18-Aug-2001
Everything you are about to read is complete silliness! It's also wretchedly OT, except for one passing G-boy reference; but since it began as a thread on the GWML, I figured it'd be okay to air it again in its newly remastered state. All I've done was to separate the emails a bit so that it actually reads like a linear dialogue--it was originally a big pile of interwoven replies, though, so there may be inconsistencies &c that I didn't tidy away. (hyuy! Lemme know if there's anything you want me to change, okay?) There's also a completely bizarre 'intro' now, for which I am very sorry. >_<;;
Contains bawdy comments (which I suppose constitute references to shoujo-ai, eh?), gratuitous allusions, and extreme insanity. Read at your own risk!
Ever since the original manuscript was discovered by a chambermaid in 1927, BoH:TPoL has inspired controversy among scholars. Is this the masterpiece of an unsung gothic pioneer, or a hoax to rival the works of Ossian? Clearly anticipating the postmodern in its fragmented form and polyvocal complexity, BoH is a sensitive exploration of personal and national subjectivity, rivalling the epic romances of Radcliffe and Lewis in its scope and timbre.
Long considered a mainstay of the nineteenth-century survey course, BoH enjoyed considerable success as a stage production--and as a motion picture, it went on to inspire a legendary cult following. Who has not trooped to a late-night showing in costume as the brooding hyuy, the clearly deranged Lilias, or even the nubile (not to mention androgynous) Whimsy? But we will leave it to the reader to judge the true value of this timeless classic, presented here in only slightly adapted form.
Lilias: so--does this mean you'll be stalking me 24/7, hyuy? pleasepleaseplease?
hyuy: already outside your window, babe.. (look - my eyes GLOW!)
Lilias: Yay! I mean, 'ooh, I'm so scared. Whatever shall I do?' ::bats eyes in seductive terror::
hyuy: cool! seductive terror, huh? and is your already pale skin
blanching to alabaster? 'cause i can really get behind that kind of
action. ::wink, wink, nudge, nudge::
(flying circus and harlequin romances--good marriage, bad marriage?)
Lilias: Um, not exactly, but my ivory pallor _is_ marked by a dewy flush of suffocating fear! And don't forget the rise and fall of my tremulous bosom! >_< (Always reminds me of a treatise on Roman history...'rise and fall,' ::snerk::) Whatever is that sound outside my window? I _must_ go out alone into the darkness to see! 9_9
hyuy (waiting in the darkness): yes, you *must*! don't forget to wear a long, clingy nightgown, which you will subsequently trip over. and bring only a candle for light. i'm *sure* the storm brewing will not blow it out.
Lilias: Ahem. Well...if the candle _does_ go out, I'll have that storm-tossed moon for light! Let's see--wherever did I put my billowy negligee? It's what everyone's wearing this season to confront mysterious lurking hyuys! Now, me and my bag of chewy caramels are heading out to see what's what.... ::opens front door, which creaks ominously::
hyuy: ah, good! amd may i also assume you've headed out into the night to confront the mysterious hyuy without letting anyone know, or even leaving a note? i believe that's the way it's done.
Lilias: Woops! Heh heh heh--silly me, I was about to leave a map of my intended route. ::crumplecrumpletoss:: And I won't need this GPS device, either! ::hurlthunk:: Now, where was I?
hyuy: then, instead of staying on the well-marked path, stray off of it into the dark woods...
Lilias: Path? What path? I can't see a dern thing now that my candle's gone out! ::whoopscrash:: Sorry--just tripped over my nightie, right on schedule!
hyuy: oh, my gosh! i bet you've twisted an ankle (not sprained or strained - merely twisted.) stiil it makes it difficult for you to move quickly.
Lilias: Well, since I wasn't moving all that fast to start with, I guess I'm at a crawl by now..."she's gradually getting away!"
hyuy: yeah, that's right. even the running is graceful, fluid, and not particularly quick...all that's left is to tie you to the railroad tracks.
Lilias: Wait, are we in a western gothic all of a sudden? 0_o Um, shouldn't you be threatening me with forcible entombment in the nearest crypt, or maybe (oooh!) mistreatment at the hands (or claws) of a demon lover? (Clearly I've been reading too much Coleridge... "What ails sweet Christabel?")
hyuy (in my decreed pleasure dome): sorry! i was having a dudley-do-right flashback. okay, now's when you move towards the oddly-compelling sounds without a weapon of any kind, not even a pointy shoe. i'll be waiting. (ooo! chewy caramels! my favs!!)
Lilias: Oh, yeah, right. ::takes off pointy marabou-trimmed slippers::
hyuy: *very* sexy, but not the right thing for this evening. save them for when we explore a different genre.
Lilias: Will do. ::pops slippers back into the toybox:: Now, off into the woods I go! And I'll mark my path with these handy caramels, so I can find my way back! Surely nothing out _here_ will eat them up as fast as I drop them, right?
hyuy: right! surely even the mysterious and noisy hyuy will not eat them. . .mmuph? wha' 'di 'ou 'ay? ::mouth sticky with caramel:: curses! foiled by lilias's diabolically clever caramel plot!!
