A retelling of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
Viola’s head struggles to breach the waves as her long locks tangle under water, weighing her down. The gentle hand of the captain grasps the scruff of her dress and pulls her out, a half-drowned cat. She clings to driftwood, the captain squints at her and then recoils, squints again, then shakes rain from his eyes.
Viola traces the wave-curved horizon with her eyes, averting her own gaze from the surface of the rain-pocked sea. To look would mean to see the face of her drowning brother, or perhaps no face at all.
* * *
On the banks of Illyria, the sand like so many shards of glass, Viola asks the captain if she could imitate his face, so she could secure a manservant’s position in the local duke’s court. The captain is less surprised by her shifting features the second time. However, when she first sees her reflection in a windowpane in town, her appearance reflects that of her brother more than the captain’s mild aspect.
It’s the face, always and only the face. She has to cut her own hair, trying not to imitate her brother’s short waves, but also unable to avoid it. At least no one gives her a second glance. They seem to be too busy gossiping about the nobility.
The duke is currently renowned for two things: his bachelorhood, and his pining for the local countess, Olivia, who has become hermetic while mourning the loss of family. To heighten the drama, she has other suitors besides the duke― knights and lords and all other sorts.
Not only does the captain seem to know of it, but all of the townsfolk as well, who speculate over the unsuccessful courtships loudly in the streets. Viola trots behind the captain towards the palace and full of drooping laughter. Between the lovesick and the grief torn, the sea has left her where she belongs.
* * *
Her reflection is everywhere in Orsino’s house. From within his decorative mirrors, and his polished vases, a creature, both familiar and foreign, stares back at Viola with wet eyes. She carries tear-flushed cheeks and a chin she can bear to hold high only because it's a head of hair lighter. Standing before the duke, she almost curtsies before stumbling into a bow, “You may call me Cesario.” She feels crooked and left-footed under the aristocratic gazes, too much like home. Orsino reclines and, taking the bursting of her constricted heart to represent some overwhelming loyalty, or, perhaps, a mirror of his own heartbreak, declares this strange boy his servant. His melancholic smile isn’t balm enough for her sadness, but it’s a start.
Cesario will be fine. He has a noble name to match a noble face, and the sound of it isn’t a blatant reminder of Sebastian’s death, even if his reflection is. Cesario has no brother, and no reason to grieve. Cesario’s skin hugs Viola, holding everything together that threatens to melt away. Viola takes comfort in Cesario’s broad and certain strides, each like the strike of a drum, instructing on how to beat on.
* * *
As a child, Viola’s abilities assisted in mischief, and she and Sebastian took to the hills of Messaline, giggling as servants stumbled after them, unsure which child was which. Sometimes, she wore the face of a servant. That sent Sebastian off screaming the first few times, but her small stature ruined the immersion and soon resulted in parodic performances of their tutors and maids.
The vivid recollections of his shrieks of laughter burn down Viola’s throat like a shot of something too strong. But more than the ability to make Sebastian smile, the power to change in a blink to some strange, intimate face, to have a visage as fluid as water, was a warm and sweet freedom to a child finding their place in a world of stiff gowns and starched collars.
Now the skill sits on Cesario’s head, a steady, persistent push. He refuses to choke on it. To wear Sebastian’s face is to carry on a legacy of his radiant expressions, tied so tightly to the memory of Messaline sunshine. Sebastian’s thousand smiles hang heavier around Cesario’s mouth than any of his own frowns.
* * *
Viola had always been a watcher; it made taking on other faces easier and taught her the details of their mannerisms, perfecting her performances for Sebastian. Cesario is a watcher too― first out of necessity, to make his actions match the masculine angles of his face, then out of curiosity, shifting now to a starved interest.
The piano bench offers a yielding vantage point, his eyes tracing Orsino’s path as he is dragged from room to room by his love-saturated agitation, searching for a woman he only knows in rumor. Until, finally, the duke slumps onto a couch. A foppish hand gestures in a vague circle. Cesario takes this as his cue to play on.
He considers Orsino’s hands as he lays his own on the keys. Larger, but softer, not sea-tumbled, well manicured in a way Cesario wouldn’t dare. In his chest claws a fear that having nails curved like the hills of Viola’s home might reveal him to be some thing like her.
The notes he plays hang achingly in the air. Orsino and Cesario feel them tremble in their rib cages.
* * *
Cesario spends a lot of time staring at Orsino’s hands, willing them to become his own. And though that’s impossible for him, there are other things he can have.
