"You Seemed Ashamed, Ashamed That I Was a Good Friend of American Soldiers..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Because Snowy is MAKING ME DO IT.

Comment with a topic of five things that never happened with a character and I will write it out. Or five things you want to know about a character. Or five things that perhaps happened to a character but we didn't see in canon. Frankly, we've got plenty of options.

Comments

[snowyofthenight.livejournal.com]

*MAKES YOU DO IT, HA*

--in a not dirty way?

Anyway.

Five of Percy's sins.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

1.
When the knights came to the forest, he ran behind them, fleet on his feet worn hard by walking barefoot all his life; he carried his spear over his shoulder. His red hair was like the turned leaves on the trees. Heli had taught him to walk silent as any other wood-thing, and he sat on the edge of their camp and listened to them talk for a long time before he showed himself and asked them whether they were angels.

When they said they were knights, he nodded and listened and asked how to be one, and they laughing told him to go to Camelot. They moved on, and he watched them go, went to the edge of the woods with them, and stood there looking after them, with the tallest one's jewelled knife hidden in his deerskin pocket. All the stones in the stream had never shone as brightly as the sapphires did.

2.
The day he fought the Red Knight, Peredur closed his eyes and remembered Heliabel reciting the catechism to him. He remembered her telling him the commandments, every morning, while they were starting breakfast together. Their mother was middle-aged--almost thirty--and they were younger and more lithe and did most of the work, while she taught them the important things, like sewing their own clothes and how to cook and wash proper--all of which Heliabel could have taught him, but he liked to hear it from his mother. Heliabel had learned him how to fish and hunt and learn the holy things, and she made sure he got it right.

Thou shalt not kill, he thought, and thought of her and his mother, and thought of the shining knight in front of him, and closed his eyes and threw his spear, little forest-wild David before a Goliath who wasn't much taller.

3.
"Sir, my lady," he said, looking at the two of them where they stood, more upset than embarrassed. "Sir, it weren't the lady's fault. I took her ring. I didn't know better, I was bein' an idiot, and it ain't anything to do with her."

"She was unfaithful," the lord said.

"No, she weren't. She didn't even know what was happenin' until it was over. I took it 'cause it was pretty and I thought it was okay. Weren't nothin' goin' on with us, nothin' you can say she wasn't bein' true about, just me thinkin' I could take whatever I wanted 'cause I didn't know much."

The lady looked at him shyly, and Peredur rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, but still tried to look serious and not like he hadn't slept all last night and hadn't eaten a lot longer than that.

"Sir," she said softly, "You are kind."

"No, I'm tellin' the truth."

"Harlot." The lord glared sideways at her.

Peredur kicked him in the calf, at the place that makes legs buckle, and tucked his lip in a grimace when he stood over him. "Don't go callin' her that. There's no reason. I'm tellin' you what happened, and it's the truth, and I don't expect you to believe any different, understand? 'Cause she's been a lot better than I would have been, following you around all this time tryin' to explain, when she didn't do anything wrong. Okay? Tell her you're sorry, and if she don't love you she don't have to follow you no more."

"I won't accept her word, or yours. A whoreson and a jade."

Peredur kicked him again.

Later he hid in the nearest town's chapel, making himself as little and secret as he could, and prayed fearful until he fell silent against Jesus' feet that it was only the lack of sleep or the lack of food, and not something vicious in him that had before lain hidden.

4.
Heliabel leaned into the cave and poked him awake, teasing his hair gently. "Hey, you."

"What?" Peredur wrinkled his nose and unfolded himself from Galahad's side.

"You got a secret, don't you?"

"I don't!"

"You gonna tell me?"

"I don't got one!"

"Goose."

"I love Galahad."

"Goooose. I knew that one already," she said, kissing his cheek. "Me too."

"I'm glad."

"Me too. I'm pickin' nuts for breakfast. Go back to sleep, silly."

"Sure," he said, grinning at her, and nestled back down. He'd known he was telling a lie even then, but they had never had secrets from each other before. It was easier to make something up, especially something that was almost true.

5.
Even later, even when the wound was fresh, and after it turned into a white, old, sickle-shaped scar, he never repented that he had loved a witch.

[elyse24601.livejournal.com]

May I express the love I feel for your Percy?

