Green Girls
Oct. 27th, 2010 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fulseldenTwo more ficlets for the excellent horror comment thread over at ![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=1)
sharp_teeth.
One for Watchmen (why am I writing so much Watchmen fic? I certainly don't feel fannish about it, as such. But I guess there is a lot in the original that needs straightening out. Or queering up, as the case may be). Anyway, this is for a deeply creepy prompt from![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=1)
misachan:
Long after Karnak, Dan's phone rings in the middle of the night. "You left me here, Daniel. You left me here in the snow."
Characters: Dan, Rorschach, Laurie
Rating / warnings: PG. Erosion of free will, mention of violence and bigotry.
“Inconsiderate,” says the voice. “Unwise.”
The phone goes dead. Dan holds it to his ear, listening to the whine of the wires. Beside him, Laurie stirs, throws out a sleep-heavy arm to touch his shoulder. Her hand is warm from the bed.
“Wrong number,” he says. He puts down the phone. Laurie mumbles something, scrunches back down under the covers. She’s had a hard time of it, these last few months. Coming in both guns blazing as he stood gagged and handcuffed by the Pioneers, vomiting neatly into one of their white marble corporate washbasins, after it was finished, a hand braced on the mirror beside the floral display, blood on the glass. They’d set the building to go up after they’d got out, twenty stories of glass and steel unfolding like a paper flower, leaflets on True Citizenship and the Foreign Threat blooming out into the night air miraculously unburnt.
The Pioneers with HQs in every city, in this bright new world, and what had he done? Come down on Archie, got himself tied up. Now nothing is the same, not anymore. Not Laurie, with her guns and leather mask.
Streetlight is coming in through the thin hotel curtains, marking out the room in pale orange patterns. Dan sighs and clambers out of bed, pads over to the mini fridge humming in the corner. Cars pass outside, one after the other, hissing in the dark. The outskirts of another town, apple pie and football under arc lights, cheerleaders with legs right up to here. He pours himself a glass of milk, cold and greenish-white in the light from the fridge, lets it swill around his mouth, slowly warming up. There in the cold is a half-full jar of pickles, flabby pale sliced cheese. Some yellow-pink tomatoes in the crisper, hard as rocks. Dan shakes his head, puts them out to ripen. There is a bag of sugar there as well, a catering pack, quite cold. He drinks the milk, fatty and white and chill.
The phone rings once again.
Dan answers quietly, squatting by the fridge.
“Rude,” says the voice. It is low, a little blurry. Mushy, Dan thinks. “No matter,” it continues. “Not a problem any more.” It pauses, breathing in and out. “Got hold of you at last,” it says.
Dan holds the phone tight, its long white wire trailing across the floor from out the fuzzy shadows by the bed. He opens up the fridge. Inside, it is clean and cold and white. Behind him, Laurie snores a little, quietly.
“It can’t be you,” he says, keeping his voice down. “Jon killed you. We both saw it on the screens.”
“Both,” says the voice. “You and Miss Juspeczyk.” There is a crunching, down the line, like something being eaten. “Happy ending,” says the voice. “Congratulations. Good for you.”
“You died, Rorschach,” says Dan. “I made Laurie wait while I played it back, I promise. I made her wait and then we saw the snow.”
“Red,” says the voice. “Disassembly not death. Ask Jon.” There is more crunching. “I admit not in my case though,” it says. “Difficult. Grey area.”
Dan lowers himself to the soft hotel carpet, dappled with streetlight, flooded through with the neat slice of light from the fridge. He reaches for the sugar, starts to unwrap a cube one handed. Tricky. Even at his age he can still do this at least. Clever fingers, Hollis would say.
“They published your stuff, you know,” he says. He feels so tired. “But things had gone downhill long before that.”
“Downhill” says the voice. “Downhill from half New York dead in the street. Happy ending, Daniel. You let yourself go.”
“I have,” Dan agrees. They are half a step ahead, always, the both of them, as far as they can tell, but without Laurie he’d be in a Pioneer re-education camp by now. Cheering the football, under the arc-lights.
