And the final chunk -- which turns out to add up to the original estimate of 7500 words after all. Evidently I enjoyed the Persian much more than I did struggling with Mr Nameless murdering people :-p

Now I need to decide whether I'm going to submit this as one chapter, or two (3300 and 4100 respectively)-- I thought I had an extra two days, but in fact it's got to be edited and finalised by tonight!

Up ahead he could see some kind of pot-house, a momentary haven of warmth and cheap liquor for those who lived in this benighted quarter. He ducked inside, more out of instinct than with any coherent plan, and had to smother a cough at the thick reek of hot lamp-oil. But no heads turned at his entry; no eyes narrowed in suspicion at the mask that perforce hid his face.

The place was little more than a single low-roofed room, rough-hewn wood from the walls to the floor with a scatter of stools around the tables at the back. The lamps had burnt low and been left untrimmed and only a few fallen mugs gave any evidence that customers had been and gone. Somewhere close at hand, a clatter of pots bore witness to the existence of human habitation, but the sole occupant of the room was a single disconsolate figure sprawled across a table in the darkest corner, hooded and cloaked despite the heat as if awaiting some assignation too long delayed.

A trap. Danger shrieked from every instinct, wrought up to a fever-pitch alert. Yuri was brighter than he’d thought, had guessed his every move in advance— The strangler’s cord taut between his fingers, he sprang across the floor with the speed of a striking snake, twitched the hood aside and jerked the loop tight with a lethal snap.

Sticking this up here un-proofread and un-edited for consideration: this would be my putative first chapter, to be submitted on its own as the challenge entry. There are 3330 words here in about 19 pages of manuscript, which suggests that the full story could sneak under the line at about 7500 words in total; on the other hand, for reading purposes this makes a nice self-contained episode, it focuses in on the idea of the name Chrysostome, its drawbacks and how he manages to get rid of it, and lengthwise it feels like a comfortable read (it's a customary chapter length by my usual standards). I still have a suspicion that reading the whole thing in one gulp might feel a bit like hard work...

Edit: as expected, the whole thing was of course riddled with typos and creatively miscopied phrases :-p

What’s in a Name?

“He should not have been born, and having been born, should have had the good grace to die and spare the world from the spectacle of his existence. Nobody had ever made any secret of that.” Written for Writers Anonymous “What’s in a Name” challenge.

“Il me répondit qu’il n’avait ni nom, ni patrie, et qu’il avait pris le nom d’Érik par hasard” — Ch13, La Lyre d’Apollon

A/N: It was always my head-canon that Erik never reveals his real name, even to Christine, simply because it was actually Narcisse or Hyacinthe or something else terribly embarrassing! As for the name of Erik, of course, he acquired that ‘by chance’...

His own father referred to him, when he was forced to acknowledge the boy’s existence, as ‘the creature’ or ‘that thing’. From other adults in their neighbourhood he had overheard worse names, such as ‘monster’ or ‘unnatural spawn’; he had known since he was old enough to walk that by his very existence he was a stain on his family, and a target whenever he showed his face for casual stones “to drive the devil out”. He should not have been born, and having been born, should have had the good grace to die and spare the world from the spectacle of his existence. Nobody had ever made any secret of that.

His mother, buxom, devout and all too often smelling of wine —and this, too, he knew from what he had overheard, had been brought about by his birth— had bestowed upon him the fanciful name of Chrysostome in a fit of fervour, since his father had refused to name the deformed little creature at all. Old Mother Albine, who had been in attendance at the birth, had told him once, cackling, that the horror of his face and the sickly colour of his skin had been such that everyone had believed the infant already dead. He had been left to one side on a pile of soiled linens, with a cloth drawn across to hide him from his mother’s sight, while Albine and the other women worked to deliver the afterbirth. He had drawn his first breath without human assistance, and clung to life with a thin, outraged cry.

Having an all-female graveyard scene definitely changes the dynamic here (and forces Christine to take a more active part)...

Chapter 11 — “You Betrayed Me”

It was, as I’d suspected, not “La Reine de Navarre” but the Ghost’s self-proclaimed opera “Don Juan Triumphant” that was under rehearsal. It was strange and monstrously difficult to sing, Christine explained, and hazarded a hesitant opinion that it was “no doubt very clever”, from which I was able to draw my own conclusions.

Finally, I have my kitchen sink back! I celebrated by having a bath... forgetting that the bath sealant hadn't fully cured yet, having been done later. Ooops ;-p

Well, I'm not nearly so sploshy in my bathing as I am in my washing up...

