simplestgift | Fifteen Bells: [ACTION/WRITTEN]

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Fifteen Bells: [ACTION/WRITTEN]

[Archie woke up yesterday. How is this new? Well, after getting some fairly critical stab wounds from Grell, he was put on a ventilator and kept under sedation for a few days. The ventilator was exchanged for a less impressive-looking concentrator yesterday and he was taken off sedation. He spent yesterday sleeping anyway, since anesthesia doesn't generally leave you bright-eyed immediately afterward.

This morning, he is talking and eating Jell-o, which is a new experience. The most important bit comes written on the journal network in wobbly handwriting courtesy of the heart monitor clipped on his finger.]

I have been informed that I may have visitors. I'd like to know everyone is all right.

Kennedy

[Anyone who comes in will find him looking predictably weak and pale but lucid and in good spirits, or possibly catnapping after a dose of painkillers.

OOC: Purely for the sake of mercy, Archie is unaffected by the event.]

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Der Erlkönig [she repeats with long-suffering fondness.] It's this creepy song my father used to sing to me when he was trying to scare me, about a- tree spirit, or an elf, I suppose. [She hums a few notes under her breath almost without thinking.]

Edited 2011-06-26 04:52 (UTC)

Sing it!

[Nervous laughter, and a bit of blushing.] I only know the one verse.

Doesn't matter! You were regaled with my terrible poetry-recitations, now it's your chance to make a fool of yourself.

I suppose that's only fair.

[Oh dear. She's silent for a moment, trying to see if she can remember any more, but sure enough, only the second to last verse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Erlk%C3%B6nig#Text) is clear in her mind. She swallows, and then starts singing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH3ILg9ogO8) in perfect German. If Archie has an ear for such things, he might be able to tell that she's had some voice training, and her voice itself is sweet and keening, but with her stage fright and lack of any recent practice, her technique is only so-so.]

[By the end of it she's blushing so hard even her forehead is bright red.]

[Ingrid, sweetie? When musicians are rare in your line of work and you're used to a bunch of dudes belting sea shanties off-key, it doesn't matter how "so-so" your technique is.]

That was wonderful! What did it mean?

Ah- [She tugs on her ponytail again, but she does look up to meet Archie's eyes, still smiling with embarrassment.] Well, that verse is where the Erlkönig is trying to take the boy from his father by force. The boy cries out for his father one last time, but in the next verse he's dead.

It's... quite a strange old song.

...Who is the Erl...[He stumbles around the German vowel and botches the pronunciation of the G.] Erlkönig?

He's the Erl King, [she says, deciding to be merciful and giving him the English translation.] The, uh, Alder King. He's an elf, or a spook, I guess, who tries to steal children away. My father always told me the Erlkönig would get me if I was bad, but I never believed him. [Slight whisper:] Except I sort of did.

Oh. Your father was a bit like my nurse, then, when I was a boy. She believed in fairies with all her heart. I never quite decided if I believed her, not till now.

The funny thing is, I could tell he didn't really believe it himself. But it was my father, so I couldn't quite not believe it.

[She kind of wants to ask on which side of believing fairies you landed on, considering where you both are, but she won't.]

Of course not.

[Ingrid pushes a checker around the board, and then realizes how long they've been talking.]

Are you hungry? It must have been a while since you've eaten...

Not very hungry, no. I had something I was told is food, earlier.

Questionably food?

It wobbled.

Wobbly food? [She giggles until it hits her.] You mean Jello?

It was like a jelly, but it wasn't a jelly.

[Ingrid nods.] That's a pretty fair definition of jello.

Is that all they're letting you have?

I'm not hungry.

Does... it hurt?

[She doesn't even know what happened beyond that you were 'attacked.' That could mean anything.]

No.

[He might be lying.]

[She suspects you might be, but doesn't call you on it.] I've heard there are people with healing magic here. Did they do that with you?

I...think I'd rather they not, actually.

I can't blame you. It all sounds very... [Calling it 'New Age' won't mean anything to you.] suspect.

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HOLY CRAP THAT RECORDING IS FAST

is it? the piano line IS supposed to be fast, but the voice sounded normal to me

Oh yes, it's supposed to be fast, but I've never known a pianist who will take it THAT fast.

i've only heard the one version \took one semester of music civ back in college XD

Dad's a piano professor and I have a music degree. Pianists hate this song. XD

i bet they do!

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