swerval_zero | Room 220, Monday Night

" Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire...." Parker leaned around the door to grin at Zero.

Zero pulled off her headphones and said, "Bzuh?"

"Heh. Just practicing someone else's lines." Parker folded herself down opposite Zero, and tried to peek at what she was writing. "Or possibly writing new ones?"

Zero hides the notebook, hopefully before Parker can read the bit about throbbing cocks.

"The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
For Oberon is passing fell and wrath!"

"Because that she as her attendant hath
A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
She never had so sweet a changeling--" Parker paused, and said, "Now, why couldn't they decide that meant someone like Constable Fraser as a changeling? That would make this all very worthwhile.

"Because Constable Fraser isn't a boy?
And jealous Oberon would have the child
Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy...
Heh."

"Heh."

Parker stood up and declaimed--
"And now they never meet in grove or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But, they do square, that all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there.

And if Lee doesn't let me know what the hell's up with him and Kara, you're gonna see a lot of that at rehearsals, too. This could be great for the play. Even if it leads to bloodshed in real life."

She made a face, then stepped up on top of the bed, and called out, "Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow!"

"You could take notes for characterization. But I think you've got it under control." Zero bounced off the bed and struck a pose.

" Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal..."

"And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale. You realize you're playing a complete psycho, right? And why a crab? That always gets me."

Parker jumped off the bed and declaimed, "The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me... Are you going to pantomime all these bits?"

"Then slip I from her bum, down topples she--" Zero tumbled down onto her, well, bum.

"And 'tailor' cries--why tailor?--and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon."

"Of course I do. That's half the fun"

"Gotcha. And why not tailor? Works better than candlestick-maker?"

"And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!"

Parker jumped off the bed, and did a classic Guy Who Can Fly Pose, deepened her voice, and flared her nostrils: "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania."

If she didnt look a little like Lee, it's not because she wasn't trying.

Zero almost fell over giggling. "Do I do your lines now?

"What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence:
I have forsworn his bed and company."

Parker did a stompy-foot thing, and pouted like a five-year-old. "Tarry, rash wanton: am not I thy lord? Which, oh my god. Asshole."

"Tell me about it.

"Then I must be thy lady: but I know
When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
Playing on pipes of corn and versing love
To amorous Phillida."

"Apparently King of Fairies isn't a very high-pressure job. With lots of free time."

"Slacker poser. No wonder Titania dumped him.
Why art thou here,
Come from the farthest Steppe of India?
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
To give their bed joy and prosperity." Parker practically spit the words out, her fingers curving into claws. "And a great big adulterous pig, as well."

"You're not one to talk!

Zero tsked and wagged her finger at Parker.
"How canst thou thus for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair AEgle break his faith,
With Ariadne and Antiopa?"

"See, and this is where I had to start defending Titania to Lee on Saturday, to which I now say, Oberon's a jealous, jealous, stalkerish idiot.

These are the forgeries of jealousy!

But I never got to the bit about--

Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Have every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents:

Which is frankly asking for trouble around here. We'd probably get a hurricaine or a break in the water line in the middle of the performance."

Parker spun around and around, and yelled as she spun, as fast as she could:

"The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable:

And OH MY GOD what kind of crack was this playwright smoking?"

She collapsed on Zero's bed, laughing giddily from dizziness.

"I think you're reading it wrong. They both cheated! He's jealous over a little kid! Who is, in our production, a gremlin." Zero peered down at the dizzy Parker and told her solemnly,

"The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts--

"Squall, that's just what we need, more snow--

"Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original."

"So when the fairies fight, nature goes nuts. Check."

"Which is so, so, so crazy. It could happen here, that's how bad it is. Do you amend it then; it lies in you:
Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

Because you're a freak! Freak! FREAAAAAAK!"

Parker took a breath, then went back to Guy Who Can Fly voice, with folded arms and pouty face:

"I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my henchman. And I ask you, how many henchman does he need?"

"I know, it's completely unfair! He already has one perfectly good henchperson! What's he need to go training another one for?

" Set your heart at rest:
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votaress of my order:--"

"There was a gremlin in your order?"

"And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
Following--I forgot what comes next."

Zero went to get her copy of the play from the bookcase.