The first chapter of "The Writing on the Wall" went down like what felt like the proverbial lead balloon, struggling to reach 30 page views in total and getting no reviews in 24 hours other than 'is this all or will there be more?' But now I've got a couple of reviews from Raoul-friendly people and am feeling happier about it :-) ( Read more... )

Ch2: Words in the Dark

At the end of a few minutes’ frenzied excavation, the candle set well back out of danger, Raoul had in his possession the rotted remains of what had once been a wooden sabot, several lumps of stone large enough to serve as a weapon or a hammer, and — the ultimate prize, clawed out at the farthest stretch of the chain from between two slabs too heavy for him to shift — a blunted and broken chisel-blade. It would not do for carving out caryatids or smoothing off the bannisters of a marble balustrade, but at this precise moment it meant hope, and perhaps life. Perhaps freedom for Christine. Beyond that prospect he dared not let himself think.

Summary post of all the surviving material on my long-pending "Double Agents de Chagny" WW2 AU story, prompted by betweensunandmoon:

(extracts from an email conversation - with text emoticons :-p)

17 Sep 2013
I am seriously tempted by Pika-la-cynique's throwaway suggestion of a Paris-based Second World War version "featuring the Double Agents de Chagny playing collaborateurs and hosting champagne parties for the Nazi top brass, while secretly in touch with the Phantom, explosives expert and leader of the underground sabotage movement, reluctant allies for La Cause..."

Well, 'tempted' isn't the word. The possibilities are there all right, but I simply don't know enough about the setting (and more importantly [eyes] its mythology: not what *really* happened, but the heroic tropes) to write it. I can't use a supply of gangster/pirate movie references, swashbuckler conventions, background stage experience, basic social mores or re-reading of the source material (because, being AU, there *isn't* any) to provide standard plot themes for Occupied France, and don't know enough about daily life under those conditions to sketch in the background. But tantalisingly, I know just enough to have vague ideas of the potential ("Scarlet Pimpernel" meets "Colditz")... and to realise that, given the possibly explosive effects of fiddling with a sore point in someone else's history, it would need an awful lot of research! ( first thoughts )

( initial suggestions for the story )

( Raoul's backstory )

( Christine and the Phantom in cabaret )

( Philippe's death )

7 Jan 2019
The other bit I remember that doesn't seem to be mentioned here anywhere is that (as hinted above) it was actually a shot-down English airman being smuggled in the bed of the lorry, they take him back to the flat for the night, he gets Christine's luxurious marital bedroom, and Christine and Raoul end up in Raoul's single bed in the dressing-room together :-p

And finally, four years and seventy-five thousand words later... Erik gets the last word. Well, it's canon!

Although I had quite a lot of trouble getting Dar to feel plausibly sympathetic towards him, given that he basically sabotaged everything the two of them had been working for in a fit of pique...

A pair of scenes here to mirror the pair at the beginning; I'd forgotten how amusing Carla is to write, with her overweening self-deception -- she takes care not to think in a straight line even about herself (and very rarely thinks about anybody else). But I did want to show that a lot of the faceless goons on the 'other side' would actually have been boys just like Rall, with people to grieve them. Revolution isn't all bright colours and heroism and Good versus Evil :-(

Chapter 22: The End of the Ghost’s Love Story

Carla trod down the street with a spring in her step, humming a little.

She’d cried buckets — positively howled — when she heard about Salj, of course she had. She wasn’t completely heartless, whatever some people might think, and they’d had a lot of fun together. The last thing she’d expected was to come into work one morning and learn that he’d died in some stupid botched-up attack on the Federation ships just outside her office.

He’d done his duty, defended his post to the last, and helped to beat off the dissidents; no doubt they’d make sure he got some kind of posthumous medal. But all it came down to in the end was that handsome, black-haired Salj, who’d known how to give a girl a good time, had been shot in the head by some angry lunatic with an antiquated energy gun and had his brains boiled out there on the landing field. She hadn’t been able to walk past that point for days.

I can't remember if I thought that telling this scene from the point of view of Gan-the-outsider was inherently a good idea, or if it was just Gan's turn to narrate a chapter, or what... At any rate the impact doesn't seem to have come out as inadequately as I remembered it in retrospect. Fortunately.

The B7 characters' contribution to the crossover plot is basically limited to providing a magic means of exit, but then they did supply the entire setting and political scenario in the first place, so their role isn't quite as uneven as it might seem. Still, it isn't a 'what if character X turned up in plot Y and totally changed everything' plot, more of a 'what if plot Y took place in an AU setting from series X'...

Chapter 20: And Cannot Come Again

The first thing Gan had known about the atmospheric breach had been the buzz of warning as the pressure doors in the shaft to the lowest level began to close while the two of them were still only halfway down. Blake, who’d been ahead of him, had let go instinctively and dropped down onto the floor plates below with a jolt. All that saved Gan himself from injury or worse had been lack of maintenance in the mechanism.