Gods of the Theater, Smile On Us [Carina]

[Imogen]

Frost 9, 121

“In the heart of the Pfenning Theater”, Imogen Ward intoned, her voice an amateurish mimic of the professional actor who had narrated a production of The Philanderer earlier in the month, “There are rooms without doors, halls without walls, and abyssal pits without end. An invisible kingdom, never kissed by the face of day, testament to the madness of the elder wizards.”

(This was mostly true, though probably not the endless pits thing.)

“But it is somehow always coldest here, in the damn ballet practice hall.”

The practice hall in question was actually located in the Zaichaer Academy of Ballet, and not the Theater proper, a distinction of great legal, symbolic and personal distinction to the family who ran both institutions, but one in which the janitor put little stock. It was on the second floor of the complex, consisting of a single rectangular hall, a wide mirror and inlaid wooden barre, and a handful of high windows, for natural light. Given the needs of ballet classes, there was very little else inside, and Imogen found the room gratifyingly easy to clean (with the notable exception of the time two of the student ballerinas had gotten into a fight and somehow stained every single surface with blood and three broken teeth).

The Orkhan girl stepped into the room, closing the door behind her and leaving the rickety maintenance trolley outside. It is not always safe to assume, in a building full of Railrunners, that anyone would respect a closed or locked door, but virtually nobody ever wants to risk entering a room being janitated. (Janitended?) ((Janitorialized?)) To punctuate her words, Imogen rubbed the pale off-green skin of her biceps in a mock-shiver.

“Is this down to security too, do you suppose? Would it incur the terrible notice of the Order if the staff rooms were too warm? Was it just because everything had to be stone?”

Imogen glanced about the room and realized- this being a dance studio- that there was no convenient chair to flop dramatically upon. She therefore settled for a cool lean against the wall across from the mirrors in which the student dancers could observe their own movements, a feat which was thankfully enhanced by her enormous height and ample build.

“Ah, enough out of me. Welcome back, Carina.”

[Carina]

Carina was dressed for ballet practice. Sometimes she tried to convince Imogen to let her practice in one half of the room while she cleaned the other, and sometimes she'd just pretend she was going to clean while she practiced. Usually she did her stretches and jumping and steps and positions while chatting with the janitor slash Sunsinger, too. She had a knit sweater, and some legwarmers, but the sweater came off as soon as she started her stretches anyway. In front of the mirror and on the floor and the barre she stretched while Imogen recited words she could never remember from a performance she only half watched.

"Have you ever thought of dancing, Immy? It keeps you warm." It was the dead of winter, and Carina had a whole coat and more clothes to wear when she went outside, though right now she was staying in a spare room that the students hadn't taken up. "I'm sure the Order wouldn't mind if you waved around that sword of yours, at least."

Even in the relative safety of the Pfenning Theater and the Academy she kept her runed foot bandaged. Dancing was as easy an excuse as any for why it was so, but despite the fact she was nearly always wearing shoes or socks or stockings anyway was not enough to salve her paranoia that the wrong person might see rune of traversion that marked the bottom of her foot. But if she stood far enough from the windows, the only one that could really see inside was if they were looking in through binoculars.

Carina stretched one leg along the barre and then another, before she set them both down and with a small bit of focus, blinked across the room to put an arm around her friend's shoulders. "You can wear long sleeves, you know. Or a jacket. But how've you been in my absence? Not too many people have thrown up in the halls, I hope?"

[Imogen]

“If your wishes were coins, Carina, I'd never have to work another day. As it is, some idiot decided to offer stronger drinks at the concessions bar and Zaichaerans can't hold liquor worth a damn. I'm going to have to order another mop by the end of the week.” Imogen sighed dramatically and threw one of her arms around her (comparatively) diminutive friend, easily enfolding her entire body in the crook of one elbow.

“Yes, of course I've thought about taking lessons- who wouldn't think about it when she has to watch all your little girls prancing around the stage, day-in, day-out. Good trick, to walk so lightly, no? Gets attention! But your people told me to lay low, as little to stand out as possible. And can you imagine what your directors would say if they saw me dancing with all the wealthy daughters, let alone waving my soul about in the open? They'd have me stuffed into a coffin by the time you could blink twice!”

