Author’s Notes: Annnnd of course, in my “updates should be faster” note, there was a silent clause that stated that that was only true if I didn’t manage to lose half of the next chapter’s scenes in a separate file. Good job, Ammy.

In any case, this fic has almost fifty reviews after three chapters. I am a little stunned. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! I love you bunches and wish to shower you all with confetti.

Disclaimer: Still don’t own it.

In this chapter: Mark makes an inspiring speech, Hyperion is your average wyvern and Umbriel enjoys biting things. In half. Heath swears he’s never seen My Fair Lady. The love triangle tries to drown their respective sorrows in a bottle.

---

The Musical Project

Chapter Four

By Amethyst Bubble

---

The night before the first rehearsal, Mark found himself stricken with the heavy sort of panic usually reserved for when one manages to lock oneself out on the balcony in subzero weather wearing naught but a wet Speedo. He tried to preoccupy himself by pacing a straight line, but the messy state of his living room meant that he had to constantly jump over books and dodge the huge piles of laundry spawning like rabbits across his floor.

“Okay,” he told himself, tapping into the memories of that one yoga tape he had watched near-religiously in college. “Breathe in… and breathe out… and deeeep breath… and breathe out…” He waited a moment. Calm failed to settle over him. Panic stayed right where it was. It was just like he was back in Playwriting 101 with his arch-enemies again.

“Okay,” he said again, just in case the repetition would make it so. “Things are fine. Everything is fine. Just… fine.”

You are in denial, he thought. It is not fine. It is the opposite of fine. Anti-fine, that’s what it is.

Mark moaned and slumped down in the nearest chair. He hung his head so that his bangs overshadowed his eyes, leaving everything hazy and brown. He tried the breathing thing again, half-heartedly hoping that maybe the second time would be the charm. Amazingly, this time, it seemed to work. After a few moments, he got up the courage to lift his head. Seeking comfort, he turned towards the warm bundle of fur that was his cat.

“Everyone has their scripts,” he said to his cat, just in case his furry companion had been wondering.

His cat seemed to scoff. Mark decided that his cat would be more comforting if he wasn’t looking him in the eyes. He directed his attention towards his tail instead. Aww, he thought to himself. What a cute fluffy tail.

“Everyone has their scripts,” he repeated and summoned up all his courage. It was time to make a statement, he thought to himself, one brimming with positive energy. “It’ll be great!” he exclaimed and shifted into a more comfortable sitting position. Nothing to do now but wait for things to turn out a-okay. Like sunshine and daisies, he thought to himself. Just like sunshine and daisies.

---

The next day morning dawned bright and early. Mark awoke to find that things were not quite in the sunshine and daisies category, but rather in the broken alarm clock one. He was late. He was, in fact, very late, possibly even bordering on the lands of dismally so.

He tried to think of someone to blame this on, someone other than himself. Pulling his jacket over his head and smoothing his unruly hair all at the same time, Mark figured that Ninian was probably going to skin him and make him into a throw rug.

He paused; that was much too violent for her. No, no, someone else, perhaps some lackey of Nils’, would do the skinning and the making into a throw rug. Maybe with some decorative thread and a bit of nice embroidery. Then they’d give throw rug-him to Ninian and she’d accept it with one of her little smiles because she was always so nice and didn’t turn down presents and he was an awful person who always woke up late and she’d drape him over the back of her couch, all very nice and neat and…

He started to hyperventilate. Get a grip, he told himself, sitting down on the arm of the sofa, wasting a minute he did not have to regain some small shred of composure. Get a grip. She’s not going to kill you. Her brother’s lackeys-- assuming he actually has any and your imagination isn’t overactive and absolutely crazy-- are not going to kill you. They will all glare, probably, and you will feel guilty and that will be the worst of it.

Very helpfully, his cat trotted up to him and gently raked a paw full of sharp claws against his bare foot, as if to say, get your stupid shoes on, you lazy ass.

Being a (occasionally) sensible man, Mark did as his cat ordered and got his shoes on. “Thanks,” he said to his cat.

His cat stared.

Mark took that as a bit of affection that his cat was far too stoic to show. He saluted the feline, grabbed his bag and headed out the door, full of that certain kind of confidence that melted away as soon as you left your home.

Back inside the apartment, Mark’s cat rolled his eyes, stretched out on the window sill and enjoyed the peace.

---

Throughout the room, the same questions were murmured over and over. “Where is the director?” they asked. “Shouldn’t he be here?” they wondered. “He was late for the auditions, too, wasn’t he?” they recalled. “Why does that girl in the blue dress look like she’s going to burst a blood vessel?” they gulped.

Ninian tapped her foot on the ground. She coughed. She crossed her arms. She shook her head from side to side, her long hair brushing her hips as she did so.

