Author's note: And here we are, everyone! Finally at the play – the grand performance of The Curse of the Sun and the Moon by the Moonlit Players. :D
This story keeps getting longer and longer – sorry about that. :D Thank you for all the love, beautiful darlings! :D
The Mikaelson Courtyard – the day of Rebekah and Marcel's wedding
The four vampires who were compelled by the bride to attend and stay throughout all the proceedings bitterly strolled into the lavishly decorated home. Damon, Elena, Caroline, and Stefan all took their seats in one of the middle rows of what was apparently quickly built to be a three-quarter thrust stage in the mansion's garden. It must have been constructed recently – perhaps just for the event – because none of them could recall it ever being there previously.
The curtain was a thick, rich, burgundy velvet, draped elegantly to cover what was happening backstage from potentially prying eyes. The house was packed, it would appear. Strange to have the play prior to the ceremony, but let it never be said that Rebekah Mikaelson didn't have a flair for the dramatic.
The betrothed pair could be seen in a box seat just to the left side of the stage, with some members of the bridal party, including Kol and Davina. In the box seat on the opposite, right side of the stage, sat of the Witches Council, consisting of Bonnie and Freya, along with some of the local and New Orleans witches who made up the rest of their team, and Keelin as Freya's guest. From their vantage point, the vampiric foursome could see Bonnie send them a sympathetic look, evidently aware both of the compulsion placed on them for the remainder of all of the day's events and the likely quality of the play that they would soon be forced to watch.
"How did they manage to fill this place up so fast?" Elena asked, any tension or potential sense of foreboding softened by the warmth rising in her chest from the feeling of being able to keep her hand in Damon's so openly, reveling in the gentle strokes his thumb traced over its smooth surface.
"Probably the same way she got us here," Damon scoffed, then wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at her, sending her a patently suggestive look that just bordered on mischievous. "But I know how we could get our revenge! Let's give them our own show."
"Ew, gross!" Caroline shrieked. "Keep your slimy paws to yourself, Damon. No one wants to see that."
Before Damon could respond, Stefan cleared his throat, stopping an all-too-familiar altercation in its tracks. Over the last few days, he would have been hard pressed to blame all his tension headaches on human blood withdrawal. At least some of them had to have been from Damon and Caroline's incessant bickering. "Let's just keep alert. There could be some kind of trap."
"Yeah, watching the hybrids gesticulate awkwardly onstage and obliterate 'performance art' as an idea," Damon dryly replied.
"What!?" Elena and Caroline asked simultaneously, both blanching. Being alumni of Mystic Falls High School, they were unfortunately all too familiar with the slow, gnawing torture that was Tyler Lockwood's acting, recalling all-too-vividly that horrific 'performance' of yesteryear, when his mother, Carol, strong-armed the chair of the drama department into letting Tyler star in that year's production of Romeo and Juliet.
The entire performance was so horrifying that poor Amy Bradley, the girl that foolishly stayed as Juliet in an effort to ingratiate herself with both Tyler and the Founding Families, seemed to develop some kind of temporary anxiety disorder triggered by loud, monotonous yelling – not because she feared the sounds or any sort of violence that may follow – but only because her subconscious immediately tensed up at the terrifying thought of being forced to watch Tyler stumble through yet another soliloquy.
By the end of the night, the audience was in tears, but they were secretly tears of joy that they could leave. Carol Lockwood couldn't be prouder, completely misunderstanding the situation.
And truly, that night proved that there never was a story of more woe, than that of Tyler Lockwood playing Romeo.
"All the hybrids?" Caroline asked, frightened.
"Including Tyler?" Elena followed up, looking practically green.
Before anyone could comment, a vampire familiar to both Damon and Elena stepped out from the wings – prompting two completely opposite reactions – confidently walking to the center of the stage.
In Damon, the vampire's revelation elicited an odd mix of unadulterated shock, trepidation, and a seed of hope planted so deep within that he initially didn't recognize it properly for what it was. He just stared at the stage in complete surprise.
