Night-time rubbish
May. 19th, 2005 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootI have fulfilled my deep-seated need to be incoherent. I don't mind being clear as long as I am barely understood. Call it a special gift of mine.
This is a bit of the novel I am writing, and is very unlikely to make sense to anyone. There are references to earlier occurences within the story, and to old songs; the ballad of True Thomas and the song of Bloduewedd*.
A good question is why I have put it here, if I don't think people will read it, understand it or enjoy it. The answer is, I was right about the effects of public lj exposure on my ability to edit. The pressure of the invisible audience made me kick it into shape. It is still a purple-prose fairy tale cos that is the nature of the beast, but I have at least cleaned it up a bit.
...The ship moved out, beyond the blue of the mediterranean, to stormy seas, where rain lashed the decks and darkened skies. In that time, Richard did not leave his room much. The fever came and went, and often, when he was not listening to Sir Thomas trying to cheer him up, or the doctor’s admonitions, he was left alone for hours in his cabin.
It was in those hours that he could make her out. Sometimes she was tiny, a mote, (‘in size no bigger than an agate stone...’). But sometimes she stood there and grew until she was the size of a real woman. The fairy light glimmered around her, in her ruined dress, but still her face was beautiful and mortal. She was wary of approaching him, but he knew that if he closed his eyes and made little moans like a man in nightmare, she would touch his forehead. Usually her touch rustled like the paper of his book, but now and then, she felt real and he longed for her hands to stay upon him.
But the Bride was more canny now. She had mastered the geas of shrinking and growing, but she was not yet quick enough to be sure of escape should Richard ever try to catch her again. She never tried to speak to him either. He was so locked into his dreams that the Hunter’s advice seemed completely appropriate. The poor man needed peace, and a lack of magic.
He seemed to grow stronger night by night. Sometimes she sat by the porthole and read his journal, meandering through strange memories of Sylvia and Sycorax,understanding what must have happened in the temple. Sometimes she watched the moon rise over the sea, when its beams would strike him softly, with such beauty that she could not resist going over to have a look at his face. He lay there, pale with his dark hair, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a slim throat and smooth chest. He was not entirely without muscle or strength, but compared to the power of the Hunter – but she tried to push the Hunter out of her thoughts. Where was the point of thinking about the Hunter? He never thought about her.
Power struck her as an interesting idea, as she sat thinking in the moonlight. She would look across at the ravaged face of the artist, and it occurred to her that he had never known power in his own hands, except perhaps when he painted. She looked at his hands, (‘Long and white are my fingers, as the ninth wave on the sea...’) The nails were pitifully broken. ‘Not even then,’ she told herself, ‘He has power over nothing. He is always serving some muse or other.’
She wondered if that was so terrible a thing. Not every man is a commander, she mused as she stroked his face, pale and thin as the moon in sickle. It occurred to her that after all this, perhaps he was Lord Lune, the man in the moon, and he had indeed come down to earth way too soon. The thought made her laugh; she had always loved nursery rhymes. His hair was very soft and fine, and she ran her hands through it. Her thoughts ran to witches and old wives’ tales; stories of stables haunted at midnight, where grooms would throw their lanterns to the ground and flee, and the horses would tremble and snort, for the witch was coming to ensorcel the finest beast and make it ride far into the storm, whiplashed over clouds and through briar thickets, over ditches and banks of sea-holly, away, deep into the dark. She could see its sides flanked with sweat and blood, its mouth flecked with foam, its head becoming the head of a man.
Richard cried out in his sleep. She looked again and realised how easily she could straddle his chest and ride him like the witch’s nightmare, far away until dawn broke. He would break too, she felt, one more great enchantment would shatter him. But he was going to break anyway, so what was there to lose? She let her hands travel over his flesh, as he had intended to do with her, from the ridge of his collar bone to the hollow beneath his ribs. He had not succeeded because, in the end, it was his place to serve, not to take. Her place, however, had not been decided. Her hands travelled the breadth of his shoulders and down his arms, down to the soft trail of hair beneath his navel. He was breathing more rapidly. She suddenly feared the mirror, and looked back, half expecting to see the Beloved laughing at her. She saw nothing, but recalled the Hunter, and backed away from the bed.
The sleeping man sighed, as did she, and she touched him no more. But she never slept either through all the days and nights of the journey, while sometimes he dozed and sometimes he burned and sometimes he seemed more aware, and then weaker. Her eyes never left him through all his changes, until vigil’s end when the ship docked at Southampton. A dark man dressed in the quaint garb of a cavalier waited for her on the quay, and Richard, too sick to walk, was brought home.
*Copyright and intellectual property of Debbie Gallagher May 2005, all rights reserved, etc, etc.
*OK, got that wrong; the references here are to Hanes Bloduewedd and Mercutio's Mab speech. The True Thomas ref is in the bit I didn't put up. I really am too tired!
