Chapter Text
Orpheus - My love, my muse! Forgive my treacherous eyes! That in the
moment of your salvation, they’d catch your form; lend truth to Hades’ lies-
In the long and storied history of the Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, the bard-track had put on somewhere close to a thousand plays. Likely more, Skara knew, though if a play didn’t earn the faculty’s silver stamp, it wouldn’t find itself in the ledger she held. And if it wasn’t in the ledger, it may as well have never been performed in the first place.
If she wasn’t careful, hers would be right there with them.
“What do you mean, you can’t make it?” Boscha growled into her scroll just ahead of her, boots all but wearing a rut into the stage as she paced back and forth. “I don’t care that your griffins are grounded,” she continued, scowling at the witch on the other end, “you’re telling me that not one person in your entire coven has a palisman capable of flight?”
Silence for a moment, as whatever poor soul had picked up her calls met her question with the answer she was looking for.
“Well then have him fly the rest of you over!”
Another silence, longer this time, though if she focused, Skara thought she could just make out the sound of someone pleading on the other end of the line.
“No, I don’t want a refund,” Boscha snarled , form tense, “I need things moved!”
Thrice and it was true, Boscha’s third eye all but caught alight at the response.
“You listen here, you son of a gnome,” she rasped, dangerously quiet, “I’m going to find you, and when I get my hands on you, they’re not even going to be able to identify your body-”
“Boscha,” Skara finally warned, intervening on the poor witch’s behalf.
“What?” the alchemist asked her, voice shifted back to a less threatening tone.
“Please don’t threaten the movers,” the bard pleaded, “It’s not like they chose to ground their griffins; to not get paid.”
“One of them’s got an arrow-hawk palisman; they could make it if they wanted to!”
“Bosch, come on. Listen to yourself.”
The witch looked like she wanted to argue, but Skara held her ground, gazing not so much into the two eyes flanking her nose as the one at the center of the forehead. That one, Skara knew, was a little wimp by comparison, and she pressed her advantage viciously .
“I-” Boscha began before cutting off and turning back to the scroll. “Fine; you live to see another day, you little punk, but you better be falling over yourself to give me a discount the next time I call, got it?”
She must’ve gotten the answer she was looking for, judging by the way the alchemist vanished her scroll, letting her remaining frustrations out with a single, drawn out roar that echoed back at them in the near-empty auditorium.
“Well, that was excessive,” Skara quipped with a chuckle.
“I thought I handled it pretty well,” Boscha replied, almost sounding hurt.
“You threatened to turn him into a newt and feed him to my bard beetle.”
“What, Ringo doesn’t like newts anymore?”
“Oh, no, it was very thoughtful,” Skara admitted teasingly, “but we do have to use those movers at some point.”
“They were supposed to be here today .”
“And then their griffons were grounded by what, again?” Skara asked, leaving implication behind in favor of suggestion. They were two completely different things, regardless of what Boscha might have to say on the matter.
“Some sort of scale-rot on their feet,” the witch in question replied, confirming the bard’s suspicions. She knew a particular classmate who’d chosen not to work with her; was also keenly aware of the fact that her family had a proclivity for… less constructive forms of healing magic.
“Mmhmm,” Skara said instead, letting the suggestion of it sink in to the witch who’d finally stopped pacing in front of her.
“That was courtesy of your fellow bards, I’m assuming?” Boscha asked once the bard could see the thought sink in.
“Well, only two-thirds of the class agreed to help me,” Skara replied, nodding as she glanced over the empty seats, half-expecting a proper ambush, “and the track’s used those same movers for over a decade now, so it’d make sense.”
“I still think it’s absolutely insane that they have you competing against each other.”
“What, Boscha ‘the Three-Eyed Demon’ Stryder can’t get into the spirit of competition?”
“That’s on solo projects,” she clarified, as if it provided any clarification.
“I’d hardly call playing Grudgby a solo project,” Skara contended with a grin.
“That’s different.”
“How so?”
“It just is.”
Ah, “It just is,” one of Boscha’s classic truisms. Right next to “because I said so,” and “that’s just the way things are.” Each of them one of the essential pillars of Boschic - the language only Skara and the three-eyed alchemist across from her were fluent in.
