Act I

"And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium."

- 1.2

My brother is dead.

My brother is dead. It is so hard for me to understand this, still coughing up seawater with sand ground into my skin. I do not want to understand it. He must still be alive, my Sebastian; he too must be lying on a beach somewhere, his hair and hands crusted white with salt as mine are, but alive!

They say it is not so, the sailors. They do not know Sebastian as I do; well, how could they? We who have been together since the very hour of our birth could not be parted, not even by the great and hungry sea. How could he be dead and I living? No, it could not be so. He must be alive somewhere. He must be, and I will cling to that hope as to the ragged spar of wood that bore me up in the storm before the good captain could find me adrift in the swells.

He will not come for me, though. Sebastian--if he is alive, and I must believe that--has no more reason to believe me living than I have to believe him so. He cannot come and find me, here on these lost and rocky shores of Illyria. Heaven only knows where he was cast up. What chance should bring him here? No, it is not possible. I am alone, until...no, unless I can somehow find word of him.

What should I do in Illyria? I, Viola of Messaline, alone with no one to help or protect me beyond the help one good-hearted captain and his men can be. I am a gentlewoman, though, and they merely common sailors, though with kindness above their stations. What should I do in their households? What could they give me beyond shelter?

Here is a gentlewoman's household, one Olivia, the captain tells me. But no, she will not shelter me. Hers is a house in mourning, in mourning for a father and a brother that I too have so recently lost. She is none of my kin, though, none of my family. I cannot claim shelter from her by the bonds of blood. I could serve her. My state is fallen so far that I will not blanch at that. But the captain tells me that she will hear no such requests, will accept no such servants. My choices are few and my time limited.

There is a duke here, the ruler of this land. Orsino.

I have heard his name before. My father used to speak of him often, in approving tones; a good and noble man, he said, a good and just ruler, fair in aspect. He spoke of him in such tones that I was half in love with the duke for quite some time. No longer, of course; grief and upset have erased any such tenderer emotions.

My father would not speak of an unjust man in such terms, though. Were I a man, I could serve this duke and happily, but I am a woman, and must find another way.

...were I a man.

I have oft heard it said that my brother and I are much alike in looks and temper. We were much together in childhood. Our complexions and mannerisms grew to resemble each other, until for a time it could not be said where one began and the other ended. I could be my brother, to survive. I could become a man. Not Sebastian, though. My own sort of man. I could become the sort of man I myself would wish to marry, perhaps, though I will not marry now, unless by some odd chance...but no, I will not hope for Sebastian now. That part of my life is finished, and my brother is lost to me forever, whether living or dead.

I shall become a man, to live, and I shall serve this duke.

"I'll serve this duke. Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him..."