Halloween 2020 IF

  • Halloween 2020 IF,  Interactive Fiction

    Halloween I.F – “Final Call” – Day 22

    [Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

    Lucien suspects at once that Katarin has picked up on his deliberate avoidance of what had been stolen from Shuni, but that’s also, essentially, none of her business. Still, he hesitates. Telling her that would be giving away information if it isn’t what she’d meant. “W-what are you asking, Katarin?” he asks, shakily. 

    It isn’t hard to pretend to be addled after being told he’s lost three days to the tender care of the Moonlit Lord. He still isn’t even sure if it’s true, though he sees no reason Katarin would lie to him. He adds, “I think I’ve gone over everything I think is related. What information do you still need?”

    She’s not going to let this go so easily, though, and frowns at him. “Drink your tea,” she says. It’s a soft chamomile, rather than the bracing black tea he was hoping for, and he doubts she’s added anything hard to it, more’s the pity. But after all, it’s past her bedtime, at least, so the choice is explainable. “What did Shuni have stolen, Lucien?”

    He could lie to her and say he doesn’t know, or that Shuni hasn’t told him. But he thinks her trust in him is on shaky ground already. “Katarin, it’s something very personal to him,” he says honestly. “If he’s willing to tell you, that’s one thing, but I can’t in good faith tell you something told to me in confidence. I can promise you that after talking to him, I honestly believe that it has no bearing on the mystery at hand.”

    She looks at him for a long moment, then sighs. “Fair enough,” she murmurs. “I only hope you’re right.” 

    Lucien sips his tea. “Can I ask you to catch me up about the last few nights, Katarin? It seems almost unbelievable that I missed so much of it.”

    “Sure, why not,” she sighs. She sips her own tea, her eyes tired. “Let me think. Play went well, I suppose. Frederik did fine, but he just doesn’t have the heart you do as Arcane. I think he’d do better as Logos, but Shuni and I decided not to suggest that they swap, in case it made the director catch on to the bullshit switch you pulled at one point in there.”

    Lucien can’t quite help but make a face. He doesn’t love to think that his role’s done poorly recently, especially if… “Were any Lords present?”

    “Oh, were there,” she says dryly. “Three per night, again. On the first, Lord Sol of the Blazing Sun, Lord Wolf the Hunter, and Lord Crow the Carrion Eater. On the second, Lord Shield the Defender, Lord Mask the Silent Liar, and Lord Vine of the New Growth. And just now, we had Lord the Endless, Lord Angler of the Deep Blue Sea, and Lord Bounty of the Feast. If we get Lord Peacock in the next show, we’ve got a full Grand Clock of Lords, and I don’t love thinking about that.”

    A Grand Clock… unimaginable. “Has that ever happened in a single run before?”

    “I’m sure it has,” she says, “but you know how few Lords ever show up to a show. I haven’t seen it happen, and I haven’t really heard about it happening except in, you know. Stage rumors.”

    He drains the tea. Even if it doesn’t have the burn he wants, its lingering heat has a pleasant sear. “I mean, based on what you told me about their origin, probably there hasn’t always even been twelve lords. Maybe once upon a time, even two or three showing up was a huge deal.”

    “Is it not a big deal any more?” she asks, almost sarcastic. “Have you grown used to it already?”

    Fair enough. “Did you spread the dedications around?” 

    “We tried to. Frederik didn’t seem inclined to do any dedications, so Shuni and I bore the brunt of it. I’ll admit we tried to steer the play a little ” 

    Lucien tilts his head, watching her. She’s sipping her tea herself, her face closed off a little, her brows furrowed, but… “You seem closer to Shuni than you were before. Have you two been talking?”

    “A little,” she says. “With you gone, I had to have the confrontation with him. He told me about how you’d talked to him, and insisted he knew nothing about any of this before that. That yes, he’s having the dreams, but he was hardly doing this intentionally. I almost believe him, just like I almost believe you.”

    He makes a face at her. “Almost?”

    “I mean, someone’s doing it,” she says. “I have to stay suspicious. If it comes down to it, if it looks like the finale is going to end in disaster, I can’t afford to have gotten complacent or let my feelings overruled my own need to take action.”

    It was nice that she’s inclined to lose her suspicions, at least. “Anyone other than us you’re suspicious of?”

    “I have some thoughts, but no decisions yet.” Katarin’s face has hardened a little, her jaw set. “It has to be someone involved in the production. So, cast or crew. I’m keeping my options open and I’ve been doing what I can to investigate.”

