Work Text:
“Your target is this man,” Edelgard says, setting a dossier onto the table. “He’s from the Empire, supposedly. He was working under my uncle. But we have reason to believe that he’s not who he says he is.”
“Is he with Those Who Slither in Darkness, Lady Edelgard?” Hubert asks through gritted teeth.
“Yes. And apparently, he’s a big fan of the opera.”
Performing has become the lifeblood of Dorothea Arnault. She feels at home on the stage, and even the thought of another job chills her blood. Being offered a position on a touring production of the Mittelfrank Opera’s biggest hit is a prestigious position, and even if it comes with the caveat of trailing the Emperor’s lapdog around with her, Dorothea accepts her role gladly.
She gets along well with Hubert at least. Things could be worse. If she were to pick a travelling companion for an opera trip, she would’ve been more likely to bring Ferdie, or Petra, or even Edelgard herself. But this is more than just an opera – this is a reconnaissance mission.
Hubert insists on taking the same carriage as her, and sits opposite her, staring out the window. His attention lies elsewhere, indifferent to the woman sitting opposite her even as she begins to go over her part, her voice hitting top soprano notes with ease. She spares a glance at her companion out of the corner of her eye – he continues to avoid her gaze.
"I don’t want to do this,” he says finally, after a few hours of travelling in silence. He’s had a dossier on his knees the entire time, his head kept down.
“Do what?” Dorothea asks. Maybe it’s a gruesome part of his plan?
“Did you not hear? One of the directors insisted that if I was to come along with the company, I’d have to make myself useful. So now I work backstage for this silly show, while finding information on our man.”
“Have you heard anything about where he could be?” Dorothea asks, lowering her voice in case the driver attempts to listen in.
“Last known sighting puts him in Hevring, as a matter of fact. We have a few days to strike while he’s still in the area.”
“Are you finally going to tell me your plan, then?”
“We meet in a bar after the show. Well, you meet him. I’ll be there in case things go sour. I’ll scout him out tomorrow. Hand out some flyers, lure him to the show. After the show, he’ll hang around and wait for the star to appear. That is when you strike, and we finish the mission, and I can report back to Lady Edelgard.”
“You seem to have this under control,” Dorothea says, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course. It is my job.”
In Hevring, the opera goes smoothly. Dorothea’s first two performances are a sell-out success, and early reviews speak of her sweeping soprano bringing stoic nobles to tears. Maybe her acting is so good because she’s living it in real life. Just one of Hubert’s many observations - a tortured opera star, whose strings are being pulled by someone behind the scenes.
During the day, Dorothea is either resting her voice or rehearsing with the company. She’s safe under the watchful eye of the directors, so Hubert can find their target. Quite a task in the middle of Hevring’s busiest city, but with leaflets in hand, he goes out to promote the opera and set his trap. The man they’re after is a connoisseur of the opera, and is purported to be a fan of the young girls who star in them too. Dorothea needs to become bait.
A meeting is arranged. The target thinks he’s getting a date with Dorothea, grinning and wanting Hubert to laugh at his dirty jokes. Hubert grimaces, and shakes the man’s hand – he’ll be at the stage door after curtains tonight.
Hubert heads back to the opera house. Night begins to fall, and crowds begin to make their way to the opera house for the third night of performances. Dorothea sits backstage in her dressing room, lounging in front of the mirror. Hubert knocks on her door out of politeness, even though it’s wide open. She turns to him, and gestures for him to close the door.
“Well?” She asks, keeping her voice low.
“He’s coming to meet you tonight,” Hubert says, taking a seat beside Dorothea.
“So it’s all on me, now?”
“It was always going to be on you,” Hubert is quick to point out, resting his hand on her forearm. “But you’ll be able to do it.”
Dorothea gives him a strange look and lifts her arm away, sweeping hair out of her face. She glances into the mirror – looking more at Hubert than at herself. His hair is sitting differently today, she thinks. That’s what seems so strange about him.