“Are you annoyed or dancing?” Nils asked, eyes fixated on the up and down, up and down, tap tap tap motion of her left foot.

Ninian didn’t answer. She didn’t even give him a glance. Nils was instantly frightened. His sister was a perfectly lovely person, but she was still his sister and could still be the scariest thing in the world to him if she wanted to be. At the moment, it seemed, she really wanted to be.

“Where is he?” she grumbled, unfolding her arms to place her hands on her hips. She kept them like that for a moment, as if testing the position, before crossing them over her chest again. Her frown spoke of disappointment, disgruntlement and danger.

Nils took one small step backwards, closer to the neon exit sign. He told himself that he really needed to make some friends and stop hanging out with his sister so much. It could not possibly be good for him.

Ninian twitched and watched the door very carefully. She didn’t even want to be here. Mark wanted her to be here. Yet, strangely, Mark himself was nowhere to be seen. Ninian’s more reasonable side, the one she usually let govern her life, told her to stay calm. Reasonable Ninian said, very politely, that maybe he got stuck in traffic or there was some minor emergency he had to deal with. Reasonable Ninian was promptly ignored for the part of her that possessed little horns. That Ninian waved her pitchfork around and folded her little tail underneath her as she sat on Ninian’s shoulder and whispered a few awfully unkind plans in her ear. Reasonable Ninian frowned and sulked on the other shoulder, feeling very ignored.

It was another fifteen minutes (the time passed by plotting and scheming, some things that, for better or worse, Ninian found herself doing a lot of lately) before Mark came rushing into the room, all rumpled clothes and messy hair.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding winded. He hunched over for a second, like he was going to be sick. Thankfully, he only took a few breaths before straightening up.

Ninian was staring at his shoe. “Was that red spot always there?” she asked, trying not to look concerned. (“You are mad at him!” One Mini Ninian waved her pitchfork about. Reasonable Ninian smiled and clapped her little hands together.)

“Oh, uh,” Mark looked down at his shoe. “My cat, err, gave me a love scratch.”

“…That’s very sweet,” Ninian said slowly.

“Ow,” Mark replied.

---

Mark fidgeted. He cleared his throat. He fervently wished he had taken those public speaking classes a telemarketer had offered him two and a half years ago.

From the midst of his mob of actors, professional and amateur alike, a little old lady cried out, “Well, are you going to start talking or are you going to stand there and fidget? I’m not getting any younger!”

(From somewhere else in the crowd, there was a long, infatuated sigh. Pent elbowed Athos discreetly in the ribs.)

Right, Mark thought. She’s not getting any younger. He didn’t really see what that had to do with anything, but it made him start talking, an excited rush of words that he would later doubt anyone really understood.

“…And remember to have fun, because it’s the emotion of it all, the love of the people who made it, that makes a play so great!” he finished. His eyes shining, he surveyed the crowd.

In the back, Vaida snorted and rolled her eyes. Heath silently agreed with her sentiments. Legault sighed and patted Nino on the head as she nodded enthusiastically. Serra whispered to Erk that she was absolutely great at emotions, no one was better. Matthew reached for Guy’s hair. Leila smiled and, without taking her eyes off Mark, stepped on Matthew’s foot. Nergal stared at Athos who stared at Hannah who stared at Nergal. Nils applauded, but only a little.

Mark rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Okay,” he called, pumping a fist in the air. “Let’s make some magic!”

---

Magic, Mark realized, was a very temperamental thing, especially on the first day. He supposed he should just count himself lucky that no one had broken any bones, or quit, or sworn their eternal hatred for him.

“Do I suck as a director?” he asked Ninian afterwards, slumped over on the empty stage, waiting for someone to come and smack some sense into him. What had he been thinking?

Ninian rubbed his shoulder sympathetically and tried to think of a way to word things that wouldn’t make him sulkier. “No, Mark, of course not,” she said. “It’s only the first day, and, well, they’re a chaotic bunch.”

Mark’s head drooped a little bit more. Ninian’s frown deepened. “I thought it was very good for a first rehearsal,” she tried to sound as reassuring as humanly possible. Quickly, she searched her mind for some little detail to mention, something to throw off any suspicions of her having spent most of the rehearsal time hiding her eyes and occasionally nervously peeking out from between her fingers. “The, uh, the choreographer you got, he was very…”

“Ephidel was freaky, Ninian. Admit it.”

“…He was a little eccentric, maybe,” she admitted, fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. Mark scuffed little circles on the floor with the toe of his shoe. “It’ll get better, Mark,” she promised, trying to ignore the doubt in the back of her mind. It wasn’t that she doubted him, per se, it was just that everyone else was, to put it mildly, a bunch of lunatics.