He thinks of Hollis, his black-and-white newsprint world of derring-do. Tijuana bibles, big grins and bouncy breasts.
He reaches up above the fridge, nudges the bag of cold tomatoes. They are hard in places, half frozen. Now they are thawing into grainy mush, cell walls spiked through by ice crystals, pale red skin dark in blotches, the plastic bag clinging to them in wet wrinkles. Like Laurie’s old costume, like latex on skin.
“Grey areas unsatisfactory, Dan,” says the voice. “No compromise. A lot of things to do now, you agree.”
“Yes,” says Dan, “yes, Rorschach, there are.”
He holds his free hand out, moves it in and out of the cold light of the fridge. He has already put the sugar in his mouth, the sweet white crystals melting on his tongue.
“Cold here,” it says. “No forward movement.”
“Yes, Rorschach,” says Dan. “I know.”
He reaches for more sugar. His hand inside the fridge looks bruised, thick with vague blotches underneath the skin. Trick of the light.
“Need exit,” says the voice. “No helpful neon sign.”
“No,” says Dan. “There usually isn’t when you need one.”
“Apologies,” says the voice.
“What?”
“Nothing,” it says. “Eat up.”
Dan swallows down the sugar, the last lump. The floor, he sees, is littered with the paper packets, like origami left half-done. White on the dark carpet.
Time has crumpled here in this hired hotel night and it is almost dawn.
“Almost there,” says the voice. “Some adjustment necessary. Much work to do.” It pauses. “Glad to have known you, Daniel,” it says.
“Rorschach?” says Dan. “Rorschach.”
The line goes dead.
He closes the fridge door on the cold light, stands stiffly. The paper on the floor crunches beneath his feet like snow, and Laurie stirs, half-wakes. Light from the curtain comes across in blots and blotches, pale and dark.
“Who’s there?” she says.
“No matter,” he says. “Sleep.”
His voice is hoarse.
He moves Dan’s body round towards the door, the fingers stiff with cold. They will warm up, wear in. He needs to find his face, black shapes on white.
And one for King Lear (LOL, self), after an awesome prompt fromnewredshoes :
Rating / warnings: PG. Massive amounts of sexism; anti-Catholic bigotry. Erosion of free will and other creeping horrors.
A/N: This is SO VERY AU, and probably has a lot more to do with sixteenth-century debates about exorcism than with Lear. It does however hopefully provide a creepy Cordelia.
That nature which contemns it origin
Cannot be bordered certain in itself.
From an appeal written by the Gloucestershire gentleman Oswald Simpkin to the right Honourable Sir Thomas Egerton Knight, Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England, Sir John Popham Knight, Lord chief Justice of England: Sir William Periam Knight, Lord chief Baron of the Exchequer, and other the most reverend Judges of the Common Laws of England.
This account, for which a terminus ad quem is provided by Simpkin’s death in the spring of 1605, was found among his papers after his death: it was never sent.
My lords, I do not doubt that your honours have heard of the possession and dispossession of the daughters of the Kentish knight sir L, a gentleman of good worship and credit who opened his house to me his humble friend on divers occasions all throughout his life. Much ink and paper has been spent on this matter, it is well known, by the noted exorcist Mr J. D. and by Mr S. H. in his work against the counterfeits of those who feign to cast out devils. I beg your kind indulgence, good my lords. I write mine own account to still my heart. Yet, so, my lords. This is a matter of some import, I believe: there is a matter of inheritance, I understand, of competence in administering the estate. When men have only daughters, things are often so.
Divers accounts relate how the first and second daughters of Sir L, one Griselda and one Radegund, were taken strange one summer afternoon as they sat sewing by the roses on the garden bank. I can tell you there are roses there indeed: I saw the place myself this winter past. There was as well one other daughter, the fair third. Cordelia, my lords, as these accounts attest. I can tell you, good my lords, who knew these girls almost from birth, that they were ever quick and sharp, as girls will be, since things grow fast that have but a small green season granted them before the time they fall back down to dullness, as weeds in corn grow thick and bright and rank.
