You really didn't mean to get on stage! Honest!
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The Balladeer and the King of Skulls
You really didn't mean to get on stage! Honest!
The sounds of a busy city fill your lack of ears. Bustling ponies just walk around you, too busy with their own issues to pay you any heed. Your vision is set only on a poster. A poster for something called The Call of the King of Skulls. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Your vision falls on the mare in the middle of the poster. She has pale, almost sky blue fur. Yet you can only tell that because her head is the only thing uncovered. She’s wearing a long black dress, like a dress someone in mourning would wear. The mare’s eyes are teal. They look almost... sad.... in the image. Based on the name, and if she’s the lead, you would think she would be scared. Her mane is pulled back into a pair of pigtails that look like they had to be styled with how curled they are. Then again, that Rarity had claimed that her mane curled like it did naturally. #wokeuplikethis. You freeze... er... freeze more. Where had that thought come from? You would have looked confused, if you actually had a face to look confused with.
On that thought, everypony always thought you were angry.
No, you’re not always angry. This is just what a skull normally looks like.
You’re mentally getting off track..... again.....
You pull your attention back to the poster, looking at the credits under the musical.. play.... opera? opera! You look at the credits under the opera’s name. ‘Written by: Coloratura,’ you read. Who’s that? You shrug, loudly, thanks to your armor. You quickly look around to see if you drew attention to yourself. Turns out ponies here are even more self-absorbed than the nobles in Canterlot, because nopony even looked in your direction. Which you were perfectly fine with.
Once again you look back to the poster, specifically the mare. Your gaze roams over how she’s presented. The poster would imply something like a horror show, but something about her....
“Calling it now. This is one massive symbolic play for accepting death.” You murmur. Or at least you would have, if your voice were capable of murmuring. Your lowest natural voice volume is calling to someone across the room. Your body made quite a few things physically impossible now, speaking softly happened to be one of them. It didn’t help that you really couldn’t change your tone much between, I’m pissed, I’m commanding, and you’re going to die. It made conversations awkward and overly complicated. Which is why you prefered to stay silent and unnoticed.
Nodding to noone in particular... yourself? You stride through the ponies walking up and down the sidewalk, who naturally part for you like you’re a boulder in a river, and walk towards the entrance of the theater. You have to half-bend, half-squat, made even more difficult by your armor, to not only duck under the overhang, but enter the theater proper. You have to maintain that posture, with only a little room to half-stand a little straighter, when you walk through the first set of doors. The first ticket counter is closed. So you have to squeeze through the next set of doors, a task that takes an awkward amount of time to complete. Once you do however you find the commons area of the theater to be rather large, with a high ceiling, which allows you to stand up fully. There are only a few ponies inside the commons, and now you get the stares you were expecting outside. How wonderful, attention..... You do your best to ignore the stares of the few patrons and the three ponies behind the concessions booth-slash-ticket counter.
You stride up to the counter, causing the three mares behind the counter to shrink back and start shaking in fear. And now you felt like a horrible person for even deciding to come here. “Ahem...” You clear your throat awkwardly. A pointless action due to not having a throat to even clear in the first place. “I’d like a ticket to The Call of the King of Skulls? Please?” You ask in a tone that screams. I will tear you apart if you don’t do as I ask tiny pony!
You would have winced at the way you spoke. But, again, you couldn’t wince. Your body physically wasn’t capable of wincing. If you only could control your body better.
You think back to when you had one of your earlier sit downs with Al. He had said that getting to know your new body would take time. He gave the example that, Jack and himself, along with three others, had been here for a little over six years now. It was taking most of that time for Jack to start forcing his throat to form rudimentary words in recognisable english. All for the purpose of, he wanted to speak and be understood in a way that made him feel more human. So it may be awhile before you figure out how your body works and how to change things about your body that make life easier. You always had people to talk to about what you’re going through. You had people that understood.
You look at the mare silently. You honestly don’t know if silence or conversation would be worse, so you stick with silence. The mare stares at you wide-eyed. She shakes like a leaf in a storm as she blindly fumbles around for a ticket.
“J-just give it to him!” Another mare hisses and shoves a ticket she’d torn off into the mare’s hoof. The mare then shoves her hoof at you. You take the ticket and she backs away into the popcorn machine.
