The Bear and Barnacle

Val goes into Jack's workshop, starts to say something, then gets a funny look on his face and goes back out again.

Five minutes later he's back, having extensively rehearsed this. His mental vocabulary is still larger than the bank of words he knows and can say aloud without unintelligible blurring, so this latest Margate warpedness is intolerable.

"You should be crying," he tells Jack.

Jack looks up from the tiny screw he's fiddling with, expecting that he's taken overlong to notice the latest prank -- stolen mail, laundry soap in the coffee, the usual tricks. "What have you done?"

"'m dying."

"That's not fun," Jack says, not terribly impressed by his melodrama.

( Read more... )



This needed to happen as dialogue, I'm afraid, so there you have it.

When he sees the paper that morning, Severus snarls wordlessly to himself, state of mind throwing itself back several years in an instant, and leaves a note for Q asking him to take care of the day's brewing (except for the copper cauldron, which he should just throw a stasis spell on). Twice is coincidence? Sod that. He's still not going to write the 'all afire to be on campaign' note that he's been dying to for weeks, or call in the cavalry, but it is time to do something else. Just because no one's been actually killed yet means... enough to matter, but not to reassure; it's early days of a very familiar pattern.

( Some of the spells, he'd learned from Moody, once they'd resolved their differences.* )

At four o'clock, utterly drained from so many nearly permanent spells, letting the small presence-concealers and deceptions melting away slowly as he's nearly too tired to banish them, he presses Holmes's doorbell. Here's hoping that Albus isn't off having tea in a shop somewhere and can remind him of protections he's missed, that Holmes isn't and can tell him where people who need more protection than he's been able to lay on today live. Not having said a word to anyone all day, when the door is opened, he's not quite too weary to be startled by what comes out of his mouth.

* This had involved a two-hour duel, evenings on end of grading and reading through the Albus And Alastor Knitting And Comedy hour, an ambush on an attempted ambush (wherein Alastor got petrified and his wand stolen and sent up to Albus but not hurt, which Moody found persuasive, although not convincing), and a really dreadful pun involving cocaine and hallucinatory alligators, which had gone on for nearly ten minutes before someone failed to keep an entirely straight face. The final blow had been when Moody, during his recovery period from Crouch's box, had been cajoled by one of Severus's all-time favorite pupils into flying a kite outside, and then taught her a few charms to stop other students stealing her books and shoes. Severus had sent him an obviously-hexed card which, when the hex was disabled, manifested a bottle of really good lubrication for Moody's false leg, and Moody had smacked him so hard upside the back of the head on the way to the Great Hall the next day that he'd thought it was Hagrid. And that was that.

In his warehouse the Joker watched the flame underneath the beaker, flickering blue, as the liquid above bubbled and rolled. He followed the progress of the liquid up, over, around…twisting through glass tubing.

“Now I’m set to have some fun…oh, the people, how they’ll run!” He paused, frowning. Hadn’t meant to rhyme there. Oh well, it was sort of amusing. He shrugged to himself and smiled. “A new batch of Joker Juice, almost ready! Just have to keep the temperature steady.” He twisted the knob, the blue flame flickering slightly as it reduced. As he started to move away, he stopped. Had he just rhymed again? Nah, couldn’t have. But maybe… “Let’s consider this a test, as I give it all my best.” He clapped a hand over his mouth and giggled. “I’m being forced to speak in rhyme! This damn town is at fault this time. I’m doing nothing on my own, oh, this is going to make me groan!”

He did groan then, before immediately following it with laughter and spinning in a circle. “I can’t seem to let this drop, the rhyming doesn’t want to stop!” Merrily, he returned to filling a vial with Joker Juice, before placing his best trick boutonniere into the buttonhole on his jacket. Turning off the flame, he hummed a tune as he tidied and headed out into the town.

This month your character will be speaking in rhyme. All the time. Any form of rhyme will do; limericks, sonnets, and couplets too, sensical or nonsensical, it's all up to you!

The characters will feel a compulsion to speak this way. Night and day. As usual, normal Margate residents will not notice anything odd, unless the rhyming gets particularly bizarre, then you can decide whether or not they give it a nod.

The challenge is part of the fun. Have a good one!

The tag is "rhyme." Er ... lime. *nods* *eats cod*