Hereunto I might add, that I offer no sure and certain opinion myself upon this matter, these things being under the good hand of God and open clearly only to the learned of the Church. Your honours I can say only what thing it was I saw, and I cannot claim that my eyes were not deceived. Our brains, good my lords, are like the firmament, subject to perturbation and sore troubled by the conflux and the rise of gross and fatty vapours: ill concoction of our meat and drink breeds sluggy air within us which will rise and fill our heads with fancies, coarse conceits. There are as many fish in the tight teaming sea, my lords, as there are strange imaginings within our skins and skulls.
I stopped that night at that cold house, my lords, because the air was thick; dull vapours lay like foaming barm along the ground until the storm came in and bought the rain. The rain came quick. It was a miry road, my lords, I knew not how far I had yet to go. Yet then I saw the lights and knew the place: they made me welcome there before the fire.
I knew already that not all was well. I had heard accounts, though none from my friend’s pen. My friend Sir L, my lords, if I may be so bold, God rest his soul. They write my lords of how the oldest girls would speak distinctly with their tongues curled back and how small swelling shapes would creep under the covers, up and down their bodies, quick as rats or mice. The girls spoke clearly, lords, the following words, Ego sum Rex: that is, I am the King; they lay out flat with black hands like the dead. They said the girls would would stretch out long like so and then bunch up like loaves of round brown bread: that at such times their attendants could by no means induce them to lie still. They say they spoke full loud my lords of light like rotten wood: they spoke of this and of a weight like iron hooped round their chests: they moved their hands as if to lift the air.
Yet I saw none of that, my lords. My tale concerns the fair Cordelia, not so fortunate, I wish to say, as fair. Each of the girls was comely: there has indeed been talk – but now no more of that. Master J. D. is a God-fearing man, that much is sure. They say indeed he used to cry at night to God. But such is gossips’ talk, which springs like mushrumps fast as bubbling dough. Cordelia, my lords, I say was fair, beloved treasure of her father’s eye. Her hair was like gold wire, my lords, crisping and waved like water under wind. They say that she was born, my lords, on such a night as that last thundering storm, when wind and rain almost ploughed up the earth.
But this is nothing, you will object, to the purpose. Even so, my lords, perhaps. I write what comes to me, my lords, I cry you mercy. I have been exceeding ill.
Their house was low, my lords, the ground for miles around was a wet marish, bare of any trees. A place for rotten mist, my lords, and walking fires. The serving maids showed me the dark storerooms underneath the hall, full flooded to the steps and rising quick. The water there was brackish, still and quiet yet creeping up: you could not hear the storm.
The older girls, my lords, kept to their beds. They had no mother, you must understand. A goodly lady, ever mild and sweet, she had died there long ago, in that old storm and wet at her third daughter’s birth. It was a sickly air around that house, to tell it true, resolved to heavy mist by damp as milk to butter by the sweet maid’s churn. Their father loved them all, as old men do. I cry you mercy, lords, I will myself ne'er see full forescore years again. They all made much of him, as daughters will: it seemed when they were younger that they strove, indeed, the one against the other for his favour: such runs the love of girls. As quick as light through glass, my lords, as green on hot wet flesh.
But Cordelia had his heart: that much is certain, good my lords, and true. There is no shame in it, my lords, the best of us goes where it will. We only hope that those who claim it hold it tight and do not let it drop and fall to rot. Like fruit in autumn dust are hearts to careless girls, I full well know. My lords, the light comes fast. My lords. It is needful that you know of this. You must ensure – but so. Enough of that.
Cordelia, oh you must understand, my lords, was passing fair. She bade me enter, had them take my cloak. The rain had come through right down to the skin, my lords, and I was bitter cold.
She gave me a hot caudle and soft yellow apple-johns: she sat me by the fire. She made a sweet sack posset, good my lords with her own hands with cream and ambergris. I was exceeding cold. She spoke of the misfortunes of her sisters in a low small voice like creeping rain. She seemed just then like light through coloured glass, my lords, exceeding fair.
I asked to see her father and she said he wandered in his mind and spoke of kings. Of rosemary and rue and bitter herbs. My heart was heavy when I heard of this. He played the old king for the Christmas revels at the Middle Temple when we both were younger men. He was a merry youth.
