Fae's Duty: The Attempt
A pair of drums to either side of the stage began beating out a drum roll and the crowd around me fell silent. A squat man with a purple top hat and a cane came out on the stage and approached the microphone. Bending it down and tapping it gently, he said, "Welcome, citizens of Emerald City, to the celebration you have been waiting for!"
The crowd exploded with cheers. He waved them silent again, and continued, "First, may I introduce to you… the Emerald City Gems!" He waved a group of children onto the stage and stationed himself out of their way.
My eyes wandered around the stage as the kids began singing. The performance had surprised me, since there had been no previous mention of it; I had no way of knowing if there would be other surprises in the program.
But as I watched the stage behind the choir, I saw the fish-like movement of Madame Morrible behind the thin screen that blocked off the back of the stage. I tried to walk around towards the side of the stage, but the rest of the crowd refused to budge; they seemed almost mesmerized by the song.
It finally ended, and the people around me applauded again. The children each took a step forward and sat on the edge of the stage, and I swore under my breath. The easy ways to get to Madame Morrible were blocked, and I might never get the same chance again.
Desperate, I pulled out the knife and cradled it in my hand. As the squat man came back to the microphone, I forced my way through the crowd, leaving my satchel behind. I knocked the front row into the rows behind me, and soon the whole group was pushing and shoving throughout the square. In the chaos, I found the stairs and stood on the edge of the stage, checking the situation around me.
The guards, suspecting an uprising, had gotten the choir to move back, and people were beginning to climb up on the stage to avoid being pushed around. Hiding the knife again, I allowed myself to be buffeted towards the back of the stage. The choir was still between me and Madame Morrible, and I could see the carriage in which she had arrived.
Furiously, I began pushing again, slashing a few of the children in my haste to get to the carriage. As she took the first step up into her carriage, I raised the hand with the knife and flung it over the choir at Madame Morrible. She stumbled and fell backwards as my knife struck her in the ankle, but the guards around her swarmed closer and hoisted her into the cart, sending it off down the road. A high-pitched whistle quickly sounded over the whole square, and answering whistles echoed around the city.
I drooped at the failure. I had not brought another weapon, and Madame Morrible was rapidly being driven away; the opportunity was lost. Realizing this, I looked around frantically for an escape. Guards were making their way through towards the crowd looking for the perpetrator, and one of them spotted my frantic attempts to push out and yelled, "Hey! Stop right there!"
I kept pushing through in what I hoped was the direction of the abandoned apartment. Grabbing a cloak from someone in the crowd, I wrapped it around myself as a disguise and continued on my way. The guards seemed to have lost track of me, and were now concentrating on blocking the remainder of the alleyways off of the square.
Finally, I spotted the apartment building. The rush of people almost pushed me away, but I forced myself over to the wall and slid along it to the low window. It awaited me just as I had left it, and I slipped down into the darkness gratefully, closing the window behind me. I took a couple steps into the room, and collapsed onto the floor in wearied stress.