Ballads and Performances
-- composed
and performed by Koin and Vistie
Ethereal Time
--- performed First Annual Turnleaf Festival 5102Koin smiles and quietly steps to the front of the room. She sets an intricate jade treasure chest on the ground.
Koin drops an intricate jade treasure chest.
Koin's face turns slightly pale.
(Koin gazes about in a daze, her pale grey eyes staring vacantly out at the crowd. She slides to the ground as the lights dim.)
Koin lies down.
Vistie smiles and softly steps to the front, barely visible in the dim light. She gazes down at the prone Koin and shudders slightly. She carefully sets the hourglass next to the treasure chest.
Vistie drops a small brass-fitted hourglass.
(Vistie's eyes glaze and the gold flecks darken as she drops her diamond edged falchion to the ground with a thud. She slumps to the ground next to Koin.)
Vistie drops a diamond-edged falchion.
Vistie lies down.
(Vistie's quiet moan rustles the still air. After a moment the hourglass flickers and the area is bathed in a streaming light.)
(Vistie stands and weaves about in adaze. She appears to be wandering amidst the endless, streaming light and into a vast nothingness. She suddenly stops and turns around. She sees her still body lying frozen by her sister, Koin. Gazing down at her transparent, ethereal form she shivers and the eerie mist of her slim shape wavers slightly.)
Vistie sings:
"Of time, we have none left to sweetly kill.
For frozen is this land in endless blight.
Where once bloomed all of life and light.
Grew gardens where once sisters laughed,
Now the land in frozen darkness stands bereft."
(Vistie's eyes, a pair of blank empty orbs, fix themselves upon the hourglass. The grains of sand are still. The cascade of time is locked in a glimmering stream of frozen sand.)
Vistie sings:
"When darkness came that fated awful day,
Sisters did in spring's garden tease and play,
Then died the light in night's rabid sudden claw.
In the wounded sky opened wide a sucking maw,
Then picked clean by angry tempest's hand,
Empty, gray, and lifeless lay our loved land."
(Vistie's sigh is a soft whisper that flutters the air.)
Vistie sings:
"Where our little garden once had thrived,
Gone, twig and leaf, everything that lived.
Under empty sky, alone in bleak despair,
Two sisters crying to the abandoned air.
Appeared an ancient prophet from the gloom,
Said we two alone might turn away the doom."
(Vistie's slight, spectral form drifts aimlessly about the area. With a weary sigh, she glances at the still hourglass. A pearly, diffuse light shimmers from her shape as she turns slowly to face the audience.)
Vistie sings:
"How strange it seems to be so quietly at rest,
When we are trapped in aching endless quest.
And in a moment we sisters will so weary rise,
To wretched journey on but, never compromise,
Our search, though to find we have no hope,
Yet always in the dark, we seek, we grope."
(Vistie's ethereal moan is a faint whimper as she gazes in despair at the two corpses. Brooding anxiety clings to her as hopelessness washes over her and a creeping tide of doom permeates the area.)
Vistie sings:
"Low are Koin and Vistie once more sadly thus,
Again Lorminstra's relentless mercy spared us.
For of all the land's brave and worthy souls,
Only we are left to search forever for the goal.
The hopeless task laid on us by arcane prophecy,
That two small sisters might end this dark eternity."
(Koin's wavering shape rises up from her lifeless corpse and she drifts around aimlessly. She turns and stares at the still hourglass. Time has stilled and has no meaning as she continues to waft through the area. With empty, wide set eyes she stops and stares at the pair of corpses. She turns slowly to face the crowd.)
Koin sings:
"But we have struggled on for sad unending years,
Bound in quest to find the La-Grimasoori Tear.
Thus was prophecy made, that if it be ever found,
That it could cleanse this cold and tainted ground.
Sad field and wood once bright in green adorned,
And these ruined lands, should be at last restored."
(Koin shivers and a hopeless sigh whistles about the area. Vistie drifts towards Koin and the spirits of the two sisters, side by side, stand in the streaming light.)
Koin sings:
"But when he spoke on that last and awful day,
Where to search or look, the Prophet did not say.
One last time, we woke on sad Lorminstra's altar,
No closer to that knowledge and now to falter,
We have waked, but not, for there our bodies lie,
And bodiless, Koin and Vistie here before ye cry."
(Koin's desolate lament echoes eerily as the two sisters cling to each other.)