    Lucien wants to dig more into that one, but she’s obviously not saying everything. Not ready yet, or doesn’t trust him enough yet, or something like that. So he follows up with a bigger concern. “Do you know where Shuni is? Or where he could be? He was going to try to get contact with a Lord, and I don’t know if he succeeded, but that was several nights ago. And he didn’t answer when I knocked, before I came to you.”

    Katarin hmms. “If he’s had contact with a Lord, he didn’t tell me. Now, that doesn’t mean he didn’t, one of these nights, it just means that he didn’t tell me if he did, you know? We said goodbye after the show today, and I headed out first, but I thought he was heading home.”

    “I really need to talk to him,” Lucien says, softly. He thinks about how long it’s been. Shuni must be worried for him, but probably also angry, let down, even betrayed. He’d made Shuni a lot of promises to help, and he hasn’t lived up to them yet. However reasonable and important it is to make the choices he’d made with the Moonlit Lord, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel guilty, and it doesn’t mean Shuni won’t feel hurt. “It’s important.”

    Katarin looks longingly over her shoulder, presumably toward her bedroom, but nods. “All right,” she says reluctantly. “Where do you think he is? I can help you look, if you want. As far as I can guess, he’s either back at the theatre, out with a Lord secretly, or at home asleep. Or at home, not sleeping but ignoring you. But hey, we can bang his door down if we want.”

    [Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

    [Next Day]

    [Previous Day]

  • Halloween 2020 IF,  Interactive Fiction

    Halloween I.F – “Final Call” – Day 21

    [Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

    Shuni not answering the door isn’t necessarily cause for concern, Lucien reminds himself. It’s far enough past dawn that Shuni might well be in bed by now, asleep or otherwise just ignoring visitors. Or perhaps he’s even still at the theatre, and Lucien simply missed him on the way out. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Shuni is gone

    Still, he can’t help but think about poor Nan, taken by the Endless for what seemed to the cast to be one night only, but was for her so long that it was unendurable by the time she was finally returned.

    —No, no good to think of that now. He knocks louder, again with no response.

    Well. Shuni might just be out late; he can look for Shuni later, but at this point, he doesn’t even have anywhere to start. He’ll go to Katarin instead, he decides, trying not to feel worried about that decision. No decision feels like it would be right here. But he needs to talk to her now that he knows more, has seen more. Hopefully she, at least, will still be awake and ready to receive him. He doesn’t believe that he himself will be able to sleep any time soon, wide awake after that.

    Not that he wants to have to sleep again at all. He thinks about what the Moonlit Lord said about the key and wonders how that would even work. He has a physical key, of course, but it’s been nothing more than a worry stone to him, something to hold onto when times are difficult. He’s not sure how he can use it for anything.

    Lucien arrives at Katarin place fifteen minutes later, and is a bit gratified to see that her home is more like his, one of many apartment doors in a row, rather than fancy like Shuni’s. It’s dark in there, and briefly Lucien has a terrible fantasy that he’s still dreaming, or perhaps has entered another sort of reality where neither of them exist anymore. It almost takes him effort to knock, but when he does, a light comes on.

    Lucien’s stomach unclenches.

    It tightens again a moment later when Katarin opens the door with a scowl, frowning out at him. She’s in what he assumes is her night clothes, with a robe thrown on over it, and he can’t quite keep himself from blushing. “Do you know what time it is, Shuni?” she snaps. “I might be an actress, but you’ll entirely ruin what little reputation I have.”

    He hadn’t really considered any of that, and stammers, flustered. “I, that’s—” 

    The expression slowly clears. “Wait, Lucien? Is that really you? Are you okay?”

    “Yes, sorry,” he says. “I know that I didn’t show up for the curtain call, and I mean—I told Ran, so I imagine you all heard about the Moonlit Lord—”

    She looks around past him, then opens the door to let him in. “It’s been three days.”

    “—What?”   

    He stands very still on the doorstep, stupefied, and she has to drag him in after that, take him to the couch and sit him down. She boils water, while he repeats, “Three days?” and she says, “Yes, Lucien, three days,” for enough times that he’s sure she thinks his mind has gone.

    “I just didn’t realize,” he says, when she shoves a cup of tea in his hands. “She said I wouldn’t get the night back. She didn’t say anything else.”

