Main disclaimers, and copyright things are at the end, because I had to split this in half due to longness. This entire thing was conducted on the chat, and I went over and edited it. Other people's parts of this sort-of-RP are mostly left alone, and include peanutgallery007 as April, Lin910 as... Lin, and, well, Sachiko as Sachiko. It's not supposed to make sense, and I daresay it, in its fragmentedness and mix of about four writer's different styles, is hard to read, not to mention understand. I hope you enjoy it, anyway, and please, comment, but I don't really need nitpicks. ; )
A man in silk pajamas with Chinese dragons on them came downstairs to make a bear stand on its head. “'Tis pity she's a corpse,” Mr. Lascelles was heard to say, but no one actually heard him besides Mr. Drawlight, and Mr. Drawlight never told anyone, mainly because he had no idea what Mr. Lascelles meant.
Besides, all those other people were watching the man in silk pajamas with Chinese dragons all over them telling a bear to stand on its head, and Sundry Moss looked on.
“Are we telling stories?” Lin asked. “I wants to write a poem.”
And so she began:
“In the vast emptiness, what did they see?
er.”
"Er," mocked Lascelles, and somebody hit him over the head with a bear.
“Great,” Lin said, and the expression on her face was entirely disturbed.
But it was a rather small-sized one, and so he was only in a coma for a little while.
"I don't like you very much," Lin remarked to the man when he came ‘round, and she glared at him. "Not at all. And I'm in a particularly bad mood, because my ‘Shift’ key is not working."
Meanwhile, they all found out that the man in the silk pajamas (with Chinese dragons all over them) had a name, and it was Mr. Walton.
Lascelles found Lin’s indignant remark funny, and retorted in a very cold manner, "'Tis pity you are no poet. Or perhaps not at all. I don’t imagine I would like your poetry, anyhow."
Mr. Walton told Sundry that his grandfather had been saved by a hole in his boot, and Sundry wondered if he should get one.
Also, Lascelles came to the conclusion that Lin was insane, for he had never heard of a ‘Shift’ key, and assuredly, if he had not heard of it, it did not exist.
Lin giggled at this, and Lascelles looked alarmed, as though he thought she’d heard his thoughts.
“Hi, April,” Lin said, waving at that girl as she walked through the door of the inn.
“Knock, knock! Anybody home?” April cried, smiling cheerily.
Lin began to suspect at that point that she had jammed her ‘Shift’ key, and when she said so aloud, Mr. Lascelles gave her a very strange look.
“Hiya, Lin!” hailed April, and the now-bemused smile on her face suggested she wondered at the appearance of the two other gentleman in the room.
“Work, thingy, work!” shouted Lin, and we must suppose she meant her ‘Shift’ key.
Drawlight thought that April's hair had no wear in it, and said so to Lascelles as she entered the room.
Upon hearing this comment, and seeing the smirks on the two men’s faces, April emitted a puzzled squeak. “...Huh?”
“Stawries!” Lin said, and Lascelles whispered to Drawlight that he suspected the woman was insane.
Just then, a very pretty girl flitted into the room, black cat’s ears wiggling about atop her head, and Mr. Norrell, who had been sitting quietly in a booth in the corner, commented on the magical aspects of computers.
April laughed, turning to the mousy little man. “Hehe,” she giggled. “I would fit right in with that club.”
Dazzled by her wide grin, Mr. Norrell could only nod and faintly wonder what club she was talking about.
“Om, nom,” said the cat-eared girl, and Mr. Lascelles quietly warned Mr. Drawlight that this was probably another crazy girl. He was beginning to think there might soon be a whole crowd of them in the little inn.
Lin suddenly squealed and ran over to hug the cat-eared girl, and Mr. Norrell very nearly fell out of his seat in fright. He righted his powdered wig and harrumphed in a rather affronted manner.
“My shift key isn't working, Sachi!” complained Lin to the cat-eared girl, who smiled sympathetically.
“Hi, Chik,” said April, sitting down opposite Mr. Norrell in the corner booth. It disconcerted the poor little man so much, he looked as though he might cry for fear of saying something wrong.