We had a falling out in middle age, my lords. Forgive, forget.
She took me in to see him in his tall close-curtained bed. His cheeks were fallen in. She sang to him, my lords, of times long past, she called the song the Goodyear, good my lords. He looked at her and smiled, my lords, so sweetly that it seemed he was again a boy let out from school. The air was close, my lords, exceeding feculent and sweet.
I never knew him then. We met as students, the time of life when all the blood runs hot. We made each other foolish promises, my lords, as young men do.
She was a sweet girl, fair Cordelia, she led me down the hall. I heard her sisters crying, I dare say. I know I heard some sound above the storm. They say they feigned their cruel possession, good my lords, yet this is not a thing I can presume to know. I have no sympathy for Popish puppetry, my lords, know this. And yet I fear, my lords. I am subject to night fears like many bookish men, albeit my learning lords is slight. I feel my mind, my lords, is clogged and full of fear. There is a surfeit in my thoughts, my lord, heavy superfluities tartarous and thick sink down below and I am sick at heart for those green girls, my lords, they lay out still and cried.
I saw her visibly, my lords, I swear, going at night to seek my good friend’s chamber. I meant only kind comfort, good my lords, I swear I only meant to hold his hand. She couched herself, my lords, up on his chest, her hair hung down like silk and silver hooks. She turned and looked at me, my lords, with fat dull eyes. They grow exceeding rank, these fish-quick girls. Her mouth my lords was wet. The light was bright, my lords, like growing rot. And yes, my friend, my friend my lords he sang to her, his voice was soft and low.
I left that night, my lords. I have been since exceeding ill. His voice my lords was sweet. My eyes my lords are wet: I wait for her. My kind Cordelia, as fortunate, my lords, as fortunate as fair.
My lords the light comes quick. Who’s there, I say. Who’s there?
sharp_teeth. One for Watchmen (why am I writing so much Watchmen fic? I certainly don't feel fannish about it, as such. But I guess there is a lot in the original that needs straightening out. Or queering up, as the case may be). Anyway, this is for a deeply creepy prompt from
misachan:Long after Karnak, Dan's phone rings in the middle of the night. "You left me here, Daniel. You left me here in the snow."
Rating / warnings: PG. Erosion of free will, mention of violence and bigotry.
“Inconsiderate,” says the voice. “Unwise.”
The phone goes dead. Dan holds it to his ear, listening to the whine of the wires. Beside him, Laurie stirs, throws out a sleep-heavy arm to touch his shoulder. Her hand is warm from the bed.
“Wrong number,” he says. He puts down the phone. Laurie mumbles something, scrunches back down under the covers. She’s had a hard time of it, these last few months. Coming in both guns blazing as he stood gagged and handcuffed by the Pioneers, vomiting neatly into one of their white marble corporate washbasins, after it was finished, a hand braced on the mirror beside the floral display, blood on the glass. They’d set the building to go up after they’d got out, twenty stories of glass and steel unfolding like a paper flower, leaflets on True Citizenship and the Foreign Threat blooming out into the night air miraculously unburnt.
The Pioneers with HQs in every city, in this bright new world, and what had he done? Come down on Archie, got himself tied up. Now nothing is the same, not anymore. Not Laurie, with her guns and leather mask.
Streetlight is coming in through the thin hotel curtains, marking out the room in pale orange patterns. Dan sighs and clambers out of bed, pads over to the mini fridge humming in the corner. Cars pass outside, one after the other, hissing in the dark. The outskirts of another town, apple pie and football under arc lights, cheerleaders with legs right up to here. He pours himself a glass of milk, cold and greenish-white in the light from the fridge, lets it swill around his mouth, slowly warming up. There in the cold is a half-full jar of pickles, flabby pale sliced cheese. Some yellow-pink tomatoes in the crisper, hard as rocks. Dan shakes his head, puts them out to ripen. There is a bag of sugar there as well, a catering pack, quite cold. He drinks the milk, fatty and white and chill.
The phone rings once again.
Dan answers quietly, squatting by the fridge.
