[Carnival: Damian, Louis, Misha] Who: Damian, Louis, Misha What: A show and then dinner & drinks Where: Carnival When: This weekendish Warnings/Rating: Probably all holiday cheer
Misha, he hadn't really let himself sink into performing for a good long time. It wasn't that he didn't love it much as he always had, but the outside world got itself in the way of him losing himself to his music a whole lot recently. The piano in the Capital had a thick coat of dust on its keys, and even his fiddle strings hadn't needed changing recently. But, and in light of recent troubles, he really did want to get himself out on that stage tonight. He longed some for the old thrill of the strings, for the magic he could easily pass off as the carnival's particular skill at trickery. Folks came here knowing the shows weren't going to be the same as in other places, and they didn't question any. Misha always assumed they walked out reckoning that real thin fishing wire was used for levitating, for example, and not that the performers were strange themselves. Course, that wasn't the case for everyone. In the crowd, you could always pick out the ones that believed. Wide-eyed wonderment, and they weren't looking up for strings any.
The tent was full to bursting.
It was a good thing he'd thought to get Louis and Damian tickets, even though Damian would've been able to bring the man backstage, but it was better to watch from the sloped wooden bleachers that rested on trample-down grass. The tent itself was striped red and white, huge and lit by bright-as-anything bulbs both in and out. The stage was wooden and raised, and, Misha, he'd gone mostly for musicals.
Seeing as it was Christmas, he began with something sung traditional and fiddled and quiet in a darkened tent, no lights and nothing but sound. And then came Nightmare Before Christmas, with the stage covered in snow and bright bulbs and tiny houses. He was dressed in white and blacks and looking like a skeleton, and wasn't that a good costume? The crowd talked, children sang and crowded forward, and jumping from house to house had to be done with strings. The Little Drummer Boy was good for set changing, and Misha had brung in some carnys with real pretty voices for the rendition, everyone wearing slate and something that looked like real, honest-to-goodness snow falling real pretty and light on stage and crowd. Course, there had to be some drying up 'fore Once Upon a December began, and the shades dancing 'round the boy in Russian garb sure looked like realistic haunts, but the murmuring in the crowd was that they were holograms, and of course they were. Santa Baby was real old school, with a horn playing unseen from backstage and Misha in glittery red tails on an old chaise that got itself dragged onto the stage by unseen elves. And the finale, it was real grared toward the children that were all standing near the foot of the stage. The Grinch, he was real green, and Whoville had topsy turvy little houses that came to mid-thigh, all covered in flaky snow. In the middle, a real bare tree sat looking all sad, and then tiny Whos all came out and circled that empty tree and sang. Course, the children sang too, encouraged to as they were, and Misha sang 'long real pretty and loud, and so the children could follow along easy.
And, course, that magical tree lit itself up as the children sang 'long with the tiny Whos, and the lights in the tent went down and down, not stopping 'til there was nothing but voices and warm Christmas glow.
The show, it ended with more snow falling, which was distracting 'nough for the Whos to vanish and the grinchy boy to leave and come on back in jeans, barefoot and wearing a white sweater, for a bow and a tiny more bit of Appalachian fiddle.