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Crozier sees Tom Blanky sitting on the edge of a frozen sea. His wooden boot is off - cast down the second he's able to rid himself of the damned thing - and he's smoking his last pipe as he waits. It's more sawdust than tobacco now, and it likely burns the back of his throat, but if his lungs and throat are burning then he's warm enough.
The beast's not far behind; it's been following ever since it realized the Yorkshireman was alone. He hears it behind him, smells its carrion breath, and turns with chest puffed out to greet death--
There's a play now, a pantomime. Crozier normally doesn't care for pantomimes, and this one is a fairly standard affair, the Pierrot, Columbine, and Harlequin doing their little tumbles and jests until a fourth figure steps in. Has there ever been a panto with gun-play? There's barely time to consider it before the gun goes off and the Harlequin falls to the ground, bleeding out from the hole in his stomach. The interloper is familiar -- she is the Harlequin.
Una Persson dons her costume, apologizing for shooting Pierrot's brother. No one seems surprised that the man is dying. No one really seems concerned. He will return, as they all do, time and time again.
Crozier finds himself in a lighthouse, but he senses it's not as it should be.
"Why're you all wet, baby?"
Doctor Cawley, a short, distinguished-looking man with a head balder than a newborn is sitting calmly behind a desk as a gun - it looks like a gun, anyway - is pointed to him. He's unworried. The man holding the gun looks more and more frantic. Cawley and the man, Laeddis, go back and forth and back and forth, and then there's Doctor Sheehan walking in through the door, a soft, apologetic smile on his face.
"Hey, boss."
Laeddis face falls.
Scully's face is open. He knows her name is Dana Scully. She's a brilliant woman, much like Sophia, and can see through nonsense as though she's developed a special talent for it.
Mulder trusts her. She trusts him. In the arctic - he's not sure how he knows it's the arctic, but it is - being hunted by a parasite, the others around them growing in their own suspicions and paranoia, they only have each other. Mulder allows her to check his neck, and she finds him free of the worm currently ravaging the fort.
Crozier paws at his chest in his sleep. He feels like his bedclothes are strangling him.
He realizes he's back aboard Terror. It's not ship he's known, but the ship he will know, and he recognizes the faces of Mahir Gowda and Shaun Mason. They're speaking quietly in someone's berth, close. Knees touching as they discuss something Crozier can't understand. Maybe, he thinks, it doesn't matter if he doesn't understand the topic of their conversation. He knows their tone, their hushed words, the tenderness expressed between two people who think the world of each other.
Shaun moves just a hair's breadth and his lips touch Mahir's. There's a gasp of surprise between them, mostly Mahir's, and for a second Crozier believes Mahir is going to make a dash for the door. He doesn't. He presses back, their arms link around each other, drawing the other's body close as their mouths meet again.
It hasn't happened yet. Crozier's reminded of the lash and the articles, and a deep, quiet, insistent part of him quiets his mind and shows him Bridgens. The old man brings a journal to his lips and lays his body down on the rocky ground of King William Land, dying with the last trace of his love protected from the elements by his body.
They find the journal. M'Clintock does, Bridgen's weather-worn skeleton still clutching his beloved's words. M'Clintock finds so much of them, including Jopson.
He knows the skeleton is Jopson's. The bleached bones are still wearing his dress shirt and smallclothes. M'Clintock touches the skull and Crozier wants to scream himself hoarse. Don't touch him! Don't touch him, he's not just bones, he was a man, god damn you!
He's beside the tent now, watching as Little as his party does the one thing he assured the dying he would never do. Next him are rations, poisoned mush in a little red can, and so cruelly stacked and left for the men who would never have the strength to open them in the first place. He hears Jopson call out, feels him crawling from the tent, belly and hands scratching and bleeding as he drags himself on the shale.
Crozier sees himself. He's sitting at a table, feasting and talking to some unseen party. He looks well-fed, well-groomed. Jopson imagines himself crawling over the table in desperation to get to him. He calls for him, calls for him over and over, voice breaking, body dying, believing his captain to have abandoned him for dead.
He thinks he hears Fitzjames pleading for death, but the voice isn't his. It belongs to an old woman, and she's desperately beginning for her own end. Something clings to her, choking her, and Dorian, for all of his bluster and self-assurance, is hesitant. He doesn't want to kill her. This is no way to take care of a little sister, he says. They argue back and forth, her voice deepening with her sickness, and Dorian finally - finally relents.
It's the hard crack that makes Crozier sick to his stomach, even in the dream. Dorian's face is the picture of regret and despair, but he's still holding the old woman's head in his hands, the sin he's committed hanging heavy in the room.
Crozier knows a mercy killing when he sees one, but he doesn't understand the workings of it. It's hazy and confusing, and he can't seem to read this one as well as the others. The humidity of the room is oppressive, and then it's cold.
Freezing, actually.