“Writing a letter?” He asks, lifting the page from her table.
“That’s private,” Dorothea says, reaching to snatch it from his hands. Quicker than her, Hubert moves off the stool, walking to the other end of the room.
“ Dearest Ferdinand, I am missing you so… well. I didn’t realise the two of you had gotten so close.”
“Hubert,” Dorothea warns, swivelling round to glare at him.
“Don’t let him distract you from your mission.”
Hubert hates his job. He’s a mage, an assassin, Edelgard’s right hand. He is no stage lackey, and yet the directors of the opera don’t seem to care about his status as Count Vestra – he will light all the candles, he will move the scenery, he will push the boat on to stage while the tenor pretends to row it, he will drop the dead body from the rafters at the correct musical cue.
Dorothea triumphs with every single note that comes out of her mouth. This is what she was born to do, she realises as she hits high notes and swirls across the stage and pretends to fall in love with her co-star – easy when he reminds her so much of Ferdinand. She sobs and she grins and she becomes her character, and she bows so deeply at the end to hide the smile that is almost shamefully large.
The curtains close across the stage, red velvet blocking Dorothea from the audience. Their applause continues, and she smiles, walking off to change. Hubert waits in the wings for her, and his hands land heavy on her shoulders, steering her towards her dressing room, whispering instructions into her ear. She shakes him off at the door, closing it in his face.
Hubert waits impatiently outside the door. Dorothea seems to be taking a long time. Of course, she has to remove her costume and change into the clothes she arrived in, and Hubert imagines she’s taking off the masses of stage makeup she cakes on every night. Eventually though, she reappears, looking a lot paler than she did when she went in.
Dorothea loops her arm through Hubert’s, and allows him to escort her to the stage door. Someone usually does this every evening, though it feels different when it’s Hubert and she’s going to meet their target.
The man in question is shorter than her by a few inches, even without her heels. She smiles, and Hubert lets go of her, practically pushing her into the arms of the man. Immediately his arm is around her waist. Hubert sets his jaw – how dare he be so bold? Dorothea is used to having to put up with men who get handsy, and laughs at a joke he makes.
They end up in a bar in the middle of town. The cast visited here the first night they were in town, and Dorothea had woken up the next morning nursing a headache. Tonight is different – no rowdy cast party, just Dorothea and their target, tucked away in the corner. Hubert is here too – sitting at the bar, whiskey in hand. He keeps an eye on the table, all while blending into the atmosphere.
Dorothea leans forward, leaning her elbows on the table, stirring her drink idly with one hand. She laughs at their target’s jokes, gets him into a good mood. She knows how to play her part well – perhaps too well, Hubert thinks, as he watches the man’s hand settle on Dorothea’s knee under the table.
She signals the barkeep for another drink – alcohol for him, tea with honey for her. She laughs again, says something about her voice. Hubert glances out of the corner of his eye, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth at the sound of her laugh. Just like her singing voice, it’s allured many people over the years, just like how she has their target under her thumb tonight.
“Say,” Dorothea murmurs, leaning ever closer to the man. “Do you know Lord Arundel?”
“I’ve met him a few times. Nice man.”
“Is he? I’d like to petition him about a new opera house in Hrym… Wonderful area of the country, and we’d like another more permanent base. I wonder if you could put us in contact? I’m yet to be able to find a permanent address for the man.” Dorothea twirls her hair around her finger, and looks up at the man through her eyelashes.
“The Emperor’s uncle… What’s in it for me, if I tell you?” He’s suspicious, but Dorothea is so close now.
“Free tickets to any of my shows?” She says, blinking slowly at her. “There’s no way someone like me could find out – I’d have to ask the Emperor herself, and no one in my standing could ever get an audience with her!”
“Arundel has been living in some place called Shambhala,” the man explains. His words are slurred, and Dorothea can barely understand him – the overwhelming smell of alcohol on his breath is distracting. But that’s enough information for her to give to Hubert. Presumably he knows what that means, or where that is.
