The Enchanters

"Welcome! Welcome to our stage!" Bajian knew how to use his physicality to his advantage. Tall and lanky as he was, he kicked his legs into long strides and held his arms out wide before the seated audience. "On this bright morning you will see the story of the young yet cunning Divya, and how she outsmarts not one, not two, but three rhakshasas into surrendering their gold!" Bajian groaned internally, even as he yelled the words with dramatic enthusiasm for his core audience. Children, for his children's story. Even worse, for his trite children's story. Did rhakshasas even hoard gold? Maybe some in the Pidmaya tribe did, but rhakshasas in his tale were not the diabolical Pidmaya. The tribes of the rhakshasas in his children's stories were never defined. Perhaps in this one they were of the Jahat tribe given how stupid they were to be fooled by a little girl. Bajian sighed, internally once again as he continued to set the scene. This was a children's story for children. He couldn't muddy it up with real world details. He was just bored of telling the same story over and over again, but this was the one that the rich Khanahari parents brought their children too whenever they performed at the market stage. "Our tale begins on the edge of the Janum forest." Malini stepped forward, his star. She wore an elaborate sari with crystals laced like ribbons along the hems. Crystals also dotted her finger tip satin gloves , and she wore a crystal nose and earing. She got into her starting dance pose and subtly cast the layers of scenery by focusing her energy through the crystals. A background of muddled green and brown resembled the jungle. A layering of dense green for the grass, a patch of pink for a bed of flowers, and a hue of blue with murky white blotches and yellow lines to be the sky, clouds, and sun rays. Other image casting troupes didn't bother with the sky this way. The line It was the same time of day it is right now, was an a common phrase in their line of work. But Bajian wanted to show off Malini's skills. He loved to watch her work. Everyone could see her past the translucent imagery, the way she jiggled her head and the crystals attached to it to make the flower bed dance. How she swayed her hips at a different tempo so the crystals in her sari shifted the sparkle lines running through the green grass. She was too good for this troupe. Bajian wondered at least once a week when she would leave them, and when he would no longer see her bodice in motion. Ruvemna, in his black garb and with his crystal wand in his hand stepped to the right of the scene Malini had created. "Our hero Divya, believing today will be just like any other day, decides to visit the mango orchard a little ways from her house, to pick mangos and surprise her mother." As Bajian spoke the words he had said a thousand times, Ruvemna focused himself through the wand and cast the image of the heroine. It was a well enough animated image of a young girl. It had legs, feet, arms, hands, a torso and head with hair, all of which had kind of rounded features to make it appear more human. Bajian's main problem was with the face with features that moved too slowly, especially with the animation that Malini put into the background. Bajian and Ruvemna argued often behind the scenes. Bajian would demand that Ruvemna work on creating a more animated style, and Ruvemna would bite back saying he would have to change the entire image, and that Malini should slow down the movement in her scenic background to better fit the speed that his casting of the heroine is supposed to set. Such a change might have made for a better story performance, but Bajian never admit that to Ruvemna. He didn't want to insist on anything from Malini that might push her away. It also didn't seem to be hurting their attendance. The argument had also been made within the troupe that the audience had become attached to the stoic impression of the heroine despite the lavishness of the background she was against. A simple image for a simpler audience, Bajian thought as he grinned at the awestruck children and the parents forced to sit with them. He just wished that his image casters were able to sync better. Although it was a common practice for scenery casters to use an array of smaller crystals, and single character casters to use a single larger crystal, Bajian decided that Ruvemna's reliance on his wand was too stiff. As Ruvemna cast the Divya character prancing over the grass through shuffling his body back and forth in set motions, Malini's hip swaying and bobbing of her head to move the grass and make flower patches of different colors slide in and out of the background was much faster, making it seem like Divya was prancing at two different speeds. TBC

Type

Entertainment, Troupe