Announcements: Cutting Costs (2024) » January 2024 Copyfraud Attack » Finding Universes to Join (and making yours more visible!) » Guide To Universes On RPG » Member Shoutout Thread » Starter Locations & Prompts for Newcomers » RPG Chat — the official app » Frequently Asked Questions » Suggestions & Requests: THE MASTER THREAD »

Latest Discussions: Adapa Adapa's for adapa » To the Rich Men North of Richmond » Shake Senora » Good Morning RPG! » Ramblings of a Madman: American History Unkempt » Site Revitalization » Map Making Resources » Lost Poetry » Wishes » Ring of Invisibility » Seeking Roleplayer for Rumple/Mr. Gold from Once Upon a Time » Some political parody for these trying times » What dinosaur are you? » So, I have an Etsy » Train Poetry I » Joker » D&D Alignment Chart: How To Get A Theorem Named After You » Dungeon23 : Creative Challenge » Returning User - Is it dead? » Twelve Days of Christmas »

Players Wanted: Serious Anime Crossover Roleplay (semi-literate) » Looking for a long term partner! » JoJo or Mha roleplay » Seeking long-term rp partners for MxM » [MxF] Ruining Beauty / Beauty x Bastard » Minecraft Rp Help Wanted » CALL FOR WITNESSES: The Public v Zosimos » Social Immortal: A Vampire Only Soiree [The Multiverse] » XENOMORPH EDM TOUR Feat. Synthe Gridd: Get Your Tickets! » Aishna: Tower of Desire » Looking for fellow RPGers/Characters » looking for a RP partner (ABO/BL) » Looking for a long term roleplay partner » Explore the World of Boruto with Our Roleplaying Group on FB » More Jedi, Sith, and Imperials needed! » Role-player's Wanted » OSR Armchair Warrior looking for Kin » Friday the 13th Fun, Anyone? » Writers Wanted! » Long term partner to play an older male wanted »

Snippet #1769035

located in Modern France, a part of Cirque de la Lune, one of the many universes on RPG.

Modern France

None

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rune, The Storyteller Character Portrait: Fellini, the Bizarrist
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

Footnotes

Add Footnote »

0.00 INK

Fellini and Rune
The Bizarrist and The Storyteller
~A collaborative post~



Through the haze of cigarette smoke, he had fallen in love all over again. But this was brief.

He saw the purest of bliss in that sea of faces, the grace of their mistress and the family at her back. All was great, all was well. He watched the world safely from behind squared lenses, nestled under the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. Mystique had not yet gone with the wind; the cape remained draped round his shoulders, still tattered beyond repair, still evidence of a show gone terribly, terribly right. Blood dried his upper lip. Hands were steadied, but his feet dared to move. His eyes drifted across each and every member, observing. And his heart left with the exhaust fumes as the crowd dispersed, leaving the Cirque and its merry band to get intoxicated from another round of success―and Fellini had lingered there after his peers, too, had gone, and the ghosts, now alone with their master, took the opportunity to tug at his back, always so restless.

"Basta! Ma ora basta!" he whispered, the accent rolling smoothly from his tongue. He need not face the specters to emphasize his words. They quelled almost instantly in the fairgrounds, now one with the growing silence. A dozen of the ghoulish figures hovered about him, not yet ready to come down from the highs of the night, but it was nothing new. Stars need no rest, they said; they completed his act, and they deserved to mingle among the extraordinary folk. Fellini tensed. The cigarette was thrown away, crushed under the loafer sole. Stalking from his cast, he knew no further disputes were needed. Sans their weeping, he would not hear word of them nor catch sight of them until they were summoned once again, and he silently prayed that they would learn their place.

So it went. A breeze carried remnants of the hours gone by, and the buzz in the air was not far behind. It was infectious, this feeling of another victory. He could look skyward and become lost in starlight. The performers were gathered ahead, and he heard the last of Zalvema's announcement as he reached the celebration. To him, it did not matter how long they stayed here. It simply was.

