Martha Jones (notrosesshadow) wrote in marinanova, @ 2014-03-17 21:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | martha jones |
Day 263 Open Voice
[Martha’s voice is low and mysterious as she begins to recite a poem. Those familiar with any bit of western culture will recognize the chorus lines. Those familiar with Shakespeare will know it as the Witches’ spell from MacBeth]
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d
Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin’d.
Harpier cries:--`tis time! `tis time!
Round about the caldron go
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’the charmed pot!
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind worm’s skin,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
[Throughout this verse, her voice gets faster and higher as the spell begins to reach it’s power.]
Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gal of goat and slips of yew
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse;
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron;
For the ingredients of our caldron
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
[Her voice completely changes as she recites the part of Hecate. It’s triumphant and slightly insane.]
O well done! I commend your pains;
And everyone shall share i’ the gains;
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
[She cackles and then everything goes silent for a few beats.Then a “Shhhhhhhh.” The next words are barely a whisper.]
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
[Back to normal Martha voice.]
Good day everyone! This is the Voice of a Nightengale. Today we’ll travel to the past.
[Her voice changes to that of a narrator]
Continuing where we left off, Martha had just joined the Doctor for her one trip in the TARDIS.
The TARDIS landed with a bump. Martha looked expectantly at the door. Out there was a completely different world. Or time. Or both! She didn’t know. The Doctor opened the door and she stepped out into history.
The first time you ever end up in the past, the brain sort of panics. What about my clothes? Am I walking right? Talking right? Do I look right? For Martha, will I be carted off to some ancient place as a slave? And all the while another part of the brain continues to scream, “Holy shit holy shit holyshitholyshitholyshit!!!!!” over and over and over again.
It was the past, and there were people herding chickens through the street. People wearing clothes that you see in old paintings. People dumping chamber pots out onto the street. It smelled. It was filthy. Martha couldn’t imagine being in a more exciting place. And then the Doctor led her around a corner and there it was…
The Globe Theatre.
Shakespearian productions are almost always brilliant, but you’ve never actually seen one until you’ve seen an original. Mr. Smith and Miss Jones stood with the rest of the groundlings as they watched Loves Labour’s Lost. A fantastic show and at the end, the man himself came out onstage. Oh, he likely wasn’t supposed to, but Martha wasn’t about to travel all the way back to Shakespearian London and not get to set eyes on the Bard. She started up the cry of “Author! Author!” and out he came with a laugh and a message to all, “Ah, shut your big fat mouths.”
A bit of a shock for our heroes, but they always say, never meet your heroes. And what a hero he was. Young, handsome, a full head of hair. No ruffled collar as of yet. The next words out of his mouth were a bit more exciting. He told the audience of a sequel to come for Love Labour’s Lost; next was Love Labour’s Won. To be performed on the morrow.
Love Labour’s Won. Shakespeare’s great lost play. There is of course mention of it. Any Shakespearean Scholar can tell you that it was something he was planning to write, but no one knows where it is or what happened to it. So, instead of heading straight back to London in 2008, Smith and Jones decided to stay the night. And what better place to stay than the inn where Shakespeare himself happened to be.
The Doctor, always one to be in the middle of whatever is happening, pushed his way into Shakespeare’s room with Martha following. And as you can imagine, the bard was less than pleased. He would have shoved them both out had he not caught sight of Miss Jones. He seemed to have a change of heart. Invited her to sit next to him even as his muse, his new favorite blackamoor. [Martha chuckles slightly as she says it.] When Martha took offence, he rattled off a number of other names: Ethiop, Queen of Afric, all rather flattering if she had actually lived in his time, but not so much in 2008. The Doctor came to her rescue, naming her Martha Jones of Freedonia.
Before much more could be said, a new person entered the scene. A old, portly gentleman by the name of Lynly. The Master of Revels.
“Every new script must be registered at my office and examined by me before it can be performed,” he demanded.
“Tomorrow morning, first thing, I'll send it round,” Shakespeare replied
“I don't work to your schedule, you work to mine. The script, now!”