“It just is,” Boschic translation; “I think I’m right, and I’m not going to budge on that.”
“Fine, I’ll drop it,” Skara responded, well aware that it would be a losing battle otherwise. Right as she was going to level a devastating counter-point at the witch while her guard was down, her own scroll started ringing.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” she apologized, popping the scroll into existence and flashing the screen to the other witch.
“Hey, I’ll just be moving all these boxes by myself, I guess,” Boscha assured her with a groan, looking out over the three-dozen or so boxes of costumes, props, and setpieces they’d been force to sort through after the registry that logged it all had been mysteriously misplaced.
“Look at it this way,” Skara quipped as she hopped off the stage, turning to face the witch as she walked backwards out of the auditorium, “You wanted to get a workout in today.”
“Yeah, but today was leg day,” Boscha whined, the tone of her voice indicating she was genuinely upset about the fact. Were it not so ridiculous, Skara almost would have felt bad for her.
“Then lift with your legs,” she responded instead, stepping out into the hallway and running a finger across the screen to take the call.
“Aeol! Please tell me you’re just calling to catch up.”
Because if you aren’t, I’m going to put you in the groun-
“Skara?” an unfamiliar voice asked, “This is Cassia - Aeol’s mother.”
“Titan, is everything alright?”
“Aeol’s fine, thank you,” the voice (Cassia, apparently) assured her, “She’s just come down with a bout of spellflu, and it appears to be centered in her mouth.”
Well, that didn’t make sense, because spellflu was only centered where an infected witch’s bile touched another. Where magic was cast and bile drawn to the skin. But Aeol was a bard, a singer at that, which would mean...
“Ah, I see” Skara replied eloquently, blushing furiously at the implication. At having to discuss her classmate’s interests with her mother, of all people.
“Yes, so the healers have her all but taped shut for the next two weeks at least,” Cassia continued, sounding just as uncomfortable with the situation as she was, “She also wanted me to tell you that Lydia and Ione are… similarly afflicted.”
“Ah, I see,” Skara repeated, tone hardening anger as anger won out over embarrassment. “Mrs. Anapoi, could you give Aeol a message for me?”
“Certainly dear.”
“Tell her to get well soon,” Skara began, deciding in the moment to not use the cruelest thing she had on her fellow bard, “and that I still have her construction books from the other night.”
“I didn’t realize Aeol was taking courses on the construction-track,” her mother replied, voice touched by barely contained excitement. From the sound of it, Skara had her. She knew, after all, that she was an architect; that she’d been trying to get her to be one for years . That Aeol had finally started learning the basics in secret, uncertain whether she wanted to study it or not.
“Oh, that’s my bad then!” Skara bemoaned, lying through her teeth, “She just seemed super interested in wanting to take up the family business. Maybe she just needs some encouragement?”
“Thank you dear,” Cassia replied genuinely, “I’ll be certain to keep that in mind. I hope that you find someone to take Aeol’s place. I’d hate for her… activities to affect your production.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Anapoi. Have a good night now.”
“Oh, I certainly will,” the woman on the other end of the line assured her, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “It’s not often I have a captive audience. You do so too, darling.”
With that, Skara hung up the phone, holding herself together for approximately eleven seconds before letting out a shriek of pure frustration that would rival Boscha . Down the hall, her eyes locked on a poor janitor who’d been caught unawares by the noise, breaking into a dead sprint out the bayward door.
“ Whose Horn Shakes the Isles indeed,” the bard muttered to herself ruefully as she turned and dramatically pushed the doors to the auditorium open before her. If the expression on the stunned alchemist’s face was anything to go by, the gesture wasn’t wasted.
“Hey Bosch?” Skara found herself asking, a terrible, awful plan beginning to form in her head.
“Yeah?” the witch asked, not even half as nervous as she should have been.
“What’s the melting point of quicksilver?”
“Quicksilver?” the alchemist asked, caught unawares but not unprepared, “Negative thirty-eight point eight, why?”
“You wanted me to quiz you, right?” Skara asked, feigning innocence.
