Entr'acte

Genres: Angst, Drama

Summary: "There are songs for myself and my siblings, and songs for myself and my lover, but none for you. Unless you don a mask and become one of them." / AU, Wingshipping Mai x Harpy Lady, Harpy Lady x Flame Swordsman

A/N: Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 9, Round Five, with the pairing of Wingshipping (Mai x Harpy Lady). This is most definitely an AU, that imagines new roles for the characters in a more urban, cultured version of Domino. I hope you enjoy.

Entr'acte

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overture

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She had never seen the light of the sun before. The Lady and her maids were in constant motion, flying from one shrine to the next, the heavy silks and tassels around their shoulders tangling with the feathers; only in darkness did they have power, only from the dim glow of the planet below them could they do their work. As long as they did their work they had their immortality. There had been nothing to drive them from the pattern before.

"The moon is turning, turning, turning. The tides are rolling, rolling, rolling—"

Their voices rose and fell together, growing louder and louder with every chant. "This land is empty. So empty-!"

The youngest approached her, laying a tentative hand across her shoulders. "Sister, what would you have us do?"

The Lady glanced ahead, at the darkness all around them, and the flickering halo of light just visible around the edges of the planet beneath them. "I would have you fly."

They ran again, long panels of silk flowing behind them—the Lady's in red, the rest in green—and they leave one shrine behind to head to another. Their wings beat against the dusty ground, leaving faint scratches against the rocks and soil, black as night against a darker sky dotted by brightly burning stars and the occasional sharp flash of light off in the distance. The fluttering sound was faint to her ears, far surpassed by the low hum of the cosmic machinations in motion and the Lady's faint singing.

"Fly—fly away from the sun. Look! At the center, we both fly towards it and away from it."

The maids glanced up at the stars, as they extended their hands to help their Lady over a series of tall, jagged rocks.

"We do," they replied."We do, we do."

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aria

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"Nice rehearsal today." Mai glanced up, sharply, to see a beaked face staring back at her.

"Do you need help with your mask?" She asked the question calmly; it was unnerving to see her still dressed in her mask and wig when the rest have already changed. She caught sight of her own hair in a tri-fold mirror, and frowned at how matted and messed-up it is.

"No, thank you." Her voice was every bit as light in the wings as it was on stage, and she hooked a finger under the mask to scratch at her chin. "It's the adhesive, you see. The stage manager ran off with the solvent, so I have to wait for him. What are you still doing here?"

"Waiting for the bus," Mai answered. "The T line doesn't stop here for another fifteen minutes. So, here I am."

Mai could see where the edges of the mask stuck flush to the singer's face, extending past her nose and mouth to form an impressive, downturned beak. It helped to project her voice, something essential to all of them.

"Wait…" The woman tapped her chin with a finger, and it's so hard watching her for Mai to think about the person within it instead of the mask covering the surface. "You live here, right? In Domino?"

"Yes." The answer was given, tight-lipped. "I have for most of my life."

The Lady, like the vast majority of the other characters, were gathered from singers from the large opera houses of the world, lured here by the premiere and the novel, unusual story and choreography. The musicians were local; the conductor was from Germany, or so she thought. From the stage, only Mai commuted from neither hotel nor rental.

"How exciting, though, right?" Her voice bubbled up from the mask again, as heavily feathered eyelashes blinked back at her. "It's just brilliant. I'll probably get several new offers from this alone."

Hesitant, Mai drew back slightly before lifting a hand again to tap the other woman on the shoulder. She turned, managing to make the mask look expressive. It only served to make Mai that much more jealous.

"How do you do it?" she asked.

"Hmm?" Even in that, her voice managed to sound musical.

"You're brilliant," Mai clarified. "I've seen you in La Traviata and Die Walküre. I want that. I want what you have."

"And what is wrong with the youngest sister?" She named Mai's role brusquely, folding her arms across her chest, feathers dangling from each wrist. "I started—"

"In Carmen. I know." She glanced at her watch, at the sweeping second hand drawing ever closer to the time the bus would leave without her, if she wasn't there to catch it. "Do you know where I started?"

"Does that really matter?" Her lilting voice rose above the clatter of people moving things backstage; all around them, the orchestra was packing up. "Where you came from, I mean. Shouldn't you be more worried about where you're going?"

