(no subject)

[metemmods.insanejournal.com]

Characters: EVERYONE!
Date/Time: Yule
Location: La Theâtre Jeu Ancien
Rating: Probably nothing too bad... PG-13 at worst?
Warnings: Possibly language
Summary: The godlings give their performance!

The theatre was dark for now. Though it was a fairly good-sized audience chamber, only two figures were seated there, both in shadow. Their features could not be determined, but one seemed decidedly feminine, and the other decidedly masculine--with a certain aura of malevolence. Both watched the stage with interest, which was set to show the office of the counting house at the moment, the characters of Scrooge and Bob Cratchit already in place.

As the lights began to come up, Nigel's voice boomed over the theatre:

"Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge."

Comments

Re: Stave 2

[greengawain.insanejournal.com]

"You are to apprentice with Mr. Fezziwig, the warehouse owner. He shall make a man of you yet," Gawain said as gruffly as possible.

Re: Stave 2

[heraldofthedeep.insanejournal.com]

"I... I see. When, Father?"

Re: Stave 2

[greengawain.insanejournal.com]

"Three days hence. You shall report to his warehouse at seven o'clock sharp."

Re: Stave 2

[asteroid30.insanejournal.com]

"Father, what of Christmas?"

Re: Stave 2

[greengawain.insanejournal.com]

Gawain snorted. "I suppose there is that matter." He contemplated it for a moment.

"We shall have our Christmas, but the making of a man shall not be jeopardized by the making of merriment. Do I speak with utmost clarity?"

Re: Stave 2

[asteroid30.insanejournal.com]

"Yes, Father."

Re: Stave 2

[heraldofthedeep.insanejournal.com]

"Yes, Father," Triton repeated softly. "Three days... shall be enough."

Re: Stave 2

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

Another scene change, as things and people move around.

"This the place?"

Re: Stave 2

[speakswithdead.insanejournal.com]

"Yes. This was Old Fezziwig's warehouse."

Re: Stave 2

[skytraveler.insanejournal.com]

Clad in an absurd wig and capacious waistcoat, Loki strode onstage with a flourish. He seated himself at a high desk in one corner of the stage and began to pantomime writing.

Re: Stave 2

[speakswithdead.insanejournal.com]

"And there's Fezziwig himself! Alive again!"

Re: Stave 2

[skytraveler.insanejournal.com]

Loki laid down his pen and looked up at an imaginary clock. He then rubbed his hands, adjusted his waistcoat, and let out one a loud--and very theatrical--laugh.

In a booming ersatz resonance, he called out, "Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"

Re: Stave 2

[acratophorus.insanejournal.com]

Trying his hardest to act natural around the pain in his arm, Dionysus sprang onto the stage, standing eagerly and attentively before his employer and next to his fellow-'prentice.

Re: Stave 2

[speakswithdead.insanejournal.com]

"And there's Dick Wilson, my friend and colleague." Hades hadn't yet completely been able to banish the urge to beat the piss out of Dionysus and thus sounded less enthused.

Re: Stave 2

[acratophorus.insanejournal.com]

Dionysus could feel Hades' eyes on him, and he couldn't resist increasing the shit-eatingness of his grin just a tad in his general direction.

Re: Stave 2

[heraldofthedeep.insanejournal.com]

Triton carried some ledgers over to a shelf.
"Sir..." he said to Loki, "Are you aware of how much the firm is spending on this?"

Re: Stave 2

[skytraveler.insanejournal.com]

Loki responded enthusiastically, "Come now, lad, it's Christmas Eve! Forget the banalities of labor for an evening! No more work tonight, my boys! Let's have the shutters up," he cried, with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson."

Re: Stave 2

[heraldofthedeep.insanejournal.com]

Triton shook his head, but helped arrange things as the stage took on a festive atmosphere for the party.

Re: Stave 2

[insickness.insanejournal.com]

It was an easy enough, playing Mrs. Fezziwig. All she had to do was walk up to Mr. Fezziwig and smile a lot, and then to dance. That wasn't hard at all. Not when playing opposite Loki.

Re: Stave 2

[roseredheart.insanejournal.com]

Erato then entered as the youngest of the Fezziwig daughters. She felt a peculiar sort of jolt as she found herself sharing stage space with Dionysus, and a strangely familiar conjunction of their abilities beginning to form...

Re: Stave 2

[skytraveler.insanejournal.com]

Loki found it quite delicious to share the stage with both Sigyn and Erato. A pastiche of decidedly un-Dickensian fantasies formed in his mind as he skipped down from the high desk.

"Hilli-ho! Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here. Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer."

Re: Stave 2

[inspiredvoice.insanejournal.com]

Mel came on stage looking nonplussed. Her dress had been decidedly uncooperative. So Erato had made it on stage alone. Well she wasn't anymore. Mel immediately came up to Erato's side and slid a protective sisterly arm around her waist.

Re: Stave 2

[asteroid30.insanejournal.com]

Urania had a quick costume change in between scenes, so was the last to enter.

Re: Stave 2

[roseredheart.insanejournal.com]

Flanked by her two sisters, Erato was protected, but she still blushed faintly under the gazes of Loki and Dionysus.

Re: Stave 2

[acratophorus.insanejournal.com]

While it was easier than he'd expected it would be to keep his true emotions hidden on stage, seeing Melpomene come out with everyone came quite close to shattering his resolve utterly. With his face hidden by a prop shutter, he'd had to take a few deep breaths to get himself under control.

We ain't over, Misery Chick, he thought to himself. Not by a damn sight.