“I can't.”
“Then tomorrow's performance is cancelled,” Lynley decided. “I'm returning to my office for a banning order. If it's the last thing I do, Love's Labours Won will never be played.”
Well it seemed the mystery was solved then and there. Love’s Labours Won never happened because the Master of Revels denied it. Martha was disappointed. She had been enjoying her adventure in the past. For it to end so suddenly meant she’d have to go back. No more time to flirt with the Doctor. No more extraordinary adventures.
And then a woman screamed out in the courtyard.
Martha, the Doctor, and Shakespeare all ran out only to find Lynly on the ground, dying. Martha rushed forward to administer CPR, but before she could do anything, water came spurting from the man’s mouth. “What?”
“This man has died from a sudden imbalance of the humors,” the Doctor told Dolly the barmaid. “Call the constable and have him taken away. He lowered his voice so only Martha can here. “Can’t have them thinking it’s witchcraft.”
And so they stayed the night, hoping to learn more. As luck would have it, Dolly had a spare room for them directly across the landing from Shakespeare’s. Before turning in, the Bard leaned out.
“Poor Lynley. So many strange events. Not least of all, this land of Freedonia where a woman can be a doctor?”
“Where a woman can do what she likes!”
“And you, Sir Doctor. How can a man so young have eyes so old?”
Always ready with a quip, the Doctor of course had an answer: “I do a lot of reading.”
“A trite reply. Yeah, that's what I'd do. And you?” He turned back to Martha. “You look at him like you're surprised he exists. He's as much of a puzzle to you as he is to me.”
Thinking it best to excuse herself before giving anything away, Martha said goodnight.
There was only one bed and Martha was rather flattered when the Doctor told her to sleep in the bed with him. And perhaps excited. That was, until he started talking about the previous woman to travel with him. The one who always knew what to do. Who wasn’t a novice. She couldn’t read him. Frustrated, Martha went to sleep on the tiny, awful bed.
As was quickly becoming a recurring motive, a scream rent the night and wrested Martha from sleep. She and the Doctor ran across the landing to Shakespeare’s room and there, out the window, a witch! Big as you like! Flying on a broomstick! And poor Dolly lying dead on the floor. Shakespeare was connected to all of it. After all, he’d written about witches… or would write. He had no idea when Martha questioned him. But the architect of the Globe talked of witches all the time apparently. And so they went on a trip to the theatre.
Now before we go on, I want you to picture the Globe Theatre if you can. If you remember what it looks like. The rich sit in boxes, the poor stand on the ground. And most interesting, it has fourteen sides. A tetradecagon. Odd shape for a theatre. According to Shakespeare, the architect built it that way because he said the sound carried best that way. Perhaps. They didn’t have any amplification technology. But there was more to it than that. Theatres are magic. The right words and suddenly you’re transported into the story. You forget about your life. Like the police box. Small wooden box with all that power inside. That was the Globe. The answer was staring them right in the face, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on it. They had to talk to Peter Streete. Only there was just one problem. He lost his mind after building the theatre and ended up in Bethlehem Mental Asylum - more commonly known as Bedlem.
The thing you need to know about Shakespeare is that he’s a flirt. It didn’t matter that our heroes were on their way to an old Sanitorium or that he had a wife in the country. Shakespeare took any opportunity he had to flirt. And when the Doctor called him out on it, Shakespeare turned his attentions to the other man as well. It made for a very interesting 24 hours.
But everyone made it to Bedlem without incident. If you think you know what Bethlehem Institution looked like, I promise you you have no idea. Imagine a dank, dark dungeon. Everyone was in a jail cell and their keeper… he was a large brutish man. The inmates were whipped for entertainment. It was a very unhappy place. And somewhere was the man who would have answers for us.
Peter Streete was an old man. And mad as a hatter. We wouldn’t get anything from him. Not without help. And luckily, the Doctor was there to help. He went into Peter’s mind, asked him to share the story with us. The Witches did it. They told him how to build the theatre. And then they snapped his wits so none would believe him. It was hard to believe him, until a witch showed up in his cell! She stopped his heart with a touch of a forefinger and advanced on us.