“Can I go back in time?” he mumbled into his knees. “Just, go back in time and get a sane idea that doesn’t have twenty million characters to juggle and a plot I can barely remember on a good day?”

Oh, please do, Ninian would have loved to say, but instead she settled for repeating, “It’ll get better.”

---

Guy was utterly shocked when Matthew asked him to dinner after the first rehearsal.

“This is like a horror movie, right?” Guy’s eyebrows went up as far as he could make them, his look so far past worried that Matthew wondered if he was going to pass out. “I agree, and-- and then it turns out that you’re really some sick bastard and I’m dinner for you and your sick bastard friends and… and…!”

“I swear, I’m not going to eat you,” Matthew rolled his eyes and gave Guy a quick and helpful pat to the shoulder. “Maybe lock you up in my basement for a few months, sporadically torturing you by throwing tennis balls at you, but eat you? No, too dramatic for my tastes. Not to mention messy.”

“The basement comment is not comforting,” Guy hmphed and attempted to resist for as long as possible. After exactly twenty-nine glorious seconds of freedom, he gave in and said, “O-okay.”

(It was an achievement, really. His previous record in the great sport of Resisting Matthew was only twenty-six seconds.)

He tried to find Matthew’s grin creepy, he really did, but there was something that was inexplicably charming about him that day. Guy thought he shone like light bulbs. It sounded horrible, and it wasn’t very poetic, but it was what came to mind. He busied himself with trying to figure out the wattage.

“I love it when you stare,” Matthew’s grin, if possible, widened. Very slowly, face burning, Guy raised a hand, placed it on Matthew’s jaw and shoved as hard as he could. Then he turned around and walked off in the opposite direction.

Matthew, blessed with long legs and a fast stride, caught up to him again and swung a warm arm around his shoulder. “Fast food?” he suggested.

“Where’s Leila?” Guy asked instead.

“She abandoned me for other friends,” Matthew said, squinting at the setting sun in the distance. “So it’s just you and me. We can rehearse afterwards.”

“Joy,” Guy muttered.

---

Illuminated eerily by the fluorescent lights of the restaurant, Lyn’s smile seemed extra predatory. One long lock of green hair spilled over her shoulder and pooled on the glossy white table top. Eliwood was a little bit reminded of a program he’d seen on that one channel that specialized in footage of cheetahs viciously pouncing on gazelles.

Hector twitched.

Eliwood stared.

Their pizza arrived.

All three reached to take a slice and, abruptly, Lyn began to giggle. Eliwood and Hector exchanged that look they got whenever their female friend did something they did not understand and waited silently for her to make sense.

“It’s just,” she choked out through the peals of her laughter. She briefly calmed herself, looked at them, and promptly burst out snickering all over again. “Me,” she said, pointing at herself, just in case they needed clarification. “And, and, YOU,” she pointed at Hector next. “It’s hysterical!” she finally finished, slapping one hand on the table.

The elderly couple one booth over seemed very concerned for Lyn’s sanity and maybe just a bit worried for their own safety.

(“I didn’t see anyone make a joke,” Sadie said to her husband, rather nervously poking at her baked potato. “Do you think they’re alright? This is a good neighborhood, isn’t it? They aren’t…” she lowered her voice, just in case someone was eavesdropping, “…Hooligans?”

“No,” Harold sounded shocked. “They look like such nice young people!”

“There was that article in the newspaper last Saturday,” Sadie pointed out, sneaking a suspicious look at the three teenagers. “They could be, you know. Hooligans.”)

“Lyn,” Eliwood began gently, nudging her foot under the table to gain her attention. “You aren’t… are you drunk?” It wouldn’t be like her, he knew that, but, well, one always had to ask. Just in case.

“Or just crazy?” Hector asked bluntly.

Lyn shook her head emphatically. Her laughter quieted down to a few sparse chuckles and she pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry, it’s just… it’s funny!”

The two boys stared blankly and tried to think what she could possibly find amusing. They came up empty-handed and continued their staring.

Lyn rolled her eyes. “The script,” she said. “You’ve read it all the way through, haven’t you? You’re no slouches when it comes to business.”

“Yeah,” Eliwood answered cautiously. “I have, at least. Hector?”

“Sure I have,” Hector replied, still not seeing the point. “So?”

“The romance!” Lyn threw her hands up. She really needed to start hanging out with more girls, she thought to herself. Provided, of course, that she could find some who were into things like swordfights and wrestling and that she wouldn’t get dragged shopping.

“…Oh.” Eliwood said.

“The romance,” Hector echoed.

“It’s funny?” Eliwood sounded lost.