Sitting on the cliffs past the shadow of the duke’s looming house, Cesario kicks his legs and watches Orsino stare into the depths of the crashing sea. Never has he met someone so much a caricature of a lovelorn romantic lead. With his hair tousled by the wind, stuck to his forehead with seaspray, and eyes half-green with longing, half-gray with untouchable sadness. He wonders if the duke is ever sad anywhere where the light doesn’t flatter him. It’s a quirk Cesario is thankful for; without Orsino to watch he’d be smothered by memories. Though thoughts of Sebastian and Orsino both seem to remind Cesario of an easy masculine charm he cannot seem to enact, regardless of the face he wears.
When Orsino turns to him and secrets pour from his mouth, Cesario listens. When Orsino jokes about the feminine pitch of Cesario’s voice, Cesario looks away. When Orsino pulls a thumb across Cesario’s lip he watches his duke’s eyes, and with a sigh, those eyes become Cesario’s own.
* * *
No one was ever sure what Viola actually looked like, not even Viola herself. The face she originally took as her default was recognizable as her, and bore a striking resemblance to her mother. Her mother was always so proud of that, and Viola had been proud of it too. Her mother was, in Viola’s opinion, the epitome of ladylike primness, but they grew apart. Even her likeness to her mother changed.
There was a long period of closeness with Sebastian in their teens when she looked more like him than any other family member, so much so that they were referred to as twins. Viola was actually a year older.
* * *
A memory of a teenaged Sebastian lounging cross legged in the easter-green grass watches delightedly as Viola stomps her foot on top of a boulder. She wears the face of her mother like a mask and with a frown, twists it into comedic offense.
“Viola!” she intones, “Change back immediately. There is no reason why a young lady should have want of facial hair, especially not such as hideous as your brother has smeared across his face.” The upturned nose and a dainty sniff of disgust ties the impression together.
“You rascal!” Sebastian laughs, unable to keep up any pretense of outrage. The casual delivery of the jibe fills Viola with a froth of joy. A conversation between brothers.
“If you were to behave half as much as your mother as you look, Lady Viola, you would be a proper woman indeed.” Viola jumps at the sound of the servant’s voice behind her and tumbles off the log onto Sebastian in a tangle of gangly teen limbs. The servant, having years of experience with the so-called “twins”, only sighs as they are unable to recover themselves, throwing ripped up handfuls of grass on each other and at her.
* * *
Cesario doesn’t have to walk to the house of Orsino’s lady love, Countess Olivia, but he does because each step assures him he is on solid ground. He isn’t being swept away by memories. Each step is made with purpose, of his own volition. He will convince Olivia of Orsino’s suit, then Orsino will be happy, and if Orsino is happy then, maybe, Cesario can borrow his smile.
* * *
Illyria, it seems, is the land of sorrow. The countess Olivia, practically a waterfall of black lace and silk, could count herself among the Orsinos and, especially, the Cesarios and Violas, because she, too, has lost her brother.
Olivia is as gorgeous and controlled as the garden where she and Cesario walk. Each edge trimmed down and adorned with a flower. He can see why Orsino likes her. Within her are the contained turns of wrist and politely concerned curves of her lips and all the right words gracefully beaded together like the jewellery Cesario would hate to wear again. Viola’s mother would have liked her too.
Cesario can’t get away fast enough after he’s done his duty and she rejects Orsino’s proposal. As he pushes past her gates, she calls out, “Cesario!”. He almost turns back.
* * *
Cesario paces outside Orsino’s door. He can already picture the thin frown on Orsino’s lips when he discovers Olivia has refused him again. Orsino laid those hopeful eyes on him and Cesario failed. Yet, an insurgent part of him―maybe mischievous Viola―springs in his chest to know Orsino’s love remains unreciprocated. Another connection between them. Still, he couldn’t bear Orsino being displeased with him, and so he wars with his worries in front of the mirror hanging in the hall.
Most of his face is now familiar: the hard line of the nose, the aristocratic cheekbones, the little moustache of Sebastian’s. Viola had often stared at it with longing, but could only wear in jest when she teased him. Even now, as Cesario, the longing is hard to shake. Then the eyes, a shock of Orsino’s devastations splashed across his face, he can’t help but think they suit him better than the severe brown ones that never met anyone’s gaze.
He squints. Something is missing.
He considers Olivia’s face, and Orsino’s fingers on his lips. Maybe the duke would forgive Cesario if the message came from Olivia’s mouth. His lips tingle as they change shape.