“Rude,” says the voice. It is low, a little blurry. Mushy, Dan thinks. “No matter,” it continues. “Not a problem any more.” It pauses, breathing in and out. “Got hold of you at last,” it says.
Dan holds the phone tight, its long white wire trailing across the floor from out the fuzzy shadows by the bed. He opens up the fridge. Inside, it is clean and cold and white. Behind him, Laurie snores a little, quietly.
“It can’t be you,” he says, keeping his voice down. “Jon killed you. We both saw it on the screens.”
“Both,” says the voice. “You and Miss Juspeczyk.” There is a crunching, down the line, like something being eaten. “Happy ending,” says the voice. “Congratulations. Good for you.”
“You died, Rorschach,” says Dan. “I made Laurie wait while I played it back, I promise. I made her wait and then we saw the snow.”
“Red,” says the voice. “Disassembly not death. Ask Jon.” There is more crunching. “I admit not in my case though,” it says. “Difficult. Grey area.”
Dan lowers himself to the soft hotel carpet, dappled with streetlight, flooded through with the neat slice of light from the fridge. He reaches for the sugar, starts to unwrap a cube one handed. Tricky. Even at his age he can still do this at least. Clever fingers, Hollis would say.
“They published your stuff, you know,” he says. He feels so tired. “But things had gone downhill long before that.”
“Downhill” says the voice. “Downhill from half New York dead in the street. Happy ending, Daniel. You let yourself go.”
“I have,” Dan agrees. They are half a step ahead, always, the both of them, as far as they can tell, but without Laurie he’d be in a Pioneer re-education camp by now. Cheering the football, under the arc-lights.
He thinks of Hollis, his black-and-white newsprint world of derring-do. Tijuana bibles, big grins and bouncy breasts.
He reaches up above the fridge, nudges the bag of cold tomatoes. They are hard in places, half frozen. Now they are thawing into grainy mush, cell walls spiked through by ice crystals, pale red skin dark in blotches, the plastic bag clinging to them in wet wrinkles. Like Laurie’s old costume, like latex on skin.
“Grey areas unsatisfactory, Dan,” says the voice. “No compromise. A lot of things to do now, you agree.”
“Yes,” says Dan, “yes, Rorschach, there are.”
He holds his free hand out, moves it in and out of the cold light of the fridge. He has already put the sugar in his mouth, the sweet white crystals melting on his tongue.
“Cold here,” it says. “No forward movement.”
“Yes, Rorschach,” says Dan. “I know.”
He reaches for more sugar. His hand inside the fridge looks bruised, thick with vague blotches underneath the skin. Trick of the light.
“Need exit,” says the voice. “No helpful neon sign.”
“No,” says Dan. “There usually isn’t when you need one.”
“Apologies,” says the voice.
“What?”
“Nothing,” it says. “Eat up.”
Dan swallows down the sugar, the last lump. The floor, he sees, is littered with the paper packets, like origami left half-done. White on the dark carpet.
Time has crumpled here in this hired hotel night and it is almost dawn.
“Almost there,” says the voice. “Some adjustment necessary. Much work to do.” It pauses. “Glad to have known you, Daniel,” it says.
“Rorschach?” says Dan. “Rorschach.”
The line goes dead.
He closes the fridge door on the cold light, stands stiffly. The paper on the floor crunches beneath his feet like snow, and Laurie stirs, half-wakes. Light from the curtain comes across in blots and blotches, pale and dark.
“Who’s there?” she says.
“No matter,” he says. “Sleep.”
His voice is hoarse.
He moves Dan’s body round towards the door, the fingers stiff with cold. They will warm up, wear in. He needs to find his face, black shapes on white.
And one for King Lear (LOL, self), after an awesome prompt from
newredshoes :Fear not the storm. Fear the bright light that appears in the midst of it. (Bonus points for creepy Cordelia.)
Characters: ensemble. Well, Lear and his daughters, at least. Kinda.Rating / warnings: PG. Massive amounts of sexism; anti-Catholic bigotry. Erosion of free will and other creeping horrors.
