Weak Piping Time of Peace
“So,” Cinder said, her arms folded across her chest. “You told him everything?”
“No, I didn’t tell him everything; I told him what I did,” Sunset corrected as she strode towards the garage.”
“I fail to see the difference,” Cinder muttered as she walked after her.
Sunset turned to face her, walking backwards a step. “I didn’t tell him that you helped me get into Lyra’s scroll-”
“As I recall, I did everything to get you into Lyra’s scroll.”
“And I didn’t tell him that you… were there when I decided to out Cardin and Bon Bon,” Sunset added, ignoring Cinder’s last comment, for all that it was perfectly true. “I only told him that I did… that it was me. I took responsibility; I didn’t drop you in it. That’s the difference.”
“How very generous of you,” Cinder said dryly. “Why?”
“Why did I confess, or why did I not name you?”
Cinder paused for a moment. “Both.”
Sunset shrugged. “I didn’t name you because why would I?”
“Because I was there?” Cinder suggested. “Because I helped?”
“You helped because I asked you to,” Sunset said. “Because you’re a good friend.” She paused. “Although a better friend might have told me no and explained that it was a terrible idea.”
“That would require me to believe that it was a terrible idea,” Cinder drawled.
“It was,” Sunset insisted. “It was… I confessed because I had done wrong.”
“That didn’t stop you doing the wrong,” Cinder pointed out. “Was not justice served on Cardin and Bon Bon?”
“'Justice'?” Sunset repeated. “Where is the justice in breaking a girl’s heart?”
“Where is the virtue in keeping her blind to the inadequacies of her man for the sake of a little temporary happiness?” Cinder asked. “She may be broken-hearted now, but in time, those scars will heal, and she will not be saddled with a boyfriend who holds views she holds abhorrent.”
Sunset disliked how much sense that made. She shook her head. “If you had seen how wretched he looked afterwards-”
“Was not the point to make him wretched?” Cinder asked.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean that I… if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have… I regret it; is that not enough?”
“Not if your regrets are foolish,” Cinder said. “Are you so in love with the idea of love that you hold it better to be blind in love than to be wise to him who is not worthy of your love?”
“Maybe I am!” Sunset snapped. “I was happier in love with Flash than I ever was wise to his inadequacy, to his prejudice, to his hatred of the faunuskind. If I could return to that state of bliss that we enjoyed I… I would give up Soteria to Phoebe Kommenos in a heartbeat for such a thing. Ten times over. I would give up pride and honour both and all the favours done to me by Lady Nikos. If this is what it means to see clearly then pluck out the eyes of my heart and make me blind again.”
Cinder stared at her, her own smouldering eyes practically boggling in disbelief. “You truly mean this,” she whispered. “You would rather dwell in ignorance and call it love than know the truth? You would rather go back to pretending for the sake of… him? Flash Sentry?”
“I thought he loved me once,” Sunset whispered.
“You were the more deceived, as you have told the tale,” Cinder declared. “And yet you would rather continue to be deceived.”
“What has the truth bestowed on me but heartache?” Sunset asked.
Cinder’s gaze was without sympathy. “Better to see the world for what it really is than live in dreams,” she said. “For all dreams end, and waking must come sooner or later, however painful the waking up may be.”
Sunset was silent for a moment. “You… speak from experience?”
Cinder took a moment to reply, her voice quiet. “In a manner of speaking.”
“I see,” Sunset whispered. “And I am sorry for it, but… your experience is not mine, and it does not change the fact that I regret what I did, to Cardin and to Skystar both.”
“And Bon Bon?”
“Bon Bon is not near my conscience,” Sunset confessed. “Except that in damaging her, I damaged Cardin too. Lyra… stands between them.”
“I see,” Cinder said. “I still don’t think that you have anything to be ashamed of?”
“I hurt a girl who had done me no harm in order to wound her friend; is that not something to be ashamed of?” Sunset demanded.
Cinder shrugged. “What else could you have done?”
“Nothing,” Sunset said. “I should have done nothing.”
“And let Blake suffer?”
“Blake didn’t ask for my help, nor need it,” Sunset said.
“Should a friend need to ask for help in order to get it?”
“Of course not, but they should require it,” Sunset declared. “It was my pride, and the hurt done to my pride, that made me do those things.”
“Your pride would not be hurt if you didn’t care for Blake,” Cinder pointed out.
“That does not make my intentions noble.”
“Nor does it make them base,” Cinder pointed out. “Many good things can be done with a less than noble intent.”
“I know it well enough.”
“Then why did you confess your so-called offences to Professor Ozpin?”
“Because I had done bad things and needed to be punished; how hard is that to understand?” Sunset snapped.
“I want to understand why you suddenly became convinced that you had done bad things, you didn’t think so before?” Cinder said. She smirked. “Was it Jaune? Or Pyrrha? It cannot be Ruby, she is too righteous by far, she would have shouted out your ‘crimes’ if she learned of them. Blake and Rainbow Dash, the stalwarts of Atlas, simply told you that you were a naughty girl, don’t do it again, but you didn’t listen to them anyway-”
“Cinder,” Sunset warned reproachfully.