Mai scowled. Of course it mattered. People could change that, she believed, but it was impossible to change what one had already done.

"But what do I know?" the woman said, tapping her chin again, stretching her fingers around the molded beak. "I'm just a bird." She shrugged so artfully that Mai was sure it was something she had practiced in a mirror. "Fly away, Mai. Fly away to that bus."

She laughed, and Mai spun on one heel and marched out the crew entrance, onto a side-road where she could still hear the traffic noises from the busier street that housed the theatre's main doors. Here the curbs were uneven and slanted, the windows above dirty and the walls were stained from the lingering effects of smoke. She could be a bird, Mai thought, although where the perfumed, over-indulged stars would be peacocks and nightingales, Mai herself was little more than the clawed harpies of the story, struggling to be beautiful even through dull feathers and hooked beaks. She knew how that story ended.

At least, she consoled herself, as the bus pulled up to the station, the woman's laugh had been anything but beautiful. It had been harsh and severe, the very laugh of a bird.

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libretto

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"We are moving much too quickly. Why must we work so fast?" her sisters chorused, clutching each other's hands. The Lady moved before them, flying quickly over the ground.

"If we move fast, I can see the sun. If we finish our work, I can catch sight of the sun over that next hill. Imagine it!"

"Why would you want to see the sun?" The others laugh together, the sound high and light like bells chiming. "Why would you want to do something like that?"

The Lady stopped, although her wings continued to beat against the ground, twitching against her shoulders as if in anger. "It is a curse, to live here so long yet to only see the ground before us. There could be more than this."

The youngest sister dipped her head, folding her silk-clad arms at her sides. "It is a curse to see more than we ought." Her voice was deeper than the others, but richer, more sustained. Her words lingered in the air like vapor.

"Only once," she told them, pleading. "I'll see it once and then no more. Just one time will be enough."

"Sister!" They wept. "Do not go down that path."

The lady's sister-maids watched, huddled together, as she crept up the slope of the hill. Above her, a ring of light grew brighter and brighter until it enveloped her in its halo, and she gasped from the sheer warmth of it as her skin felt the sun's light for the first time. She raised her head over the cliff-like rocks, and saw it—a molten ball of fire, hundreds of millions of miles away, impossibly far, but with her sharp vision she saw every single spat of lava, every pulse of light. With her eyes, she sought out the lone figure standing on the surface, one hand on the hilt of his sword.

He turned, and their eyes met for the second before the Lady's sisters clutched at her robes and dragged her back, beyond the sun's light. She cried at its loss, and sought shelter in the arms of her sisters, although the warmth from their skin was nowhere near its equal.

"Come back to us," they sang. "Come back, come back."

The curtain fell from her eyes.

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prima donna

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Mai whistled to herself as she made tea. The sound of the water splashing inside the kettle, the steam rising in swirls to warm her face and hands; it was comforting in a way that few things were, and she liked the backdrop of clinking metal and sizzling water that accompanied her as she turned whistling to singing. Unbidden, the Lady's aria sprung into her mind.

"I can catch sight of the sun over that next hill." She poured the tea and took a slow, measured sip. Her hands tightened around the base of the cup.

"Imagine it-! There could be more than this."

The dress rehearsals had gone well; there had even been a party, hosted by the artistic staff at the theatre, where the Lady and all the other characters had been paraded out in front of the donors. Each man and woman had been dressed in their best, but all the tuxedos and sweeping gowns in the world couldn't make Mai feel any less like a caged animal on display herself, even in a red strapless gown to the floor. She looked like them, and had long learned to talk like them, laughing and smiling when anyone with a deep pocket complimented her voice.

"I chirp on command just like a real bird. How ironic," Mai muttered into her teacup. "And for my glittering cage, a thin mattress and four different locks on the door."

At least no one had ever come to complain about the noise from her singing. Each of the singers had been given recordings of the music, to practice to, and Mai rifled through a tote bag for the discs. She found one, forgetting which Act it belonged to, and plunked it into the stereo on the counter. Rich, vibrant music filled the room, sweeping violins that introduced the Swordsman's recitative. Mai flipped the button to the next song, and when the lonely, single cello began to play, she began to sing.

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cavatina

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The Lady was so focused on her work that she did not notice the presence behind her until the light cast her own shadow against the dark surface of the moon. She had gone on ahead of her sisters, and knew they would not be alone for long, but there was no mistaking the same man she had seen from the ridge of a hill, overlooking the sun.