    “That’s how they get you, isn’t it,” she mutters. “I feel like most of them don’t have an eye for little details. You look well, considering.”

    “Yes, she gave me… different dreams than the one I was having,” he says. “I’ve been… I’ve been gathering information, Katarin.”

    “Is that what you’ve been doing with Shuni,” she says dryly. “It looked like you took the information I gave you and ran it over to him right away.”

    He bites the inside of his cheek. “It’s not exactly like that. You’ve just got it wrong about him. He didn’t know anything about a ritual.”

    “Ah, yes, he told you that, did he?”

    “Yes, he did,” Lucien says. “And I believe him. Listen—”

    He takes a breath, and begins to summarize his investigations so far. It’s hard, because he is, at least for now, stepping around Shuni’s personal details—all he says about that is that someone stole something from Shuni and lured him to the play. He describes the dream with the Moonlit Lord dying and him saving her, the discussion he had with the Moonlit Lord as well, and the dreams she gave him.

    At one point, Katarin takes out a journal and starts making notes. “So assuming I believe you about Shuni, you think it’s someone else in the theatre. Who?”

    “I don’t know. I was hoping to find the stolen item, and get a culprit that way,” he says. “Has Shuni been around while I was gone?”

    “Yes, he has,” she says absently. “But Frederik had to fill in for you on very short notice.” 

    He’s relieved, of course, to hear that Shuni was returned after the Endless—if he even got to see her at all. He wishes he could ask Katarin about that, but doubts that Shuni would have shared that he’d even gone with her. “What else… I feel like there’s so much I should ask you about the last few days, if I can just think of what…”

    Katarin is frowning at her notes, tapping her pen against her mouth. “Yes, of course. You know, it feels like you’re leaving something out. Are you?”

    [Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

    [Next Day]

    [Previous Day]

  • Halloween 2020 IF,  Interactive Fiction

    Halloween I.F – “Final Call” – Day 20

    [Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

    Lucien hesitates. Of course, he has a lot of questions for the Moonlit Lord—important ones, given how desperate for information he is. But there is one question that feels more pressing than the rest.

    He rolls his head against her shoulder to look up at her, at the strange night sky of her face where all the moon phases show at once. “…How are you feeling?”

    She…blinks. Or at least, he thinks that’s what happens. It feels like watching the night go by a hundred times faster than it ought to, clouds flickering across the moon, but it also feels just… like a person, taken aback, not knowing how to react. “…What?”

    “How are you feeling after last night?” He tries to find her hand to take it and squeeze it. Her cool, elongated fingers slide between his. “I was worried about you.”

    “You were worried about me,” she echoes, her voice softly confused. “…I’m all right. Recovering. I’m not at my best, and I can’t promise you clarity. But I could never promise you clarity. That’s not really something I specialize in. I can only promise you the sense of a revelation just out of reach, things that will make more sense in retrospect. I’m sorry.”

    He shakes his head, even if it feels more like it’s lolling. “I’m not asking because of what you can do for me. I thought you were going to die on me. Is there more I can do to help you…?”

    Another long pause. “…Thank you,” she says finally. “You did so much already. I’m all right. I’ll be on guard now. I don’t think I can get drawn in again, at least so long as we avoid the dream entering reality.”

    “That’s good,” he says. He’s already half-asleep, feels like he’s sleep-talking here, and her sentences are making sense in the way that things do only in dreams. “Is that what’s at stake?”

    “Yes. Everything. If it goes off, we might lose everything. Or at least, it will look entirely different,” she clarifies. “Especially to me, as I’ll be gone. I don’t know if the world itself will end up dry like that, or if they will just drain all the Lords dry. But I think… a new world that exists in a place where the Lords are replaced with one single emptiness? It would be a terrible place.”

    He nods. That matches what Katarin said, which is itself helpful. He wonders again if Katarin is playing him and Shuni off each other, or if she’s just blunt and straightforward. It has to be one or the other. “Do you know who’s doing this?”

    “No,” she says. “If we knew, it would be easier to stop. We collectively have a lot of power. I do not think you want to see what happens when we all want someone dead.”

    He shudders. Thinks of her brightness, the thorns and poison of Lord Vine, the sharp beaks and hunger for meat of Lord Crow, the instant death of the End, the endless suffering of the Endless. And there are more Lords besides. “No,” he says. “No, I don’t want to see that. Is this… is it a prophecy? Is it meant to happen? Is it required that a new Lord come into being?”