[josiana.livejournal.com]

Um. If it's okay...Five of Joly's secrets? You don't have to. ^^;

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

1.
He honestly would rather sleep only with Musichetta, but Bossuet is always so happy and almost lucky when they're together that he never makes any objections or says anything about the fact. He would rather sleep with Musichetta, but he would never say anything to hurt Bossuet, never.

2.
He writes to his mother every week and assures her he's well.

3.
Some days he is so tired of being sick that he doesn't want to get out of bed; he doesn't want to face another day of allergies, petty infections, and painful joints; he's just tired. He doesn't want to do it any more.

4.
When he was a tiny child he used to dream of meeting the King and being rewarded. He never knew for what, exactly, but he would have given anything to see that man who was then more than a man sitting on a golden throne, with a golden crown, and telling him he had done well.

5.
On the barricade, he is so afraid he vomits in the alleyway where no one can see him.

[bewareofitalics]

Five people who could have once adored Sir Andrew.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

1.
His younger sister, who died of a pox at five, could have. He was two years older than she was, and he used to pick her up and carry her awkwardly in his arms, her feet dragging on the ground, down to the pond on their estate, and they poked at the fish together. She liked to pull on his hair.

2.
There was the girl he met at school, who knew far more French than he did, and liked to stand in the moonlight. She wore blue gowns and her hair twisted and tucked, and if he had known a little more maths or a little more Greek, or been a little better at dancing, or a little more handsome, she might have adored him very much.

3.
In society, his parents introduced him to a number of women, all of them well-spoken and genteel. One in particular was sweet-faced and dark-eyed, and he always brought her flowers on her day off; she was his mother's lady's maid, whom he was permitted to interview for the position. If only he had been a little braver, and she had not stolen the silver--it might have been different.

4.
For a long time he flattered himself Sir Toby did: that Toby enjoyed his company, the company of a fellow knight, and was pleased to drink with him, sing with him, pass the nights. He assured himself that, if it wasn't love, it was still affection, and he only bought them the finest wines and brandys.

5.
Olivia could have. But she never did.

[jiasachan.livejournal.com]

Five wicked thoughts Hero never had.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

It didn't occur to me until I finished these that there's a lot of anti-Claudio sentiment in them. Please pardon my bias. XD

1.
When she was only a child, she wished her father was dead instead of her mother. She had always loved her mother best. Her father never tied ribbons in her hair, or sang to her at night, and he smelled different and wasn't as often with her. She wished, she wished, as she tried to fall asleep, that he was dead and her mother was still there, stroking and singing to her until she dreamed.

2.
She grew up side by side with Beatrice, and Beatrice for a long time delighted her. Beatrice sang the prettiest, and looked the fairest, and had the cleverest replies and the most boys come to her window or bother her while she was in the arbours and plead for kisses. One day, after she had sent one off, she turned to Hero and said,--

"Troublesome, they. I do not like of them."

"They like of thee," she said shyly.

"I'll have none."

Then why, Hero thought, why can't I have some of thy virtues? An they please thee not, can I not be fairest instead? Can it not be me they seek? I would thou gavest me half what thou hast. I would 'twas me they sought to kiss 'neath the olives.

3.
The Prince offered her love clothed in black and a mask, and she couldn't see his face; when he revealed himself her heart danced like Beatrice's star. He was handsome and kind and she had always liked him.

Then he told her he asked for her in Claudio's name, and Hero closed her eyes and smiled the way she should and wished Claudio had never been born, that the Prince would so honour her, win her, and give her away to a man she'd hardly spoken to and never loved.

4.
The day she was thrown down at her wedding, she thought she might kill herself, hell or no. The place insider her that had before been warm with joy was aching and cold as the Northlands.

5.
Six years after she married Claudio, given to him in love despite all that had passed, she found she no longer loved him. He was ever jealous and never let her leave their house alone, accused her every day of some new dalliance she had never considered. Sometimes he struck her. Finally she decided to lie with the stableboy: it was too much to go on being hurt for a crime she hadn't committed.

[julietveiled.livejournal.com]

I love watching memes actually, you know, meme around. :D

Five times Phileas Fogg expressed an emotion, please. :D!

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

I know, right? --Omg, you are so many kinds of evol.

1.
When he was born, he cried with such misery his mother could not hush him.

2.
He had gone through childhood in the most taciturn way: sombre infant, silent toddler, and a boy of exceptionally quiet, wry manner. At sixteen, he was much the same. The day he broke his cricket bat he said nothing out of order, only declared that he must be more careful. Then, in the summer, he accidentally stepped on a butterfly resting on the steps outside his house. "Damn," he said. His hands very slightly clenched.