"Who are you?" She knew a part of her should be scared, but it was difficult when the man before her was so beautiful.

"I am the Swordsman. Forgive me, but I saw your beauty all the way from the sun and had to know you."

He stood so tall and confident, his face all but masked by a helmet of beaten gold, his arms bare save for a cape of blue silk that curled around his shoulders. His skin seemed to shine with the very light of the sun, and a sword made of flames was belted at his hip.

"How is it I have never seen you before?" he asked.

"I cannot—I should not have seen the sun that day. My tasks are to the planet beneath me and the dead soil around me. I have no time for you or your flames." The Lady tried to fly, and beat her wings once upon the ground, but the Swordsman had grasped one of her wrists in his hands and refused to release her.

"I cannot do what you ask. I cannot separate myself from you. You are beautiful, so unlike anyone I have ever met before." He cradled her face with his palm, watching the way her cool, pale skin contrasted with the roughness of his own. She leaned into the warmth. "Do not ask that of me."

"Then what should I ask?" The Lady breathed in deep, and he echoed her words with his own.

"Ask me to stay. Ask me never to leave you. Ask me to forsake all others but you. Tell me there is nothing you would like more." They wrapped their arms around one another, and the lady set her head against his shoulder, careful to avoid placing her sharp beak against his skin.

"I would, I would," she said sadly, "but soon my sisters will return, and they will expect to find me alone."

"Then I will leave you." The Swordsman stepped back, and as he did the light around him diminished her shadow; it was something of hers he would take with him. "And I will promise to return."

She stood alone, her arms wrapped around herself to try and keep the memory of the way it had felt with his around her instead, when her sisters flew to her side.

"I saw a light," cried one. "What does it mean?"

"You see lights everywhere," the second admonished. "They mean nothing. They mean distraction and temptation. Stop this. We have work to do."

The Lady flew by their sides, agreeing with a few short words. "We have work to do. We always have work to do."

The others echoed her words, and together they flew away.

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leitmotif

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She had drained half a bottle of champagne before she thought it might be a clever idea to head off to bed. Not only since the premiere was two nights away; not since she needed her voice to be in its best shape. She did not want to take the stage with a hangover looming over her like the blade of an axe.

Mai stumbled into her bedroom, tripping over a few pairs of shoes that she hadn't bothered to put away yet. She didn't bother with the light, either; typically the moon would be bright enough to cast a few stripes of light onto the floor for her to see her way, but tonight there was nothing but darkness. Mai didn't remember it being a new moon tonight.

She made her way to the window, cracking the blinds open with a finger. Her stomach twisted as below the glass she could see nothing but pitted craters and dark, cracked rocks as far as the eye could see. Her throat closed—the window was open and she couldn't breathe this atmosphere, and if she couldn't breathe she couldn't sing—and Mai slammed it closed with both hands, her entire body shaking as she stepped away from the window.

"It can't be." Her breathing came in quick, short gasps. "It's just a story!"

"Not to me." The lilting voice, so familiar, made her turn, and with her eyes adjusted to the darkness Mai saw the Lady standing there in the center of her bedroom, one clawed hand resting against her hip.

"You're…not real." Mai continued to gasp, but curiosity propelled her forward, circling the birdlike woman. "You…how did you get inside my house?"

"You forget yourself," the Lady said, gesturing limply towards the window. "You are the one imposing upon my home."

"But how?" The Lady looked so perfectly preserved, every costuming detail in place from the draped silks to the mask. No—Mai corrected herself—it wasn't a mask at all. The beak was real, the nose extended and molded with the flesh. The claws, clicking together on the ends of her fingers, were real. Mai swallowed, hard.

"May I?" she asked, reaching out a hand.

The Lady nodded, the motion stiff, but Mai settled her hand against the Lady's shoulders, feeling the feathers through the sleeve of her dress. Her fingers crept upward to the exposed feathers at her neck, and further, to the smooth skin of her cheek and the hard, pointed beak. It was so strange to feel the difference in texture from one part of her body to another, and Mai drew back when she realized that she had been petting her as if she really was an animal. "Will you sing with me?"

