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Tenth Dispatch - [written]
Nov. 12th, 2011 01:23 pm[Hornblower's nerves are shot.
Talk of ghosts, Jilly's disappearance, a falling moon threatening the ship, nightmares... Jilly's return to normal and painting the Britannia had acted as a balm, but... Now Archie had been taken. Taken. And he'd been powerless to stop them. Jilly had returned. Jilly had returned. That was something of a comfort. But he still remembered the friend taken... who he had not seen again, and had woken one morning to find his things gone. Part of him wanted to sit in Archie's room and watch his things, give them no chance to vanish... but another part feared they still would, and he did not want to see that happen.
He found a strange comfort in sitting alone in the captain's cabin and commiting to a laborous exercise-- the copying down of the Articles of War from memory. He knew every word, had listened to them almost every Sunday since he was seventeen. More often when Captain Sawyer got in a mood. It was something of a pointless exercise, but having to call up the exact wording of every Article and set pen to paper left less time and room in his mind for the doubt and blame he knew he would have to reckon with later.
For now, though, this would keep it at bay. For now.]
The Articles of War, as set down by His Britannic Majesty, upheld by Parliament, and carried out by the Admiralty Board.
( Cut for length. So much length. )
[...Sadly, Luceti, he still has no idea (nor does he care at the present moment) how to make any kind of privacy filter on this.]
Talk of ghosts, Jilly's disappearance, a falling moon threatening the ship, nightmares... Jilly's return to normal and painting the Britannia had acted as a balm, but... Now Archie had been taken. Taken. And he'd been powerless to stop them. Jilly had returned. Jilly had returned. That was something of a comfort. But he still remembered the friend taken... who he had not seen again, and had woken one morning to find his things gone. Part of him wanted to sit in Archie's room and watch his things, give them no chance to vanish... but another part feared they still would, and he did not want to see that happen.
He found a strange comfort in sitting alone in the captain's cabin and commiting to a laborous exercise-- the copying down of the Articles of War from memory. He knew every word, had listened to them almost every Sunday since he was seventeen. More often when Captain Sawyer got in a mood. It was something of a pointless exercise, but having to call up the exact wording of every Article and set pen to paper left less time and room in his mind for the doubt and blame he knew he would have to reckon with later.
For now, though, this would keep it at bay. For now.]
The Articles of War, as set down by His Britannic Majesty, upheld by Parliament, and carried out by the Admiralty Board.
( Cut for length. So much length. )
[...Sadly, Luceti, he still has no idea (nor does he care at the present moment) how to make any kind of privacy filter on this.]
