☆TRACK III: THE STREETS ARE EMPTY

[interdimanagers]

Who: Drafted Virgo Members
What: Juno makes everyone do a seance.
When: October 21st-22nd.
Where: The basement of the Virgo residential tower.
Warnings: Ghosts, apparently.

“You can't shake the feeling. Be quiet not one sound. But the wind seems to speak, Something's here in the room with me.” ☆THE STREETS ARE EMPTY Juno arrives without notice. In fact, you can’t even really remember seeing her approach. One moment you’re doing your business, and the next she is telling you that you have to come down to the basement with her, in order to complete a “task” you’ve been assigned. This sort of thing would seem preposterous to a normal person, but even if you don’t realize it, you aren’t one. As Mr Blanche’s personal assistant and sometimes second in command, her word seems to carry almost as much weight as his does. You don’t really have any choice but to agree. “Bring whatever instrument you know best,” she says. “You’ll need it.” She snaps up every one of you that she sees in her initial sweep, and soon she has a whole pack of Virgo newbies following her down to the lowest floors of the residential tower. It feels weird, but it’s like you can’t quite articulate why. No one else seems to be able to either. Most of the lights are turned off on those lower floors, but it’s easy to tell it’s a place you’ve never been before. It’s strangely...hospital like, down there, in both aesthetic and a sense of sterility. Maybe some kind of laboratory setting? Which seems like a super weird thing to be in the basement of an apartment building, but this is yet another thing you can’t quite bring yourself to ask about. Juno leave most of the lights off, except for a few central features. The ambience is dim and cold. She tells you not to stray, and you don’t. The thought of going against her becomes somehow repulsive, like you don’t even want to think about it too long. You try not to think about your surrounding too hard, either. She lines you all up, and then after some strangely intense eyeballing, she starts breaking you up into some incredibly lopsided groups that seem to have nothing to do with your actual bands. In the end, she looks disappointed with resulting teams, but carries on regardless. Each “group” is given some complexly timed sheet music and a funny looking mobile speaker. She says that you have a half hour to compose a group piece to play alongside the sheet music , and that it needs to be good. Then, she wanders off to start pacing the basement in a strangely arcane series of movements, and leaves you all to it. Only among your peers do you start feeling like you can voice any of your previously stowed concerns, but make sure Juno doesn’t overhear you – occasionally she’ll come by to bluntly critique anyone who is performing inadequately. You feel lucky that she doesn’t have a whip with her, because you’re almost certain that she’d use it without much remorse. ☆THE SEANCE The performance is about as awkward as you’d expect, given the set up. The four groups are set up so that they’re facing each other, as if standing at the corner of a square. Each speaker is set up in the center of its group, and the precisely timed electronic beat that plays from them is what you’re supposed to perform along to. Odds are that you do your level best, but, outside of your control...something goes wrong. “Have you ever felt... Something evil, Lurking around? The moon is full, The streets are empty. Shadows cover the town.”

Comments

[nibelungvalesti]

She had no desire to go with Luce. And no desire not to. It was easier to obey, or rather, yield, so Meril stepped alongside her with absolutely no energy beyond the minimum necessary to walk. "If you say that too loudly, you will be in trouble."

[giglio_madonna]

"Oh, I don't care." It's a contrast to the Luce who'd tried to show some optimism, although her smile seems very much the same. "Frankly, if we hadn't gotten the door locked on us, I would have been out of Virgo in a heartbeat! If I get in trouble, then it works just fine by me."

[nibelungvalesti]

Strange -- at the moment, Meril felt no duty or obligation to her own bandmates, but she could still recognize how alien this was in another. "And your band?" she said, in tones colored by disbelief.

[giglio_madonna]

"Well, I don't have to hold their hands, right?" Definitely alien, although at least Luce seems to be pausing at the words as one finger taps at her lip thoughtfully. Is that right...?

[nibelungvalesti]

"You would simply abandon them?" That wasn't the Luce she knew. Even if all their publicity and image was myth and lies, Meril had seen enough of the woman to know that she wasn't so eager to turn on those who relied on her.