You look down at the ticket. “How much?” You ask in an unfortunately demanding voice.
“I-it’s free!” The mare yelps. The other nod nod rapidly.
Looking around beyond the mare, you see a sign stating ‘Tickets: 5 bits.’ So you reach down and fish five bits out of one of your many belt pouches, and set the bits in a small tower on the counter.
“Th-thank y-you!” The mare squeaks.
“May I have a box of popcorn?” You ask, once again in a demanding voice.
The mare scrambles to grab the largest box she could find and shove virtually half the popcorn machine’s contents into said box, before half-throwing the box at you. Which you take as gently as you could muster. Not knowing how much it was, you fish out a good fifteen bits and set them on the counter next to the original set of five. It helped that when you don’t eat, you have a lot of disposable income. As you stride towards the entrance to the theater proper, you hear the mare’s quietly yelling at each other.
“I thought he was going to kill us!”
“You could have been faster with that ticket!”
“Well you could have been faster with that popcorn!”
“Hey... He left us like twenty bits here.”
“It’s probably cursed!”
“Don’t touch it! It’s Evil!”
You groan a sigh... somehow.... as you stride into the very large theater. As you do you faintly hear a clank of metal followed by something metal hitting the ground, but you assume it’s just something from within the theater. You’ll get used to it, they said. Give it some time, they said. The walls of the theater are white and clearly show their age. As do the marble pillars that line the walls. The seats however look new. As your gaze sweeps the rows of seats you only see maybe a dozen ponies at most.
Not wanting to be That Guy, you manage to slowly slide into the back row. You have to take up two seats and you legs are spread awkwardly, but at least you can see the stage easier. You look down at your box of popcorn. Why did you get this again? You know you just wanted to support the theater... whatever it’s name was... but it’s not like you’re going to eat it.
There’s a sound of small hooves and cluster of foals comes rushing into the theater, followed by a very motherly looking Pegasus mare that couldn’t have been more than twenty, by your uneducated guess. The mare had a gray coat, a dark blue mane tied into a loose bun with a few hairs sticking out here and there, blue eyes, and a smiley face for a Cutie Mark. All of the foals looks ranged from five-ish to possibly twelve. Once again you were only guessing and were probably wrong.
“Okay, let’s find a place to sit.” The mare sounded happy, yet tired, and her voice was on the softer, quieter side. She looked around the room as the foals, with a surprising amount of manners, gathered around her. At once the foals and her, spotted you. The mare paled. The foals however gave out gasps of.
“Coooooool!”
“It’s soooo big!”
“Is it a statue?”
“Is that promoting the play?”
You turn your head to look at them. The mare pales even further. The foals however, just about lose it.
“Oh my Faust!”
“It’s alive? It’s Alive!”
“No it’s not, it’s Undead you dummy!”
“Don’t call me a dummy!”
Sweet Lord, foals are adorable!
“N-now ch-children, we don’t want to bother the... that.” The mare says trying to reign in her control over the group.
“It’s fine.” You say, speaking the clipped voice of a commander. “I’m used to it.”
The foals burst into talking.
“Can we sit next to him?”
“Please?”
“He’s so loud!”
“He’s funny!”
The mare looks defeated as she hangs her head. You get the feeling that she’s probably thinking that she’d signed their death warrants or something. “Okay...”
“Yay!” Came the cheer in perfect harmony.
Almost before you can think, you’re covered in foals. You’ve got three fillies and three colts on your legs, a filly and a colt on each shoulder, a colt sitting on top of your head, and lastly, a filly who somehow managed to crawl into your armor. her head just barely peeks out of your breastplate. The mare stares wide-eyed as she comes rushing over. “N-no! No no no no no! Children get off him! I’m s-sure he’s nice but this is just-” She sputters for words.
You turn your head to look at her, causing the colt on top of it to giggle. “I don’t see a problem here.” You actually manage to make yourself sound almost bored. Small victories! “Do any of you?”
“No!” came the cry in unison.
“U-umm n-no.” A filly’s voice echoes out of your breastplate. “Th-this is fine.”
The mare looks frazzled. “B-but.....”