    “I do not actually deal in prophecies, only premonitions,” she says. “Otherworldly creatures, they love treating the world as if it is something that can be tracked. Fae, from the greatest fae lords to the smallest brownies who work for the theatres, view the world as a series of rules. Perhaps there are rules to the world, but we are lawless creatures, and I think these premonitions are lawless too.” She just talks like this. It sort of makes sense. He hopes it still does when he’s awake again. “As for a new Lord. There are rituals. There are ways. It is not common, but I have done it, as has every other Lord that is. Yes, this is a ritual, and it can make a Lord, and what I fear is that this is the Lord it will make.”

    He’s running out of questions, exhausted. There’s only one still on his mind. “Is there a way to stop me from seeing the bad dream again? Other than taking your offer just this once? I don’t want to see it anymore.”

    “You could avoid sleep,” she says. “Or you could try using your key to unlock the eye inside you so that you can control your dream. It is not reality yet. You, and every changeable figure in this theatre, are simply being drawn toward the intended change. So since it is a dream, you can alter it, if you figure out how…”

    Lucien cannot hold his head up, cannot handle this exhaustion any longer. She is bright and she is dark and the world is swimming. He says, “Yes, to your offer. Let me rest, just now. Let me see your better dreams with your better premonitions.” 

    He feels as if he is breaking another promise, but Shuni will forgive him. Shuni saw him receive that invitation and knows what it means to spend a length of time around a Lord. He’d be too high off this contact to help Shuni anyway, so better to dream now, see if he can see something good, get some actual rest, and after… after… 

    …he can work the rest out after.

    “Very well.” She leans over him, and her hair is streams of moonlight falling around him as she gently kisses both eyes, and he is gone, spiraling down into a deep sleep which opens up around him like a yawning maw.

    He sees: Himself, Shuni, Katarin. A fourth figure stands above them, blocking the stage lights, silhouetted and indiscernible, casting the three of them in darkness.

    He sees: A hand thrust upright, holding a beating, bloody heart, and a knife, and the two being brought together in a hot spray that coats him and stings his eyes.

    He sees: Two identical shapes struggling together with swords, a choreographed duel with an overhead light and shadows cast in every direction. The stage is rotating, but rotating out of control, spinning fast so that he is seeing the duel from all angles at once but cannot make anything out.

    He sees: Long brown hair sliding through his fingers.

    He sees: Black wings everywhere, beating around him as if it is some huge living thing, and he reaches up his bare arms to it.

    He sees: Twelve figures standing huge around him, impossible, inhuman shapes, and there is a gap where a thirteenth should go, and the gap is widening, collapsing, the earth is shaking, the earth is opening, those twelve figures are tumbling into the gap, and the gap is a mouth that is parting and he

    He sees— 

    He— 

    He wakes up alone in the boxed seat. The Moonlit Lord is gone and the stage is abandoned and dark below him. He feels… refreshed, without the lingering druggedness he’d usually expect from this experience, as if the dream itself burned through all of it to leave him nothing but awake.

    Lucien draws a breath, rubs his face, and steps out of the booth. The four cards have been removed from the doors.

    With an unexpected amount of clarity, he thinks that he should go find Shuni now. He will need to make an excuse, and apologize, and explain what he saw so they can work out next steps together—for real, this time. When he steps outside, he sees it’s long past dawn. Shuni would have finished his own search of the theatre, and gone off in the hopes of meeting Lord the Endless, as they’d discussed. But all their previous encounters with the Lords were over by the time the sun rose, and so likely Shuni has already headed home. 

    So Lucien heads there, and he knocks, but—nobody answers, the windows are dark, and the place seems locked up tight. 

    All his plans stymied, he hesitates, trying to decide what to do instead.

    [Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

    [Next Day]

    [Previous Day]

  • Halloween 2020 IF,  Interactive Fiction

    Halloween I.F – “Final Call” – Day 19

    [Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

    “Thanks, Ran,” Lucien says gently. He doesn’t have the power to send them on break or give them the rest of the night off, and can’t imagine that he himself would be capable of going back to work the same night he met a Lord. But he at least knows someone who would have the ability to make that call for poor Ran. “Can you go let the Director know where I am, in case someone needs me?” 

    Ran nods, gazing at Lucien as if they had fallen asleep on the spot and are startled to wake to find themself here. “Yes, of course.” And they head out, walking like a sleepwalker.

