"Times are Rough, They're just Getting Rougher..."

Five Things Don John will Never Admit he does for Hero, for Zara.

1) He lets her do his mending because it makes her happy. It's taken her a long time to learn something besides pretty embroidery, but when she mastered it she wanted to use it, and still does, wants to be useful to him. It was the reason she learned something useful to begin with.

So he gives her his stockings and torn clothing, with the same dark and expressionless face he does everything else, and she smiles with joy every time.

(If it were not for her, he would mend his own clothes. He knows how. He lets her do it because of the way she smiles.)

2) When they are alone, he holds her hand. She knows that he is undemonstrative, and knows that he will show little, if any, visible and outward affection for her. But when it's just the two of them, sometimes he takes her hand in his, without even looking at her. It's almost like a special gift, and makes her happy as if he'd given her a kingdom he does not and never will possess.

3) He walks with her. Her cousin never understands this; Beatrice condemns them as a loveless match; but although he cannot understand it, Hero is satisfied just to be by his side.

Sometimes instead of riding he spends the morning wandering through the fields with Hero beside him. He doesn't know why or where they're going, but because she is so content and firm in it, they always find a destination and a way back.

4) When, as happens to all men, his hair and beard grow out, she cuts it. Like the mending, it makes her feel useful in performing a service for him, but while he might trust another with his clothes, there is more trust in letting her close to his throat, his mouth, his neck.

Although she is not allowed to know it, he has never let anyone, not his mother or any woman, and certainly no man, cut his hair. It was always his own task.

She, ignorant of this, does it fondly, with great ease, thinking that he is unafraid to let anyone touch him, thinking this so familiar that he can hardly notice, and he is glad of it.

5) Sometimes, only sometimes, he calls her by her name, and watches her turn to him, shining like the sun.


~~~

And also the Queequeg/Bootstrap I wrote Waen for her birthday, just because I want to have it archived. PotC/Moby-Dick crossover, rilly bad dialogue, vague mysticism, read at your own risk.

( Paul and Silas )

"And They Ain't Coming Back..."

Five People Laertes Never Met in France, for karla_yonit and gileonnen.

1) Most importantly of all, he never met the gypsy. We call this important because if he had he might have tried to win her, rescue her. He was as beautiful and golden as a captain of archers, but, truly, nobler in spirit. If he had met the gypsy, he might have taken her from France and back to Denmark, loved her, and she would never have loved him. It was best for all of them that he never met the gypsy.

2) He never met the handsome man who spoke treason. Laertes loved his King and country, and was a loyal son of Denmark. If he had met that man, he might have been won over by his words; he might have proposed to fight for the truth, seeing such talk as unendurable dishonour. But he was not that man, and as the world went was not shaped by him.

3) The red-haired and beautiful woman who found it easy to capture the hearts of any men she met did not capture his; their paths did not cross. While she was singing to a crowd, mocking her old lover and inviting the next one, Laertes was far away.

4) Although he went to schools and houses of history in France, he never came to the one belonging to the old man who had gone into and come out of the sea. He might, perhaps, have been interested in what the man spoke of, might even had been enraptured. Instead he read about the Britons and the Gauls.

5) Lastly, the actress and her lover who misled one another, told secrets, and linked themselves while tearing apart--although Laertes loved the theatre and sometimes went, she was never onstage, and her lover never watching from the sides, his dark eyes following her always. This last of all, perhaps, was truly Laertes' misfortune--she was a wonderful actress.

"Now, We Went Walking in the Rain..."

Done! Anybody else want one?

Five Things Horatio should Not Say should Hamlet Catch him Kissing Ophelia beneath the Mistletoe, for eremon_lass.

1) "Alas, my Lord, my love for the lady is stronger; for I do love you as a man his closest friend, but her do I love as a man a woman." (Courtesy of Asta Nielson's Horatio.)

2) "You did decree no marriage more--all's left's illicit."

3) "The time, 'tis out of joint, and this sweet lady saith her lips are also. I do but touch her as a doctor, seeking to press them into place."

4) "I' the name o' God, I seek only a love whose father shall not let not death nor hell keep him from the wedding feast."

5) "She's mettle more attractive."

~~~

Five Things Zara Would Sooner Die than Admit to, also for eremon_lass.

1) When she was younger, and stupid, she used to wish Florian would wash her hair. She could imagine his wonderful gentle hands in her red tangles, and touching her bare shoulders while the water ran down them. She got smarter than that real quick. Realised she didn't want any such thing, and her hair wouldn't let anybody's hands through anyway.

Stupid.

2) Most of the dresses she makes and sells she likes. Sometimes she imagines putting each one on, just for a try, and swishing the skirts just a little, but she never does. That's stupid. The point is that she says she does her work for the money she needs to eat, and that's true. It's just that every time she starts on a new pattern with a new length of material, she feels a contentment she never feels any other time. She's going to make something, and with the needle in her hand she's going to make something good.

3) She loves all of them. Not like Florian, but she does. Stock, Rina, Justin, Luther, all of them.

4) In the morning when she wakes up she always wants to go back to sleep. She doesn't let that happen, of course, but she wants to. She doesn't know why, but her body is always tired.

She's never told anyone and she doesn't intend to. It's some kind of part of being not strong enough, and she'll always be strong enough, always, for Florian and anything he needs her to do.

5) She genuinely appreciates people who can outclever her. She remembers what they've done and uses it on them later when they're not thinking.

"And I Hope She Will Take Me Back..."

Who Killed the Electric Car? = so sad. So, sad. I almost cried when they took away the cars. It was like--it was like there were all these children who needed homes, and people adopted them, and then suddenly the government says, no, you have to give the babies back, and you say, but I'll pay you for them, I'll do anything, just let me keep my children. But the government takes them all back. Then you find out that there's a house where they're keeping them, and you say, look, we'll adopt them all. We'll give you lots of money, we'll protest, we'll do anything for these beautiful children--and in the end the government kills them instead.

Nobody wins at all.

When I get my Hybrid Insight (this is clearly a distant fantasy, shhh), I shall name her Evey.