The colt on your head looks at the massive box of popcorn. “Miss Windy, why couldn’t we get popcorn?”
That snaps Windy out of her frazzled state. Her face falls. “Because Buster, we could only afford the tickets.” She says sadly.
“Awwwwww.” Came the sad moan from every foal.
“Do you really believe I’m going to eat it?” You lock your gaze on Windy. “I honestly don’t know why I bought it in the first place?” You come off as sounding pissed. and Windy looks more than a little nervous. “Sorry, I’m still figuring out how my body works.” You try to explain in a tone that says. You are not worth my
time furry creature. “That includes how my voice sounds.”
“Oh.” Windy blinks as she sits down next to you. “I’m Windy Whisper by the way.”
“Leo.” You state, nodding only a little with having the colt still on your head.
“Nice to meet you Leo.” Windy smiles.
“Ummmm, Mister Leo?” Buster’s voice pops up from the top of your head. “Can we have some popcorn?”
“I thought I made that obvious.” You chuckle. The sound coming out as dark and menacing.
“Yay!” Came another simultaneous cry. The foals immediately swarm the popcorn bucket. You help by reaching down and pulling it into your lap. Buster actually manages to pull off something similar to a swan dive as he leaps off your head into the bucket, sending popcorn everywhere. Windy face-hoofs as Buster pops his head out of the bucket while munching on popcorn. The colt is an Earth Pony with fur the color of red brick, a mane that’s a slightly darker red, and dark gray eyes.
“U-ummm, can I have some popcorn?” A voice echoes from your breastplate. Right. You had a filly hanging out in there. You reach into the popcorn and pull out a handful.
“Incoming.” You state in a dull roar as you drop the handful of popcorn down into your armor.
There’s an “Eep!” Followed by a. “Thank you...”
“That’s Flawless for you.” Buster says as he swallows a particularly large amount of popcorn.
“Hmmm?” You cock your head to the side, confused at what Buster was referring to.
“Oh, Flawless Victory is a coward. She hides at the first sign of trouble.”
“I-I’m not a coward...” Came the voice from your chest. “I-I just like small enclosed spaces, they make me feel comfortable.”
“Sure you do.” Buster says, rolling his eyes and pulling himself out of the popcorn box to sit on you leg.
Before you could ponder this further, the lights began to dim. Windy hushed the foals. Not that she needed to, for they now watched the stage intently.
You hear the orchestra in the orchestra pit in front of the stage faintly take a moment to prepare. Then at once both a piano and a bell set begin to play. The stage is virtually pitch black. Slowly fog starts to fill the stage and roll out over the orchestra pit and the first few rows of seats. Which happened to be empty oddly enough. A synth tune begins to play, accompanying the bells and piano.
Suddenly a drum booms. A spotlight flares to life and illuminates the mare that was on the poster. she stands at the farthest right of the stage, not very far from the edge. The moment you see her, you almost subconsciously lean forward. She’s wearing that black dress that was on the poster. However her face is covered by a silky black veil. Her silky yet powerful voice would have made your heart skip, had you a functioning heart to skip. You hear the foals and Windy gasp the moment she appeared and began to sing.
The mare isn’t focusing on any one person in the theater, simply singing from the depths of her soul. She slowly gestures a hoof with every phrase spoken, and you can’t keep your lack of eyes off her. She’s captivating. Beautiful even. You never really found ponies that attractive, being a different species. She just may change that. She brings her hoof close to her chest and bows her head. As she does her mane seems to almost flow with every little movement she makes.
You focus on absorbing every bit of.... this...
This moment...
This song...
This mare.....
Suddenly your vision is surrounded by a blue-gray misty haze and you find yourself drawn to her. You float over the seats, not really knowing what’s happening. Not really caring as to why, you float towards the stage.
You get to the mare. Her eyes are closed as she sings her heart out. You can’t explain why but you float around the mare.
Something..... This music... You can feel it....
It fills you.....
Calls to you....
The spotlight above the mare turns a dark red.
“-as I enter the City of the Dead...” Hangs in the air as all sound dies. You find yourself behind the mare.
You look out over the crowd and find your eyes falling on your body....
