[The Crooked Playhouse] Not the Usual Song and Dance (Ifran)

[Ulric]

85th of Summer, 511 AV Ulric did not enjoy many things. He did not enjoy the cold, watered-down wine, and large-bosomed women, among other things, but he would have suffered them all at once if that meant he could flee this tedium. Naeva was having the time of her life, of course. He glanced over at her, just in time to get struck in the face by her dark, flowing tresses. Why didn’t I just get a whore?” He grumbled, though not loudly enough for the slender woman to hear his words. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go through with this charade. Naeva was a fisherman’s daughter. Her legs would stay together unless he swept her off her feet, and from where he was standing, the trouble seemed greater than a night of uncertain pleasure. There was a great roar from the crowd as a performer caught a flaming sword that swiftly vanished down his gullet, then did a flip to a frantic chorus of cheers. “Did you see that?” Naeva crowed with delight. Ulric stared at her blankly. “So the fool pretended to eat a sword,” he grunted. “I don’t see what’s so spectacular about that.” Naeva stamped her foot. Ulric couldn’t hear the sound, but he sensed the angry the brush of her leg. The pits were nearly bursting with a throng of spectators. There was such a raucous din that he scarcely heard her retort. Naeva’s face curled into a scowl that made her seem young and petulant. “What’s wrong with you?” Ulric paused to consider, but his Gasvik was swifter with a response. “Wun aonaeb bda onadbh iab and aoeub to abayd, ooadn bbadu or adkin dkn, auve iaudb oav yqwv oabbb uamco.” “Now that’s going too far,” Ulric growled, craning his head to regard his horned, bluish familiar. Desank had decided on having chubby cheeks that day, which made him resemble the cross between a blueberry and a sinister cherub. Ulric glanced back at Naeva, seeking to swallow the placating words stuck in his throat. “Here’s your problem,” He spoke calmly, the shadow of a grin on his face. “You’re as ordinary as dirt.” With that, he began to shove his way through the crowd, disregarding the curses she flung at his back and the snarls of the men and women he shifted aside with his elbows. They parted before him, of course. Having the look of a brute was good for something. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a mistake. Naeva wasn’t a bad sort, but she didn’t stir anything in the depths of his heart. Ulric kept going until he was at the edge of the stage. He roughly thrust a man aside, then rested his arms on the dirty stage, waiting for the next performer. Above, a withered green sun defied the dusk, casting a pale glow on a tangle of joists and curving columns. “Maybe Krysus is up for some fun,” he joked.

[Ifran]

Ifran wondered idly what Master Fabel would say if he asked whether this was the same art as that which he touted earlier that season to him when testing the Eypharian seemed to be his only goal. From the wings, he waited to go on. Kenan of the Flaming Sword (it was rumored that the other sword in his pants burned for the love of too many whores) was all flash and bang, but he did arouse the crowd to a sort of lusty passion before he walked off, singed and grinning like a fool. When the music changed, he tried not to roll his eyes. This was what the musicians considered "Eypharian", and as yet he had not been able to dissuade them from their anachronistic and caricaturesque depiction of his people's high arts. All the same, he entered with a strange, harmonic wail, having mastered the ability to harmonize with himself. They would think it some gift from Ionu rather than true discipline, but he didn't care. He was stripped down to the waist, his aged ivory skin bepainted with gold and otherwise adorned in a rather overdone manner. His black hair was twisted and plaited into a design of cornrows, more gold paint tracing the lines of his bare scalp. There were gasps from the audience at his appearance. Some of the ladies in appreciation for his sculpted physique, and not a few from the men, some envious, others interested. Alvadas was a strange city, nothing what it seemed. It was the same in Ahnatep, but without the glamours of Ionu to bolster them. A bronze khopesh fell end over end from the fly above him, but one of his topmost hands reached up to pluck it out of the sky even as he turned and extended another arm from behind holding another. Then he began to dance with them, even as he sang, improvising the lyrics to an old Eypharian standard to their faux Eypharian music. A well-trained eye might notice that he focused most of the fancy work on one blade at a time. He was learning to wield them both at the same time, but was much better with just one. However, his showmanship allowed him to hide that fact from the majority of audiences.