The Orkhan girl thumped her chest, just above the right breast, where Carina knew the Rune of Reaving was inscribed. Imogen had described that initiation to Carina once, claiming it was too risky to place the Cardinal Rune on an extremity, or initiates were wont to try to cut off their own hands to make the pain stop. That sounded like the sort of thing the Sunsingers would claim; on the other hand, Imogen delighted in lying about the extraneous details of her own past for some esoteric amusement.

“Anyway, I've told you before, I can't wear sleeves, my scales need to breathe or they'll get brittle.” Imogen flexed the (admittedly large) bicep of her other arm, the one not currently embracing Carina, allowing the contours to outline the hundreds of fine emerald scales running down the arm. Or maybe the scales were literally manifesting? Orkhan never seemed to have quite the same number of scales from moment to moment. “If somebody hits me and these break, it's because of the atrocious climate you have here. No sane gods intended people to live in any land where the air literally stings your face.”

The janitor and smuggler snapped suddenly, as though just remembering something. “How's the climate in Kalzasi, anyway? Got anything juicy to share? You know the directors around here don't tell me anything.”

[Carina]

"Funny how weak-stomached some Zaichaeri are, considering we drink beer from infancy and have nothing better to do aside from work and substance abuse." Carina laughed. "Are the shows so bad that they can't watch them sober?" She at least performed sober, for the most part, unless she was tired or anxious. Either way, it did not seem to negatively impact her performance if she snorted a bit of coke before getting on stage, and she was simply corps de ballet anyway. A bit of pep in her step didn't hurt.

"There's a half-Orkhan student right now, you know. Zaichaeri can be a bit less xenophobic when the strange race is dancing around for their amusement. Her father's in the Air Corps or some-such, thinks the rigidty of dance school is more fitting for a daughter than military prep. No idea about her mother, but at least she's not been shunned to the world of unwelcome bastards."

Carina walked over to one of the bright windows and propped it open, using a subtle bit of aether to hitch her bag — and the cigarettes inside — into her hand. She pulled out the pack and the matchbook and lit the second-to-last cigarette in the box. She leaned over the windowsill so the room wouldn't smell like she just smoked in there.

"Kalzasi is cold as fuck right now. They're further north, you know? And right by that lake. It's all snow and ice in the winter, but somehow a bit warmer in spirit. Want one?" She took a drag of the cigarette and then offered the last one to Imogen. If Imogen accepted, she'd light it, but if not, she'd tuck it back into the box.

"You know, maybe you can come with me to Kalzasi one of these days. I'm gone for near half the season, probably safer to go in pairs, anyway. I've got to meet up with the— some important man at the theater there again, bring a letter back for him so we can start exchanging performers between the theaters. I leave in a few days." After another drag, she sighed as if the exhaustion of constant travel and work was settling into her bones, and slid to the floor near the window. "Plus, you wouldn't believe what passes as normal in the city streets there." She side-eyed the Orkhan. "You'd have to wear a coat, though. Or at least a cloak."

[Imogen]

“Ah, you mean little Everleigh.” Perhaps not the best choice of word, as the half-ork girl still towered over her classmates. “We're actually related somehow, second cousins or the like. My mother mentioned her father a few times, though of course I wasn't old enough to understand the full details before the bounty hunter caught her.”

That was the latest fiction Imogen had spun about her own mother's demise; that she'd been caught by a hitman from Ecith, killed by shadowy forces to settle an even hazier grudge that had followed her from her ancestral home. This was entirely in spite of the fact that Carina had actually met Imogen's mother once, when Imogen had asked her for help in getting one particularly stupid alchemist out of the city. Such details never deterred Imogen Ward.

The Orkhan girl took the offered cigarette and a shallow draw, hardly allowing the smoke into her throat before blowing a ring.

“I'd love to get out of the Theater for a few days, but I'm afraid I've got marching orders from above for the next drop.” The Powers That Be in the Theater ran an immaculately clean operation, contacting Imogen for her real job only via extremely boring coded messages at the front office, directing her to the time and place where one of the Railrunners would project her actual marching orders through the use of a Window. “That's what I came in here for, actually. I'm sure you noticed and ignored the 'CLOSED' sign on the door when you broke in anyway, yes? One of your people should be showing up in the mirror at any moment. Ugh, speaking of...”

