Raven Field

Raven Field is the celebrated ballet of Vorst Vacheq. The work was commissioned by Ivana Bortsi and staged initially at Misericordia. The work received rave reviews from the crème de la crème of the Borcan aristocrats. The ballet was staged subsequently in Levkarest where a somewhat wider audience swooned before the artist genius of Vacheq. An agreement was then struck for the work to be staged by in Port-a-Lucine by Ballet National du Dementlieu. Before it could open gross financial improprities at the national ballet led to its shuttering for two years. It would take a further decade before Raven Field was to at last reach the stage in Dementlieu. Many regret that it ever did.

The death of Vacheq had freed the hand of ballet's artistic director, one Claude Lemieux, and he seized the opportunity to make significant "improvements" in the work. The Dementlieuse public gave the result a rather tepid reception. This public, however, was entirely upstaged by the Borcan aristocrats who had travelled to Dementlieu for the opening. They walked out en masse in the middle of the second act and proceeded to accuse Dementlieu of deliberately desecrating a Borcan national teasure. Improbablly, the Borcan ambassador, who had stayed to the ballet's bitter end, was attacked and robbed by ruffians on his way home. More improbably still, he claimed that the ruffians had been led by Claude Lemieux, demanded that the artistic director be executed for attacking an allied state, hinted that certain member of the Council of Brilliance had orchestrated the entire affair, and demanded an apology from Lord-Governor Marcel Guignol.

Publicly, nothing was said by the Lord-Governor and his council. Privately, arrangement were to repay the Borcans in kind. Lemieux was quickly showered with praise from all corner of the Dementlieuses artistic and literary communities for his "brilliant adaptation of Vacheq's initially muddle work". Records were set for the number of performances and the number of tickets sold. And the very handsom profits were plouged into a tour of Darkon. The Darkonese would be treated to the performance by the Ballet National du Dementlieu of Lemieux's variation of Raven Field. The story circulated that the Borcan ambassador, upon be delivered an invitation from Lemieux to join him in Martira Bay for the Darkonese opening, nearly throttled to death the messenger.

All did not, however, end well for the Dementleuse. L