“I wonder how Atlas intends to stop the White Fang if that’s the attitude that they take to what they regard as criminality. Actually, in the case of the White Fang, it seems the attitude they take to criminality is to fawn upon the criminal and offer them a place within their serried ranks-”
“Cinder,” Sunset growled.
Cinder chuckled. “But that is of no matter here except insofar as it leaves Jaune or Pyrrha as our suspects. Or was it both of them?” Sunset must have given the answer away upon her face somehow, for Cinder went on, “It was both of them, wasn’t it? Did they take you one at a time or both together-?”
“What does it matter?!” Sunset yelled, her ears flattening down atop her head as the words loudly left her mouth. “What does it matter if Jaune or Pyrrha or both of them spoke to me? They opened my eyes.”
“Or blinded you,” Cinder suggested. “Covered your vision with the blindfold of their spurious morality? Or did they not even have to go so far?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did they threaten you? Intimidate you into turning yourself in?”
“Even Pyrrha couldn’t intimidate me,” Sunset declared disdainfully.
“Not with brute force, no,” Cinder allowed. “But did they-?”
“Drop it,” Sunset snapped.
Cinder’s eyes narrowed. “Am I getting warm?”
“You’re getting on my last nerve is what you’re getting,” Sunset growled. “I didn’t need Jaune or Pyrrha to tell me what to do any more than I needed you to tell me to do the things that I confessed to!”
Cinder was silent for a moment. “What did they say to you?”
“Were you not listening to me?” Sunset demanded. “Jaune says that you’re a bad influence on me, you know that?”
Cinder’s face was expressionless. “No,” she said softly. “I didn’t know that.”
“I’m starting to see what he’s talking about,” Sunset muttered. “What is this, Cinder? I’ve already told you that you’re safe. You have nothing to worry about; I’m not going to name you in any way. So why are you so interested in convincing me that I did the right thing before?”
“I merely…” Cinder trailed off. “Forgive me,” she said, bowing her head slightly as a few strands of hair fell down around her face. “I… I just wanted to understand your sudden change of mind, that’s all.”
“It’s not that sudden.”
“It’s sudden to me.”
“That’s only because we haven’t spoken in a few days.”
“Indeed,” Cinder acknowledged. “And that is neither your fault nor mine, but… I should have remembered. Forgive me. I don’t want to fight you.”
“Nor I with you,” Sunset said at once. She waved one hand as her ears began to rise. “It’s fine; it doesn’t matter; I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then I will not press you on the matter further,” Cinder said. “Save only to say ‘thank you’ for shouldering all the blame upon your own shoulders and leaving none on mine.”
Sunset inhaled through her nostrils. “Yes, well… spurious morality?”
Cinder chuckled. “Did it truly not trouble you at all to be lectured by the likes of Pyrrha Nikos?”
“No,” Sunset said flatly. “No, it did not.”
“Not at all?” Cinder said. “It bothers you not in the least bit that she, who has lived a life of the most disgusting privilege, who had everything that she ever wanted-”
“She had none of the things that she truly wanted-”
“I doubt that very much,” Cinder said, interrupting Sunset just as Sunset had interrupted Cinder. “She is the only child and heir of the Nikos family, the Princess Without a Crown; although they are not the richest family in all of Remnant, there were more than enough money to provide for all her needs and most of her desires, born gifted with no need to train-”
“Pyrrha has worked damn hard to get where she is today; there’s no way that anyone could be that good on pure-”
“She will never understand the likes of us, who have had to work and sweat and struggle-”
“Pyrrha understands me very well; we’ve both striven hard to become the best at what we-”
“And then she has the gall to-”
“Will you stop interrupting me while I am interrupting you?” Sunset yelled. “Seriously, Cinder, what is with you today? First, you want to argue about the things I did, now Pyrrha, what’s going on?”
“What’s the matter?” Cinder asked. “Am I required to like all of your friends?”
Sunset took a step back. “You… you don’t like my teammates?”
“Not particularly,” Cinder admitted. “Ruby is… a person, I suppose. Jaune is rather tedious, but inoffensive for all that – although the fact that he thinks I’m a bad influence makes me want to keep my distance from now; I’m clearly making a terrible impression.” She covered her mouth with one hand while she laughed.
“But Pyrrha… I must confess that, no, I do not like Pyrrha Nikos. Or should I say that I dislike the way that everyone fawns upon her. The Invincible Girl, the Princess Without a Crown, the pride and glory of Mistral reborn. I am as fair as she, and so say I that I’m as skilled in arms and all the arts of war as Pyrrha Nikos is, and yet, because I was not born a Nikos, because no army of dead ancestors go before my name like heralds, I am accounted nothing by comparison. She bestrides the world like a colossus, and we must creep about around her feet and find ourselves dishonourable graves. You know this. You’ve experienced firsthand just what I mean. Does it not trouble you? Does it not prick you with envy?”
“No,” Sunset lied. “Not at all.” She shook her head. “You are wrong about her. You are so wrong that I don’t even know where to begin except… you’ve fought beside her, against the karkadann. Was that not enough to let you look past all of that which others focus on and see the real Pyrrha?”