Lilias: Hah-HAH! Not so noisy now, are you? Well, except for the crinkling of the cellophane wrappers. But it's very sinister crinkling, really it is! And now that they're gone, how ever will I find my sweet, innocent way back out of the woods? 9_9
hyuy: you will *not* leave! ha-HA! my devious plot bursts forth in full bloom! you *will* be mine, or you will be forced to confront the ghost of the wife of the former owner of this crumbling tower on the edge of a cliff. she's haunting the dust-covered spiral staircase in an effort to prove she was his one only true pure love forevermore. she's veil-covered and moans a lot and spends a great deal of time in the secret dusty catacombs under the tower, which honeycomb the cliffside of this quaint english town.
Lilias: ::blink, blink::
I don't suppose I can be yours _and_ see the ghost, eh? Cause, you
know, I kinda like veiled moany chicks. Not as much as mysterious
hyuys, of course!
hyuy: bwa-ha-ha ha!! she has fallen under my spell!! anything else?
Lilias: Nope, that about covers it! ::packs up pajamas, screaming skull, dark mirror, toothbrush:: All set! Are we honeymooning in the tower, or by the sea?
hyuy: both, my dark love! the crumbling tower is *by* the sea. (on a cliff, even!) but, ware! my dear and departed wife was a vengeful woman, and my mono-browed housekeeper *swears* her ghost haunts me still!
Lilias: Oh, yes, of course. So here we are, in our castle by the sea (with blood-red rhododendrons lining the drive, yes? ones which would no doubt grow all wild and straggly should we have to abandon our house for some unknown reason, possibly involving your murderous past?). How will I ever find my way around this cavernous place, with all its dark, secret, dark secrets? (Can I have my slippers back? I'd feel safer if I had a pointy shoe!)
hyuy: ah! here is where the candlestick once more comes into play. you cannot explore the tower *with* me, because i glower menacingly when you try to go to the wing of the tower (yes - it's a tower with wings. if a maxi-pad can have them so can my tower. go with it) that were once the province of my sweet but now dead first wife.
Lilias: Mm-hm. The wings make perfect sense, sweetums. It's a big tower, after all--it needs the extra protection! Though it's not as if anyone's been there in years--dusty dust covers everything like fleecy blankets, and drat! there's another hyuuuuyge cobweb in my flaxen hair.
hyuy: but so fetching! the silver silk of the cobwebs blends in perfectly with the delicate gold silk of your flaxen silky hair of spun gold silk, making those hanging hair things that anime girls have in front of their ears (whoa! genre change! back away, back away)
Lilias: Perhaps I was an unhappy oujo-chan, forced to slave away as my nasty catgirl-cousin's companion until you swept me off? No, still not making sense. But these cobwebs _are_ pretty snazzy, I'll give you that!
hyuy: no gothic heroine *dares* leave home without them. some of the painted hussies actually use *false* cobwebs, my dear, but you are only true, genuine, real, pure and true in all things, cobwebs merely but one!
Lilias: Yep, they're genuine spider-products, as real as the burning blush that paints my still-virginal cheek whenever confronted with the slightest hint of impropriety!
hyuy: still-virginal cheek? but...but...we've been married for *months*!! if not you, my lesser love, then who -or dare i think *what*- has been in my bed and my arms, melting towards me with a pleasing feminine delicacy? ::note to self: really *must* get to the doctors::
Lilias: Virgin-esque, then. For it is I, and none other, who have been receiving your nightly snoodles. Unless there was someone on the other _side_ of you in our canopied bed with the thick hangings that block out all light, even the brightest sunlight of the sunniest day. It's not as if I'd know, necessarily--it's a big bed. It even has the most cunning little steps to help one climb in!
hyuy: "nightly", everyone. i just hope you caught that. NIGHTLY. anyway, snoodlekins, i breathe a masculine sigh of relief knowing that it is you and no other to whom i have been releasing my manly vigor. now: about that forbidden tower! you know better than to ask me to attend you, right?
therefore: on the night (stormy) when i have left you alone to complete my unnamed and mysterious tasks in town, take the candle and search the house to your heart's content, paying special attention to creaky door, curtains that seem to move by themselves, and horrible wailing noises. make sure to go where i specifically told you *not* to go, and don't tell anyone where you are going.
Lilias: Strange--this door seems to be stuck ::pulldelicatecursepull::, yet it's definitely where all the chain-rattling is coming from.... Maybe the skull-headed key I found in hyuy's secret drawer (in hyuy's secret closet, under the secret satin collection) will fit this lock? ::click-ka-chunk:: Success! Oh, but there went my candle....
hyuy: my sweet first (but dead) wife: she's got a thing about candles. ah, the memories! she used to spend a lot of time in the bathroom, candles everywhere. it was her private time. i think she was trying to get over her fear of candles, in a effort to please me. she certainly did a lot of moaning in there. maybe she's trying to reclaim her happier days. . .
Lilias: Well, I'm starting to have a fear of candles too, what with all the black and red pentagrammed ones around the place! Some of them have _eyes_...but I'm trying to be brave, plucky little soul that I am, so I don't even balk when they're what I have to use as a nightlight!
hyuy: those are not the candles of my sweet (but now dead) first wife! by chance, have you been in the secret chamber below my secret satin in the secret drawer? because that's my *private* place.