Imogen flicked ash from the cigarette and carefully wedged it in her lip, then reached up to her shirt with her left hand and pulled it down a few inches, exposing the center of her chest. With her right hand, Imogen grasped the air above her ribcage, and the mirror lit with a sudden, rich light. The Sunsinger's hand closed around a suddenly-extant handle of polished wood, and she slowly withdrew an eighty-inch long, glowing length of steel from the confines of her own heart, the metal unfolding like an optical illusion from the flames surrounding it, until it had materialized into a zweihander, adorned with a simple double-diamond pommel and one of Imogen's weird bee insignias.

Imogen flipped the huge, flaming sword up into the air and caught it under the rain-guard, holding it easily in one hand as though it were neither on fire nor very sharp. She presented it to the mirror for inspection, waiting for the Window to open so that the Railrunner witch on the other side could identify her. It was all very dramatic.

Several seconds passed.

...

Then a minute.

“...I might have shown up a bit early.” Imogen admitted to Carina, grimacing.

[Carina]

Carina never bothered with blowing rings or any other fancy smoke tricks. As with most of Imogen's stories, she just went with it. "Of course. Tragedy struck. I wonder how he ended up with an Orkhan woman, anyway. He's got a human wife who I'm sure is not so keen on her half-human daughter. My theory is he loved the Ork woman and married his wife for duty, and now he only has the daughter left to remind him of her so he dotes on her. From a distance, of course. It happens occasionally when you get into the real gritty rumors of the wealthy. Most of the dancers aren't very good at keeping their mouths shut, that's for sure."

Carina stayed languid on the floor, her attention turned to the reflection of the very tall Imogen and the very big, flaming sword she had just pulled from her chest in a manner dramatic enough for theater. The weapon was taller than she was, and by far. A cold breeze came through the open window as if it were trying to fight the fire she held in her hands.

"I know, Immy. I'm here for the same reason, anyway. They told me I might be bringing you with me this season. And to meet you here." Carina was already nearly done with her cigarette, and she blew a last bit of smoke out of the cold window before she stamped it on the sill and tossed it out. Ignoring the fact that Imogen, too, had a cigarette, she closed the window.

[Imogen]

“Well, if that's true, who could blame him? I'm sure it's hard to go back after you've had an Orkhan woman.”

What Carina had said about the dancers was absolutely true- Imogen had never met a group of people so eager to fill the ears of anyone who would listen with endless, fluff-filled tales of the petty embarrassments of the upper crust. She wasn't sure if this was simply a coincidence or if the people with the money and inclination to pay for ballet classes simply felt that they had nothing to fear from gossip.

Imogen's attention was torn away from these pertinent questions about the nature and origin of dance gossip by a sudden shift in the mirror, as a foot-long square of the material stopped reflecting light and began to emit it. Nobody appeared in the Window; after all, the directions to be here at this time had come from the Railrunners, they hardly needed to reconfirm their own identities. Imogen shifted a bit to the right to make sure that her sword's hilt was visible to the mage working the Traversion magic.

"Are you alone?" The voice was staid, a bit gravely, and Imogen couldn't identify it. Possibly Carina could, but that didn't matter to Imogen at the moment. It was kind of a stupid question, to Imogen's mind- she was hardly going to be standing here with her Reaving magic exposed to the world if there was a classroom full of people. But perhaps what the voice meant was...

“No” Imogen replied, “Ca- She is also here.”

Nobody had ever given her strict instructions to avoid using names during these meetings, but Imogen was always quietly worried that this was a secret rule, so well-known that nobody thought it worth mentioning, and she'd look like a fool if she broke it.

"Good. You will accompany her to Kalzasi, by train, and retrieve a parcel from our contact in the city. Do not open the parcel. Do not leave it unattended, and do not allow it to be stowed on the return trip. Do you understand?"

“Sounds easy enough.” Imogen frowned. This was a lot less information than she usually got.

[Carina]

Carina leaned over and waved from where she sat on the floor, suddenly lacking the desire to stand now that she had sat. She wasn't usually this lazy, but she had gotten comfortable. It was rare she had an excuse to stop working, or to stop practicing for work, and now she had one. Just for a moment. And then she stood up and stood next to Imogen and the flaming sword, on the side away from the flaming sword.

