November 5th - 28th
"Working on the sets for the play these past few weeks was a lot more fun than I'd ever have thought… but I bet you're more interested in the Festival itself, aren't you? Before I get to that, there are a few things I should tell you about first…"
The following afternoon, Roy and Riza presented themselves at the school gymnasium, where Polly and the other kids had decided to meet. Riza brought along a small box containing her sewing materials, while Roy carried a covered basket packed with the sandwiches Riza had promised to make. They were greeted enthusiastically at the door by Polly, who led the way into the building, eager to introduce Roy to the others.
Polly had roped three other teens into helping out with the sets and props for the kids. One of them, a stocky sixteen year old called James, had a kid sister in the play who'd tagged along to 'supervise.' Olivia was a delicate little wisp of a creature who was to play the part of the doll—a non-speaking role which mostly involved sitting still and looking pretty. She had been terribly disappointed in her part, mostly because sitting still wasn't exactly her strong suit. And indeed, she spent most of her time that first day exploring the gym, climbing the bleachers and humming tunelessly to herself.
The other two boys, twins Matt and Adam, were clever and mischievous fifteen year olds who delighted in impersonating each other and thoroughly confusing anyone who didn't know them well enough to tell them apart. After the initial awkwardness—the sort always experienced by someone new walking into a room full of people who already know one another very well—Roy found himself warming quickly to the younger teens.
James took charge of the group and explained that they already had several background sceneries available to them, painted on large swaths of canvas. Some were fairly generic, having been used for countless school plays before—a pine forest, a mountain landscape, a stormy sea, a cityscape with tall buildings. A few were more specific, like the one of the ball scene from Cinderella, complete with dancing couples in the background.
For the three act play Olympia, two of these pre-existing backdrops could be reused: a generic 'small town' setting for the village square in the first act, and the simple mountain landscape for the third and final act. The second act was the only one requiring an entirely new backdrop: the inventor's workshop. Adam, who was good at drawing, had already sketched out a plan with the help of the children putting on the play. It was a delightfully dark and creepy piece, with unfinished life-sized puppet bodies dangling from the ceiling, and shadowy pillars topped with yellow-eyed gargoyles receding into the distance.
In addition to these canvas backdrops, they would need to either re-purpose existing set elements, or else build new ones to suit the play. Matt and Adam's father, owner of the local hardware store, had generously agreed to donate any additional lumber they might need from his own stock.
"All right, so for the first act, we can use that piece left over from the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet for Olympia's tower room," James said, consulting a notebook. "We'll just need to make sure the platform at the top of the staircase is still in good condition before we send Olivia up there."
"And what about the tavern? If there isn't already a store front or a house we can use, she'll at least need something with a door that she can hide behind to witness the part where 'Nicolas' is trying to flirt with 'Olympia' from the main stage," Polly said.
"Um, wait, I think there was a house one…" James replied, flipping the pages. "Yep, here: it's got a working front door and a window. We can repaint the window to look more like a shop and less like a country house."
"And it looks like the second act needs some kind of enclosed cabinet for 'Olympia's' alcove," Roy piped up, flipping the pages of the script he'd borrowed off Olivia. "Something that's big enough for both girls to squeeze in. And enough room to maneuver, I guess, since they have to exchange costumes in there, too."
"That one we'll have to build," Matt said. "Adam has some ideas for the design already," he added.
"Yeah, here. I thought we could do something like this," Adam said, passing around another of his drawings. "It's got to have doors that close, but only three of the sides have to be real. I thought we could tack up a curtain across the back for when 'Clara' needs to hide in there with the doll."
The others crowded around to look at his sketches, nodding and murmuring approvingly.
"Ok, now what about the church for the final scene?" James asked.
"I think we can get away with using some pillars draped in flowers for that," Polly replied. "That'll look nice if we're going with the mountain background. I mean, it just has to look like a wedding; no one ever said it had to take place indoors, right?"
"Oh, there were a ton of flower garlands left over from our year, I think," Matt added, looking up from his brother's drawing. "We did Snow White."
"It was Sleeping Beauty, moron," his twin corrected, rolling his eyes. "But you're right about the garlands. The girls in charge of set dressing draped them across pretty much everything, for some reason."
"All right, let's go and find the bits we're going to use, then," Polly said, leaping to her feet. Notebook in hand, James led the group into the bowels of the school storage rooms.
They spent the next hour foraging for the set elements they needed and carefully carrying them back to the gymnasium.
"These seem awfully flimsy," Roy commented as they maneuvered a large section of paneling around a corner. "Are they really going to stay up all right once they're on stage?"