The foals have gotten off and moved to either side of you. They grin as you can tell they are whispering to each other. They rapidly look from your body to the you up on stage.
Suddenly There’s a sort of... jerking feeling as your body disappears. The haze around your vision fades and you hear you greaves contact the stage roughly.
You would have blinked if you could. For you just realised that you unintentionally used Wraith Walk to move to the stage... while an opera was going... while a very pretty mare was singing the opening song.
You try your best not to panic as you stare down at the mare. You see her open her eyes and slowly turn her head to look back at you. Her eyes meet your eye sockets.
Acting on what you would only call instinct, you raise your left hand to her in a beckoning motion.
The mare looks surprised but it doesn’t last even mere moments, for her eyes set into a look of fear that you can some how tell is marvelously acted, as she pushes herself away from you.
You feel something building, and you summon your monstrously huge mace into your right hand in a burst of blue-gray fog and slam the butt of it on the stage at the very moment the drums kick in. The stage flares with light revealing a set that is filled with old ruins set all over the stage, giving the mare, and you, a massive area to wander through. There’s also a massive backdrop of a dead looking forest set behind the ruins, cutting off backstage from the front. At the same time a choir, that you can tell is behind the backdrop, begins to sing in what you can tell is Latin.
The mare slowly makes her way around the stage, her movements almost seem to flow, but perhaps that’s the dress. You, feel the music flowing within your very soul. Propelled by this force, you begin to almost stalk the mare around the stage, slamming the butt of your mace on the stage with each drum beat. She moves in such a way that you only catch glimpses of her mane and tail as she rounds corners.
What’s more impressive is that she can sing while she is half-running around this stage without sounding winded.
Slowly the music begins to fade, mirroring the stage lighting. You find yourself on the left side of the stage, the right if you were back in the crowd. The mare is facing away from you on the opposite side of the stage. You can vaguely see a few ponies beyond the curtain with their eyes wide and jaws dropped. As the piano begins its final notes, the mare turns to look back at you. Once again you raise you hand, this time in supplication. You can somehow clearly see beneath the veil. There are tears in the mare’s eyes. She shakes her head and gallops off stage. You let your hand fall, as you unsummon your mace with the same burst of fog as before. You hang your head. slowly you turn to face the curtain entrance to backstage, vaguely noticing even more stunned stagehands.... stage-hooves? As the last note plays, your vision is surrounded by Wraith Walk’s misty haze. You propel yourself beyond the curtain and stop by a table covered in papers. As your body snaps back to you, you notice that the papers, as well as folders, and binders filled with hoof-written music, are all for this opera. You hear wild stomping of hooves. Actually, you hear far more hooves than should be in the theater. You take a couple strides and peek around the curtain.
Your face would have paled if it could have. Since you got up on stage, the place became packed. You’re not sure why and you’re not sure how. You notice, however that the curtain falls. Turning back around, you see the numerous stage-hooves just staring at you. There’s a good dozen, and more are rushing over.
Then it hits you.
You just interrupted an opera mid-song, and joined in the choreography on some kind of magically infused instinct.
Needless to say you were a tad overwhelmed.
And now you were being bombarded with questions. You answered as fast as your mind could, well aware of your building nervous breakdown.
“Who are ?!” Asks a stallion.
“Leo!” You snap. in a voice that says. If you cross me, everything you love will die. However, nopony cared about your tone of voice at the moment. Which was nice, but it was a like throwing a tiny life preserver to a naked man who was in the Arctic and who was also being eaten by otters and dolphins.
“What was that?!” Hisse a mare.
“Instinct!”
“What was that ghost form?!”
“Wraith Walk!”
Your stress levels are rising. Unfortunately when you’re stressed you kinda turned into Abridged Kirito.
“What were you doing in the audience?!”
“I was a seat for foals!”
“Is this your crown?” A mare grabs your attention, one, by not yelling, and two, by holding something of yours.
Unfortunately Stressed Leo is running this train. “No, it belongs to the other twelve-foot skeleton that walked in here.” You however do not retrieve your crown just yet
“Why’d you get on stage?!”
