A/N: Sorry for the wait. Our school's drama club just got done with the fall performance, so there's been a good deal of things cast aside during the cays following up to the performances. Anyhow, here it is.
DISCLAIMER: All characters as well as the play they come from rightly belong to Gilbert and Sullivan. I do not profit financially from writing fanfiction.
It had been an extremely awkward trip to the town hall, with Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush walking at the head of the party unreasonably quickly, with their noses in the air and not saying a word; and Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo dragging slowly at the back, sometimes exchanging uneasy whispers. Ko-Ko, who walked between the four of them, was attempting to relieve the overall tension with small talk and terrible jokes.
When they reached the town hall, the Lord High Executioner told his colleagues to go ahead and start things without him, as he needed a moment to "think things over", whatever that meant. He then instructed the sisters to remain in one of the smaller rooms, where they wouldn't cause any trouble. Truth be told, though, given how frosty the air was between them and the two haughty lords, he would rather that they were kept apart for the time being.
Once the girls were alone, they immediately started arguing.
"Has he got rats in the roof? I'm not marrying either one of them!" declared Pitti-Sing.
"I wouldn't judge them so harshly if I were you," Peep-Bo countered. "It's not as though you're first in line when it comes to marriage material, yourself."
"Oh, go at me all you want," her sister sniffed, "but it's exactly those sort of remarks that stop you getting a husband either!"
"Well, in spite of how undesirable we both may be, it appears that we are to be engaged, and on very short notice," Peep-Bo said curtly. "And even if we can't choose who our fiancés are, perhaps we can decide between ourselves who marries whom."
"You're quite right," Pitti-Sing agreed. "The least Ko-Ko can do is let us decide which one each one gets."
The elder sister tapped her chin in thought. "Hmm…well, considering the familiarity the two of us have with each gentleman…that would mean that I would be Pish-Tush's bride, and you'd be Pooh-Bah's."
Pitti-Sing's jaw dropped. "W-what? Eh?! Me?! Him?!"
"Well, you two are about as familiar with each other as I am with Pish-Tush," Peep-Bo replied, calmly fanning herself.
"But…but…Pooh-Bah is a tremendous swell! That arrogant old twit could never fall in love with me!" her sister protested. "No, no, I'm far better off with Pish-Tush; he's nice and introverted, doesn't cause a stir."
"Indeed—the exact opposite of you."
"But, sister dear, surely you know that opposites attract!" Pitti-Sing cried with vehemence.
"Only with magnets and in shoddy theatrical performances," Peep-Bo said back, with all the vehemence of somebody who was fast asleep.
Meanwhile, across the hall, the two supposed husbands-to-be were in a similar predicament. Pooh-Bah was pacing up and down from one end of the room to the other, and Pish-Tush was kneeling on the tatami—straw mat, tapping his fingers with frustration on its surface and occasionally shaking his head discontentedly.
"It makes no sense to me whatever," said Pooh-Bah, still pacing. "No sense whatever!"
"Oh, surely there's some reason why Ko-Ko insisted on bringing his wards with us today," said Pish-Tush, pulling up a strand of tatami-straw with his fingers, for Pish-Tush was the sort of person who, whenever he was under pressure, needed something to do with his hands to keep from becoming overwhelmed.
Both men knew that they really ought to have been focusing on more substantial (or at least more urgent) matters, but neither of them could restrain himself from pondering upon the subject of the unwanted presence of Ko-Ko's wards which seemed to be chewing away at their ability to focus on anything else.
"Imagine! Bringing those young persons to the town hall in the company of three noble lords! I don't care if the third one is their guardian!" fumed Lord High Everything Else. "Why, you'd have thought that he was trying to strike up an acquaintanceship between us and them! A relationship, even!"
Pish-Tush suddenly sprang up from the mat and violently grabbed his colleague by the wrist. His face went pale with the horror of a realization. "Oh my heavens, you don't think…"
Pooh-Bah gave a distraught sort of nod. "As unbelievable and awkward a scenario as it is, I'm afraid that's exactly what's going on here."
"We marry them? Unthinkable. Why, those girls are too young for us!" Pish-Tush exclaimed. "We shall have to take Ko-Ko in hand for this, I say."
"Oh, absolutely! He shall just have to find two other poor devils to engage his wards to," Pooh-Bah replied.
"Right, then it's settled," said the herald. "As soon as we leave here today, we shall speak to Ko-Ko about this matter."
"Indeed we shall!" Pooh-Bah agreed.