A/N: This is SO VERY AU, and probably has a lot more to do with sixteenth-century debates about exorcism than with Lear. It does however hopefully provide a creepy Cordelia.
That nature which contemns it origin
Cannot be bordered certain in itself.
From an appeal written by the Gloucestershire gentleman Oswald Simpkin to the right Honourable Sir Thomas Egerton Knight, Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England, Sir John Popham Knight, Lord chief Justice of England: Sir William Periam Knight, Lord chief Baron of the Exchequer, and other the most reverend Judges of the Common Laws of England.
This account, for which a terminus ad quem is provided by Simpkin’s death in the spring of 1605, was found among his papers after his death: it was never sent.
My lords, I do not doubt that your honours have heard of the possession and dispossession of the daughters of the Kentish knight sir L, a gentleman of good worship and credit who opened his house to me his humble friend on divers occasions all throughout his life. Much ink and paper has been spent on this matter, it is well known, by the noted exorcist Mr J. D. and by Mr S. H. in his work against the counterfeits of those who feign to cast out devils. I beg your kind indulgence, good my lords. I write mine own account to still my heart. Yet, so, my lords. This is a matter of some import, I believe: there is a matter of inheritance, I understand, of competence in administering the estate. When men have only daughters, things are often so.
Divers accounts relate how the first and second daughters of Sir L, one Griselda and one Radegund, were taken strange one summer afternoon as they sat sewing by the roses on the garden bank. I can tell you there are roses there indeed: I saw the place myself this winter past. There was as well one other daughter, the fair third. Cordelia, my lords, as these accounts attest. I can tell you, good my lords, who knew these girls almost from birth, that they were ever quick and sharp, as girls will be, since things grow fast that have but a small green season granted them before the time they fall back down to dullness, as weeds in corn grow thick and bright and rank.
Hereunto I might add, that I offer no sure and certain opinion myself upon this matter, these things being under the good hand of God and open clearly only to the learned of the Church. Your honours I can say only what thing it was I saw, and I cannot claim that my eyes were not deceived. Our brains, good my lords, are like the firmament, subject to perturbation and sore troubled by the conflux and the rise of gross and fatty vapours: ill concoction of our meat and drink breeds sluggy air within us which will rise and fill our heads with fancies, coarse conceits. There are as many fish in the tight teaming sea, my lords, as there are strange imaginings within our skins and skulls.
I stopped that night at that cold house, my lords, because the air was thick; dull vapours lay like foaming barm along the ground until the storm came in and bought the rain. The rain came quick. It was a miry road, my lords, I knew not how far I had yet to go. Yet then I saw the lights and knew the place: they made me welcome there before the fire.
I knew already that not all was well. I had heard accounts, though none from my friend’s pen. My friend Sir L, my lords, if I may be so bold, God rest his soul. They write my lords of how the oldest girls would speak distinctly with their tongues curled back and how small swelling shapes would creep under the covers, up and down their bodies, quick as rats or mice. The girls spoke clearly, lords, the following words, Ego sum Rex: that is, I am the King; they lay out flat with black hands like the dead. They said the girls would would stretch out long like so and then bunch up like loaves of round brown bread: that at such times their attendants could by no means induce them to lie still. They say they spoke full loud my lords of light like rotten wood: they spoke of this and of a weight like iron hooped round their chests: they moved their hands as if to lift the air.
Yet I saw none of that, my lords. My tale concerns the fair Cordelia, not so fortunate, I wish to say, as fair. Each of the girls was comely: there has indeed been talk – but now no more of that. Master J. D. is a God-fearing man, that much is sure. They say indeed he used to cry at night to God. But such is gossips’ talk, which springs like mushrumps fast as bubbling dough. Cordelia, my lords, I say was fair, beloved treasure of her father’s eye. Her hair was like gold wire, my lords, crisping and waved like water under wind. They say that she was born, my lords, on such a night as that last thundering storm, when wind and rain almost ploughed up the earth.
But this is nothing, you will object, to the purpose. Even so, my lords, perhaps. I write what comes to me, my lords, I cry you mercy. I have been exceeding ill.
