Post by The Stranger on Jun 13, 2008 15:56:41 GMT -5
Aldrys stood onstage front-and-center with tomato juice running down his arm. He held a stick in his hands, looking at an audience which had suddenly stopped laughing. The Mock Duel was a two-part act. It combined the laughter and excitement parts of Sheyn’s performance into one fluid piece. The beginning of the act was always the same; a comedic act showing two peasants bump into each other, begin to argue, and decide to have a duel. Everything after that was improvised at each showing, though today Aldrys had cheated a bit.
If the first act was successful, the audience would be laughing, filled with emotions, and susceptible for the performance to change into a different emotional outlet. It could be tragedy, drama, horror. Today, it was reality. Aldrys wanted to show the nobles something real. He wanted to make them believe that two men fighting with sticks and tomatoes were really men fighting to the death with live steel. He very much doubted they would fully register what they felt until it was all over. But they would still feel the excitement, and that was enough.
Aldrys set his stick at his feet and folded his arms behind his back, looking out at the audience. “We are very silly, aren’t we? Here we are, two men who merely bumped into each other while walking down the road, and now what are we doing? Calling on noblewomen to give us their approval to kill each other. What silly, silly things we peasants are, playing at nobility. We feel there has to be a justification for what we do. That is why we asked for the ladies’ favors.”
He paced back and forth. “But it is NOT for those ladies that we fight! Isn’t that silly of us? Why would we make an excuse like that when it is for our CONTEMPT that we fight one another?”
He turned and raised a hand to Lady Aranya again. “Thank you, Lady Royce, for reminding me, a poor stupid peasant, why it is that I am here today. I am not here to win your approval, nor any other lord or lady’s favor. I am a peasant. Peasants don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I don’t want to kill this man for your amusement. I want to kill him because I HATE HIM!” And he said the words with such malice and with such rage in his face that most of the audience jerked back, shocked.
“I hold this man in contempt, I want him dead, and now, if you would all excuse me, I am going to go and kill my friend.”
He reached down and picked up his spear. And now it was a spear. He could see it in the audience’s eyes. There was an excitement in them. Who could deny it? Who could resist the spectacle of blood and murder? The men, the women, the children, all leaned forward hungrily, wanting nothing more than to see two men slaughter each other. Aldrys walked to one side of the stage and turned to face Tosh on the other end of the stage.
He took the spear in both hands, raised it to point at Tosh’s chest. Tosh did the same with his bloodied sword.
As one, they spoke. “Have at you.”
_____________________________
Sheyn’s father and mother had been murdered by a knight in cold blood when he was a boy, because Sheyn’s mother refused the knight’s advances. That moment defined Sheyn’s life. The helplessness, the hopelessness of being a common man in a world of nobility hit him at full force when he was only six years old. But it never broke him. And now Aldrys knew why. Contempt. Contempt for the nobility, for those who had ruined his life, drove the man. Contempt made him want to become greater than the nobility. But there is no earthly being above a king. Kings were ordained by the gods. Sheyn’s only alternative was to aspire for godliness.
He never told anyone in the original Thousand Faces why he’d decided to join a mummers troupe at the age of eight, or why at fourteen he murdered the leader of the troupe and fled. He never told them why he started to perform his one-man shows in taverns and on the street corners. He never told them why he strove to perfect his craft, to control every finite aspect of himself, to become a man who could change into whatever he chose. And he never told them why he held onto his belief that acting could make him more than a man.
He never told them, because they’d never had to ask. They saw for themselves daily what the man could do, what he could become, the madness and genius within him. Sheyn could make a cold-blooded murderer weep, he could make a Silent Sister break her vows in laughter, he could make steel-eyed lords who’d fought in dozens of battles and seen horrors unimaginable shake and shiver at ghosts, and he could make a simple peasant believe that he could be more than that if only he had the will to try.
___________________________
Tosh and Aldrys grinned only slightly. They both felt it. This battle was their tribute to Sheyn. He’d taken both of them in, cared for them, made them into what they were. And now they would show him what they had learned.
The tables were turned. For now, for one brief moment in time, the universe itself had been inverted, and the knights, the nobles, and even the king himself were the loyal subjects to the peasants.
For one brief moment in time, they were gods.
As one, they ran forward. Aldrys swung his spear around his head to strike Tosh, who rolled under it, coming up to stab Aldrys. Letting the momentum of the spear carry him, he leapt to the side, cartwheeling in the air away from the blade. Aldrys was out of practice with his spear, but they’d practiced together many times all those years ago, they knew how to read and react to each others’ movements, and now it was only a matter of relearning what he’d forgotten.
