The sky shines differently today than it did yesterday

[employeeoftheyear]

[Perhaps to the surprise of no one, there is no after party after that trial. Two children were dead. Two children were dead over a simple accident and the Wizard cared more about himself than anyone else. But they won't give up, they can't give up. They had to keep fighting until everything's been set right.

At the Lobby ofrenda later that night, there are six origami pieces accoupling the other memorials. A penguin, a rose, an octopus man, computer, a music note, and the last one are of a boy and girl holding hands. Along with that there is a plate of strawberry cupcakes with blueberry icing and a note that reads:]

There is still hope and love in the world

Never let The Wizard make you think otherwise 💗

Comments

[howtheworldwas]

[ Eurydice nods back, and for a while, she just digs. Occasionally, she'll stop to wipe her own tears.

Eventually, though, she'll sing, low and mournful: ]

Low, keep your head, keep your head low
Oh, you gotta keep your head low
If you wanna keep your head

[ Mister Barker might not recognize the words, but the tune is familiar enough to anyone who knows hard labor. ]

[barberic]

[A work song is a work song, and she'll see it's indeed familiar, by the way that he falls into the rhythm easily, filling in beneath her low, sorrowful voice with his own rumbling baritone as he catches onto the words.]

Oh, you gotta keep your head low

Low, keep your head, keep your head low
Oh, you gotta keep your head low
If you wanna keep your head

[howtheworldwas]

[ It would feel like being back on the line, if they weren't digging beneath the open sky. Eurydice keeps singing, keeps at her work. She does not look up when Orpheus arrives. She does not look at Mister Barker. She keeps her head low, and she works.

At least this means something. It's not building a wall for the sake of a wall.

Here, though, she tires. (In that way, it's not much like the underground at all.) Eventually, she stops to rest, finally falling silent. She does not look at her work -- digging a grave is a terrible thing, and now that she's not distracted by the song, she doesn't want to see it. Instead, she once again looks up at the sky. ]

Were you on a line too? For those fifteen years?

[barberic]

[After she stops to rest, he pauses as well to offer her a drink. It's the least he can do, to repay her for taking on this rotten work with him.]

...I did whatever I was ordered to do. [He wipes sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.] Eventually I had a little more freedom. Tilling fields, laying bricks. But at first, they put me on the chain digging roads.

[He hesitates, looking down at the shovel in his hands.]

The man who had me transported told them I was dangerous. So they wouldn't listen to me when I said I was innocent.

[howtheworldwas]

[ Eurydice takes the water, and takes a few sips before passing it back. On some level, she's still not used to there being enough to go around.

Roads sounds a lot like the wall, and Eurydice nods, grim. That explains his strength, then, and how quickly he picked up on the song.

That last part makes less sense, though, and Eurydice finally looks back to Mister Barker. ]

You were innocent? Then why did he have you go?

[barberic]

Because he needed me out of the way.

[He hesitates again, looking between Orpheus and Eurydice, wondering if he should give them the reason or not.

He thinks about Orpheus, sharing so happily in his joy on the first day, and confiding in him in fear and pain in the weeks that followed, about Eurydice with him in the garden, barely holding back her sobs.

A marriage is about being stronger together than separate, about two halves merging to create a greater whole. He wants that for them, that dream that's no longer possible for himself. He wants them to prove the wicked world wrong.]

...So that he could abduct my wife.

[themuseabandonsyou]

That's -

[ Orpheus looks up, concerned. The implications don't quite hit him right away, but as they sink in his eyes go wide and he almost drops his shovel. He wants to ask - but you made it back, didn't you? But he knows it's not that simple, that fifteen years can't be undone just like that, that whatever Benjamin remembered earlier in the week was enough to lay him low, without so much as the faintest glimmer of hope in him. The implication is sadly clear. ]

That's horrible. Oh, Benjamin, I'm so sorry.