The ceilings rise above him like a Papist cathedral, and sounds echo around him like he imagines a castle might. He hears a little girl crying for her mother and father, her small arms trying to hold up another girl not much younger than herself. She's injured her somehow, this younger girl. She's horrified by herself, scared that she's hurt the person closest to her heart. Crozier doesn't understand how exactly, but he knows the ice has something to do with it.
He's suddenly stumbling over a frozen sea, and thinks he spies Terror in the distance. But it isn't Terror or Erebus out in the ice but an entire, unfamiliar fleet, their sails still unfurled as though they were taken by surprise by the sudden fury of the storm. There are others out there on the water with him, the wind and sleet roaring loudly and pushing them away from each other. Just as he thinks he might be blown away entirely the wind ceases, and Crozier beholds a heartbreaking scene - the same little girl, now grown, weeping over the frozen body of her sister.
Her sister, Anna, the now Queen of Arendelle, frozen in place to save her sister.
The others that had been lost in the snow congregate to watch the woman weep. A man on the ice, another standing by a reindeer, and a --
A horror. A man made out of snow, speaking and walking on its own.
As Crozier recoils he's pushed out from that place, pulled into another that is sadly far more familiar.
Jonathan Strange is in that dark apartment. He tears at delicate-looking fabric - a gown - and throws it to the ground. His distress is momentarily forgotten when he spies a small, metal box on the floor. His face contorts as he stares at it, and then he's reaching for something on his desk. It's a vial containing a mouse floating in some sort of pickling brine or alcohol. He drinks it down, grimaces, his eyes grow wide as part of himself disappears.
"Where did you come from? Show me."
Strange runs towards the mirror and Crozier braces for the man to smash right into the glass. But as quickly as he'd downed the disgusting drink he's gone, disappeared right through the mirror. All the candles left behind in the gloomy apartment are extinguished at once, but not before a final burst of bright light.
It's too bright to be candles alone. Too loud. The roar renders him deaf for a moment, and then there's horrible silence.
"Mr. Bastable, as I understand it a bomb of this type can, in theory, produce incalculable destruction. Parts of the city might be harmed."
'Parts' is a damn understatement, Crozier thinks. The city - he knows it is called Hiroshima - has been annihilated, and Una Persson was in the airship that dropped the bomb.
Crozier sits up with a start, grasping the bedclothes around him and panting.
"What in the god-damned hell?"
((Crozier will be dreaming a version of this every night for the duration of the nightmare.))
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Has anyone else remained in possession of their own thoughts? If you have, make yourself known here and to each other. London is a large place and I haven't seen any of you since Terror changed.
I've located Mrs. Strange and conversed with her on the subject of her husband. There may be a way to track him down yet, but I haven't figured out the workings of the magic.
And yes, I'm perfectly aware of how ridiculous that sounds coming from a man like myself.
The beast's not far behind; it's been following ever since it realized the Yorkshireman was alone. He hears it behind him, smells its carrion breath, and turns with chest puffed out to greet death--
There's a play now, a pantomime. Crozier normally doesn't care for pantomimes, and this one is a fairly standard affair, the Pierrot, Columbine, and Harlequin doing their little tumbles and jests until a fourth figure steps in. Has there ever been a panto with gun-play? There's barely time to consider it before the gun goes off and the Harlequin falls to the ground, bleeding out from the hole in his stomach. The interloper is familiar -- she is the Harlequin.
Una Persson dons her costume, apologizing for shooting Pierrot's brother. No one seems surprised that the man is dying. No one really seems concerned. He will return, as they all do, time and time again.
Crozier finds himself in a lighthouse, but he senses it's not as it should be.
"Why're you all wet, baby?"
Doctor Cawley, a short, distinguished-looking man with a head balder than a newborn is sitting calmly behind a desk as a gun - it looks like a gun, anyway - is pointed to him. He's unworried. The man holding the gun looks more and more frantic. Cawley and the man, Laeddis, go back and forth and back and forth, and then there's Doctor Sheehan walking in through the door, a soft, apologetic smile on his face.
"Hey, boss."
Laeddis face falls.
Scully's face is open. He knows her name is Dana Scully. She's a brilliant woman, much like Sophia, and can see through nonsense as though she's developed a special talent for it.
Mulder trusts her. She trusts him. In the arctic - he's not sure how he knows it's the arctic, but it is - being hunted by a parasite, the others around them growing in their own suspicions and paranoia, they only have each other. Mulder allows her to check his neck, and she finds him free of the worm currently ravaging the fort.
Crozier paws at his chest in his sleep. He feels like his bedclothes are strangling him.
He realizes he's back aboard Terror. It's not ship he's known, but the ship he will know, and he recognizes the faces of Mahir Gowda and Shaun Mason. They're speaking quietly in someone's berth, close. Knees touching as they discuss something Crozier can't understand. Maybe, he thinks, it doesn't matter if he doesn't understand the topic of their conversation. He knows their tone, their hushed words, the tenderness expressed between two people who think the world of each other.