“Interesting,” Dorothea hums. “Thank you. I’ll make sure you’re compensated properly. But for now…” She suppresses a fake yawn into the palm of her hand, sliding off her stool. “I have to head back. I need to rest my voice again before tomorrow’s performance.”
“I’ll walk you back to your room.”
Dorothea allows the man to wrap his arm around her again and she leads him out the door. As they walk past Hubert, Dorothea nods to him, confirming that she’s got something. Hubert waits a few moments, until the two are well on their way, before he leaves the bar himself.
He’s been put up at the other end of town – inconvenient for when he has to meet with Dorothea, but nice otherwise. But tonight he walks in the opposite direction, following Dorothea and their target to where she’s been staying. He hangs back in the shadows, waits across the street, hands clenched into fists as the man kisses Dorothea goodnight.
She waits on her doorstep, watching him disappear. When he’s definitely out of sight, Hubert approaches. Dorothea looks concerned, and wipes her lipstick onto the back of her hand, removing all traces of the man.
“Shambhala,” she says. “that’s where Arundel is. And presumably all of his cronies.”
“Interesting,” Hubert responds. “I don’t like that man.”
“Neither do I,” Dorothea admits.
“Maybe we’ll torture him,” Hubert hums. “He probably knows much more than he told you.”
“Probably, but what’s the point? Just let him go,” she sighs. “I’m going to get some sleep. Goodnight, Hubert.”
Hubert nods, and turns his attention in the direction that the man disappeared in.
The director runs around for thirty minutes before the show begins, unable to figure out where Hubert has gone to. There are special effects that need done, levers to pull and scenery to move. But their man is missing, and one of the stage managers has to step in to fill his place.
The show begins as normal. Dorothea sings her way through solos and duets, watches the ensemble dance through group numbers. But Hubert is still missing, and as time goes on, it looks increasingly unlikely that he’ll reappear before the end of the first act.
The dancers twirl on stage while Dorothea changes in the wings. It’s funny to act out things in the opera going wrong when it’s the last thing that she would want to happen to her. This scene is going wrong, she realises with a start, and her dresser seems to notice too, rushing the lacing on her corset and disappearing in a hurry to figure out what’s going on.
Maybe the stage manager doesn’t remember the cue for the body to fall, the beginning of the horror of the opera. But the orchestra has played the cue multiple times, the same set of bars vamped over and over while the dancers twirl in the same set of repeated steps. Eventually the director cues the conductor to stop and start with the next piece. The dancers curtsey and scurry off stage, and Dorothea rushes on with her co-stars.
The orchestra begins the next song – a group number, something comedic. This is one of Dorothea’s least favourite parts, cut from the original draft of the opera and then added back in. The dead body drops from the rafters and the opera continues while the pretend audience rushes out. Tonight, they continue the opera as normal, though something settles in Dorothea’s stomach, indicating that something just isn’t right.
There’s a strange crackling sound from above her, a murmur of confusion rippling across the audience. They can hear it too, Dorothea realises, though she keeps singing, louder, in the hopes that her voice will drown out the sound. The noise gets louder too, and Dorothea looks upwards. Her voice stops mid-word when she covers her mouth with a gloved hand, and watches in horror as the previous scene unfolds in front of her eyes for real.
The crackling noise belongs to dark magic that can only have come from Hubert’s palms. The man from last night hangs there, suspended by magic wrapped tightly around his neck. Dorothea screams involuntarily, the audience following suit.
Worst of all, the man is alive, barely, but still hanging on to the last dregs of life. But the dark magic seems to tighten around his neck, and he crashes to the floor, unmoving. Dorothea takes a tentative few steps backwards, glancing into the rigging in time to see the swish of Hubert’s cape as he disappears, presumably counting this mission as complete.
The curtains are closed as the audience rushes out, Dorothea falling to her knees beside the man. He is dead, and Hubert is nowhere to be seen. She rises with the power of the warrior she became during the war, and chases after the phantom into the night.