Lilias: But--but--these are the candles that...appeared...on my nightstand, deep in the midnighty dark of my first night here! You know I'd _never_ disobey one of your orders, sweet jackbooted dictatorial love of mine! ::furtive scrubscrubscrub:: How did this key get all bloody? It was shiny and golden until the moment I unlocked the forbidden door!
hyuy: dear lord! they just appeared you say? than you, my lovely young not-quite-as-good wife, must have what we call the 'shinning'!! darkness calls to you, must as it did to my pure kind (but now dead) first wife. tell me, late at night, when darkness surrounds all, do you see dead people?
-----now is the time to hurt hyuy. sorry!------
Lilias: ::baps hyuy upside the head--better? thought so!:: Um, I wouldn't say I _see_ them, exactly...but I see the draperies flutter when there is no wind, indeed I do, and then there is the matter of the mysterious candles, indeed there is. (Uh--I think I must have the 'ken-shinning!')
hyuy: well, call you wanderer! er, em, of my heart, that is, o flower of femininity that still does not quite match the full bloom of womanhood that was my sweet first (but now dead) wife! for truly, your missish vapors have me turning from you in a digust! fluttering curtains indeed! the truth is, you snore.
Lilias: Vapors, hah! Fancy name for corsets-so-damn-tight-I-can't -draw-breath, if you ask me. Hmm--I snore? I thought that was the moor beast! This will never do--it's all wrong for my fragile-flower image. Humph. Where _did_ I put those breathe-right strips?
hyuy: vapors, no air -it's same-same. the point is, my almost adequate wife, i cannot abide a woman who starts at the slightest sounds, trembles at a passing breeze, or shrieks in horror at the sight of claws retracting slowly. . .oops! forget i said that last one.
Lilias: Then I shall summon all my pluck (proof of my base lineage though it may be, since all the fashionable young things are swooning this season), and refuse to cringe. Lead on!
hyuy: oh, my second (and never first) love! it is precisely for your base, low-born blood that i have married you, for -although annoyingly honorable- the blood of my ancestors over the years has become -dare i say it?- somewhat dangerously inbred. i have only to think upon the paper cut that killed dear second-cousin nicky to realize how fortunate i was to have found you, my little creeping mushroom!!
Lilias: Well, that does explain the lack of noses...er, I mean, that does provide a reason for the particularly remarkable family likeness (as to profiles, in particular) that so distinguishes the grand portrait gallery!
hyuy: the men in our family are *renowned* for their foreshortened profiles! does it not say on the very coat of arms "If the nose be chewy'd, it must be Hyuy"?
Lilias: Most true, most true. And the heraldic crest (two foreshortened noses rampant, argent; on a field, gules; quartered with a flock of seagulls, sable) fits the motto superbly.
hyuy: ah, my frail and somewhat agreeable love! your clear (though squinty) eyes do have a true artistic vision. most gentlefolk unluck- ahem! i mean *privileged* to see the hyuy coat-of-arms remark first on the huge, clawed fist, superimposed over all.
Lilias: Yes, but it's in _such_ a fetching velvet glove! (Salt stains and all!)
hyuy: ah, yes, the illustrious hyuy clan! their very. . uh, essence leaves a mark that no tweeny, however well-trained, can remove. tis why the custom of hand-shaking fell out of favor with royalty.
(Lilias has just figured out this reference, or at least she thinks so. So sue her--she's all naive and stuff! And referring to herself in the 3rd person again, no less. Ahem. Anyway....)
(hyuy was beginning to wonder if she was being too obscure. salt stains. get it now? good. hyuy and lilias need never mention such undelicacies again)
[editor's note: there is a break in the manuscript here--or is it a bite-mark? In any case, continuity is ever-so-slightly disrupted.]
hyuy: but the ghost will not haunt you as much as the thought that i might still love her, and you are just a pale second in my heart.
Lilias: ::hands clasped:: Oh, however shall I make sure of my hyuy? I know! I'll take the housekeeper's advice and dress up like that ancestral portrait for the ball! ::nodsnods:: That'll do it! Joy, oh joy!
hyuy: just a hint: the housekeeper is *not* on your side. she is devoted, even after death, to her dear sweet (now deceased) previous mistress, to whom you are not even worthy to lick her shoes. she will try to thwart our new fragile love. i think seeing you in my dear sweet (but now dead) first wife's clothes might raise my ire, something which the housekeeper is counting on, if you get my drift.
Lilias: (I _thought_ we were performing _Rebecca_, but it had seemed to slew sideways into Dark Shadows for a moment or two there-- wasn't sure whether to frisk you for a gun, or check for fangs! Oh, yeah, maybe both....) But why did you faint when you saw me at the head of the stairs in this oh-so-fetching shepherdess outfit? The housekeeper assured me it would be perfect! There was that glint in her eye, but--
hyuy: damn that one-eyebrowed cleaning bitch! she *knows* my thoughts about. . .gulp! shepherdesses. so clearly does it bring back memories of the one crime i have committed, the jail time, the darkness of the night on the moor, and the lambs! the poor, pitiful bleating of the lambs!!