“What real Pyrrha? She’s a nonentity!” Cinder cried.
Sunset took a step towards her, and then another. “You are precisely wrong,” she said, her voice cold and sharp. “And you will never say that again.”
Cinder stared down at Sunset. “Will I not?”
“Not if you wish to be in my presence again,” Sunset declared, her voice acquiring an edge of a growl to it. “I will not hear her spoken of in such a manner.”
“Because you are a team leader?” Cinder asked. “Or a retainer to the House of Nikos?”
“Because I am her friend,” Sunset hissed. “And if you wish to be my friend, then you will respect that. You don’t have to like my friends – although I wish you would – but you do have to shut up about the fact that you don’t like them where I can hear you.”
“I see,” Cinder whispered. “I suppose I thought we’d reached the point where we could be honest with one another.”
“Honesty is overrated; loyalty is what matters,” Sunset insisted.
“I understand that now,” Cinder said. The corners of her lips tugged slightly upwards. “So… shall I go?”
Sunset hesitated for a moment, and then took a step back. “No. Not if we understand each other.”
“I fear that I don’t understand you quite so well as I thought,” Cinder confessed. “But I understand enough, now.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Sunset muttered as she turned away and fished her scroll out of her jacket pocket, using it to open up the garage door. It ground upwards slowly, rattling all the while as the light crept into the dark space until Sunset’s motorcycle stood revealed.
Sunset grinned, gesturing with both arms to encompass the vehicle. “There you go! Isn’t she beautiful?”
Cinder’s eyebrows rose. “We’re going into Vale… on that?”
“I know; it’s going to be great.”
“Are we going to be alive at the end of it?”
Sunset looked at her. “Don’t start on this as well.”
“I’m sorry, am I not allowed to insult your monstrosity of a motorcycle as well as your friends?”
“Why would you want to insult such a work of art?” Sunset demanded. “Haven’t you got eyes?”
“I plucked the eyes out of my heart so that I would not be heartbroken,” Cinder drawled.
Sunset rolled her eyes. “Just get on the bike.” Sunset levitated her black helmet into her hand and pulled it on, crushing her ears a little but leaving a great mass of her hair to fall down her back as she climbed onto the machine. She felt Cinder get on behind her, the leader of Team CLEM’s arms wrapped around her waist, holding her tight.
“Ready?” Sunset asked.
“I don’t know; perhaps I ought to write my will first.”
Sunset huffed as she hit the ignition button. Nobody had any appreciation for her engineering skills.
Nevertheless, and in spite of all of Cinder’s sneers and fears alike, Sunset’s monument to the beauties of profoundly asymmetrical design carried them both away from Beacon, down the long, winding, and quiet highway that connected the school and the city by road – most traffic used the air; only a few large scale supply runs came by lorry, and the occasional student like Sunset, Yang, or Flash with their own vehicle used this road – until they entered the walls by the King’s Gate.
Built along the ancient boundary of the city – or at least, the boundary as it had stood at the time of the Great War when the Last King had laid down a new sacred boundary to accommodate the exiles and ex-slaves fleeing into Vale from Mistral and Mantle – the walls, also known as the Red Line, were the best defence that Vale had against a sudden emergence of grimm from out of the wilds. The walls were built high and thick and looked to be made of steel or some such metal, although with how thick they were, Sunset had little doubt that there was stone involved somewhere. Sunset had seen these defences – defences that did not encircle Beacon, which relied solely upon the cliffs and upon the students for its security – but once before, when she and Blake had come this way to enter Vale by road instead of air. They were no less impressive upon the second time around, towering above Sunset and Cinder on the motorcycle as they drove through a gate wide enough to admit six large trucks side by side.
The gatehouse, for want of a better word – although it put Sunset in mind of something much more antiquated than the chunky, modern building that loomed over them – was even broader than the rest of the walls, with what looked like bomb racks set above it to descend upon any grimm assaulting the gate itself. It was flanked by towers jutting out of the wall, and similar towers were set at intervals all along the wall itself, each one containing three or four heavy weapons pointing outwards in different directions. The towers and gatehouse were the most manned part of the wall; there was little evidence of any Valish troops upon the rest of the battlements, though there was plenty of room for them to press shoulder to shoulder if required.
“So this is where the tax lien is going,” Cinder observed as Sunset slowed down to pass through the gate.
“You’re talking about the Green Line?” Sunset asked.
“I’m talking about the people who are so unfortunate as to live on the other side of this wall,” Cinder affirmed.
Sunset accelerated again once she got onto the other side of the gate. It was true that the Red Line did not mark the modern boundary of Vale; they had already passed through crowded housing districts on the way: long rows of council terraces, high-rises built to hold as many people as could be packed in like sardines, post-war prefabs from when such things had been fashionable. Vale had grown too large to be constrained within its walls, and the poorest of its population had spilled outwards into districts that were tall and cramped in equal measure. It was no coincidence that traffic had increased as well: there might be houses beyond the Red Line, but there was precious little work, and so, a constant tide of humanity flowed inwards towards the factories and shops and offices that kept all the people living without the wall in work.