“Hadn’t noticed,” Hector said, his tone as close to a verbal shrug as one could get.

“Do you want to explain it?” Eliwood asked uncertainly. Hector gave him an alarmed look and that was all it took for Lyn to agree to clarify things for them.

Lyn took a bite of her pizza and chewed slowly, enjoying the nervous looks on their faces. “I assume you’re familiar with the characters?” she finally said, eyeing them with a tiny leer.

“Lyn,” Hector said, scowling.

“Oh, all right, all right,” she said and leaned back slightly, knitting her fingers together.

“Doesn’t she look like she’s about to tell us what’s wrong with our taxes?” Hector said to Eliwood, who fought the urge to grin tooth and nail. When it came down to a choice between Hector and Lyn, Eliwood had to admit that he was far, far more afraid of Lyn.

With a carefully calculated movement, Lyn’s foot caught Hector’s shin underneath the table at the exact moment she began to speak. “So you’ve got my character, Lyndis, and she joins your characters on their quest to save Lord Elbert. She’s got this knight who is head over heels for her, the whole selfless love thing. In the meantime, she’s got these feelings for Hector’s character, who’s been eyeing her best friend, but never mind that. It’s still Hector’s character, and it’s just…” she dissolved into snickers again.

“What’s wrong with my character?” Hector demanded, looking a tad insulted. Eliwood sighed a bit and gave Hector a quick pat on the shoulder. Then he silently went back to his meal, once again resigned to play the part of the sane one.

“Well, he’s a bit of a brute, but that’s not what I was talking about,” Lyn barely batted an eye. “It’s just funny to think about, that’s all. It sounds like a soap opera.”

Eliwood, having seen several soap operas courtesy of his mother, thought that it didn’t really sound like one, not unless there was a tragic secret and a shaved chimpanzee in the mix. A tragic hot tub accident wouldn’t hurt, either.

(“They’re arguing, Harold,” Sadie pointed out, squinting over her shoulder. She searched for a metaphor or simile to use, to spice things up a bit. They argued like dogs might work. Like dogs over a piece of meat. Hungry dogs. Hungry wolves. Wolves that were-- her train of thought was shattered when her husband spoke.

“They’re kids, let them be already. You’ve hardly touched your salad.”

“They look shifty,” she defended herself and a pushed a crouton across her plate.

Harold sighed and took a long sip of his coffee. “Dear. Please stop. Please.”

In her head, Sadie began a narration of the on-again-off-again argument taking place not so very far away. ‘And it was fire, how they argued, like snake-tongued statues of yore, their eyes alight with ancient passion for the fight. They were claws and feathers, fur and teeth, despite the fact that physically they were but children.’ She’d always counted poetry among her many talents.)

---

This, Nergal thought, staring down at his glass with distaste, is just not right. He had a plan. It was a good plan. He liked his plan. He and The Plan of Greatness, as he so affectionately called it, had become very close in the process of plotting. He had little diagrams at home, tucked into a hidden compartment in his impressively large desk.

The woman on his right laughed (cackled, he corrected, like some witch in a candy house who liked her children served with hollandaise sauce and a piece of curly parsley) and batted her eyelashes at him.

The man who, for the love of all things turbaned, should have been on his right (but was in reality seated next to the woman he had come to know as the Harpy, capital H for emphasis) chuckled (melodiously, he added, like some bearded sprite, maybe one of the ones who lived in a tree) and smiled his brightest smile at the Harpy.

He took a long sip of his drink, relishing the burn of the alcohol as it hit his throat. Ah, but that was the stuff. Not as fine as anything in his collection, of course, but it did nicely at the moment. Plus, he really, really needed it.

“So, Nergal,” Hannah said in that sort of tone women used for idle chit-chat. Nergal couldn’t stand it. “You owned a theatre, didn’t you? I hope you don’t mind, I looked up a few things about you. You know how it is when you work with someone closely.”

“Ah, yes,” Nergal said nostalgically. The light above the bar caught on one of his rings and Hannah stared, transfixed. “The Black Fang Theatre. It was quite famous in its day.”

“How fascinating,” Hannah said and batted her eyelashes once again. Nergal wondered if something was irritating her eye.

Athos cleared his throat and attempted to change the subject, so utterly disgusted that his grey-haired angel was showing such admiration to the turbaned fiend. “Hannah,” he said in his most sensual tone. He hoped that his beard looked manly and impressive, like a full lion’s mane that had a (not necessarily for the worst) run-in with a bottle of peroxide. “You run a psychic hotline, don’t you?”

A noncommittal mutter was her reply, his angel deciding to give him not so much as one glance, not even in charity. Athos uttered a long sigh and, much like Nergal, sought solace from the bottom of a glass. Such was unrequited love.