Lilias: ::menacing lectervoice:: have the lambs stopped screaming, hyuy-ice? And I thought you were just put off by the tightly-laced bodice! Silly me....
hyuy: no, my second-best pale-imitation love! i am only put off when *i* must wear the tight-laced corset. something which, oddly enough, my sweet pure (but now dead) first wife had me do quite often. hmmm. perhaps my memories have grown dim with the passage of time, but i also recall a riding crop, and the neighbor's sheepdog. ah, the merry prankster that was my first love, my (now dead) sweet first wife.
Lilias: Well, then, put off that corset, and be free! Free! To walk in the sunshine, and get dripped on by the dewy blossoms of the rhododendrons, and sing happy songs of (pale, secondary) wedded bliss upon the lawn! ::thinking myself unobserved:: That accursed first (now dead) wife! How many different kinds of perfect _was_ she? However will I find the confidence to get through one single day in her place, when her damnably confident monogram keeps staring at me from her stationery? ::sigh:: If I didn't always manage to get lost on the way, I'd go down the windy staircase to the vast kitchens for some cookie-dough ice cream about now.
hyuy: my almost estimable wife! knowing your penchant for falling down staircases *and* the genetic strain your family has for (ahem!). . .larger thighs, (i've seen your mother), do you really think a midnight assignation with ben and jerry is apropos? my slender yet well-formed beloved first (but now dead) wife never had such urges.
Lilias: 0_0 That wasn't very nice. _I_ don't mock your port-belly, after all! ::sniff:: And anyway, it's not like I weigh more than an underfed G-boy! Only 87 pounds, last I checked, and distributed over my willowy frame, it's a wonder I'm not carried off by the gusts of wind off the moor! ::abject sobbing:: I'll never be perfect enough! Never! Never! ::more sobbing::
hyuy: port-belly? it is muscle i tell you, muscle!! the men in my family have for generation upon generation into time immemorial carried their strength in their bellies. this pot is a badge of honor, proving my lineage, and not a trifle to be mocked! the mono-browed and mono-bosomed housekeeper was right! you care not a *whit* for the honor of the family name i have so generously bestowed upon you!
Lilias: Alas! How I fear your brooding rage, which is ever ready to burst into even more brooding flame! I must think of a way to atone. ::scampering to the harp, the better to play soothing airs of soothingness:: There. My angelic (though pale and secondary) song will ease your anger, and your gout!
hyuy: gout! this is not gout! this is a badge of honor ::cut to end of diatribe:: bestowed upon you! have you no shame, madam? i vow, you probably dampen your muslin undergarments!
Lilias: But I heard gout was ever so aristocratic--as prized a possession as the shiniest brass chamberpot, or brace of poachable pheasants! Can I have been misinformed? Curse that Austen wench! (And I'll thank you to leave my undergarments out of this!)
hyuy: ARRGH! jane is a social climber of the worst persuasion. if you have any sense or sensibility, you will flee from her company at all due speed. can you not spend time with the squire's daughter emily or with the quiet nuns at northanger abbey? i vow, your pride and predjudice against the quieter, more sober folk of the neighborhood will drive me to tears!!
Lilias: Well, you've certainly got me there. Though your allusions escape me, since no young woman of my virtue or intellectual integrity would be caught dead reading _novels_, of all things! No, no, only the purest classics were among the texts my tutor gave to me: Ovid's Ars amatoria, the poems of the never-enough-praised Sappho, and other pure and shining lights of the pure and shining ancient world....
hyuy: ah, sappho! i remember your tutor, do i not? did she not end her days in blackmoor asylum, after that unfortunate incident with her young charges, the neighborhood smithy, and the shearling lamb? hmm, i must see to your reading materials! do you know, i caught the (now fired) tweeny attempting to bring you a (gasp!) *newspaper* the other day? -don't swoon, my almost likely love, although i know the horror is great.
Lilias: Indeed; the horror, the horror! And alas, my poor high- strung governess...to the end, she insisted that she had seen the ghost of my brother's tutor, Jebediah Squint, watching her from the far side of the lily pond. His eyes were disturbing, she said, and full of lustful mischief. Of course, she was simply mad, poor thing--or was she?
hyuy: of course she was, poor lamb! the whole of the ton knows your father's home never boasted a lily pond. and jebediah had only one eye (thus the name) and that one rheumy, so tis doubtful lustful mischief was viable at all.
Lilias: Oh, I see you're toeing the party line on this one. No matter--'twill be easier for you if you do not think too much upon the _rest_ of Mr. Squint's... attributes. If only he had been a figment of her tortured mind! My poor, poor brother, alas, alas...
hyuy: i tell you wife, mr. squint was naught but the illusion of a deranged mind! mr squint indeed! or do you also belive her story of the lustful yeoman 'mr pokey' to be something other than a banbury tale?
Lilias: Would that I could dismiss it, my beetle-browed love, but the number of children in the village with (how shall I put this?) _tails_ tends to make one believe in Farmer Pokey's legendary prowess.
hyuy: my gaunt and nearly-loved wife, i believe you are somewhat naive. the vicar himself told me farmer pokey's. . ah, corn doesn't grow? the whole of the village knows of the vicar's visits to help comfort the poor wife. why, their prayer meetings would last nigh on til daybreak, and the sounds! truly she was a pious miss, speaking in tongues.