Koin sings:
"Wait! Sister, what is this that darkens here the light?
Now, alas, the tortured air shivers with unholy night.
Opens with a shriek of rage, a whirling maelstrom,
Spinning, spinning, spinning, captures in its fearsome
Grasp, two small souls, and relentless reels us in,
It's found us. Oh sister, hold me, we are being taken!"
(Koin's thin wispy arms clutch the wavering mist of Vistie. The two sisters blur as they are drawn into the whirling void. Vistie's hand stretches out to grasp the diamond edged falchion. Clutching at the sword, her body is spun about in the frenzy and disappears into the fog. All that remains is her ghostly, severed hand still gripping the hilt of the weapon. The streaming light flickers and dims. The area is shrouded in blackness.)
(Koin's breathing is faint and ragged in the still darkness.)
(Koin's sigh is a feeble sound in the dark. An eerie scarlet glow begins to flicker from the jade treasure chest, revealing a stark and barren landscape. The misty shapes of the two sisters, clinging to each other, in the strange light tremble in fear.)
Koin sings:
"What alien place is this? Oh sister, where are we?
What has happened that brings such fear to me?
Oh sister, what has brought us to this dreadful hour?
See ye yon that jabs the sky, a dark and distant tower.
It seems from this vague land to strangely grow,
And feel the hideous cold that from it darkly blows."
(Vistie's faint breathing is a forlorn whimper as she cradles her useless arm close to her breast. The looming tower casts no shadow in the scarlet glow and a strange alien lump darkens the base of the tower. The two sisters tremble in the oppressive devastation as they wander among the frozen twisted shapes of ancient elven warriors on the forgotten battlefield.)
Koin sings:
"These Elven warriors, once so brave, I cannot bear to see,
Their tortured, frozen forms and faces filled with agony.
What has happened here, men twisted into stone this way,
Who left them standing thus? Warning those who stray,
This grey and dreadful plain and what this awful power,
That drives us ever onward, ever closer to that horrid tower."
(Koin's wavering shape shimmers in the hazy glow as the two sisters drift towards the tower, pulled by the unseen force. Shock and revulsion ripples through Koin's slight transparent shape as she tries to pull her sister away from the hideous creature chained to the base of the tower.)
(Vistie's sob catches in her throat as her robe lifts and swirls about her. Koin's clinging hold on Vistie slowly slips away as the vile creature shreds Vistie's slight spectral essence. The strange creature, a mix of sublime beauty and hideous flesh tugs and strains against the weight of the chains binding it to the tower.)
(Vistie's tears silently roll down her cheeks. In the eerie scarlet glow the glistening tears appear to be blood red rivulets streaming down her face. Tears spill and splatter the front of her shredded robe. A single iridescent teardrop falls and softly settles atop the hourglass.)
Vistie sings:
"No! Oh Koin, this creature has impaled me in its claw,
Run, sister! Do not wait to be the next one in her jaws.
Sister, weep for me, not alive, but, oh sister, I feel pain,
And if this monster eats my soul, will anything remain?
Crushed and broken now am I, who once so loved my life.
All is black, alas! Koin, I would not leave ye to this strife!"
(Vistie's slight form writhes in searing pain as the creature consumes her. Her wavering shape slowly dissolves into nothing leaving Koin to face the heinous beast. The beautiful face atop the obscenely deformed, blackened and half-rotten body begins its siren song.)
Vistie removes a scarlet despanal mask from in an intricate jade treasure chest.
Vistie puts on a scarlet despanal mask.
(Vistie's howl is piercing as she assumes the role of the hideous beast.)
Vistie sings:
"Ahh, at last the time is here. Draw closer, now lets begin,
Long empty years, patiently I have waited to be free again.
The prophet said ye would come, my ageless bonds to break,
To release me from this place, I must your souls now take.
Devour two small spirit sisters and fly once more the living air,
Oh tender ones of prophecy, come and end my long despair."
(Koin gasps in terror as the beast whispers a litany of magic. The beast suddenly transforms into a horridly grotesque image and swears vilely at Koin. A gut-wrenching fear twists and jabs at Koin as her body jerks in convulsions. She is terrified and desperately scrambles about frantically. Stumbling, she shatters the hourglass and the teardrop spirals upward. Koin grasps the iridescent drop in her hand.)
