Solo The Ebon Pilgrims

[Kit Rowan]

Day 15, Season of Summer, 513 AV

Feeling the lightness of her purse keenly, Kit found her way through the canals of Ravok, electing to stay inconspicuous on the ground rather than risk the rooftops. The canals were still something of a mystery to her, and though she had been given clear instructions Kit was glad that she'd allowed herself an extra bell to reach the theater. She didn't want Shy Carsma's first job at the spot to be tarnished by tardiness. It would be a risky hassle to invent another girl to start over with an unblemished reputation.

Luckily, she found the theater. A little place nestled in an alley, yeah, a proper alley, so thin there wasn't any room for a canal to slide between the buildings. Kit couldn't help but shiver a little, eying up and down the narrow passage suspiciously. She thought a little girl could march through the city with a bag of mizas slung over her back if she was a citizen. But Kit was not a citizen.

When she was convinced that no one was going to jump out of the shadows and try to make her day more interested Kit marched through the alleyway with swift steps. She coughed into her hands once, twice, shook her head and moved on.

She found a little door in the wall with a wooden engraving of a comically sorrowful mask over the top. Kit stuck her tongue out at it, grabbed hold of the handle, turned it and peeked through.

It seemed a proper theater, oddly enough. The Crook back in Alvadas was larger and grander and more beautiful by far, but what Kit saw was . . . passable. There was no place for groundlings to stand, and where they would have gone there was just a single gallery of benches in front of a stage with the curtains pulled back, exposing a small wooden stage.

That told Kit a lot. Back in the Crook the groundlings got in for a copper and were loud and rowdy as could be, while the galleries were expensive to get a seat in. In her guess, this was a small venue for a small, sober audience.

Kit crept quietly through the door, biting down on her lip and eased it slowly shut behind her. Though its creak seemed almost deafening to her ears, neither of the actors heard it. Or maybe they just did not acknowledge it.

"I come bearing news of salvation," a young girl dressed in black raised her hands. "We have found a place of safety, where the nightmares in the darkness cannot touch you. A haven, a sanctuary, and still you turn us away!"

"We have no need of your twisted sanctuary," an older man with an impressive beard and shock-white hair hissed. "Go back to your hole."

"No," she said hanging her head high. "Should you throw away the offer Rhysol has made to you, it is a choice of yours and none other! But I will not leave until they hear! It is their choice to make, not yours!"

Someone clapped. Kit's head swiveled to find the source but the curious acoustics of the room made it difficult to pinpoint. "Good! If you can do this in front of the crowed, there will be no problem." A hand touched Kit's shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin!

She turned her head, wide-eyed and saw an older, heavyset woman with thick spectacles at her back, touching a hand to Kit's shoulder. The older woman cluck-cluck-clucked her tongue and shook her head. "I am Alexandra. You," she said. "The Spot sent you yes? Shy?"

Kit nearly forgot to slip her Bird's Tongue into place to alter the pitch of her voice. "They did," Kit admitted, stepping back away from the matron before her hands could decided to explore Shy's illusory face and find the imperfections there.

"Good!" The matronly woman said, smiled. "Our extra bailed on us at the last moment, days before the play. Days!" Her face twisted into disgust. "Rhysol and Rhaus bar that Syliran wretch from all entertainment! Had you not gone to the Spot yesterday we would have been forced to go without."

Kit blinked, shifted back onto her heels to distance herself from the woman. "That's good," she said, holding up her hands and offering a conciliatory smile. "I'm glad I got here on time." It was, in Kit's limited experience, good to be a human in Ravok. Until her ignorance proved her otherwise, most people she met on the street assumed she was a citizen. Kit doubted the woman would have been near as warm if she knew that Kit hadn't thrown her lot in with the great betrayer.

"Oh it was such a stress!" She ignored everything that Kit had just said, shook her head and sighed. "We are a small theater! Cannot afford much help! Have you ever been in a play before?" Kit shook her head no. "Seen one? Surely you have seen one!"

Kit had seen plays fortified by layers of illusion that would make all Ravokians stand stare in utter awe. Seen ship battles rage across a set while sea winds whipped through the hair of the audience and an ocean roiled violently where the floor should have been. Comparing the Crook's play with anything Ravok had known would be like comparing a bard's sonata to a child's nursery rhyme.

Kit's lips curled into an approximation of a smile. "I've seen plays."

