curtainsdown | the mark of those who cannot be saved

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act 3

the mark of those who cannot be saved

[You remember dying. Maybe the memory is clear and bright and your body still aches from the cause. Maybe it was fast enough that you didn't feel it and don't remember what you went through. But no matter how you went out, that's no excuse for truancy! Which is to say: you are still in the school.

For those executed, you will wake up in your beds. The dormitories look exactly as they did when you first arrived, without any of the changes or personal effects you and your dormmates might have made. The only real difference is that the little cot in Ambassador isn't there.

For those who were victims, you will wake where your body was discovered. All of your injuries are gone, and you feel fine. It's almost like you're still alive - but you remember what happened to you. It couldn't have just been a dream, could it?

The school looks much as you remember it, save perhaps for a few key differences. For one, there's no groundhog murals anywhere. Where things were green on the other side, like banners or paint, you'll find that here they're blood red.

The doors, for the moment, are still locked. Looks like even death couldn't free you.]

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5

(( ooc: Welcome to deadland, everyone! It mostly resembles the school here, and new floors will be revealed after new people die. For example, the second area will unlock after the week 3 dead arrive, and so on. Also, all dead characters will wake up at their actual canonpoint, with all lost memories restored. Have fun being dead! ))

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[ By now Orpheus has had things explained to him. By now he's... not come to terms with it, but numb, wandering the halls with nothing in his head but a distant roaring. It sounds like a windstorm, it sounds like drumming, it sounds like the baying of hungry dogs, it sounds like being empty of anything at all. It takes him a moment to notice someone is calling his name, and he looks up, hollow-eyed, taking a moment longer still to realize just who it is. ]

...Eurydice?

[ For a moment, it looks like he's going to run to embrace her, but he stops himself, before even taking a step, the implications sinking in.

She'd wondered, if he'd screamed when she died. And he didn't, not the first time, too shocked and confused by what Hermes had to tell him. Not the second time, either, the wind knocked right out of his lungs by the horrible dawning realization of it all. But this time?

He does. And it's an awful, awful sound, raw and miserable and grief-stricken and agonized. He drops to his knees like so much dead weight, hugging his arms to himself, unable to take his eyes off her but hating the sight, hating the tiny shred of relief he feels at seeing her again because it means seeing her here and he's so selfish and stupid, just like when he turned around and looked despite knowing she'd lose everything if he did. ]

No, no, you can't be here. [ His voice is hoarse and quiet. ] You can't.

[ Eurydice takes a half-step forwards, and then the screaming starts.

She wondered, but she didn't want to know. It's the worst sound she's ever heard -- painful and broken and desolate and her fault. All going after Maya did was indulge her grief. She wanted to see him so, so badly, wanted to make Maya feel a fraction of the pain she felt, and neither of those things were what Orpheus wanted. It's like choosing to go with Lord Hades all over again: selfish, desperate, stupid.

But she can't just leave him here, no matter how much he probably wants her to. He doesn't want to see her, but here she is, and that's -- that's just how things are. She can't run from this storm, like she's ran from all the others.

Slowly, tentatively, she puts one foot in front of the other, and crosses the distance. She stops in front of him and kneels, still reaching out but not yet touching. She's not sure if he wants that, if he can handle it right now. ]

Orpheus, I -- please, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It's not -- [ not your fault, but she doesn't know if she should go there yet. ] -- I'm sorry.

[ Caught between warring impulses - to run, to collapse, to turn away, to embrace her - Orpheus just locks up. He wants to say something, because she's apologizing to him and it's all wrong, it's the wrong way around and she shouldn't be, she shouldn't even be here, but the roaring in his head is too loud and he can't think over it. For lack of any other outlet, he sobs, brokenly, curling in on himself.

He wants her to touch him, but he can't reach out, afraid that the contact will be what makes this real. He wants her to be angry at him, because the apologies just hurt more, confirm that he never deserved her. He wants her to be anywhere but here.

Eventually, he manages to choke something out, voice small and miserable through the tears. ]

You deserved so much better than me.

[ Orpheus curls in on himself, and Eurydice knows that this is wrong, all wrong. Orpheus is the most open person she knows, and this -- it's like watching him break. It's almost as bad as watching him die. He's holding himself like she used to, back when she was scared and hungry and alone.

