Chapter Text
“Without Balance There Is No…”
Chapter 1 – “…Peace?”
The crew had gone through one of their wild parties again last evening. The remnants were everywhere –crumbs, wrappers, bits of spilled drinks, melted ice cream drippings, stray confetti, a few streamers… The list went on. The auditorium was a wreck. And the care-taking crew was busy sleeping off the night full of singing and dancing with the rest of them.
Pose sat at the A/V table in the back, staring at the mess on stage. It was the worst up there. Some of the scenery had been redecorated, and then damaged. A piece of curtain had been torn. It might be beyond mending this time – they might just need to replace the stage curtains finally. Maybe if there was a large enough ladder out to get them down, it would be an excuse to finally assign a team to removing the cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling and polish the fixtures. There was so little traffic these days, there was hardly a need.
She sighed. The traffic – or lack thereof – was really at the core of her frustrations. There was a great big world out there, full of people! People had lives full of trouble and doubt, joy and laughter, so why weren’t they coming in? Surely someone needed the theater and all of the distractions it could provide, even in this modern age, she thought.
And yet, the company had hardly seen anyone in what felt like forever. The crew had gone without practice for so long that Pose wasn’t even sure they still knew how to do their jobs. It wasn’t like anyone made them regularly run the mockups anymore. Maybe she should take a break from writing and go down to straighten them out – no one else was going to.
That made her bristle. Someone else should have been playing the grown-up so she didn’t have to. It wasn’t her job to wrangle the crew like they were kids who needed to be reminded to clean their rooms – that was the stage manager’s job!
Jovial whistling drew her gaze down to the doors that went from the side hall to the area between the stage and the front rows. Balan was just coming in, tugging a huge trashcan on wheels with a broom, dustbin, and mop sticking out of it.
Pose frowned. What good was a mop without a mop bucket? Why had he even brought it? Why not have left the mop with the mop bucket for after the dry trash was cleaned up? He never made any sense.
There he went, sweeping away down front while whistling some old and happy tune – like a senile old man, with a hat brim for a mustache, lost in dreams of his glory days.
Pose let her head thud on the desk in front of her. Of all the people to be up at this hour and working, why was it the annoyingly happy one? Where was Lance? He was responsible sometimes. Or Yativ? He could be just as annoying as Balan, but at least he knew how to work without playing. Incor was missing, too, and she was usually the first one up. Unless she was busy doing inventory in the kitchen. After last night’s ruckus, they would probably have to restock everything.
She shook her head. This wasn’t getting her work done any faster. If she wanted to finish and relax, Pose told herself, she would have to stop worrying about what everyone else wasn’t doing, and focus on what she could be doing.
. . . which was writing.
. . . which she hadn’t been able to do for weeks.
Oh, she’d tried. She’d sat here, hidden away in the back of the theater, looking for inspiration from the antics of the others. She’d gone and sat up in the catwalks and jotted ideas. She’d hung out in the green room, the kitchen, the basement, the dressing room’s closets full of costumes, she’d even sat up on the roof several times, listening to the music of dreams. But none of those ideas had gone anywhere. Nothing was as grand as things had been in the past. Back then, it had seemed like ideas just blossomed whenever she sat down to write, but these days it was like squeezing the last drop of juice from a piece of fruit.
Maybe it’s time to hire a new writer? she wondered to herself, tapping her pencil on her beloved, old-and-beat-up notepad. Maybe a new writer with fresh eyes, fresh ears, and fresh thoughts on the world. Maybe then traffic would come back.
“Wow! You’ve been busy!”
Pose jumped and scrambled to cover her crossed off lines of scribble with her arms.
That pompous bastard was peering over her shoulder and grinning like he always did. Entirely too happy. Always.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than interrupt me?” Pose growled.
Balan raised his brows, humor in his eyes. “You seemed like you wanted company.”
“If I wanted company, I wouldn’t be hanging out in the A/V area where it’s supposed to be quiet!”
The director looked around, as though checking to see if he’d disturbed other people. It was a moot point, since the theater was completely empty.
“Where’s Purr?” he asked. “I haven’t seen her darling antics in a while.”
“I don’t know! I’m not her keeper! She’s probably out front pasting cupcakes all over the foyer or something.”
Balan hummed. “I hope she uses real ones. That sounds delicious.”
Pose roller her eyes, scoffed, and pulled her writing tablet onto her lap, facedown. “Do you need something, or can you go away?”
He leaned back against the table and crossed his arms in a relaxed way. “Nope and nope. I just felt the need to see your smiling face.” He grinned again. Evidently, he just enjoyed being annoying.
“I’ll smile when you leave,” Pose grumbled.
Balan laughed properly. It was weird, because he didn’t laugh properly all that often. He usually affected a showman’s laugh. An honest laugh from him was rare these days. Probably, most of the rest of the crew had forgotten what it sounded like. It tugged at something Pose felt like she’d forgotten, but she quickly shoved it aside – more embarrassed at having been caught feeling sorry for herself.
“Fine, I’ll leave. I have better things to do than write about messes left by roustabouts and their careless caretaker.”
“Oh, that hurt.” He threw an arm over his face and clutched at his chest like he was in pain. “How ever shall my caretaking proceed when I’ve been injured so?”
Pose was not impressed. Nor was she willing to engage. She was already tromping away down the side aisle. Maybe she could find somewhere else to hide and contemplate life and the writing of it.