“Who will be the first to die?” she cackled.
“Well if no one else volunteers,” the Doctor stepped in. And just when we thought all hope was lost, he looked at her and baldly said, “Creature, I name you Carrionite.”
The witch disappeared with a scream and we all looked around, stunned. “Carrionites,” the Doctor explained, “use words as science just as you use numbers.”
“To do what?” Shakespeare asked.
“To end the world…”
Back at the inn, the Doctor continued explaining who they were. Ancient creatures from the Rexel planetary configuration, the Carrionites disappeared long ago. They’d come up with the perfect plan to come back. Words of power spoken in the tetradecagon. They planned to use Shakespeare’s play. So there was only one thing to do, stop the play and learn more.
Shakespeare went to stop his play while the Doctor and I went to All Hallow’s Eve street. It turns out, even if you think you know the future because you live there, a change in the past can make you fade. We had to stop the Carrionites or Earth as most of us know it would not exist. The house was easy to find. The youngest was waiting for us. I tried to name her, but it turns out that power works only once. She named me instead and everything went black.
[Martha coughs as though a bit embarrassed. She doesn’t realize she’s switched into first person.]
When I came to, the Doctor was on the floor, gasping. She’d stopped one of his hearts. It was easy enough to start. And once started, we were off and running again to get to the Globe. The Globe over which a red cloud was forming. The play… the play was still going and Shakespeare looked as though he’d been hit over the head.
Creatures began pouring out of the cloud. The audience tried to run, but the doors shut on them. There was nothing for it. We had to stop the carnage. And the only way was for the Bard himself to craft words of power. He stood up in the middle of the stage… and it was a sight to behold.
“Close up this din of hateful, dire decay, decomposition of your witches' plot.
You thieve my brains, consider me your toy. My doting Doctor tells me I am not!
Foul Carrionite spectres, cease your show! Between the points Seven six one three nine oh!
Banished like a tinker's cuss, I say to thee…”
There was a pause. He looked to the Doctor who in turn looked at me. I didn’t know what o say. I blurted the first thing out of my mouth. Expelliarmus “You bags of pus!” [Changing a small detail to avoid canon puncturing Draco…]
When Shakespeare said it… oh it was beautiful. All those creatures were sucked back into the sky in a whirling vortex, and with them all the pages of Love Labour’s Won. The sky closed with one loud thunderclap and then there was silence.
The audience looked on, confused, awed, and then someone started clapping.
…
Shakespeare’s lost play was truly. After the theatre emptied out, the Doctor went to look for the remnants of the Carrionites. While he searched, Shakespeare pulled me close.
“The Doctor might never kiss you. Why not entertain a man who will?”
If only he knew about dental hygiene. I’m ashamed to say, I turned him down. The Doctor came back and announced it was time to take me back to Freedonia right around then, but Shakespeare knew better. The man’s a genius. Somehow he figured out The Doctor’s from a different world and I’m from the future. Bloody brilliant.
“Well then Martha,” he said, “let me say goodbye with a new verse. A sonnet to my Dark Lady. “In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name.” [OOC: Changed from the show because the sonnet quoted in the show is NOT a Dark Lady sonnet.]
But of course, the story can’t end just like that. Just as we were about to go, who should turn up but Queen Elizabeth the I! Seriously! She was right there! She wanted to see the play again, but she took one look at the Doctor and set her guards after us. “Stop that pernicious Doctor!” she cried as we took off running.
[There’s a moment of silence at the end before Martha takes a breath and comes back on.]
I’m not much of a singer, so we’ll end this week with a recitation. It seems appropriate to end with Sonnet 127, a sonnet Shakespeare wrote to his Dark Lady…
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name.
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame.
For since each hand hath put on nature’s pow'r,
Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bow'r,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem.
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
Nightengale out.
[OOC: Any and all network frustration is free to happen both regarding this broadcast and any of the comments.]