ready as we'll ever be

[tellthestory]

[The Balladeer is true to his word. So, before the dead's scheduled performance, still dressed in the outfit Salieri forced him to helped him choose, he takes his guitar and sneaks out to the garden one last time. He hasn't visited it yet today, and he always feels guilty when he doesn't manage. He told everyone he'd be here. Even if neither of them can hear each other, he intends to keep his promise.

So he's there to notice when the trees begin closing in. The Balladeer shoots to his feet. Oh, no. He knows this feeling.]

Everyone! Come out to the garden! Bring your stuff!

[He calls out aloud, but he can use that projection trick just as well as the Player - his voice is audible anywhere in the school.

When people arrive to join him, there will still be a path through the woods to lead them to the garden. He doesn't want to strain himself before the performance, but something as small as that shouldn't cause problems later. It's too important that everyone get out here - because when people arrive, they'll find that all of the living are visible. The Balladeer is watching them, but making no attempt to interact; he already knows how this is going to go. It isn't time for that yet. Still...]

It's the end.

[Have fun spectating the trial!]

Comments

[disharmonizes]

[Discord's listening to this man go on and on and blah blah blah-- It's all a lot of garbage. But then... Farrah.]

...If he's actually intending to rewind everything, I will rip him apart, magic or no magic.

[If anything happens to Farrah -- AGAIN or otherwise, he swears to god]

[alchemistake]

That bastard-!

[disharmonizes]

He thinks he can play with people's lives and then just put it all back, like it doesn't matter?

Oh, he thinks he's had it tough before now...

[Discord is ready to tear this man apart.]

nope, nope. I have to edit this

[alchemistake]

Make it hurt, Dad.

[Emotionally, especially. Make it long and painful.]

[samefacesyndrome]

[ She's been very quiet, especially since he started talking about how he was going to bring everyone back to life. But then this with Maya and the plans to revert all the changes, including Farrah being revived--

She's upset for sure about Farrah but the other implications set in too. And with Elle having the same realization--

"Do we cease to know one another? Do we even remember what happened?" ]

N-No...

[ She recalls her own words from the day before she died:

"Would seeing them again... also mean never seeing you or the others again...?"

This is even worse than that. ]

No... he can't do that...! If he does that then we'll have all never met and--!!

[ She thinks about all the people she's met, the relationships she's formed. She thinks about last week, dancing with Varian, singing to one another. She thinks about the day out in the car, communicating and making up and promising to be there for each other no matter what--

"I wouldn't take it back."

She lets go of Varian's hand and covers her face as she starts to audibly cry.

YOU RE-KILL HER FRIEND AND TAKE AWAY HER BOYFRIEND? YOU TAKE IT ALL AWAY? BRUH. ]

[voicerights]

[SALIERI, DISCORD, PLS DO SOMETHING THE SQUIP IS NOT EQUIPPED FOR SMOL CRYING CHILD]

[alchemistake]

[Oh.

Oh no.

Varian feels Rina's hand leave his own, and he's distracted from blinding rage because Rina has started to cry and that, truly, is the straw that breaks the camel's back.]

Rina-

[He turns away from the others to face her, but instead of...trying to move her hands, or force her to do anything specific, he'll just take her shoulders in his hands...and then realize that's not going to be enough, and uses that leverage to pull her into his arms, one of his hands resting against the back of her head. For a moment he can't speak, looking like a deer in headlights, wide-eyed with terror and grief, because...

He hadn't realized until just now that...not only would things such as deaths be reversed, but to have none of this be remembered...

Taking that trauma away comes at too hefty of a price, one that Varian simply isn't willing to pay.]

That- that isn't going to happen, I'm not going to let it- I promise, I-

[But...what can HE do, from this side, to stop that kind of power? Anything at all?

Nothing?

...nothing.

It hits him, and there are tears coursing down his cheeks before he can stop them, dripping onto the back of Rina's pretty dress faster than he can hide his face, not that he really even tries. He holds her closer to him and struggles to hold back his own tears because this is something he can't actually promise.

And that...that's scarier than facing what he'd done. It's scarier than dying.]

[violentenvies]

[Salieri, as well, looks equally murderous, and someone maybe should take that violin out of his hands as it creaks a bit, his hands tight and shaking]

Turn him into nothing. [snarled, low] How dare he--!

[he cuts himself off, just...vibrating with rage]

[disharmonizes]

The black hole is too good for him--

[he's just standing there, fists clenched, trying not to completely lose it]

[whatyouwant]

[Elle holds up the big-ass wrench she has for some reason.]

[violentenvies]

How dare he threaten our daughter--[oh boy that sure is some rage]--our friends, how dare he--!

[voicerights]

[................................]

He is not...incorrect, that haphazard splitting would weaken timelines. But [and it says this quickly, before Discord can get angry that it's implying that Farrah should stay dead, because that is not the point it is trying to make] if the braid theory holds. They could be repaired, or even healed.

[disharmonizes]

By someone who knows what they're doing.

And I think we can do without him in here.

[voicerights]

He clearly has no concept of how to fix the mess other than to cut it apart.

[DISTASTE!!!!]

And he doesn't even know he's cutting it.

[whatyouwant]

[Elle looks visibly sick.]

No, no I don't want to loose you guys! I can't. Angus-

[She tries to reach for Angus's arm, but passes right through it.]

[wanderlusttitania]

[Aaaaand, Sissi is just. Facepalming. Taking a drink of her water, because she can't believe she called it.]

[yourattention]

I'll just flicker out 'cause I'm full of doubt
that I was ever even here—

[Does he deserve to disappear?]

[whatyouwant]

[Elle puts a hand on Connor's shoulder.]

We won't let you disappear.

[wanderlusttitania]

[Deep breath.]

That's right. We're not going to let him do this. Not to you, not to Eurydice, not to any of you.

[howtheworldwas]

No.

[ not her second chance; not her friends; not everything she has, all over again. he can't take it all away. he can't. ]

[violentenvies]

[oh--and Salieri's reaching out, grabbing onto her hand, holding on]

We won't let him--we won't let him, Eurydice, do you hear me? That bastard cannot have you.

[howtheworldwas]

[ she takes the hand, grips it tight -- probably too tight.

when she looks up at him, it's not with the closed-off, distant expression that means she's afraid. no, this time, she's angry. he's made this threat so many times before, in so many different ways, over the course of the week. this time, she's not accepting it. ]

He won't.

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ One more time, Orpheus holds Eurydice close and subtly puts himself between her and the Wizard. ]

I won't let him take this from us. I won't. We won't.

[ This place - has been awful, a nightmare, but it hasn't been unrelenting. Some of the times he's seen Eurydice at her happiest have been here, and even if they have to go home at the end of this to where they were left - her on the line in Hadestown and him on the surface - he won't let the Wizard steal those memories away from them. ]

[howtheworldwas]

We won't.

[ She thinks about their conversation, when they first arrived in this strange, red version of their school -- thinks about what she has now, the friends she's made, the person she's become. She's not nothing, not anymore. Some of those friends surround her now, others are just out of reach, but she knows they care. She knows they're with her.

There's Spongebob, her first friend, in their jacket; Benjamin, her fellow prisoner, the one person she never had to explain the line too; Peregrine, her sister and the smartest one here; Farrah, a girl who's gotten a second chance, too. Antonio, who has been her shoulder to lean upon and has leaned upon her alike; and Orpheus, always Orpheus, who loves her just as much as she loves him.

She's not going to give into despair. Not again, not this easily. ]

Fuck the Wizard.

[disharmonizes]

No is right. Not you, not her, not anyone here.

[ride or die mode is now active]