Ep 218 Script

218

Erka and lyr in a classroom putting together winter decorations.

E: thanks for helping with this, by the way. Everyone else on the winter ball committee seem to be dropping like flies.

L: surely most of this can be bought already arranged?

E: oh it was, it just wasn’t good enough. My mother didn’t force me to help organize her luncheons without also forcing her high standards onto me.

L: well, it’ll already look better than last years, at least. Even though the ball isn’t for weeks.

E: “it’s better to be prepared than caught with your head in the sand”. Another lesson from my mother. No idea where it came from - she doesn’t even have ostrich friends...

Erka looks at lyr.

E:...the ball...last year...was that when...

(flashback to lyr watching ree and farrah dancing. Flash to lyr and farrah yelling.)

L: i made a fool of myself? Yes.

E: is that why...youre so hung up on those two? Because you were friends once...or because of how it ended?

L: no, it’s because of what i did after.

E: how you didn’t help look for her when she went missing?

L. How I was the one who caused her to go missing.

E: you – what –

L: i sold her out to the Doves. i’d been rejected. I was jealous. I don’t even know if shes alive, really. It’s why i didn’t turn in the flashdrive lars left me when i found it. There’s footage of me talking to the doves on it. He knew it would stop me, and he knew it would make me curious enough to watch the rest of what was on there. To find out the truth. I don’t know why he wanted someone here to know, but he knew I was the one who had the most to lose if it all got out.

E: (spits) why not just edit your parts out? Sell everyone out but save your own skin?

L: ...I tried. The files are impervious to being edited or tampered with, somehow.

E: wow, so noble.

L: im not going to lie to you anymore. You should know what you’re getting into...who you’re getting into it with. It’s ok if you don’t want to talk to me again, i just thought you should know everything.

E: im just – i cant. I need to think. I need to think.

Leaves.

L: (to herself) im sorry, farrah. I do hope you’re alive, for what it’s worth.

Cut to ree and farrah in the garden.

Ree (shocked): Lyr...sold you out to the doves?

F: that’s what they told me. “a Merlin has made it known to us that a lowly sparrow has forgotten her place, and attempted to climb the ladder” – yadda, yadda, something about sinners being punished for flying too high. But there aren’t that many Merlins at the Roost, so it didn’t take a genius to figure out who ratted me out.

R: i just...we were friends. Why would she –

F: you know she wanted you, right? Like, the whole time. She wasn’t subtle about it.

R: i...didnt realise it at the time. I was only ever looking at...you. but she told me after, yeah. But by then you were gone and Lyr and I were barely on speaking terms, so obviously i told her to stay away from me. But...she really did that (looks at farrah’s wing) out of what – jealousy?

F: that night, at the last Winter Ball, she confronted me. Told me that if i didn’t get out of her way, she’d have no choice but to do something about it. ...i told her she could do whatever she wanted, i was never gonna just give you to her. As if you were an object, even.

R: (looks sick) that’s why she slapped you? you said it was because you took the last crab puff - so this...this is all my fault. Everything that –

F: no, Lyr going to the Doves wasn’t your fault. The Doves actually getting ahold of me – that was your fault.

R: ...you left. After the Ball, you said we’d done enough “pretending to fit into this society”, that we needed to get back to the reason why we were on Kooup in the first place.

F: finding the Crow King was the most important thing. But you’d gotten too comfortable, you were enjoying your new life at the Academy. You were good at it, and your talents were finally being praised instead of something that just got in the way of you hosting galas and whatever else this life wanted of you. (gestures to castle behind).

R: the only reason we were there looking for the King was because, if we found him, or some kind of heir, we could bring them back here and our families would finally take us seriously. Take US seriously –

F: but on Kooup you had that respect, and you didn’t feel like you needed it from our families, anymore.

R: i didn’t need their acceptance. I just needed a vocation in life that i enjoyed...and you.

F: but we’d underestimated the power of the hierarchy  on Kooup. I managed to forge documents and hack our way onto the Government’s system, affording myself a fictitious scholarship to even get myself into that school, thinking that was all it would take. But i lied to you, every day. I hid the bullying i suffered through, told you the bruises were just from training. The Professors never said anything outright, but they trained me harder than everyone else, pushed me further to my limits. I know you saw them doing that –

R: because everyone was more...predisposed to those kind of exercises than you, so you needed more instruction –

F: what, because Im a Sparrow, and not some Raptor like the rest of you? Because im softer, slower, less bloodthirsty? You sound just like them, do you even hear yourself?

R: i didn’t mean – if you’d just told me -

F: you’d have what? Left your perfect life? Id had enough of it, so i left. You didn’t come with me, so i was alone in the City when the Doves cornered me. Do you know what it feels like, to have part of your wing ripped off?  No, because it’s unimaginable. Whatever your brain can conjure up, i promise it’s 1000 times worse. Cyras found me, after. The leader of the most notorious Murder in the City, someone who had no reason to give a shit about me, helped me. And it was the most kindness I’d been shown the entire time I’d been on Kooup.  He got me help and a place to live, to recuperate. He told me i didn’t need to pay him back, but i told him i always repaid my debts. He asked me then, what a wing was worth to me. “Everything,” I replied, same as any Avian. And so, he put me to work.