“The mare was pretty and I wanted to get a better look at all this rustic architecture!” Your responses are turning into the growling. angry snaps of your namesake. You’ve hit the point where you just don’t care anymore. Much more of this, and you’re probably going to scream, find a corner to curl up in, and make futile attempts at sucking your thumb. You notice that it’s dead silent outside. Looking back to the curtain, you’re briefly half-worried that the crowd heard you.
“The curtains are enchanted to be soundproofed.” Another mare’s voice drew your attention. She was a light purple-grey pegasus mare. Her mane with a two-toned dark-violet, lighter-violet mane done up in two braided pigtails. The braids were held together with clasps that looked like bats. She had dark violet eyes and she was looking at your armor more than you. She wore some kind of fancy buttoned shirt with frills that reminded you of spider webs. “Where’d you get this tacky armor?”
On saying that, every other pony with the two of you, probably a good twelve, all gave her the look of. What are you doing?!
“It came with the body.... So did the mace....” You growl, still being on the edge of your emotionally fragile state. You hear a giggle coming from your chest.
“What the-! Is something in there?” Another one of the stallions points at your breastplate.
You hear the giggle again. “Oh that? I just contain Victory.” You reach your hand down into your breastplate, and you hear hooves clank as they wrap around your armored forearm.
With a slight pop, you pull out Flawless Victory and hold her so she’s sitting on your outstretched hand. Turns out that your thought that Victory was a pegasus was half-right. She did have wings. Flawless Victory was a bat-pony. A pure white bat-pony, with a poofy white mane and a poofy white tail, and small leathery bat wings that were at once both white, and were a little undersized by your uneducated guess. The fillies eyes also happened to be a milky white. However with every sound, her two fluffy ears twitched to focus on said sound.
Victory giggled and waved a forehoof. “Hallo.”
There was simultaneous “Awwwwwwwwwwwwww!” from everypony in the vicinity. For some reason you’re reminded of Fable, but it’s not coming to you as to why.
“Hello my little armor-dwelling, chest-filly, how are you?” Victory’s cuteness and the lack of attention on you, has caused your panic to die down.
Victory’s ears twitch and her head swings back towards you. “I’m good. That mare had a pretty voice.”
You nod. “That she did. She was quite beautiful too.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” She giggles.
You want one.
Victory’s everything only causes even more “awws” and coos of “Cute!”
“Welp, time to go home little filly.” You say bringing Victory close to your neck.
You hear a high-pitched eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ing noise as Victory crawls back into your chest. A few ponies faint from this. They were quickly rushed away by their fellows.
You heard a thunder of hooves and the mare that you... danced with... is tearing across the stage, sans her clothing, with the biggest grin on her face, and she’s coming right at you.
Instantly your panic rockets up to eleven. She takes a flying leap, and briefly the thought of just leaving by walking through the walls with Wraith Walk enters your mind. However by the time it did, the mare has already slammed into where a flesh abdomen would have been. This is accompanied by a loud clang. You hear a startled bat squeak as the three of you topple into the table.
Said table decides to give up much in the way of the French.
Papers went everywhere. Your vision is filled with papers. To your knowledge paper is all there is now. Everything else was gone, papers yet remained. Ah hail paper. PAPER FOR THE BOOK GOD! SCRIPT FOR THE BOOK THRONE!
Then the papers settled, fell away, and your vision was clear. Time seemed to slow. Amid the slowly falling snow of paper, the mare’s pulling herself out of what looks like a brief stunning from impacting your armor at high speeds. She opens her eyes, blinking away the mental haze. She shakes her head and you can see every little moment her mane makes. On opening her eyes once again. her eyes sparkle like sapphires. Funny... You used to think that love at first sight didn’t exist.... You’re sure that somewhere in Canterlot, possibly the Crystal Empire, Cadence is rubbing her hooves in glee and writing another ship into her Big Book of Ships.
However as the mare pushes herself to her haunches, something strikes you.
It cuts deeper than any blade possibly could. Something you’ve been doing your best not to think about ever since you first got here.
You’re undead...
You are the walking dead...
you will never, now nor ever, love...
For who could love a corpse?...
Time snaps back to normal as the mare sets herself. “Sorry, I got excited.” She grins at you sheepishly. You manage to still find that adorable.
“It’s fine.” You say, managing to portray monotone.
