Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Gormenghast belongs to Mervyn Peake.
Author's note: Yes, I am going to have as many chapters as there are songs on the Phantom soundtrack. To clear a few things up, Nannie Slagg is playing Madame Giry even though Gertrude was who you met in the first chapter.
Erik- I'm obliged for the applause.
Leo-Resssa- You mean Kay's Phantom, or Leroux's?

2 Overture/Hannibal

Meg Slagg ran after her taller friend with a giggle on her lips and a healthy blush suffusing her fair cheeks. "Wait up! Fuchsia!"

"Can you see the clouds from here?" Fuchsia called back excitedly. "I can! I can!" She stared up at the grand rafters, tossing her tangle of inky curls back over her shoulder, looking around as though she could see clouds. Meg just smiled and shook her head; Fuchsia was always so strange. But then, as Nannie Slagg, Meg's mother, said, Fuchsia had always been a little out of her head ever since the death of her father. Apparently he had told her some storey about an Angel of Music visiting her and teaching her music; it sounded like one of the many, many storeys that might have shown up in his vast library. But once that library had burned down, the man had gone a little mad. It made Meg sad to think that Fuchsia still was bound to her steadfast belief in her father's old storeys; Sepulchrave had taken her child's imagination to the greatest heights, and Fuchsia was stuck there even now.

"Oh, I see the clouds, all right," Meg cried laughingly as they joined the rest of the ballerinas. Fuchsia stood en pointe and teetered on her legs restlessly, looking around at the ceiling as she often did. Within a few seconds the group was herded into the stage for their rehearsal of the Opera they'd be opening that night, Chalumeau's Hannibal. Of course the Opera was very popular, so they had to look forward to a full house. Why it was so well-liked, no one would ever know. Carlotta Guidicelli, the leading soprano, was years past her prime. No one thought very well of her, but who would tell her that? She'd just pack up all her "white glories"- her collection of white felines- and leave. No one could afford that. Of course, it wasn't as though the managers, Mesdames Clarice and Cora, would do anything about it. One would have thought that with two of them instead of one, they'd be twice as intelligent, but it seemed instead that they were blank as can be, stupid as a rock. They made amoebas look smart, as Meg used to tell everyone until, with a cry of "Wicked girl!", her mother would give her a smack to the ear. Not that it hurt- Nannie Slagg hadn't much strength in her arms, or in the rest of her. Even Meg knew that she was too old to be the ballet instructor.

Meg and Fuchsia arrived upon the scene just in time to hear Carlotta begin the scene with strident, obnoxious, ear-splitting notes trembling with vibrato, ringing through the Opera House. The ballerinas got into place and began to dance when the song came on. They were playing slave girls; each of them had chains they were to wear, which made for intricate dancing. Meg was a fairly good dancer, and could handle it, but Fuchsia…well, Fuchsia was a good dancer, too, for her part, but she just never put enough energy into anything she did- she was always half there. For that matter, Meg had always thought Fuchsia had a fairly lovely voice, but that there was no life or passion behind it. It was strange to Meg, because Fuchsia was an extremely emotional and passionate girl by nature- prone to displays of great emotion and fits that could rival Carlotta- but she always faltered in singing. Meg suspected regretfully that this had something to do with the storeys of her father's.

The ballerinas continued to dance when the music ended most abruptly, throwing several of the dancing girls off balance. Nannie Slagg could be heard gasping, "Ah! Me weak heart!" Meg and another girl collided, the other girl falling over. Meg helped her up and glanced at Fuchsia, who looked over at the conductor, Dr Prunesquallor, with puzzlement. But Dr Prunesquallor was not looking at the dancers.

"Ah! Mesdames!" he cried, waving his white hands as he greeted the two ladies in royal purple that made their way over towards him, followed by two figures, one large, and the other small.

"This," said the first lady in a monotone, and the second lady in an equally flat voice said immediately after, "This is the cast." They shuffled over towards the stage somewhat awkwardly, but very solemnly and seriously, their flat, identical faces displaying no emotion.

"So they're doing an opera, are they?" said the tall, grand, enormous figure, a woman in a great green dress with an overabundance of hair. Her tone was sharp, loud, and commanding.

"Yes," said the ladies in unison. "Chalumeau's Hannibal."

"Not," one continued, "that we know much about it."

"No," the other conceded, looking at her twin and nodding her small head once. "We are busy."

"We are in the salon." This last sentence was said by both, and after saying it, they both nodded simultaneously.

"But you're leaving the Opera House, Madame Clarice?" said the grand woman, frowning as she addressed the second woman.

"Madame Cora," the woman said with a twist of her lip that might have been a disapproving frown.

"Madame Cora," the other, who must have been Madame Clarice, agreed.

"Madame Cora," corrected the redheaded woman with not a little distaste. "You are leaving the Opera House? You have sold it to us, but why?"

The two ladies twitched slightly, their eyes drawn for no real reason to one of the boxes on the tier.