"It's a fine line between 'flimsy' and 'too heavy for us to move,'" Polly explained with a smile. "But so long as no one barrels into them in the middle of the play, they'll hold up all right once they're set up. You'll see."
"I suppose you're right," he replied, still eyeing the thin wooden panel skeptically. Polly didn't respond, having spotted a rack with old costumes, which she pounced upon with a cry of delight.
"Hey, maybe we can salvage some of these!" she cried. "Miss Hawkeye, come and see what I just found!"
At last, they'd tracked down all of the set elements they'd agreed to use, plus a few smaller props, and piled them in the middle of their workspace.
"All right, now that you boys have a starting point, Miss Hawkeye and I are getting to work on these costumes. Holler if you need any help from us!" Polly said, her arms already full of the cotton and tulle and lace of the children's costumes she'd found.
The boys started arranging the partially built backdrops across the gymnasium floor, rather like an over-sized jigsaw puzzle. As they worked, shifting pieces in relative silence, Roy overheard snatches of conversation between the two older girls. (Olivia had taken to singing an unidentifiable tune from somewhere above them. The top of the bleachers, Roy assumed.) It appeared that Polly wasn't really a bad seamstress; she'd just been rushing a bit in fear that she wouldn't be able to finish in time. Riza gently and patiently showed her where she'd gone wrong, helping her tear out her sloppier stitches and mending several crooked hemlines. Roy smiled to himself, amused, thinking that spending this time with her peers was probably a good change in routine for Miss Riza.
Over the course of the next three weeks, the teens painted, cut, glued, hammered and sewed together as often as they were able. Roy, a social creature by nature, made the most of the opportunity to get to know the others. James was a kind and thoughtful boy, who treated his little sister like a fairy princess and smiled indulgently at her antics. Though she had a slight tendency to whine when over-tired, Olivia was a bright, imaginative little girl who adored her older brother and wanted nothing more than to be allowed to follow him everywhere he went. She quickly developed a crush on Roy, often attaching herself to whatever he was working on, regardless of whether her help was actually needed. Whenever she wasn't shadowing him, she was twirling through the gym with her arms in the air, spinning to make the skirt of her dress flare out around her 'like a ballerina.'
Though telling the twins apart had been difficult at first, Roy soon learned that Adam was the more sensitive and artistic twin, and Matt was far more blunt and had a wicked sense of humor. (It also helped that Olivia had whispered the trick into Roy's ear during one of her twirling circuits of the gym—Adam had a tiny scar at the bottom corner of his left eye from a childhood accident.) In addition to the original group, Edmund Kingsley dropped in whenever he had spare time, often bringing his very pretty sister Susan along. She always came bearing snacks for the group, courtesy of Mrs. Kingsley.
With every exchange of playful banter, every brush stroke, and every hammered nail, Roy grew more and more attached to the ragtag little group, and they to him. However, the real turning point in Roy's developing friendships came after what should have been a terrible setback.
It happened barely a week before the Festival, just as they'd finally finished the most complicated set element: the doll's cabinet. It was a large and rather fragile piece, more of a screen than an enclosed cabinet, with an open back that would eventually have a heavy linen curtain nailed across it. The doors in the front were carved with an ornate design of autumn leaves, which Adam and Matt had painstakingly cut out with their father's assistance. Adam had insisted on painting the doors himself, though he allowed Roy to work on the plainer patterns on the other two sides. Once he'd finished with the doors, the others had gingerly moved it to one side of the gym and carefully propped it up against the wall to let the paint and sealant dry.
As they all stood back to admire Adam's painstaking attention to detail, Olivia came dashing though the open door just to the left of the precariously balanced cabinet. Moving much too fast to change her trajectory, the little girl's shoulder slammed into the edge of the cabinet with a resounding crack as she passed. Nine pairs of eyes watched in horror as the perfect little cabinet wobbled and fell in sickening slow motion, the delicate doors snapping into several splintery pieces all across the floor.
"Oh, no," Susan gasped after a moment, breaking the stunned silence. Olivia promptly burst into tears.
"Don't cry, Miss Livy," Roy said kindly, kneeling beside the distraught child. "It's all right. You aren't hurt anywhere, are you?"
"N-no. But I—I ruined it! And Adam and everyone worked so hard, and…and now it's all broken! And it's all my fault!" she wailed, fast becoming inconsolable. The others shifted awkwardly, unable to disagree with her. Even her beloved older brother didn't have any words of comfort at the ready. But Roy just smiled and patted her head gently.
"We can fix it up as good as new in no time," he assured her.
