And chapter 4 is complete! WOO!
And to the sweet TMNTGFKittySidekick01, thank you so much for leaving another comment, hun! It makes me so happy to hear that you like Sylvia! :D:D Thanks so much again!
I hope you all enjoy the new chapter!
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If Sylvia could explain her first day of working as the 'Moon Theater' with one word, it would have to be interesting...
After the power had shut off, everyone was pretty much left standing there just twiddling their thumbs in the dark as they waited for Buster to 'take care of' the problem. She was pretty sure she wasn't the only one who heard Ms. Crawly ask him when the last time they had paid the power company was, but after a few minuets of waiting around with the only light source to be a pair of green glow sticks provided by Gunter, he did indeed managed to some how get the power back up and running.
She didn't know how he managed to get the power back so fast...but she soon just opted to keep her questions to herself.
And shortly after they got the lights back, the theater even gained a new member to the 'family', as Buster to affectionately called them, a young elephant named Meena; Who, at some point between the power cut to when the lights came back on, the theater director had taken on as a stage hand.
But nothing else out of the ordinary happened for the rest of the day. Most of what the contestants did pretty much consisted of rehearsing their acts and then just heading back home with the exception of Johnny, Rosita and Gunter giving Sylvia a quick 'hi' or 'see you tomorrow' every now and then.
And as for Mike, the few times they would pass by each other he just couldn't seem to resist throwing in a little jab of 'Hey fluffy.' or a new favorite of his, ' How's it goin' powderpuff?'. But Sylvia wouldn't give him the satisfaction of riling her up, so she would casually answer them by calling him 'cheese breath', 'pipsqueak' or, her own new favorite, 'snowflake'.
That one really seemed to twist his tail and get him going in a huff.
Other than those few interactions Sylvia would receive, everyone else pretty much just kept to themselves. Not that she really minded as that meant she could just do her work in peace either cleaning up around the theater or running small errands for Buster or Ms. Crawly.
And it was pretty much the same thing over the next two days she would arrive at the theater after work...well...occasionally she would see a pack of red pandas running around which she found that a little strange because she didn't remember seeing them with the others when Buster first introduced her to his cast.
At one point Sylvia had tried to find out what they were doing at the theater, but the moment she discovered that none of the brightly dressed members spoke even a shred of English, she immediately dubbed it as Busters problem to work out by himself.
But other than that, the Moon Theater was pretty much uneventful for her, and that included most of today.
Though, it was a little more boring for her since she forgot to put her head phones in her pocket before she came over, so she wasn't able to listen to her music as she worked and was stuck listening to all the muffled voices and beats of whatever song the contests were practicing with while she mopped around the rehearsal spaces.
The only one that she seemed to pick out more above the rest was the voice of Pete the camel as he sang some kind of horrid opera themed song, and that got under her fur very quickly...
Finally, she could stand it no longer and just left her job half finished to take a break away from the practice rooms. Three days of working here without having an issue, she would gladly take the risk of Buster or Ms. Crawly scolding her for leaving in the middle of a job if it meant she would get a few seconds of silence. Her search brought her out from back stage to the auditorium, and now that it was a little more quiet, she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath to let her nerves relax...
Only to have her ears suddenly suddenly pick out a sound coming from the other end of the stage, and as she slowly moved herself to find out what it was, she discovered that it was someone singing.
And whoever it was, was singing very well.
'...there can be miracles,
if you believe
though hope is frail,
it's hard to kill...'
...It was beautiful, and following it further she soon found Meena, Busters new, and apparently only, stage hand.
She didn't know much about Meena as it was almost painfully obvious how shy and quiet she was. But that timidness seemed to be long gone and replaced with a confidence as she sang each note of her song perfectly with a voice that was amazingly light and delicate for a larger animal like herself, and so breathtakingly gorgeous that Sylvia had one thought going through her mind...
How the heck was she not part of the cast?
The young elephant had her back to Sylvia as she seemed to be studying all the different controls for the stage while she sang, so the silver and black fox just stood there and listened for a while longer before she finally made her presence known.
" That's 'If You Believe', right?" Sylvia asked, making Meena let out a sharp gasp as she turned around to face her with wide, teal colored eyes. " Nice song, you have a really good voice for it."
"I'm Sylvia, by the way."
"T...thank you..." Meena said, her voice just barley above a whisper as she tried to make her large ears hide more of her face as her long trunk moved out to politly shake Sylvia's paw before it quickly retreated back. "I'm...m-Meena."
Normally, Sylvia would just leave a person alone if it was obvious they would rather not talk, but Meena intrigued her, and she still had no answer to her question...