Lilias: Ah, but flaccid stems can be staked, my love! And I put no stock in rumours involving the pallid and clammy-fingered vicar, despite his great learning. I hear he was never able to discover, as they say, the 'key to all mythologies.'
hyuy: truly, my somewhat wanton of an also-ran wife, your knowledge of farming matters does you proud! you fling about the ribald metaphors as if to the manor born! i fear, however, that your comment of the clammy fingers of the vicar might have come from. . .accepting the host?
Lilias: Well, I have striven to get beyond my guttersnipe past, but it does occasionally creep into my ladylike speech--one's roots, you know, being as hard to escape as the vicar's rushing hands and roaming fingers. But I thought that's _why_ they put velvet cushions on the kneelers?
hyuy: in any case, the tailed children belong to the workers of the beaver pelt processing plant, do they not? perhaps the foreman is slipping something untowards into their lunchtime porter.
Lilias: Many of the children are employed there themselves, their little fingers being so well-suited to adjusting the beaver-bobbins. A lost digit here and there is a small price to pay for ever-faster beaver processing! So perhaps it IS something in the tankards, just being ingested more directly.
hyuy: [can't stop giggling at 'beaver bobbins'] ahem! please excuse me - i CAN'T HELP the following paragraph. my wild and unsatiated lesser wife, perhaps when remarking on the hyuy family claws, you may also have noticed i have but nine fingers, one being lost at sea to that damn whit--- but that's another story. as i said, i have only the nine fingers, and i am more than willing to. . .process the beaver ever-faster.
Lilias: As my sainted mamma (she of the ice-cream addiction, and resulting expansiveness) always said, it's not the number of fingers, but how fast they wiggle--and you, dear dark creature, wiggle with the best of 'em. I can only bless that evil sea-creature for marring you to the point that you renounced the open waves forever! Well I remember that awful day when I felt you call me from afar, in the midst of your great pain--"Jane! Jane! Er, I mean Lilias!" And then I knew--that I would always be palely, secondarily yours!
hyuy: but you may be too late: time and loneliness have made me cruel, cold. can new love warm my stony heart?
Lilias: (Erm, loneliness? This coming from one who's been frolicking in showers for the past two days? Oh, yeah, I'm out of character. Ahem!) If only someone could tame that wild, reckless hyuy-- every bit as wild and reckless as the moors that surround this crumbling tower!
hyuy: ah, but even the wildest moor can be tamed by the sweet breeze of summer, much as i am calmed by the feel of your loving breath against my cheek
Lilias: ::whuffle/slobber/pant/puff:: You mean like that? (Now where's my inhaler?)
hyuy: not really ::wiping spit from ear:: but good try, my second love, almost as special as my first sweet (but now dead) wife. ::chaste cheek kiss, furrowed brow, eyes on the horizon, all pensive-like::
Lilias: Drat. (note to self: try less drool) ::equally-pensive sigh, somewhat higher in pitch:: Will I ever get another chance? ::Eyes misting with sweet, innocent, rueful tears::
hyuy: you needed to make a note? when is more drool a *good* thing?
Lilias: I'd answer that, but I am pure and virginal still, and have no idea what situations might require drool.
hyuy: oops! sorry, sorry! ahem! ::gentle yet masterful thumb runs under your eye, wiping away rueful tear:: cry not, my almost-good- enough new love! when i return i will bring you a red, red rose, symbolizing the great passion we now share!
Lilias: Have a good time, my sweet! Watch out for snakes! Wherever will you find a red, red rose so late in the autumn? I'd better not ask...
hyuy::: i leap upon my gelding and ride! hell-bent across the darkened moor!::
Lilias: Alors! I must follow, no matter how dark and stormy the night!
hyuy: alors?
Lilias: kinda like "alas," only more French. Not like my pure (pale, secondary) self would be familiar with anything _French_! Anyway, I'll just saddle my brave little pony (he knows how to avoid the bottomless bogs) and set out (alone) after you! Whatever _is_ that howling in the distance?
hyuy: well, i'm *sure* it not the Moor Creature. that's just a story my sweet first (but now dead) wife used to tell the tweeny, when her boots weren't black enough. i'm *sure* her subsequent disappearance is completely unrelated.
Lilias: The _new_ tweeny actually told me the story, and how her thin shoulders shivered as she related how the groundskeeper found only one leg (in a striped sock, in a shabby boot) just outside the moor gate!
hyuy: the tweeny *spoke* to you?! impudent miss! she shall be dismissed *at once*, and without her letters! i cannot allow such familiarity between mistress and staff! ::there are stories they might tell. i *must* keep those stories for the discerning ear of my fairly competent second wife, or all is lost:: ::manly sob, massive port-drinking in the library::
Lilias: But poor Nicky-Jane did so enjoy carrying buckets of beetles down the back stairs! (I've been reading too much Byatt--sorry!) ::sob!:: the guilt! The guilt! The insatiable curiosity! Um, is your beard turning blue, or are you just happy to see me?
hyuy: ::cravat in the 'mathematical', Hessians gleaming in the firelight, brooding, brooding:: eh, sorry! ::brushes at face:: i had a little snuff incident this evening at the club. why are you still up? did i not forbid you the use of candles in the evening? (the canopy fire still gives me chills when i think about it!) return now to your room ere my ire rises. (beard is not the body part which is blue)
Lilias: Yes, yes, of course. I am off, shivering in my thin night-rail as I make my way up the winding stair. And now that I'm safely in my cold, cold room, I'll just sit here and stitch away at my embroidery, hoping not to get any red, red drops on my snow-white canvas...
hyuy: are you pregnant, my passable second best? my pure sweet (but now dead) first wife died a'childbed, you know. they said the babe was. . .unnatural.