But neither moved. Instead, there was a silence.
Finally, Pish-Tush said, "Pooh-Bah…"
"Mm?"
"Suppose…we did have to marry those two…which girl would you choose?"
"Oh, no contest at all," Pooh-Bah replied. "I'd take Pitti-Sing, the younger one."
Pish-Tush gave a start. "Eh? Why her?"
"Well, I'm far more familiar with her than I am with…with…" he paused, struggling to remember Peep-Bo's name. At last he gave up and said, "With the other girl."
Pish-Tush raised his eyebrows. "But I thought that the link between you and Pitti-Sing was strictly platonic?"
"Look here, now, it's not a question of whom I'd rather marry; it's a question of whom I'd rather not marry. And I'd much rather not marry Pitti-Sing's older sister. While I don't remember her name, I do remember that she's an incredibly snarky little thing, and I certainly couldn't endure something like that!"
"And you think that I could? That impudent little Peep-Bo could never show respect for me!" Pish-Tush was on the verge of shouting now.
"Well, let's face it; you can endure more than I can," said Pooh-Bah with a shrug. "We all know how much of Ko-Ko's antics you've put up with, not to mention those of his Solicitor. And what about how wonderfully you handle the Lord Mayor grating on your nerves on a day-to-day basis? And let's not forget about how soundly you broke up that terrible argument between the Paymaster General and the Lord High Auditor!"
Pish-Tush scoffed. "You mean how I shut you up when you were shouting at yourself?"
"We aren't going to discuss it any further," Pooh-Bah said firmly. "I hereby declare, as Private Secretary, that if, indeed, we are to be married to Ko-Ko's wards, I shall take Pitti-Sing for my bride, and you shall take her sister for yours! And I second it as Archbishop of Titipu, and I third it as well, as the Registrar!"
"Alright, now listen here, you lot," Pish-Tush growled through clenched teeth. "There is no need to discuss this at all, because we have already decided once and for all that neither of us will have to take either of them for our brides, and so there is no point in bickering over who gets whom! We shall, however, bicker it out with Ko-Ko later on. After all, he's the cause of all this."
Pooh-Bah gave a nod. "Right, then. Let's get straight to work, shall we?"
And so they did, with each nobleman turning over in his head how they were going to approach the Lord High Executioner about the matter at hand.
Unknown to both quarreling parties, Ko-Ko was in another room entirely, once again soliloquizing about his problems. This constant soliloquizing was a sort of means of impromptu therapy for him; he found that it was much easier to get his thoughts in order when he spoke them out loud rather than keeping them inside his mind.
"Well, now you've really rowed yourself up the crick this time, haven't you, old boy?" Ko-Ko scolded himself. "How is it that a clever fellow like you" (he might as well say this) "continually lands himself into these awful jams?" Not able to come up with an answer to this question, he shook his head with a sigh and kept talking. "I wanted the lords to marry the wards, but now that I've got my scheme into the open, neither party will speak to the other, and at this moment, are probably both planning on confronting me about the singularly rash decision I've made! Oh, what's to be done? What is to be done?" He gave a long sigh and, out of habit, adjusted his spectacles.
After a silence, Ko-Ko approached the door. "Well, in any case, I suppose I ought to put it aside for now and go help my colleagues." And with that, he opened the Japanese-style sliding door, stepped out into the corridor, pulled the door closed behind him, and went to find Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush. He found them in the conference room, where Pish-Tush was busy writing letters (read: practicing his calligraphy) and Pooh-Bah (currently acting as Privy Purse) was trying to balance the budget, which he had extremely precariously perched upon the thin ends of two chopsticks. Unfortunately for him, the budget kept slipping off, and he kept having to pick it up and start all over. Neither of them looked up to acknowledge Ko-Ko coming in, as they were still rather upset with him.
After a bit of an awkward protracted silence, Ko-Ko asked: "So, what was it that you gentlemen said you needed me for?"
"Ah, yes," said Pooh-Bah. "As you know, it is almost time for Titipu's execution deadline, which means, of course, if somebody isn't executed very soon, His Majesty the Mikado will become very upset and we'll be back in the same mess we were in about a year ago."
Ko-Ko scoffed a bit. "Is that all? You two dragged me all the way down here early in the morning to inform me of this?"
"Well, it seems unkind to say so, but beheading people is not something that either Pish-Tush or myself were prepared to discuss outside a private residence," Pooh-Bah sniffed with an indignant frown.