"Good!" She clapped her hands together. "Good. We have few extras and many many roles, so you must redress yourself quickly between each scene you are needed. We had too few extras already, I say! So long as you are wearing your proper clothes in the proper place when the scene begins you will hear no complaints from me. You are familiar with The Ebon Pilgrims?"

It took a while for her to register that she was talking about a play. Kit scratched at the back of her neck; if she betrayed her ignorance . . . "It's been a long time since," Kit lied. "I was scarce a child, then."

"Oh!" Alexandra's hands froze in front of her. She stared at Kit with one eye, her head turned just far enough away to put the other out of sight. "This has not run for more than two seasons."

Gods, what a lie to be caught in! Kit tried to hide her nerves behind a giggle, felt sweat begin to build on her brow. "I—I must have mistaken it for something else." She licked her lips, wondered if Alexandra would draw the correct conclusion from her blunder.

Ovek was on Kit's side today, at least. "Well no matter," Alexandra returned to her rant, refusing to be dislodged by Kit's suspicious answers. "My son will run all the scenes past you and give you your roles in them." Alexandra pointed her thumb toward the bearded man on stage. "You will become acquainted with the play, and your many roles, with him. The play will be within a short span of days, so you must learn quickly!" She grabbed hold of Kit's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "If you do well, we will tell the Spot so!"

" . . . 'Course." She said, and Alexandra smiled, gave Kit's arm another squeeze and marched off toward the back of the theater to take care of Akajia knew what. Kit had never done any play before, never acted before. Why had Kit taken this job, again?

Because she was broke and desperate and had nowhere else to turn. Right. Kit clutched at her own arms and sighed, allowing herself a moment of peace. Then the big man with the white beard called her forward, and Kit wandered toward him on reluctant feet.
x

[Kit Rowan]

Alexandra's son led Kit through to the back room. His name, she learned, was Jack. "In the fourth scene, we need you to be in this." He held up a long dress, artfully torn in places. It looked dirty, but when Kit reached her hand over to rub some of it away it refused to come off. "Don't worry, it's supposed to look dirty." He said.

Cause that's what people were before they came to Ravok, right? Kit frowned, a nasty knot tying itself up in her stomach. Dirty, starving, doomed. Was it really okay for her to be part of this farce?

He misinterpreted her displeasure. "Oh don't be so cross with me! You'll get a better looking dress in the tenth scene. But we'll need you to stay in that one till after the sixth."

"Oh? I don't have to say anything then, do I?"

". . . No. You'll be a corpse."
x

[Kit Rowan]

Day 17, Season of Summer, 513 AV

"To your places, everyone! Curtain rises rises in fifteen ticks!"

The actors and extras scrambled across the stage looking for their places. Alexandra had not been joking; they had maybe six extras working in the play. She had watched their frustration as they tested rehearsal, forced them to dress and redress again and again to convince themselves that the changes would be done before the next scene could start. There were four extras on stage now, and two of them were dressed in layers, so they could throw off their clothes and step right into the next scene.

Kit bent down on her knees in front of a pile of brown clothing acting as a stand-in for refuse. She reached into the pile and fingered aimlessly through it, trying to play the part of a girl in squalor, sifting through trash in search of . . .

She snorted, a smile betraying her nerves and she held her hands over her mouth to stifle the giggles. She was an escaped slave pretending to be a free girl pretending to be a vagrant! Shifting through trash! It was utterly ridiculous and though the curtain was beginning to split down the middle and she could see the crowd she could not, could not quite strangle the laughter. She forced the sound out louder, deeper, made her laughs sound almost like a sob to cover. Oh Trickster give her the cunning to make it through this play, please, please, please.

She wanted to look back and see where the audience was looking but she had been told to never do that. So instead she tried to keep her 'sobbing' down as quiet as she could, praying no one would take it amiss.

"What negligence this prideful wretch knows." Kit heard the same girl who she had walked in on days earlier, Alexandra's niece. She turned up to see her, and she wore the role of Millia, proud preacher of Rhysol's virtue, like a second skin. "Again and again he denies me," she said, marching across the stage while Kit turned back to the makeshift pile of refuse to sort through it.

"Look up, look up, look away from your troubles," and a second too late Kit remembered that was her cue to turn her head. She did so, hoping she had not waited too long, saw 'Millia' rest a hand on Kit's shoulder. "Do you hunger?" She asked, before wandering away from her to the next extra. "Do you thirst?" The last. "Do you seek shelter from storms? Do you fear violence and darkness and the ends of your lives?"

"Yes."

"Yes!"

