Out of the Valley

[Victor Lark]

Summer 6, 512

Victor had walked these streets so many countless times, and had passed the Crook’s great arch almost the same. He had felt that inexplicable pull, had wanted to investigate it for seasons, and so had developed a long list of excuses for failing to act on it. The stage was a dream he could dismiss easily, if only for the discomfort of its sincerity, and continue in the idle entertainment of the changing city.

But that day was different. He moved listlessly through a world that had once been so exciting to him; he was sagging beneath the weight of his fatigue, shaped by nights filled with denied regrets. It was insincerity which had left him sick with loneliness, emptiness, purposelessness... and what was a better cure than a rendezvous with actors?

He pulled his face upward into a smile, as if the raising the mask could fill the hollow behind it. When the effort inevitably proved wasted, he did not give up. He bowed toward the stair and descended.

Either he had missed the show or he was early for it. There were no doubt others in this public place, but Victor did not notice those he saw in the too-familiar light of a false ceiling. His attention was drawn instead to the empty stage, where the lights burned the brightest. He went right to the edge of it and he felt the soft wood with eager fingers. He watched the curtains and streamers dance in calm unreality and listened to the low din of wandering conversations. He waited for the majesty of it all to hit him like he always thought it would, and was instead met with impatience.

[Ifran]

Ifran looked at the stage from the orchestra seating; this was the first time in a long time he had been in that position when a show was in the offing, but today was the day that he would leave Alvadas, perhaps for good, but at least for now. The deserts of his homeland called him back. He had to go; he was born to go. He paused in his internal monologue; why had that turn of phrase sounded familiar? Oh. "Let all go: the big, the small, The middling, and the tall; The bigger and, really, the biggest, And all things. Let all go, dear. So comes love." It did not translate well into Common, the intricacies of tone and mode, but it felt like honey in his mouth as he whispered it to himself in the High Arumenic, the poetry fit for the sons and daughters of gods and legends. He was dressed for travel now, and he was about to walk out the door and to the harbor to find passage to Riverfall, at least, and then he would journey overland through Cyphrus and Eyktol. But keen eyes caught a familiar shape. He did not even need to see the face, but could read the body language. Instead of following his destiny to the doors, he moved to the side of Victor Lark. "You are finally come," he observed, voice quiet but carrying over any other sounds. "They have an opening if you are interested."

[Victor Lark]

His shoulders jumped suddenly, but the truth of his surprise escaped quickly beneath his delight in a familiar voice. Even after the moment passed he tried to soften it, staring consciously at the stage’s edge and picking at its imperfections as if it were an old bar in a dark tavern. He remembered their last meeting; he was hesitance, a bad seduction, the actor who was not. Truths expertly woven.

“Do they?” He wondered, and his face tipped up toward the stage as a whole. Though empty, it held always the potential for greatness, the promise to be filled with something more than it was alone. All it needed was people, faces and masks and lies. Well, not entire lies. Ifran had told him that. Victor had already forgotten why he avoided the addicting beauty of the eypharian’s eyes. Turning to him, he added, “I admit, I think I would like—”

Victor had primed a greeting smile, but then he saw the clothes Ifran wore. His expression did not falter, but grew stiff on his lips. It disappointed him to lose even this one-night friend, but so it sparked the old familiar flame of curiosity. Gods, it was refreshing to think of someone else.

“You—you’re leaving.”

[Ifran]

"The stars and the rivers and the waves call me back," he said by way of confirmation. Zintila had appeared to him and to Seven in the dark of night outside of Alvadas, and then Ionu had finally appeared to him when he went to the deity's temple to bid farewell. Life was a strange tale. "I am returning to Ahnatep finally, where the theaters and the audiences appreciate what I do. You are welcome to join me. I think you would find Ahnatep to your liking, if hotter than you are used to." One could almost imagine all the hedonistic delights of the Eypharian's home, especially for one of his station or his guest. The nuances of timbre and tone bespoke cooling breezes from the sea, coconut and cactus flesh, cool things in the heat, as well as the heat of desires coaxed like little bonfires of the vanities, conflagrations and smoldering coals. It was a tempting offer, and true, though Ifran did not imagine Victor would come, nor Seven nor Laszlo. No, Ifran would meet the Svefra captain he had heard about, sail to Riverfall to be met by Aru, and together they would skirt the edges of Cyphrus to cross into the Burning Lands that surrounded the Jewel of Eyktol. Victor would just be another part of the fever dream that was his year in the city of illusions, but a face that would be welcome in his native land.

[Victor Lark]

Victor nodded.

“It is tempting,” he said honestly, because he could do nothing less for this actor, who had all but shown him what it was to be honest. He considered it a long moment: Ifran’s clothes and the glittering desert in his face, the hall’s upper reaches and then its door. “But my place is here.”

He meant this city, around which he could only hope his lost lover wandered. He meant that he needed to stay to wait for Seven’s return, whenever that would be. But as the words left his mouth and committed to the air, he recognized how the Playhouse could have claimed them. Was the theater his place? The Wager was not, and neither was the tavern. He worshipped Ionu wholly and only, but only when it suited him. Maybe it was time that he gave something more to the divine.

Suddenly the hand that had been fidgeting on the edge of the stage wrapped firmly around it. Victor heaved himself up and rolled out onto it. There he stood, looking down on the room from a new vantage. “Look at that,” he sighed, with the shadow of happiness pulled taut over his eyes. “What it’s like? When there are lights, and so many people watching. Tell me, if you’re leaving me too soon to show it. What’s not to appreciate?”

[Ifran]

It was much as Ifran had expected, and so he merely nodded. If there were many ways those words could be taken, well, Ifran knew that too, accepted that too. When Victor vaulted atop the stage, Ifran took a few steps back, looking up at Victor as if he was the center of the world. For the moment, at least, he was. "You stand there on the boards with eyes upon you, attention upon you. The room waits with bated breath for you to create a new reality for them, to conjure some historical event, to make love real, hope real. The power is as much theirs as it is yours, but they hand it to you on a silver platter. It is yours to command. "It is truest and purest when you become a channel for your imagination, but also a prism through which their own hopes and dreams can refract and play upon a screen. You disappear. You transcend. It is not for nothing that priests envy performers."

[Fallacy]

XP Award! Name:Ifran XP Award: +1 Poetry +1 Rhetoric Lore: Returning Home Notes: Sorry this ended so soon. Any questions or concerns about the rewards gained please send a PM