    “Was that wise?” Shuni asks dryly.

    Lucien sighs. “Hopefully he’ll see the state they’re in and decide it’s better to be down an usher for the night than keep them on their feet right now. Anyway, if I don’t come back from the booth by the curtain call, the director knowing where I am will keep a panic from starting. Make it easier for you to search if they’re not tearing the place apart looking for me.”

    “Fair enough,” Shuni says, his mouth in a bit of a sour twist.

    “…I’m sorry,” Lucien says. “I feel like my hands are tied here. I mean, I could blow off a Lord, but…”

    “No, no, I entirely understand,” Shuni says airily. “I’m going to head out myself and look around. If she doesn’t kidnap you to the stars, try to meet me after, right?”

    “Of course. I still plan to help you look.” Lucien squares his shoulders. “Be careful, Shuni.”

    Shuni laughs softly. “Aren’t I always?” he asks.

    Lucien wouldn’t usually consider him careful, no. He doesn’t say that, though, just heads out.

    It’s strange to be in the front of house areas while a show’s still going, let alone while still in costume. He feels like some sort of ghost like this, walking behind the audience unseen, a room away, as he heads up the stairs that allow for mortal access to the box seats.

    He walks the length of the corridor at the top, checking the doors to ascertain which one she’s in. They are marked by cards to warn the crew back here which booths are occupied, and by whom; one card with a pictograph of a crow, one card with an hourglass with both bulbs full, and one with a crescent moon. The fourth has a solid black card. He isn’t that familiar with this system, as theatres he’s performed at in the past usually simply had no card, but he supposes it makes sense—this way, it can be confirmed empty. ‘No card’ could just be a door that got missed.

    For a moment, he’s tempted to open the crow-marked door. What would Lord Crow say to that, if he just slid right in, said they needed to talk? Would he laugh, or find it presumptuous? But, no, the lady is waiting.

    He knocks lightly on her door, then braces himself as he opens it. Pale light spills out around him, and he closes his eyes into it, but hands with too-long fingers pull him into the booth and cover his eyes. “It’s all right,” she says, and it’s the same voice as in his dream last night. “I won’t blind you.”

    Lucien still isn’t entirely sure, but he opens his eyes regardless as her fingers draw back. “Moonlit Lord, you honor me.”

    “Do I?” The box is pulsing, humming, the edges of it foggy and seeming to fade in and out of reality. Her elongated body is curled in here, bare legs bent against the velvet seat. She guides him in to sit next to her, her eyes blinking in a lazy off-rhythm that changes the color and intensity of the moonlight. From here, he can sort of see the performance continuing, and Revelle’s descent into tyranny begin—he really has to find some sort of explanation to give Katarin later, maybe even the truth—but his view of the stage isn’t the one he’d expect. It’s lit in heavy contrasts that are hard to interpret, light and shadow playing with odd inversions. He feels as if he is falling asleep.

    He can’t remember who spoke last, and opens his mouth, struggling. “My Lord—”

    “You rescued me. Thank you,” she says. “I think I was intended to be the first to go. Dreams are in my portfolio, after all. It would be dangerous if I were left alive.”

    Lucien draws a sluggish breath, head nodding. The moonlight is so bright, and he finds his head resting on her bare shoulder. She wraps an arm around him to steady him, and he struggles through exhaustion to find words. He wants to cry, he’s so tired. “I need to ask you some things,” he manages. “And then, please, if you will, I must be released from you without sleeping. I have things I need to do tonight. I’m trying to prevent that end we both saw…”

    “If you wish,” she says. “You have not had a restful sleep of late, and if you desire, I can give you better dreams here and now while I stay by your side, dreams until you have slept your fill, ones that can give you other true premonitions and insight into more than just that dry, empty world. But… you are right that if you do so, you won’t get this night back for you to do other things with.” The Moonlit Lord gently brushes his hair back, a remarkably human gesture—albeit one done hesitantly, as if she is badly out of practice. “…What do you wish to ask me?”

    [Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

    [Next Day]

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  • Halloween 2020 IF,  Interactive Fiction

    Halloween I.F – “Final Call” – Day 18

    [Please read the Instructions before jumping in]

    Shuni is putting the plan on him? It does feel a little to Lucien as if he’s being put on the spot, but he supposes that given the amount of information he just dumped on Shuni, maybe Shuni hardly knows where to begin. Lucien sure felt that way earlier with Katarin.