---

Guy suspected that this whole thing was far more awkward than it should have been. He and Matthew, they were just friends who happened to be in the same play. It was perfectly normal that they would rehearse together, going over the scene where their characters met until it was as natural to them as speaking itself.

Guy suspected the nervous, fluttery feeling in his stomach had something to do with the scene itself. Maybe it was the way it was worded. It did seem kind of… well. He didn’t want to say suggestive, he really didn’t. It was something along those lines, he realized with just the slightest bit of distress.

“Are you forgetting that I saved your life?” Matthew said, the look in his eyes absolutely devious. Guy would have yelled at him for it, but Matthew’s character seemed to act in a way remarkably similar to the man himself and Guy couldn’t exactly criticize him for being so freakishly in character. “You still owe me those favors from that time you collapsed in Caelin, Guy.” He leaned forward and practically purring, said, “Don’t bite the hand that fed you.”

Guy resisted the urge to squirm away and, even more annoying, the urge to get closer. “Fine!” he said spitefully, thankful that his own character gave him an outlet for some of his discomfort. “I’ll join your army. And just when I’d gotten settled with a new group, too…”

“Excellent,” Matthew said, his tone just a little too cheerful, his expression just a little too smug. “You won’t regret it.”

There was a pause and a rustle of paper. Finding his line, Guy huffed out a, “I better not!”

“Annnnd,” Matthew drawled, scanning the rest of the page. “After that, we go back to the fight. You’re not bad, Guy, not bad at all.”

As much as it pained him, Guy had to admit that Matthew was pretty damn good himself. Refusing to voice such thoughts, he simply settled for what he hoped was a careless shrug.

“What’s the next scene?” he asked, averting his eyes away from Matthew’s general vicinity.

---

“I think I officially hate musicals,” Heath said, playing with the straw of his soda. “Seriously, after this is done, forget acting, I’m never even going to see one again. Ever.” He paused a moment and frowned, “Not that I went to them before.”

“Tough luck,” Legault said, storing the last bit away in his mental filing cabinet. “Nino’s enraptured. She will doubtlessly star in many musicals to come, and I will be forced to go. You’ll be my date, of course.”

“No,” Heath said flatly. “I’m not doing it. Not even if you have blackmail.”

“Oh?” Legault said and Heath froze up, fingers clenching around his drink. Legault caught this movement out of the corner of his eye and inwardly smirked.

“You don’t know anything,” Heath said, though there was far too much of an edge in his voice, “You’re just trying to make me believe that you know something when, in fact, you’re making it all up.”

“Got me,” Legault said nonchalantly. Heath glowered at him. The styrofoam cup in his hand was nearly crushed.

“You’re giving in too easily,” he said. “What do you know?”

“Like you said,” Legault shrugged and gave Heath a small smile. “I don’t know anything.”

“Ohhhh no,” Heath said. “No, no, no! You are not doing this to me, Legault! Not this time! Not when I have to break the news to the wyverns tomorrow!”

“Ah, yes, the wyverns. That snuck up faster than I expected. I can only assume there will be disaster.”

“Don’t even joke!” Heath groaned, slapping a hand to his forehead. “They seem calm, but when they’re around a ton of people…” he trailed off, gnawing at his lower lip. “Umbriel likes to bite things. In half.” he muttered, more to himself than to Legault.

Overhearing but choosing to ignore the biting remark, Legault slung a casual arm over Heath’s shoulders. “I wouldn’t worry,” he said. “You raised those wyverns well. Everything will go fine.”

Heath snorted, but looked thankful for the comment all the same. “Thanks,” he said, “but if Hyperion or Umbriel takes a bite out of someone, you’re getting the blame. That lawsuit waiting to happen is all yours to handle.”

“I suppose it’s a risk I’ll have to take,” Legault said amiably enough.

---

“Louise,” Pent said that night as they got ready for bed. “I’m a little worried about my father.”

“Oh?” she said, looking at him in the mirror as she combed her long blonde hair. Her eyebrows knit together and her mouth curved downward in a frown. “Can I ask why? He’s not ill, is he, dear?”

“No, no,” Pent paced, the carpet soft on his bare feet. He paused to reconsider. “Well… not physically.”

“He’s been very nice lately,” Louise commented as she set her hairbrush down. It clunked lightly against the wood of her armoire and she rose, brushing out the skirt of her purple nightgown. “I saw him the other day, giving Erk advice in the hallway. It was very grandfatherly of him.”

Pent wondered if this had anything to do with his adopted son asking him about the priesthood. “That… was very nice of him,” he said, though in truth he found it a tad worrying. Maybe, he thought, just maybe he ought to have a talk with the old man. A little chat, son to father. Perhaps with some sort of lie detector involved. He pondered the possibilities.