As soon as his feet hit the ground, Aldrys turned and thrust straight for Tosh’s chest. Tosh’s legs shot out, falling into a split, and swung his sword sideways for Aldrys’s stomach. Aldrys flipped back, landed, and continued to back up as Tosh regained his feet. The two circled one another.
When Tosh’s back was to the audience, Aldrys burst forward, feinting a jab at Tosh’s stomach then swinging the spear up to strike him in the face. Tosh spun around, blood flying from his face, screaming. The audience gasped, a few women screamed. Turning a tomato into blood was an easy thing now.
Tosh continued the spin and gave Aldrys a shallow cut to the chest, forcing him to stagger back into the wall, gripping the wound as blood poured down his front. He looked up, enrage. Tosh, his back still to the audience, grinned and winked. Aldrys twitched his spear to the right, and Tosh moved in that direction, coming at an angle to attack. He swung, but the sword struck the wall as Aldrys rolled forward, the spear held to his chest, and came up in a straight-legged flip, then another higher flip, landing at the edge of the stage, bringing more gasps.
He jumped, twirling in the air to land facing Tosh. Acting, acrobatics, real fighting. Neither of them were masters at any of them, but taken all at once, with the two working together, it looked damned impressive.
And they continued to impress. The fighting couldn’t have lasted longed. Two, maybe three minutes at most. But the audience kept up a near-constant stream of screams and gasps and groans as the two rolled, flipped, cartwheeled, sprung, and leapt about the stage, dealing horrible blows to each other, splashing blood over themselves and each other and the stage and the wall. They were perfect. They stumbled on occasion, yes, but that only added to the reality of it. They put on a perfect act.
Then Aldrys found himself and Tosh as they had started; one on each side of the stage staring each other down. Both were panting, hunched over, their chests heaving. It had only lasted a couple minutes, but a couple of minutes of what they’d been doing would tire anyone. A stage battle was different from actual fighting. Aldrys knew this from his childhood, when his father had taught him to use his spear. True fighting was to use as little energy as possible, to expend the smallest amount of effort to defeat your foe, be it a deer, a boar, or a warrior. That was required, because you never knew if there would be more foes waiting to jump in. You had to preserve your strength as much as possible. Stage fighting took a great deal more effort. In stage fighting, the idea was to create the illusion of power and speed and action. All that required an actor to work far harder than normal, and Aldrys and Tosh had not taken it easy on one another. No sane man would perform their complicated acrobatics in a normal fight, but the act was vastly improved by it. The audience was there to attest to that.
Aldrys was sad that it had to end, but he had the energy left for just one more stunt. Something he and Tosh had practiced many times in the past. Something far easier to do than it appeared.
His eyes scanned the ground. There were a few patches of blood on the stage, but none directly between the two combatants. He caught Tosh’s gaze, rolled the eye that was away from the audience, and flicked his spear upwards slightly. Tosh flicked his sword’s point down. Aldrys adjusted his grip on the shaft, lowering his left hand to the vary bottom of the spear. Tosh started to move forward. Aldrys took two bounding steps then leapt into the air, beginning another flip, jumping as high as he possibly could. As his head came around, still several feet off the ground, he brought the spear back with one hand. Tosh stopped, looking up, judging the distance. As Aldrys began to descend, he thrust the spear forward, well off to Tosh’s side away from the audience. If they’d practiced before-hand, he would’ve made it closer, but didn’t want to risk injuring his friend. Tosh played it perfectly, his arm up to the side, bringing it down and catching the spear against his body as Aldrys landed, collapsing to his knees to take the impact.
A fresh gout of blood erupted from his chest. He looked up, enraged, and slashed Aldrys across the stomach. Aldrys clutched the wound and collapsed to the side, Tosh fell on his face. Both were dead.
No one made a sound. The combatants lay perfectly still, pooled in blood. Then, from off-stage, a loud tapping noise was heard, and Sheyn walked out. Just as before, his arms were folded behind his back, his eyes downcast, his shoulders hunched. He reached the center of the stage and slowly turned to face the audience.
“At this time, as representative of the Thousand Faces, I wish to extend our sincerest thanks to all of you for attending. I hope you have enjoyed the show thus far.” He bowed. “And to you, King Rickon, I offer my congratulations on your wedding. I know I echo the thoughts of everyone here today when I say that I hope yours will be a long, happy reign. I pray that you and your new queen will be forever blessed, and that your heirs will sit the Iron Throne forever.” He dropped to one knee and lowered his face, his bald head shining with sweat. “It has been a great honor to perform for you on this day. We will take a few minutes to clean the stage, and there will be a final performance. Thank you.”