You hear a scrabbling of filly inside your armor, and you see a bit of poofy mane in your vision. Victory just popped her head outside of your breastplate. “What happened? What hit us?”
“The mare hit us Victory.” You state, still feeling down from your remembered undeadness.
“Oh really? Yay!” Victory cheers.
The mare in question, stared slack-jawed at the filly that had unintentionally made a living Hitchhiker’s Guide reference. Then, she squeed. She Squeed high enough in fact, to trigger some sort of instinctual thing in Victory. Because Victory started Eeeeeeeeing happily. You could hear her legs flailing in happiness inside your chest. Feeling left out, you decide to channel your inner Goku. Which was most likely sitting somewhere next to Victory. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
All three of you are yelling not only in unison, but in harmony as well, somehow keeping your volume to only just below a dull roar.
The general look of everypony around you is a look of Pure Wat.
“That is the cutest thing I have ever seen!” The moment the mare speaks both Victory and you cease your cries.
“Yes, Victory is adorable.” You would have nodded, but there’s a filly head in your way.
“No, I mean that she’s the cutest chestburster on the planet!” The mare squeals, holding her forehooves up to her muzzle and grinning giddily.
“You’ve... You’ve seen Alien.” The phrase came out as a command rather than a question.
“I have.” The mare nods. “Though Aliens was better. The other two were trash, Predator Two was better than the first one. Predators had a significant lack of Chiseled, The deleted scenes explained Prometheus, and AvP was actually a decent movie.”
Screw depression.
Screw being undead.
You. Will. Make. This. Work!
“What about Alien versus Predator: Requiem? That was a good movie.” A stallion states.
Instantly you sit up as the mare leaps off you.
“How Dare You!?” The mare, Victory, and you a snap simultaneously, silencing such blasphemy. The moment you do there’s a moment of confused silence between the three of you.
“Honey aren’t you a little young for such violence?” The mare asks Victory, both looking and sounding uneasy.
“The movie loses something when the only thing you can do is listen to it. Which is why I prefer audiobooks.” Victory says sounding almost bored.
The mare blinks, and looks up to you. She begins to say something but a stallion skids around a corner. “Rara, we’ve got a problem! Astral Mask just quit!” The stallion in question is a bright yellow, tall and lanky earth pony, with a frizzy green mane, and forest green eyes. Upon his flank was a Cutie Mark showing a Tragedian mask behind a Comedian mask.
The mare’s head snaps over to the stallion. “He what!?”
“Sorry honey, I tried to stop him but he said, and I quote.” The stallion with the clearly effeminate accent gives you a pained looked. “I won’t play second fiddle to one of those bipedal freaks.”
There are a few gasps and a few hisses of words you wouldn’t use in front of a filly.
“Oh that egotistical-” The mare, Rara? Rara grains and face-hoofs, then looks at the stallion. “Jester what did he leave?”
“He... trashed the armor.” Jester says with a wince.
“Ugh, figures.” Rara hangs her head and rubs her temples with her forehooves.
“Excuse me, honey?” Jester’s voice makes you look over. “I’m Emerald Jester, the director of this little opera. I don’t know you, or what you did, or why you did it, but, and I hate to do this, but we just lost our King of Skulls.”
“It was an accident. I’m sorry.” You state, feeling nervous once again, despite the cute fact that Victory retreated back into your chest.
“Hon, that was the most beautiful accident I have ever seen, and I’ve seen ponies try to adapt the Displaced’s Hamilton.” Jester chuckles.
“Oh... That’s... nice. I’ve never seen Hamilton...” You say awkwardly in the tone of. That play was beneath me.
“Doesn’t matter.” Jester waves a hoof. “Hon, We are missing our big bad. Will you... Will you be our King of Skulls?”
“Do it! Just do it!” You hear Victory cry from inside you. “Yesterday, you said tomorrow, so just do it! Don’t let your dreams be dreams! Do it!”
Everyone within hearing range is on the floor. You’re facepalming into a gauntlet and laughing you skull off.
“Y-you have the loudest conscience!” Rara says from her spot, collapsed against your leg.
“Ha... ha ha... I-I can’t say no.” You shake your head. “If she’s singing, I can accomplish anything.” You gesture a hand at Rara.
