The Ballad of the Cave behind the Waterfall

[Talya]

Performed live today, by Talya and Jester at the Hollow Globe, in front of a large audience (including Edvarde ab Stirke, the Dame Earl Marshall, and Journeyman Elizabethany.)

Talya and Jester on stage, Talya playing her lute and reciting the tale, making up the rhymes as she goes. Jester, acting out Talya's words, equally impromptu...

Our story begins
at the church square
with six heroes fair
and a bard with red hair

(Jester starts to "mingle" on stage, varying her pose and gait as she moves around Talya, mimicking many people at the same time without being locked into one for more than a few moments at a time.)

There was the big bad Wolfe;
Edwynn who makes swords;
Ariel op Orban,
(who is also a Lord.)

(At names, Jester progresses through hunching over with claws like a wolf (making a hideous grimace to the audience), to turning up on her toes and throwing with her bells as if it was hair - in a very caricature version of Ariel op Orban. She also makes a brief show of someone hammering on an anvil, but it's clear she is not quite as familiar with the original in that case.)

The old gray soldier
Master Astarte;
Our Magistrate Edvard;
And Kyla the guard.

(Jester stands on her toes, reaching with her hands as far up as she can to try to mimic the giantness of Master Astartes, before angling her jaw and marching a bit on the spot, possibly representing all warrior-soldiers in the group all at once.)

An old man gave us the task
of finding these caves
retrieving some etchings.
We'd need to be brave.
And just as we
were about to leave
the crazy old coot,
he settled on me.
He said 'This young lass,
she shall lead you all.'
I knew then that his brain
was not right at all.

(Possibly having heard Edvard ab Stirke's comment from the audience, she represents him with slightly rolling eyes and hanging tongue, as if he just got hit on the head. She throws him a big grin as she does, just before hunching over into the role of the old man. Jester holds one hand on her back and limps across the stage, waving her free hand wordlessly in the air. She stops by poking Talya in the stomach.)
(Talya strums a few dischordant broken chords)


Kyla lead us down,
marching like ants,
into a ravine
(I again wore my pants.)"

(Jester moves across the stage behind Talya, bending her knees gradually as she does, as the group in the story descends downwards.)

Edvard looked behind
a grand waterfall,
found us a cave
that was hidden from all
No sooner inside
that dark place were we,
than from above us arose
a cacophony.
Behind us we looked,
in horror and dread.
Rocks had fallen en masse,
but nobody was dead
No longer could we
see the light of day.
We'd never get out.
Well, not that way.

(Edvard, in Jester's interpretation being in a continuous state of wobbling dizziness, zig-zags across the stage before pointing wividly to something on the stage's wall, her tongue hanging out of her grinning mouth. Becoming Ariel op Orban for a moment, she makes sure to protect her hair as she enters past the waterfall. She grabs her head and shrinks together with a face of shock as the rocks clamber down behind them.)

With no place to go
but into the rock
we decided that in-
-to the darkness we'd walk
until we ran in-
-to the edge of a hole.
Nobody fell in
we were blocked from our goal!

(Jester is moving around hands outstretched, in the darkness caused by the cave-in. She bumps up against Talya, then walks over to nearly walk off the stage. It's unclear who she is portraying at the moment, but as she stays flailing her arms at the edge of the stage she does show a moment of very well-acted horror (she is after all very close to falling smack in the armoured lap of Dame Earl Marshall ).

For- tu- nate- ly,
some people brought rope
(Though not me, because
I'm a bit of a dope.)
The old gray soldier
lowered us down.
But who'd lower Astartes,
I asked with a frown,

"You're changing the story now.." Edvard ab Stirke states from the audience, accusingly to Talya, "You can't just go and cut out the part where you all into the hole.."

Edvard, you be quiet,
trust me, I'll get there.
Else I'll have the Dame Earl Marshall
pull you out by your hair.

(Jester stands on her toes, making herself as tall as possible as she portrays Master Astartes. She keeps her face sour and glum all the while, something which her face is clearly not designed for. With great care she pulls an invisible rope out of her pocket, then begins to lower it over the edge of the hole, gesturing for one of the other climb. Then she stands looking at the rope. She looks down. She looks at the rope. Scratching her head. )

But old Rothgar,
he's a talented man.
He climbed all the way down,
with only his hands.
We moved ever onward,
down into the Urth,
when the ground gave way.
This is no time for mirth!
Seems only I fell,
the clumsy young bard.
I fell into a pit
and I hit the ground hard.
I looked all around me,
and to my surprise,
I'd missed the big spikes
that upward did rise,
designed to kill any
who fell into the trap.
Dav bless me, I near
took a permanent nap.

(Stopping her head-scratching, Jester simply throws her fictional rope over the shoulder. She shrugs, slaps her hands together and climbs off the stage. She immediately bounce back up on it, taking on the role of Talya this time. She gives the curvy young bard a significang swagger, with her hips flailing to the sides - she also makes a point out of pointing to her legs (the Jester -does- carry pants), all the well up to the point where she stumbles and falls together into a crashing heap in the middle of the stage. Rubbing her head she sits up and looks around with a wincing exression.)

(Talya plays a lively series of notes falling from high to low as Jester re-enacts the fall.)