Their house was low, my lords, the ground for miles around was a wet marish, bare of any trees. A place for rotten mist, my lords, and walking fires. The serving maids showed me the dark storerooms underneath the hall, full flooded to the steps and rising quick. The water there was brackish, still and quiet yet creeping up: you could not hear the storm.
The older girls, my lords, kept to their beds. They had no mother, you must understand. A goodly lady, ever mild and sweet, she had died there long ago, in that old storm and wet at her third daughter’s birth. It was a sickly air around that house, to tell it true, resolved to heavy mist by damp as milk to butter by the sweet maid’s churn. Their father loved them all, as old men do. I cry you mercy, lords, I will myself ne'er see full forescore years again. They all made much of him, as daughters will: it seemed when they were younger that they strove, indeed, the one against the other for his favour: such runs the love of girls. As quick as light through glass, my lords, as green on hot wet flesh.
But Cordelia had his heart: that much is certain, good my lords, and true. There is no shame in it, my lords, the best of us goes where it will. We only hope that those who claim it hold it tight and do not let it drop and fall to rot. Like fruit in autumn dust are hearts to careless girls, I full well know. My lords, the light comes fast. My lords. It is needful that you know of this. You must ensure – but so. Enough of that.
Cordelia, oh you must understand, my lords, was passing fair. She bade me enter, had them take my cloak. The rain had come through right down to the skin, my lords, and I was bitter cold.
She gave me a hot caudle and soft yellow apple-johns: she sat me by the fire. She made a sweet sack posset, good my lords with her own hands with cream and ambergris. I was exceeding cold. She spoke of the misfortunes of her sisters in a low small voice like creeping rain. She seemed just then like light through coloured glass, my lords, exceeding fair.
I asked to see her father and she said he wandered in his mind and spoke of kings. Of rosemary and rue and bitter herbs. My heart was heavy when I heard of this. He played the old king for the Christmas revels at the Middle Temple when we both were younger men. He was a merry youth.
We had a falling out in middle age, my lords. Forgive, forget.
She took me in to see him in his tall close-curtained bed. His cheeks were fallen in. She sang to him, my lords, of times long past, she called the song the Goodyear, good my lords. He looked at her and smiled, my lords, so sweetly that it seemed he was again a boy let out from school. The air was close, my lords, exceeding feculent and sweet.
I never knew him then. We met as students, the time of life when all the blood runs hot. We made each other foolish promises, my lords, as young men do.
She was a sweet girl, fair Cordelia, she led me down the hall. I heard her sisters crying, I dare say. I know I heard some sound above the storm. They say they feigned their cruel possession, good my lords, yet this is not a thing I can presume to know. I have no sympathy for Popish puppetry, my lords, know this. And yet I fear, my lords. I am subject to night fears like many bookish men, albeit my learning lords is slight. I feel my mind, my lords, is clogged and full of fear. There is a surfeit in my thoughts, my lord, heavy superfluities tartarous and thick sink down below and I am sick at heart for those green girls, my lords, they lay out still and cried.
I saw her visibly, my lords, I swear, going at night to seek my good friend’s chamber. I meant only kind comfort, good my lords, I swear I only meant to hold his hand. She couched herself, my lords, up on his chest, her hair hung down like silk and silver hooks. She turned and looked at me, my lords, with fat dull eyes. They grow exceeding rank, these fish-quick girls. Her mouth my lords was wet. The light was bright, my lords, like growing rot. And yes, my friend, my friend my lords he sang to her, his voice was soft and low.
I left that night, my lords. I have been since exceeding ill. His voice my lords was sweet. My eyes my lords are wet: I wait for her. My kind Cordelia, as fortunate, my lords, as fortunate as fair.
My lords the light comes quick. Who’s there, I say. Who’s there?
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 04:33 am (UTC)but omg KING LEAR FIC?! /takes moment to compose self
/reads
:DDDDD
*_____*
wow, I am stunned at how well you can capture the prose style of the times! So oddly formal, and yet so lush. I adore your descriptions, particularly:
Our brains, good my lords, are like the firmament, subject to perturbation and sore troubled by the conflux and the rise of gross and fatty vapours: ill concoction of our meat and drink breeds sluggy air within us which will rise and fill our heads with fancies, coarse conceits. There are as many fish in the tight teaming sea, my lords, as there are strange imaginings within our skins and skulls.
