Invisible Crown [SVTFOE AU]

16: The Lighting Booth

The lighting, sound, and effects booth was a very, very, interesting setting.

First of all, it was a crowded space. Low ceilings, almost no square footage, and over half of the floor's area being covered by control panels or spotlights.

The soundboard and the microphones were manned by a professional hired by the school. At least, they thought he was a professional. None of the crew kids even knew his first name. For all they knew, he could be some teacher's grandpa or something. He was strange, and old, and never talked, and always wore sunglasses, and he came to be known as Mysterious Soundboard Guy. The effects board, however, was wired and ran by Marco Diaz, who had also mapped the sounds on the sound board. Janna was on the lighting board (and regularly bragged about how easy her job was), and Alfonso and Ferguson were spotlights: numbers 1 and 2.

There were not all that many frequent visitors to the booth. Mysterious Soundboard Guy would leave whenever he could (who could blame him, being in a room of sophomores). Jackie sometimes was found up there, taking a break from sewing and organizing costumes, and of course, Star wanted to get away from rehearsal with Oskar whenever she could. Apart from those two entering, and the occasional argument between Janna and Marco, the booth was normally pretty quiet.

So it came as a bit of a surprise when one day Star Butterfly practically kicked down the door and shouted, "GUYS, I THINK I DID A BAD THING."

Marco, like the smooth and socially dexterous human that he was, fell off of his chair. "Jeez, Star!" he complained from the floor. "You can't open the door slowly like a normal human being?"

"Oh my stars!" Star exclaimed. She immediately turned, only to find Marco lying dramatically to one side with his face away from Star. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay?!"

Marco gave her a weak thumbs up.

"Anyway..." Star began, climbing over a couple office chairs and equipment stacks to reach Janna, who had been watching this whole fiasco with a knowing grin on her face. She slid into an office chair next to Janna's booth. "I think I did a thing. A bad thing."

Janna mouthed to Marco, 'Smooth, Diaz, ' before turning back to Star. "Oh really?"

"Yeah. Well, not bad, like, inherently, you know, but I think it was the wrong decision. But maybe it was the right decision? But then that means the decision I made before was the wrong decision so either way I'm a jerk or an idiot and ughhhhh." She buried her face in her hands.

"Wow, " said Ferguson.

"I know, right?" Janna said. "Star? Having problems? How is that even possible? She's, like, perfect."

"I think that's a little unfair, Janna, " Marco said, now fully repositioned and seated safely in his chair.

"You're unfair, " Janna quipped back.

Marco sighed. "Whatever. Just let Star talk, please."

"THANK YOU!" Star shouted. That 'perfect' comment was more than unnecessary. "So! I was being apathetic and kinda rude to Oskar all of today, right?"

"I thought you hated him?" Janna asked.

"That's beside the point. Plus, you don't even know why I hate him, so." She shrugged her shoulders. "I was treating him as usual, you know. But like... This is weird. He's so nice to me. And I don't know why."

"Uh, cuz you're Star Butterfly?" This time Alfonso spoke up. He and Ferguson were very intently listening to the conversation, but they didn't contribute much, Star noticed.

"No, no, that can't be it. Like, most of the people that he hangs out with are mean to me. So why is he nice, you know? I don't understand."

"Maybe he's into you or something, " Janna grinned, and Star couldn't help but notice that she was looking DIRECTLY at Marco.

Janna, she pleaded in her head, hoping that somehow her message would reach her telepathically, I know you're trying to get us together, so please at least ATTEMPT to be subtle. "Ugh. There's no way, Janna." I swear on Pegasus' wings, please stop looking at Marco and wiggling your eyebrows. He's not going to look at you. This is just embarrassing. "Again," she began, "you're missing the point here. He was an actually decent human being once I stopped hating him for literally no reason."

"Yeah, but what does this have to do with you doing a bad thing?" Ferguson asked.

"Oh. Right, sorry." Star swiveled her chair back and forth with her legs. "So, I was talking with him. We were going to get water and we were having a normal conversation, right? Talking about our lines. And then he asked me if I wanted to go to that taco place and run lines and I said yeeeeeeeeees!!" She pulled her feet up onto the chair, hugged her knees to her chest, and buried her face in her knees. "See!" she said in a muffled voice. "Very, very bad thing."

"Oh," Marco said simply. "Well, um, do you think that's a bad thing?"

"I don't know!"

"I suck at advice, so I'm not even going to bother," Janna said, raising her arms in the air in surrender. "But whatever Marco says is probably right."

"And I think..." Marco began, "maybe second chances aren't so bad?"

"Yeah, but, he was a jerk to you!" Star protested.

"So? I don't care."

"I do! He was there that day, Marco!" she shouted, clearly getting emotional. At this point Star was slowly rising up from her chair.

"What day?" Janna asked.

"The day that-"

"SILENCE!" shouted Ferguson, and everyone turned their heads towards him. His eyes were closed, and his hands were held together as if he was in prayer. "A sick tree will always die in a desert; you must plant the tree in fertile soil in order to allow it to live or die."

And then, there was one of the most painfully awkward silences Star had ever experienced. Everyone sat wide-eyed, looking at Ferguson like he had been briefly possessed by some old mentor guy from one of those karate movies. Ferguson himself had his eyes wide open, a stupid grin on his face as he looked from person to person to see what they thought of his bout of possession.

Star broke the silence. "So, Oskar is a dying tree."

"Uh-huh," Ferguson confirmed.

"And I'm a bunch of sand."

"Uh-huh."

"And I have to turn into soil..."

"Yep, you got it!"

"So that there's a chance that Oskar won't die."

"Exactly."

Star grinned. "Metal."