Eurydice wraps her arms around him, holding him close, in the hopes that she might be able to block out some of that grief. That's what she needed back then, wasn't it? Someone to hold her, to shield her from the wind, even if it was just for a little while.

She's going to hold him forever. They're both dead now, aren't they? Maybe, if they stay like this, even Hades can't stop them.

Murmured soft, low: ]

No. No, Orpheus, that's not -- I love you. Always.

[ He deserved better. Orpheus was always so full of life, and all Eurydice can think is that he deserved someone like that. Someone who wasn't already tired, worn down by the hunger and the cold. She keeps holding him tight, rubbing her hand against his back in small, gentle circles. She's crying too, but quietly, with tears that she tries her best to blink away. ]

[ Unable to resist, he leans into her touch, despite knowing that it means she's really here, really dead, really doomed, all over again. He doesn't look at her. He can't. Not with the overlapping memories of turning twice, of seeing her on the roof, her in the Underworld's shadow, seeing her fade away to his death and hers, so fresh in his mind.

They were so close. They were so close. A few more steps and they would've been out, a little longer and Nana and the Balladeer's friend could've saved them. It isn't fair and he wants to scream again, but he can't find it in him.

When he opens his mouth next, instead, it's to sing, quiet and mournful. ]

On and on and on, we stumbled on
Towards the summer sun
Turn away, look back for none
And yet, for us, the night has come

All the love, and all the gold
All we've built and all you've sold
All the power we may hold
I couldn't save you

All the steel, all the bricks
The electric city and the Styx
All the walls start to constrict
I couldn't save you

[ The singing, so full of loss and mourning, is in some ways worse than the screaming. He's blaming himself for something that isn't his fault, that never was. Eurydice chose to go, and she knows that there is nothing she or he can do to undo that choice. (But it was nice to hope, for a while.)

At least here, she can hold him. It might not be a comfort; it might make things worse. But it's as much for her as it is for him -- she remembers falling, reaching out and touching nothing but darkness, so close but so far away. Already gone.

She's quiet for a while, just holding him. ]

You shouldn't have had to. [ All we've built and all you've sold. It wasn't worth it. Not even for a moment. ] It's not your fault. I should have never -- [ she shakes her head, her voice thick with tears now, and pulls him tighter. ] I'm sorry for leaving. I'm so sorry.

[ For a moment, all he can do is rest his head against her shoulder and sob, over all of this and because some small and broken part of him, childish and petulant, wants to agree with her, wants to be mad at her for leaving him behind. He hates it, crushes it down as hard as he can and just cries harder for it.

But he needs to stop being selfish and afraid, because that's what got both of them here in the first place. Eurydice is crying too, however quietly, and he can't bear to hear it, so he pulls himself together enough to reach out and wrap his arms around her. ]

But I did, and I - I couldn't pass one simple test, I couldn't provide for you like I said I would, couldn't bring the seasons back in time. If I'd done anything I'd promised - you wouldn't have had to go.

[ Eurydice feels Orpheus wraps his arms around her, and she can't help but relax the tiniest amount. He's still able to do that, and at least some part of him must want to. He's not leaving, even if that's what she might deserve.

And sure, maybe if he had been with her in that storm, things might have been different. But it also might not have -- that was everything they had, and in the winter, that's a tough loss to recover from. ]

It wasn't that simple. That walk back was dark and cold, and I think -- [ Hey, little songbird. ] -- I think he knows how hard that is.

[ Now that he's a little closer, she'll kiss him gently on the top of his head before continuing. ]

Besides. Mister Hermes was right about you, you know? You made me feel alive. [ there's a little smile, although her eyes are still glassy. ] That's worth a lot.

[ Orpheus just clings to her, not wanting to let go ever again. He doesn't understand how she's not upset with him - for any of it, for all of it - but for now she's letting him hold her, and he doesn't have it in him to argue that she shouldn't. He can let himself have this, just for now.

Even so, he can't bring himself to smile. Not now, not here, not when she raises a very good question that hadn't occurred to him to wonder about before just now. ]

Eurydice. [ he says, and pulls back just enough to look at her. ] Why are you here?