    So Lucien tries to project confidence. “I think we should search the theatre,” he says. “We can see if anyone is acting strange, and perhaps we can get this over with by listening for the heart.”

    Shuni doesn’t quite give him a scornful look. “I mean, I’ve been looking,” he says. “You’re right that we can cover more ground together, I suppose, but when? We’re going to get there right before the performance. There’s not enough time to search early.”

    Pushing on gamely, Lucien says, “We usually have some time after the show, when most people have headed home. We could linger behind and take a look through places you haven’t had a chance to check yet. I mean, we might want to use that time to try to talk to a Lord, but maybe we can do both. They’ve approached us when we were alone before; they might wait until we leave separately, whenever that is. I mean, given the last couple nights, I feel like they want to talk to us too.”

    “Or at least to you,” Shuni says softly.

    “Speaking of which,” Lucien says gamely, “like you said, you might have an in with Lord the Endless. You already made a sacrifice to her, so you have an established relationship. Can I ask what it is that you sacrificed?”

    Shuni looks at Lucien for a long moment, visibly weighing how much to say, and it occurs to Lucien how little he really knows about Shuni Blanc. His name, his home, his appearance. But the rest is truly a blank. Then again, he imagines he’s much the same, to Shuni. Shuni knows Lucien’s name, his home, his appearance, but nothing else, none of the scars on his own heart, not the key in his pocket, nothing. Lucien misses the days of his schooling, when it was easier to find these things out about each other, and asking questions bluntly was simply the way of things.

    Finally, Shuni sighs. “I can’t talk about it,” he says softly. “I gave her a cherished memory, one that was going to last forever in my heart. Now it can last forever in hers instead. All right?”

    Here it was, a moment in which Lucien could pry, or could not pry. He makes note of the word can’t, and decides to let it lie, at least for now. If it turns out to be important later, he can ask about what details Shuni does still remember, but he’s touching enough wounds already.

    “All right,” Lucien says softly. He squeezes Shuni’s arm. “I think it’s time to get the Lords actively involved. If the Moonlit Lord is there, we should at least dedicate a smaller scene to her. If Crow is there, I’ll dedicate to him. If Endless is, you should dedicate to her. I’ll put in a cry for help, introduce a line about dreams and needing guidance. And we should try to go for a double Arcane-Logos kill again, because that’ll clear up time we’d normally just be hanging around the green room, and we can explore while the play goes on, in rooms that are usually occupied. We meet for our bows, change out of costume, linger, and search the rest. Then, we’ll leave separately, to give room for a Lord to approach us.”

    Shuni considers Lucien, then leans in, giving him a lingering, light kiss on the corner of his mouth. “It’s a good plan,” he allows. “Let’s hope it all comes together like that.”

    And, as the play starts that day, Lucien really believes it will.  He manages to avoid Katarin before the show entirely begins, though he can’t quite miss the scathing look she gives him when he and Shuni show up together. From her perspective, he can understand it; assuming she hasn’t been lying to him, she told him all about how Shuni might be a genuine threat and then Lucien went and got him alone. But still, he’s just as glad to save any explanations to her for later.

    The play itself goes well. There are three Lords again in attendance—it’s getting a little strange that it’s three, no more, no fewer—and it’s Endless, Crow, and, to Lucien’s huge relief, the Moonlit Lord. She doesn’t look well, exactly, not compared to what Lucien thinks would be normal for her—rather than the brilliantly blinding light, she is dim enough that he can make out her elongated and lithe form. But she is there, and she is glowing. Assuming that what he saw in his dream is real and not just a premonition, it has to be a good sign.

    The double-kill also goes off flawlessly, along with the multiple dedications. Everything feels like it’s falling into place, and he feels energized by his run of good fortune as he and Shuni head back to the green room, the starting place for their planned search while the rest of the cast and crew are busy.

    But that’s when the plan falls apart. They’ve barely gotten there and turned to each other to talk when the door opens again and Ran, one of the ushers, comes in. Lucien’s familiar with them—a young human with shoulder-length black hair usually held back in a high ponytail, and someone who Lucien considers a friend, since they’ve had a drink or two together after rehearsal before—and they look dazed, bewildered, like they’re drunk or drugged or simply stunned.

    “Lucien,” they say, in that sort of starstruck voice, “the Moonlit Lord has asked that you attend on her in her booth.”

    [Please leave suggestions for Lucien in the comments.]

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