And beyond those residential districts, there was farmland – far more of it than could be contained within the city’s agridistrict – and cottages and a few great estates and even some settlements that were more like villages than part of a great city. All of them were supposedly protected under the aegis of the Green Line, but – as Yang had confirmed for them all as a result of her mission – the Green Line was unfinished, left permanently half-completed, a victim of perpetual budgetary wrangles in the Council, and what work had recently begun upon it was a little late, as far as Sunset and doubtless many others were concerned.
Rainbow Dash said that Atlesian CBs had begun working on the Green Line alongside the Valish engineers to speed it up. No doubt, somebody somewhere was annoyed about that, but Sunset was equally sure that the people actually living out past the Red Line thought it was a good idea.
Sunset kept on driving, passing through the heart of Vale now, moving sometimes down broad highways and sometimes down narrow sidestreets, weaving between flashy sports cars in garish red and yellow and beat up old family SUVs in subdued greys and blues. Cinder clung to her as Sunset guided them past neon-lit department stores and badly-lit mom and pop shops, past offices where workers burned the midnight oil and bars where they burned the candle at both ends; they drove under pools of streetlight and through alleyways of complete darkness until she came to a stop not far from Winchester Park, where she dismounted off her bike and chained it to a lamppost.
The streets nearby were pretty full of pedestrian traffic, crowds of people heading down the pavements towards the park, so hopefully, the sheer number of eyes would prevent anybody from stealing her motorcycle.
Sunset spotted a van parked across the street selling burgers and chips. “Hungry?” she asked Cinder, gesturing towards the van.
“Not particularly,” Cinder murmured.
“Really? I’m offering to pay.”
Cinder rolled her eyes. “You must stop assuming that my reluctance to consume recklessly is the result of parsimony.”
“I’ll believe that when I actually see you get out your lien and pay for something.”
“How can I, when you’re always offering to pay?” Cinder asked.
That was a better point than Sunset had expected. “I… look, do you want anything?”
“No, I really don’t,” Cinder insisted. “But, lest you think that I’m just a cheapskate, why don’t you get whatever it is you want on me.”
“I can’t do that,” Sunset declared.
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t let you pay for me when you’re not having anything; it’s ridiculous.”
Cinder sighed. “How about I share something with you, will that satisfy?”
It did satisfy, as a point of fact; they got some chips and mayo – Pyrrha would have a fit – in a polystyrene box from which they nibbled, fastidiously in Cinder’s case; she pecked like a bird trying to get a worm out of the ground as they walked down the street.
“Are you looking forward to this?” Cinder asked.
Sunset swallowed the chip that she’d just finished chewing. “Definitely, you?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Cinder agreed. “This is my favourite play.”
“You know it?”
Cinder nodded eagerly. “It’s incredible,” she pronounced, her fiery eyes a-gleam. “A tale of kings and plots and bloody murders!” she grinned and practically skipped a step as she walked in front of Sunset and turned to face her. “I can’t imagine the kind of heart that would not thrill to such a thing. I’m not sure that I want to.”
Sunset grinned. “Have you seen it before?”
“Once.”
“Only once, and you love it so much?”
“I’ve read the text more times than I care to recall,” Cinder said. “I know that, as a good Mistralian, I should revere our own heroic epics best of all, but… something about this play, this tale of ambition, it… it’s so much grander. You’ll see when we get inside, I promise.”
They were almost at the park now, and the wrought-iron archway was covered by a banner proclaiming ‘Shakst’spur in the Park’; green balloons were tied by string to the iron above the banner, tugging on their restraints as they sought to float away. Already, Sunset could see the stage ahead, a wooden scaffold raised above the park, a circular stage with curtain awnings marking off the point beyond which the audience could not go. A paper backdrop, painted to resemble an old-fashioned castle, stood upon the rear edge of the stage itself, with gaps for entrances and exits, and upon the wooden boards sat nothing but a throne, or what passed for such; it looked like little more than a padded chair. But then, that was the point of theatre, wasn’t it? You had to use your imagination to turn that paper backdrop to a castle wall, that padded chair into a throne, the actors in their tawdry costumes into kings and queens.
The crowds moving down the street were squeezing into huddled masses heading towards the gate, even as a group of stewards in hi-vis jackets worked to separate them out again, to check their tickets or sell tickets to those that had none, while on the other side of the gate, Sunset could see more stewards selling programmes and transparent rain ponchos.
It was growing dark now, the sun receding and the moon coming into view, the pilot lights of the Atlesian cruisers blinking amongst the stars that were slowly showing their light above, but the very fact that she could see the stars and cruiser lights told Sunset that it was a clear evening, with little chance of rain and no need for a poncho. She and Cinder – Sunset had already bought their tickets; they were on her scroll – paused a little way before the gate to finish off at least a few more of their chips, and as they stopped, Sunset’s attention was drawn by the sound of a voice she recognised as Skystar Aris.
“No, there isn’t anything else going on between us. I found out, and I dumped him; that’s all there is to it.”
“Do you really expect us to believe that you didn’t know? Is that what you expect Vale to believe?”