In Elena, however, Enzo's revelation prompted excitement, having met him in an alternate world shown to her by the Chambre de Chasse. Her initial conclusion had been that he had died in the late 1950s, when Damon turned off his humanity to survive the ordeal of his escape from Whitmore Hall. But Enzo must have survived that night, prompting her to squeeze Damon's hand in glee. She turned to face him, a large, open smile gracing her face, only to falter when she saw the raw anxiety on his.
"Damon," Elena whispered into his ear, pressing her other hand to hug his bicep to shake him from his apparent mental departure. When he didn't immediately respond, she scooted closer to lean against him, her breath tickling his ear. "Enzo's alive!" she said in a hushed, jubilant tone, only for him to hear.
"And probably hates me." Damon replied in a horrified whisper of his own – one that tried entirely too hard and failed to sound casual – though inwardly his heart beat with equal excitement to see his old friend survive. "He has every reason to," he groaned.
She shook her head, willing to make him understand her point. "But he's alive!" she pressed. "That means you have time, and every opportunity, to talk to him – to make things right," she explained, kissing him on the cheek.
"Gentles!" Enzo greeted, mentally admonishing himself for being just a tad hypocritical after admonishing Hayley for her use of Elizabethan English during the first dress rehearsal, since the term was so very favored by the Bard. "We, the Moonlit Players, welcome you all to today's premiere of our original play, The Curse of the Sun and the Moon. A gift to the lovely Rebekah Mikaelson on her wedding day to the esteemed Marcel Gerard, King of New Orleans, we aim to illuminate you with Mikaelson mythos, instill within you a sense of wonder, and inspire you to explore alternate paths of understanding and interpretation," Enzo delivered in his most affected tone, secretly hoping that the subtext will be clear as the play progresses. For the hybrids, this project was subtle vengeance against Klaus; for him, it was a massive heap of rebellious fun. "The actors are at hand, and, by their show," he said, concluding his speech. "You shall know all that you are like to know," he cheerfully exclaimed before exiting the stage.
Hayley, meanwhile, watched the speech from backstage with narrowed eyes, pursing her lips at Enzo's 'do as I say, not as I do' attitude, even though he had just used the one archaic term, and perhaps that one couplet at the end of his speech. Mentally hissing at yet another obnoxious text message from Klaus, she checked her makeup one more time, before preparing for her entrance as soon as Enzo's speech concluded, suddenly feeling very resolved.
Putting her phone away with a dramatic huff, Hayley quickly made her way onto the stage as the curtain pulled back to reveal a scene in the woods.
A bonfire was lit, contained by a New Orleans witch, who volunteered to help, in the newly designed orchestra pit. Hayley joyfully pranced to her place by the fire, laughing merrily as her the hybrids who played her suitors danced around her. Tyler wasted no time in pulling her into a kiss, as Enzo, playing the role of Elijah, watched sadly from the shadows. The light then moved to a different corner of a stage, in front of a pigpen, where Enzo-Elijah awaited Hayley-Tatia.
Still annoyed by Enzo's earlier hypocrisy and Klaus' controlling behavior, Hayley mentally replayed Enzo's exact words when he admonished her Elizabethan English improvisation during their first dress rehearsal and smirked wickedly. No 'thou,' no 'thine,' Hayley recalled. She decided to use his own words against him, and follow his directions to the letter, and certainly not the spirit.
"Klaus! 'Tis thee?" Hayley-Tatia queried in some real over-the-top mock innocence, glancing at what was clearly a prop shaped to look like a piglet, pretending to have mistaken him for her overbearing baby daddy. Her eyes then met Enzo's very-very annoyed gaze, who summoned every artistic instinct he had to turn the thin sneer lining his lips into a loving, if nervous smile.
The laughter from the audience soothed his spirit somewhat, while simultaneously – because he loved a display of good showmanship – but also unnerved him because they were laughing at the entirely wrong parts.
This was supposed to be a satire masquerading as serious drama, not a farce! A subtle poke at the Mikaelsons.
Damon unleashed an actual cackle, one that even caught him by surprise. "That's who Klaus reminds me of when he throws a tantrum! A histrionic little piggy, shouting because he can't dagger his annoying personality," he smirked, earning a pointed glare from Caroline, who suddenly flushed with embarrassment when the three vampires in her company raised triplet eyebrows to question her defense of Klaus.
