The Halls of the Borgen Manor

The marble pillars of the Borgen Manor still stand proudly along the side of the street, just beyond the Folly Theater. They are what little of the original home exists. Some have said that the Borgen family has occupied the land for over three hundred years. Some even date it back to the founding of the Folly Theater, or even that the Borgen's were the first family to arrive in what would come to be known as The City of Poets. It's opulence, splendor, decadence, and beauty, however, have never been called into question. The Borgen family has been wealthy longer than any record to tell, and each generation has only added to it. Yet despite all this, it was not until the birth of Helena Borgen that the manor home came to be known to all of the world.

Amateur musicians themselves, the parents of Helena declared as they presented their daughter, that the halls of their music would be forever filled with song as long as their daughter lived. And so Borgen family, with their massive wealth, commissioned an army of musicians and singers to perform in the grand hall, at all hours of the day, all the days of the year. Initially, the songs performed and sung were traditional and classical, but as the days and months and years went by and musicians came and went, the songs began more and more to reflect the time of day, the season, the mood of the family, the mood of The City of Poets, and the mood of the world. The public would gather outside the pillars of the Manor to listen to the especially talented singers and musicians, and soon to have been asked to play in the Halls of the Borgen Manor was one of the greatest honors an artist could have bestowed upon them.

Often, at night, the halls willed be filled by only a single voice or a single performer, and equally as often during gatherings and events, entire orchestras would fill the rooms with song. And what some would consider the most magnificent achievement of the Manor musicians was that after all the years of music, the songs that were played by individuals became a single song only, flowing from one voice and one instrument to the next and to the next and so on, always different, but always the same, never with a beginning or with an end, save for once.

It had been over a hundred years since the birth of Helena, nearly a hundred years of continuous song, when a great fire erupted in the Borgen Manor. A young violinist named Elorias Green, unknown by all, had just seated and begun to play when the first of the smoke filled the room, and all within the house frantically searched for the exit. But Green played on, his eyes closed, unaware or uncaring of what was unfolding around him. He was screamed at and grabbed at as the house took flight, but he played on still, as the flames took to the room, surrounded him, and consumed him.

All else in the Manor were uninjured, but all who heard Green play would swear to this day that a more beautiful, tragic, moving piece of music they had never heard, and would never hear again.

As soon as the flames had died and the town had gathered around the rubble in shock, a young woman waded into the ash, to where the corpse of Elias Green lay, and picked up his violin. It had not been touched by flame. She looked at first to the crowd, and then to the sky, and then to the ruins around her before she sat down and began to play. And so, the song resumed, and even as the house was being built, they played, as walls and floors and ceilings were built around those who would continue the concert that the Borgen family had brought into the world.

The song continues today. Some claim even that the ghost of Elias Green, now fifty years dead, haunts the hallways, adding his song to the chorus. And those who claim it would swear to this day that a more beautiful, tragic, and moving piece of music they had never heard before, and would never hear again.

The title is as long as the story, and about as interesting.

It wasn't a very long trial, but she wasn't a very good mother.