Edited by: bafflinghaze
It was the day of the performance
The bell rang and students from other classrooms started to trickle out. Soon, the school was almost empty of children who were ready to start their summer holiday.
But not them.
The students of Professor Rickman’s second-year literature class had one last test before the quarter was over for them.
“You may take your meals outside the theatre. I want all of you to be ready by six.”
“Yes, Professor,” his students spoke in unison.
Rickman watched his students go, his face set impassively cold and stern. It was only the distant look in his eyes that showed the immense despair he felt in his mind.
May the gods be with them…
He looked toward the window and mumbled a short prayer.
Hopefully, no one dies during the show.
—
“Achoo!”
Neo sniffed.
Why did it feel like somebody jinxed him?
He and his friends were sitting on the steps of the theatre building, clustered together in a group as they ate their dinner. Around them, other students were eating as well, trying to quickly—but elegantly—finish off their food before the call time.
Neo had a large container of food prepared by the kitchen staff. It was a five-tier lunchbox the size of half his torso. This morning, when they learned he wouldn’t be home for dinner, they stuffed the box into his arms and pushed him out the door. All its content was kept warm by a heating charm.
Neo had a large appetite, but even he couldn’t personally finish that much food all by himself. The lunchbox held enough food for ten people, so he opted to share it with his friends.
Hence Royce was currently shoving a cucumber sandwich into his mouth ravenously.
“…What?” The redhead stopped mid-chew when they stared at him. “I skipped breakfast and forgot my lunch.”
It was the fifth day in a row where Royce skipped breakfast and forgot to bring his lunch. He was all over the place as the quarter approached its end, too focused on his next jewelry line since he was planning to release the new collection during the midsummer festival.
Tybalt handed him another sandwich. He was most adamant that Royce took care of himself better.
Out of the four of them, he surprisingly nagged the most. He would playfully comment on their eating habits or sleeping habits, and sometimes even their studying habits would be nagged about if they weren’t being diligent.
It was obvious he was taking advantage of the lack of scheming and troublemaking Nazareth would have dragged him into to fully enjoy a normal and peaceful school life.
Tybalt did what he did in that other lifetime so he could survive, but without the major red flag that was Nazareth Odum standing in the way of his dreams, he was free to take pleasure in the small things.
Royce somehow managed to finish the sandwiches quicker than the speed at which Tybalt was plying them on him and promptly distracted him by moving the attention towards Neo.
“Is your family coming to the performance?”
—As if none of them didn’t know the Odums were coming.
But Neo played along because there were only so many sandwiches Royce could eat.
He took a bite out of his own sandwich before answering. “Mother and Father wanted to bring the entire staff, but I think the Professor would cry if they did that. Aurelion persuaded them not to. Is your family coming, Roy?”
Royce crossed his arms. “Only Aunt Miranda and Aunt Evelyn. Father got coerced into working overtime, so he can’t make it.”
“Poor him.”
“Yeah. Aunt Miranda called him stupid…”
Marquis Benedick had three wives. The main wife, the second wife, and a mistress from the red-light district.
Royce was the son of his second wife. He was the youngest and last living child of the Benedick Family after the death of his two older brothers.
The Benedick household was harmonious despite their numerous setbacks, and being the last remaining heir and legacy to the late second wife who died in labor, Royce was doted on and well-protected by his family.
The Benedicks knew that tragedy could not keep them from moving on. In the wake of numerous deaths, there was nothing to be done besides going forward and cherishing what was left. Their beloved child has grown into a respectable young man and he was every bit their pride and joy.
As they made more progress on clearing the contents of his lunch box—Tybalt was still pushing more food into Royce’s hands despite the other’s objections—Neo took notice that something was off.
Finneas hadn’t touched the lunch box at all since they sat down to eat. He was also unusually quiet, his body posture withdrawn.
It was like déjà vu because, before the revelation of his rebirth, this was the behavior of the old Finneas.
Neo leaned over, his face leveled with Finneas’ until he was close enough to make out faint freckles he’d never noticed dotting the other’s nose.
“Finneas?”
“Hm…?” The brunette was slow to respond.
A crease appeared between Neo’s brows. The latter seemed rather pale as of late, which reminded him.
When was the last time Finneas fell ill?