Lilias: The poor (now fired) tweeny said it howled, howled--and the claws... I can only hope that the same is not true of the budding life--or is it just indigestion from all those salsa nachos?--that grows within me! Ouch! Whimsy, where's my thimble?
Whimsy: Here it is! *hands Lilias thimble* Thought I put this back with the rest of the embroidery stuff...sorry.
Lilias: Thanks ever so, dear.
Whimsy: Do I dare kiss it and make it better, knowing it may cost me my life at the hands of hyuy?
Lilias: Um, better not. Everyone else who has so much as looked at the Bride of Hyuy is now mouldering in the sub-basement--so run for it! Run! May I suggest the back stairs?
And take a flashlight!
hyuy: i told you, forget i mentioned the claws. i'm sure it's somewhat of an exaggeration, anyway. the men in my family are notorious for their long nails.
Lilias: I see. Well, that explains the--interesting--gloves in your family portraits. Almost...shredded...at the fingertips. Most intriguing.
hyuy: my oh-so-innocent-yet-more-daring-than-my-first-sweet-(but now dead)-wife: the gloves are not to hide the claws -which, by the way, you are NEVER to mention amongst the ton- no, no, those gloves are to hide the salt stains.
Lilias: The... salt... stains? Um, what the... (I'd better not ask.)
hyuy: i know, i know, you are too innocent! although methinks months of a shared marriage bed (highly canopied though it be) would have somewhat tarnished the shine of said innocence. (please, let it tarnish soon!) i weary of the constant sobbing, the clenched fists, and the muttered "england, o england"
Lilias: Well, it is hard to hold a tarnish with frequent buffing, you know. (Whoa, _that_ was OOC. Gomen, gomen.) Heh heh heh, anyway, I hope that my ever-so-slightly frigid purity (oh, the pain, the agony) will not drive you away, my hot-blooded insatiable machine of a love. For what should I do if you were to turn the rest of the way from me, dear distracted always-looking-past-my-shoulder bridegroom of mine!
hyuy: tis my duty, my annoyingly unmoving second wife, and an hyuy never shirks duty. we are, fact, the slaves to duty, which is why all the heirs have a christan name of frederick (sorry! couldn't help it) anyway: until you are breeding with the new hyuy heir planted deep in your not-as-estimable belly, i must needs plow your womb every night, no matter how rocky or barren the fields seem to be.
Lilias: Ah, something to look forward to! I look forward with great delight to the honor of attempting to survive childbirth in order to present you with the heir you so richly deserve! I found your family's ancestral birthing chair in the north tower, you know. The bloodstains I understand, of course, but the tooth-marks? They didn't seem...human...
hyuy: have you been traipsing about the tower again, with only the flickering light of the candle that keeps going out in the strange draught where there are no windows? because the clan of hyuy does not believe in such niceties as 'birthing chairs'! i think perhaps you have found the room where grand-papa used to entertain the myriads of lost governeses and their french maids, who so conveniently stopped at the tower most every friday evening.
Lilias: So _that's_ where the secret tunnel in the sea-caves leads! Very clever, your esteemed grandpapa, to smuggle perfumed Parisian flesh into his castle along with the casks of rum! The ladies do not seem to have enjoyed their stay, judging from the way they left their skulls all over the place. Um, not that I was snooping, or anything. Heh heh heh.
hyuy: strange, my little-thought-of love. grand-papa always used to cackle and say they were dying to come visit him! truly, an attractive rogue was he, the wooden leg and second man-limb regardless. (fah, wench! do not mention the sea-cave tunnel! who knows who may be a spy for the excise man!)
Lilias: Your point is well taken, m'lord--I would not want to return to the pinched circumstances in which you found me, so I will do my utmost to protect the (illicit, illegal, ill-advised) plotting by which you support us all! Besides, you're so cute in that pirate outfit.
hyuy: thank you for the compliment, my charming (but not first- choice) ex-cyprian wife! surely a diamond of the first (well, second) water as yourself can have no peer when it comes to praising fashion. truly, though: do not the silk breeches and tri-corner clash horribly with the quizzing glass?
Lilias: As long as they are all that cunning shade of orchid, I think even the peerage will not quibble. It goes so well with your lemon-yellow breeches! The eyepatch, though, ought to go somewhere near the _eye_ (here, _this_ is the codpiece, my looming love- muffin!).
hyuy: but anyway, my always-trailing wife, how can i be sure the babe is *mine*? who was the rakish knave i saw you with, in the dark of the night at the top of the back stair, passing you a small silver object? your lover, o faithless wench?
