First Dispatch - [written]

[captainhornblower]

[The penmanship is formal, letters close together but not connected. Each letter is made of strokes, an almost calligraphy style-- which translates into broken letters with a modern pen.]

Thursday, 10th January, 1805

[A hastily scrawled question mark appears above the date a moment later.]

My precise location is unknown. [A long pause before more words are written.] My general location is unknown. My ship and men are missing. God help me, what has happened?

[Notes appear in the margins, wind direction and estimations of its speed. The word 'drift?' and the beginnings of a mathematical formula are etched into a margin.]

I do not know how I came to be where I am. [Another margin note: 'wings???'] I cannot expect this to even be found, but I will record my observations. It is all I can do, and I must do something.

Currently on board vessel. [Another note in the margins:
'unoccupied
single mast
no flags
enemy?
ally?
neutral party?
abandoned?']

May the Lord have mercy on me.

[The signature is larger, even more carefully penned.]

Hornblower

Comments

[voice]

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

[her tone gentles. This...this isn't just a difference in times. It's the same kind of uncertainty and disbelief that she's fielded her whole life. It's what made Geordie sigh when she talked about the professor's housekeeper being a goblin. It's what made Sophie grimace whenever Jilly brought up her being part fae. They didn't want to believe.

Or, even if they did, they couldn't. It was very difficult to see the magic in something when you were busy hunting for the trap door or the trick mirror]

We're in a place where anything is possible. Anything. [another time, she'd argue that this was the world they knew back home, too. That most people just didn't take the time to open their eyes to it. But that's a thought for later.] There's science so different that it feels like a miracle. There's magic that brings worlds and people together without any boundary between race or time or even universe.

It's a double edged sword. Magic...or whatever you want to call it... it's not inherently good. It can help and it can hurt. But it's always...

[she falters, hunting for the word] ...wondrous.

[voice]

[captainhornblower]

[He listens in silence, smiling a bit.

Anything was possible in this place, no doubt about that. His dearest friend, dead for three years, was alive and well. He was reunited with said friend. Whatever anyone else wanted to tell him about this place, he was now quite inclined to believe.

But as for a reply... he's uncertain. He cannot doubt what she's saying, but he is not qualified to offer much opinion on this world. He's gotten the sense (and he got it quickly) that he has not seen the half of what this strange place is capable of doing.]

It shall certainly be an experience, being here.