He stood up and walked over to where Aldrys and Tosh lay. Squatting down, he grabbed them by their legs and slowly dragged them off the stage. The theatre was silent.
Results:
Aldrys advances from Apprentice to Noteworthy Spear
Aldrys advances from Apprentice to Noteworthy Acrobotics
If the first act was successful, the audience would be laughing, filled with emotions, and susceptible for the performance to change into a different emotional outlet. It could be tragedy, drama, horror. Today, it was reality. Aldrys wanted to show the nobles something real. He wanted to make them believe that two men fighting with sticks and tomatoes were really men fighting to the death with live steel. He very much doubted they would fully register what they felt until it was all over. But they would still feel the excitement, and that was enough.
Aldrys set his stick at his feet and folded his arms behind his back, looking out at the audience. “We are very silly, aren’t we? Here we are, two men who merely bumped into each other while walking down the road, and now what are we doing? Calling on noblewomen to give us their approval to kill each other. What silly, silly things we peasants are, playing at nobility. We feel there has to be a justification for what we do. That is why we asked for the ladies’ favors.”
He paced back and forth. “But it is NOT for those ladies that we fight! Isn’t that silly of us? Why would we make an excuse like that when it is for our CONTEMPT that we fight one another?”
He turned and raised a hand to Lady Aranya again. “Thank you, Lady Royce, for reminding me, a poor stupid peasant, why it is that I am here today. I am not here to win your approval, nor any other lord or lady’s favor. I am a peasant. Peasants don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I don’t want to kill this man for your amusement. I want to kill him because I HATE HIM!” And he said the words with such malice and with such rage in his face that most of the audience jerked back, shocked.
“I hold this man in contempt, I want him dead, and now, if you would all excuse me, I am going to go and kill my friend.”
He reached down and picked up his spear. And now it was a spear. He could see it in the audience’s eyes. There was an excitement in them. Who could deny it? Who could resist the spectacle of blood and murder? The men, the women, the children, all leaned forward hungrily, wanting nothing more than to see two men slaughter each other. Aldrys walked to one side of the stage and turned to face Tosh on the other end of the stage.
He took the spear in both hands, raised it to point at Tosh’s chest. Tosh did the same with his bloodied sword.
As one, they spoke. “Have at you.”
_____________________________
Sheyn’s father and mother had been murdered by a knight in cold blood when he was a boy, because Sheyn’s mother refused the knight’s advances. That moment defined Sheyn’s life. The helplessness, the hopelessness of being a common man in a world of nobility hit him at full force when he was only six years old. But it never broke him. And now Aldrys knew why. Contempt. Contempt for the nobility, for those who had ruined his life, drove the man. Contempt made him want to become greater than the nobility. But there is no earthly being above a king. Kings were ordained by the gods. Sheyn’s only alternative was to aspire for godliness.
He never told anyone in the original Thousand Faces why he’d decided to join a mummers troupe at the age of eight, or why at fourteen he murdered the leader of the troupe and fled. He never told them why he started to perform his one-man shows in taverns and on the street corners. He never told them why he strove to perfect his craft, to control every finite aspect of himself, to become a man who could change into whatever he chose. And he never told them why he held onto his belief that acting could make him more than a man.
He never told them, because they’d never had to ask. They saw for themselves daily what the man could do, what he could become, the madness and genius within him. Sheyn could make a cold-blooded murderer weep, he could make a Silent Sister break her vows in laughter, he could make steel-eyed lords who’d fought in dozens of battles and seen horrors unimaginable shake and shiver at ghosts, and he could make a simple peasant believe that he could be more than that if only he had the will to try.
___________________________
Tosh and Aldrys grinned only slightly. They both felt it. This battle was their tribute to Sheyn. He’d taken both of them in, cared for them, made them into what they were. And now they would show him what they had learned.
The tables were turned. For now, for one brief moment in time, the universe itself had been inverted, and the knights, the nobles, and even the king himself were the loyal subjects to the peasants.
For one brief moment in time, they were gods.
As one, they ran forward. Aldrys swung his spear around his head to strike Tosh, who rolled under it, coming up to stab Aldrys. Letting the momentum of the spear carry him, he leapt to the side, cartwheeling in the air away from the blade. Aldrys was out of practice with his spear, but they’d practiced together many times all those years ago, they knew how to read and react to each others’ movements, and now it was only a matter of relearning what he’d forgotten.
As soon as his feet hit the ground, Aldrys turned and thrust straight for Tosh’s chest. Tosh’s legs shot out, falling into a split, and swung his sword sideways for Aldrys’s stomach. Aldrys flipped back, landed, and continued to back up as Tosh regained his feet. The two circled one another.
