[Deuteragonist]

In the prologue, the Chorus introduces the story of Faustus to the readers. He is described as being "base of stock."

-  ???

Those who speak at a funeral service are often tasked with writing remarkably about unremarkable people. I do not envy their job. Really, if they were honest, they'd say something like, "John lived a humble life, swearing about his neighbors under his breath, buying his favorite dish once a week from the local restaurant, and engaged in idle chatter with his coworkers," but they never do. John was the nicest man everyone knew, just like everyone else who had a service that day. John was even a father, a son, a husband, like everyone else was too, but these things are special, right now. It must be harder than it looks. But they make it look so easy. At a funeral, when I listen, even if I was with the person everyday, it feels like I'm learning something new, every time.

People are so good at their jobs. Could I ever be that good?

but you know what else i wonder?
where is a retainer buried, when they die?
with the others?

---

There are a lot of times when I start to think bad stuff, and it gets hard to stop, but that's why I spend all my time not working doing something I really do like. I love to read, and I love to go to plays, and it's awesome, because I could never afford it before, so it's just another thing to thank them both for.. My favorites are probably either The Phantom and the Goosegirl or The Penny King. Have you seen either of them? The second one's the play where the king sells his crown to an orphan, and then, he becomes a better king than the original. And then the first is the one where a normal girl dresses like a countess and everyone is stunned by how graceful and charming she is. There's this important connection between seeming and being. We all become what we pretend to be.

I've been reading about it, and it's psychology, get it? You dress a pauper in fine clothes, people treat them like nobility, and they rise up to the expectations. Well, that's only the littlest piece of it. The truth is deeper than that. It's like...No, listen. I've got it now. You meet a girl. Then, you tell her she's pretty, and she'll think you're sweet, but she won't believe you. She'll think like, oh, he just thinks that.. And sometimes, I guess, that's enough. But there's a better way! You show her she's pretty. It's hard, real hard, but when she really really believes you...Suddenly, the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn't seen as pretty. She is pretty, seen. I'm not making any sense yet, am I? Sorry - guess I'm so pent up, I ramble when I actually get a chance to talk! But it really isn't bad, being a retainer for House Pelleaux, it's a lot better than digging through garbage. And who knows what I'll be someday, if I can pretend hard enough?

I'm lucky. I got given duty and purpose, even if I'm not very cut out for it. But like someone told me, in time, I'll make this life mine. Even if I have to fight.

...

Look out world, here I come!

[Deuteragonist]

  

"God has decided to 'soon lead Faust to clarity', who previously only 'served Him confusedly.' However, to test Faust, he allows Mephistopheles to attempt to lead him astray. God declares that 'man still must err, while he doth strive'. It is shown that the outcome of the bet is certain, for 'a good man, in his darkest impulses, remains aware of the right path', and Mephistopheles is permitted to lead Faust astray only so that he may learn from his misdeeds."

- ???

Have you heard of the composer who wrote his greatest symphony while his body was gnawed at by incurable illness, completing it days before death? Have you heard those stories about people able to pull off inhuman feats of strength when their children are threatened? Too much, perhaps? Alright, then. An assignment allotted you five days for completion - day four, you start and complete it right before the deadline. 

Whatever they say, whatever you heard, I did not do any of this for him, or even for her. I did it for me, and for me alone.

Do not mistake my loyalty with obsession, my devotion for slavery.

Life is the sculptor, and pain is the chisel, the things we endure shaping us into who we are meant to be. That is how we want to believe it. It is the narrative that has been conveyed in most bodies of work I have read - that there is meaning in this meaningless world, in children dying in chains, mothers dying giving birth, disease, abductions, genocide, murder, famine, war. Because if we couldn't believe that these things were the work of some all-knowing, benevolent god or etched in fate, we'd have to face the very ugly, very likely possibility life holds no meaning at all, and our loved ones die for nothing, our failures were not to make us stronger, and that when we die, we rot. That we are nothing but the same organic, decaying matter as everything else in this world.

Grandiloquent. That is what I would call today. We the youth were both matador and bull in the ring to excite our elders before they inevitably croak, the moment of glory and the sting of defeat in that arena all-consuming for but one day, and smoldering in the breast for days, weeks, months. But eventually, time will heal it all. And yet perhaps, for a few of us, perhaps what happened after will change the course of our very lives. 

Should I have confronted her instead?

When I was younger, I hung on every word Armani spoke, as if it could not possibly be anything but the truth. Today, he told me sometimes we must lose, in order to grow strong - in order to change. How many tomes have I poured over that say the same? As I battled monsters and people worse than any monster, how often was I consoled in defeat by this very same bullshit? Heard parents mutter these sentiments to their children, rubbing their backs? Even said them myself? Meaningless. Those words are empty, a consolation to the loser. The people and things I believed infallible are just as unsure as I am.