[ Among the dead. Again. ]

[ This time, it's Eurydice's turn to not meet his eyes. She hesitates, takes a deep breath, and then: ]

I saw what she did to you, but I was up on the roof, so by the time I got back downstairs, I was -- I was too late. [ His body, limp and heavy and lifeless. His blood, all over her dress. Thinking about it too much makes her sick and angry all over again, and her hands begin to shake. She gathers Orpheus's shirt in her fists, trying to pull herself together. ] She took you, and -- and I was so angry, just sick of losing everything over and over. [ Give that back! It's everything we have! ] And --

[ Eurydice's tone, which had been ratcheting up to angry and distressed, drops to something quiet and small, ashamed and apologetic. ]

-- All I could think was that I didn't want it to be the Wizard dealing the justice. I wanted it to be me. So I went after her, and we fought. [ a beat. ] She won.

[ She pulls away a little, still downcast. Orpheus should be angry at her for this; she doesn't know if he will be. Eurydice can't say whether or not she regrets what she did: when she thinks about it for too long, that anger threatens to boil over again. She hates what Maya did. But knowing how stupid it was, how she's probably hurt Orpheus and Peregrine and Spongebob and the others...she's ashamed of that. ]

[ The roaring in his head comes back, almost drowning out Eurydice's explanation, all furious howling, like the coldest wind, like desperate hounds, like the depths of grief. A whirl of emotions bubbles up inside of him, impossible to fully sort out in the moment aside from it all being bad and wrong. This is not how it's supposed to be.

In a small voice, hoarse from the tears and the earlier screaming and scared and dismayed and disappointed, ]

The Wizard would've killed you, if you'd won.

[ She would've signed her life away again, over this. No, not would've. She did. He doesn't let go of her, hands still on her shoulders to keep her from pulling away entirely, but his expression is grim and uncharacteristically hard to read. All he can think of is her silhouetted in the lights of the roof, in the darkness of the Underworld, too far to reach. ]

I'm not - I didn't want this for you. I'm not everything you have, you are so much more than just us.

[ She expected...anger, probably. Not that small, quiet, disappointment. And that's worse, like a knife between her ribs, or the bone-chilling cold of a winter that's gone on for too long. He's right, of course, about the Wizard. She thinks Maya may have tried to tell her too, but doesn't quite know for certain. She wasn't really listening.

While Eurydice doesn't pull away -- can't, not with Orpheus holding onto her like that -- it's clear by her expression that she's withdrawing a little. Going distant, closing in on herself, where it's always been safer, if not easier. ]

And even if the Wizard or Maya didn't kill me, what would have happened? Antonio and Discord are dead, so their deal is off. Either someone else in the school would have killed me, or I'd get to go back home, alone. Back to -- [ the cold and the dark, to being alone and hungry, always hungry, in the way that she can never seem to stop thinking about, that never really goes away --

She swallows, tries to rally herself. That's not fair to put on Orpheus; none of that is an excuse. Finally, she looks up. ] -- It doesn't matter. I wasn't thinking straight, but I should have been. [ She's made the same mistake, and it feels just as bad as it did the first time, and she hates that she keeps making it, that she can't be stronger or last a little longer, that she keeps selfishly running away. ] I'm sorry.

[ It's his instinct, to insist that she and their friends would have found some way. Between spring finally coming again back home and all their resources, surely they could have brought her somewhere that would finally be as safe and secure as she'd searched for her whole life. But it doesn't matter now, does it, and that hope feels pointless and condescending and chiding on his tongue, so he swallows it back down.

Instead, he leans in, pressing his forehead to hers. ]

No, I - I'm sorry. That you had to see that happen to me. I can't imagine how that must've felt.

[ He can get close, though, thinking about losing her the first time and his desperation to follow that could've turned very bad if Hermes hadn't intervened when he did. The second time, when he felt like the whole world had ended, spent hours and hours and hours sitting outside what had once been the entrance to the Underworld, now closed to him, possibly forever. And now, knowing that Maya did it, separated them and then saw fit to reunite them in the worst way. Did she think she was doing them a kindness?

