xp_logs | A Midsummer's Nightmare: Cursing The Play (Reply)

At play rehearsal, Jan accidentally curses the production. Karolina is there to help her counter the curse, but is it too late?

The auditorium was bigger than what one would expect from a high school. With seating for nearly 1000 on two levels it was the second largest venue in town for stage performances. Joseph Stein loved the theater and had ever since he was young. The lights and sets, the costumes and applause, all of it was intoxicating. By all rights, Joe should have been down on the stage right now with the other students, going over their assorted lines and getting things ready. Instead, he was perched on one of the lower catwalks, invisible to the naked eye and watching the players work on their lines. It was an offense on the greatest level that the pretty-boy jocks were cast as the male leads for this production- Joe knew that he was the better actor, by far. Unfortunately, there was little he could do about it, other than perch on the catwalk and listen as the leads practiced and made new 'friends' with the mutants from the Xavier's Institute.

"Have you the lion's part written? Hey you! Give it to me, for I am slow of study!" Catseye was saying over and over again, re-reading the lines from her book and making tiny alterations after each time, though the volume of her voice was staying at its near-shout. Her tail twitched as she kept an eye on what her friends and the people from the other school were doing. Everything was so new and interesting, she wanted to watch it all, especially what her friends the fairies were doing. Leaving her spot in one of the wings she bounded over to the fairies. She liked her part in the play, but reading the words over and over again was failing to hold her attention with so many other things happening at once. "SharpSkinGirl that veryvery good!" she praised when she reached Yvette, waiting until the other young woman had finished her line.

Yvette's eyes glowed softly, a sign she was pleased. "Thank you, Catseye," she replied with a smile. Even with so many new people around, the spiky Albanian was obviously relaxed, her spikiness reduced. "Are you to be liking your part? I think it is the perfect one for you, with the roar, yes?"

Catseye's grin covered her entire face and she let out a roar so loud she felt it in the floorboards. It wasn't as good as a true BigCat roar, but the catgirl was rather adept at making a realistic roar even in girlform. "Catseye loves pretending to be Snug!" she giggled.

"Well, if this place had mice before they sure as heck don't now!" Angel laughed as she took a running jump towards the stage, scrambling to make sure she didn't fall since in her mind walking around the edges to get to the stairs on either side would have taken too long. Regaining her feet, she wandered over to Yvette and Cats as she dusted off her hands. She pulled a face. "I can't believe my characters name is Moth - hello, talk about irony there."

Julian had been chatting up several of the locals off to stage left, the sudden roar had startled some of them and he was busy explaining that Catseye wasn't anyone to be afraid of. While they were attractive- and certainly indicating that they were attracted to him- they were boring. None of them could do the things that his friends at Xavier's could, like lifting a car over their head or melting gym equipment. For first time in his life, Julian Keller realized he wasn't attracted to baseline humans. After one of them asked for his number, he decided to go see what the other mutants were up to. "Anyone else feeling like they're at the zoo, by which I mean, part of the exhibit?" Under his breath he added, "This isn't even my natural habitat."

Callie looked up from her vantage point on the floor to look at Julian, cocking her head to catch his words. She was used to people staring, and had grown accustomed to it, but it still could be uncomfortable. It was different, she supposed, when you weren't physically marked as being a mutant. "People stare," she informed him, turning her focus back to the sheet music in front of her. "But they're just like us you know? Without that weird chromosonal shift."

Meggan glanced over from where she was seated off to the middle of the stage, clutching a copy of her lines, and working on memorizing the lines spoken when Snout is acting as a wall between Pyramus and Thisbe. "Snout's final line is, 'And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.' If I forget and shorten it to 'and away we go!' I'll probably break down laughing on stage.'' Occasionally, as a distraction she was trying to get the shifting to a pattern resembling a brick wall just right on one hand. To the nearest person, she muttered, "But at least I'll blend in with the walls...since I am a wall at that point."

Catseye cocked her head at Meggan, scrutinizing her. "LittleFur's wall needs a 'chink'," she pointed out. "Where is the 'chink'?"

Meggan checked over her notes again. "Somewhere around my fingers or palm." She carefully started adding a tiny change of coloring that made it look similar to a hole in it. "How's that, Catseye? Does the chink need to be a little bit bigger?" As it was, it was just enough that it covered the middle of her palm.

