop. They wedge themselves between her lips and Gerry's collarbone. She doesn't care where they go, really. Couldn't keep them down if she tried. Who knows if he can hear her. If he'll be able to make out muffled speech.

[skeletonkeay]

Most likely, if Gerry witnesses the Director's death, he will do what most avatars of the Eye do. He will witness. Watch carefully, absorb every detail of fear-stricken faces and blood splattered walls, and it will feed that part of him which refuses to die. Slaughter, Desolation, End. What is it that you fear most, Leonard Church? The sudden, unpredictable violence of snapped bone and pieced brain matter? The destruction of all that you hold dear in a sudden burst of senseless agony? Or simply the cessation of all that you are? Gerard Keay, a man from two worlds away who you have never met, looks forward to finding out.

Moreover, though, he will be envious. When Mary Keay died, it was first at her own hand in an ocean of crimson that she had full control of--- until she didn't. Then it was by Gertrude Robinson's hand, with a lighter. Now that his own page has been burned, Gerry knows exactly what that feels like, and she deserved every bit of it. But still, Gerry himself never truly had any hand or choice in the destruction of his first and oldest tormentor. But perhaps there will be some catharsis to be had, living vicariously through Carolina.

Either way, he will understand. He simply hopes that whatever happens will be exactly what Carolina needs.

His tattooed hands find her hair, brushing the red locks straight. Helmet hair. An idle bit of care that he can provide, some physical comfort. He hopes. Her confession rings out crystal clear, the fear she must have felt at watching all of them die carrying the information to the avatar. But he doesn't comment, feeling like this fragile trust that allowed her to confide might be broken by his input.

[cyansoldier]

She feels herself affixed to her spot. Encouraged by the knot in her stomach slowly undone. Muscles which have learned to function at maximum capacity, bearing the brunt of weight no human should have lobbed onto mortal shoulders, now uncoiling beneath Gerry's arms. Red hair slides through his fingers with ease, streaked by natural, Allison blonde.

(She'll need to dye it soon. Wilts at the idea that it may not be possible here. All that magic's got to be worth something, right?)

Sighing, she resents the fact that she could stand there for hours, nosed up to his pulse. Ba-dum, ba-dum. Listening. Filling her own chest with air. Not quite pieced together after having come undone, but not scattered across the floor, either.

Could— though would never truly let herself. What she's accepted from him already is a greater price than Carolina is willing to pay. Trust she isn't ready to give— not ever, she tells herself resolutely.

And she hasn't touched him. Not once. She should be proud of that.

_{Ignore the ache and you'll be fine.}

Carolina shoulders a small step away. Hyperaware, now, of how busy the Green Room has gotten in preparation for the next show. Great.

"I want out of here. Anywhere that isn't this stupid room."