Louise smiled softly at his thoughtful look and came up behind her husband, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Dear,” she said, tickling his sides lightly. “You’re worrying again. I’m sure everything is just fine.”

“Maybe,” Pent sounded doubtful.

“Just perhaps,” Louise replied, mimicking his tone. “Really, your father is fine, perfectly normal. It’s probably just the play. He hasn’t acted in a while and he’s getting back into the swing of it.”

Pent had to admit that made more than a little bit of sense.

“Am I right?” Louise laughed, squeezing him slightly.

“You’re right,” Pent agreed, turning himself around in her grasp. Then, because he couldn’t let the sneaking suspicion that something was up go, he added a mumbled “probably.” Louise clucked her tongue but let it go, shaking her head in amusement.

Down the hall, in his own room, Athos silently plotted to himself. The night at the bar had been an absolute disaster. It was time to implement some sort of scheme. It would have to be brilliant and perfect. It would also have to be done fast.

Athos retrieved a sheet of paper from the table by his bedside. He took a pen from the drawer. He stroked his beard absentmindedly and waited for brilliance to present itself. Brilliance, it turned out, had decided to be fashionably late. Athos settled for brilliance’s incompetent brothers, slightly insane and utterly unreasonable.

With a sigh and a smile, he lay back to think happy thoughts of little dancing Hannahs. They pirouetted and winked at him and suddenly, all felt right with the world. Though, Athos thought to himself, this sort of mental image was probably a sign of some sort of sick obsession.

Abruptly, he sat back up and began to draw a simple graph. This could work, he told himself. It was a little obvious, but so be it. Obvious men had won women before. There was no reason it couldn’t work for him as well.

Yet further down the hall, Erk slept fitfully, plagued with dreams of mad schemes that seemed to bubble like a witch’s brew and figures in black cloaks, suspicious bits of pink hair falling forward onto the collar. He would wake up three hours later in a cold sweat and spend the next twenty minutes trying to convince himself that Serra had not learned to infiltrate dreams.

---

Hyperion was your typical wyvern. He enjoyed flying, roaming, a good piece of meat, having his scales shined and sleeping. With pride, he considered himself Heath’s favorite and lorded this over the other wyverns with a haughty bark of laughter.

When Heath was at work, he expected to be fawned over. So when the young man opened the gate to the enclosure that morning, Hyperion sauntered right over and lowered his head, nudging at Heath’s shoulder. In response, his caretaker sighed and gave Hyperion a very guilty look.

The wyvern was pretty sure that this boded ill. The very kind of ill that wouldn’t lead to a nice afternoon of scale-shining.

“Hyperion,” Heath said evenly, placing his hands on the wyvern’s lowered head and looking him directly in the eye. “I have a firm belief that you understand what I say to you, so I think it’s only right to tell you what’s going on. Please don’t bite me.”

Hyperion hoped Heath understood the grumpiness in his stare. He gave a low whine, one that clearly promised nothing.

“Hyperion,” Heath said again, sterner this time. The wyvern wondered whether his home was in the sort of trouble that required him to be sold to a traveling circus. “There’s going to be a… well. A play.”

Oh. Not a traveling circus then.

“It’s a musical, actually,” Heath continued. “A historical one, and the event in question, a war, involves… wyverns.”

Had he had eyebrows, Hyperion’s would have been raised so far that they would have detached from his face.

“The director,” Heath paused to take a very deep breath. Hyperion looked around and tried to find a convenient way to escape that didn’t involve just taking to the sky. Yards away, Umbriel seemed to be sneering at him. Hyperion’s head drooped a bit. Heath gave him a consoling little pat.

“…historical accuracy,” he was saying, but Hyperion hadn’t heard the part that came between that and “the director”. He figured it was important. He also figured it wasn’t good for him. Umbriel’s sneer became a leer.

He started paying attention again when Heath took another deep breath and shut his eyes. “Hyperion,” he said. “I am so, so sorry.”

The wyvern filled in the blanks, and groaned. Then Heath looked past him and said, “You too, Umbriel.”

There was a long, low whine of distress from the other beast. Hyperion thought it almost made it worth it.

---

“They’re depressed,” Heath informed Vaida, all but storming into her office. “I really don’t like this.”

“You think I do?” Vaida snapped, throwing a pile of papers into the garbage.

“Then why?” Heath asked, running a hand through his hair in an agitated manner. From the window in Vaida’s office, he saw Hyperion and Umbriel attempting to console each other. Alternatively, he thought, they might have been sizing each other up. Some days, it was hard to tell.