"Forgive me, gentlemen," said Ko-Ko, "but there's no need to make such a fuss! Why, all we need to do is make affidavit that I've executed somebody! His Majesty will never be able to tell the difference. He didn't last time."
Both Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush began snickering as they remembered last time.
"And what are you two chuckling about?" Ko-Ko wanted to know.
"Well," said Pooh-Bah, suppressing his undignified laughter, "that's perfectly fine, but before you make the affidavit you must make sure and double-sure that whomever the poor unfortunate is that you are going to pronounce dead by execution doesn't have any heretofore unseen connections with the royal family."
Ko-Ko rolled his eyes. "Oh alright, laugh at me, you big arrogant swell, but you didn't know that Nanki-Poo was really the Heir Apparent either. It was just as much your fault as it was mine, you and your 'artistic verisimilitude'." He said the last two words with an upper-class accent mocking Pooh-Bah's.
"Well, never mind that. Now who can we say that you executed?"
"He'll have to be already dead," said Ko-Ko. "Let's see…who's died recently?"
"How about old Hiroari no Ho-Hum?" Pish-Tush piped up.
"Him?" said Ko-Ko. "When did he die?"
"A few days ago, actually," Pish-Tush replied. "He was killed on the same day he was robbed, as a matter of fact."
Ko-Ko shook his head. "Oh, dear. I certainly hope they didn't get much."
"No, no," Pish-Tush said to Ko-Ko, "I don't think you quite understand. He was robbed. They stole him."
Pooh-Bah raised an eyebrow. "They stole him?"
The herald nodded. "Right off his front porch. Then they killed him."
"That's terrible!" Ko-Ko remarked.
"Indeed, yes," Pish-Tush said gravely. "It's a horrid thing when an old man can't even sit on his front porch for fear of being stolen."
"Then, it's settled," Ko-Ko said decidedly. "Old Ho-Hum it is."
"Well, now that that's out of the way," said Pooh-Bah to Ko-Ko solemnly, "There's something else that Pish-Tush and I would like to discuss with you, Ko-Ko."
Ko-Ko's eyes darted about nervously. Here it comes, he thought. But aloud he said, "Indeed?"
"Yes," replied Pish-Tush. "Have a seat, won't you?"
Accordingly, the Lord High Executioner knelt down on a tatami mat, as did the other two, and Pooh-Bah said, "It's about those two young persons whom you brought with us today."
"Y-yes, what about them?" asked Ko-Ko.
"Why they're here," said Pish-Tush through his teeth.
"Yes, Ko-Ko, why," reiterated Pooh-Bah.
A cold perspiration bespangled Ko-Ko's brow. He adjusted his spectacles again. "Ah. Yes. Well. Well, that is…w-we all need…acquaintances, don't we? You know…in case of…-well, you're both unmarried, and everything…" He began fiddling with his hands in his nervousness. "And so are the girls, and…ehm, I thought that perhaps…that you pair would—even though you most likely wouldn't—I suppose if the girls were willing as well…that you'd, um…take them for your wives," he said at last.
"Ha! I told you so," said the herald to Lord High Everything Else.
So they did know, said Ko-Ko to himself. "Well, what's the matter with it?"
"My dear fellow, we can't be married," said Pooh-Bah. "We are both far too officious to be married to young persons."
"Well, you certainly can't go running round single forever, and neither can they," Ko-Ko flung back. "And if you are to be married, then why should you go through the weary process of making yourselves familiar with other ladies when you can marry the ones you're already familiar with? Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing, for instance."
"He raises a fair argument," said Pish-Tush to Pooh-Bah.
"Whose side are you on, you snake?" he snapped.
"As the herald, I insist on being a neutral party," the other informed him.
"Besides, who else is going to perform your household duties, with both of you so busy and officious?" Ko-Ko chimed in.
"Well, I suppose he's right, at any rate," said Pooh-Bah to Pish-Tush. "Pragmatically speaking, dear Pish-Tush, your estate is a colossal mess."
"Takes one to know one, doesn't it?" he quipped.
Pooh-Bah ignored him. "Right, Ko-Ko, you've convinced us; I expect we have no other options."
"Ah, good," said Ko-Ko, genuinely relieved, for the whole thing had gone quite a bit quicker than he'd anticipated. "I'll go and fetch them, shall I?" and he left straightaway before his colleagues could change their minds.
As soon as he was gone, the two remaining daimyo accosted one another furiously, demanding to know what exactly they had just agreed to.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please review!