Lascelles admitted under his breath that Sachiki was thoroughly sweet, although it was not of his disposition to like sweetness.
Sachiko, with her sharp cat’s ears, heard very clearly what he said, and gave that man a strange look. “Eh?”
April rolled her eyes, and shot Drawlight and Lascelles a less-than-friendly glance. “Exactly what they did to me, Chik,” she said.
Sachiko, still looking thoroughly confused, stepped a bit closer to Drawlight and Lascelles, who were standing at the bar some feet away. She squinted at them as though she didn’t quite believe such men could possibly exist.
Lin sighed. A brief silence ensued.
“I think I fixed it? Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe,” Lin cried (we will have to assume she meant her ‘Shift’ key), and pretended not to hear Mr. Lascelles’s whisper to Mr. Drawlight.
“Insanity,” he murmured. “Absolute insanity.”
“Nothing is jamming it,” she announced to the room at large. “It's just hard to press.”
No one bothered to ask what she was talking about anymore. Drawlight snickered behind a kid-gloved hand.
Mr Walton (the man in silk pajamas with Chinese dragons all over them) decided he liked everyone, being the genial man that he is, and pitied Mr. Lascelles inability to do so.
“Maybe food or dirt or something is stuck under it... that happens to me sometimes,” April said, but Mr. Norrell, who had been fiddling with his snuffbox, stared at her in alarm. He seemed to think she’d been referring to his snuffbox, although she had been looking at Lin when she spoke (again, we must, dear readers, suppose she meant that mysterious ‘Shift’ key).
Drawlight, an odious little man with a rather gossipy sort of nature, commented on Sachiko's cat ears. He found them fascinating, but failed to inform Sachiko upon the matter.
“Now who said what about my ears?” Sachiko inquired, to no one in particular, and Drawlight jumped, quite startled. He didn’t seem to think that with such cat-like ears, Sachiko would also have cat-like hearing. Fortunately for Mr. Drawlight, Sundry Moss announced to... all and sundry that he wanted to buy drinks.
How scandalous, thought Sachiko, and gave Sundry a reproving look that he pretended not to notice.
"I hope you don't mind if it comes out of your pocket, Mr. Lascelles," he said as the drinks arrived.
Mr. Lascelles did mind.
April, who hadn’t spoken since the snuffbox incident, commented to someone whom no one could see that she thought they were good at narrating. The narrator (whom no one could see) blushed modestly and continued.
Drawlight sipped his rum as Mr. Norrell squeaked about the marvelous aspects of computers, which he had never seen before. Jonathan Strange arrived at that moment, flashing his trademark charming grin.
Sachiko didn’t seemed to mind at all his sudden entry. She went almost in a daze to sit down at the spacious corner-booth. April scooted a bit to make room for her.
“Jonathan Strange?” she whispered to April, but that girl had a puzzled look on her face, and didn’t reply.
"A good friend of mine, I assure you, Mademoiselle... Sachiki," Drawlight simpered, sweeping over to sit down in the corner booth with Mr. Norrell and the two ladies.
“Oh, my,” Sachiko said, and drew back just a bit at his huge, bright smile.
Mr. Walton came over to crowd into the corner booth with Sundry, talking about his grandfather with a hole in his boot, and Jonathan Strange was looking with the utmost distaste at Mr. Norrell's small and still squeaking personage.
Sachiko smiled behind her hand as she watched Jonathan Strange sit down beside Mr. Norrell. Neither looked at all happy with the arrangement.
"Oh, April!" Drawlight cried, shaking her hand vigorously over the table. "We have all been waiting for you to drop by!"
April stared first in surprise – for she had never met Mr. Drawlight before in her life – and then smiled back at him, relieved that she had someone to talk to that wasn’t Mr. Norrell. However, as Drawlight began to chatter his usual gossip about sudden deaths and beautiful, scandalous heiresses and things, her smile quickly faded.
Mr. Lascelles commented to Drawlight as he sat down that if April did not wear that color, but a more flattering pink, he wouldn't at all mind taking a stroll around Hanover-square with her.