“Are you alright?”
There was a dazed look in Finneas’ eyes as he met Neo’s gaze. “I’m fine.”
Neo found that hard to believe, now that he took note of his poor pallor.
But before he could say anything, he was interrupted.
“Finny, your family’s coming for the performance, too, right?” Tybalt’s attention was focused back on them. Beside him, Royce looked like he was having a hard time.
Neo quietly handed him a piece of ginger from the lunch box to aid his digestion.
Tybalt’s question seemed to revitalize Finneas’ wilted state, making Neo question whether or not he misread him.
“Pherb is coming since he got himself a day off. The old man says he’s not feeling well because he’s a fucking coward who can’t face his brother-in-law. If Mother was still alive, she would have kicked his weak ass into hell.”
Ah.
Neo, Royce, and Tybalt couldn’t help but feel pity for Viscount Dagon.
Having Professor Rickman as a brother-in-law was certainly terrifying…
“It’s been a while since we saw Pherb. Has the Magic Tower been keeping him busy?” Tybalt switched topics, clearly aware that they’d reached “dead mother” territory.
It was such a strange coincidence that all four of them had dead biological mothers.
“He thrives in nerdy shit, so no. Apparently, he heard about me playing Gilde because the old man couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Now he feels obligated to come see this shitty show.”
Pherbian Wilbert Dagon.
The oldest son of Viscount Dagon and heir to the Dagon Legacy. He was a man of few words but a once-in-a-lifetime genius in Magic Engineering.
He was also a workaholic who only traveled between the Magic Tower and the Dagon Manor.
Neo could relate.
Except for the dying of overworking part. He should tell Quill to tell Pherb that the next time he visited the Magic Tower.
“Tybalt, is there anyone from your family coming to see the performance?” A voice piped up from behind them.
Fredrick Meyer was holding a piece of parchment with guest names. He had seen that the invitations given to Tybalt were all left in pristine shape, indicating that he had opted to not invite anyone to come see the show.
Neo, Royce, and Finneas watched, slightly horrified, as the usually friendly and sly Tybalt no longer looked very friendly.
His smile grew a little sharper, a little wider, and his eyes darkened into a deep magenta color. The way his body tightened, as if he was suppressing a great anger, looked like it took effort.
In an instant, however, Tybalt returned to his smiling self and directed his unhappy expression back to Fredrick, who took a cautious step back.
“My siblings’ bedtime is at nine, so no. Also, the rest of my family can go fuck themselves.”
And that was that. Their meal was eaten in silence and they quickly finished it within ten minutes.
—
“I see that none of you wish to be disappointments today.”
Professor Rickman appeared in front of them out of seemingly nowhere, commenting on the fact that all of them looked ready to enter the theatre.
“We will head inside the theatre and set the stage. Actors, put on your makeup and get into costume. Technicians, you know your stations. Peregrine, meet me in the light booth. Your spotlights and timing have not improved since last week. It’s either you have been sleeping throughout rehearsal or you’re drinking something you shouldn’t be—I swear to the gods if you’ve been sampling the night pearl fluids…” Professor Rickman trailed off, muttering a few choice words before he was back to scowling at all of them. “Well? What are you all waiting for? Get a move on. You all have an hour before curtain.”
They all scattered like mice, heading straight into the theatre.
Neo stood up to follow the crowd, hands reaching for his lunch box and school bag.
It was then that he belatedly realized he was missing something.
He paused.
Tybalt stopped behind him. “Naza?”
“I left my school bag in the classroom.”
He forgot the bag because he was carrying the lunch box.
“I’ll be back.”
Neo turned around and left quickly toward the classroom building.
The classroom building closes in an hour and the school bag has all his homework assignments for the summer.
He’d be damned if his grades fell apart after doing damage control on his studies in the last four months.
—
Arriving in his classroom, Neo was relieved to see his school bag lying on the hook behind his chair.
While he was outwardly composed, his heart was palpitating and ready to burst from his chest. Running across campus was not fun, despite his body being younger and more athletic than his middle-aged self.
He grabbed his bag and made to leave the empty classroom, darting through the corridors toward the nearest exit, relying on the adrenaline to get him through despite his entire body screaming at him to stop and take a breath.
The nearest exit was a large open window, letting warm sunlight into the building.
