(Filed under: Velvet Warpath, One act plays)
The stage lights snapped into being: Petty Blue and blood-red, sweeping in a V-formation across the boards.
Sir Reginald stepped forward, velvet cape caught in the updraft of some invisible fan, sequins flashing like starlight and sin. His monocle caught the glow, a single eye blazing as if it alone could pass judgment on the room.
Behind him, the Hate-Legged Scribble uncoiled. Its limbs jerked and bent at impossible angles, sketching arcs of shadow that danced across the ceiling. It moved in fractured rhythm with the music: a bassline that throbbed like a warning, overlaid with strings that screeched and swooned.
Then, with all the solemnity of an emperor and the chaos of a disco god, Reginald raised one gloved hand. The Scribble froze, then snapped into formation.
They began.
Backup dancers emerged; creatures in shimmering masks, sequined tails fanning out like fractured light. They moved in sharp diagonals, cutting through the space as if they were spelling something out with their bodies, a language half-code, half-warning.
Reginald crooned, his voice smooth, ridiculous, seductive. Lyrics that made no sense but landed like prophecy. He sang of twilight and teeth, of velvet pawprints on marble floors, of kingdoms undone by disco.
The Scribble answered in motion, legs striking the floor in rapid syncopation, like punctuation marks hammered into parchment.
At the crescendo, Reginald flung his cape wide, revealing beneath not his chest, but a mirror stitched into his waistcoat. The lights caught it, scattering fragments of every face in the audience back at them. For a moment, each member of the Court saw themselves multiplied, broken, dazzling.
The Scribble leapt then; up the curtain, across the rafters, a furious black flourish. It ended crouched above Reginald, limbs bent like quotation marks, framing him as if he were the final line of a sentence too decadent to be spoken.
The stage went black.
For one breath after the blackout, the Court sat in silence.
The Queen’s smile lingered, wide and delighted, the candle of it refusing to go out even in the dark.
Emma leaned forward, spoon clutched tight in her paw, whispering a single word into the hush:
“Glorious.”
Bunny did not move at first. His shoe hung suspended mid-tap, his Grudge Book untouched. Then, with the smallest exhale, he allowed himself a slow, sardonic clap. Three beats, precise, theatrical, before letting the rest join in.
Jack’s knife stilled. He had not blinked through the entire performance, his gaze narrowed and unreadable. Only his lips moved, the ghost of a smirk at the mirror trick...a recognition that Reginald understood weapons, even if his were sequins.
Archivarius shifted in his seat, visibly uneasy. His hooves scuffed once against the floor, ears twitching toward the rafters where the Scribble had last crouched. He muttered something about fire codes, but too low to be heard.
Velin remained still at the Queen’s side. His eyes, however, reflected the last scatter of light off the mirror—holding it, weighing it—as though the performance was not entertainment but omen.
And then, the applause broke.