Something began to play a song that no one recognized, and Sachiko pulled a cell-phone from the satchel hanging from one shoulder. She flipped it open and the four gentlemen (Strange, Norrell, Lascelles and Drawlight) all had some look of wonder or surprise on his face.
“Shut up,” she said to the phone. Everyone crowded in the corner booth became silent as she carried on a quick conversation full of confusing, fragmented sentences and further shouts of, “Shut up!”
“How extraordinary!” cried Mr. Walton as Sachiko bid a person named ‘Teague’ good-bye and dropped her cell-phone back in her satchel. “I never--!”
"My, my!" Drawlight said to himself, not seeming to think anyone else could hear. "Teague, what an astonishing name!” For some reason the name was more amazing to him than the cell-phone itself. Not a soul bothered asking why.
Sundry cleared his throat to chase away yet another silence. "And by the way," he informed the table, "a vampire is dropping in later. Name of Delyr. Just - never offer him a drink."
There was general feeling – not to mention some audible gasps – of astonishment at this announcement, and while Mr. Norrell insisted to Mr. Strange that no such thing existed, and Mr. Strange listened with an air of long-suffering, Sachiko murmured, “Quick! Drain the blood!”
Nobody had any idea what she meant. Lascelles wondered to himself what asylum the three strange women had escaped from.
"I apologize, dear lady," Jonathan said to Sachiko, in an attempt to stop the flow of boring words that were flying from Norrell’s mouth. He flashed her his most enchanting smile. "I was having a word with Mr. Norrell."
“That is quite alright,” Sachiko quipped, granting him a very sweet smile of her own. April frowned, confused, and Lascelles, still wondering what asylum they had fled, didn’t notice.
With a very quiet noise that could only be interpreted as a sort of superior-annoyance-cough, Mr. Norrell excused himself, saying he was not quite so young as he had once been, and must be off to home and bed. Just as he disappeared through the front door of the inn, another man entered.
Lascelles ceased to wonder about asylums, and Drawlight paused his simpering over Mr. Strange to peer curiously at the newcomer.
"House?" inquired the new man, as he sat down beside Lascelles. Lascelles did not seem to like this arrangement at all. "What’s this house you speak of?"
Sachiko, who had begun talking of something to do with houses to her friend April, turned to look at the stranger. Her mouth opened slightly at his pale skin and his startling eyes, and gathering her wits, said, “Oh, it's nothing at all! Don't trouble yourself with it.”
"Watching houses, I cannot say I have ever found interesting," said that man.
April continued to look confused.
There was a momentary silence, and then Mr. Strange apologized, introducing the new man as Delyr.
Sachiko announced suddenly, and without hesitation, “My toenail is bleeding.”
Snapping out of her puzzlement, April inquired softly as to what was wrong. Mr. Lascelles began again to wonder about asylums.
"Vampire, murderer, and so on. How are you all?" he asked cheerily, looking around the table. No one offered him a drink, least of all Lascelles.
Sachiko, forgetting about her bleeding toenail – as perhaps Delyr had hoped she would – leaned back from the table, a look of disturbed amusement upon her face.
April was confused again.
As though imagining Sachiko could easily extricate herself from the table – she was smashed between Sundry Moss and Mr. Walton, and April – Drawlight caught Sachiko by the wrist and pulled her forward with great force, saying, "Oh, but you must stay! It will be so much less interesting if all the lovely ladies leave."
"Miss April!" Lascelles said, trying to get the attention of the zoned-out and perpetually confused April.
Sachiko quietly disentangled her arm from Drawlight's grasp.
Mr. Walton and Sundry went upstairs to bed, for, they explained, it was getting rather late, and everything seemed to grow darker without their good presences. Lascelles snickered for no reason in particular, but continued to eye April with something like grudging admiration. Another small silence.
Sachiko fidgeted.
Delyr turned to Sachiko. "I do like those cat's ears of yours, and my dear, you have the loveliest smile. I'm sorry, I don’t believe I heard your name."
Meanwhile, Lascelles attempted again to snap April from her thoroughly baffled state. "Excuse madam, but may I inquire as to where you bought that dress?"
