A letter stained lilac

A parchment sat still atop a table that had been etched carefully, intricate designs embellished upon its surface.

Picking it up, my hands shook gently, whether from illness or anxiety being unclear.

‘Dear Baron of Lilacs,

Did you know, I learned of a word when my father brought me to France? It means callous, cold, unmoving. I think you’re the picture-perfect definition of it.

To me, you will forever be ‘Agreste’.

You can’t understand hearts in the slightest.

It’s your fault I’ve died.'

---

I awoke to silence, apart from the gentle creaking hum of machinery in the near distance.

A bright and piercing light greeted me from within the dark room I awoke in. The skylight above me had been all but blocked out, a scratch within its cover allowing bright-red to stream gently inwards.

I had fallen asleep within the darkness of a broom closet. To be so confined within such a small space, I had begun to feel the security of safeness within myself. Theresia had allowed me to stay in the theatre, as it was what she did often in the late nights of her craft.

I too enjoyed writing words, but not for a moment could I even begin to imagine the depths of her passion that drove her to miss her own sleep for the sake of fulfilling a storyline.

I didn’t mind staying in the streets of Aethine, but Theresia was worried about her new assistant playwright sleeping under the heat of the ever-present sun.

As I walked gently through the halls of the theatre, I was approached by a man who held a simple seriousness upon his face.

He had a white-shirt that had been freed of its wrinkles by the simple steam of the atmosphere. Over it was a knitted light-brown sweater. He wore a flat woolen cap that matched well the shade of his sweater.

Around his shoulder, a leather satchel sat draped. The man standing before me was a courier; a deliverer of words.

“I have a letter for you, Mr. Agreste.” The courier spoke simply.

I received the envelope that he had held out for me, its coarse exterior wild against my softened grasp. As I watched the courier fade into the darkness of the dimmed theatre, I began to wonder who would offer ‘Agreste’ a letter within the world of steam.

As I slid my nail across the length of the letter, I noticed how long they had become.

Rather than just my nails, the entirety of my hand felt different within the world of Crelle. My fingers were slender, softer, and gentler. Within my old world, such hands would have been suited for mastering the koto.

Music had never been my passion, however. My ears were meant to listen to words alone.

The parchment that had been enclosed within the envelope had been folded in two, the hallmark of a note. The worlds enclosed within were much more shocking than having received the letter, however.

‘Dear Agreste,

Thank you for your words.’

The parchment rustled against my touch, its neat and folded demeanor apparent as I gazed upon it. Upon the edges of the note, it had been stained a faint purple. That was because as I had unwrapped the note, a pressed flower had fallen towards the floor in rebellion of its parchment prison.

It was a lilac that had been pressed against the note. It wasn’t a simple letter that had been given to me, it was a calling card from someone who knew that I was the Baron.

It wasn’t as if I had been keeping my secondary personage secret from anyone besides Theresia, but it was strange to have been discovered in such a way. I was not used to have the title of the Baron bound to me within the world of steam.

Staring at the letter in my hands once again, I couldn’t help but lament my heart. Why did I not feel anxious that I had been discovered so easily, perhaps even having been watched?

What was the eerie, unmovable calm that lurked within me?

“Excuse me, Mr. Agreste.” A voice behind me spoke suddenly.

A small man had walked up silently behind me. His skin was aged and leathered by sunlight, and his eyes were unapparent amidst the bush of his cloudy-white eyebrows. Too did his beard and moustache match his eyebrows, so bushy that it seemed to envelope the whole of his upper-chest.

“Yes, what is it?

“Ms. Hayes has asked me to show you around the theatre.” He spoke simply. “She wants you to get used to the place you’ll be working, I suppose.”

“Should it not be Theresia showing me around...?” I began to wonder, but quickly shook that thought out of my head. “No, she should be wholly busy engraving her passion into parchment, shouldn’t she?”

A softened laugh escaped my lips. For a moment, it was as if I had expected a whole person to change simply because they had gotten closer to me. Even within my mind, I wondered if I had retained a simple self-centered spoiled mindset. Not everything was meant to work around me.

I was no longer truly a Baron, after all. Not even calling myself that would change the fact that I was now a normal person.

I had said it previously, and meant it wholly.

I was simply Agreste.

I followed the man throughout the theatre, stepping past the endless unfilled seats of the venue. It brought a bitter feeling to rest within my heart, thinking of how Theresia’s words were left unheard. It was an unchanging fact that talent was often left diluted and unknown within a sea of faces.

“I was wondering... uh...” I spoke, my words fading away from my mind as I searched through the sea of my own thoughts.

I had not a single instance where I had ever thought to ask for his name. The man before me was so open, so comforting that I had not for a second imagined we had not known each other for years.

“You can call me Piers, Mr. Agreste. That is the name that everyone deems my simple personage worth of.” He spoke assuredly, the certainty in his voice respectable. “I am the coordinator of the shadow-leapers, so you’ll be able to find me here quite often.”

“The shadow-leapers?” I asked with curious eyes.

“You were about to ask how we switch the scenes of the play so fast, weren’t you?” Piers grinned. “That is the task of the shadow-leapers.”

When he grinned, the cloudy-white mustache upon his upper lip danced about. Its whimsical waltzing was wholly bound to his smile.

“In the moments between the scenes, there’s a few seconds of shade, isn’t there?” He spoke in a boasting tone, as if it was meant to mean something.

For any other mind, it may not have. Within an instant however, I had grasped the meaning of his words.

My expression burst forth with shock in that moment, unable to contain the euphoric excitement that grasped upon my heart. With each day, I had come to know of new things that shook my brain so wonderfully. Even something so simple could be so fascinating to me.

“So you’re saying that in those few seconds of darkness, you operate?” I spoke with widened eyes, my feverish elation apparent. “In those few seconds, you replace all the minute details of the scene itself...?”

Not even for a moment could I have lamented the ending of my old life. Within the eyes of a poet stricken by illness, how could I have grieved in the face of so many new experiences?

Somehow, despite the orange haze that permeated above me as a constant, my sky had broadened.