Secret

A Tragicomic Duel: The Maiden of Stars vs. The Prodigal Brother. Part 5

SCENE V. A Sun-Drenched Square in Paris.

(The air is thick with the scent of lavender and impending doom. LAERTES stands before a fountain, flanked by two FRENCH GUARDS in gleaming breastplates. They look imposing, but their knees are visibly knocking. Enter OPHELIA, her celestial raiment now a pulsing, supernova gold. Her tome, Missiletainn, is surrounded by a ring of orbiting miniature planets.)

LAERTES

(Drawing his rapier with a flourish that lacks its usual confidence)

Stay thy step, sister! Word hath reached me in France of thy... 'stat-buffs.' They say thou hast turned Denmark into a crater of starlight. I, Laertes, have returned from my travels with the finest fencing secrets of the French court!

1ST GUARD

(In a thick, nervous accent)

Oui! We have the formations! The discipline! The... (looks at Ophelia’s floating planets) ...the sudden urge to retire!

OPHELIA

(Her voice echoing with the bass of a collapsing star)

Laertes! Thou art but a footnote in the chapter of my ascension! Thou speakest of fencing? I speak of the heat death of the universe! Thy 'points' and 'passes' are but the scratchings of a hen in the dirt!

LAERTES

(Stepping forward, sweat bedding on his brow)

I have a poison upon my blade, Ophelia! A single scratch and thy 'True Power' shall wither like a frost-bitten rose! Guards, to the flank! For the honor of the family name!

2ND GUARD

(Dropping his halberd)

Honor does not pay for the funeral of a man disintegrated by a book, Monsieur!

OPHELIA

(Opening Missiletainn; the sky over Paris turns a deep, bruised purple)

Poison? My blood is the ichor of the cosmos! Thy steel is but a toothpick against the gravity of my soul! Behold the Galactic Guillotine of the Silent Void!

[Alarum. A localized black hole opens at the tip of Ophelia’s finger. The French Guards are instantly hoisted into the air, their bread and wine flying from their pockets into the vortex.]

1ST GUARD

Sacrebleu! My gravity! It has been surrendered to the stars!

LAERTES

(Lungeing forward, only to find his rapier bending like a wet noodle in the magical pressure)

What sorcery is this? My 'Riposte' is negated! My 'En Garde' is a mockery! Ophelia, have mercy! I am thy flesh and blood!

OPHELIA

(Floating three feet off the cobblestones, eyes glowing like twin white dwarfs)

Flesh is a weakness! Blood is a limitation! I have transcended the family tree to become the forest of the firmament!

[With a thunderous clap, a wave of Luminary energy ripples outward. The Guards are blasted into a nearby hay-cart, and Laertes is sent spinning backward, landing ungracefully in the fountain.]

LAERTES

(Sputtering water and pride)

I... I am out-leveled. My skills are but 'Common' tier, while she... she is 'Legendary.'

OPHELIA

(Closing her tome; the orbiting planets vanish into sparks)

Rest there, brother. Thy rebellion was a pleasant diversion, but the stars grow restless for the source of my sorrow. The root must be pulled if the flower is to burn forever.

LAERTES

(Weakly)

Where... where goest thou now?

OPHELIA

(Looking toward the horizon, where the sea meets the sky)

Back to the cold halls of Elsinore. Back to the man who built my cage with words and whispers. Polonius thinks he knows the heavens because he reads the weather—I shall show him the storm that swallows the sun.

(Exit OPHELIA, walking on a path of stardust that forms beneath her feet. LAERTES remains in the fountain, trying to remember how to breathe.)