There was a rain pipe Neo could hang onto and slide down from, and thankfully he was on the third floor, so if he did fall, he’d live.
It had been decades since he did anything like jumping off a tall building and pulling off “street rat parkour”, but muscle memory was amazing in this body.
With one leg braced against the building to control the speed, Neo slid down. He landed with more grace than he expected, his feet touching the dirt of the dueling field.
And then he saw something that made him want to throw a knife.
—
“Give it back!”
Lester swore. He was about to deck these idiots across the field if they didn’t return his sword soon. They were throwing it around like it was a freaking ball, forcing him into a game of monkey in the middle.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Or what?” Idiot Number One taunted him with a smug grin, shaking the sword at him like it was a stick.
Lester bared his teeth.
“Come on, Dartmouth. Catch!” The sword was thrown into the air, and Lester ran after it, but it was caught by Idiot Number Two.
Idiot Number Two held it up high and smiled.
“Where did you get this sword, anyway? Only the most honorable families receive swords of this make.”
How Idiot Number Two managed to get this far in his education was a mystery. Lester’s family name was literally in the history books.
“It doesn’t matter where I got it. It’s mine! Give it back!”
Dumbass One and Two started laughing like they were hearing the best joke ever.
But suddenly, their laughter was cut short by something small and sharp flying past them at a speed too fast for the human eye.
A knife embedded deeply into a tree behind them.
“What are you doing?”
—
The atmosphere felt suffocatingly warm as if they were standing in the middle of a heatwave.
They looked between the knife, with its hilt nearly touching the wood, to the figure standing in front of them.
They called him a demon but forgot why they did. It was terrifying to be reminded.
It couldn’t be.
There was no way a guy like that would show up to help a loser like Dartmouth.
“Brother…!”
Brother?
“You’re related to this guy?” Kencystreight, otherwise known as Dumbass Number One, scoffed as if this was all a joke, but his forehead was already damp with sweat.
Lester snarled. His relationship with Brother Naza was none of their business.
Gotabed, or Dumbass Number Two, opened his mouth to say something but Nazareth silenced him with a glance.
The courage to speak trickled away at the absolute fury hidden beneath the depths of those bloody vermillion eyes.
“Wh…what do you want?” Gotabed stuttered, looking much smaller standing before a monster.
Nazareth’s stare pinned the miscreants in place, welding their feet to the ground.
“Leave.”
I will end your entire bloodline. Your families will perish while your own deaths will be so long and drawn out, you will be begging me to end you. You will die alone and forgotten, no one will search for you, and you will thank me when the time comes.
The two bullies suddenly understood why weaker creatures fled in the presence of danger.
The singular word said so much more.
Nazareth placed a hand on Kencystreight’s shoulder. The other boy flinched as he leaned in.
“No one will know.”
The underlying threat was enough to make him break out into cold sweats.
“Go.”
Gotabed grabbed Kencystreight roughly, and the two bolted.
—
Dumbass One and Two left his sword in the dirt.
Brother Naza picked it up and handed it to him.
“Alright?” The concern in his voice was palpable.
Lester stared at him for a moment, the silence drawn out awkwardly before he felt hot tears welling up in his eyes.
“No…” he choked out, mortified with himself.
He never wanted anyone to see him like that, belittled and humiliated by his own classmates. Lester was strong, he could thrash Dumbass One and Two and anyone in class on the dueling field.
If they hadn’t been holding his grandfather’s sword hostage, he would have pummeled them into the ground.
What did Brother Naza think of him now?
Weak, useless, stupid—
A hand appeared on top of his head. It moved up and down, stroking through Lester’s short hair.
Brother Naza’s eyes were soft. “I’m sorry,” he said, as if he was at fault for Lester’s shame.
Lester couldn’t speak. His tongue felt like lead and his eyes were blinded by his tears.
He leaned his head against Nazareth’s chest, slotting himself perfectly under the elder’s chin, and felt the hand stroking his hair renew its efforts to comfort him.
—
Royce shimmied on his costume, a grey long-sleeve dress with a beige apron, and covered his hair with a white wimple.
He opened the curtain of his dressing cubicle and saw Finneas and Tybalt getting into their costumes.