This time at least Kit managed to get her line right. She turned to the nearest extra and nodded. "We do!"

Millia leaned forward conspiratorially. "I know a place where fear is forgotten and death is a friend that only comes when you're old." Kit rolled her eyes. Oh glorious Ravok, where all your problems vanish like they never even were!

"Nowhere any of you will ever see," another voice said, and the villain of the piece walked in from the other side of the stage. Jack was wearing tattered leathers, scowling down on Milli. Scar, the play's notes had called him. Not even a proper name, as some might think of it. He looked like a thug. Milli, in her silvery black uniform, seemed elegant in comparison.

Which, Kit supposed, was the point.
x

[Kit Rowan]

Scene ran by scene. After her first Kit needed only wait and sprawl herself across the ground and try not to noticably breathe while 'Scar' yelled and screamed at all those who'd stayed behind and lived. His own son drew a knife on him, let him fall, just another corpse strewn across the ground, and the boy fell his knees and cried why or why hadn't he followed the Ebon Pilgrims back to safety.

Within the ten chimes the next scene took Kit stripped down and dressed up again; a plain but cleaner dress, playing a pilgrim walking slowly in a line across the back of the scene to give an impression of forward motion, throwing on little props and coats as though it would somehow fool the audience into thinking she and the other extras were entirely different persons each time they saw them again.

"We've been walking for near a season. Where's Ravok? Where's your sanctuary?"

"Have faith. Rhysol will reward all those who follow his path."

Kit wasn't in the scene where they left in the middle of the night to find their own way; she was in the back, changing again, and worn the clothes of one of Scar's son's party, near dead from starvation as they followed Millia's trail. They found boxes discarded, and Kit had to pretend as though she saw slaughter off screen.

"All those who doubted Rhysol, see this! It is no curse, no misfortune! This is divine intervention, for he has granted us fortune," the son had said. "With these supplies, we can still march to Ravok!" And so the blood of those who spurned Rhysol fed the strength of those who held true. It was enough to drive a girl to tears. Of boredom. Could they have not at least made the propaganda interesting?
x

[Kit Rowan]

For the last scene Kit found herself slipping into a sheer dress that hugged close to her body, black as Ravok's treasured sun, shimmering in the dim light of the back rooms. It was, in Kit's estimation, more valuable than everything else she had worn put together. Alexandra confirmed her thoughts as she loomed over the female extras, arms crossed severely in front of her. She pointed a fat finger at Kit, and said; "You rip that, and I will make sure the Spot gives you nothing."

"Yes ma'am," Kit grated through her teeth, struggling with the conflict of getting dressed as quickly as possible and not risking harm to the costume whatsoever. Kit tugged the dress over her and shimmied inside. Kit looked down and bit her lip. She felt awkward in this formal dress, like a desert coyote in a scarf.

"Now," Alexandra said. "You only have one line and then you're done." Though her face was turned to Kit, she knew that the woman was addressing all the extras. "From here on it's smooth sailing; just stand where you're supposed to and do what comes natural."

Kit smirked at that; she couldn't not. Natural, huh?
x

[Kit Rowan]

For the final scene everyone was dressed to the nines; all the extras had slipped into beautiful gowns and dresses and suits while the actors of the surviving cast had torn away an outer layer in what little time they had behind the curtain and tossed the cloth in a barrel. All the clothes were dark, and shimmering. When the curtain opened again, extras and actors all were all turned toward 'Millia.' She had her palms pressed together, as though in prayer. "Behold, pilgrims!" She said, and spread her hands out wide as a bit of the wooden floor fell away behind her.

Slowly from the understage a black rock rose, framing Millia's actor slowly behind it. "You have traveled long and far, but you have proven yourselves worthy! Now, now at last you can be free of hungry and thirsty, fear and violence. You have earned the right to call yourselves Ravokians!"

The named actors were the first to fall to their knees. "Hail Rhysol!" They said together, in chorus.

The extras followed close behind. "Hail Rhysol!" They cried together, and though Kit would have liked to say it was caution or cunning that drove her to say the words, there was simply nothing else she could think to do. Her tongue felt like sand in her mouth.

"Hail Rhysol!"

And just like that, the red curtains swung shut, and the audience began to applaud.
x

[Abstract]

Grade Awarded!

Kit

Skills

~ Acting - 1

Lores

~ Performing In a Ravokian Play

Other

N/A

Notes

Little to give, but fun at parts! Most of the stuff you did wasn't really 'acting', but I did give a point for changing the laughs into 'sobs'.

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