The Understudy, Surely... [tag: Blondie]

[christinemary]

Christine you must have been dreaming
stories like this can’t come true
Christine you’re talking in riddles
and it’s not like you

A horde of ballerinas bobbed past her with their faces turned contemptuously away. They talked about her like she couldn’t hear them, wondering among themselves why she was backstage when she wasn’t even to be in the performance tonight. Christine knew they would never understand--she had come to wish Carlotta luck tonight and to see if she could help out the scene shifters at all. There wasn’t any work being asked of her, and so she sat alone backstage, listening to the performance progress.

“Christine...”

Funny, that voice sounded just like... She stood slowly and went into the hall, walking and walking until she reached the richly-carpeted second floor of the theater, where a ring of full Opera Boxes were hidden from her view with heavy curtains. She swore she had heard that voice. Christine shook her head, her brows knitting together. She couldn’t be hearing things, could she?

“Christine!” She gasped and turned around, and saw that it was not a ghost or a phantom--it was one of the tenors from the chorus. “Christine, we need you right away--Carlotta has become ill unexpectedly.”

“What?” Her eyes widened. “That’s terrible!”

“And they want you to take her place!”

Christine was speechless for a moment. “But surely the understudy--?”

“She refuses to go on--she’s convinced she’s cursed. And there’s no other soprano in the house that knows the full libretto... besides you!”

Christine felt herself growing weak at her core, and felt her mouth dry up. She simply gave a shaky little nod and followed him back downstairs. There were already people waiting there, and they nearly attacked her with makeup and costume, paying more attention to her than they ever had before. She could hear someone announcing that she would be performing the rest of the role, and it began to sink it. The room began to get very hot, and she began to get very pale under her stage makeup.

She struggled to tell them that she could not go on, but they were having none of it--she was almost literally forced into her next scene, wobbling at the knees. Her mouth was dry, and her throat followed suit--there was no way she could sing, let alone stay conscious. Fuzzy blackness closed in on her vision, and the next thing she knew--well, there was nothing.

It was a relieving feeling, this nothing. No time, no space, just... nothing! It seemed that she woke up years later, though it had really only been a few seconds. She was staring up into the wings, her pale skin clammy under the dim lights. It looked different, though... no one was around her. Slowly, she hoisted herself up and looked around.

This wasn't her opera house at all! This place was dusty and looked like it hadn't been taken care of for awhile--it was mismatched, too. Some parts of it looked newer than others. This was not her opera house...

Was she dead? No, she wouldn't feel so terrible if she were. Christine sat up a little more, shaking, and held her head. "Hello...? Someone please help..."

[/font]

[Christine Daaé]

Christine sighed contentedly as she moved through the manor halls. She had just posted the big announcement on the bulletin board just outside of the Manor, and had come inside in order to seek out a few of the people she would have preferred to let know the news in person.

She felt warm, despite the cold weather. She supposed it was probably all of the excitement surrounding the new circumstances in which she and Raoul had found themselves. She was dressed in a pink and white frock dress with a gold charm on a black ribbon necklace, matching gold earrings, and a matching black ribbon in her hair with similar gold ornamentation. Her hair was mostly up in a tick braid that wrapped over the top of her head with a few tightly wound ringlets hanging down her back and over her left shoulder.

The person she happened to be looking for at the moment was Monsieur Erik Lenoir. He had been of great assistance to both Raoul and Christine in the past, and she knew that he and her husband had actually grown to be quite good friends, which she considered an accomplishment knowing how shy her husband could be. Monsieur Lenoir had even been best man at their wedding, and so Christine thought it quite fit that he be one of those who received the word in person of the new addition on the way….

There were two places where she thought would be most likely to find Monsieur Lenoir, and those two places were the Opera House, and his home in the lairs where all of the Eriks seemed to have replicas of their old homes. The latter was quite out of the way, and so she had decided to check the Opera House first.

Monsieur Lenoir had been working on the renovations in the place and already it was looking so much better than it had to begin with. She recalled the first time she’d been in there, with everything all dusty and full of cobwebs, the seats all broken, and the chandelier hanging at a rather precarious angle. The place had certainly made a great deal of improvement since that time, but it still had more to be done.

However, when she reached the Opera House and was about to open the doors, she heard a small voice. It was a familiar voice, but far too feminine to be that of Monsieur Lenoir’s tenor. The voice was calling for help, or at least, she thought it was. It was a bit difficult to make out through the closed doors.

Curious, she thought to herself as she rested a hand on the thick wood, before pushing it open and stepping inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the changing light, but when they did, she could make out a small woman there on the stage. She took a few more steps forward, brow furrowed contemplating who it could be, but then her expression softened and eyes widened when she realized who it was.

“Joy? Joy, are you all right? Wherever have you been?”