Signora Delilah, of course, was likely the first to get shit-faced. The lioness had perched with Xavier, whose ability to waste alcohol was in top form, and whose eyeliner grew more garish by the second.  

Fellini intervened, tossing the cape over his shoulder with a lackadaisical flair. "Monsieur, you must learn how to hold your liquor," he said in earnest, and, motioning toward where the wine had vanished mere moments before, somehow brought the bottle back into its humble existence. A trick of shadows, that. He poured them both an even amount, then set aside the wine, tipped his hat, and added, "Delilah, you were exquisite tonight. But it seems as if your cat is becoming harder to tame. Perhaps you should consider this next time before you take to the stage."

And he was off and away. Not feeling particularly enthused for drink tonight, he would not laugh, nor would he dance. He would seek the sole member of Cirque de la Lune who, outside the confines of her sanctuary, did not flaunt, prance, leap, strut. He would seek Rune.

Eastward, the black tent loomed above him like a blemish on the earth, and for the countless times he ventured to this oddity, it never failed to draw hesitance from him at the entrance. So stoic, so otherwise unmoved in the face of everyone else, Fellini then shrunk in its presence. His breath hitched. Immense forces of magic beckoned him forward, and yet, for each second that he did not act, he felt the urge to retreat, to cower. He stepped once, twice. Unsure at first, then quickly gaining confidence, he walked into the darkness once more.

The shifting pictures did not faze him. The warped, bloodied tree, once an acute source of interest, only sparked faint curiosity. No, he had seen what this mystical space had to offer, and what drew his attention was the goddess at her center. Although she was featureless for now, something about her spoke to him with infinite beauty―the fragility with which he held herself, and the balance that threatened to creak in an interval; the fabrics that surrounded her, eerily pristine in spite of their supposed age; the candles, thousands of them, that illuminated her form, and, through her powers, would burn brightly for ages to come. She was comfort; she was fear. She was the pinnacle he sought to reach, though he knew that getting there would be nigh impossible. In her realm, shadows billowed about him, weakened and hushed by the light.

What did the words matter if she did not respond?

"I suppose you've no affinity for drink." His voice held a hint of contempt, though it certainly was not aimed at the storyteller. "If only you could have seen them tonight. According to my audience, I might have performed my best. So tell me, Rune, why must I be such a bother to you? We know you have no answers, and if you do, then you're doing your damnedest to keep them away from me."

As usual, it was akin to speaking with an ancient wall. Still, he persisted, and his voice elevated with each breath, and he slipped, though unaware, into his native language. If it sparked no reaction, there was nothing much else to be done.

He concluded: "Rune, I need guidance. I need my magic to inspire again."

No words of wisdom passed through her lips and fell upon his ears after he finished speaking to the quiet shadow in the center of the tent. The veil she wore this night was the color of onyx, starless in its obscuring beauty. The fabric's stillness was broken as it began to ripple, as though tickled by an imaginary breeze that coiled around Rune playfully. Even after several seconds that seemed like years of silence, she still did not speak.

She was the epiphany of solitude and peace. Cloaked in darkness, masked within an obsidian wasteland yet still burning with vibrant shades of the world's true colors. Silver bells gleamed and hung from the edges of her veil, but despite the movement, they did not ring. It looked as though she had not acknowledged his presence, but indeed she had. From the slightest shift in her stance, to the way the shadows differed in their subtle dance.

Rune. Ah, how simple the life of a storyteller is. To sit upon the ground each night and tell what few people that find their way into her tent, stories of the world that even the ancient gods in the heavens have forgotten. She creates art, painting a picture before their very eyes without a brush. Using words instead of color, but words are color in their own way. 

