_________________________________________________________
The audition hall smells of dust and perfume.
Ail hesitates at the doorway, gripping their bag tighter. The room is packed with hopefuls—tall, elegant people with glistening hair and impossibly sharp features. They look like stars. Some lean against the walls in careful nonchalance, others murmur lines to themselves, adjusting the angles of their faces in compact mirrors. Their clothing is finer, their postures effortless. The city has already shaped them into something Ail is not.
Ail does not belong here.
But they step forward anyway.
A small sign is pinned to the wall:
OPEN CALL – BACKGROUND PERFORMERS WANTED FOR NEW SILENT FILM
It isn't much. But it is something.
Ail writes their name on the list with a steady hand. The casting assistant barely glances at them before gesturing toward the back of the room.
Wait. Watch. Learn.
Ail moves to the shadows, observing.
They study the others—the way they hold themselves, the way they float rather than walk. When they speak, they do so in low, velvet voices, though words don't matter here. The screen is silent. Expression is everything.
One by one, they are called forward.
Ail watches as they perform. Grand gestures, tragic faces, elegant sweeps of movement. They are dancers and dramatists, actors who can command a scene with the twitch of an eyebrow.
Ail's stomach knots.
Their body is trained for the tightwire, for flips and tumbles, for balance so precise it borders on impossible. But this is different. This is controlled, deliberate, beautiful.
It is a language they do not yet speak.
But they are fluent in movement.
When their name is called, they step forward.
The room stills.
Ail straightens their spine, feeling the weight of a hundred eyes press against them. Someone at the back snickers. A whisper ripples through the air.
"Circus folk."
"Here to do a few backflips and call it art."
The words slice through Ail, but they do not flinch. They know what these people see.
A street performer. A sideshow act. A child raised in sawdust and sweat.
But Ail is more than that.
They step into the light, head high, shoulders squared.
They do not speak. They do not need to.
Instead, they begin.
The Poem. The Dance. The Story.
Charmides—a Greek youth, beautiful and foolish. He comes to Athens, drawn to the great temple. Inside, the goddess waits. Cold. Watchful. Unreachable.
Ail becomes him.
Their movements are slow at first—each step a quiet echo of admiration. They glide across the floor as if entranced, their expression shifting between reverence and hunger.
Then, the pace changes.
Jerkier, sharper motions. The admiration twists into possession. Ail moves with an unsettling grace—unwavering, confident, merciless. Their hands carve shapes in the air, mimicking the act of seizing something sacred. The audience can see it—the moment the Greek youth takes what is not his.
Ail's face remains unreadable. The cruelty of entitlement.
The violation of something divine.
Then, the fall.
The gods do not forgive.
Ail's body snaps into movement—faster, more desperate. They stumble, yet every misstep is deliberate, every flailing limb an echo of the sea's judgment. They are drowning.
They clutch an invisible force above them—a bar suspended in midair, representing the weight of the ocean, the unrelenting punishment of the divine. Their legs kick, frantic, their head tilting back in an exaggerated gasp. But there is no mercy. No regret.
Only pride.
Even in death.
Then—stillness.
Ail collapses, curling into themselves. Their breathing slows, their hands folding delicately, as if the body has finally accepted its fate.
Then, the nymph.
Ail unfolds.
Their movements shift, becoming something younger, more reckless. Light, swift steps. Arms extended like a creature that does not yet know sorrow. The nymph finds the corpse.
Ail tilts their head, their expression filled with something uncertain, fascinated. They do not see a tragedy. They see something beautiful.
Their fingers trace the air, gentle and fleeting. A lover to something already dead.
Then—
Ail folds into themselves once more.
The performance ends.
The room is silent.
Ail remains still, curled on the floor, listening to the lack of reaction.
Slowly, cautiously, they rise.
They look around.
Every face is nearly unreadable.
Some are stunned. Some confused. Some… unsettled.
But no one is laughing anymore.