(It would seem that passing by the theatre had found the performance interesting enough to go about informing others of it, and by now some have them filtered in, settling into seats near the back of the room, the buzz of conversation dying down as they are drawn into the story by Jester's masterful acting and Talya's narration. )

So there I was stuck,
couldn't even stand.
My ankle was sprained,
I'd need more than a hand.
They lowered a rope,
and upon it ab Stirke,
swinging like a worm
on a fishing hook.
He picked me up,
cradled close in his arms.
and his hands roamed far
too close to my charms.
I'd scold him later,
they pulled me up top.
I sat on the ground
and I shook my red mop.
Then as Master Astartes
went to bandage my leg,
a rumbling was heard,
the ground started to shake.
Rocks fell from above,
down into the darkness.
And with them fell in
Mister Gavin ab Harkness.
We'd left him behind,
because he was late.
But now he would share
in our cold, dark, dark fate.

(Jester chuckles to herself as she limps around on stage before she suddenly becomes Edvard, ever as dizzy-looking and with his tongue hanging out --now with a slightly leering feeling to that tongue. Standing on one leg, Jester does make a pretty good impression of hanging off a fictional rope as she, tongue dangling, waves for the girl to come to him. She grabs the fictinal Talya in a firm grip, grinning to the audience as she does, and starts to climb on the spot until she drops off her cargo. For effect she gives herself a slap on the cheek at that. Not sooner has she put her feet back down before she hunches together with horror on her face. She looks over the edge of the stage after all those people who fell this time.)

The hole up above
was too far to climb.
It's a wonder ab Harkness
was even alive.
We set ever onward,
facing our doom,
when we saw a tattooed man
alone in a room.
The man had a knife
and was nearly a giant.
At least sixteen feet tall-
Don't you call me a liar!
Okay, okay...
it could have been eight.
When you're tiny as me
they all look the same.
He tore into us then
like a demon possessed.
The Wolfe nearly fell,
but he fought on with zest.
More bandits approached us,
must have been a hundred.
I knew we were doomed,
of too heaven? I wondered.
But Edvarde's blades blurred,
Ariel fought with his feet.
ab Harkness swung low,
there'd be no retreat.
Astartes fought well,
but his wounds became many.
Kyla stood guard above him,
her blade as good as any.
And even yours truly
on her gimped foot,
stabbed away at the men.
I may have hit one in the boot.
When the dust had settled,
the bandit army was down.
We stood bloodied and victorious,
awaiting our crowns.

(Talya plays a battle melody on her lute)

(Jester slowly bends backwards, gawking up at the giant tattooed man looming over her. Then Jester becomes a whirlwind on stage. The small jester flies in spiralling circles, making thrusts and parries, rolling and kicking. She becomes Ariel op Orban, which kicks and whirls while checking her hair after efter strike. She becomes Edvard, who mostly stagger dazedly and flails wildly. She becomes some of the soldiers, marching momentarily on the spot, doing mechanical-looking stabs left and right. She speeds up faster and faster, twirling in over herself until she mouths a mighty 'Take THAT' and stops frozen next to Talya, breathing heavily and with a wild stare.)

Barely able to walk, then,
we noticed the door.
It was locked of course,
and no keys could we score.
I tried one of mine,
It didn't work.
We turned once again
to Mister ab Stirke.
It seems some time ago,
in another life,
ab Stirke gained talents
common to low-lives.
He pulled out a kit,
set to work on the lock.
Within moments it clicked,
the door opened, so don't mock.
We stepped inside,
and saw a big chest.
No not mine, Edvard.
Eyes up here. What a pest!
The lock on the chest
was terribly strong.
Edvard couldn't pick it.
Where did we go wrong?
Then I remembered
that down in the pit
my hand had landed
on some iron bit.
I'd stuffed in my pocket
with nary a thought.
It was a key, and it fit
and we hit the jackpot:
A treasure the likes of which
even Vandagans ain't seen.
We're still deciding if we
should give it to the queen.
And so we were done.
Except for Edvard.
He thought it a romantic place,
to take his sweet bard.
So I expect some day,
the Poet Laudate
will take her beloved
on a romp in a cave.
The way out we found
and we found ourselves then
alive to a man.
Dav blessed us. The end.

(Jester, becoming Edvard, sways dizzily over to the side of the wall. He pulls at a fictious door, then starts to pat himself down, looking for something. For a moment, matching Talya's mention of the same, she pats her own breasts, giving herself yet another slap. Finally she grins broadly to the audience, fiddles and opens the door. Sweeping back onto the center of the stage, she next tries to open something large on the floor in front of her. She ponders. She kicks at it. Finally she goes over to (the real) Talya and ruffles her, as if shaking her down where she stands. Holding whatever object she acquired from the girl bard, she returns to open the 'chest'. She gasps at the content, jumping and swimming in the massive riches therein! She ends the play kneeling in front of Talya in a mock romantic gesture just as the play is at an end.)

[Empheba]

Fun all around. :)

Should probably point out that just before this episode, Edvard had remarked about being hit in the head by a hammer during the quest (or was it some strange mushrooms?) and that he was still a bit dizzy from that - hence the dizzied interpretation of him on stage.
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Empheba