Making a cat-like noise of approval, Catseye shook her head. "No, Catseye thinks it is big enough and that is a good chink LittleFur if everyone can see it." She called over to Jan. "Can TinyGirl see the chink? Is it a good chink? Could TinyGirl hear Snug roar?"

Jan eyed the altered "hole" color. "Yep, I can see it, and I'm not even tiny! And yeah, I'd be surprised if everyone the next state over didn't hear that roar!"

"Hey Jan," Callie rose and made her way over to Jan, papers firmly grasped in her hand. "How well can you understand Shakespeare? Like if something's in Shakespearean English but wasn't in the original text? I have songs here, like that were given to us, and I have no idea what they are saying." The only reason Callie could understand the play itself was because she had read the study materials, but with these songs she had no idea what was going on.

"I guess that means there's no real-English translation of it in a book or online or something?" Jan shrugged. "I didn't really do on-stage stuff in high school, just read the plays we had to for English class. We didn't do this one, though, I think all the ones we did were names-of-people ones. You know, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, that sort of thing."

Before Callie could answer an audible gasp spread through the theatre; the acoustics of the room had carried what Jan had said to all the ears of the occupants. A dozen or so heads turned to stare at the person who had dared to speak that name inside a theatre. Students turned to themselves, murmuring and conferring on what had just happened, their eyes growing cold with anger as it was confirmed: someone had uttered the title of the Scottish Play. They were surely doomed.

Karolina's head jerked up from where she'd been sitting in the corner, reading her script and she dashed from her seat to Jan, reaching out like she was going to grab Jan but she just danced around her instead, hands wringing. "Never never never never say that. What are you trying to do? You'll destroy this whole production before we get started. Go. Gogogogo. Outside. You have go outside right now and do the countercurse." Realizing that the non-theater kids were staring at her, Karolina's aura flared and shrank in close. "Look, stop it. I know it sounds crazy but it's real. No one ever says the name of the Scottish play. It's cursed and people die."

She floated up couple of inches off the ground, looking distressed and shook her head at Jan, "What are you doing? Go outside! I know what I'm talking about! You have to go out, turn around three times, spit and swear the worst curse you can think of. Then ask to be allowed back in."

Obviously, Karolina was Not Pleased. Acting crazy was acting crazy, though. Just because Karolina was being all crazy didn't mean Jan felt the need to act crazy, too."Um, Karolina? I dropped a mirror a few years ago and I haven't had tons of bad luck or anything. I've been around plenty of black cats, and I've walked and flown under ladders, and there's no horrible luck chasing after me."

Karolina threw her hands up, "Okay, I hate doing this but really, come on. Who are my parents? Where did I grow up? Do you honestly think that I'm just making this up? It's not like I want to be the center of everyone's attention but...god, like, someone back me up here." She turned and gestured to the town kids, who had also reacted, "Look, they know it too. This is real. Tell her!"

"Um my sister was in a play a few years back," piped up a small girl from the other side of the stage. "One of the cast members said the name of the Scottish Play and he ended up in the hospital a week before opening night."

"See? My mom was in the Scottish play back before she started doing movies and their Scottish King broke his neck. He was paralyzed. Please, just listen to me for once?" There wasn't much that Karolina hated doing more than invoking her parents' fame in order to reinforce a point, though she knew most of her peers wouldn't understand that. But she was an actors' kid and she knew what had to be done in this case. "Outside, turn around three times, spit and curse."

Yep, Karolina was being all looney tunes, all right. Saying the name of a play that was performed on-stage would bring about curses and bad luck and hospital visits? Yeah, right. Jan was tempted to say "Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth", but she was here as an adult, not one of the kids. Also, there was no need to traumatize Karolina anymore than the poor kid already appeared to be. "Right. I'll go outside, if that's what'll make you feel better."

High above the stage Joe leaned forward, a smile spread across his face. Someone had invoked the curse- the fool - and now people were going to be hurt or worse...maybe even the dumb, jock who'd been cast in his role. Of course, Joe knew that going outside and performing the counter-curse would undo the damage done by the mere utterance of the word. Then a thought popped into his head, 'What if I were to help the curse along?' It made sense, no one could see him! Cut a rope there, disappear a prop or two here and paranoia would set in. Joe cracked a smile for the first time in days- 'Oh yes,' Joe thought, 'this has serious potential.' He began to plot, the next week promised to be very interesting.