A script for an Interactive Narrative Storytelling Experience
The Knight Ablaze
Date
29 August 2024
Role
Lead Writer, Performer, Facilitator
Client/Collaborator
Random Kingdom
The story behind this piece
The Knight Ablaze was first performed live in Berlin, Germany in August 2024, during the art and game design residency Queering Nature: the Quest, hosted by the Random_Kingdom collective. Part epic tale, part proof of concept, and part trans coming out ceremony, this piece was made as contribution to a collaborative artistic research project on exploring character creation and roleplay storytelling as a therapeutic modality. It is a special piece, created in a collective context to explore deeply personal themes. In Decemeber of 2025, it was exhibited once again as an audio-narrative experience at the Side-Quest for the Real bienalle in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Knight Ablaze 40-minute narrative audio piece accompanied by a video environment set in a fantasy world. It follows Percival, a young trans woman who trains to become a knight in a kingdom that refuses to see her. After failing an important mission, she returns home only to find a giant silver dragon, the symbol of a knight’s greatest test, destroying the city. Diving into battle with the creature, she slowly understands that the dragon is not her enemy, but a reflection and integral part of herself—birthed of her suppressed fear, transfeminine rage, and true transcendent power.
The piece plays with wordplay, story pacing, voice and sound design to guide the audience through snowy nights, castles, dark caves, and burning streets. It is emotional, symbolic, and hopeful: showing how facing one’s shadow is inevitable, yet can open a path to becoming who we really are.
“The night outside was ablaze. The once serene sky filled with smoke and falling ash. Through the window, she could see the castle in the distance, engulfed in a torrent of hungry flames. The city walls were littered with burning soldiers, the watchtowers of the outer wall collapsing under the weight of an inferno that roared with a life of its own. The scent of burned flesh brought her to reality like a punch to her stomach.”
“Her heart pounded in her chest as she stumbled to her feet, her head spinning. She grabbed her sword and rushed outside, only to be met with utter chaos. The cathedral bell tolled loudly, warning of the inferno, then was silenced by a ferocious jet of flame. People were fleeing in every direction, buffeting passed her as she struggled to muscle her way forward through them. The air trembled with a heavy beat: woof, woof, woof. For the first time, she beheld it. An enormous, silver dragon, eyes of bright glistening green, its scales glinting in the firelight as wings sent shockwaves through the air. It descended once more on the city with a screech that shattered the glass around her.
Percival’s horse was nearby, rearing up in terror as the dragon unleashed another stream of fire, She fumbled to mount up, her vision swimming, but managed to spur the beast forward towards the castle. (…)”