"So how come you're not back there practicing with everyone else?" the young vixen asked, pointing over her shoulder to the rehearsal rooms across the stage. " You can't tell me that Mr. Moon seriously made you a stage hand considering how good you are..."
"Well...n-no, not exactly." Meena answered slowly.
"Didn't you audition for the show?" Sylvia questioned, surprising even herself at how nosy she was behaving when she always made it a point to keep her nose out of other peoples business.
But thankfully, it seemed that Meena didn't really mind it. It even looked like she was a little glad that someone was trying to talk to her and she slowly started becoming a little more confident, too.
"I tried...but I just- I couldn't..." the elephant told her, wringing the hem of her baby blue hoodie with her fingers as her cheeks reddened with embarrassment under her ears. "I got so scared, I couldn't sing...so I just went home after."
So she had stage fright, huh? It was a pretty common problem in most people.
"Have you thought about asking Mr. Moon to give you another chance to try out?" Sylvia asked. She may not have known Buster for very long, but she still saw him as the type to kick himself over not having a talent like Meena as a real part of his show.
"It's all I ever seem think about, it's the reason I came back to the theater in the first place." Meena confessed. "But every time I try to ask, I get so...so tongue tied."
She then gave a long sigh as she turned back to the look at the controls with a downcast expression on her freckled face.
"But...maybe it's better this way, even if he did give me another chance, I'm still too scared to sing in front of people..." the young elephant said sadly. "I'd only blow it...again."
the young fox rolled her amber eyes at how hopeless Meena was behaving. Just because she messed up didn't mean she shouldn't keep trying, she just needed a little push in the right direction to get her courage up. So as an idea came to her, Sylvia pulled out her phone from the right pocket of her hoodie.
"Hey, what's your phone number? " she asked.
"M..my phone number?" Meena asked, surprised at Sylvia asking for her number when they really only met just minuets ago.
"Yeah, I'll give you mine too." Sylvia casually said. "It might be a little tricky because I work, but maybe we can manage to meet up and get some practice in..."
"Practice for what?" the young elephant asked, a little curious.
"Believe it or not, I used to get stage fright all the time in high school when I had to give presentations." Sylvia told her. "My dad would have me practice speaking every night in front of him and my mom for a week before each presentation so it wouldn't seem as scary."
"Really?" Meena asked, smiling a bit at the how cute the story was. "Did it work?"
"Well...a little, never managed to get rid of that stupid stutter I'd get." Sylvia said truthfully with a shrug of her shoulders. "But I always ended up with a solid B+...so count your blessings, right?"
"It's not the same a singing, so I don't promise that it'll work for you too, but it's step in the right direction, isn't it?" Sylvia added. "So what do you say? Would you be up for it?"
"I mean, you don't have to if you really don't want to, you know."
"No, I...I'd really like that." Meena said with a grateful smile as she pulled out her own phone. " Thanks Sylvia."
Sylvia returned Meena's smile with a small, but sincere one of her own. But the second after they exchanged each others phone numbers, someone suddenly started calling out Sylvias' name from the other side of the stage.
"Sylvia, where did you go?" It was Ms. Crawly. " You still have a little bit more to mop over here, dear."
"Ugh...well, I hope the contestants are taking a break..." the young fox grumbled. "Otherwise, I may just go crazy!"
" Guess this'll teach me to never go anywhere without head phones again!"
"Oh, here, you can borrow mine if you want." Meena said as she pulled out a headset that matched her her hoodie and offered it to her. " You have to go to work soon, right? You can give them back when you're ready to leave."
"Meena, you seriously just saved my life." Sylvia said as she took the headphones from her and placed them on her head. She must have looked a little silly wearing them since they were so big, but hey, it would be better than listening to a hodgepodge of different symphonies back at the rehearsal rooms.
"You can expect these back in about twenty minuets."
"I'll be here." Meena affirmed with a smile and a nod as she went back to studying the stage controls while Sylvia went back o finish her work. Feeling rather good now that she seemed to make a nice friend in Meena and that her days working here at the theater would be a little less boring from now on.
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And here we have Sylvia official meeting the adorable Meena! I like to think that anyone meeting someone as sweet as that wonderful elephant would leap at the chance to try and help her voice be heard!
I picked out a little bit of 'If You Believe' the version I intended sung by 'Celtic Woman', original artist by 'Sasha', if I have that correctly. I think would sound beautiful if sung by Meena!
Thanks so much for reading guys! I'll try and get another chapter up here pretty soon!