“That’s what we did all of last night. You said I couldn’t be more ready.”
Ah, there was the suspicion. No translation needed.
“It was very impressive,” the bard replied, laying it on thick, “but it can’t hurt to keep at it.”
“Fine,” Boscha huffed, setting down the box she’d been carrying and sitting atop it.
“Oh, well I’m glad I have your approval,” Skara quipped back, ignoring the witch’s scowl, “It’s not like I’m trying to help you or anything-”
“Just ask the next question.”
What to ask, what to ask? Something complicated. That would demonstrate her ability to remember multiple motivations of a singular item...
“Selene’s Strings,” she asked, seizing on the answer, “anticoagulant or anesthetic?”
“Neither,” Boscha replied, scoffing as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “The plant has three separate functions. The internal fibers can be used for a tincture of vocal clarity, the outer husk as an alternative to panacea oils for minor abrasions, and the roots as a potent toxin.”
Titan, she was smart when she wanted to be.
“How would you prepare the last?” she found herself following up, more just to hear the response than to satisfy her other motive.
“You trying to poison someone?” Boscha asked, laughing.
“Just answer the question, Bosch,” Skara echoed back, meeting the alchemist’s grin with a slyer mirror.
“Construct Van Helmont’s distillery apparatus,” Boscha rattled off, bottom eyes locked on Skara while her top traced what Skara assumed would be the pattern of such a thing, “dice the roots into two-centimeter portions, place in a solution one part alcohol to seven parts water, and distill until ten milliliters of the substance are produced. Final product will be a silvery-white liquid that smells faintly of almonds.”
“I have no idea how you keep all those human measurements in your head,” Skara admitted, practically dizzy from the bombardment.
“It’s one of the few things they did right,” Boscha quipped back, “Alchemy was a nightmare before we introduced units.”
“This might actually work,” Skara found herself admitting internally. Now if she could just figure out the best question for retention...
“Paracelsus’ Theory of the Fifth Humor?”
“ Prasinos Chole ,” Boscha responded with a smug grin that made Skara’s blood boil , “or ‘green bile,’ allows for the direct control of the other four humors, permitting those who can access it to shift their internal chemistry and allow for the channeling of the devil’s arts.”
“And the counter-theory?” the bard asked, though she had a feeling the alchemist would have given it unprompted.
“Newton asserted that the effect of green bile, while invocative, was not to influence the other four humors, but rather that witches were naturally attuned to an unseen force, and that they could burn their bile to access that force directly, producing their magic.”
Boscha finished, huffing but still immensely pleased, and Skara couldn’t help but smile. That, in turn, made the other witch blush, which was even more of a gift.
“Why are you smiling,” the alchemist asked her nervously.
“That was right,” Skara responded simply.
“Well of course it was right. I haven't forgotten it since last night.”
“Nice rhyme,” Skara quipped, “but that was exactly right.”
“It’s not enough to be good-” Boscha intoned.
“-you have to be excellent,” Skara finished, all too familiar with the last of the witch’s four truisms.
Boschic translation; If I can’t get it perfect, it’s not worth doing.
“Is there a point to this?” Boscha asked her, pulling her from her thoughts.
“I can’t just praise you?” Skara teased back automatically.
“You can,” Boscha conceded, failing to hide that she’d very much like her to continue, “but it’s usually only when you want something.”
“Miss Stryder, I’m hurt,” Skara replied, pressing a hand to her chest and draping herself dramatically over the boxes behind her, “I’m torn apart, really.”
“Spill it, Pipes,” Boscha growled back, squaring her shoulders.
“Oh, you’re very intimidating,” Skara teased back, pouting back at her from her reclined position.
“I’m serious,” the alchemist impressed, sounding very serious indeed as she closed the distance between them. Skara gulped at the way she loomed over her, at the faint growl that still clung to the “Tell me” she concluded with.
“Make me,” she responded, voice faltering ever so slightly on the last syllable.
Something about it must have made Boscha realize how close she’d gotten, because her faintly pink skin turned a deep, violent shade of red. She fixed her lower eyes firmly on the middle distance, though her third went straight for…
Skara sat back up, rearranging herself into something that was anything other than the pose (why had she been posing?) she’d been doing the moment before.