[Ulric]

Ulric rested his elbows on the stage. He glanced to his left and his right, trying to find the quickest way out. He didn’t want to be stuck in the center of a confused throng if the next performer wasn’t as careful with his tricks. Why does it always have to be fire? The music began to change, with an emphasis on drums and a strange stringed instrument. The medley only made the ache in his head worse. With a growl, he drew for his knife and began to carve a rude depiction of two horses mating in the soft wood of the stage, giving the man next to him a pointed look when he sought to object. He’d paid for this nonsense just like the rest of them, and he wasn’t going to leave so easily. Having just begun on the mane, a chorus of cheers distracted him. He glanced up, seeing a bronzed, painted, grotesque imitation of a man dance across the stage, bearing a pair of curved, top-heavy blades. Not only did he juggle them, but wove them into a blur with the help of his four other arms. “Must be some sort of trick, Ulric grunted, taking a closer look. No, they were definitely attached to his sculpted torso. The thing moved with grace, though he would’ve argued with its technique. He glanced around the crowd again, saw many struck dumb by the spectacle and others with wide grins, their hands coming together wildly in a riotous din of applause. Why did they give their favor so easily to this performer? Ulric seethed with pangs of jealousy. “Go back to the desert, freak,” he snarled, pointing at the man on the stage.

[Ifran]

If the performer had heard him, he did not react. At least, not at first. But with a mellifluous, sustained yell, he whirled around, sinking as he spun onto a knee, and then both, his torso leaning out as he somehow managed to balance the centripetal force of his body, its limbs, and his bronze blades. One of them swung a straight line mere inches from the heckler's face. Were Ifran's reach a little looser, that face might have lost its eyes. But he was merely rising out of his deft spin, one foot planting on the ground, then both as he stood. With another series of flashy moves that may or may not have worked in actual combat, he ended in a pose all the more ferocious for the keening of his voice, its inhuman timbre. But that too ceased to applause and cheering. Blue eyes flickered to his detractor, judged, and dismissed. Someone wasn't worth his time.

[Ulric]

Now that was rude. No sooner than he’d spoken, the edge of a sword swept past his nose. Having been in one too many fights, Ulric wasn’t about to let that stand. He groped for the knife at his hip, but the Gasvik took hold of his elbow before he could draw the thing. “Let go,” he growled, but Desank had already made up his mind. Ulric fought for a few moments, only for his shoulders to slump. He was uneasy with this forced calm, but he could see how trying to stab a performer on stage, yank out his guts, and suspend the corpse from the rafters could be frowned upon. Having drunk rather too much that morning, he understood that he wasn’t thinking clearly. Then the freak stared at him. The applause was deafening, but it was nothing to the roar in his head. He didn’t reach for the knife this time. Desank, having known the reaction that gaze would evoke in him, was already moving, but Ulric wasn’t about to repeat his error. He left the knife where it was. Instead, he spun to grasp the woman standing to his rear by crotch and neck, then heaved her, screaming and squirming, over the ledge made by the stage, hoping to wipe the smirk off the performer’s face.

[Ifran]

Ifran had heard of tomatoes and other vegetables, rotten and otherwise, being thrown at bad performers. The starveling ones might make a nice salad from such applause to augment their other earnings. But to have a whole woman thrown at him; well, that was a first. He had too many hands and strong arms to be unduly fazed by the screaming missile, and she was partly caught, partly deflected as he helped her to her feet, standing upon his own. There was no need for a counterattack, his blood too much like ice water for such a thing to get a rise out of him, but he did laugh and begin his exit, stage right. The bouncers would see to the drunkard or not at their discretion, but Ifran would quit this place and consider what he was learning from the city of illusions and its people.

[Fallacy]

XP Award! Name:Ifran XP Award: Acting- 1 Khopesh- 1 Lore: Showmanship 101 Attaining Applause A Woman Cast Into the Performance: A First Notes: Name:Ulric XP Award: Interrogation- 1 Throwing: Woman- 1 Lore: A Woman Ordinary as Dirt The Crooked Playhouse Throwing a Woman on Stage Notes: Any questions or concerns about the rewards gained please send a PM