“It’s the truth!” Skystar insisted, her voice cracking.
“You were his girlfriend; how could you not know?”
“Is this break-up just staged to distance your mother from the crisis?”
“This has nothing to do with my mother,” Skystar cried. “Please, will you just leave me alone?”
But they didn’t leave her alone. Skystar stood a little way off, pressed against the iron fence of the park, backed against it, at bay like a doe run to the cliff-edge by the hounds of the hunters. And just like hounds, the press pack swarmed around her, barking questions as the cameras snarled their flashes into her face.
Nobody moved to help her. Nobody did anything. The crowds passed by as if she did not exist, deaf to her need, blind to her peril.
They didn’t care. It wasn’t their problem.
Skystar turned this way and that, seeking a way out that did not exist; her eyes were wide and her mouth was open, her face framed in a look of fearful distress. She was wearing a sparkling blue cocktail dress that left her arms exposed from the shoulders down; the moonlight shone upon her fair skin as she twisted and writhed in her distress; Sunset was almost surprised that the words they hurled at her had left no bruises on her arms.
This is all my fault.
This isn’t what I wanted.
It wasn’t what I intended… but only because I didn’t think so far ahead.
Sunset’s squirming guilt was supplemented by the fires of anger; a thunderous scowl settled upon her brow as she strode over, throwing her chips into the trash as she shoved her way through the apathetic crowd who couldn’t care less. Maybe they thought it wasn’t their problem. Well, maybe Sunset would decide that it wasn’t her problem the next time some grimm got through the wall, and how would they like that?
“Leave her alone!” Sunset snapped, bulling her way through the press pack, shoving reporters and photographers alike aside to plant herself foursquare between them and Skystar. To think that she had cooperated with these animals, that she had fed them, unleashed them.
I have been a fool and a villain both.
“Leave her alone!” she shouted, turning her self-disgust into outward facing anger as she grabbed the camera out of someone’s hand and crushed the lens in her aura-strengthened grip. “Get lost, the lot of you! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”
“Who are you?” one of them demanded.
“Yeah, who do you think you are?”
Sunset raised her hand, a faint green glow surrounded her palm as she used a touch of telekinesis to shove – not throw; she didn’t want to get in trouble for breaking anyone’s back – the offending parasite who had spoken backwards a dozen feet, his shoes slipping and sliding on the pavement, people scattering to get out of his way as he was born backwards into the road. He yelped as he dashed to the other side of the street to avoid a passing taxi.
“I’m Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset declared, “and I’ve asked you nicely to clear out. Who wants me to ask them rudely next?”
They scattered, turning away, some of them making more haste than others, dispersing in their different directions but all of them heading off out of sight.
Cinder began to applaud ironically, a smirk set upon her face.
“Th-thank you,” Skystar whispered. As Sunset turned to look at her, she saw that the Amity Princess had been crying; she could see the lines on her cheeks where her mascara had run. Her hair was dishevelled, and the sparkling silver diadem set in it was askew. “I hoped that tonight would be about the f-festival, but… but ever since Cardy- since Cardin and I… since everyone found out those things, it… it’s all that they want to ask me about.”
Sunset winced, pricked as with daggers. “Is it… always this bad?”
“Not always,” Skystar whimpered. “But they knew I’d be here. M-mother said that maybe I should give up being Amity Princess, but I… I don’t want to let Vale down, you know? I didn’t expect there’d be so many. I didn’t know what to do, and… thank you, Sunset.” She threw her arms around Sunset’s neck; her trembling form seemed light and frail as she clung to the huntress as though, if she let go, she would be swept away in an instant by a great tide of misfortunes.
Sunset froze. She didn’t deserve Skystar’s gratitude, not by a long shot, not when she was responsible for all of her sorrows.
She screwed her eyes tight shut. “I’m sorry, Skystar.”
“'Sorry'?” Skystar repeated. “Sunset, what do you have to be-”
“It was me,” Sunset said. “I heard Cardin in the laundry room with Blake, and I recorded him, and I leaked it, and I should have-”
“What?” Skystar asked, her voice soft as she spoke practically into Sunset’s ear. “What should you have done?”
Sunset hesitated. “Kept it to myself?”
“So that I could go on living a lie?” Skystar asked. “So that I could go on thinking that I knew who Cardin was, thinking that he was thinking that he was so much better than he was, thinking that he was someone I could… I know that I must seem like a mess right now, but… but I’m glad to know the truth. Really.”
Sunset slowly placed her arms around Skystar. “Did… did you love him?”
“No,” Skystar said. “I loved the man I thought he was, but that man… that man never existed at all. He was just… a shadow of a thought.”
Sunset held her close. “It gets easier,” she lied.
“I hope so,” Skystar replied. “Sunset?”
“Yes?”
“Next time, maybe tell me before you tell the press, okay?”
Sunset snorted. “Deal.”
Skystar released Sunset, who took a step or two back to give her some room. Skystar reached into the purse that dangled from her arm, pulling out a compact which she flipped open to examine herself. “Oh dear,” she murmured. She looked up at Sunset, and then at Cinder. “What are you two doing here? Is it for the play?” When Cinder nodded, Skystar winced. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but… I’m sorry to disappoint everybody, but I’m just not sure how we can go on.”