“Oh, now, don’t be so boring,” Balan called, taking a few quick steps to catch up. “Where did you say Purr was, again?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her.”
“That’s odd.” The director held a finger to his chin, again over-dramatizing his actions. “I haven’t seen her in a while, either. I hope she’s okay.”
“Who cares?” Pose growled. “She’s an airhead. Nothing she does ever helps. All it does is cause a spectacle and rile up the others. And for that matter,” she rounded on Balan, “That’s all you do, as well! Why are you busy asking me about Purr? Where’s Lance? Did you come bother me so you could hide from him yelling at you for letting everyone else stay up late? Very responsible of you. What if we had guests walk in right now? Or someone looking to tryout for a part? What kind of impression would they get from this?!” She threw a hand out wide to the debris-strewn theater. “You aren’t helping any more than Purr does!”
The smile never slipped from Balan’s face, but his eyes betrayed a hint of sadness. “I think you need a break. You’ve been trying awfully hard, lately. It seems to be stressing you out.” Then his eyes relaxed and the jovial air returned. “How about if I go fix a fancy brunch and we can discuss some ideas for the next-”
“Don’t you try to write for ME!” Pose shouted. “You’ve got your own problems to worry about, so stop trying to avoid them by worrying about mine!”
She turned and started stomping down toward the other lower entrance.
For a moment, Balan didn’t move or respond. He just stood there, watching.
When Pose hit the doors, she shouldered into the first one and rebounded back. Odd… It wasn’t usually locked. She gave the other door a shove. It wouldn’t open either, much to her frustration. (It never occurred to her that they had only just locked, a tick before she reached them.) She gave a loud growl at the doors and started up the side stairs which lead to the stage. She would go out the back.
“Pose…” Balan called.
She paused briefly and glanced back to see what he wanted. The grin was still there, and that bugged her. But she couldn’t deny there was something like sympathy or pity in those eyes, and that was even more infuriating.
“You need help. Where’s Purr?”
“RRRGH!” Pose gave up and threw her notepad in Balan’s direction, then turned to continue off the back of the stage.
Balan came out from behind a torn curtain in front of her and blocked the path.
“Hey! No using magic you don’t need unless there’s a good reason!” Pose put her hands on her hips. “Teleporting wastes an awful lot!”
“You’re not listening. You need help. Where’s Purr?” Her notebook was shoved in his pocket and sticking out slightly.
“No, you’re not listening! I. Don’t. Know!”
She started to shove past him, but he snagged her elbows and brought her back out into the lights on the main stage. Apparently, whatever point he felt needed making hadn’t been clear enough.
“No one has seen her recently, Pose. Why is that?”
“I don’t know!” she said, annoyed.
“I think you do,” he said, tipping his head down to look her in the face. With his performance shoes and fancy hat, Balan was taller than most everyone else in the crew.
Pose, forever the dull shadow of Purr's bright and cheery existence, was much shorter, and dressed much more modestly – in a pinstriped business suit befitting a woman in the work place – at least as far as she was concerned. She refused to look Balan in the eye and be met with that pity, though.
“Hey,” he tried again.
“I don’t know where she is. She’s just… missing. It happens sometimes. You should know.”
Balan let go and stood back up. “So, you do know you need help.”
“I don’t need help,” she muttered. “I just … need more time. I’ll get a good script we can work with, soon.”
“You said it yourself, ‘No using magic you don’t need unless there’s a good reason.’ You haven’t turned out a workable manuscript in months, Pose. And now Purr’s gone missing. If you’re going to hold yourself together, you need help. You are a good reason. Let me help.”
“I can do this myself!” This time she did look up at him, but in an angry glare. “I don’t need your help!”
The world felt wrong. A wave of dizziness hit Pose. She hadn’t felt that way in years. It was what used to happen when…
She turned on her heel to march away, but found a subway car’s open doors in front of her. It startled her back. She spun around, trying to locate the stage. She had to ground herself before the rest of the magic took hold of her senses and she was whisked away to somewhere else. But the wooden stage floor was gone. The bright lights were gone, replaced by the dim lighting of a subway station. It was the last place she’d seen on the outside, before the theater had consumed her life magic.
Only Balan was still there. He didn’t belong in a subway. He belonged in a theater. It was wrong.
“Go home,” Pose said, surprised by the sadness in her own voice. “Leave me alone.”
The height difference was very wrong. He leaned down and patted her cheek like she was suddenly no taller than a child.
Did I shrink? Oh no, he really went all-out if my age altered. There won’t be anything left to-
“Come back soon,” Balan said. For a moment, the stage-smile faltered and there was real sadness in his eyes. “It’s no fun being alone, Cleo.”
Somehow, she'd boarded the subway train without noticing. The doors slammed shut, and the world outside the car was dark.
Pose fell back on her bottom, dizzy and confused. The subway rumbled on and went into a turn, leaving the theater and its pain-in-the-neck director behind. She laid back on the car's metal floor as the turn swung the other direction, snaking away to someplace else – someplace buried. She wasn’t sure where – it was too dark. Someplace where she would need the name Cleo, she supposed. Who was Cleo, though? She could hardly remember. It felt like someone who she’d said goodbye to long ago, but why?
“There’s too much. I can’t think. Where’s Purr? Why is Balan acting weirder than normal? Why wasn’t anyone else up, yet? How much magic is this going to cost? Why can’t I write? Something’s just… I can’t do this!”
She wrapped her arms over her face and cried, lying on the floor in the moving subway car.