[giglio_madonna]

"When you say it like that, it sounds so harsh..." She tilts her head to the side. "They can rely on themselves, can't they?"

[nibelungvalesti]

"Can they? Yes. But are they not also relying on you?" Put aside the hypocrisy of the statement for the moment, with Meril simply standing around giving no aid to her own band.

[giglio_madonna]

"Oh, they'll hardly know I'm gone, I'm sure!" She chuckles. "Besides, it's not as though I'm dying. I'll still be around, won't I?"

[nibelungvalesti]

"Perhaps not if you walked out. Insubordination would not be looked on with gratitude." Even lacking Duty, a part of Meril still felt the stricture to obey, and dread for the consequences of failure. "And they would notice. They would be hurt, I think."

[giglio_madonna]

"Would they?" That seems to be enough to make Luce stop, frowning. She doesn't want to hurt those she cares about- even some people she doesn't.

"I don't want that to happen..."

[nibelungvalesti]

"Nor should you. There is a bond between you and them that you should hold important."

Or at least so Meril assumed, because she felt that bond in turn with her own band. There was more to it than the duty she'd lost, now that she thought about it -- now that Luce's words held up a mirror for her to examine herself in.

[giglio_madonna]

That's true... She loves them, it shouldn't be easy to dismiss the connection of the band so easily, should it...?

"I think something is off," she finally says, as if it weren't obvious.

[nibelungvalesti]

"With how you are acting, I cannot understand how you are only now realizing that." Everything Meril said right now seemed destined to be laced with hypocrisy. "Yes, you are clearly acting unusual."

[giglio_madonna]

But why? After that mess... Luce can't penetrate through the strange fog, not just yet, so she shakes her head and looks at Meril after a moment.

"What about you?"

[nibelungvalesti]

"What about me?" Meril said, flatly inquisitive -- flatter than normal, and without the usual rich tones in her voice that gave it life. "I am fine."

[giglio_madonna]

"You're quiet, but you're not..." How to describe it? Luce's hand makes an odd aimless gesture. "You're blank."

[nibelungvalesti]

"I am tired," she responded, using the same excuse she'd first given herself when she questioned why she felt so withdrawn. "This has been a long strange night, especially with how everyone is acting."

[giglio_madonna]

"Shouldn't everyone include you?" It's a common sense response, really. It's more apparent by the second since she's been talking to Meril. Obviously everyone's off- even her, Luce isn't sure how she missed it until Meril pointed it out- so maybe...

[nibelungvalesti]

"Am I not usually the most stable and least reactive in any crowd?" She made a good point, admittedly, but her continuing lack of affect was dramatic even for her.

[giglio_madonna]

"Even for something like this?" Luce prompts, concern heavy in her voice. "Meril, this is unlike even you."

[nibelungvalesti]

Meril leaned back against the wall, folding her arms over her chest loosely. The silence that followed represented a great struggle between the part of her that wished to ask and the part that cared nothing at all.

"...In what way?" she finally said, looking back up to Luce as if she were forced.

[giglio_madonna]

How to find specific examples? Luce bites her lower lip, wracking her brain for something concrete. Soon enough, something comes- something from this night, in fact.

"You were so concerned about Greg, and the others. Why haven't you gone to check on them yet? Have you?"

[nibelungvalesti]

That was an excellent question, and Meril only had one answer -- that it didn't seem important. And yet, shouldn't it? She took longer to answer than either of them could be comfortable with, at last saying, "How could I help them?"

[giglio_madonna]

"I don't know, just- surely something." She's a little worked up now, trying to figure out what's missing and what can be done about it. "We won't find out if we don't do anything."

[nibelungvalesti]

Something had to fill the void a loss of duty had left within her, and at this moment, that something was doubt. She had worried enough over her contributions to the band recently... wouldn't that explain perfectly why she was staying away? It must.

"I am more likely to get in the way of their efforts."