simplestgift | Seventeen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

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Seventeen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

On July the 4th, 1776, one Horatio Hornblower was born in Kent. If you see him, bid him many happy returns. He will most likely grump about it all day and act ungrateful, but don't allow it to discourage you. He does appreciate it, he simply does not know it.

[For most of the day, Archie will be running around trying to furnish a bedroom in the house for a new housemate. He'll end up in the library, Good Spirits, the grocery store, then finally the Battle Dome, mostly staring in bewilderment at the controls before deciding this is too scary and leaving. At some point, he'll also take a walk in the woods, rain or no rain, in shirtsleeves and waistcoat but no coat. After a while, he'll get back on the journals.]

[Filtered away from Grell, 44%]

If you wanted to surprise someone dear to you, to cheer her up when she returned from being kidnapped, what would you do for her?

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Well, good luck. Suppose you could always buy another, if needs must.

No we can't, actually, but we can take one from the bakery without paying.

[Quit it, Archie.]

I can't help feeling bad about taking those cakes without leaving something in return; looks like they'd've taken a while to make. Not much to be done about that, though.

I suppose one's payment is in having one's work appreciated.

That's something, anyway. It's probably not such a loss if you like cake-making.

Not likely. Does the book say anything about what Mr Bush looks like, or shall I describe him to you? I believe he's going about in one of my shirts, however, it's a somewhat distinctive look.

[Somehow the idea of siccing a fangirl on Bush brings joy to his heart.]

[To be fair, she knows how to behave around people she's fans of--or, at least, knows how not to act like an excited neckbeard. But oh, this is exciting.]

Let's see, huge and hairy. One foot. Shouldn't be too hard to spot him.

[Forget writing.]

...What?

I know it doesn't sound all that complimentary, but that's how he's described.

He's not very tall, first of all--perhaps even a bit shorter than I am--and he has two feet.

[He'll give you hairy, though.]

Edited 2011-07-05 03:36 (UTC)

[Hm.]

Bulky, then. And if he's got two feet here, then I'm glad to hear it. [Hmm.] You wouldn't happen to know what he was doing back in your world, would you?

He was first lieutenant aboard the Hotspur.

[Duh.]

[Well, golly, Archie, she'll read his mind beforehand next time.]

The Hotspur? [She has to think for a moment or two, since she's been reading the books as they come out, not in chronological order.] Well, never mind about the foot, then.

[His voice is hushed.] ...Do the books say something about him losing a foot? In the future?

[There's a long pause; she really isn't in the mood to be anyone's Cassandra, even if Archie believes her. But at the same time, she can't just drop a bombshell like that one and refuse to give him the details. When she does speak, it's somberly.]

Flying Colours. Or maybe Ship of the Line, I can never remember which. Dunno I really ought to tell you exactly how it goes down. [After all, Archie, it's not your foot.]

[Oh, Archie's not about to tell William a word of this.]

And you believe these books to be quite accurate?

[Shrug. Completely useless shrug.]

You gotta understand--where I'm from, you're all about as real as Doctor McCoy. [There's a "real McCoy" joke in here somewhere, but now is not the time.] I assume they line up with what happened to you, back home, but I can't really tell you for sure, since I don't really know what's real for you three.

[There's a pause. He doesn't get the reference to McCoy--McCoy is real.]

Can you tell me one of the stories of Horatio as a midshipman? Does the book go back that far?

[And, you know, that's probably for the best.]

Yeah, the last few books've been about Hornblower's early career. Let's see, Mister Midshipman Hornblower--it starts out, Hornblower's just been accepted as a midshipman, what's the name of the ship? Jules'd know if he were here. Anyway, another midshipman, Simpson, just lives to make everyone else's lives hell, nearly drives Hornblower to suicide, so Hornblower challenges him to a duel. There's another bit where he's sailing a ship full of rice and it sinks, another where he goes into France a ways as a gunner, little adventures like that.

[Oh god, oh god. Simpson.]

How does the duel end?

[He's trying to keep his voice steady.]

[She doesn't know the variances in Archie's voice well enough to realize she's stumbled into dangerous ground.]

Oh, let's see. The plan's that they'll each pick up a pistol, and one will be loaded, and the other won't. But the captain doesn't load either of them, so I guess you'd call it a draw.

[Oh thank God. Kay, you are an angel.]

Good. Good.

[HUGE sigh of relief. That was not, by any stretch of the imagination, how it happened.]

Good.

If I'd been writing it, shots would've actually been fired, but it's not my book. [Seriously, Archie, what's going on.]

Shots were fired, Mrs. Eaton. [He is so relieved.] The last one put a hole in Simpson's chest and it came from his own captain, as he deserved. [Oh but it is weird to say that name to someone he barely knows. This has been the strangest conversation of his life, and a deeply disturbing one.] Moreover, stop talking about it as if it didn't happen, and us as if we don't exist. And don't, don't talk about Simpson, not to anyone.

[There's a long pause. When Kay replies, there's a sort of tightness to her tone, as though she's holding something back and it's taking some effort.]

All right. Fine. How about we make a deal: I do everything you just demanded, and you don't try to order me around again.

Ever.

[But hey, as a personal favour, she'll resist the urge to declare Archie's reality a better ending than the one Forester wrote.]

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