Riza was already quietly shifting the shattered bits of wood into one place, and Roy was rummaging about in his coat pockets for the piece of chalk he usually kept there. The other teens, uncomprehending, could only watch apprehensively as Roy inscribed a circle around the remains of the cabinet, carefully marking out symbols along the circle's edge. He worked quickly and fairly quietly, muttering to himself now and then as he rubbed something out or referred to a can of paint to verify something in the chemical composition.
After several long, tense minutes, Roy finally stood and brushed off his hands, walking to the edge of the circle closest to the group.
"Stand back," Riza instructed, gently leading Olivia away by the hand. The others, still silent, followed her without question. Roy waited until they were several feet away before kneeling down and placing his hands on the edge of the circle.
"Here goes," he said cheerfully.
The bluish-white light of an alchemic reaction snapped and sizzled along his array, and the broken panels began to knit themselves together, seamless and whole, as bright patches of paint realigned over the delicate patterns on the wood. As the last whispers of the reaction died down, Roy slowly rose to his feet, surveying the set piece before him.
"Well," he said softly. "The colors aren't quite the same, but at least the doors are in one piece again." Glancing back over his shoulder, he grinned at the shocked faces. "We still have plenty of time to repaint them, though," he added.
"What the hell do you mean?!" Matt exclaimed, materializing right beside Roy and glaring daggers at him. Roy flinched, startled by his sudden movement, and shifted his weight nervously under the younger boy's glare. But Matt hadn't finished. "There's nothing wrong with the colors—they're absolutely perfect! If anything, the paint job looks even better than it did before! No offense," he added, glancing at his brother. Adam just shrugged.
"No arguments here," he said, brushing his hand over the perfectly formed doors that he'd spent so much of his time on. "It looks exactly the same to me, at any rate."
"That—that was amazing," Polly whispered, slowly drawing closer with the others. Susan could only nod in agreement, her dark blue eyes as wide as saucers.
"You sure you're just an apprentice?" Edmund added incredulously. Roy rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but before he'd thought of a modest response, Olivia had thrown herself at him, locking her thin arms around his waist in a fierce, wordless hug.
"I think she means 'thank you,'" James added, clapping a hand on Roy's shoulder with shining eyes.
Riza, standing slightly behind the rest of the teens, smiled brightly when Roy looked in her direction, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Before he had time to frown at her false smile, though, he was being dragged away by Polly and Susan and the others, who were determined to treat him to dinner in appreciation of his skills.
After that day, there was a subtle shift in the way the other teens related to Roy. It was almost as though they were anxious to prove how thoroughly he'd been accepted as one of them. Both embarrassed and pleased by the attention, Roy started spending a lot of his free time in town with his new friends, even when they weren't actually working on Festival preparations. He persuaded Riza to come along several times, but she often bowed out, claiming she had too much work to do but refusing any help. She always insisted that he go ahead and have fun, and that he not trouble himself on her account. Roy also noticed that while he was growing ever more excited for the Harvest Festival, Riza was becoming more pensive and withdrawn with each passing day.
It didn't take him long to figure out that it had something to do with her father. Hawkeye-sensei was spending much of his time locked in his lab these days. He'd emerge after being holed up inside for a day or two—just long enough to have a bite to eat, get a few hours of sleep, glance over Roy's work and assign him books and articles to read or problems to be completed for the following week. And then he'd disappear back into his lab, starting the cycle all over again. Riza had never seen her father behave that way before, and it distressed her that he was neglecting his health.
But, as Roy would learn on the morning before the Harvest Festival, her concern over her father's obsessive behavior wasn't the only thing that had been weighing on Riza's mind.
Despite his lack of baking experience, Roy had offered to help Riza bake the apple pies she traditionally contributed for the Festival. He was at least capable of peeling apples and entertaining Riza while she mixed ingredients and rolled out dough, he pointed out, and so Riza had accepted his offer with a teasing remark and a soft smile. As they stood side by side, peeling and coring tart green apples, Roy realized that Riza was studying his profile with a troubled expression. Riza saved him the trouble of asking her what was on her mind by broaching the topic herself.
"Mr. Mustang," she began softly. "It's all right if you've changed your mind, you know."
"Changed my mind?" Roy repeated stupidly. "About what?"
"About going to the Harvest Festival with me. If there's someone else you'd rather go with instead, it's okay. I won't be mad," she explained, deftly slicing her apple into perfect, equally sized sections. Roy slowly lowered his own knife, staring at her in shock.
"Someone else? Wait, what are you talking about?" Riza glanced at him as she reached for another apple, her brown eyes very serious and…slightly sad, Roy thought.