She moved quickly down the centre aisle toward the stage. It had been quite a while since she’d seen the other woman. Joy was supposed to have been her maid of honor at the wedding, but had ended up as a no-show – a situation which had caused Christine some amount of worry. This place was quite strange, and she knew there had been cases where people had vanished without a trace…

She scurried off to the side of the stage where there was a small set of steps to climb up, and went up onto the stage herself to go greet Christine Joy, who seemed to have fainted, for she looked concerned and had recently cried out for help.

She knelt down where Joy was and offered a friendly, yet concerned smile. She was relieved to see her friend here, but if she really were okay, then where had she been this whole time?

[christinemary]

Christine you must have been dreaming
stories like this can’t come true
Christine you’re talking in riddles
and it’s not like you

Christine was surprised to hear a voice, and slowly scrunched herself up into a ball of glossy pink material, awaiting the approach of the young girl. She was surprised to find, as she neared her, that the woman looked quite similar to herself--they might have been sisters.

“Joy? Joy, are you all right? Wherever have you been?”

Joy? Well, she certainly did not know anyone by that name. She took her hand and helped herself up, though, the sweat cold on her neck and her knees still wobbly. She held the woman's hand tightly, like it was her lifeline.

The woman before her was young, but perhaps a little bit older than herself, with lighter hair and higher features. She was beautiful in a very royal way, like a Princess of the North. Christine knew that she would never look like that--her face was too round her neck was too short. But somehow, she seemed familiar. She did not let go of her hand, and actually stumbled forward slightly.

"No, Madame," she said quietly, a very girlish, pretty voice; "My name is Christine... I'm sorry." She wasn't sure why she was apologizing, but she was certain she wasn't supposed to be there. Who was this lady? Was it her mother? Was she actually dead, and in Heaven? This was a strange Heaven...

"...But where am I...? This isn't... the same Opera..."

[/font]

[Christine Daaé]

Christine gave a light and confused chuckle at the other young woman’s statement. “I know that your name is Christine – Christine Joy Daaé. Now what are you apologizing for, dear? You haven’t done anything wrong…”

She cocked her head a little after helping the littler Christine to her feet. Something seemed off, though she couldn’t quite place her finger on it. It had been such a long time since she’d seen her, that she was merely glad to know that she was safe and hadn’t disappeared. After all, there had been so many others who seemed to have vanished into this air…

When Joy expressed her confusion about the opera house, Christine laughed again. “You’re still in the opera house, but yes, I see what you mean. Monsieur Lenoir has made such progress with it that the place is hardly recognizable compared to what it was before, don’t you think? Of course there’s still a long way to go, but from what I’ve heard he plans to begin working on production soon…”

Christine let out a sigh and looked around the partially refurbished opera house before returning her attention to ‘Joy.’ “On another note, you were greatly missed at the wedding. Did something come up?”

[christinemary]

Christine you must have been dreaming
stories like this can’t come true
Christine you’re talking in riddles
and it’s not like you

Christine's grey eyes widened and she shook her head a little, not completely sure what she should say or do at this point. She settled with simply keeping the woman close--the lady was nice, and Christine could sense that she only meant well. But she was so very confusing...

"Madame, I don't know anyone by that name," she said softly, in reference to Monsieur Lenoir. How long had she been sleeping? This surely must be a dream, even if it seemed so solid and real. Perhaps it just just a mean joke someone was playing on her.

"My name is Christine Daaé, but I have never been called Joy in my life," she explained, almost apologetically. Of course, she had nothing to be sorry for--she just wasn't named Joy, that was a fact. "I wasn't invited to any wedding, I'm afraid..."

She looked around the room more carefully, her tone becoming lighter and breathier as she did, like she might faint again. She clutched the lady's arms like she was her mother. "This place is... magnificent, but it is not the Paris Opera. Where am I, Madame? I'm sorry..."

[/font]

[Christine Daaé]

Christine frowned a bit, blinking a few times at the statement. Had she not yet met Monsieur Lenoir? They had never specifically spoken of him before, though it had been so long since both of them had first arrived here that she had assumed the two would have met by now. It seemed very strange that they could not have. Everyone seemed to know who Monsieur Lenoir was… but she supposed it were possible they’d never met.

The next thing that the other woman said though caused Christine’s brow to furrow in confusion. She’d never been called ‘Joy’ in her life? And… and was never invited to any wedding? Now Christine was severely confused. She’d known Joy for a good ten and a half months now – it wasn’t as if they’d only met just yesterday… And she’d invited her herself, as she and Raoul had decided against paper invitations partially because of the added cost they weren’t able to afford at the moment, and partially to avoid the risk of certain undesired third parties coming across one and learning of their plans.

“That… that cannot be,” she murmured, taking a step backward and gazing off toward the house for a moment before her blue eyes met the other’s grey eyes once again. What was going on here? The strange occurrences of this dreadful place never ceased, did they?

Christine shook her head a little. “The Manor,” she said, in response to the other’s question, “but… are you feeling quite all right? You seem different…” and then she gave a nervous and confused chuckle, as if in attempt to calm her own nerves about this rather awkward circumstance, though it was not helping. “I know that you were invited because I asked you myself…” She forced an uneasy smile onto her face. Something was not right.