The Boards, Wednesday Evening

[oncourtandstage]

Troy was uncharacteristically serious as he set up for the day's rehearsal. Part of him rather hoped that most people would show up today -- it would mean that they were here, safe, protected. At least for a little while longer

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Re: Rehearsal

[glacial_witch]

"Every year for Winsol, my parents would get me an ornament for our Winsol tree," Karla said, sounding almost shy as she spoke. She called in a small wooden box and lifted the lid. Nestled inside and swathed with deep gray velvet were six crystal ornaments. "They always tried to get me ones that were beautiful but had meaning as well."

She plucked the ornaments out of the box, one by one, and explained each one before passing it around. She figured that most people knew to be careful--and she'd just be extra-vigilant when Hank was holding one.

"The snowflake is the easiest," she explained. "Winsol takes place in the depths of midwinter, starting on the longest night of the year. My home Territory is Glacia and winter is always a time for deep snows and ice." As was late fall and early spring.

Glacia got a lot of snow.

"The dancing girl is because on the first night of Winsol, we dance for the honor and glory of Witch. It doesn't matter whether you're at a big party filled with hundreds of glittering people or in your own home by yourself. At midnight, you drink a toast--it's the best luck to share a cup with someone--and then you dance. At least once. The unicorn is a member of the kindred race of Blood. They have their own Territory in Sceval. There are old stories of how one of first Witch's companions was a unicorn, and she would ride him when she needed to travel. The crystal chalice is the Blood's symbol for the person's Self, especially the mind. It is said that if you can draw the image of a person's crystal chalice from within them, you can see what they are truly like."

The next ornament, a crystal hourglass mounted in a real stone bracket, was small but very heavy. "The hourglass is a symbol for one of our castes, the Black Widows." Karla pulled on one of the thin silver necklaces she wore and pulled out an hourglass pendant from under her shirt. "I belong to the Hourglass myself--it means I am a member of that caste. I'm a journeymaid Black Widow, which is why the sand in my pendant is divided evenly into both halves. Apprentices have all their sand at the top, and fully-trained Black Widows have their sand all at the bottom. It's impossible to know for sure until puberty, but when I was born, I showed all the signs of being a natural-born Black Widow, so my parents got me an ornament to show it. The web is related to that. Both Healers and Black Widows spin special webs to focus their Craft. Also, for the Blood, your inner Web describes your...ability to do Craft. It's kind of complicated, but so long as your inner Web is intact, so are your abilities."

After she'd shown all of her ornaments, Karla added, "I used to have two more, but they've been lost. One was crystal star; there's an old poem among our people with the line, They spiral down into ebony, catching the stars with their tails. It's a poem about the great dragons who created all of the Blood. No matter how faint, every member of the Blood from all the myriad races can claim kinship to the dragons. The last was a prancing silver horse that I'm pretty sure had no real connection to Winsol, other than we often use horses to pull our sleighs around Winsol time. I was just little and loved horses a lot."