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” Cinder asked.
“I’m sorry,” Skystar said. “But the actress playing Richard broke her leg in a cycling accident a couple of days ago, and tonight, I’ve just heard that the understudy is in hospital with food poisoning. There’s no time to rehearse anybody else, and we can’t put on Richard the Second without a Richard.”
“It does seem like a bit of a barrier,” Sunset admitted.
“Not necessarily,” Cinder murmured, folding her arms across her chest. She glanced at the stage, with its paper backdrop and its stuffed chair throne. “I’ll do it.”
“Excuse me?” Skystar asked.
“I’ll play Richard,” Cinder declared. “I know every line, every word by heart.”
“Seriously?” Sunset demanded. “You… you’re serious?”
“Deadly serious,” Cinder said. “The show must go on, after all, and I… I’ve always wanted to be on stage.”
“You mean you’ve never acted before?” Skystar asked.
Cinder chuckled. “I’ve never been on stage before; I’ve been acting half my life.”
Skystar stared at her. “Who are you?”
“Cinder Fall, leader of Team Clementine of Haven Academy.”
“A huntress?” Skystar said. “Well… I suppose it is the Vytal Festival. Are you sure you can do it? It will only be for tonight; tomorrow, I’ll be able to find someone else.”
“One night only,” Cinder murmured. “Yes, I can do it.”
“Are you sure?” Sunset asked.
“Trust me, Sunset,” Cinder urged. “I’ll blow you away.”
“Alright,” Skystar said. “Go backstage and get changed.”
Cinder bowed extravagantly, “Right away,” she purred, and with a very satisfied smile upon her face, she headed towards the gate.
Skystar was quiet for a moment. “Is she going to be able to manage?”
“I hope so,” Sunset murmured in reply.
Skystar nodded, although what exactly she was nodding at, Sunset was unsure of. “Do you… do you really regret what you did?”
Sunset looked down at the pavement. “I regret breaking your heart.”
“Cardin did that, when he lied to me,” Skystar said. “You did the right thing.”
“The right thing has made you hounded.”
“I know, but… it’s still better knowing,” Skystar whispered. “Gods, can you imagine if I’d married him, without knowing how he really felt?”
“That… that would have been… I see your point,” Sunset admitted. Imagine being trapped in marriage with someone who was evil, without realising it; imagine realising that the person you had bound your life to had hidden the depths of their wickedness and depravity from you in order to bind you to them. She couldn’t imagine what that must feel like, but she doubted that there could be any worse feeling in the world.
Sunset stayed with her while she cleaned herself up, reapplied her eyeshadow, straightened the crown in her hair, and as she watched Skystar do all this, she was reminded that she had decided – in the privacy of her own mind at least – that she would try and make amends for what she’d done by helping Cardin out.
And, with Skystar right in front of her and no one else around, there was not likely to be much better time than now.
Even though it still was not a very good time.
Sunset reached up and scratched the back of her neck with one hand. “You know… Skystar… Cardin, he… he’s really broken up about… about the fact that you broke up.”
The fact that Skystar didn’t say ‘good’ was perhaps the only saving grace of the situation. She said, in a clipped tone, “I’d rather not talk about Cardin right now, if that’s all the same to you.”
“Sorry,” Sunset murmured. “I just… I don’t think that he’s as bad as the audio makes him sound.”
Skystar looked at her. “Did he say those things?”
“Yes.”
“Then he’s as bad as it sounds,” Skystar replied, bending down to pry a pebble that had stuck in her high-heeled shoes.
Sunset frowned. “Is there… is there no way that you’d consider giving him another chance?”
Skystar looked up. “Sunset!” she cried. “How can you say that? How can you ask me that? You’re the one who released the audio!”
“I know, and I regret it,” Sunset declared. “I really regret it; I regret the fact that I’ve made you… this, and I regret the fact that I’ve turned Cardin into a hollow shell of a man. I… I lied, before; it doesn’t get any easier. It’s been over two years since my boyfriend broke up with me, and I’m still not over it.”
Skystar straightened up. “That’s… not very comforting.”
“You want the truth? That’s the truth,” Sunset said. “It hurts every day, and it doesn’t stop.”
Skystar reached out and awkwardly patted Sunset on the shoulder. “Did you love him?”
“I love him; I hate him,” Sunset declared. “I want him back; I want him to suffer. I blame him; I blame myself. Every time I think about Pyrrha and Jaune, I get so jealous that she’s got it right, that she’s happy while I… while I’m alone. That’s when I don’t suspect that Jaune is going to hurt her because he’s a guy and a guy hurt me, and believe me, I understand exactly how this sounds-”
“Do you?” Skystar asked.
“Pathetic?” Sunset guessed.
“And just a little scary, too.”
Sunset snorted. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” she admitted. “The point is… the point is I don’t… I don’t want to see you or Cardin end up the same way, especially not since this is all my fault.”
“His fault,” Skystar insisted. “Not yours. Why did you break up?”
