Smile. Smile and remember even in the ugliest scene, the actor has to look their best for the audience, even if unseen. Because that's all this was, a crude act of Shakespearean nature to please those hungry eyes. An act of an act, done over and over, practiced to the point perfection was failure. And even then, remember to smile. Because he may not be the hero, the protagonist, the one they cheer for completely, but the script needed the villain, the  audience cried for a character to jeer and jest, a fool to mock, a puppet to hate and the lights would not turn to him lest the role was in his name. But what did it matter really? Who he played? Blood was never spilled upon the stage, and smoke was not without mirrors as he gave his devotion to the scene. An actor hurts for his art they say, but this was blissful really. There was no pain, not even happiness, just lovely numbness flooding his senses, wonderful darkness dulling his senses to the deafening roar of the audience as they whooped and called this scene. And should there ever be drafted another play of this revered script, they'd be hurried to add the inner monologue running through his head. The thoughts of dying, not his, but another's, yet the voice was his and the words were his. And he should not be so quick, one's pride is quick to berate. This wasn't his ending, just the climax, the scene that changed the rest of the story. This was far from the end, but at the end, he was exhausted. 

  Because, the thing was, every play has an interval to allow the actors to rest. To recollect, to pull themselves out of the character. And when the curtains were drawn and the audience quietened down, the lights turned away, the cameras stopped rolling and the backdrop fell away and crumpled into oblivion, he tilted his head up and stared up at his fellow cast members. Still caught in a role. He sees the prop he's brandished and used to masterful effect, discarded, useless and cast away. And he wants to open his mouth, tell them it wasn't good enough, that they'd do better next time. Because he never found the right note to end it on, he was never satisfied, but in the end he saw that his fellow cast members were too caught up in their roles and before he knew it, the curtains had lifted and the lights brought back to them. That wasn't right.

 They made a mistake, he hadn't rehearsed yet. It was wrong, no one came to reset the props. They were misled, the scene was meant to change now. Cut it, his actors were confusing. Stop it, he wasn't ready. No, he didn't remember this in the script...the cue cards, the signals, they're all staring at him with eyes wide and burning because he can't perform the classic they know by heart. 

  [I]Useless[/I] He messed up every role. [i]Puppet[/i] The directors, he only did as he was told. Improvisation, that was too hard now. Falling back into the play, he was trying. Those eyes, those eyes were so distracting. That fear, the desire of another to steal the limelight and force the audience to focus on their own story. Jealousy, that was what was it. This had been planned in whispers behind his back like tempered daggers. They plotted to steal his part, to write out his part in the play. Well, he'd show them the true skill of an actor, he refused to be left out. 
  
   "Father, please don't do this." Softly. He could commend them, the fear, the hate, it was almost believable, but he loses himself into the character and pounces forward, claws outstretched, insides spilling. 
[hr]

  Just the two of them and Ferrum feels the need to shelter him all the same. Such soft fragile skin, a territory marked upon him as the taller shifted from his side and rolled over onto him. Covering him like a mother tiger and her one cub, protecting him from the world outside their soft bed, anything other than warm hands and gentle touches he would not allow. Nuzzling the top of his head, lazily, he would not move far from the other anytime soon.