You actually see rara, stop laughing, as her eyes widen, she barely get’s her eyes on your when she blushes and looks away.
“That was so smooth I’m surprised I’m not sliding out of your armor.” Victory does her best stage-whisper from inside you.
Now that the room was sufficiently filled with awkward, Rara gets up and you move to get into a kneeling position so you didn’t tower over everypony.
“Oh thank Faust!” Jester slumps, with a loud sigh. His gaze returns to you. “Okay we’re going to play this by ear. Sorry Rara.”
“Hey, we can make this work.” Rara says putting a hoof on Jester’s shoulder.
“I hope so.” He looks at you. “You... eh... Right. Your name?”
“Leo.” You state.
“Alright Leo. How good are you at memorising lines?” Jester winces as he glances at the mess of papers. When he does this Rara does her best to look anywhere but at the mess.
“Not.” You state. “I need to hear lines a lot before anything sticks.” Your heart would have raced, if you had one. It was beginning to dawn on you just what you were going to be doing in possibly only minutes.
“Alright, that’s actually fine. Astral demanded lines even though it didn’t fit with the character.” Jester’s face slowly splits into a grin. “Yes! Rara, your original draft! Do you remember it?!”
“Are you kidding it was Astral that demanded I rewrite the whole opera to fit him!” Rara grins, bouncing on her hooves in excitement.
“Alright, yes! This is perfect!” Jester looks back to you. “Leo, don’t worry about lines. I want you to improvise. Just do what you did the first time.”
“I let the music take me.” You say. Both Rara and Jester look surprised at that.
“You can feel that?” Rara asks.
“Yeah, it’s what made Wraith Walk activate in the first place.” You glance between the very confused.
“Then this is going to be easier than we thought.” Jester says looking clearly giddy. “Okay-”
“Half a moment, this has been bothering me since I saw the poster.” You hold up a hand. “This opera is one massive symbol for Death right?”
Jester blinks in surprise. Rara, however, punches him in the ribs. “See! I told you someone would get it.”
“Somebody better pick up that phone-” You begin but hear Victory speaking in unison. Both of you stop.
You glare down at you chest, or you would have but you...
You get the feeling that Victory’s glaring at you, but she’s......
“Stop it.” You both say in unison.
“Is that your daughter or something?” Rara gestures from your chest up to your skull.
“No.” You say looking at Rara.
“We met in the audience like...... ten.... fifteen minutes ago.” Came Victory’s response.
Rara blinks. “Huh.... weird.”
“So... Here’s the plan.” Jester pulls you two close.
The next.... time.... Time became a blur actually. You managed to ignore the audience when things started up, focusing entirely on Rara. Your part primarily consisted of being the Slender of the Opera. Always there. Always lurking in the background.
Turns out the plot of the opera was about a mare who had found an ancient King’s crown, and she sought to return it to its rightful place within the King’s tomb. The amazing thing, her make up artist actually made her look older with each attempt at the King. The first time she tried, the King’s appearance frightened her. So she ran. The second time she tried, she attempted to fight the King. I.E. You. The fight mainly was for show and you really only just lazily swung your mace around, while Rara dodged and weaved and didn’t get a chance to do any damage. That was the point though. She wasn’t supposed to deal damage. Again, symbolism. Now it comes to the final scene.
You are sitting in a well-crafted throne. So well crafted in fact, that it really looks like it’s made from obsidian. You are on the far left side of the stage and the stage is set up to look like a great throne room. Only one set deep beneath the earth, like a Dwarf’s. Rara, enter stage left. She’s once again in her dress, but this time there’s no veil. She does a fantastic job of actually looking afraid. She begins to sing a song you recognize, however the lyrics are a little different.
“A King was he on graven throne
In halls of cold and darkened stone
With blackened roof and glassy floor
His power gone, till he wake once more
No light of sun, nor star, nor moon
Shines here in Skull King’s Crystal Tomb
Held fast in sleep, till time is right
Rests he on throne of Endless Night”
You wanted so much to let your jaw drop at the rewritten lyrics. Yet all you could do was stare transfixed at the mare who slowly walked towards you across the stage. You wish that your heart would race. You wish that you would physically feel something, anything. Yet, like the King in the song, all you can do is sit and wait.
