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Based on my activities of the last couple of days, my instinct is clearly to keep tweaking and re-shading chapter 2 to try to fit it into this one, rather than to edit what I've written here, so I may as well publish it as it stands... ( Problems with chapter 2 )
It occurs to me at the last minute that I'm not only going to need a story title, I'm also going to need a chapter title if I publish the first chapter before finishing the rest! However, thanks to the way fanfiction.net displays its navigation, any separate title for the first chapter doesn't really show up until a second and subsequent chapter exists to be differentiated from it, so I can more or less get away with leaving brainstorming for chapter titles until the story is complete, as usual. (Or even the decision on whether to have chapter titles or not; I didn't use them for the drabble-fic, after all.)
[2022: slight edit to first line to establish the first-person protagonist right from the start]
An Outsider and a Foreigner
Raoul was bound to recognise Christine when once he heard her sing. But things have changed... for both of them.
The Opera House was [as] full tonight [as I'd ever seen it, and as magnificent]. Light blazed back from the hanging lustres of the great chandelier and the glitter of tiaras and bracelets in the crowd below, and slid around the golden curves of statues and rounded white throats as girls leaned from their seats in the boxes, or waved up from beside duennas as they took their place in the stalls. Rich swags of plasterwork bedecked walls and pilasters, and gowns bore draped silks and flounces tumbling over ornate brocade. Uniforms were everywhere and decorations glistened on the breasts of dignitaries. Gold chains stretched across expansive waistcoats, and amid the heat of crowded bodies and of gaslight foreheads were surreptitiously mopped. Up on the stage, the heavy red velvet of the curtains remained firmly closed, but the orchestra continued to saw doggedly away at the overture, all but inaudible amid the buzz of conversation.
I suspected Raoul was one of the few people even likely to be listening. ( Read more... )