His hands shake slightly and he draws a sharp breath through his teeth. ]

Have you seen her here, yet? Maya. [ his voice is quiet, but uncharacteristically angry. He doesn't know what he'll do when he sees her next. Violence in all its forms has always been something he's hated, even sparring for sport or fun, so that's not something he's all that worried about, but what do you do when someone murders the love of your life? ]

[ They probably would have found another way, if Eurydice had stopped to consider it. But she didn't -- she acted rashly, for one of the first times in her life, and it costed her.

Honestly, she's surprised that he leans in at all, after what she's told him -- so surprised that she flinches a little, before leaning back and taking his hands in hers. ]

You probably can. [ he's lived through it twice, now. Eurydice wasn't even able to live through it once. ] But -- thank you.

[ Then he brings up Maya, and she can feel his hands shake. She'll squeeze a little tighter, a little steadier, as if to say I'm here. I've got you. The anger sounds wrong on him, somehow, and even though his feelings are very understandable, she hates that he has to feel it at all. She hates what Maya has done to him, much more than what Maya did to her.

Her tone steely, brittle: ]

No. I guess she didn't face the Wizard, after all. Or he made an exception. [ It's not fair. Why should Maya live, and Orpheus die? He didn't do anything wrong. His only crime was trying to help someone. ]

[ That doesn't make any sense. Orpheus frowns, squeezing Eurydice's hands gently in turn. ]

Do we... know how much time has passed, here? Maybe the trial hasn't happened yet, or is still going. [ He grimaces a little, and adds, ] It's not that I want her to die, but... why make an exception for her?

[ Similarly, he's much more upset about Eurydice than he is about himself, unable to shake off the mental image of Maya standing over her, sword drawn. If they'd fought - would it have been worse, than how he went? Slower? He shudders, trying to dismiss the thought. ]

Maybe the others... made it out? Avoided the trial that way. Would we have any way of knowing, here?

Maybe. [ Eurydice doesn't sound convinced. She hesitates, thinking, and then: ] It looked like Hester liked her. They danced a lot at prom. Maybe she was able to convince the Wizard?

[ But that doesn't sound right, either. Eurydice sighs. After all this, she just feels exhausted. ]

I hope they make it out, eventually. Things can't keep going on like this -- the Wizard can't kill everyone. [ He could, but. She really, really hopes he doesn't. ]

[ Orpheus nods, feeling conflicted all over again as he remembers smiling at Maya and Hester and them completely failing to notice him, too wrapped up in each other. He'd been happy for them! They were his friends, and they looked like they fit so well together in that moment.

If only the night had ended there. ]

I hope they make it out, too. But - every week, it's the same thing. Every week we told each other we'd be safe with each other, and every week we were - wrong. I -

[ He shakes his head again, holding her hands tightly. ]

I'm so tired, Eurydice.

[ Oh, that's almost as bad as the screaming. She thinks she knows what Orpheus means by tired -- she's been tired too, for a long, long time. It's hard not to be, winter after winter. They only get longer, colder, often making her feel like she'd never warm up. Hades came to her when she was tired. I want a nice soft place to rest. I want to lie down forever.

She always hoped he'd never have to feel that way. Not Orpheus, with all his faith, all his sunny optimism. He doesn't deserve it, and yet, she couldn't shelter him from it, either.

Eurydice takes him into her arms again, hoping he'll lean on her as much as he needs. ]

I know. I am, too. [ a beat. ] Maybe we can rest, here. For a little while.

[ It's not something that Orpheus feels often, this bone-deep exhaustion of the spirit. Before he's always had something to cling to - the vague shape of how things could be, and the need to work his way towards it, however slowly. The knowledge that he has people who love him, who will help, or who need him to keep smiling, keep trying, keep the faith. But it's been creeping up on him slowly over the course of his time here, and while he's done his best to fend it off, he just doesn't have the energy anymore.

He's dead. Eurydice's dead. What more does any of it matter? ]

Maybe. What else is there to do? [ he sounds hollowed out, empty of anything but the dull ache of grief. ] Maybe we should see what the others are up to? But. Not now. I don't think I can, yet.

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the mark of those who cannot be saved

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cw: discussions of suicide, food insecurity

cw: discussions of suicide, food insecurity

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