"Do we get a name?" Carina knew Imogen was one of the only Sunsingers employed at the Pfenning theater itself, whether it was from the convenience of having a normal job as cover or what, Carina did not know. That meant, for very specific jobs in very specific operations, Imogen was the go-to for Carina to be paired up with when the Sunsingers needed something smuggled in but didn't want to leave it entirely up to exclusively a Railrunner. Which meant this was something special for the Sunsingers. "I'm also supposed to be there for over a month. So we pick it up at the end of the trip?"

"You'll find him in the theater." The Railrunner that spoke, or perhaps it was a Sunsinger speaking through a Railrunner's window, was not a voice that Carina recognized. Though she figured it was in the theater — that was what her whole thing revolved around, and if it was somewhere else, they'd be better off talking to a different smuggler. She still didn't know everyone at the Golden Peacock, and it could also be at one of the other, smaller theaters in Kalzasi. Cryptic messages were a headache, and she didn't even know why they had to be so cryptic, but maybe it was just that important. The voice spoke again. "Time isn't important as long as it's returned by the end of the season."

And then the mirror shimmered and the connection was cut short. Carina flicked her ponytail behind her shoulder. "I hate how they do these things sometimes."

[Imogen]

“'Do these things sometimes'? Carina, I've never once heard such vague directions. What the fuck are they playing at?”

Imogen Ward thought about trying to puzzle it out then and there, but she had already drawn her sword for several minutes. The Sunsinger took a few steps backwards, resting lightly against the wall, and then dismissed the blade, which converted instantaneously into a plasmic cloud of invisible aether and rushed back into her chest, silently re-entering her soul through the Cardinal Rune of Reaving inscribed thereon. It was a relatively easy transition, as the blade had seen no combat in its short span of existence, but Imogen could still feel her knees buckling slightly, her teeth involuntarily grit against the sudden force and weight and pain.

It would have been a simple matter to arrange some other proof of identity, but one thing a Sunsinger must not do was allow the pain of their art to control their use of it. Plus, frankly, it appealed to Imogen's sense of drama- she was certain that she had cut a striking figure to whoever had opened the Window. Not that it had moved them into, say, giving her adequate information. She huffed angrily and pushed herself away from the wall, brushing off her clothes with both hands.

“Is- is that seriously all? What, just walk into every theater in Kalzasi and ask, 'Hullo, I'm from the Pfenning in Zaichaer, could you ask around and see if any of the staff have secret packages to give me? Thanks!'” The Orkhan girl threw her hands up over her head in frustration. “'I've got half a mind to storm into the administration office and... find whoever that was, and make them talk.”

Now that was a nonsense threat. The Railrunners were meticulous in keeping themselves separate from the Theater administration, and while Imogen might complain, she was nothing like impulsive enough to draw the ire of any of the Theater's real masters. Furthermore, if this was in fact the doing of the Sunsingers, they would not hesitate to remove a non-compliant agent from the city, and Imogen had no desire to be reassigned to guard Sanctuaries in some backwater village.

[Carina]

"I don't think the intention is to find the contact. I think the intention is for the contact to find us. Maybe we're not supposed to know who they are, or what they do. Though it's odd that they'd be more secretive, because it's not like we're doing anything illegal by Kalzasern standards..."

Carina paced around and swung her arms as she did. She always felt empathetic pain the few times she had seen Imogen put her sword back, and so she didn't watch this time. "My guess is Golden Peacock. That's the theater I've been to the most, so I imagine that's the one where we're supposed to retrieve the package, whatever it is.

"But we'll be in Kalzasi for near half the season, so whatever it is, wherever it is, and whoever has it — we'll find it. I think it's best if you try not to worry about it before we're even in the city. You're better off worrying about getting ready since we only have a few days. You're going to have to buy a coat. I don't think scaled skin is immune to frostbite, you know."

Carina turned back to Imogen when she figured the sword was safely lodged back in her soul, or wherever it went, and the ork stopped sounding pained. Her friend was taller than most in Zaichaer. "Maybe even get something nice, with a fur collar." She looked at the scales on her arms and squinted. She knew Orkhan were native to Ecith, which was warmer. Unfortunate for Imogen to live and travel somewhere that was cold and dry and needed her to cover up. "Or not. I'm not your mom. We leave in a few days, on the 12th."