Sweat dripped like acid rain.

Your eyes scan the crowd lazily; it's been years upon years since you have cared about the audience.

They sit in their plush leather chairs, diamonds dripping form their double chins. They have no idea how hot it can get, standing under the large, bright, two-hundred and forty volt stage lights. It's a heat so intense it feels like you are sizzling bacon.

But it isn't bacon adorned in the thickest, itchiest outfits ever bought for production value, and it isn't bacon pirouetting around with uniform precision.

It's you.

A spike rises in the music, and an operatic voice with a screeching aria that defies sound barriers sings in a language you barely understand. The next group's signal. A line of feathered dancers, spandex stretched thin on their soaking skin. They all blink and breathe and think like humans, but the moment their feet touch the stage they are Sprites, flinging themselves around in ecstasy, conducting a sensual ballet to the voice of their mistress.

Right now you are Karkat Vantas.

In a couple minutes you will be the Sprite King.

You have been asked in countless interviews and over numerous Champaign glasses if you get nervous before a production. You always say no. This is absolutely true.

Cosmetic-dusted eyebrows knitted together, a look of pure concentration glazing over your yellow eyes, you focus not on the applause of the audience, or the flowery lyrical opera. Nor do you focus on your fellow dancers, who spin in elegant form around a silken platform.

You focus on your heartbeat.

Ba-bump.

Suddenly, the woman, adorned in thick folds of satin, drops to her knees. She raises her arms in what the director calls, "an emotional sweep". She spews out more unintelligible language.

You have never understood opera, or its appeal. What you understand now is that the woman has begun to worship her mystical Adonis lover, the elusive Sprite King. You understand this monologue will go on for exactly five minutes.

At its end, you will no longer be Karkat Vantas.

It is in this fragile five minutes that someone clasps your shoulder. You spin around, enraged. Who the fuck would interrupt you like this? Your strange, golden gaze rests on one of the only people who you can genuinely call a friend, Sollux Captor.

Four minutes.

Sollux is looking at you funny. Why? The sharp slap of a dozen unified Degages snap you from your stupor. You try to break away from his grasp, but he is stronger than you.

Three minutes.

He hesitates. You can see an internal battle in his eyes, which sends a cold chill down your spine. He is debating whether or not he should tell you something. This is terrifying to you, for some reason.

Two minutes.

Hesitation gone. Another techie tells Sollux to let go of your arm. In two minutes you must perform, the techie hisses. Sollux flips him the birdie.

He bends down to whisper in your ear.

One minute.

When he pulls back, your eyes are wide. You open your mouth. You want to say so many things. But you hear something that makes your head pound so very hard.

"Oh, amore mio, mio re, appaiono!"

"Oh, my love, my king, Appear!"

Ba-bump.

Behind the dusty red curtains that, for centuries, have been used to shield away reality, you are Karkat Vantas. As you step into the hot, hot lights, you know deep inside that you should now be the Sprite King. But something goes wrong in your heart.

Because you are still Karkat Vantas, nineteen years old and a rising star, and from that day forward you decide you will only be Karkat Vantas ever again.