Koin sings:
"Oh horror, oh horrible, oh my eyes do bleed with sorrow,
But you, you thing of darkness, shall never see the morrow.
For by my sister's heart and living soul, you will die today,
I will fight you though I am small! There must be a way,
To end your ugly life and stop your appetite. I do not fear
To truly die. Here, take my sister's last bright living tear!"
(Koin defiantly throws the teardrop at the monster.)
(Vistie's shrill tone carries the keening shriek of the parasitic fiend.)
Vistie sings:
"Little worm! How have ye caused me such distress!
No weapon ever made has torn my precious, lovely flesh.
That which ye did throw at me, wounds me deep and sore.
Alas! Small sisters did what has never been done before!
I shall not suffer death alone you dreadful, nasty little thing,
But with me into endless dark, two small bards I'll bring!"
(Koin's wail rends the air as the monster roars in pain. The hideous beast snatches Koin and devours her small form. The beast writhes as gooey pools of darkness, once the horror's face, melt in rivulets of gore and splatter to the ground. A final agonizing shriek reverberates as the creature decays into nothingness. Slowly the world begins to dissolve into a grainy montage of color.)
Vistie takes off a scarlet despanal mask.
Vistie drops a scarlet despanal mask.
Vistie stretches.
Vistie stifles a yawn.
Vistie sits up.
(Vistie stirs and brushes away fallen leaves that cover her entire body. She looks around, confused and dazed. The gold flecks in her blue eyes sparkle as she hears the sweet warble of a distant bird. A squirrel with fat cheeks full of acorns darts up the trunk of a huge old oak. Vistie stretches and gently shakes Koin.)Koin rubs her eyes.
Koin sits up.
(Koin sits up slowly and looks around at the tranquil garden, the ground strewn with autumn leaves. Baffled, she leans against Vistie for support and gazes about the garden in bewilderment.)
Vistie sings:
"Oh sister, what a dream I had, thank goodness just a dream!
All the land was gobbled up, every tree and field and stream.
But Koin, how strange! For was the garden not in early spring?
I thought we had sweet summer long to hear songbirds sing.
Now leaves are autumn gold, did someone all the summer steal?
For red is the fruit of fall. Oh sister, have we slept or was it real?"
Vistie smiles tenderly and plucks at a twig tangled in Koin's very short, curly russet hair. Koin scuffles her feet and scatters the golden red leaves. She leans forward and scoops up a handful of colorful leaves and tosses them in the air. The two sisters smile as they watch the colorful downward spiral of autumn leaves.
(Vistie's eyes crinkle and her smile turns to a frown as she spots a chest partially hidden under a pile of fallen leaves. She leans forward and sweeps the leaves aside to reveal an intricate jade treasure chest. Vistie brushes the remaining leaves away from around the chest and discovers a mound of sand mingled among glass shards, shattered remnants of an hourglass.)
(Koin pokes at the mound of sand inquisitively. With a perplexed sigh, she glances at her sister and tips the jade treasure chest to peer inside.)
Koin removes a teardrop shaped sapphire pendant from in an intricate jade treasure chest.
Koin dusts off a teardrop shaped sapphire pendant.
Vistie removes a silver-spined black leather journal from in an intricate jade treasure chest.
Vistie gazes thoughtfully at her black leather journal.
(Vistie cautiously opens the ancient journal. The parchment is yellow and brittle with age and as she traces her finger along the foreign and strange scribed runes, the wind in the garden begins to howl and whip her hair about her face. Koin leans against her sister to inspect the peculiar markings.)
Vistie drops a silver-spined black leather journal.
(Vistie drops the tome with a startled gasp as the howling wind ruffles the brittle pages. The eerie moan of the wind beats, "Tooorm --- Tooorm --- Toooor." The pages flutter violently in the lashing wind and begin to crinkle and crackle. The ancient journal suddenly vaporizes with a loud snap. The scent of sulfur is left hanging in the now still air.)
Koin smiles with a bewildered frown and glances at Vistie mystified.
Koin stands up.
Vistie stands up.
Vistie shrugs.
Vistie smiles gently and clasps Koin's hand. She shuffles her feet, kicking up a shower of colorful bright autumn leaves. The two sisters step forward, away from the cascade of falling leaves and turn slowly to the crowd.
Koin smiles solemnly and dips into a deep curtsy.
Vistie smiles calmly and dips into a curtsy
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