This is a bit of the novel I am writing, and is very unlikely to make sense to anyone. There are references to earlier occurences within the story, and to old songs; the ballad of True Thomas and the song of Bloduewedd*.
A good question is why I have put it here, if I don't think people will read it, understand it or enjoy it. The answer is, I was right about the effects of public lj exposure on my ability to edit. The pressure of the invisible audience made me kick it into shape. It is still a purple-prose fairy tale cos that is the nature of the beast, but I have at least cleaned it up a bit.
...The ship moved out, beyond the blue of the mediterranean, to stormy seas, where rain lashed the decks and darkened skies. In that time, Richard did not leave his room much. The fever came and went, and often, when he was not listening to Sir Thomas trying to cheer him up, or the doctor’s admonitions, he was left alone for hours in his cabin.
It was in those hours that he could make her out. Sometimes she was tiny, a mote, (‘in size no bigger than an agate stone...’). But sometimes she stood there and grew until she was the size of a real woman. The fairy light glimmered around her, in her ruined dress, but still her face was beautiful and mortal. She was wary of approaching him, but he knew that if he closed his eyes and made little moans like a man in nightmare, she would touch his forehead. Usually her touch rustled like the paper of his book, but now and then, she felt real and he longed for her hands to stay upon him.
But the Bride was more canny now. She had mastered the geas of shrinking and growing, but she was not yet quick enough to be sure of escape should Richard ever try to catch her again. She never tried to speak to him either. He was so locked into his dreams that the Hunter’s advice seemed completely appropriate. The poor man needed peace, and a lack of magic.
He seemed to grow stronger night by night. Sometimes she sat by the porthole and read his journal, meandering through strange memories of Sylvia and Sycorax,understanding what must have happened in the temple. Sometimes she watched the moon rise over the sea, when its beams would strike him softly, with such beauty that she could not resist going over to have a look at his face. He lay there, pale with his dark hair, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a slim throat and smooth chest. He was not entirely without muscle or strength, but compared to the power of the Hunter – but she tried to push the Hunter out of her thoughts. Where was the point of thinking about the Hunter? He never thought about her.
Power struck her as an interesting idea, as she sat thinking in the moonlight. She would look across at the ravaged face of the artist, and it occurred to her that he had never known power in his own hands, except perhaps when he painted. She looked at his hands, (‘Long and white are my fingers, as the ninth wave on the sea...’) The nails were pitifully broken. ‘Not even then,’ she told herself, ‘He has power over nothing. He is always serving some muse or other.’
She wondered if that was so terrible a thing. Not every man is a commander, she mused as she stroked his face, pale and thin as the moon in sickle. It occurred to her that after all this, perhaps he was Lord Lune, the man in the moon, and he had indeed come down to earth way too soon. The thought made her laugh; she had always loved nursery rhymes. His hair was very soft and fine, and she ran her hands through it. Her thoughts ran to witches and old wives’ tales; stories of stables haunted at midnight, where grooms would throw their lanterns to the ground and flee, and the horses would tremble and snort, for the witch was coming to ensorcel the finest beast and make it ride far into the storm, whiplashed over clouds and through briar thickets, over ditches and banks of sea-holly, away, deep into the dark. She could see its sides flanked with sweat and blood, its mouth flecked with foam, its head becoming the head of a man.
Richard cried out in his sleep. She looked again and realised how easily she could straddle his chest and ride him like the witch’s nightmare, far away until dawn broke. He would break too, she felt, one more great enchantment would shatter him. But he was going to break anyway, so what was there to lose? She let her hands travel over his flesh, as he had intended to do with her, from the ridge of his collar bone to the hollow beneath his ribs. He had not succeeded because, in the end, it was his place to serve, not to take. Her place, however, had not been decided. Her hands travelled the breadth of his shoulders and down his arms, down to the soft trail of hair beneath his navel. He was breathing more rapidly. She suddenly feared the mirror, and looked back, half expecting to see the Beloved laughing at her. She saw nothing, but recalled the Hunter, and backed away from the bed.
The sleeping man sighed, as did she, and she touched him no more. But she never slept either through all the days and nights of the journey, while sometimes he dozed and sometimes he burned and sometimes he seemed more aware, and then weaker. Her eyes never left him through all his changes, until vigil’s end when the ship docked at Southampton. A dark man dressed in the quaint garb of a cavalier waited for her on the quay, and Richard, too sick to walk, was brought home.
*Copyright and intellectual property of Debbie Gallagher May 2005, all rights reserved, etc, etc.
*OK, got that wrong; the references here are to Hanes Bloduewedd and Mercutio's Mab speech. The True Thomas ref is in the bit I didn't put up. I really am too tired!
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joining up the dots...
Date: 2005-05-19 08:57 am (UTC)Thank you for saying such nice things. It makes me very happy.