Sunset was silent for a moment. “Because I was a faunus.”
Skystar let out a little muffled gasp. “How can you love a man who could say something like that?”
Sunset shoved her hands into her pockets. “Because sometimes, I don’t know if I believe him or not. Sometimes… when I think about the way that he… that he didn’t have any problems with other faunus, I wonder… if there wasn’t something more I could have done to keep him.”
“I… I see,” Skystar whispered. “I mean, I don’t, but… I don’t really know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything about me,” Sunset told her. “But you could say that you’ll give Cardin another shot.”
Skystar shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Because you believe him?”
“Because either he was lying to me, or he was lying to everyone up at Beacon,” Skystar declared. “And I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust someone who can lie so easily about who they are. I don’t know how I’m supposed to know that the man I… the man I knew or thought I knew is the real Cardin and not the one on that recording. Please, Sunset, can we not talk about this any more?”
“No,” Sunset agreed, because… because it was fair enough, really, wasn’t it? “No, okay, I won’t say anything more about it.”
I’ll have to think of a way that Cardin can prove to you which side of him is real and which isn’t.
“Thank you,” Skystar whispered. “I think… I think I’m ready now.”
Sunset stayed by Skystar’s side still as they made their way through the wrought iron gate – the stewards didn’t even ask to see Sunset’s ticket – and made their way through the crowd gathering in front of the stage. Sunset lingered almost – but not quite – backstage as Skystar went back to check that everything was ready.
Sunset, finding herself alone, thrust her hands into her pockets. She was glad that Cinder’s dream was coming true, don’t get her wrong, but she would have liked to have had someone to be here with. She seemed to be the only person who was here by themselves.
Her stomach growled a little, and Sunset regretted that she had thrown away her chips.
Fortunately, there were some nice old ladies moving amongst the crowd selling concessions, so Sunset brought an apple and a little plastic tub of chocolate-coated raisins, the latter of which she put in her pocket for later while she ate the crunchy apple now, biting into the juicy flesh as she waited.
From somewhere presumably backstage, a string quartet – or however many instruments; Sunset couldn’t actually see to count – was playing ambient music. Someone casually dressed came out onto the stage and lit the candles burning in tall candlesticks around the stage’s edge, set out of reach of the audience. As the night darkened, those candles became the main source of consistent light.
Chatter filled the park as the crowd waited.
Eventually, the music stilled, and Skystar emerged; from the smile on her face, one would never have guessed that she had been a mess not too long ago.
Maybe she should have played Richard.
Skystar waved enthusiastically as she walked to the front of the stage, her heels tapping upon the wooden boards. “Good evening, everyone! Hello, and to anyone visiting from the other kingdoms, welcome to Vale. My name is Skystar Aris, and as the Amity Princess, I thought it would be great if we could use this, the 40th Vytal Festival, to celebrate our Valish culture and share it with the rest of Remnant. And so here we are, Shakst’spur in the Park! This is how they used to do theatre in the olden days! They didn’t have seats, they didn’t have lights, they didn’t even have a ceiling. Thankfully, it isn’t raining.” She giggled a little. “Now, we almost didn’t have a show for you tonight, because unfortunately, both the actresses who could have played Richard have suffered unfortunate accidents. Luckily, we have secured a last-minute replacement. Her name is Cinder Fall; she’s a huntress, and she’s making her debut tonight, so please go easy on her. She’s been very kind just to show up at all. But with that said, I really hope that you enjoy the play; everyone has worked really hard on it; this… it’s Shakst’spur, what more can I say? And so, without further ado, I present, this Vytal Festival, Richard the Second!” As the crowd began to applaud, Skystar hopped down off the stage and made her way through the crowd to stand by Sunset.
“You don’t mind if I stay with you, do you?” Skystar asked, speaking into Sunset’s ear to be heard over the applause. “It’s just that… you make me feel safe.”
Sunset snorted. “Any huntress could do that.”
“Not every huntress would care.”
Sunset frowned a little. “Maybe not,” she admitted. “But all the good ones would.”
“And they wouldn’t all have helped me either.”
The good ones… they would have found a better way. “I hope I didn’t cause you more trouble.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Skystar replied. “And I’ll make sure that you don’t get in any trouble either, I promise.”
Sunset said nothing more, for Cinder had just walked on stage.
She was at once completely recognisable and yet at the same time utterly unrecognisable. She walked with a stoop and one shoulder higher than the other. Her left arm hung limp and useless by her side. She was dressed all in black, with a heavy gold – or gold-looking – chain around her neck.
And yet, at the same time, she was completely Cinder Fall. The way she strutted onto the stage, the way that her eyes burned, the way the way the smirk played upon her lips. The way that her eyes seemed to seek out Sunset as she swept her gaze across the audience and lingered there a moment longer than necessary.
She walked forwards until she was standing centre stage, illuminated by the candles burning before her.
She showed no fear of the audience, though it was much larger than any crowd that had watched her fight in combat class.
At least we know she won’t freeze up in the Amity Coliseum.
Cinder held her peace a moment. Then she began to speak. Her voice was crisp and firm and clear as a bell.