"Of course there was a gremlin in my order. Best lockpickers in the business. Plus, they're easy to appease with Twinkies." Parker whapped herself with her printed-out pages. "Oh, I can tell this play is going to unhinge me by the end. Following --her womb then rich with my young squire,--
Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
And for her sake I will not part with him. And can you get any plainer, saner, and fairer than that? Lee was saying it was just an excuse to let Oberon stalk her. Which, if so? Very, very weird. Nice way to care, swipe your wife's foster kid to show you love her."

"Nah, Oberon's just selfish. Also? Fairy Male Privilege. Oh, here we go."

"How long within this wood intend you stay?"

Parker re-assumed her Majestic Voice, and said: "Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
If you will patiently dance in our round
And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. Could she be more fair? Jeez. Don't start a fight, don't pick on my henchwomen, don't show up drunk, and it's all good. Otherwise, skive off, husband."

She re-assumed the Oberon mimicry, with hands on hips and puffed-out chest: "Give me that boy, and I will go with thee."

"Bless, he does have a one-track mind."

Zero said in a snooty tone,
"Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away!
We shall chide downright, if I longer stay."

"Oooh, they might chide."

"I fear being chidden. Really. The last time someone chided me, I let the air out of his tires. Sydney never tried that again, let me tell you."

"Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury. Injury? INJURY? I'm going to injure him, he keeps this up.
My gentle Puck, come hither." Parker bounded over to Zero, and tried to imitate Angel at his broodiest. Not entirely well.

"Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.

This guy has way too much time on his hands."

"I remember."

"And why am I suddenly severely lacking in lines?"

"Because Oberon is a glory hound? Here, take some of his, and I'll be the Kickass Ninja. I'm sure this is where she makes her appearance."

"That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free."

"Yeah, right!"

"Pffftttttt." Parker assumed a karate stance, and kicked up and above Zero's head. "Oberon! I come from the Queen! She hath some business with thy henchman. Puck, do follow to another corner of this glade, that I might converse with you in security."

"I follow, dread ninja."

"This isn't in my copy of the play."

"Mine either, but it's in the production. So as professionals, we have to adapt." Parker jumped on the bed, then bounced a few times, and finally flipped off of it, landing in a crouch. "My Mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun-- and she doth wish to know, are you the one?"

Zero-Puck cringed away from the kickass ninja portrayed by Parker.

"And for what do you call me 'the one'?
I will warn you, I do serve Oberon."

"Why to save us from the child most foul
My mistress would give him to your kind of all,
and take you as a courtier,
but that a promise made doth bind her
to keep the brat around. Okay, I can't rhyme worth a damn. Think you that a merry trick
would make all glad, and your false lord sad?"

Parker examined a non-existent knife, then frowned. "Maybe Vala should meet Miho before she starts doing this part."

"But then she wouldn't have any lines!"

"The boy then danger brings
to the fairy lands and their king?
Surely Oberon must know of this
But why then would he want the child for his?"

"Point."

"Danger from his fangs of fun
Ruin from the temper of a Hun
Therefore, to Oberon we give, and
he, unbound from vow
May change him to a cow
Or give him to a sow
We don't care how
But that the changeling boy
Be taken far from our joy. It's as plausible as what Shakespeare came up with, you've got to admit."

Parker did another spin-kick, but aimed it at the bed, not Zero this time.

"I shall tell Oberon
That the boy must become gone."

Zero makes a face, that rhyme clearly not up to her standards.

"It may be, ninja huntress,
that we must trick your fairy mistress
to remove her vow and the child.
For I am told he is right wild."

"He must what? Never mind, I can't talk."

Parker assumed one last pose, then said, "Be it so, we shall forgive.
The child elsewhere must live.
Come, Puck, us to plot and twine
and every trick tod undermine. Or something."

Parker grinned. "End scene?"

"End scene," Zero agrees. Then she yawns.

Parker yawns back at her. "Total agreement. Later, sprite. I go, I go, look how I go." And she headed for the door.

"You'll put a girdle 'round the world in forty minutes, no doubt. Kick the brick out on your way." Zero flopped onto her bed. She should probably brush her teeth, but the bathroom was such a long way down the hall...

Room 220, Monday Night

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject