milliways_bar | (no subject)

Music was one way to get the girl's attention, and, hey, frog.

So, eightish-year-old Native American girl peering over the edge of the table, "How's it do that?"

Gil fishes the cotton out of his ears and looks back at the girl.

"I'm sorry," he says, apologetically and with a bit of a smile, "I'm afraid I didn't hear you."

She poked the frog gently, "How's he do that? Frogs I know only croak."

The frog turns his little froggy eyes to her and launches into "Poor Fool He Makes Me Laugh."

Gil says, "It's what he does. He's not quite a normal frog. I don't entirely understand it."

Trying to think about his conversation with Del makes his head spin, really.

"I'm Gilbert Blythe, of Avonlea, Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1882."

She just blinked at both the song and the introduction, "I'm Estsanatlehi. And a bunch of other names, and I'm from the Turquoise Place. I like your frog. Does he have a name too?"

"His name is Shady Slim Something I can't remember. I've been calling him Oscar, really. And it's lovely to meet you, Estsanatlehi."

The frog bows and begins to dance in a froggy sort of way.

She laughed then, shaking her head and straightening. She was somewhat above eye-level to the table, but only somewhat, "It's nice to meet you too. And OscarShadySlim the singing frog."

The frog, with another bow, segues into "Memory."

"Have you been coming to Milliways long?"

"Since yesterday. I have family here." She paused then, "Or something close enough."

She tilted her head, "And you?"

"Several months, I think. I was stuck here for a while, when I first arrived, and when I went back, it was still the day I left. My best friend comes here sometimes, but I haven't any family here. It's an interesting sort of place, isn't it?"

The frog has hit the bridge of "Memory" and is singing his little froggy heart out.

She nodded, "It's a good place for friends."

She applauded the frog, because, really, what else could you do after a performance like that?

"It's a very good place for friends," says Gil. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd been stuck here without her."

The frog bows very low, gives Estsanatlehi what is unmistakably a grin, and begins to sing "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina."

She grinned, finally hoisting herself into a seat, "Do you like corncakes? I invented those. Especially the ones with honey."

Gil blinks.

"I don't know that I've ever had a corncake," he says, honestly, "with or without honey. But if you invented them, I shall have to make it a point to try them."

The frog abrupts abandons Evita and begins a surprisingly soulful rendition of "I Don't Know How to Love Him."

She gasped in something that may or may not have been Genuine Shock™ "You haven't"

She shook her head then, setting a plate on the table, it was stacked with corncakes, all of them very nearly liberally doused with honey, "We'd better take care of the deficiency." she said around a mouthful of one herself.

Gil blinks in a bit of surprise, then smiles and takes one of the corncakes.

"It's very good," he says after a moment. "I think it would go very well with tea. Would you like a cup?"

The frog goes right on singing.

Talking around a mouthful of corncake was something that she had years and years of practice doing, "Corncakes go good with everything. But tea sounds good."

Gil flags down a passing waitrat and asks for tea, which he pours and sets in front of her when it arrives.

"Tea goes well with almost everything, too, so clearly corncakes and tea is a perfect combination."

The frog launches into a medley from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor(TM) Dreamcoat.

She laughed once more, bright and amused, sipping at the tea, "Don't suppose it ever shuts up does it?"

Not that she didn't like the music of course, music was her favorite thing, besides cookies, but it was a bit distracting.

"Well," says Gil, "sometimes he sleeps. Other than that, he's usually singing."

It's driving Gil crazy, actually.

"Hm." She said, and then, curious, she stretched out a hand to cover the frog's eyes gently, just to see if he thought it was dark, and time to sleep, he'd stop singing.

For a moment, the frog simply sings "Close Every Door" all the more loudly and sincerely, and then he begins to snore.

Gil is impressed.

"I'm going to have to remember that trick."

She smiled, "You could always put him in a box. With a lid? It's like birds when there's a blanket on their cage."

She shrugged, munching another corncake, "Didn't know it would work with frogs too."

"Well, he's not exactly a normal frog," says Gil. "But I'll find a box for him. It would be nice to be able to do my schoolwork without having to put cotton in my ears."

She laughed softly, nodding, "I think it would. Then you could use him for winning bets too."

She wasn't sure what kind, or she would have said, but c'mon, singing frog in a box, how could that not win bets?

Mark's on his way to the bar to get another pot of coffee when he stops dead in his tracks and gapes. ".... Is that frog singing Music of the Night?" It might be noted that he's in too much shock to film. "That's one hell of a frog."

"I've honestly no idea what he's singing," Gil confesses. "I haven't recognized most of it."

The frog turns to the new-comer, and with a bit of a bow, segues into "Think of Me."

Mark just stares at it. "It's, er, well, a musical play from my time. Srange. I never thought I'd see a frog singing Phantom of the Opera." He pauses, then smiles at the man. "Er, sorry. I should introduce myself. I'm Mark Cohen."

"I never thought I would see a frog singing anything, really," says Gil, and that smile is wry.

"Gilbert Blythe, of Avonlea, Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1882. It's nice to meet you, Mr. Cohen."

The frog, quirks his head at Mark, and abruptly changes to "Jesus Christ Superstar."

"Oh, well, if you want to get specific, I'm from New York in 1999. And please, call me Mark. Mr. Cohen sounds like my father. Or someone who wants me to pay them something." He's grinning, but facepalms at the frog. "Where'd you get that frog?"

The frog looks a little insulted, and begins to sing a little more loudly. Also, he's starting to dance.

"From a young woman named Del," says Gil. "She was a most, er, interesting individual."

"That almost make sense in this place." Mark facepalms. "Del is, well, the personification of delerium, or insanity. So, she can create all kinds of insane things, like singing frogs. Or, I have no clue what else." He eyes the frog. "I think I insulted it somehow."

"So she mentioned. But if I try to think about any of that too much, I get headaches. And I don't think Oscar is insane. He just sings."

And sings. And sings. And sings.

The frog launches into "Macavity: The Mystery Cat."

There really does not seem to be any end to his repetiore.

"There's a lot of things about this place that you just kinda have to ignore." Mark shrugs. "I try not to think about it either. It's just all strange." He eyes the frog, then just shrugs. "So, er, strange frogs aside, what do you do when you're not sitting around the end of the universe?"

The frog is rather earnestly explaining that "Macavity's not there."

Gil grins. "At home, I'm a school teacher, at least until I can save up enough money to go get by B.A. And ultimately, I'd like to be a doctor. What do you do?"

Mark is mentally asking himself why, of all the things a frog could sing, does it have to be Andrew Lloyd Webber. Oh, well.

"Well, er. I make films. But, um, I think that's a bit beyond your time. Moving pictures, you might call them. It's like, um. Dagerrotypes projected with light on a wall. And the pictures move. It's really cool. Or I think so. I'm probably a bit biased."

The short answer to Mark's mental question is that Gil's mun is quite, quite evil.

The frog gives him a look, wraps up with Cats for the moment, and begins "Any Dream Will Do."

"Some one has explained them to me," says Gil, "so I get the basic idea. And you make them? About what?"

Gil's mun must be quite evil. Granted, Mark's mun would probably do something similar with a side of Les Miserables and Rent.

Mark, on the other hand, is trying rather hard to ignore the frog. Even though that song has always been a secret favourite of his. Whoops.

"Well, in general, I make documentaries, which are films about real things. Like non-fiction books, if you're speaking literarily. My last film was about a year in the life of my friends. My friends are, well, a bit eccentric at times."

Well, Gil's mun is a librarian. They have hidden subversive streaks.

"I think everyone's friends are a bit eccentric at times," says Gil. His best friend is Anne Shirley, after all. "One of my friends wrote a series of sketches and stories about out hometown. We're a fairly eccentric bunch, too."

The frog looks at Mark, and is very clearly singing this latest song directly at him.

Mark blinks at the frog. Bloody perceptive frog.

He then smiles at Gil. "Makes life interesting, doesn't it? I mean, having ones friends keeping things interesting is always fun." He grins a bit.

"Yes," says Gil. "It really does. I don't know what I'd do with her -- them."

The frog finishes up with Joseph, bows, and, after a moment's deliberation, starts in on "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again."

Mark cracks a smile. "Don't know what I'd do without my friends, either. We kick each others butts when we need to. Well, not that we listen to each other sometimes, but we still try."

He eyes the frog. Back to Phantom? Well... that's interesting. Especially after Joseph.

The frog is out Brightmaning Brightman right about now.

Also, he does not like having his song set questioned.

"I think the trying is what matters. If the message is important, it gets through eventually, I think."

Oh, far be it from Mark to question the songs of the Frog. It's still disconcerting, though.

"Very true. It just takes some people longer to understand things, sometimes." He smiles a bit ruefully. "I'm rather guilty of that more often than not."

Songs of the Frog, Slim Shady aka Ocsar thinks, would make an excellent title for a CD.

He switches terribly abruptly back to Joseph, and does a Vegas-worthy Elvis as he sings about Pharoah's Dreams.

"The people who care about you will keep telling you till you understand, I suspect," says Gil, with a small smile. "No matter how long it takes."

He's usually been the one doing the explaining. It's been worth it.

Mark is about to say something, but he has to boggle at the frog for a moment, and just facepalm.

"Yeah. My roommate and I do that to each other quite a lot. Sometimes we almost have to metaphorically beat it into each other's brains, but really, at the end of the day, we care about each other."