What a heavy, sluggy feeling! I especially like the contrast between the heaviness of the body and the bright flitting fish within the mind.
and
She couched herself, my lords, up on his chest, her hair hung down like silk and silver hooks. She turned and looked at me, my lords, with fat dull eyes. They grow exceeding rank, these fish-quick girls. Her mouth my lords was wet. The light was bright, my lords, like growing rot. And yes, my friend, my friend my lords he sang to her, his voice was soft and low.
Fish-quick girls! ♥ It's wonderful how the fish threads throughout your words, the rank smell (like rotting fish), the fat dull eyes (like prominent fish eyes), the growing rot over time.
so utterly utterly glorious. I love the repetition throughout, "her mouth my lords was wet, my eyes my lords are wet," the constant "my lords" like a song's refrain. Even the subtle sexism (I can tell you, good my lords, who knew these girls almost from birth, that they were ever quick and sharp, as girls will be, since things grow fast that have but a small green season granted them before the time they fall back down to dullness, as weeds in corn grow thick and bright and rank) is so deliciously written.
And at the end, THE LIGHT IS COMING FOR HIM. The light and the rot. ooohhhh. ♥
Curious that you chose this viewpoint, but it worked very well. I think it's so interesting when an unsuspecting character slowly realizes the creeping horror. :)
I must ask, how do you manage to pull off the style of the pieces so well? First J&W, then tDiR, now King Lear of all things. :D
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 12:48 pm (UTC)I'm especially happy that you enjoyed the prose style, especially as I gave up on being exactingly true to the period about one sentence in and it settled as this odd mix of ye olde speak and fairy-tale-ish language. So I'm really glad it still reads as somewhat convincingly in-period, and that you liked the chiming repetition!
I'm happy as well that you liked the fish and the sexism (not entirely unrelated...) - I mean, *adding* horror to Lear is a tricky proposition, and dwelling on the sexism seemed like one obvious way to go.
And in terms of the POV character - I'm happy you think using a relative outsider worked. I guess he does have quite a bit of Lear's Oswald in him, given his cringing awareness of rank and the fact that he's simultaneously entitled enough to address himself to ALL THE JUDGES, but Gloucester and Kent are in there as well a tiny bit, as also the Falstaff of Henry IV part 2 and maybe even Faustus, an even tinier bit. I AM NOT SHORT OF AMBITION HERE, YO.
And, wow, thank you - in terms of pulling off prose-style in general, if I ever do manage it, I guess I blame reading way too much in my formative years!
But, uh, in terms of this piece you've given me a chance to confess that I STOLE LOTS OF IT. From Lear, obviously, but a lot of the misty, foggy imagery and the silken lines and silver hooks draw on 'The Terrors of the Night' by Thomas Nashe, who was big news in the 1580s and 90s and is pretty awesome if you haven't come across him. And a lot of the description of possession is taken fairly closely from contemporary accounts. So, in this case, heh, the answer would be SHAMELESS THIEVERY!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 08:31 pm (UTC)The fairy tale style of the language adds to the creepiness, methinks. Disney would have to disembowel this quite thoroughly for its target audience of kids. XD Yes, the sexism worked well--mentioned off-handedly, like the author assumes of course those who read this piece will understand what he means.
I'm a sucker for outsider POV. It's fascinating to see how the situation is perceived by those not in the know.
Clearly I must read more! :D Also, I have never heard of Nashe's "The Terrors of the Night"--that will be something on my (lamentably long) to-read list.
You profess to be a shameless thief, but you are a very talented one. ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 11:23 pm (UTC)Heh, Disney! Though, mind you, I guess they managed to bowdlerise some fairy stories which were every bit as grisly (The Little Mermaid, I am looking at you). And, uh, casual sexism ftw, I guess?!? I mean, when the context is HORROR, at least.
Oh, and looks like the Nashe piece is online for future ref: The Terrors of the Night (PDF).
And thank you very much!