3.
As a man, he hired and dismissed his servants regularly and without emotion, every few months, all except the housekeeper who was with him almost four years. At the interview, she sat in front of him primly, hands folded on black cotton lap.

"What is your name?"

"Rosella Grier."

"Your age?"

"Forty, sir."

"Your punctuality?"

"I don't walk in when you're having a private conversation."

Mr. Fogg's lips twitched slightly. "Thank you."

4.
Aouda became ill with an English disease some four years after he brought her home. When the doctor requested he leave the room, he left; when he was bade return, he came, all prompt and on schedule, with reserve in his manner. Her fever worsened, but he never lingered overmuch with her. On the final night, he sat beside the bed, watching her without expression, his legs crossed as he sat in the chair, as neat as ever.

The day she finally sat up again and could eat solid food, he wept on her shoulder.

5.
"Passepartout."

"Yes, monsieur?"

"I am dying. I should like you to fetch the doctor, if you please."

Then he waited in his bed.

Before he died, he told Passepartout he had left him everything that was left to be willed, and smiled. Aouda had died nearly ten years before.

[little-lady-d.livejournal.com]

... i always freeze up on these. photofics are so much easier. ... five genuinely nice things zara never said?

and please request a 'five things' thing from me, because i should be writing something. :P

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

five clever things rosencrantz never made.

1.
"Y'done a good job bein' my da," she tells him one day, for no reason at all.

2.
"Pretty."

The woman who's been teaching her how to sew nods, pleased, and hands the dress to her. It's green, to match her sharp eyes.

3.
"I never been warm like this before," one evening, to Florian, while they sit by the fire at the inn. Florian looks over at her with a faint smile.

"Yes?"

"So I'm happy," she says.

4.
"It was a good bit, that last bit there." Zara points at the scribbled line, and Stock positively glows.

5.
Theo leans over to her in the cart. "We're almost there."

"Shut up. Y're never careful."

"I know. You always are, of course. You and Mickle," with a little twist of a grimace, mostly worry.

She rolls her eyes. "Y're both going t'make it come out right. Ent you figured that out yet?"

[ceanshinythings.livejournal.com]

Hiya, I'm looking for your fics: Why, The Night Gone By and Fools By Heavenly Compulsion.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Why, The Night Gone By (http://www.geocities.com/sabishiisoujin/organ.html) and Fools By Heavenly Compulsion (http://www.geocities.com/sabishiisoujin/joyoussorrow.html). Both of which are dreadful, I warn you here.

[assimbya.livejournal.com]

Five times Gaheris loved his mother.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Oh, snap.

1.
"I love you."

Morgause glances down at her son, her fearful one, his face stained with dark, dark berry juice, his hair tangled up with a few briar twigs and leaves. He's standing beside her, one hand on her green skirt, too serious for smiles. But then he never smiles.

"Why is that?" she asks.

"You're my mama."

"You should have a better reason."

"I'm sorry," he whispers, turns, and flees to the door.

2.
"I love you," Gaheris says, laughing. It's a feast day, he's still very young, he's had too much wine--they always do, when they're this young. They don't know how much they can hold. "I have got a reason for you, my Lady." At least he remembers to address her properly.

"Aye?" Morgause asks him, not bothering to try to pretend she isn't bored with all of this, and doesn't want to go to bed.

"Because you're my mother. I don't mind you don't love me."

"Thou'rt a fool," suddenly sharp. "I love thee. I love thee in mine own manner."

He isn't sober enough to understand her, but he does laugh again. She knows he will cease that soon.

3.
"I love you."

He's fifteen now, almost grown up, ready to go to court. He's kneeling before her, holding one of her hands with his forehead pressed to it, all respect and quiet. Outside his horse is waiting. She shakes her head.

"Go on. I have tired of you."

She has a lover waiting in her bed, and nothing to wear but a robe, and she hasn't time to stand out here in the cold for the emotional theatrics of a leaving son. Gaheris watches her with his secret-keeping eyes--he's obvious, all the boys are, but she knows he's hiding things from her.

"My lady--"

"Go on." This time the irritation flickers into her eyes. Gaheris nods obediently and hurries out, but he keeps looking over his shoulder.