They were just always better at hiding it than the scared orphan I was.

In fables and in plays, things are simple, because people, even the ones I fear, and the ones I respect, and the ones I love, enjoy simple things. Even if nuance is shown in the writing or character development, we want simple resolutions, when life is never so clear-cut. Case in point - the protagonist grows into a man, and slays the dragon. But what is the dragon? The dragon is man's most base, primordial fears made flesh. The dragon is fear, all-encompassing, a chimera, stuff fit to burst with characteristics everyone fears, and to defeat the dragon is to squash all self-doubt, leveling all obstacles on the path to become who you truly are. The dragon lying at your feet is the end of weakness, the end of fear, of uncertainty. Status, power, renown. Legacy. Life after death, as a legend, for all time. Is that not why you fought today, in the arena? The first step in carving a legacy we'd all remember, forever. You don't want to die, at least, not for good. It's the only thing all of us have in common.

The enemies of Osrona grow bolder by the day, and its allies more unsure. If things really do all happen for a reason - if the truth of life is that all things will come together in the end, even if not apparent right away, then we shall see. If you are truly what they say you are, you will rise to the task, just another test of many, because the hero always slays the dragon. But remember, you reading this: steel rusts, but music is forever. Time will prove only one side of the coming conflict right, and a moment's indecision in battle will ordain whose name is sung for all times. 

Ha...I wrote so much about everyone else, but in the end, no different from any of them, I'm left to wonder, will this truly affect me? As I try, I try so hard to play the unaffected, loyal servant, I hate this heart of mine, for I feel things, and I want more than I should. Do I have a place in all of this? Can my actions divert the course of fate, even the slightest? Even if they were, was that not simply my fate all along? Regardless, it doesn't matter.

After all - 

I'm only a butler.

And I doubt anyone will remember me.

[Deuteragonist]

"Where's Ciel?"

"I...I need to find my dad. Have you seen him?..." "Where's Sylas?..."  

"Dead...dead...dead..."

"No...But he was- but he was barely much older than me. Why- why would... But why would...?"

""I have no doubt that he has been accepted into Avalon."

"My cousin is gone, there is no getting around it, there is no getting over it, I have to deal with my failure."

"Uncle, stop...joking around. This isn't funny."

"They took Ciel's life, that is no joke. This is reality."

"Dejected, Faust spies a phial of poison and contemplates suicide. However he is halted by the sound of church bells, which remind him not of duty, but of his happier childhood days."
- ???

I have not smiled since you left us. It is a bold, dramatic statement, but I am known for thus, an unfortunate side-effect of being a nobody permitted his hubris for too long. It should have been me. They are saying a lot of things of, for, and about Ciel vey Pelleaux - and I suppose I am no more than any other, so I will join them, and we will mourn in symphony.

The Champion of The Youth who wasn't even going to sign up. A devastating warrior who’d rather not fight. A Radiant who could never stay within the city's walls, such was his thirst for adventure beyond them. Against insurmountable odds he rose again, and again, and again, never a complaint uttered from his lips. We would spar and he would win - narrowly, I'd say. Again, I'd say. This time, I'd say. And he'd humor me, and every time, I believed I could close the gap. But the closer you came to beating him, the more he came alive, as if you were waking a sleeping giant - I do not believe he lost because of his ability. I do not believe he is dead because of a fault in his fighting.

No.

Humans need to believe in fantasies to remain sane, even Ciel. When we are young, first we practice, learning to believe the lies in mythos and nursery rhyme so that we can believe the much more important lies later:

Justice, mercy, duty.

Grind life to its finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. Tell me there is mercy in a man sacrificing his life for his child to be swallowed whole, mercy in the way that wretched abomination walks Esshar, with the suffering he has afflicted countless lives. Even were he slain today, that is not justice. It is not equivalent to the horrors he has wrought. We act as if there is some inherent rightness to the world, as if the cosmos has aligned all things to come out as fair, eventually, even if it doesn't appear that way at first. But I am sick of lies. Even the one you believed, Ciel, the one that got you killed: Mercy. 

I am like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, I can remember where the joy was, but the joy I can touch is only a memory.

When I was a boy, long before I was a knight, Niffty taunted me that the stars only spoke to those destined, and I refused to listen. I prayed, as a knight I prayed, and I hoped. Hope and faith. I begged the Gods for justice, on hand and knee. I plead with the angels for mercy. They have never spoken back. Octavia, Ciel, Sariel...they spoke to me of all that the stars had or have planned for them, but I cannot hear their call.

So I am done asking.

I will make them listen.

And the heavens will remember me.

[Deuteragonist]

"Graceful area. Faust, bedded on flowery turf, weary, restless, seeking sleep. Dusk. Ghost circle, floating moves, graceful little figures.