Finneas was sporting a very well-made black wig and donned a blue cape. He also wore the stupidest hat Royce had ever seen, a tricorn that reminded him of the man who supposedly “discovered” Ameranglo.
Tybalt wore a fancy red coat with all kinds of ruffles. He didn’t get a cape, but the pretentious-looking epaulets certainly made up for the lack of it.
“You two look amazing,” he deadpanned.
Tybalt looked him up and down and smiled in amusement.
“So do you. Nice wimple.”
Royce smirked. “You should see the hair I have under it.” He lifted the wimple to show off the Princess Leia Buns he wore underneath. The hairstyle will be perfect with the Galaxy War Part II jewelry collection he was releasing in midsummer.
Tybalt looked at his hair in confusion. “How did you get it to look like that?”
“Extensions. Thank Duke Odum for the funding. Everything is better with money.”
Several people in the dressing room voiced their agreement.
Amidst the excited energy, Lady Lettuse was the only one to ask, “Has anyone seen Odum?”
—
Neo was wiping Lester’s tears away with one hand while the other gently rubbed the boy’s back.
The kid was stronger than he looked. If he squeezed any harder, he could crack Neo’s back.
Once Lester calmed down and wasn’t choking on his tears anymore, he told him what happened.
Lester had stayed behind after school to work on his sword form. He was recently gifted a new sword from his grandfather and wanted to test it out, but then, those bullies showed up and started questioning him about the sword, and it all escalated from there.
“Alright?” Neo asked again.
They were sitting beneath a tree next to the dueling field.
Lester answered with a croaky, “Mm.”
Neo felt a certain rage seething through his veins at the injustice Lester suffered.
Kids could be so cruel and stupid.
Neo never underestimated how mean children could be, especially when they had the means and powers to do so. They could be so sweet to those they liked, but absolutely horrid to people they despised.
“Don’t let it happen again.”
Lester looked at him with wide eyes, “But my family—”
Neo placed his hand on the boy’s head admonishingly. “You have my knife. You are safe.”
Lester pursed his lips and clutched his sword tighter to himself. His posture relaxed into something more bearable to look at and he finally nodded.
“Yes.”
They sat in silence for a little while more.
“Have you packed yet?”
The summer holiday was upon them, so why was Lester still on campus?
Unlike most students at the academy, Lester lived at school for most of the year. The Dartmouth Manor was further out and took a day’s worth of travel to reach, so he was placed in a dorm alongside students of similar circumstances.
The dorms were mostly used by scholarship students from common backgrounds, exchange students from other countries, or students like Lester, who lived too far out.
“My carriage arrives in the evening, so I thought about practicing a little to kill time.”
Neo stood, “Get your things. Your carriage comes soon.”
“Wait, but I have until six—”
“It is almost six. Those idiots wasted your time.”
“Oh…”
Neo grabbed Lester’s hand and pulled him up.
“Let’s go.”
They made their way to the dorms, which were thankfully not far from the dueling fields.
“If you aren’t doing anything during the summer holiday, please feel free to come visit me. There will be a small gathering at the Odum Manor in about two weeks. I will send an invitation and handle the traveling expenses. Do you get nauseous going through teleportation arrays?”
“Um—”
“I’ll have someone send a flying horse carriage to your manor instead.”
“Brother Naza—”
“Lester.”
The boy paused and looked down.
Neo hadn’t realized he was holding his hand. They were small but calloused from all the training he put himself through to become strong.
Finally, a small smile appeared on Lester’s face. “Okay, Brother Naza.”
Neo couldn’t help but reach out and pat the other on the head again.
—
“Guys! We need to head backstage. Curtain will open in half an hour!” Lady Lettuse informed the cast.
Everyone quickly made final adjustments to their costumes, makeup, and hair before marching toward their deaths—er, the most important moment in their life.
Frederick looked around in confusion as he helped another student tighten their corset.
“Where’s Nazareth?”
—
By the time Neo entered the theatre building, the changing room was already empty.
Everyone was backstage.
Neo cursed.
Escorting Lester to his carriage and then helping him and his footman get his things into said carriage took way more time than he initially expected.
Hugging Lester goodbye actually started another round of tears for the boy, and he nearly broke Neo’s back.