“I got some bad news a few minutes ago,” she blurted out, taking a spot amongst the five worst recoveries of all time in a heartbeat.
“What is it this time?” Boscha asked, coaching her voice into something resembling normal as she woodenly sat back down on her box.
“Aeol is sick,” the bard responded, somehow grateful for the way it killed her tone and the mood at the same time.
Titan, had there been a mood?
“With what?” Boscha asked her, snapping her out of it.
“Spellflu.”
“Thorns,” the alchemist swore.
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” the bard replied, suddenly self-conscious that Boscha might have heard her shriek in the hallway.
“Alright, well have Lydia or Ione do it,” Boscha suggested, rattling off the names of understudies Skara didn’t even realize she knew existed, “I’m sure they’ll fight over it, but they’ll listen to you.”
“They also have spellflu.”
“What, were they all making out with each other or something?” Boscha asked, turning to meet her eyes and blushing as she did. As the implication of Skara’s silence made it through that pretty, thick skull of hers.
“Oh.”
Yeah, “Oh,” Boscha.
“So that leaves me with no Eurydice, and both of her understudies out with her.”
“Well, it’s just spellflu,” Boscha tried to assure her, “It’s a long recovery, but they should be good to go in two, three weeks tops.”
“Oh,” Skara replied cheerily, “I didn’t get a chance to tell you?”
“That’s your ‘I have even worse news’ voice,” Boscha all but uttered .
“I have a voice for that?”
“It’s a recent addition.”
“Titan, I can’t imagine why,” Skara responded past the smile she was forcing to her face, “Terpand kept me after class today; said he was able to pull some strings and get us the amphitheater after all.”
“That doesn’t sound like bad news,” Boscha replied carefully.
“In exactly three weeks,” Skara amended.
“Ah.”
“And he liked the idea so much,” Skara continued, nearly manic, “he’s saying that we have to perform there now.”
“I thought you said it was booked through the end of the year?”
“Oh, it is,” the bard replied, chuckling, “so he was only able to swing us one night.”
“So he cut your prep time by two weeks-” Boscha began.
“Yep.”
“Your lead role is now empty-” she continued.
“As of five minutes ago.”
“And instead of having three shows to get as many points as possible, you’re down to one,” the alchemist concluded, wincing as she did at the half-choked noise Skara had made at someone listing her woes aloud.
“That about sums it up, yeah.” the bard forced herself to say, finally letting the grin leave her face.
“So where do I come into all this?” Boscha asked, suspicion plain in her voice.
“Well, Amelia can’t act her way out of a brown parchment bag,” Skara began, forcing herself to push past the expression that began to creep across the other witch’s face, “Bo and Cat are off on their healing retreat for the next few months, and Gus is already playing the muse so-”
“No,” Boscha replied, shooting her down before she could even finish.
“Boscha please,” Skara pleaded.
“Absolutely not,” the alchemist responded, going so far as to look away from her.
“Boscha, please, ” she echoed, crossing the distance between them and kneeling in front of the other girl.
“Skara, you and I both know I can’t act for a damn,” Boscha snapped back, voice harsh, “and you want me to play a lead role ? I don’t even know the lines!”
“You memorized a year’s worth of alchemy notes in five weeks. This is maybe three hundred lines in three. That’s a hundred lines a week.”
“Oh gee, thanks for doing the math for me.”
“Bosch, I’m begging you,” Skara insisted, quite literally on her knees, begging her , “There’s no one else I can trust to do this for me, and if I don’t get this right the one chance I’ve got at it, I’m screwed. You know it, I know it, and all the other bards know it too.”
“Skara, I-”
The bard could tell she wanted to say something else, but it caught in her throat. Eyes working overtime as they followed some pattern she couldn’t see, that no amount of translation would unwind. The anxiety that radiated from her friend suddenly made Skara seem very small, very petty, but still she pushed on.
