simplestgift | Twelve Bells: [WRITTEN/ACCIDENTAL VIDEO/ACTION] The winter of our discontent.

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Twelve Bells: [WRITTEN/ACCIDENTAL VIDEO/ACTION] The winter of our discontent.

[Filtered to Dawn Summers 40%]
Meet me this evening? I'll come by your flat to walk you to dinner. I've a surprise for you.
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It has come to my attention that every copy the library has of Richard III is missing bits of his famous speech. I've noticed it in other places as well. Romeo and Juliet is lacking the lines when she wakes up and they reunite before he remembers he took poison. All for Love is also just a bit different from what I remember. Far as I can tell, The London Merchant is whole, but quite a lot of older tragedies are missing bits and pieces. Can anyone explain this?

There's something about the fight between Tybalt and Mer

[The writing stops. A second later, the journal hits the floor, showing a lovely view of the carpet in one of the many apartments in the village. In the background, Archie's voice begins, sounding a little flustered.]

Horatio, I'll be back in a few hours. Damn, damn.

Archie? [The immediate confusion is quickly replaced with a concern that he tries to make sound less pressing than he felt it.] What is it? Where are you going?

[Archie's voice comes back, less frantic but still speaking quickly as some jangling is heard from picking up his sword.] Nothing. In trying to get you settled this week, I completely forgot to practice. I'll be out back, behind the building, wishing I was dead.

Ah, of course. The pirate. [A beat.] Shall I wait here, then?

[A pause.] I suppose two could practice.

If he'd prefer to deal with only one, I would be content to just watch. [Not that he's trying to put off the inevitable-- that sooner or later, he has to let Archie out of his sight for more than a few minutes. ...To distract from that idea, he chuckles.] Besides-- would be hard for two to practice when only one is armed. Perhaps once I have a sword again, you can teach me what he's taught you.

I don't have a lesson today, Horatio. We could stop by the weapons' shop and find you something more than suitable. [He sounds slightly wistful.]

[The thought of not yet having to deal with the pirate whose boat he borrowed? Perks him up.] I'd like that.

Very well, Mister Hornblower. I challenge you to a duel!

And, as a gentleman, I cannot refuse. I am afraid, Mr. Kennedy, that in a matter as serious as this-- [the smile on his face is betrayed by his tone] --there can, naturally, be no quarter given.

[What follows behind CH1 is two navy boys gleefully trying to chop each other up. It's more akin to horseplay than practice, but it appears that "the twins" are having fun, at least. Onlookers feel free to look on.

Later, Archie will do a little honest practice on his own in the same place.

OOC: Anyone whose character knows stuff about lit history can point out that a lot of older plays in the 18th century were rewritten just a little to update them for a "modern" audience.]

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...that was the initial thought, but I'm a little worried that you need that clarified.

Oh, well. We'd never harm each other. Anything else that comes in the way...

Somehow that's not as reassuring as it should be.

How have you been, Jilly?

Surprisingly good, seeing as now I've got to worry about dueling sailors.

I just wish I could finish these paintings...it can be so hard to capture a dream.

Still painting the city?

Trying, anyway. It's hard to paint what I saw...instead of what I remember. [it makes sense in her head, really]

What's the difference?

Well, in the dream...or waking up from it, anyway... it was like seeing the city for the first time. And you see things differently the first time. It's never quite the same, afterwards.

Like...think back and try to remember the first time you ever sailed on the ocean. It'd be like trying to capture everything you were feeling then, instead of all the little bits of insight that came later, when you got really familiar with it.

They're both important...but it was like my chance to remember how it started. [voice softening a little] Or maybe not even remembering. My first time in the city, my mind wasn't really on how it looked. So...it really was something new.

[There's a pause.]

I think I understand, a little. The first time, I couldn't stop looking at the sea, it seemed so endless. After a time, it was just a great puddle we happened to be in the middle of, but I didn't want to be anywhere else.

Exactly. You still love it, but the reasons change.

...Everyone was having nightmares. Everyone here must have had terrible lives back home. It's a wonder they want to go back.

[a pause]

I guess that depends when the nightmares were from.

[her tone is neutral, still trying to figure out where she stands with all that...and whether she should tell Archie what really happened]

Mine...my life isn't like that, anymore.

[How much he knows about her, and doesn't know about her, matters little enough. He understands enough to have something of a context for her. He knows she's been through something terrible, and came out of it a better person than he is. The details, he doesn't need. If she needs to tell them, that's different.]

Neither was mine. But most of my dreams came from better times. Maybe some found most of their dreams drawn from worse times.

I had good dreams. [she'd gotten her paintings from them, after all]

The others...sometimes it's like I"ve lived three lives. The life that those dreams came from. The life that's waiting back home. And then here.

[Archie's not sure what to say to that. By now, he feels like home was just one life. Even Ferrol has been integrated into that, more or less, if he doesn't think about it for too long. Before, that had been his Other Life, where he was dead to the rest of the world and did not hope to return to it, and even after had thought it impossible to reintegrate into normal life. But he hadn't dreamed of Ferrol.]

Two second chances. Two fresh starts.

[a laugh] Maybe I should feel lucky. Not everyone even gets one.

[but she hadn't really wanted to start over the second time. She didn't regret being here...but sometimes she missed the people she'd left behind a great deal.]

[He hadn't wanted to die, but if he had to, at least this second fresh start was turning out well.]

I am very lucky. And with Horatio--

[His voice gives out and he clears his throat.]

[softly]

I'm very glad he's here for you.

[she'd worried, really. The way Archie had praised him, putting him on such a high pedestal, she'd been afraid that Horatio would be the type to expect that. But now that he was here and lavishing the same kind of affection on Archie....well, it was reassuring. And wonderful to see]

Now he's here...

[A long pause, and he quickly summons a filter.]

I'm frightened he'll disappear. I'm frightened of how I'll react. Losing him once was nigh impossible, and it would have been without...without you, and Leonard, and Dawn.

[she hesitates as well. Because it's something she's worried about, too]

Right now, he's here. And you and I have been here for five months. Buffy and Jack and Len...they've been here even longer. Horatio could be here for a very long time,yet.

[There's another long pause.]

When I was wounded. During the draft. Did I tell you anything a-about something I remembered from...from when I was shot?

Bits and pieces...but nothing specific comes to mind.

..Why?

[Hear the relief in his voice.]

Nothing, just...I've heard there have been experiments that make you tell secrets. If Horatio were to find out one of them, he'd... [No, he's not going to go any further down that train of thought. The man was suffering enough guilt over what happened.]

[she won't push him...she'd never do that. But it worries her]

Even if you had told me anything, I wouldn't pass it on. Not if you wanted it kept.

But... if experiments happen, they happen. You can't carry that burden, too.

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