Neo changed out of his uniform and slipped into his costume. Thankfully, Lady Lettuse did not go through with her threat of getting him the largest hoopskirt she could find with their newfound budget.
That girl had the pettiness of a debt collector.
There was no time for makeup, but it wasn’t like wearing white powder and enough rouge to look like a firetruck would appeal to the audience anyway, so barefaced it was.
Taking the blonde wig off the wig rack, Neo placed it on and looked at the mirror.
He looked like a woman on the verge of death, therefore, adequate.
Good enough.
He scrambled for the red lipstick and haphazardly colored the palm of his hand.
Okay, he was ready.
Then he heard the distinct click of the door lock—
—
Julius was lost.
He was lost in a building where he and his classmates had to suffer multiple forms of torture that was their version of The Tragedy of Ohmlet last spring.
In his defense, it’d been a year.
It all started when his younger sisters were invited by their friend to come watch the newest version of Tragedy of Ohmlet, directed and produced by Professor Erick Rickman.
Julius would have rather not, seeing as Nazareth and his class were the ones performing the show.
No offense to Nazareth, but the kid was a walking disaster even if he didn’t openly show it.
But Octavie and Brie needed an escort since they were still young, and being the responsible older brother that he was (mostly because Augustus was busy at the Alchemy Institute and Septimus needed to go on an emergency expedition with the Imperial Magician), he ultimately agreed under the condition that they didn’t run off.
—And then those brats ran off!
Good grief, one would think they would treat him better with the state of his legs.
After they saw their friends, they suddenly disappeared, leaving him alone to find their seats. There was an unusually high volume of people watching the show. Julius remembered only family and close friends came to watch his class production.
Also, why was everyone dressed like they were participating in some kind of soiree?
Was he underdressed?
This was a school play!
During the waiting period before the show started, Julius felt a slight migraine. His sisters were still somewhere amidst the crowd of people, so he left his seat to go find the restroom.
He did not find the restroom but somehow found himself near the hallway which led to the changing room.
This was where many of his classmates wept bitter tears rehearsing The Tragedy of Ohmlet under the guidance of Professor Dogstar.
The man turned the play into a musical, and his classmates had to learn how to sing and dance. Julius did not have the stamina to do even a quarter of those dance numbers—heavily inspired by Rossiya Kingdom’s cultural dances, by the way, what the actual hell—and was inevitably cast as Lady Rose.
He still participated in some dance numbers, mostly by being lifted around a bunch of times by his classmates or carried like a potato sack. Not his greatest moment, but according to his father, he did amazingly.
His stepmother, thankfully, could not make it to the show. She did not deserve to suffer through that two-and-a-half-hour disaster.
Julius was about to exit the corridor and head back to his seat when he noticed three suspicious-looking people sneaking around.
Two of those boys looked awfully like the ones who have been constantly messing with Lester since last year.
Julius witnessed one of those incidents and wanted to bring up the issue in their last meeting, but Lester stopped him.
The harassment never became physical (smart bastards, those bullies), so there was little Julius could do, anyway.
Nazareth would have made them disappear, but Lester didn’t want to rely on him for something like schoolyard bullying.
Julius didn’t fully approve of Nazareth’s methods when it came to dealing with problems, but in this case, he was absolutely ready to help him ship those boys abroad.
One of those little bastards casually opened a window and tossed something out.
“You’re sure he’s his brother?” Next to him stood a student wearing a third-year uniform who looked unsure about being there.
“According to Dartmouth. Does it matter?” That was Kency-something, the more volatile of the Terrible Two.
The third-year student was still skeptical but remained quiet.
Hold on.
Dartmouth?
Brother?
Julius’ mind ran rampant.
Nazareth.
“What did you do?”
The three students jumped.
“Gah!”
Julius stepped out from the corner and appeared before them with a tight smile.
They stared at the cane in his hand, and then the brace on his legs before finally raising their heads to meet his gaze.
“E…Elysium…”
Good. At least the third-year student knew him.
Julius didn’t have a reputation at the Academy, not like Nazareth, who terrified students beyond just his yearmates. But he was the heir to the Elysium Ducal, and that meant something to those who knew him, or were aware of who he was.
“Lester’s brother…” He began, making sure his eyes were slowly roaming over their faces as if he was memorizing them for future use.
He was satisfied to see them squirm under his attention.