Motionless.
Dead.
Rara climbs the steps. Her voice the only thing you hear. Her face the only thing you see.
“A Shadow lies across his Tomb
In Aria, in Crystal Tomb
Yet still no fallen stars appear
In cold and bitter Frozen North”
Rara is at the base of the throne.
“Here is his crown not lost in depths”
She climbs up your legs and onto your lap, holding out your crown in supplication.
“Please king wake again from sleep”
The music dies as you roughly pull your arm, as if still with lack of movement. The room is dead silent. The only thing you hear is Rara’s and Victory’s breathing. Slowly you move your hand to hover over the crown. You’re supposed to take the crown. Yet, that doesn’t feel right. You brush aside the crown. Rara simply lets it fall with a few gasps coming from the crowd. Your eyes lock onto hers as you slowly move your hand forward. Her eyes seem to.... shimmer... sparkle briefly... Then you gently caress her cheek. Her eyes close, she leans into your hand, and you see a single tear fall onto your leg.
The lights of the stage die and the curtain falls. Beyond the curtain you hear the crowd’s faint roaring, dampened by the same spells that kept sound on this side, stay on this side. You don’t care though. Rara returned her gaze to your eye sockets. There’s something within them that you cannot identify.
Then she closes her eyes, leans in, and kisses you.
You don’t expect to feel anything.
You were wrong.
A rush of.... something blazes through you. Giving you a feeling not to dissimilar to being hit with a defibrillator. Your entire body locks up as the feeling intensifies to the point where your hands have to grip the armrests of the throne. No light accompanies this. Nor does any sound. You are simply filled with.... with..... something!
Then it dies as Rara’s eyes snap open and she realises what she’s doing. She immediately breaks her rather one-sided kiss and flops onto your lap. Yet the feeling still remains as an almost barely perceptible pulse.
She would have fallen, but you reach out to catch her. Her dress is soft and silky to the touch and your can feel her body heating up from embarrassment as her face simultaneously blushes beat red.
“I-I’m so sorry! I-I didn’t mean to! I-I just got caught in the moment a-and-”
“It’s alright.” You say softly. “It was just surprising. Not necessarily a bad thing..... I think....” You raise your hand and examine it. It’s still as bony as it’s aways been. “That.... kiss.. did something.”
Rara blinks owlishly. “It did?”
“Yes.” You nod. “but I can’t place what. I don’t know what changed.”
You feel a scrabbling of hooves against your ribs and Victory crawls her way out of your breastplate. “Heh heh heh.” You chuckle at the feeling of the small filly’s fluffy coat.
She slides down your chest and hits your lap with an “Oof!” She shakes herself and simply sits there happily.
“Did you enjoy the box seats Victory?” You ask with a chuckle.
“Yeah.” She grins, her ears twitching between you and Rara. “Did you two kiss?”
“O-Oh... I-I.... W-well.....” Rara sputters cutely.
“She kissed me Victory it was a spur of the moment thing.” You explain as the filly’s ears twitch.
“A-and I apologised!” Rara quickly added.
“Well I for one thought that it was beautiful.” Both Rara and you look over the see a madly grinning Jester standing a few feet from the throne.
“J-Jester!” H-Hi! H-How long were you?....” Rara begins to half-panic.
“I saw the whole thing sweetie.” Jester grins at her then turns his gaze on you. “She must have done something to you. You were locked up like you were in one of the Displaced’s electric chairs.”
You merely shrug. “Something happened, but I can’t tell what at the moment.”
“I gotcha. Don’t worry, I can tell you’re overwhelmed.” He said but you had no idea how he could possibly know. “ This was fantastic, and I know they’re going to want a standing ovation, but I think for everyone involved it would be better just to take some time and relax. It’s been a day.” Jester starts to head back towards the backstage proper.
Rara, Victory and you simply nod mutely as he goes.
“Oh, before I leave you three to... whatever you’re going to do.” Jester stops next to the throne and looks at you. “Leo, if you interested, would you like a job?”
Author's Note
My first story for Everyone. Yay. This was fun to write. 
and Honestly a little sad at parts.
I hope you enjoy it.