Lilias: Meep! Oh, no! Of course my one almost-indiscretion would not have escaped your notice! But it was only one of the local gentry, the daughter of the guy who owns the castle next door--see? Only Whimsy. And she is innocent as the day is long, in spite of her fangs. (They're very nice fangs, by the way, if never so enticing as the least little hair on my hyuy's head.)
hyuy: no wench was that rogue!! what kind of village woman would be seen in breeches, breeches that molded so tightly to the contours of a truly fine a... ahem! i mean, no true gently-bred wouman would be seen in such an outfit. he is a knave and your lover, and you play me false!!
Lilias: Well, Whimsy is a toned young person, and those may well have been spandex breeches, but she needs them for riding! You know how dangerous long skirts can be while a-horseback-- the poor (now fired) tweeny said that your grand-mamma...but no more of that; I can see the anger rise in your flashing eye!
hyuy: never, NEVER speak of my dear, departed grandmama again. even your almost pure and sweet mouth soils her very name! and especially not in the same foul breath as used to lie for your demonic lover!
Lilias: Indeed, of course. Your esteemed (and more than a little reptilian) grand-mamma shall remain locked safely in blessed memory, at least until she is able to saw through its bars with her (more than slightly lizardy) claws.
hyuy: for a wench who is not to speak of my grand-mama, you certainly have many words to say! i have always suspicioned that you might be a bluestocking, and this but confirms it! go now to your room, and bring me your hidden copy of "The Vindication of the Rights of Women", so that i may burn it! i will not have such pap turning the mind of my wife, second-best though she be!
Lilias: Sirrah! No precieuse am I! I have learned just enough to convince me I know nothing, and am therefore content to darn your socks and make your dulcet preserves instead of bothering with troublesome things like thought. If you persist in these attacks, I'll have to--to put large stones in my pockets (as did that Wollstonecraft personage, on at least one occasion) and throw myself into the moat! But perhaps your soon-to-be-heir will end my misery instead, as did her wee Mary....
hyuy: such fustian! you are a bluestocking original, and don't you deny it! the preserves, no matter how dulcet, cannot hide the fact that you know the name and manner of death of that vile authoress! GASP! is it too late? are those. . . BLOOMERS i see in your sturdy armoire?
Lilias: 'Twas only one of the stories my dear Aunt Burke (wife to Edmund) told us o'Halloweens, with a shudder in her voice--no more. And those aren't bloomers, of course, but maternity underdrawers, which I've been sewing against the day when I blossom with the budding fruit of the house of hyuy!
hyuy: [actual true info- gothic gals did not wear underwear] ah, edmund! i remember him well! often were the nights he invited my beloved (but now dead) feral first wife and me to dinner for his speciality, long pig! ah! every time there's a fire in the tennant village, i remember those evenings with nostalgia!
Lilias: F-feral? That would explain the fang-marks in your bedstead, oh my brave gallant of a hyuy--how you must have quailed before her voracious demands! Um, so, what were they, exactly? ::whips out notepad::
hyuy: actually, the *teeth* marks are mine. (never say 'fang' my dear- so very cit, don't you think?) often, my incomprehensible yet much-beloved first (but now dead) wife with needs that were. . .unnatural, yet somehow satisfying. not to be crude my love, but i have been jollied *and *rogered* (tis why i took to the sea in the first place!)
Lilias: Indeed. Perhaps that is the reason behind those salty exclamations--"Land, ho!" "Arrrrgh, matey!" "Polly want a--!"--that pepper our night-time (never daylight!) excursions? Well, stand by to be run up the yardarm, just as soon as I finish puzzling my way through this intriguing Moby-something novel! (I need to work on my rope-terms, you see--and wherever shall I obtain a tattooed savage? One seems to be essential to such adventures...) Ah, how shall I ever cheer hyuy's blue, blue...heart?
hyuy: nope. not the heart, either. think lower, my not-so-innocent almost valued bride!
Lilias: Um, your shoes? I didn't step on them, I promise!
hyuy: higher, my somewhat-enticing wife!
Lilias: But your silky silky socks are of the purest white--can't be your ankles, so--? Nope. I'm stumped. Aha! Knees!
hyuy: higher still, my somewhat lackwit wife.
Lilias: Oh... that. Is it always... indigo? Or does it shade to violet?
hyuy: that is not a question any well-bred woman would ask in mixed company!! certainly my practically-perfect (though now dead) first wife had no interest in such things!
Lilias: Well, I knew bellybuttons were a trifle ludicrous, as body parts go, but I had no idea you were so sensitive! Before you rise, I shall be sure to put little ruffled petticoats on the ::whispering:: _limbs_ of the grand piano in the salon! Anything to protect your delicate sensibilities, of course.
hyuy: my love, my love, my almost love: truly,i do dispair. i have been ripping off those vile coverings day after day, in hopes that you might begin to emulate said behavior! oh, i do so enjoy the view of a well-turned ankle!
Lilias: So _that's_ why you've attached mirrors to your shoes--trying to see under my shift again, are you? You need only ask, my brooding ruined monastery of a hyuy, and you can see all the way to my even more well-turned knee!
hyuy: beetle-browed though we be, never let it be said that an hyuy lacks enterprisial spirit! i am surprised, though, never-my-first wife: i would have thought you would have made mention of the electrical apparatus, the andirons, and the neighbor's mastiff by now.