"You're being very rude," Caroline hissed, hoping to cover her slip-up.
"Ooh, I'm sorry," Damon widened his pretty, blue eyes in the most dramatic display of innocence. "I thought that laughing at the guy who tried to kill us all several times was fair game. Or is that off the table because he followed you around like a sad little wolf and actually showed you some attention?" he asked with pretense at genuine confusion.
"Tried to kill us a few times? You mean yourself, Damon?" Caroline shot back smugly. "Because you tried to kill a few of us, and laughing at you really is fun. You're right!" she beamed with false cheer.
Not particularly enjoying the reminder of that time in his life, prepared a biting retort, which he of course thought would be hilarious, only to be interrupted by Elena's annoyed sigh.
"Okay, Care, Damon took a werewolf bite for you. He didn't have to do that. Damon, Klaus cured you – twice. He didn't have to do that, either. So, can we please stop this, and believe in each other's ability to change for the better?" she all but begged in a decidedly stressed, hushed tone. "Everyone has good inside them – even Klaus."
Her vampiric interlocutors looked mollified for a few brief moments, until Damon kissed her on the cheek and pulled her in to whisper into her ear. "You're lucky you're adorable, because your eternal optimism is super-annoying."
Caroline pouted for a few more moments after being called out for her own unfairness, but realized there was a way to save face, and promptly took the opportunity. "Well, you're still being very rude to Tyler," Caroline chided. "It's his first big part since high school, and he's our friend."
The three vampires nodded in some agreement, though from what they'd seen so far, any distraction from his seemingly unique ability to somehow both overact and underact in the same scene was baffling. It was as though he occasionally caught himself not responding appropriately, and immediately sought to fix it by enacting his best impression of Calculon and William Shatner rolled in one.
"But I guess you're right," Caroline said softly soon after, suddenly grateful for her friends. "We've all been through a lot."
In the following scene, Enzo had to all but pray for complete suspension of disbelief on behalf of the audience as he prepared to play both a mother and son. Donning his blond wig for the role of Esther, he took his place mournfully by the makeshift Mikaelson hearth.
In order to make the scene work, all of Elijah's lines were given to Rebekah, making her the star child that would comfort Esther after Henrik's untimely demise – in retrospect, Enzo argued, that this necessary revision of history might win some points at Rebekah's wedding.
"We'll get through this, as a family," the still timid Veronica-Rebekah squeaked, placing a comforting hand on Enzo-Esther's shoulder, while Tyler-Klaus mourned and cowered very dramatically in a corner.
"I am a fiend! I am a fowl, cowardly fiend!" cried Tyler-Klaus, shaking his fist to the sky in a way he must have thought was both natural and convincing. It took all of Enzo's efforts to not snap at him for his crude improvisation of a line that he was certain Klaus Mikaelson, if he was half the narcissist that Tyler described, would never actually say.
Though Enzo had to admit that as Tyler's stories progressed, he found himself questioning a lot of their authenticity, often wondering if he didn't have one of the most unreliable narrators ever.
Kim, meanwhile, watched the scene from within the wings, positively seething. Not only had her part as Esther been given away to Enzo, but now that little nobody, Veronica, got to have all of Elijah's parts as Rebekah!? It wasn't fair! No matter. She'd show them. She'd show them all, she decided, grinning with absolute glee.
"That's not how it happened!" Kol scoffed, gesturing wildly to the stage. "You were busy playing dress-up with Nik's figurines and spilling berry tea all over the furniture when this happened!"
"How in the bloody hell would you know, Kol?" Rebekah shot back, annoyed with her younger brother's obnoxiousness, as usual. "Were you able to see all that through the giant shadow of your fist whilst you were sucking your thumb?"
Marcel and Davina looked between the two with pronounced amusement, which only grew when Rebekah leaned in to whisper, "Kol wet the bed until he was five-years-old."
Enzo donned his fabulous blonde wig again and took to center stage, followed by Tyler-Klaus, looking positively shamed.
"I have warned you many times, Niklaus, to mind the matter of your art!" Esther-Enzo chided the petulant Tyler-Klaus.
"Father doesn't understand artistry, and you now this!" Tyler-Klaus all but begged. "He wishes me to be a warrior alone, but I must paint – I've a soul-calling."
