The Parts We Play

We Have All Been Blind

Krel was late to rehearsal- Aja and Denar kept finding ways to delay him.

Finally, he managed to get the pair out the door by insisting they "go to laser tag or something", which, shockingly, actually worked, and off Aja and Denar went.

What he didn't know was that Aja had been specifically enlisted to delay him by Douxie, who had in turn been requested to act by Cara's closest friends.

Said friends consisted of three individuals, and had since Cara's early teens, for she was as much the hermit as her sister teased her for being: namely, a werewolf named Kendra Lopez, with deep-toned skin of a sepia hue, precisely maintained curls down to the bottoms of her shoulder blades, and vibrant golden-yellow eyes; a half-elf, half-Korean young woman by the name of Jessi Thoburnetti-Ryu, with hair cropped just below her subtly pointed ears; and a banshee by the name of Violet Halvorsen, maintaining the image of a girl with ashy blonde hair, unhealthily pale skin, and icy blue eyes (though, her true form was white as snow, had moon-silver hair that defied gravity, and irises dark as an abyss, along with dark, fine cracks that appeared to cover her entire body).

The first two preferred their role in the tech crew, while Violet played Meg. Regardless, the three of them sat Cara down when they had all arrived at rehearsal.

"Alright kid," Violet said. "Let's talk Christine."

Cara instantly relaxed. "Oh, thank Gaylen, this isn't an intervention?"

"Ooh, can we, can we?" Jessi joked, earning an elbow from Kendra.

"You are sorely missing an important vibe for Christine," Kendra told Cara. "Innocence."

Cara shrank down in her seat a bit. "I wanted to play her as more confused and scared than innocent."

"I like it," Jessi offered. "But Christine losing her innocence is an important part of why she pulls away from the Phantom."

Cara sighed and rubbed her neck and shoulder. "Yeah. Okay. So... what do you want me to change, specifically?"

"Just... act- innocent?" Violet blinked, frowning a little. "Um- here, stand up for a second."

Cara stood, and stood like a soldier who's forgotten what "at ease" means: shoulders stiff, movements minimal and controlled, hips and spine sharply aligned.

"You are a wreck," Kendra informed her casually.

"Pardon?" Cara said, a bit offended.

"You stand like a tree trunk," Violet said. "Set and immovable. What can you think about that'll sort of- restore a certain lightness to your demeanor?"

Cara blinked and thought about that. "I'm not sure." She didn't make eye contact as she added, "I don't... really remember what it felt like to be 'innocent' in the way Christine is."

"But you remember being a little kid and having Krel around. That was when you were six and younger, right?" Jessi prompted.

Cara dug her fingernails into her opposite forearm. "I was already in combat training and being taught to become an Okhrana then."

Violet frowned- she'd known Cara the longest of any of them, and she didn't recognize this body language; then again, she'd never pressed about Cara's life before Earth.

"Do you remember a time before training?" Violet started, trying to find a gentle way to circumnavigate the walls Cara was silently building.

Cara shook her head. "No," she said, eyes distant. "They... they trained us against toxins starting very young. The tracest amounts, and then more and more... I remember being tied up and left alone to learn to escape, taught about knots and materials of bindings and weaknesses to exploit..." her fingernails dug harder into her arm. "I remember when I messed up or couldn't escape fast enough or broke the rules, my aunts and uncles would up the toxins just enough to make me sick, or hurt me. They trained me to resist pain. Torture. Heat and cold, for hours on end..."