4.
"I love you," he tells the woman standing in front of him, taller by a head, her laugh scathing.

"Love me? I'm a shrew."

"I've no objection."

Lynet rolls her eyes. "Madman."

"Harpy."

"Oh, you are a silver-tongued bastard."

"No more than thou art a flattering bitch."

"I love no whoreson from an isle colder than a monastery of celibates."

"I love thee."

She pushes him up against the wall and kisses him, tangling her hands into his hair, and Gaheris finds his arms around her waist.

"I'll marry thee, though," she whispers against his lips.

His mother is there when they're wedded, so shining that Gareth and Lyonors are almost forgotten, never mind Gaheris and Lynet. When he sees her among the guests, he's glad.

5.
"I love you. I love you."

She doesn't hear him; her hands in his are cold. Gaheris sits awash in her blood and tries to stop the aching.

"I love you," he says. "I love you."

[tinyammmy]

Five times Linden Kohlrabi told the truth. (AU or not as you prefer)

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

The best part about this meme is trying to find an icon to match the person I'm writing about. :D At any rate. This is not AU, I think.

1.
"Linden, little love, where are you?"

His mother stood with her apron tied on, the one that just brushed the hem of her skirt. His father was very well-off, so that there was no need for her to do any work for herself, but she liked cleaning and so she did. His father didn't often protest.

Linden was hiding in the fireplace. His father had been shouting, as he did, about religion, and when that happened Linden usually hid where-ever was closest and most secret. He had ash in his hair and all over his clothes, fine clothes; he knelt and kept himself very close and didn't answer.

His mother shook her head. "Your father isn't angry. It's all right to come out. Where are you, darling?"

"I'm here," he said finally. "I'm here."

2.
Rosa smiled at him and swirled her skirts. She had been born under Goodman Brown, Protector of Those Who Grow Pink Flowers, and she was a few years younger than he was and had more beautiful eyes than anyone he had ever seen. She was a Birdcatcher's daughter, though nobody said anything about that: her father had been killed when the followers of the Beloved rose up against the followers of the Heart. She'd gone on with her life as an orphan. She played the harpsichord. Linden had never met anyone with a sweeter temperament, half-tease and half-demure, always ready to smile for him, always brighter smiles than she ever gave anyone else.

"I don't," he said, "love you. Excuse me." He brushed past her to the door.

3.
"You tell the truth," his father said, squatting before him so they were level. "Have you noticed that? If you're asked a question, you always tell the truth."

"Isn't that right?" he asked shyly.

"If you wish to die. Your mother is dead. I suppose you haven't noticed that, either. You're likely to be killed by either side of this war, all things being equal--your mother being what she was, and I a Believer. It's time you learnt that when you're asked what you believe, you lie. Do you understand? If a Beloved-worshipper asks you who you are, you say you're one of them. If a follower of our Heart asks you, you tell them that you're born and bred to that. Understand?"

"I will," he said.

4.
He looked at Mosca beside him, chewing on her pipe. "You really do improve the quality of my life, little god," he said, laughing.

5.
Lady Tamarind smiled at him, that thin, gleamingly white smile she had that told him very clearly she was in control, she was the last word, she was the absolute authority, higher than whatever he believed--her smile implied. He had never believed it.

"I've never seen you fond of anything, Mr. Kohlrabi."

He stood at attention, silent.

"I am not deceived. You may tell me that you have no weaknesses, but I am very aware of what they are. I hope you realise that."

Linden smiled wryly. "Yes, Madam. I understand you very well."

[silverdragon262.livejournal.com]

Five times Horatio changed Hamlet's mind.

Go, go, go. *uses kissy icon*

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

*uses leery Hamlet in garden icon!*

1.
"My lord, it is not so."

Hamlet looks up from his texts, before him on the table. "Is it not?" He has that challenge in his voice. "If I say it is, what of my instructors will not agree?"

Horatio steadies himself, then, from the inside, and lays his hand upon the line. "If you do, my lord, how shall you ever learn? The words lose their meanings. 'Tis not so." He steadies himself again, tries to calm his heart. He knows well enough he's been brazen, and contradicted a Prince--others before him have been sent away for it. But Hamlet is still and thoughtful, as he can be, and then says,--

"Thou art aright. Tell me how it should be."