* * *
Orsino barely looks at him as he delivers the news. He sighs from his reclined position, head leaning back to stare at the ceiling, then tells Cesario to try again tomorrow. His sighs are contagious. Cesario wishes he could pull his sighs as deeply from the chest as Orsino does. He sighs again, just to see if he can get it right the second time.
* * *
The next time Cesario is alone with Orsino they are outside again, night surrounds them and Cesario doubts Orsino can see his face in the moonlight. Cesario sings, but can’t seem to push his voice where he wants it. It cracks, crumbles, then, finally, he falls silent. Orsino’s head has a curious tilt to it when he faces Cesario, but his silence feels like a thunder clap. The hand that rests on Cesario’s shoulder feels like a damnation of its soft curve.
* * *
Cesario is invited to a night out with Orsino’s other men. He declines, who knows what drinking might reveal in him? He dreads his reflection at the bottom of a glass.
A lone wolf, they joke as they leave him behind.
He regrets the decision the moment he sees the mirror in his room. His face flickers through a collection of features he’d seen throughout the day. It settles. He turns away.
Cesario is too thin, too curvy, too shrill voiced, too weak, and too much of a thousand other things that changing his face cannot fix. Every mirror seems to proclaim he’s a failure of a man. Each eye that turns to him feels as though it’s scrutinizing the ways he falls short of mankind.
A true brother would have saved Sebastian. Sebastian and Cesario.
He slides down his bed frame to rest at the floor, like a broken marionette. He’s tired of this body, and the memories guarded within a too-small ribcage.
Yet, when he sees how his shirt falls against his bound chest, when Orsino calls for him (“Cesario, boy, come lend your ear to this poem”), when Olivia invites him (“The lady Olivia, requests the gentleman Cesario’s presence”), he feels the appetite that has gnawed on him his entire life, appeased. It's a grounded, tender joy. He wishes he could capture it between his hands to carry next to his heart. Although it's a fickle feeling, slipping away like rain into the earth, not forgotten. Each instance soothes aches that haunt him.
Did the same hunger, the same joy follow Sebastian? Or had he exchanged being born without craving change for the knowledge of how lucky he was? It hurts to think Sebastian wouldn’t have understood who Cesario has become, almost more than to think Sebastian will never know who Cesario is at all. He might have had an inkling, the spark had been in Viola as a child. But he had never said anything. Viola had probably seemed, to him, to be only a boyish sister, rather than a strange brother.
Sebastian would certainly never have believed his elder sibling had found someone to love. Cesario can almost hear the teasing ringing in his ears. Except, if Sebastian had known Cesario wasn’t loved in return, he would be kinder than to tease. Still, Cesario misses Sebastian to an aching, even cruel humor would be welcome.
* * *
The walk to Olivia’s seems longer and longer each time. Luckily, another one of Orsino’s men is happy to give him a ride. He still has to talk to Olivia, of course. At least now he doesn’t need to spend each step of the way wondering how Olivia’s elegant walk compares to Cesario’s proud strides. Probably one of the many ways Cesario fails to reach Orsino’s standards.
He still has to think about his gait when he walks next to her, though. She abandoned her mourning blacks three visits ago, but the color transferred to Cesario’s mood. She speaks often of her own, late brother, and little of Orsino, though Cesario occasionally tries to steer the conversation in the duke’s direction out of a sense of duty. They are both happier when he doesn’t. Lately, members of her household have been frowning and side-eyeing him when he makes her unhappy. Then again, her other suitors, a knight or two having muscled themselves in, glare at Cesario for the opposite.
Today she stops him halfway through their usual route.
“What in the world are you doing with your legs?”
“Sorry, my legs?” He does feel rather stiff.
“Yes, your legs.” If an eye roll could be prim she manages it. “You look like you’re walking on nails.”
“I...thought I ought to match your step.” She squints at him, an expression Viola faced quite a bit as people tried to puzzle out her face. Though, as Cesario, he has not yet been leveled with such suspicion. She reaches for his hand, the similarities between her fingers and his frighten him, but he lets her hold on.
“Cesario, why do you come here?”
“For Duke Orsino?”
She sighs. Another one of the contagious ones. He hates that Olivia’s are easier for him to match.
“But you don’t want to be here?” He looks away, she twines their fingers. “Your face is like a mirror, Cesario. I see too much of my sadness in you. I don’t know what you’ve lost, but I’m sure it’s nothing you can get from me, nor will you find what you want by drowning in it.” She presses a kiss into his knuckles.
* * *
Cesario’s room is small, but Orsino made sure it was comfortable. He undresses his shirt and unbinds his chest, but can’t be bothered to do more and instead, like some half-shaped creature, flops into the blankets and pillows, sinking.