Enzo-Esther shot Tyler-Klaus a disbelieving look. "Niklaus, I am your mother. Please don't try that with me, because you must be aware that it will not work. The state of undress of the women in your paintings – and the positions –"
"It's my wolf side, mother!" Tyler-Klaus argued vehemently, looking quite embarrassed.
"Well, no more, mister! I'm taking it away until you learn to behave!"
"Wait," Damon laughed. "Did Klaus' mommy cast a Parental Control Settings spell to keep her murderous baby hybrid away from…" he made a show of looking around, placing a hand before his mouth, before unleashing a stage whisper, "porn?"
"Creating porn," Elena grinned. "Think they might still have some of his Kama Sutra knockoffs in the Lockwood tunnels? Oh God, do I even want to know what they're of?"
"Will you two stop?" Caroline hushed them. "Tyler obviously made that up."
"Maybe Tyler's the one painting turn-of-the-millennium wolf porn," Damon smirked, enjoying Caroline's annoyance.
"It's not wolf porn! She clearly said 'women,'" Caroline hissed.
"This is all obviously revisionist history, anyway, so who cares?" Stefan reasoned, surprised by how much Tyler's horrific acting was distracting him from his bloodlust. "Wait 'til he gets to us."
The remaining three vampires all shuddered in response, both in horror and in secret curiosity to see just how they would be portrayed.
Enzo-Elijah and Tyler-Klaus stood together in the village, surrounded by corpses. Their mother had just turned them into vampires, and poor Hayley-Tatia lay at their feet.
"She bound my wolf side, brother," Tyler-Klaus wailed. "Just as she said she would! Only she waited until I became a blood-sucking field first. She could not stand her own creation – the spawn of her wretched affair!"
"I thought it was because of some naughty paintings that you –" Elijah-Enzo tried to query, only to be interrupted by a panicked Tyler-Klaus.
"No, no! It's definitely not the paintings. There's nothing wrong with those, and they didn't feature excessive wolves in various stages of undress or anything weird at all," Tyler-Klaus stalled.
"… Right," Enzo-Elijah narrowed his eyes suspiciously but shrugged it off. "I have an idea. We know mother used sweet Tatia's blood and the moonstone to bind the curse. I spoke with a village witch, and Tatia is a doppelgänger – which means another will be born in due time – allowing you to break it."
"But how will we find her?" Tyler-Klaus asked desperately.
"Never fear, brother, for I have it! We shall spread false myths throughout the lands, foretelling of a way to remove the Curse of the Sun and the Moon – promising vampires free reign of the Sun, and werewolves, serenity during the Full Moon."
"Excessive wolves in various stages of undress? I didn't know you had it in you, big brother," Kol cackled. "I don't kink shame, but that might be wild even for me. Now I want to see these paintings."
"These paintings don't exist, and you know it," Rebekah replied, rolling her eyes. "Tyler Lockwood's a lying git."
"But that's what makes it fun! Imagine Nik's face when he tries to deny it?" Kol pressed.
"We could forge some and pretend to unearth them," Davina grinned wickedly. "Watch Klaus try to deny it, like Kol said, after this play starts the rumor, and everyone knows that rumors spread like wildfire," she all but cackled with mischievous glee.
"I'm with D on this one," Marcel grinned, partly because he thought it would be hilarious to see his sire squirm, but also because it would be that much more difficult for Klaus to reclaim New Orleans if he's too busy fending off wild rumors about his early days as a painter.
The first act went relatively smoothly, save for Hayley's taunt eliciting laughter at precisely the wrong moments. Why did Enzo have a strong feeling that this play would ultimately be perceived as a farce?
It's supposed to subtly poke fun at the Mikaelsons' inherent dysfunction as a family unit, not be an outright joke, he pouted.
Though even he had to admit that the audience engagement was making him feel alive.
He stood with Tyler-Klaus in what was decorated to look like a ballroom, when Hayley-Katherine was brought to them by a hybrid playing an extra. They had their meeting, and the rebellious werewolf smiled beatifically at them both. Enzo continued to be impressed by how Hayley could say the name 'Elijah' with such love, such care. Perhaps he should have crafted more scenes between them. As is, their romantic scene where she passionately defended the notion of love was already an audience favorite, and one of the few times he'd seen Hayley take anything that seriously.