It would seem almost as though she were not listening to his words as he confided in her. He could not see beyond the inky veil that hid her closed eyes, and the face beneath the mask of the storyteller. As the silence finally settled and became still, her eyes opened. The shadows jumped and danced across the walls of the tent, and the tree of words shifted above their heads, stretching its branches, leaving it engraved with story upon story rustled with soft laughter as the shadows continued to gracefully sway to their own rhythm. The candle light flickered in thousands of different colors, causing the air in the tent to pulse with the beat of the shadows.

And then, the silence was broken. The fragile bridge, more fragile than a snowflake to the world of silence was shattered at the sound of tinkling bells. It was like hearing the first laugh of an infant, the sigh of the world as the sun crooks its golden fingers and first touches the ground, and the sound of the stars singing above you in the night. The bells continued to ring for a split second more. There was only one meaning to this: the storyteller had come alive once again.

She had shifted. She had altered the very fabrication of reality itself. No longer was the tent darkened, and dim. No longer were they both surrounded by flickering candles, and dancing shadows. The tree had disappeared, and all that surrounded them was darkness. An ebony abyss that was filled with the echos of the bells. A different kind of light would illuminate the tent, and slowly, they began to twinkle, to fill the empty space between Rune, and Fellini. They flickered like a thousand white candles, burning with a beauty like no other. They gleamed like the full harvest moon, careless and free. They sparkled like the last smile of a person of this world, happiness and joy emanating around them. The stars bobbed and hovered around Rune like bits of ice, dazzlingly bright, yet dim in comparison to a pale, silver disk that hovered just behind the storyteller herself. A streak of light stretched across the tent's far wall, disappearing as soon as it had appeared.

Even if he could not see past the veil, he would know that her eyes were open, and that she was looking at him. Truly, staring past him into his own mind. Her eyes were the color of the stars, a dark grey. Deep, but transparent. Simple, but complex in their own way. Never before had the galaxies, nor the universe spread itself before a viewer within Rune's tent. But there was a first for everything. Perhaps she was the only one who could fathom, and envision it within her own mind.

She was a master of illusions. Her words fooled reality itself into thinking it was whatever she wished it to be. And now, it was theirs, and theirs alone to remember, and to forget. 

“Darkness and light weave themselves together to create the fabric of the universe. Apart, they are useless and immaterial. Together, they become what was, what is, and what always will be.” A voice, a voice like no other vibrates through the tent. There is a sweetness to the voice, a silvery sincerity that is weaved into it with a sharpness that suggests complete confidence in what is being said. It is almost as if they are both submerged beneath the waves of moonlight as the chiming tones of the storyteller fade completely. She says no more, for there is nothing more to explain, there is nothing more to say.

As soon as the vision of peace, and the symphony of wonder appears, it fades with the voice as well. The stars fly back to their places in the sky, and the moon that hung without a cloud in the sky dissipates into silver smoke. The candles flicker innocently, and the shadows are still for a moment, before they resume their intricate dance. And Rune? Rune is silent once more, it is almost as though she never spoke. Perhaps he imagined it all. It all depends on how much he believes.

Fellini believed. He believed as if she spoke the only truths in the world, as if her message was gospel, divine and almighty. Had he merely imagined it, it was a dirty, cruel trick of the mind. Had he merely imagined it, the natural world made him despondent, and he soon yearned for that sensation of light and sky. It was so surreal, it would have sent Dali into a coma.

He did not understand, however and, realizing this, he struck out aimlessly, hoping to grasp onto even the smallest amount of her energy. It did not come. They had driven on a roundabout, only to stop at the very beginning. The tent, for all the rhythm that ebbed and flowed throughout, now paled in comparison to her brief display, but the vigor was unmistakable. She was resurrected, after all, albeit for a sweet, short time, and he would be in denial if he ignored the change that ate away at him.

His skin tingled, electric. His weary face was fraught with awe, irritation. "Please... will you speak again?" he asked of her, at a loss, lacking the conviction that made him whole. He felt so meek before her. As he left in uncertainty, he knew the response: there was to be none.