Spunyarn

Originally posted to aos_challenge

TITLE: Cenotaph
AUTHOR: Idler
CHARACTERS: Hornblower, OCs
RATING: G
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, not for profit
CHALLENGE PROMPT: Ghosts (Oct 2007)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Makes reference to characters/situations from Run Aground, but familiarity with the background is entirely unnecessary.


( Cenotaph )

( Shades of Glory )

A 100-word drabble, inspired by a comment made by black_hound found here

[Ed. 26 Oct. 2006: format only]


False Horizon

Winter, 1814
HMS Porta Coeli


The sun sinks into the very sea, it seems,
when darkness holds dominion.
Extinguished, yet unfailingly returns to rise again.
Not faith, but every sailor's truth,
resounding in his bones.

No body, no words,
no commitment to the deep.
No monument of stone,
nor pyramid of skulls.
No soul laid to rest
until the sea gives up her dead.

Where is the sting when death lies unacknowledged?
Where flies the soul if never granted peace?
Lost, he knows, though conviction falters with the sunset
and the thought of one brave soul enduring,
sailing just beyond the limits of his sight.

A drabble. Inspired by a recent piece of black_hound's incomparable artwork, reproduced here--with her kind permission--behind the cut. So much is expressed in this single compelling image, and I've attempted to capture some small part of it in these 100 words:


( Life and Limb )

Something new for a change. PG, Gen.


( De Profundis )

( Once Burned, 2/2 )

More archiving....

This one is pretty old, first posted in 1/03 to hhfic. It was written prior to the airing of HH3, and was my attempt to use the events of HH2 to explain a transition between the HH2 version of Hornblower to a character more consistent with book canon.

HH3 clearly proved that I was definitely not on the same page as the filmmakers!

This version is tweaked a bit from that originally posted; it uses a slightly alternate--though MY favorite--ending.

Oh....and, as always: PG, Gen

( Once Burned, 1/2 )

( Run Aground, Chapters 26-27 )

( Run Aground, Chapters 24-25 )

( Run Aground, Chapters 21-23 )

( Run Aground, Chapters 17-20 )

( Run Aground, Chapters 15-16 )

( Run Aground, Chapters 12-14 )

( Run Aground, Chapters 9-11 )

( Run Aground, Chapters 5-8 )

More archiving...

Gen, PG

Novella-length, primarily Hornblower book-verse, fitting into the time between the end of Flying Colours and the beginning of Commodore Hornblower.

( Run Aground, Chapters 1-4 )

A 100 word drabble. Inspired by my discovery that Temeraire spent her last years as a receiving hulk, anchored off Sheerness. Given that Bush--himself 'anchored' for a time at Sheerness--was a junior lieutenant on Temeraire at Trafalgar, it seemed somehow quite fitting.



Temeraire: Lamentations

Anchored, she mourns.
Crippled, dismasted,
her warlike grace now marred by uncouth wood.
In Sheerness' shadow she watches;
she is nothing to all who pass her by,
those new-made ships now freed to rule the waves.
Her deeds renowned, yet she herself forgotten,
though shades of glory still haunt her battered hull.
Exiled, her splendor has departed,
her wounds deep as the sea:
each creak and groan cry out a sore lament.
Far better, she knows, to quit this life in blaze of light,
oaken heart consumed on valor's pyre,
than to languish thus
and await the breaker's yard.


*Draws heavily from Lamentations (NIV) in both phrase and format.

A 100-word drabble, originally posted on hh100, which presupposes the reader's knowledge of events depicted in Flying Colours and Lord Hornblower.


God Help Sailors

"God help sailors on a night like this."

Memory prompted a smile, relieving the captain's stern mask. A thoughtless prayer from the lips of a man who knew no god, yet God had heard and answered, granting refuge, salvation, resurrection.

Resurrection indeed. He was alive again: cold steel ready in his hand and hot blood coursing through his body. He smiled more openly, regarding his men as they silently plied the longboat's oars.

"God help sailors," he said, cheerfully, "on a night like this."

...as the faint lamps of Caudebec shone in the darkness, and gave light to his path.

Hmmm. My first entry. Because Blackhounds' fact-dump on Chichester got me to thinking. CSF tells us that Bush's mother and sisters lived in Chichester--but what if his blacksmith uncle did not? Every dockyard employed blacksmiths: no surprise when one considers that the average 74 carried approximately 100 tons of ironwork, not including her ordnance. I always wondered how Bush might have wound up at sea, and it seems that I've suddenly begun wondering in drabble form. So what if ...


The Coefficient of Expansion

He made nails.

Not twelve years old, yet had forged his weight in nails. Heavy, iron spikes: two handspans long, and each the same. A craftsman, his uncle made stern-lanterns. Hinges. Ringbolts.

But he, at eleven, made nails. His child's world had contracted, assuming the dimensions of a stifling room: a world of heat and flame, stinking of sweat and smoke and yesterday’s ashes.

But when the door would open to admit light and space and clean salt air, and a glimpse of masts and yards and limitless sea,

William Bush stood,

and made nails,

and forged his heart’s desire.