Date 08: Leocald Opera House
"I have been loaned the use of a small box in the Second Theatre," the little holoTam had explained. "I know this is short notice, but some very hush-hush new opera is premiering tonight for the upcoming security conference, and I've been not-quite-ordered to attend. Would you care to join me? It promises to be," and here he'd leaned toward the pickup dramatically, "very artistic."
So they went. Vanya ducked three attempts by the Ladies Skywalker to "fix" her hair. Finally she relented so far as to borrow Leia's fourth-best hair stick. She drew a firm line at gravity defiance aids.
"The fine line we're treading here between our respective convictions is not going to be helped any by repulsor-based couture. I put my hair up in a fancy 'do for undercover work, that's it."
The resulting debate on the congruence between "date night" and "undercover work" drew in a Jedi Master and three troopers before Vanya managed to escape. Three steps too late, it occurred to her how helpful it would be for someone to record the impending story-swapping, but she daren't turn back or even slow down if she was going to make it across three islands in time.
Luckily, Davish was just approaching the steps of the Leocald Opera House from the west as she threaded her way across the plaza. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, they sought out an usher. "The ambassador has heard many excited rumors about this new production," Davish confided, "the problem being that he's mostly tone-deaf and can't understand half of what anyone ever sings. This troupe performed Madra Teene at the end of last season, apparently so well that the Board of Patrons banned any other combination of actors, crew, and managers from presenting it over the next thirty years. But the crew wanted a change, so they apparently picked up first option on something much more modern."
"Isn't Madra Teene the one with the killer robots?" Vanya asked slowly.
"Exactly," Davish confirmed. "Hence, no killer robots in this one."
The lights dimmed, the curtains rose; Vanya and Davish settled into their seats with matching relieved smiles.
Which slowly, awkwardly faded, over the next twenty minutes.
Forty minutes into the first act, Davish leaned over to murmur in Vanya's ear, "While the performance leaves me ... hm ... speechless, I'm suddenly feeling a tad famished. Care for a burger?"
Waving her spoon for emphasis, Vanya expounded, "No, seriously. I mean, I wasn't there or anything, obviously, but even given the artistic license in everybody breaking into song every two minutes, I just don't see the entire Long Night debacle being started off because a Mentat and Darth Feyd were trying desperately to resist the tormented pull of wild romance."
"That was the point you found most objectionable?" Davish asked, setting his half-eaten burger down. "I have to say that I was more disturbed by this whole 'secret rivalry' between the leader of the Mentis Repair Team and three junior officers among the Death Star Navy."
"Rivalry for artistic rewiring of the missile guidance system," Vanya added. "To curry favor with the oblivious Grand Moff. I can't blame him for being oblivious, I would've ignored it with all my might, too. So if this is a tragedy, he figures it out too late and then he dies; and if this is a comedy, he never figures it out and they wind up falling for each other, right?"
"Probably." Davish sighed. "And they sent the Ambassador tickets to this, this.... I don't even have words for it."
"Farce," Vanya suggested, "especially if it was meant to be a tragedy. Treat it as a farce, laugh every time someone brings it up, and then ask if they've heard the one about the pirate and the Grand Solicitor's clerk."
"Ah, but the dignity of the office --" He would have gone on, but he suddenly didn't have Vanya's attention at all.
"Isn't it ... just about time for the first intermission?" she asked while studying a passerby's profile.
He agreed it was while watching her try to access the HoloNet discreetly on her 'padd. A database flowered open, began rotating, then unfolded to a cube of cross-referenced colors. "Hunh. Funny time for one of the ushers to take a break. And in," she peered nearly cross-eyed at one particular connecting line, "Vordaigneault colors, too. Who the hell is the Vordaigneault family? Very tiny mining family, VorCalipsa House; that makes less sense than the damn opera. So the lumpy sack with all the burn marks on his shoulder is probably not good either...."
Davish smiled in resignation when she looked back up at him. "Go on. We'll try again when I get back from my new assignment. I should warn my Ambassador about this crazy opera before he finds himself in public scrutiny again, anyway."
Vanya grinned, snatched a last sip from her goblet, and kissed him on the cheek as she passed. "See you in three weeks," she agreed, and dashed off to be the Jedi Council's private eye.
Comments
Author's Notes
This exercise focused on Lois McMaster Bujold's style. She does great intimate scenes, where the two characters interacting don't really feel like they're spouting exposition at the reader. Patterns of speech, word choices, long rambly dialogue versus short energetic sentence fragments, and still she fits in gestures and environmental details. Even what a given character notices will tell the reader something about that character.
I feel like I fell down on Davish Tam here. I did not have much from roleplay sessions to go by; his character was an NPC, whom most of the party used to mostly ignore except when they wanted a hint from the GM about the puzzle of the day. Still, I knew he was partially based on Jefferson Blue from Undercover Blues, except a little more formal at this point in his life; that gave me a starting point. And it made him a good subject for a LMB style of scene.