misterblackbird: (You Make Kitty Scared)
Cain Hargreaves ([personal profile] misterblackbird) wrote2008-10-29 08:49 pm

Entry 226; Day 543

[Filtered from Known Enemies || Unhackable]
How unexpected that there's no curse today. After the curse this weekend--yes, it was a curse, and I knew it was a curse at the time, but I'm going to put my lack of concern about it being a curse down to the curse itself--I would have expected another one by now. I think everything that can be said about this weekend has been said already, too.

Perhaps I ought to be grateful. But it's rather difficult to be grateful when you're just sitting around, trying to go on with one's life, waiting for the next catastrophe to strike. That's life in the City. We, as ever, live between the curses. I'll savour the quiet while I can.

So I've been going through the opera house closets, the same as I did last year. Admittedly, I'm still hesitant in case last year's Hallowe'en curse repeats this year. I think I spent the better part of the day going through dusty robes and old velvet. And I think I may have found some suitable costumes. There are costumes upon costumes here--of all sorts and all styles. I do have to wonder where the things in these closets came from, though.

It's entirely possible that the City has been here for hundreds of years, even thousands of years if we believe what the 'deities' have told us, and these costumes have been left behind by other citizens. I have to wonder what shows might have been performed here by residents long gone. Certainly interesting ones by the look of the ruins they left behind. Perhaps those who performed before were here for some time, and then vanished, perhaps in short order. That would give rise to the name 'Opera Abandoned', wouldn't it?

Still, the costumes are here, and still very usable, and I mean to put them to good use. So, anyone who's decided that they want to create a Hallowe'en costume for me had best hurry or else I may choose one for myself. I've found a few coats I'm quite taken with. And Miss Mudou's suggestion of dressing as a vampire is seeming a bit intriguing. I couldn't play Dracula, but perhaps some variation on the theme. I know there were stories and novels enough about them in my world, and some ostensibly true stories.

What does a vampire look like, anyway, aside from the tell-tale teeth? There seems to be no end to the variations on that that I've heard of. Or seen. Or even been briefly married to-- So I feel like I can take very nearly anything interesting out of these closets and use it. There must be miles of black velvet in them. The question more becomes what era I'd like to choose, or even if it should be something of my own world.

I'm still not planning on going trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en night. I think I'm a bit too old for that. But I don't see any harm in dressing up, obviously.

I wonder if the fact that there is no curse today bodes good or ill. From one side, the very lack of gruesome and deadly curses this month, as compared to last year I mean, might mean that we'll escape this month without all the pain of last year. Or, it may mean that the worst is yet to come, that this is the calm before the storm.

After last year at Hallowe'en, I will give due consideration to what I wear. Last year, we were cursed more and more as the sun set, as I recall. And we began to believe ourselves to be what we were dressed as--or perhaps we really became it. I can't be certain. But I do know how I woke the next day and I do not wish to repeat it.

But the fact that none of the other curses have repeated this October perhaps means that even that last one won't repeat. Indeed, things have improved as the month has gone on, with the curses becoming less and less bloody, moving from death matches to dangerous races to dancing. Hallowe'en falls on a Friday this year, and the other curses all began on Fridays. I want to see a pattern in that, but I don't quite yet.

The obvious assumption is that Hallowe'en may be the beginning of a new string of curses, perhaps one final weekend of it. But Hallowe'en may also be something on its own, since it's a holiday of its own. The other curses haven't seemed to tie directly to it, not like last year.

I'm so tired of talking about last year, last October. We can't be sure how it will fall for us. And that is life in the City as well, wretched as it is.

I've a bit more planning to do with my own projects, but there's not much left yet to do. I wonder if there are any printers in the City who could manage some decent-looking invitations.

So quiet, so very quiet these days--Is this life as it would have been or could have been?--Not without Riff and Merry here, surely--And yet, to find myself so at leisure, so unconcerned--What is this?--I begin to feel like I am not myself, almost like I've been struck with some sort of inverted curse--the curse of my blood and eyes turned backwards--And I think I dislike it--I miss things as they were, even at their darkest--

~C.

[ooc: I really meant to post this earlier. Mm. Fail.]

[identity profile] princess-crow.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
I have been thinking about the prior residents. When the Maestro Erik and I became the first living people inside these walls, there were echoes and strange presences. When more people habited with us, the odd noises and whispers in the dark faded.

[identity profile] misterblackbird.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 02:11 am (UTC)(link)
I sincerely doubt you heard ghosts. How odd, though, that there would be sounds and shadows like that. I never saw anything like that, but little wonder since the opera house has been inhabited since I arrived.

[identity profile] princess-crow.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
No, I think I heard memories left by whoever lived previously. Imprinted in the furniture, the floor and the walls. We built new ones. When we leave, ours we remain to haunt the newcomers.

[identity profile] misterblackbird.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
That in itself is a haunting thought.

[identity profile] princess-crow.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
It is, isn't it? It goes accordingly with the date.

[identity profile] misterblackbird.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
It does, really, as close to Hallowe'en as we are. I still find it a strange thought that memories could linger in a place.

[identity profile] princess-crow.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
I have witnessed stranger events in my life.

[identity profile] misterblackbird.livejournal.com 2008-10-30 03:15 am (UTC)(link)
I'm somehow not especially surprised by that, Princess.