"You've made several friends in town since you asked me. If there was someone else you wanted to take; if you regretted asking me to go with you, I mean…I just wanted to tell you that I wouldn't be offended if you changed your mind." As she spoke, Roy's stomach twisted into knots. Where was this all coming from? Unless…did she?
"Miss Riza…was there someone else that you wanted to go with?" Roy asked. He thought about handsome Peter Kingsley and desperately hoped that his hunch was wrong.
"What, me?" she replied, frowning at him. "No, there's no one else."
"Then what's all this about?" he countered, still concerned despite the flood of warmth that rushed through him with her denial. Riza colored slightly and focused her eyes on the apple in her hand.
"You get along really well with Miss Plummer…and Miss Kingsley. People who've seen you together have been talking, wondering which of them you would ask. And I thought…suppose you did want to take one of them to the Festival on a–on a proper date. Instead of just going with me as friends," she continued, still speaking to the apple rather than to Roy.
"Riza Hawkeye," Roy said sternly. "Are you trying to tell me that you're jealous?" That got her attention. She snapped her head around to look at him.
"I—what?" she gasped, surprised. "No! That's not what I meant at all!"
"Then what do you mean?" he demanded, abandoning apple and knife entirely and turning to face her.
"I…I just thought," she stammered out, clenching her paring knife reflexively. "You've seemed really happy, hanging out with Miss Plummer and all the others over these past few weeks. And I didn't want you to feel obligated to spend time at the Festival with me if you'd rather be with her—I mean, with them."
Roy snorted in spite of himself. Riza rounded on him, eyes flashing.
"Don't laugh! I'm being serious!" she snapped.
"I'm sorry, really," he backpedaled, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture and mindful of the knife she was still gripping tightly. "I didn't mean to."
"Yeah, well, excuse me for thinking better of you than you deserve," she grumbled.
"All right, now you've lost me again," Roy said. Riza huffed impatiently.
"Look, I heard…someone talking in town. About you, and Miss Kingsley, and Miss Plummer. And I started thinking about it, wondering if I was standing in your way. If there was someone else you really wanted to go with but couldn't ask because you were just being polite and honoring a previous commitment," she narrowed her eyes sharply as Roy tried to hide another snort of amusement with an unconvincing cough. "It's not that funny, Mr. Mustang."
"No, of course not, it's just…I mean, I like the others well enough, and the girls are nice and all. But I like you, too. I asked you to go with me because it sounded like something fun we could do together, and because I wanted to spend time with you. I like spending time with you. I'm not harboring any secret desires to ask another girl I like better, okay?"
Riza chanced a look at him from under her lashes, unintentionally coy. God, she really had no idea how adorable she was, did she?
"You really mean that?" she asked.
"Of course I do! Why would I lie about something like that?" Roy retorted. "Now stop trying to be all noble and self-sacrificing. I appreciate it and all, but it's completely unnecessary." Riza sputtered in indignation, and Roy pretended to cower behind a pie plate held up like a shield.
"You're such an idiot," she said fondly, unable to hide her smile.
"I try," he replied with mock-modesty. And then, more seriously: "Do you believe me?" Riza looked up from the flour she'd started measuring out. She studied his face for just a moment.
"I do," she said sincerely. "But honestly, I wouldn't have held it against you."
"Riza, so help me, if you start all that again," Roy said darkly. She smacked his wrist with a wooden spoon.
"Don't interrupt!"
"Sorry, sorry," he said, ducking his head. Riza glared at him again, but he could see that she was fighting a smile.
"I was going to ask if you wanted to try and meet up with the others, tomorrow night. They all really seem to like you."
"Mm, it's not just me they like, you know," he said. "I'm sure we'll run into them, at some point. But until we do, you'll have to show me all the Festival highlights yourself. Think you can handle that?" he teased.
"Oh, I can handle you just fine. But you'll have to keep up with me," she replied archly. "Now come on. Mrs. James is coming around to pick up the pies in a few hours; we have a lot of work to do yet."
"Yes, ma'am!" Roy said with a mock salute. And with a pair of soft not-quite-shy smiles, they returned their attention to their baking.
A.N. So I had yet another gargantuan chapter that had to be broken in two...I got just a little too caught up playing with the OCs. But the good news is that I'm posting both chapters at once, so there's no extra waiting! Do let me know what you think; I love hearing from you guys.
Good guesses, everyone! Kudos to ssadropout for correctly guessing the ballet and to Sweetdeath04 for correctly guessing both :D For those of you who didn't guess but are still curious, the novella was E.T.A. Hoffman's "The Sandman," and the ballet it inspired was "Coppelia." I prefer the names in the original, but the ballet has a much happier ending!