2.
Hamlet loves Wittenburg. He loves the snow, so different from Denmark's--it somehow seems less angry and cold. He loves the freedom of it, so far from his home and family; he loves that Horatio shares his rooms and is always there when there's need for him. Most of all he loves the girls, all pretty-faced and gentle and in awe of the visiting Prince.

Then, one day, he comes back to his rooms and finds Horatio sitting on the bed reading in Latin; kisses him and finds him willing, is undressed and loved by scholar's hands; and decides that perhaps there are better things than girls.

3.
"I will not go to Denmark without thee."

"My lord, you must. The Queen your mother--"

"Aye, my mother. But without thee?"

"I must beg my leave. You are royal and there is a ship for you whenever you choose to sail on it. There is not time for you to wait for me to plead my cause and go with you. I will follow, I swear."

"I do not like it."

"I will follow. Go now for this."

Finally, "I will go. Farewell."

4.
He would have slain himself a thousand times in this burning, cursed castle, but Horatio is here.

5.
As Horatio stands there, half-holding him, with the cup of poisoned wine in his hands, Hamlet thinks he would like a beloved companion to go with him in death. At least he will not be alone. The poison in Laertes' sword is already in him, biting at him and aching him with sickness, deep in his blood. Not to be alone in the midst of that, he thinks, would be a blessing.

He looks at Horatio's face, gentle and lost, with anger and sorrow in those eyes that never show such things.

No. He already has company enough. Laertes, already dead nearby; his mother, killed by the same poison in that cup, and he remembers how she died in such pain, with such words. No, it is enough. There is too much gentleness in Horatio's face, and too many years behind them when he had a companion, beloved, in life.

"Nay," he says. "Nay. As thou'rt a man, give me the cup."

[elyse24601.livejournal.com]

Am I too late? *was off in Hawai'i land* Er, if you're still doing it, five moments between Hamlet and Ophelia.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

1.
At five, she brought him flowers from the little garden she kept hidden within the kitchen garden, daisies between sage, violets underneath rosemary, columbine and rue all wound together. He looked at her as though he had no idea what it was she'd just done, but he thanked her royally.

2.
When she was a little older, her flowers were hers. She laid them on her mother's grave and kept the rest a secret known only to her and the cook who had given her permission to share the kitchen garden. One day while she knelt in the graveyard the prince stood behind her and put one of the violets in her hair.

3.
"My lord," she says. He smiles and pushes the folded paper of seeds into her hands.

4.
"O, I have gone mad," she says, as she sits in the kitchen garden with her hems all muddy, and pulls the flowers up by their roots and twines them into her braids. "O, I shall grow so solemn," she says, weeping for her father. The prince looks out a window at her and meets her eyes before he turns back to his uncle.

5.
She lay too heavy in his arms, with the weight of the dead. He saw that someone had thrown blue flowers in on her, and they had fallen scattered across her, so blue, so blue, when her shroud was so pale. He thought, why can I not be buried here and now?

[reconditarmonia.livejournal.com]

Five women Hoffman could have loved? ^__^ Crossover or not, as you choose.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

Crossovers! All opera crossovers. :D Because I am feeling crazy.

1.
"Niklausse, she's a dream," he whispered, looking to the dark, gipsy-faced woman who danced, with her black hair spilling down her back, long, long, down, like water at midnight; and then Niklausse drew him away as a man came out of the crowd and took her hands and kissed her red, red mouth.

2.
For months he wrote graceless, one-winged poetry to the courtesan, who only smiled at him and told him, always gently, that she had too many hopes he could not encompass with words or fulfill in his threadbare coat.

3.
He kept a mistress for a while; he had a year of prosperity, from a fallen uncle, and could afford a fiacre and fine clothes, and then medicine, as the tiny seamstress became more and more ill. Finally she ran away. Hoffmann wept because she left behind her the small case of medicine he had already paid for.

4.
"My dear woman," he began grandly, as Niklausse stood behind him, still and patient and waiting, as the woman paused on the lamp-lit street to look at them. "My dear woman, it's truly a pleasure to meet someone so lovely on such a chance--" Her mouth quirked into the most bitter smile he had ever seen, and she half-drew the knife from her pocket.

5.
They sat together by the river. "Damn it!" he cried. "Damn it, why is love always luckless?" They watched a soldier bid farewell to his young Oriental wife as he boarded the ship back to England. She stirred in Hoffmann's heart, but he saw the love in the hands that waved, furiously, as the soldier walked up the gangplank.