Olivia somehow manages to be intimidating even in her gentleness. Maybe Orsino likes intimidating. Maybe Cesario likes intimidating, he thinks, recalling her hand in his, crossed with her stern gaze.
The way Olivia walks can’t be much different from how he walked as Viola; could he really have looked so strange? He does wear boots now, maybe that’s the issue. Maybe he ought to go back to being Viola, give up a bit of freedom to get Orsino to really look at him, like Olivia does. He doesn’t even know if he remembers how Viola is meant to look anymore, or Sebastian for that matter. Somehow he’s become some strange, hand crafted triplet.
Maybe both Cesario and Viola need to be more like Olivia. More ladylike. The way her cool gaze slid down her nose at him. Maybe that’s what he needs.
He digs out the dress he’d nearly drowned in and holds it across his body. His stomach tries to crawl up his throat. The salt crusted skirts would suit him still, if he were a stranger. His reflection in the mirror is feeling less like a distant relative and more like a wax figurine of a historical figure he should remember. He’s begun to look like a human ransom note.
* * *
It’s not safe to swim in most of the sea around Illyria, so when Orsino suggests they stop for a dip after a hunt his entourage treks out to a small cove with shallow, calm waters and fewer sharp rocks than the surrounding area. Most of the duke’s attendants are sent off with the tired horses, Cesario stays. His position seems to have shifted from servant to companion. He can hardly complain, in fact, he treasures it. Maybe he isn’t loved, but he is valued. Isn’t that almost the same thing?
Orsino wants Cesario to listen, and Olivia wants to listen to Cesario. Between the two of them, he can believe it’s enough to satisfy the hollow beating of his heart.
He feels it now, perched on a boulder, as Orsino dives into the water, still half dressed. Cesario doesn’t dare to enter. He could, the waves and his shirt would keep his form shapeless. Yet, the whisper of the surf threatens to take him for stealing some of Sebastian from its grasp. Or, worse, it might drown what’s left of Sebastian from within him and leave only the shell of Viola behind. He wants to warn Orsino away, to lose him to the waves as well would be more than his weary heart could bear. But Orsino seems to be enjoying himself and Cesario can’t take that from his lord. The duke grins like the sun above them as he shakes water and hair out of his eyes. Cesario smiles too, submerged in his own private happiness.
“You’re smiling!” notes Orsino. Cesario falters, surprised that he’d been noticed. “What’s bringing this tenderness to your features?”
“You, my lord.” Happiness is dangerous, it makes Cesario say silly things. “When my lord is happy, I am happy too.”
Orsino takes a moment to mull this over.
“I suppose we are happy, then.”
* * *
Cesario takes Orsino’s shirt from him. It’s large and soppingly heavy. Cesario could ask why he’d not undressed it, but he knows the answer: The man knew he looked good in a drenched shirt. Cesario can only laugh. “If only Olivia would smile for me as you do, Cesario. Then I should truly be a happy man.” There’s no fervor in Orsino’s voice. All of it has gone buzzing into Cesario’s chest. Had Orsino hoped Olivia would happen past as he swam? Water spits against the rocks as Cesario wrings out the shirt.
The world judges in standards. Even with an amorphous face, Cesario feels cursed to be bonded to them forever. What is a monster, but a creature at the end of all scales?
* * *
“So, you’re the boy courting the countess.” There is a man with two swords tucked under his arm waiting for Cesario outside of Olivia’s gates next time he leaves. One of Olivia’s suitors, he suspects. The man gives him no leave to answer, “Ha, so young, upstaged by a kid. What is she to you? A boyhood crush?”
Cesario can’t think of a single thing to say, his thoughts crowded with the notion his pride should be injured. He offers a shivering smile instead and looks solidly past the man’s ear.
When the man throws him a rapier, Cesario realizes the man’s a swordsman, and then he realizes he’s actually managed to catch the blade. Despite this, the flash in the man’s eyes make Cesario feel like he’s been caught in a lie.
“For the countess’s hand then.”
Cesario wants to say he really rather wouldn’t, that he barely knows how to hold the weapon, much less fight a duel, but he’s too busy trying not to lose a limb, as the man strikes at him. Only being thrown into the ocean with Sebastian was more frightening. Regardless, he spends most of his time being pushed back, half running away, half tied to the fight by some urge made of wet shame and bitterness that pulls him in. He can’t help himself when he assimilates the swordsman’s sharp brows to his own face and hopes he’ll gain some of his skill with it.