Sachiko dipped her head. "Why, thank you, Sir. I am Sachiko." Sachiko smiled, her teeth gleaming in the candlelight.
"Sachiko!" he said, and for some reason seemed to find it very interesting. His orange eyes flitted momentarily to her throat.
Lascelles, in a dry voice, remarked that April was not one given to much speech.
"Yes," Sachiko said, still smiling. She brought her hand up to the table, and slowly began to click her long, rather sharp nails against the surface.
Lin got up and went to sit at the bar, to watch the strange scene from a respectable distance. She turned away soon, not wanting to wonder what could happen.
As if to contest Sachiko’s sharp nails, Delyr brought his own, deathly pale hand up to rest on the tabletop, and smiled almost challengingly. Drawlight sensed coming confrontation, and began a loud and simple conversation with Mr. Strange.
"Oh, yes!" he said, "a gentleman with thistle-down hair. You say your wife spoke with him at Sir Walter's house."
Sachiko cleared her throat softly, and inquired of Delyr what he was doing in this particular part of the country.
"Oh, nothing much. London has rather too many dark alleyways, and most of them have their own vampires, and so I have taken to lurking at candy-shops, lately."
A gentleman with strange, shiny hair the color and texture of thistle-down seemed to appear beside Lin. "Hullo," he said.
In the corner, Sachiko blinked her lovely green eyes once. "Candy shops? My, my. You certainly don't seem the type to have a sweet tooth. How... fascinating."
April stared at the thistle-down-haired newcomer, dumbfounded, wondering why he chose to sit next to Lin. Just coming out of her own world inside her head, she tried to catch up on the conversation.
"Fascinating, to be sure," chuckled Delyr, shaking a shower of unruly black hair from his bright eyes. "I haven't met anyone to interest me there, yet, although the cashiers are always very helpful and talkative."
"I said," Lascelles repeated, "where did you find that dress?"
The girl with the cat’s ears suggested to Delyr that they find a somewhat quieter spot, and so they stood and walked over to table nearby Lin, sitting down to face each other. "I'm quite sure," Sachiko said, to continue the conversation, glancing at Lin and then April. "One must wonder if you spend all your time in candy shops? Certainly you have some other means to occupy your time."
Lin smiled nervously at the gentleman with the thistle-down hair.
"Well, a few years back I Turned a girl named Aslina and killed her friends for no reason, but that's a different story. And you?" Delyr queried politely, as though he had merely alluded to a mild drought.
Back in the corner booth, Lascelles had finally managed to awake April. "Oh! Me?" April blinked, and tried to answer. "I – my mother gave me this. It's... pretty old."
"Yes," Lascelles murmured, looking at said dress critically. "Yes, it has that air about it. I imagine you would look rather better in a lighter pink, dear girl."
Sachiko was taken aback at this, but covered it up quickly. "Oh, you know. The shops, and glamorous parties... One also mustn't forget the fabulous Vampire hunting in the west country." She smiled again, her canines gleaming.
"No, one mustn't forget," Delyr replied. "Not that I wouldn't allow them to catch me once in a while. It’s always so amusing to see their faces as I drag off their head vampire-slayer before their very eyes."
Sachiko shifted ever so slightly in her seat, but managed a congenial smile. "Yes, I'm sure it must be very amusing. I've always found Vampires to have the loveliest senses of humor." She took a sip from her drink.
Meanwhile, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair had been carrying on a conversation with Lin, although she had yet to speak a word to him. "I do like clams in the summer," he said. "But you wouldn't be interested in that, I am sure."
Thanks! The next part should be up soon. Just to make it very clear, an idea or two and Lascelles, Drawlight, Sachiko, April, Lin, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, Sundry Moss, Mr. Norrell, Mr. Walton, and Jonathan Strange are all other people's characters. Lascelles, Drawlight, Mr. Strange, the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, Mr. Norrell, and Sir Walter Pole (mentioned by Drawlight) are Suzanna Clarke's, from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and Mr. Walton and Sundry Moss are Mr. Van Reid's characters, from his Moosepath League series. By no means would I ever wish to steal anyone's characters, and if I have forgotten anyone, PM me so I can fix it.
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