"No. There are no songs written for you and me. There are songs for myself and my siblings, and songs for myself and my lover, but none for you. Unless you don a mask and become one of them." The Lady cocked her head, studying Mai with her sharp eyes.

"Will you return the favor?" she asked, reaching out a hand.

Mai blinked, unable to even say anything before the Lady's claws were tangled in her hair, smoothing out the blonde curls and twining them around each digit. She moved next to Mai's face, turning her chin as if to observe her from every angle, without the benefit of moonlight or a spotlight to guide her.

"I know your body," the Lady said. "I know it as well as my own."

Mai gasped as the hand moved closer in one fluid movement to hover over her chest before pressing inside, the now-transparent hand sinking within her own flesh to grasp her heart and squeeze it with cold fingers.

She woke with a start to the light seeping into her bedroom through cracked blinds and the sound of someone else's laughter in her ears, her clothes matted to her body from sweat.

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recitative

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True to his word, the Lady did not have long to wait before the Swordsman returned to her. She would always see the light before she saw him, the light that accompanied him wherever he went, the same light that stole and returned her shadow with every passing day.

"My Love." She greeted him with a kiss; his breath was warm.

"Something troubles you." He was always quick to notice her moods, and smoothed her hair away from her face. "Tell me what that is."

"Do you not see it?" She knew her own eyes were sharp, but surely he could not be so blind? "Look below you, to my planet, and tell me what you see."

He turned from her to look, and his mouth tightened as he studied it. "It does look different."

Ash had colored the skies, turning them black, and across the planet's surface fires raged violently, while the seas twisted and roiled as if in pain.

"My planet is burning," she said. "Your sun is burning my planet!" Her arms began to shake. "And my—my duties have gone unfinished."

He grasped her arms, holding her, doing what he could to soothe her. "I would never, I would never-! My Love, I would not—"

She tore herself free from his grasp. "But you have! And so have I. What are we to do?"

"What are we to do?" The Swordsman echoed her, drawing her once again into his arms. "If it pains you, my Love, do not look. Look only at me."

The Lady tilted her tear-stained face up towards him, and he kissed her again. "My sisters will be here soon. You cannot stay for long."

His arms only tightened. "Then I must tell you quick-! I would give up everything for you. I would give up the sun, I would give up its light. My love for you burns stronger. Leave with me, and I can create a new world for the two of us to share. Just tell me—just say one word and I'll know."

"I cannot, I cannot—" The Lady's tears flowed freely now, and the Swordsman brushed them away with a thumb.

"Then think about what I have said. I will return."

The Lady busied herself with brushing the tears from her face and straightening her hair; on some level she knew that her sisters had known all along about her secret, and she dared not face them about just what she had done through it to their planet.

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portamento

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The premiere had been a rousing success; the papers said so, and so the entire cast and crew had celebrated while Mai snuck backstage into the costuming storage. She had long ago shed her own mask and traded the harpie's dress for her own, but she was not here for that.

Mai slid a finger under the Lady's mask and slipped it from its hook and into her oversized tote bag, closing the zippered top to hide it from anyone who might have seen it otherwise. She escaped out the same side door as before, walking with steps a little too quick only to wait under the overhang for the T-line bus to arrive.

She can't believe she's stolen it; if anyone at the theatre knew, they would have her head for it. She just hoped no one would notice until she could return it the next day, but for now she had to know what it felt like. She felt she could not live without that knowledge.

Once home she glanced out the blinds in every room to be sure it was the city looking back at her and not the moon. She didn't know why she worried so much over dreams—and it had not just been the one—but they tormented her with the possibility and the temptation of being what the papers had described as the next great operatic star, if only for a moment.

Mai flicked the lights on with an elbow, moving to the stereo system and switching the disc to the first Act music; she far preferred it. There was a harp, and wind chimes, and Mai listened to the music as she set the bag on the table and opened it, pulling out the mask almost reverently.

There was a mirror in her room suitable enough, and she could still hear the music. It was building, louder and grander, and as Mai raised the mask towards her face to slip it on the crash of cymbals was almost deafening to her ears.

She had no adhesive to stick it to her nose, but it stayed pressed well enough from the straps that went around her head. She blinked her eyes through it, watching the effect in the mirror. With the exception of the hair, she could be the Lady. The thought thrilled her, and she ran her fingers across the surface of the mask and down, grinning beneath the layers of feathers and thin ceramic. She was beautiful.