“It’s not that I don’t want to help you,” Boscha stated before she could get another word across, “but this isn’t my thing. Having me play that part… it’ll be worse than if you cast no one at all. Just have Gus cast an illusion or-”
“You and I both know that’s not going to work,” Skara whispered, drawing the conversation down to just them, “Please, Boscha, I need you to do this for me. You-”
She caught herself the moment before she said it, but the damage had already been done. The way the alchemist’s shoulders tensed up. How any of her three eyes simply refused to meet her own.
“Go ahead and say it,” she monotoned, as if waiting for the executioner.
“No, I won’t,” Skara insisted, “it wouldn’t be fair. I’ll just bribe Prudelphina or something.”
“What, so she can stab you in the back at the last moment?” Boscha asked, incredulous, “Not going to happen.”
“Well, I’m kind of out of opt-”
“I’ll do it,” she interjected, cutting her off.
Silence, tense and shocked, raced over Skara’s mind, muffling anything cohesive other than a single, desperate, hopeful question.
“You will?”
“Yes, I will,” Boscha responded, “because I do owe you.”
And then her mind was in overdrive; shame washing over her as something that had just been on the precipice of catching fire snuffed itself out.
“Boscha, I’m sorry I almost said that. There’s just a lot going on right now, and-”
“Pipes, drop it. If it helps you, try to think of it as payback for helping me study.”
“I- I can do that.”
“Good,” Boscha replied, finally meeting her eyes, “Now, where do we start?”
“We start by finishing this loading,” Skara replied, skipping around the other witch and trying to pick up the largest box left on the stage. It absolutely refused to budge, even after she worked at it for a few more seconds, so she abandoned it for the next largest one. That too proved a herculean task, but she just barely managed to lift it above the stage, half-waddling her way towards the storage room that now seemed leagues away.
“You’re out of shape, Skar,” Boscha quipped, chuckling as she easily lifted the largest and walked past her.
“You’re not going to help me?” Skara wheezed at her retreating back.
“The way I see it, I’m already helping you,” the alchemist called as she turned the corner. Still, when she came back a minute later, only to find Skara struggling to get it over the lip of the door, she only laughed for a few minutes before she picked up the box and carried it the rest of the way.
Boschic translation; Sorry for laughing at you.
“Alright, what’s next?” Boscha asked from somewhere above where Skara was lying on the stage. Scowling, the bard raised her hand and flicked her finger twice, wrapping her fingers around the alchemist’s wrist as it was offered and pulling herself up.
“Now,” she huffed (totally not still out of breath), “we’ve got to get those lines down, and then we’ll work on your acting. After that, I’ll fit you for a costume, and then it’s going to be nothing but readings, rehearsals, and test-runs until you’re a proper honorary bard.”
“It’s hell,” Boscha moaned, “you’re taking me to hell.”
“The underworld, actually,” Skara clarified, “Orpheus never made it anywhere near the nine rings. Totally different neighborhood.”
“Who?”
Skara just huffed as she pushed past the witch and towards the far door. Ignored her protests that she totally knew who “Orphus” was, and that she was totally just messing with her.
It was going to be a long three weeks.
But when she’d asked for help, Boscha had said yes. Sure, it had taken a bit of convincing, but when hadn’t it with the witch? She’d once had to convince her that no, they couldn’t just press the oracle students into making a crystal ball that would let them steal the souls of their rivalling teams, even if there wasn’t technically a rule against it.
No, Boscha had said yes, and convincing required or no convincing required, she’d been there to say it, and as much as it hurt her to admit it, she wouldn’t have been even a couple months ago. So as far as Skara was concerned, that was a victory in and of itself. And when Boscha - dumb, flustered Boscha drew to eye-level with her, still apologizing, it was all she could do to force herself to grab her hand and shut her up with the gesture alone.
Boscha squeezed her hand three times, and as much as Skara wanted to think otherwise, she knew the witch had no clue what the motion she’d copied from her meant. To her, it was more along the lines of a general apology, but to the bard, it meant something else. So she squeezed three times back, and the alchemist’s shoulders relaxed, her upper eye shifting from a nervous squint to wide-eyed relief even as the rest of her face settled into her usual feigned passivity.
Skaric translation; Love you too.
But Boscha had never been very good at implications.