He first turned to the third-year student. “Shame on you, O’Spineliss. Being coerced by children to bully others? What are you? Five?”
“Hey!” Gota-whatever shouted.
“Shut up!” O’Spineliss glared at the two boys harshly and then looked at Julius apologetically. “Elysium—”
“I don’t care what you have to say. Tell me what you’ve done, and maybe Nazareth will forgive you.”
There was a moment of silence before O’Spineliss started to tremble. “Nazareth? Odum?”
The two boys behind him started to turn pale white.
Julius almost felt sorry for them.
Almost.
—
Neo glared balefully at the door.
Who the hell designed these doors!?
The theatre building was old. There was the occasional remodeling here and there every few decades, but the changing rooms were as ancient as his distant ancestors.
How the design of the door worked was incredibly inefficient.
The lock was located on the outside and required a key to open.
The key was usually hanging on the outside of the door, but how could Neo get to it when he was inside?!
Someone locked him in!
Neo took a glimpse at the grandfather clock across the room.
Curtain was in three minutes.
Great. Just great.
Professor Rickman was going to kill him.
“Nazareth!”
He looked at the door.
“Nazareth?! Can you hear me?”
Neo blinked. “Julius? What are you doing here?”
“Not important! Listen, a bunch of idiots locked you in and threw away the key. I sent them to go get—”
Neo shook his head even though Julius couldn’t see him, “They won’t make it. The show is about to start.”
There was a pause on the other side of the door… and then…
“Okay. Step away from the door. These hinges should be old enough for me to—”
“Julius, you literally have the worst constitution in this entire school.”
Neo can already imagine the other passing out by doing something so recklessly. There has to be another way out or something—
“Julius!”
“What?!”
Neo pursed his lips. He prayed Professor Rickman wouldn’t kill him for this.
“You played Lady Rose last year for your Ohmlet project, right?”
There was silence on the other end.
But then—
“… Why.”
It wasn’t a question.
Neo grabbed the red lipstick from the mirror. “Do you still remember your lines?”
“You know my memory is impeccable.”
He slid the lipstick under the door, “I need you to go backstage and take my place as Lady Rose.”
Silence reigned between them, but then he saw the shadow of Julius’ hand reach down for the lipstick.
“I thought I would never suffer a second humiliation playing that character, but I am indebted to you, you bastard. You better be grateful.”
Neo felt the tension in his body unwind. “I owe you.”
A snort was heard on the other side. “It’s just me repaying you.”
The click of a cane echoed as he left.
Neo stared at the door for a moment longer. He couldn’t believe his luck.
—
The curtains drew open.
Lady Lettuse stood in the center of the spotlight with a plastic smile on her face. In her hand was a ridiculously large book, which she opened.
“Long, long ago, before the hatching of Rhine, there eggisted a little town known as Ohmlet. All was over-easy in this little town. The harvest was eggcellent, and the seasons were mild. However, not all things could be considered perfectly cooked, for there were two feuding families who constantly broke the yolk of peace and left the town’s inhabitants shell-shocked with the consequences of their actions. No one was sure how this situation became so hard-boiled, but three generations back…”
Backstage, Tybalt and Royce were getting ready to go on while Finneas kept his eyes on the door.
“Okay, where the fuck is Odum?”
Royce looked pained. “He went to get his bag from the classroom.”
“I don’t think it should take him that long to retrieve it.” Tybalt nervously adjusted his cape.
The three of them stood there in silence.
“We don’t have time for this, we’re about to go on.” Finneas worked himself into a mess of nerves. “Can someone go get Odum?”
“He’s locked inside the changing room.”
Almost everyone jumped, startled as a person appeared at the backstage door.
Tybalt opened his mouth to say something, but the person shook his head.
“I’ll explain later. Nazareth is locked in the changing room and the key’s gone.”
Tybalt was ashamed to admit it took him way too long to process the information he just heard.
Belatedly, he called, “Frederick?”
Frederick turned to him while he was literally hands-deep into someone’s wig.
“Yes?”
“Do we have a spare key to the changing room?”
“… Yes?”
Tybalt nodded.
Good, good.
“Naza’s stuck inside the changing room. Can you—”
“On it.”
Frederick almost snatched the wig off the student’s head as he ran out.