The track changed, and Mai began to sing.

"Fly—fly away from the sun. Look! At the center, we both fly towards it and away from it."

The singer had asked her if she lived in Domino, and Mai had answered: "I have for most of my life." There was a time she lived on the moon, resplendent in feathers and tassels, and there was a time she lived on a star, but she never made it as far as Earth or the Sun—

She could not look away from the masked face in the mirror, drawing her closer, and she pressed her fingertips to the cool glass instead.

"I would have you fly-!" she sang, her voice as bright and loud as she can ever remember it being. And she would; she wished for the Lady now, to come help her spread her wings and take her flying. She would go back, she would go back to the story, and it would become her, and it would be the true perfection the papers had written about. She would be the star.

The music ended, and Mai's sustained note was left hanging. In the silence between tracks, she felt something in her stomach slide, and it was all she could do not to rip the mask from her face.

The next track started, and she raced for the stereo, pressing the stop button with shaking fingers.

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tessitura

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The Lady's sisters approached her with worried, drawn faces, tassels swinging from limp arms. "What have we done, dear sister? What have we done?"

"The blame is mine, and mine alone! What have I done," she cries, "but risk destroying everything from my selfish love, my absolute love, my unyielding, undying love?"

The Lady glanced dolefully at each sister, beating her wings against the ground. "Is it worth it?" she asked. "Is such a love worth it?"

The youngest sister stepped forward. "Is anything worth it?"

"No," the Lady whispered, her voice growing louder and higher with every repetition. "No, no, NO-!"

"What can we do?" the sisters asked.

"There is nothing you can do—but for me, I can say goodbye."

The sisters gasped, reaching for the Lady, who shook off their hands and soothing words. "Leave me!"

They retreated, leaving the Lady to crumple to the ground, shrieking, "No, no, NO-!"

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bel canto

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Mai was sure to arrive at the theatre as early as possible, when the building was first unlocked and only the cleaning crew and a few of the techs would be there that early. She slipped the mask back on its hook, shivering as the empty eyes regarded her with that placid face. She had not worn the mask well.

That night was another evening performance, which meant even more practicing, although the vocals would be light. Mai had buried the bottle of champagne far in the back of a cupboard and had tried to forget about it.

In the costume racks, she spied her own dress, and ran a hand over the smooth fabric. This, she thought, this she wore well.

The Lady and her siblings and her lover were just characters in a story, she decided. Everything good and bad that happened to them were all based on the whims of a script. Mai's life followed no script. She knew that now.

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ritornello

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The Swordsman held the Lady tightly as the two sang together.

"We must separate," she said, even as her arms held him tighter.

"We must separate," he agreed, even as he made no intention to move.

"We cannot risk it—the sun is too strong and the moon is so cold, everything would be destroyed in the end. We must separate, or risk it, and we cannot." The Lady continued to weep.

Together, they took a step backwards, their arms still linked. Another step, and a third, and only their fingertips touched. A fourth step, and their arms stood outstretched, holding nothing at all.

The light surrounding him created elongated shadows; hers crossed his at the shoulders, springing into shapes unrecognizable, and as she reached an arm towards him her shadow mimics it, stretching much farther than her arm ever could. "The world will continue without our love-!"

"The world is greater than our love-!" The Swordsman took another step, and together the two continued until they could barely see one another. The light faded, yet still they stood with hands outstretched.

The violins build to a crescendo and then quieted, bringing the music to a hush.

As the curtain fell, the theatre was filled with the sound of applause. After that faded, the audience collected their things and left.

End.

Notes:

1) Entr'acte is French for "between the acts" and "can mean a pause between two parts of a stage production, synonymous to an intermission, but it more often indicates a piece of music performed between acts of a theatrical production" (Wikipedia). Each of the header terms used also relate to parts of an opera or operatic singing, and relate in some way to the subject matter of that particular scene.

2) Harpy Lady x Flame Swordsman = new OTP. xD Also, I would totally see Duel Monsters: THE MUSICAL!

3) In creating the story behind the opera, I drew inspiration from the Tanabata story and (there's no way to say this without sounding geeky) the story of the Moon and Sun dragons from the iPad/iPhone game, Dragonvale. =D

4) Thank you for reading. I would appreciate and value your reviews!

~Jess