“It’s obvious. We’re cursed.” Vaida grunted. She leaned back against the wall, coming dangerously close to hitting her head on the corner of a picture frame. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “After this is done, we will never speak of this incident. Never. Have I made myself perfectly clear, Heath?”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “…Can I just ask one more thing, Vaida?”

“Depends on whether I want to hear it,” she said.

“You probably don’t,” Heath admitted. “Why did you pick those two? I mean, I adore them, but they’re not exactly the calmest of the bunch.”

Slowly, Vaida opened her eyes and fixed him with a long, eerily calm stare. “Heath,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking and I did not pick Umbriel on the sole assumption that he would eat someone. Even though it would be a plus.”

“I’m trying very hard to believe you,” Heath said uncertainly. “It’s just…” he looked out the window in time to see Umbriel bite a large tree branch in half.

He looked back over at Vaida and tried to tell himself that she was not, in fact, smirking. “Right,” he said, turning right around. “I think I’ll go find something extremely distracting to do.”

---

Ninian had been right. Things had been getting steadily better at the rehearsals. The play was really starting to come along, at least according to Mark. He had told Ninian that he thought that he and the cast were slowly becoming some extremely dysfunctional family who pretended not to hate each other over the holidays.

It was a definite improvement.

On the stage, Lyndis called out Florina’s name and rushed to her friend’s side, then went on to tell young lordling Eliwood about how her poor grandfather was still stuck in the castle. Mark thought that Lyn was doing an amazing job. He wished Florina would stop edging away from Eliwood, though. She was half behind the curtain as it was.

His Lord Eliwood was heroic, his Serra shrewd, his Kent as loyal as a watchdog. More and more, Mark was beginning to think that this play was to be his calling, what he would be known for. It would earn him and his cast fame and fortune. Their names would be known.

Even Ninian, who had been reluctant nearly to the point of kicking and screaming, had settled into her role with ease. She mimicked the melancholy of the poor dragon girl with grace.

Oh, yes, Mark thought with a big grin as the enemy was defeated. The army assembled onstage and, with pause for a brief speech, prepared to storm Castle Caelin. The scene ended with a flourish. It was nearly perfect.

All too soon, the rehearsals came to an end and everyone packed up and went home.

“Goodbye, Mark,” Ninian said, waving to him as she left. Nils, hands in his pockets, was already a few steps ahead of her. Mark returned the wave.

“See you later!” he called as he jogged down the street. Within fifteen minutes, he was back in his apartment, slightly tired, but happy. He opened two cans: one tuna in gravy for his cat and one chicken noodle soup for himself. When it was done, he sat down at his rickety table and pulled over the morning’s paper, the one he had been too busy to read when it had arrived at seven in the morning.

The front page held nothing of interest and only a few other stories called out to him. At least until he reached the entertainment section.

He read the article once. Then he read it again. Then a third time, just because it hadn’t fully sunken in. He took a deep breath, eyes wide as dinner plates. He stuffed his sleeve in his mouth to muffle his outraged cries. His cat looked up and scowled before returning to an especially savory piece of tuna.

Mark counted backwards from ten, folded the paper neatly and picked up the phone.

---

Having gone all of two weeks without receiving a rambling phone call from Mark, Ninian figured that it was about time. Without complaint, she took the phone from Nils, who pointed at it and stuck his fingers in his ears. “Be nice,” Ninian whispered to him, covering the mouthpiece with her hand as she lifted it to her ear.

“Hello?” she said.

“It’s horrible,” Mark said.

“Did you have a nice evening, Mark?” she asked, pretending like he had said “hello” right back.

“It’s going to kill me, Ninian,” he said. “He is going to kill me. I should have known, should have seen it coming!”

“The weather’s lovely,” she tried feebly. “We’re supposed to have light showers tomorrow, though.”

“Why?” he whined. There was a dull thud, like someone hitting their head against the wall, or possibly a table. She winced and took a seat.

“Mark, what’s wrong?” she asked. Then, “…Is it your cat?”

“No. It’s much, much worse,” Mark mumbled, sounding defeated. With a sigh, he asked, “Can you come over?”

---

Ninian calmly read the article in question as Mark continued to wave his arms around and ramble and occasionally point emphatically at the piece of newspaper in her hands. “Maybe it’s not that bad,” she said when she finished, putting the paper aside.

“Not that bad? Not that bad?” Mark’s hands knotted in his hair. “He’s trying to ruin me, Ninian!”

She frowned lightly and said, “I’m sure he’s not. It’s probably just a coincidence. There have been an… awful lot of coincidences concerning this play, after all.”