"Him," said Madame Clarice.

"Shh," said Madame Cora.

"Hmm…" The tall woman narrowed her already small eyes at the pair of them, and the much shorter figure, reaching only up to just above her knees- though partly because he was always hunched over, leaning on his crutches, because crippled in one leg- stomped his crutches on the ground and shouted, "Well, where are the management?" And with surprising agility for one of his age and condition, the bearded man made his way towards Dr Prunesquallor, who stood, wiping his hands off, then bowed in a silly manner to the shorter man.

"Oh, and how, may I ask, may I help you, that is to say, can I assist in any manner-" the doctor began before the short man, looking aflame in his red clothes, shouted at him, "Shut up, you great dolt!" The Doctor barely looked surprised; with him it was always seeming that his mind was elsewhere.

The woman walked over and joined them, her expression firm. The suspicious, intimidating look writ in her features hinted at the unyielding nature behind the outwardly simple appearance. "This is it, is it?" she said in an indifferent yet demanding tone, looking up at the dancers. Fuchsia stared back at her dark eyes, then shifted in her ballerina's costume and kicked her foot about aimlessly, casting her gaze to the floor with a sullen jerk of her head.

"If by "it", you are referring to our theatre, then this is, indeed, it," said the doctor in an amusing fashion. "Ha, ha, yes, this is the cast, and by the cast I mean the whole being, body, and spirit behind the opera, the marrow of its bone, the blood of its heart, ha, ha, the very soul-"

"I get it, man, cut to the point," the woman said in an impatient tone that allowed for no disobedience.

"Ho- hmm, well, yes, erm…yes." Dr Prunesquallor tapped his ear with the conductor's rod, rather nonchalant.

The woman stepped forward, so that she stood in front of him, and looked around at the various members of cast and crew on stage. "You, then," she said. "We now own this theatre. I am Madame Gertrude and this is Barquentine."

"Hmph," Barquentine muttered to himself.

Gertrude turned to Dr Prunesquallor. "You're the conductor. When does this opera open?"

"Tonight, I believe, is the gala," Dr Prunesquallor said, then fell silent. It appeared to be done with some difficulty. With Cora and Clarice his chatter had often been disapproved of; but Cora and Clarice were seldom around. They only attended performances because they felt that everyone wanted to see them. Imagine going to an opera to look at the two purple-clad, aging, emotionless, vain women- not that Dr Prunesquallor understood why anyone attended anyway. The ballet was very good, and the chorus was not terrible at all, but the leading soprano, Signora Carlotta Guidicelli, was very trying on the ear. He wouldn't be surprised if he was slightly deaf. It wouldn't be any good telling anyone, him being conductor and all, but yes, he was fairly certain of being a little harder of hearing than he had been before.

Gertrude "hmm"-ed again, but didn't say anything.

"Well, what are you standing around for?" the crippled Barquentine shouted, his voice reaching a level to rival Carlotta herself, forcing Dr Prunesquallor to wince. "Go back to rehearsing! What're we paying you for, man!"

He hobbled swiftly- though not smoothly- away from him and began to shout at the musicians, some staring at him in a confused manner, unaccustomed to being treated poorly, though most people seemed not to care about how they were treated, screaming and all.

"Aha, excuseh me, Madame," came the grating Italian voice from the stage, in a falsely deferential tone of voice. Gertrude looked up and, unfazed and ignoring the tone of voice Carlotta had taken, said, "Well, what is it?"

"Aha," Carlotta said again, stepping forward, touching her hair in a manner that would have looked innocent and youthful from any one of the ballerinas, but looked only ridiculous on the tall, full-figured singer. "I only wish to make myself known to you, I am La Carlotta," she said with what should have been a charming smile.

"So?"

La Carlotta took a step away from the look on Gertude's face. She was unaccustomed to being treated in such a manner as this. The Italian woman straightened her obnoxious feathered Elissa headdress and brought her form up to its full height to address these new managers.

"Pair-haps you would wish me to sing-eh the ah-ree-ah for Madame and Monsieur? To welcome you to the-ah Op-air-ah?"

Barquentine stomped forward, the sound of the crutches brutal on the ears. "Well?" he shouted in a moment after she had not made a move. Carlotta stared at him, then turned back to the dancers and screamed in Italian somewhat, getting them to rush away from her so she may have the entire stage, then turned to Dr Prunesquallor.

"Well, Maestro?"

"Ooh, yes, ha, ha, the aria," Dr Prunesquallor said in the giddy laughing tone of his. "'Think of Me', or perhaps not, perhaps-"

His voice died in his throat as Barquentine shouted, "The aria, you fool!"

"Oh, well, I…quite." Dr Prunesquallor blinked for a moment, then went over to the piano.

Unbeknownst to him, or to Fuchsia, who had been shoved aside by a dancer trying to get herself away from Carlotta and was now only finally managing to get up with Meg's help, or to the tall, stiff man with the shocking white in the rafters above…there was a figure above, watching them all.