The first act opens with an appeal to forgive Faust and ease the cares of his suffering.

Hall of the Throne. State Council in anticipation of the emperor. Trumpets. Servants of all kinds, beautifully dressed, step forward.
The emperor ascends the throne."

- ???

I'd die for you. I said to the ones who saved me. If I couldn't even do that, what was I good for, to them, who were born with more than I could ever give? 

But no one ever told me that someday, I'd be this afraid of dying. 

I long feared if I was someday afraid to die, I'd no longer have a use. When I grew to look forward to things - when expectations reached my shoulders. When I grew to yearn to live on for my fallen comrades, I forgot myself. The worst thing that ever happened was when she told me she didn't want me to die. A servant that cannot fulfill its tasks is a burden to the master. Relinquished of titles like butler, or retainer, but still, in servitude I remain. Lightbringer. Prince-Consort. I've exchanged mop and bucket for royal vestments and the blade of a forsaken prince, but no matter how you dress the pauper, a pauper they remain. The name Faustus lux Pelleaux sounds alien to me - I don't know who that is. My goals were the things of dreams no fool in my position back then would have ever uttered aloud, and yet one by one, they come to pass, as comrades fall one by one, and I'm left to wonder.

Was I who was best, or who was left?

Radiants years my senior, wonderful, are left to scrutinize me, wondering, why him? I know they think it. Surely there are others more storied, more renowned, with longer careers, more experienced. These are not mere doubts that plague me, but cold reality, wrapped around my neck an allegorical noose, that tightens when I fail, twice now. Failure was my constant when I was younger, but as I grew strong, this became so less, and less. Eventually, they stop seeing the makings of greatness in you, and begin to expect greatness, instead. But now, there are stakes. The scar on Octavia's throat reminds me everyday that I could not lose, and I lost. That which I swore to the stars was a vow I could not break, and it lays, broken, for them to judge - if they were ever listening at all.

I have forgotten all I was, and perhaps I was the only one who would have ever remembered. A mere footnote in the dynasty of the Pelleaux - long live the throne. I need just be a sword, a sword that never dulls. For this purpose, I wish I'd been born a storm. Or a beast, incapable of thinking. No heart, no tears, just as a terrible gale'd have been good. Some thing that is not afraid they will not live to see their children born, shaken when their fiancé falls in battle, heart beating like mad when the odds are stacked against them, who cries alone for every man and woman fallen.

Slouched on the throne, Claudia looks down with a grim, tactless expression set upon by two, dull stones which gaze down impassively.

Like an ashen statue.

"She told me." Is all the Queen barks back to the boy, though with no great amount of disdain.

It was flat, toneless, and authoritarian.

All whom I love, they gave me hope. Every which way they went. What Ciel saw, he conquered. He gave people something to believe in. The people need that. Mehr's words gave me the surge of life - I wanted for nothing, my head empty of thought, until he dared me to be more. Sariel could not lose if he fought after us - in the wilds, in the world, when it all seemed hopeless, there he emerged, always between me and imminent death, and I knew he'd never let me down. Octavia carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, and in years and years, only once have I seen her falter, whereas I'm on the verge of collapse almost every day. Armani swore vengeance against our enemies, and now in forgotten corners of Esshar, they whisper to avoid him, and not leave the wood, Nanzo's arm hung in his palace, a mantle, a defeat they can't dispel. I could name countless stars in the city's walls and its allies who shine so bright, and then there is me. I have loved Octavia ras - I'm sorry, that's rei Pelleaux, for years. And when I came to ask her mother for her blessing to marry her, I saw in eyes that closed my throat at a glance the thought that much of the nobility have had regarding me since birth:

Of all people, why you?

I have struggled to answer that question all my life. Nothing I do feels enough. But despite all that has conspired to destroy this city, it still stands. And whether or not I should be, I am the Lightbringer.

My path is ahead. It is to climb upon the ruined mounds of my mistakes and reach for my own horizons. What I was, what I did was a reflection of my old world. Not this new, terrifying expanse. I will stand on the shoulders of giants if it means I get to reach the stars. In them, I have to inscribe a message, for all those born of Esshar, who feel as insignificant as I was left to feel, abandoned by a whore before I could walk:

This city shimmers, and so must I. The people still need knights to believe in, and I will lead them, even if I wasn't the first, or even the second choice. 

Do you remember - how fond I was? Of stories? Of plays? A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with me. That meant something. Even if I was too small to understand why.  But I think, having lived a fairy tale, I understand them better now.. I know now, folk in those stories had lots of chances to turn back, only they didn't. They were holding onto something. There's some good in this world.

And it's worth fighting for.

You hear me? I'm still alive. I'll make a full recovery. You haven't beaten the best of me. I am not done - I have only just begun. So as I once said...

---

Look out world, here I come.