Mark stared at her, his eyes wide and full of a wild, hunted look. “Ninian, you don’t understand. Me and him, we’ve got history. Really, really bad history. He hates me! I hate him!” he threw his arms out and held them akimbo, looking a bit like a terrified scarecrow. “This is exactly the sort of thing he would do! It’s revenge, Ninian, revenge plain and simple!”

Ninian was pretty sure that this particular revenge was neither plain nor simple. If it indeed was revenge, it was needlessly extravagant and complicated. Though, she supposed, it did make a sort of sense. “All right,” she said after a contemplative moment. “Let’s say it is revenge. There’s really nothing you can do about it at this point, is there, Mark?”

“The best revenge—revenge against revenge, that is,” Mark said through gritted teeth, “is to live well and prosper.”

Ninian was sure that he did not actually believe a word that he was saying. “That’s a very nice philosophy,” she said anyway, fervently hoping that he managed to deny himself into it.

“Thank you,” Mark said and his voice sounded strained.

“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Ninian said after a moment’s silence.

“He hates me,” Mark said. “He hates me and he’s trying to ruin me!”

Ninian felt horrible about what she was about to ask, but she just couldn’t be sure without it. “Mark,” she began tentatively. “You do… know him personally, don’t you?”

Mark gave her a look that spoke of deep and soulful pain, the kind that had eaten better men than him for breakfast. “Of course I do! I’m not so paranoid that I think people I don’t know loathe me!” he pressed a hand to his chest and looked at her with the sad eyes.

Ninian’s cough sounded a little like “my great uncle Frederick”.

Mark scowled, hand leaving his chest so that he could sulkily cross his arms. “Six degrees of separation, Ninian, six degrees. Plus, Frederick’s evil,” he muttered before abruptly changing the subject back. “Anyway, this guy—this vengeful bastard-- he’s practically like a brother to me. One that’s mean and nasty and always glares at me when we’re within fifty feet of each other, the uptight jerk!”

Ninian politely tuned out all insults to her family and simply nodded when he looked at her. “So you do know him,” she said, double-checking the facts.

“We were in college together,” he grudgingly admitted, taking a seat next to her. Something in his posture spoke of a weary storyteller about to begin a long, treacherous tale of deceit and heartbreak. Ninian listened attentively.

Mark breathed deeply, folding his hands together and bringing them to his chin. Silence followed. Ninian looked at her fingernails. They needed to be cut, she realized, examining them closer.

“You’re waiting for me to actually tell the story, aren’t you?” Mark said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “I warn you, it’s dark. Dark like the souls of certain relatives of yours who shall go unnamed.”

“If you want to talk about, I’ll listen,” Ninian said.

Mark stared at her for a moment, as if testing the strength of her will, trying to see if she was prepared to hear his tale, pitch black though it was and about as nice as a cranky kraken. “Okay,” he finally said. “He hates me, I hate him, there’s another guy that hates us both, and if he’s doing a play too, you might as well shoot me now.” He took a deep breath, “The end.”

Ninian was very quiet.

Mark too was silent.

“That, erm, that’s very dark,” she said at last. “It was… suspenseful.”

“I’m better on paper, okay?” Mark mumbled, glancing at his knees.

Ninian gave a tiny smile and shrugged her shoulders. “I think I got the gist of it anyway.”

“I’m too young to have enemies!” Mark cried, picking up a cushion from the sofa and crashing it into his face. Ninian waited a minute then gently pried it away from him.

“Come on now, no smothering,” she teased gently. “Look, Mark, it’s not so bad.”

Having covered his face with his hands now that his pillow had been so mercilessly torn away, Mark peeked through his fingers. “How so?”

“Well, according to this, his play isn’t a musical,” Ninian pointed out. She retrieved the paper and skimmed the article before pointing to a sentence that confirmed what she had just said. Mark barely glanced at it.

“It’s still a play, isn’t it? It’s theatre!” Mark sighed and stared forlornly at his wall. “He’s trying to ruin me.”

“We don’t know that,” Ninian shook her head. “Cheer up, Mark, it’ll be fine.”

Outwardly, Mark nodded. Inwardly, he plotted, his mind dashing through ideas as silently and stealthily as a jungle cat. He won’t get away with this, he thought. I will triumph! Revenge will be mine! Innes Frelia, you are going down.

Ninian got up to make some tea.

---

To Be Continued

---

Again, if twig-poking is in order, then let it be so. Thank you to everyone who has donated lyrics! They are lovely and cracked out and I treasure them. I may or may not sleep with a copy under my pillow.

Points to whoever can guess the identity of Mark’s other, unnamed rival (aka, He Who Is Not Innes). No points to my clone, who is partially responsible here. She already got points for joining in on the crack plotting. Sparkling cider is still being offered to reviewers, of course, now with complimentary candy pilfered from a dentist’s office. Huzzah!