Cesario is chased into town when one of Orsino’s guards recognizes him through the crowd of onlookers the duel has gathered and draws his sword in aid. A wave of gratitude crashes onto Cesario in the form of more sweat to wipe from his brow. When he looks up from his panting, the determined set of the guard’s jaw as he fights off the knight seems grounded in trust. Cesario borrows it.
Someone must have alerted Orsino that his favorite servant is dueling in town because the duke drops from his horse, guard roaring up behind, and rushes to his side. He grabs at Cesario’s arm before he can get a word out, examining a cut on Cesario’s arm that he hadn’t even realized he’d received. With a cautious efficiency, Orsino bandages the wound with a strip torn from his own shirt. And if Cesario thinks the soft dimples around his concerned frown represent his sweet benevolence and takes them upon his own face, then it's a prayer for something he could become.
When Olivia comes looking for Cesario and her rogue suitor, he sees how Orsino eyes the elegant curve of her cheekbone and it takes only half a thought before his face has reshaped. Then he glances at one of Olivia’s men and the regal plane of his forehead is his. Then the eyelids of Olivia’s maid, and the beard of a gawking merchant, the crows feet of a street musician, the bridge of the butcher’s nose, cupid's bow of a child peeking at the commotion. Everywhere he looks his face takes and takes, and he can’t stop, hungry for some sign of himself. His vision blurs, and he feels his knees hit the cobblestone instead of seeing it. There are screams and shouts and he can’t tell if they’re his own, or if he even has a mouth to scream with. It’s bright and dark and loud and deafeningly silent and he can’t breathe, oh, he can’t breathe. His face feels like it’s crushed beneath the sea and it is the sea, all at once.
He’s being swept away. The feeling is violent and familiar. He reaches shaking arms out hoping to catch his brother’s struggling hand that had slipped between his in the throes of the storm.
Then like a breath of air, a voice cuts through and hands lay themselves on his chest and cup his face.
“Hey, rascal.”A pat to the cheek he can barely feel, and a voice that strikes a sweet ache in his throat.
With numb lips he tries to put his brother’s name in his mouth, “S’bashian?”
“Viola.”
“No, no― not Viola…” The words cascade clumsily from his thoughts.
“Yes, come on.” A light shake. “Wake up, keep talking. Don’t go now, not after we’ve found you.” His brother’s familiar presence washes through him, and then it's gone, like a final full wave before the tide recedes.
Cesario only dares to blink once the tears confirm he still has eyes. Orsino is clinging to him as Olivia looks frightened over his shoulder, one of Cesario’s hands clasped tightly in hers.
“Sebastian?” He throws his gaze around, searching for the voice that had spoken the name he’d left to drown with his brother.
“Who is Sebastian?” Olivia and Orsino echo each other, and their equal concern seems to confuse each other. Their eyes meet and then look at how the other holds Cesario. They both turn away hastily.
Laughter bursts from his lungs and shakes his entire frame. For a moment he is back in the embrace of Messaline giving the household a fright. And then in Orsino and Olivia’s arms he releases the nostalgic summers.
“Sebastian is my brother.” The words are easier to speak than Cesario expected. “I carried him with me, like a bandage over my lacks.” A rueful smile. “I think… he has left me at last.”
Neither of Cesario’s companions seem surprised he has lost a brother. Later, if feeling maudlin, he might say grief had been written on his face. Orsino, so long comfortable with having Cesario around him, would object. “You are more than your sorrow, I’ve seen your smiles.” Olivia, no stranger to the loss of a brother, would only hold him tighter.
He tries to call up Sebastian’s face to make it his own, but nothing changes.
* * *
The mirror in Cesario’s room is covered in a white sheet. His reflection is entirely too familiar, though none of it is originally his. Without the mirror he can toss his coat jacket over his bittersweet follies and as the hand-crafted creature he’s become he goes to see Olivia and Orsino. Both nobles are suddenly much less certain about the other, but Cesario isn’t willing to let them shy away when he has become content in their tender chaos. He’d managed to wrangle them together for a meal, one of many he hopes to share with them. On the way, Cesario’s eyes, one a lovelorn green, and the other a warm brown, reach out of windows and pull in a tangled string of memories that take place both on the hills of Messaline and the cliffs of Illyria, where twin brothers run laughing, tumbling into the grass. No one can tell them apart, and no one wants to.
Hale (they/them) is a non-binary, white/latino writer and artist. They have published poetry in Corvid Queen and Lammergeier and share illustrations under the name skiddykid. Besides poetry, short stories, and illustrations, they also develop interactive fiction, because they need as many mediums as possible to help put a name to their nest in identity limbo.