—
“As the years grew, the rivalry between these two houses made the civilians terri-fried. Yolkstained hands and violence reigned, but from the fatal scramble hatched a pair of fowl-destined lovers who egg-scaped with trag-egg-dies in their wake. Fearful of their families’ clucking rage, their misadventures whisked the whites of fate and gave birth to a child, stirred the poaching curse of a demon, and left two families in shell-ish ruins with their death-marked love. Please, with patient ears, listen to this yolkful tale. I present before you, the Tragedy of Ohmlet.”
Lady Lettuse finished her monologue and came backstage.
“That’s our cue.”
The lights went out and the students started to move the set into place.
“Wait, does anyone have an extra costume!”
Royce, Tybalt, and Finneas took their places on stage.
If Neo didn’t appear within the next ten minutes, they were going to be screwed.
—
“Is Odum here, yet? He’s supposed to be in this scene!” Lady Lettuse looked like she was about to breathe fire once she noticed the missing member on stage.
Then her eyes landed on a certain Elysium standing in their midst and her wrath was quelled in favor of confusion.
“Julius?”
“Hey…”
“Aren’t you supposed to be chaperoning Octavie and Novembrie?”
Julius just now remembered he essentially left his younger sisters in the audience. “About that…”
“We don’t have time for this.” She cut him. “You know the lines?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect.”
Lady Lettuse helped him change into a spare costume.
The other students descended upon him.
Within minutes, Julius had makeup on his face, his hair braided, and was now wearing a resplendent dress that looked even better than the one he wore last year.
He was beginning to notice that all the students backstage were wearing clothes fit for a gala…
Julius glanced at Lady Lettuse. “How do I look?”
“Like a woman about to die. Go break a leg.”
She pushed him onto the stage.
—
“Oh, my sweet, beautiful, Rose, my heart beats like a whisk at the sight of your sunny-side smile—”
Finneas was still using his bullshitting skills to add more amazing lines to describe the beauty of Lady Rose with the worst egg puns he could make.
Where the fuck is Odum?
“Eyes like the crack of dawn, pluck my heartstrings to eggshell pieces—”
“Gilde! My love! Is it you, my love? My love, oh, my egg-cellent love, the tempter of my scrambled mind, the eggs benedict of my heart…”
That was not Odum.
Royce, Tybalt, and Finneas tried to keep the unwanted emotions off their faces as someone who did not look like Nazareth appeared on stage in a dress.
Julius finished his monologue and swung his hands around Finneas’ neck.
He smiled and then pinched the other’s arm.
“Just go along with it,” he hissed, before going back to looking “lovingly” at “Gilde.”
“… Um, oh, my dear Rose. You are… finally here, my love…”
“My lady!”
Bless you, Benedick.
“Away with you, sir. How dare you poach the fairness of my cousin!”
And Phelan.
Finneas wanted to die.
Fuck this shit.
—
Vespera read the program a few more times before she turned to her husband.
“It says here Nazareth is playing Lady Rose.”
Gareth hummed in agreement.
“That is not our son.”
At this statement, Gareth took a closer look.
Vermillion eyes, and what looked to be a long, blonde wig…
Wait, no. That wasn’t a wig. That was actual hair…
They stared at the stage in confusion.
—
From the light booth, Professor Rickman and Robyne Peregrine watched quietly as Lady Rose appeared on stage.
“Peregrine.”
“Yes, Professor?”
“Is it me, or did Odum’s acting get better?”
Peregrine squinted his eyes, trying to see past the glare of the stage lights. He saw Nazareth performing his monologue with great fervor. He actually looked… enthusiastic.
“Maybe it’s the wig, Professor. The hair looks very well done.”
“Hmm… perhaps.”
The author has something to say:
Who do you think is the real MVP in the making of this production? Place your bets, folks.
Well it may not be that bad that he was locked in the changing room after all.
Can see straight and Got a bed! Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahaha
Lady Lettuse has always been on point! Go milady! You can do this!
Thank you for the update! I think Lady Lettuse should be MPV 😉
Bloody brilliant 🤣
help I’m in stitches 😂😂😂😂😂
O. M. G. L. M. A. O. Hahahahahahahaha…perfect timing! Thanks for the update 🤣❤️