Lilias: Indeed, my spry-witted ingenious engineer of a beloved--I began to suspect something was afoot when the workmen came to install the mirrored floors and the intermittent-updraft generators. Not that I complained, of course--though they were a robust lot, with a bawdy wit that brought a painful blush to my (pale, secondary) petal- like cheek.
hyuy: i was never happier the day the installation was complete! i sit in my wing back chair, stroking the cat with my long graceful (but only 9) fingers, brooding upon the troubles of the day, awash with port and brandy *imported* from france, and i look at the floor as the (newly hired) tweenies and chars roam by on their varied duties --many of which involve this very room by a charming coincidence-- and i thank god for a world that deems a center seam licentious.
Lilias: I have marked your hawk-like, piercing eye in its circuits of the room, and so I employed yet more buxom, occasionally drawer-less young things to polish that floor to a crystalline perfection. Anything to bring a smile to your craggy (not-quite-noseless) face!
hyuy: ::sharpening the dueling swords::
Lilias (too blue, but true blue [be doo be doo]): Are they blue, too?
hyuy: i am off to visit old bess by the moor - she must have. . herbs i can give you
Lilias: Make sure to get plenty of hemlock! I'm fresh out of hemlock. And mandrake, but only if she was sure to gather it at the dark of the moon. (It screams, so they say, when you pull it from the earth...) Oh, but wait--I shouldn't bother you with such women's nonsense. Just ask her for my usual order, and have one of the grooms bring it by the kitchens.
hyuy: are these herbs for another of your vile tisanes? i vow, the very skin of my throat tries to retreat from the taste! are you *sure* they will increase my manly vigor?
Lilias: Well, that's what the recipe claims--but the tincture has done wonders for those incipient--are they scales?--so at least there's that.
hyuy: :: beginning to doubt the prowess::
Lilias: Never, never, oh my bludgeon of a hyuy! (cerulean? cobalt? what _does_ one call that shade?)
hyuy: first nightly, then machine of love, then bludgeon. sigh. you'd think the wench would be more animated. scales, my replacement love? these are but emblems of how many times i've loved. or, so said the mistress of the House of Rod. is it possible she lied? ::looking for a potent salve::
Lilias: I'd say they could be both at once, O mighty (if scaly) one. Here, the doctor sent this mercury poultice--it's supposed to help with the lesions. Of course, it _does_ eventually drive you mad, but it's a small price to pay! (And I can be animated, I _can_! See, I'll put on this fuku, and grow out these locks in front of my ears, and learn a transformation sequence, and...that wasn't what you meant? ::dejected:: Oh.) Anyway...so this pot of salvia probably isn't quite right, either--? (Missed it by _that much_!)
hyuy (deleted the anime reference out of respect for the genre): ah, but the oozing, my practically dear one! that is what has me worried! you know- there is no mention of this type of afflictionin all the annals of hyuy history. are you *sure* this whimsey person has not been cuckolding me?
Lilias: (Hee--hyuy said annals. ^_^) There, there, these yarbs will take care of the oozing. Pay no attention to the pentagram I've chalked on the store-room floor--it was necessary for the recipe! And no, no, my sweet, my dark honeybear--I would never cuckold you in your own house, in your own bed, at half-past three last Tuesday. Those horns on your forehead are no doing of mine!
hyuy: my fey and unnatural second-place wife, sometimes i really must look askance at you. cuckold me if you must (though the CURSE of the hyuys falls upon you!) but never tell me you have entered the conjugal bed in the full light of day! even grand-papa himself would not dare! truly, it goes against the very teachings of our lord! (beetle-browed, no nose, ruined monastery- why did you marry me?)
'and there's champagne fine
for communion wine
and the parson drinks it too.
with a sly wink prays
"forgive these men,
for they know not what they do"'
Lilias: Ah, but did our lord not enjoin us to come together even under the noonday sun to delight in his creation? So, well, I do! (It's not my fault you're home so seldom, what with all the mustache- twirling and rum-smuggling--er, I mean _import/exporting_ with which you fill your daylight hours--and most of the nights!)
hyuy: as you well know, i enjoy as much as anyone else a liberal and personal interpretation of the scriptures, yet i doubt even the clammy-fingered (yet vigorous) vicar would consider a yeoman, bawdy robust workmen, the poor hairless cat, and yet another to-be-fired tweeny, all at once and in the sanctity of *our* marriage bed, to be 'delighting' in his creation. [and now i know why *i* married *you* :)]
Lilias: Well, of course I couldn't encompass all the wonders of the world in a single afternoon! (And the cat was a mere observer, really!) 'Twill take time, and patience, and a mattress with better springs. And perhaps yoga lessons, to improve my (pale, secondary) flexibility. But I shall persevere, being a devout and tireless worshipper.
...and here the manuscript breaks off; in fact, the page (which was found in the bottom of a rotting armoire in the securely-locked west wing of Castle Darcy) seems to have been torn across the centre. Almost as if the end were too horrible to tell....
::cue scary organ music::
The End
(:./lilias/vintage2)