When Tosh’s back was to the audience, Aldrys burst forward, feinting a jab at Tosh’s stomach then swinging the spear up to strike him in the face. Tosh spun around, blood flying from his face, screaming. The audience gasped, a few women screamed. Turning a tomato into blood was an easy thing now.
Tosh continued the spin and gave Aldrys a shallow cut to the chest, forcing him to stagger back into the wall, gripping the wound as blood poured down his front. He looked up, enrage. Tosh, his back still to the audience, grinned and winked. Aldrys twitched his spear to the right, and Tosh moved in that direction, coming at an angle to attack. He swung, but the sword struck the wall as Aldrys rolled forward, the spear held to his chest, and came up in a straight-legged flip, then another higher flip, landing at the edge of the stage, bringing more gasps.
He jumped, twirling in the air to land facing Tosh. Acting, acrobatics, real fighting. Neither of them were masters at any of them, but taken all at once, with the two working together, it looked damned impressive.
And they continued to impress. The fighting couldn’t have lasted longed. Two, maybe three minutes at most. But the audience kept up a near-constant stream of screams and gasps and groans as the two rolled, flipped, cartwheeled, sprung, and leapt about the stage, dealing horrible blows to each other, splashing blood over themselves and each other and the stage and the wall. They were perfect. They stumbled on occasion, yes, but that only added to the reality of it. They put on a perfect act.
Then Aldrys found himself and Tosh as they had started; one on each side of the stage staring each other down. Both were panting, hunched over, their chests heaving. It had only lasted a couple minutes, but a couple of minutes of what they’d been doing would tire anyone. A stage battle was different from actual fighting. Aldrys knew this from his childhood, when his father had taught him to use his spear. True fighting was to use as little energy as possible, to expend the smallest amount of effort to defeat your foe, be it a deer, a boar, or a warrior. That was required, because you never knew if there would be more foes waiting to jump in. You had to preserve your strength as much as possible. Stage fighting took a great deal more effort. In stage fighting, the idea was to create the illusion of power and speed and action. All that required an actor to work far harder than normal, and Aldrys and Tosh had not taken it easy on one another. No sane man would perform their complicated acrobatics in a normal fight, but the act was vastly improved by it. The audience was there to attest to that.
Aldrys was sad that it had to end, but he had the energy left for just one more stunt. Something he and Tosh had practiced many times in the past. Something far easier to do than it appeared.
His eyes scanned the ground. There were a few patches of blood on the stage, but none directly between the two combatants. He caught Tosh’s gaze, rolled the eye that was away from the audience, and flicked his spear upwards slightly. Tosh flicked his sword’s point down. Aldrys adjusted his grip on the shaft, lowering his left hand to the vary bottom of the spear. Tosh started to move forward. Aldrys took two bounding steps then leapt into the air, beginning another flip, jumping as high as he possibly could. As his head came around, still several feet off the ground, he brought the spear back with one hand. Tosh stopped, looking up, judging the distance. As Aldrys began to descend, he thrust the spear forward, well off to Tosh’s side away from the audience. If they’d practiced before-hand, he would’ve made it closer, but didn’t want to risk injuring his friend. Tosh played it perfectly, his arm up to the side, bringing it down and catching the spear against his body as Aldrys landed, collapsing to his knees to take the impact.
A fresh gout of blood erupted from his chest. He looked up, enraged, and slashed Aldrys across the stomach. Aldrys clutched the wound and collapsed to the side, Tosh fell on his face. Both were dead.
No one made a sound. The combatants lay perfectly still, pooled in blood. Then, from off-stage, a loud tapping noise was heard, and Sheyn walked out. Just as before, his arms were folded behind his back, his eyes downcast, his shoulders hunched. He reached the center of the stage and slowly turned to face the audience.
“At this time, as representative of the Thousand Faces, I wish to extend our sincerest thanks to all of you for attending. I hope you have enjoyed the show thus far.” He bowed. “And to you, King Rickon, I offer my congratulations on your wedding. I know I echo the thoughts of everyone here today when I say that I hope yours will be a long, happy reign. I pray that you and your new queen will be forever blessed, and that your heirs will sit the Iron Throne forever.” He dropped to one knee and lowered his face, his bald head shining with sweat. “It has been a great honor to perform for you on this day. We will take a few minutes to clean the stage, and there will be a final performance. Thank you.”
He stood up and walked over to where Aldrys and Tosh lay. Squatting down, he grabbed them by their legs and slowly dragged them off the stage. The theatre was silent.
Results:
Aldrys advances from Apprentice to Noteworthy Spear
Aldrys advances from Apprentice to Noteworthy Acrobotics