Mercifully, everything with Act Two went according to plan, and they were all backstage, getting ready for the third and final act – the modern one. Tyler would play both himself and Klaus, which was making Enzo very nervous.
To differentiate between the two, Tyler affected probably the worst British accent that Enzo ever heard when portraying the Original Hybrid – that, and a spiky blond wig that Enzo strongly suspected Tyler pilfered off a Cloud Strife costume – and it was just a testament to Hayley's brilliant impression of Katherine that kept the second act from being laughed off the stage.
He studied her carefully. Perhaps Hayley Marshall had a future in theatre, after all – if she could wrangle in her own wild nature and rebelliousness.
"I can't believe Nik and Elijah are missing this," Kol remarked with an outright boisterous grin. He wasn't particularly pleased with the hybrid that played him for all of several minutes, but he definitely enjoyed Tyler Lockwood's rendition of Niklaus Mikaelson.
"You'd better be happy that they are," Rebekah groaned. "I don't even want to imagine the meltdown Tyler Lockwood's butchering would cause."
"Maybe Nik will dagger Lockwood," Kol smirked. "Do the entire theatre world a favor."
"What?" Marcel asked with a grin just bordering playful sincerity, then widened in wickedness. "I think he's perfect. Tyler definitely caught the essence of Klaus' need to yell, hit everything, and awkwardly draw attention to himself."
"And murder everyone's families," Davina replied with a grimace. "If that's what Katherine's aside was meant to convey.
"Has Cami been helping him curb those instincts, by the way?" Marcel asked with surprising sincerity, proving that despite everything - all the outward taunts and jibes and pokes - the Mikaelsons really did love each other.
I was originally going to post the entire play as one long chapter with a little surprise at the end (Bonnie's gift), but decided to split it up into two, instead, to make updates faster!
"You're lucky you're adorable, because your eternal optimism is super-annoying" is lifted directly from 6X17, because I think it's super-cute.
The Moonlit Players' performance being perceived as a farce (instead of a satire) is a nod to Shakespeare's Midsummer, which features a tragedy called Pyramus and Thisbe performed so awfully that the audience laughs at everything, believing it to be a farce. In this case, it's more a case of bratty actors and behind-the-scenes drama spilling onto the stage. :D (Although, Tyler's acting is more of a classic Midsummer interpretation, I suppose. :D)
There seemed to be some confusion in the last chapter, so I wanted to clear it up here. This story isn't meant to suggest that Caroline absolutely had to die in order to reach this level of confidence, and that she couldn't have ever reached it as a human – the story already begins with her as a vampire, so I couldn't really work with her as a human, anyway. By finale of The Originals, Caroline had this level of belief in herself, and she did it through alternate means (since the Twin Flame spell obviously doesn't exist there). There are many paths. Therefore, it's entirely reasonable to assume that she could have gotten there as a human, as well. Personally, I prefer her as a vampire, but that absolutely doesn't mean that human Caroline wouldn't have eventually grown into a confident young lady.
Big thanks to the lovely PixilatedDreamer, Wobalo, and Kriz03 for patiently consulting and letting me run parts of the play by them. Big hearts to Pixi especially, since I've been on her about this pretty much since the story's start. :D They also have beautiful stories that you should absolutely check out, too! Also please check out scarlett2112 and Florencia7's stories for some lovely time spent reading.
Sorry, Tyler. I decided you're a terrible performer because it's super-amusing to me. :D He's still a talented visual artist, though, so maybe he should just stick to that.
So, to clarify what I said last chapter about Caroline's love life. When I began this story, I hadn't realized that I would later suddenly decide that all my stories exist in a big multi-verse. :D This means that if I make a claim that character A is character B's Twin Flame, it'll stick in every story. I'm not sure who Caroline's is for every story yet, so you can just imagine her with whoever you want. Stefan, Tyler, and Klaus are all her soulmates, but she can only have one Twin Flame. So, just imagine whoever you want. I'm leaving it deliberately open-ended, in this respect.
Thank you for being awesome, everyone. Much love. :D