“Now is the work of many years complete,” she said, “The sun shines now on a united Vale. And all the rains that fell upon our house illumine now this many-coloured Arc. Now do the sovereign powers of heaven throw o’er us their Mantle of protection,” And as she said so, Cinder gestured upwards with one hand, grinning as she indicated the Atlesian fleet that hung in the skies above, throwing its protection over Vale. “While we hang up our bruised arms, or else for show and sport alone make use of them,” Cinder continued. “Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings are, our dreadful marches to delightful measures. And those with whom we warred on Tuesday last, this Friday morn we take into the embrace of our arms and share with them a cup of wine, and oaths of friendship and dear brotherhood.”
Cinder scoffed in disdain. “Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his furious brow, and ‘stead of mounting on his steed to lead a host of fearful gentlemen in arms, he capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber to the lascivious plucking of…” Cinder allowed the dirty-minded members of the audience a moment to dwell upon what he might be plucking in a lady’s chamber, “...a lyre.” She chuckled. “But I, in this weak piping time of peace, have no delight to pass away the time.” Cinder fell silent for a moment, sweeping her eyes across the audience and once more alighting upon Sunset. She looked down upon her, her smouldering gaze affixed upon the huntress in the crowd, meanwhile the crowd was silent. Cinder held them spellbound, they hung upon her next word.
They waited. She kept them waiting.
Cinder turned, her cloak sweeping about her as she stalked towards the far edge of the stage. Her voice became less firm, less certain; the confidence drained out of her. “Love forswore me in my mother’s dying-bed,” she said. “And, that she loved me not and willed it so I should not deal in love forevermore, she did corrupt frail nature with some bribe, that I be rudely stamped and want love’s majesty. I am deformed, like to an ursa surfeited with uneven spikes of sharp, protruding bone. I am not made to court an amorous looking-glass; dogs bark at me as I halt by them. Am I to make my heaven in a lady’s lap, and deck my body in gay ornaments?” She turned to Sunset once again, a wry smile upon her face. “Shall I witch sweet ladies with my words and looks? Hah! Say rather I should spy my shadow in the sun, and descant on mine own deformity.”
She sighed, and bowed her head a moment, and closed her eyes. Her words came slowly, each one imbued with power. “Then, since the earth affords no joy to me, I’ll make my heaven to dream upon the crown, and while I live I’ll count this world a hell until that crown, gilded and glorious, rests firm and undisputed on my brow.
“And yet I know not how to get the crown. For many lives stand between me and possession and I am like one who stands upon a cliff and spies some far off place where I would stand, and wish my feet could travel swift as thought without regard for all that lies between.
“A thorny wood lies between me and the crown, and as I rend the thorns that I may pass so I am rent by the thorns of frustrated ambition pricking at my skin, tormenting me with mine own failure to get the crown. Yet will I free myself from this torment or cleave my way through with a bloody axe!” Cinder shouted, stamping her feet as she strode forward so loudly, they were like iron-shod horses’ hooves. “Plots have I laid, by libels, false reports, and fashioned enmities, to set old friends in deadly hate against the other, to make old foes reach for their swords once more, to fill these fair well-spoken days with oaths of wrath. For as I hate the idle pleasures of these days I am determined to prove a villain.” She laughed. “And be the death and downfall of these things I hate.
“As I am subtle, false and treacherous, this peace in Vale will not for long endure and as the horrid flames of war rise up once more,” – she held out her hand above the candle flame, pressing her palm closer and closer to the fire and taking no hurt from it. Easily done with aura, of course, but it made the audience ooh and aah appreciatively all the same – “I’ll walk through fire and blood to claim the crown.” Once more, she paused; once more, she looked at Sunset; now, she walked towards her. “I shall smile,” she said, and smiled to prove it, “and murder while I smile, and cry content to that which grieves my heart. I’ll devour more warriors than a beowolf can. I will transform more men than e’er the God of Faunus did, and unlike him I’ll change men back to beasts and set them snarling red in tooth and claw to tear the throats out of my enemies! I will blind all these northern gallants, and laugh to watch them stumbling and fumbling, and in their blindness turn their blades ‘gainst one another and their oathsworn friends. I’ll shoot an arrow through the heart of my dear enemy, and ‘fore I shoot I’ll ask them ‘do you mock me now? Do you rate me for my deformity? Do you still call me villain, dog, accursed cur, still spurn me with your foot and drive me off?’” Cinder had begun to shout, but now, she ceased and calmed her voice once more. “Shall I do this, and yet not get a crown? Fie! Though it be twice as high I’ll pluck it down!” She mimed plucking with one hand.
And the crowd erupted in applause. It rolled like tidal waves onto the stage and Cinder. It broke upon her like a storm. It fell upon her like the rain.
And Cinder bowed, and spread out her arms wide on either side, and looked at Sunset.
“That was… incredible!” Skystar gasped, as she too clapped her hands together.
Sunset, too, applauded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it was.” It had been a concerted performance: vengeful, angry, intelligent, ambitious, word perfect, devoid of any hesitation save by intent.
She was, indeed, a tremendous actor.
And this was the role she had been born to play.