Shaun moves just a hair's breadth and his lips touch Mahir's. There's a gasp of surprise between them, mostly Mahir's, and for a second Crozier believes Mahir is going to make a dash for the door. He doesn't. He presses back, their arms link around each other, drawing the other's body close as their mouths meet again.
It hasn't happened yet. Crozier's reminded of the lash and the articles, and a deep, quiet, insistent part of him quiets his mind and shows him Bridgens. The old man brings a journal to his lips and lays his body down on the rocky ground of King William Land, dying with the last trace of his love protected from the elements by his body.
They find the journal. M'Clintock does, Bridgen's weather-worn skeleton still clutching his beloved's words. M'Clintock finds so much of them, including Jopson.
He knows the skeleton is Jopson's. The bleached bones are still wearing his dress shirt and smallclothes. M'Clintock touches the skull and Crozier wants to scream himself hoarse. Don't touch him! Don't touch him, he's not just bones, he was a man, god damn you!
He's beside the tent now, watching as Little as his party does the one thing he assured the dying he would never do. Next him are rations, poisoned mush in a little red can, and so cruelly stacked and left for the men who would never have the strength to open them in the first place. He hears Jopson call out, feels him crawling from the tent, belly and hands scratching and bleeding as he drags himself on the shale.
Crozier sees himself. He's sitting at a table, feasting and talking to some unseen party. He looks well-fed, well-groomed. Jopson imagines himself crawling over the table in desperation to get to him. He calls for him, calls for him over and over, voice breaking, body dying, believing his captain to have abandoned him for dead.
He thinks he hears Fitzjames pleading for death, but the voice isn't his. It belongs to an old woman, and she's desperately beginning for her own end. Something clings to her, choking her, and Dorian, for all of his bluster and self-assurance, is hesitant. He doesn't want to kill her. This is no way to take care of a little sister, he says. They argue back and forth, her voice deepening with her sickness, and Dorian finally - finally relents.
It's the hard crack that makes Crozier sick to his stomach, even in the dream. Dorian's face is the picture of regret and despair, but he's still holding the old woman's head in his hands, the sin he's committed hanging heavy in the room.
Crozier knows a mercy killing when he sees one, but he doesn't understand the workings of it. It's hazy and confusing, and he can't seem to read this one as well as the others. The humidity of the room is oppressive, and then it's cold.
Freezing, actually.
The ceilings rise above him like a Papist cathedral, and sounds echo around him like he imagines a castle might. He hears a little girl crying for her mother and father, her small arms trying to hold up another girl not much younger than herself. She's injured her somehow, this younger girl. She's horrified by herself, scared that she's hurt the person closest to her heart. Crozier doesn't understand how exactly, but he knows the ice has something to do with it.
He's suddenly stumbling over a frozen sea, and thinks he spies Terror in the distance. But it isn't Terror or Erebus out in the ice but an entire, unfamiliar fleet, their sails still unfurled as though they were taken by surprise by the sudden fury of the storm. There are others out there on the water with him, the wind and sleet roaring loudly and pushing them away from each other. Just as he thinks he might be blown away entirely the wind ceases, and Crozier beholds a heartbreaking scene - the same little girl, now grown, weeping over the frozen body of her sister.
Her sister, Anna, the now Queen of Arendelle, frozen in place to save her sister.
The others that had been lost in the snow congregate to watch the woman weep. A man on the ice, another standing by a reindeer, and a --
A horror. A man made out of snow, speaking and walking on its own.
As Crozier recoils he's pushed out from that place, pulled into another that is sadly far more familiar.
Jonathan Strange is in that dark apartment. He tears at delicate-looking fabric - a gown - and throws it to the ground. His distress is momentarily forgotten when he spies a small, metal box on the floor. His face contorts as he stares at it, and then he's reaching for something on his desk. It's a vial containing a mouse floating in some sort of pickling brine or alcohol. He drinks it down, grimaces, his eyes grow wide as part of himself disappears.
"Where did you come from? Show me."
Strange runs towards the mirror and Crozier braces for the man to smash right into the glass. But as quickly as he'd downed the disgusting drink he's gone, disappeared right through the mirror. All the candles left behind in the gloomy apartment are extinguished at once, but not before a final burst of bright light.
It's too bright to be candles alone. Too loud. The roar renders him deaf for a moment, and then there's horrible silence.
"Mr. Bastable, as I understand it a bomb of this type can, in theory, produce incalculable destruction. Parts of the city might be harmed."
'Parts' is a damn understatement, Crozier thinks. The city - he knows it is called Hiroshima - has been annihilated, and Una Persson was in the airship that dropped the bomb.
Crozier sits up with a start, grasping the bedclothes around him and panting.
"What in the god-damned hell?"
((Crozier will be dreaming a version of this every night for the duration of the nightmare.))
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Has anyone else remained in possession of their own thoughts? If you have, make yourself known here and to each other. London is a large place and I haven't seen any of you since Terror changed.
I've located Mrs. Strange and conversed with her on the subject of her husband. There may be a way to track him down yet, but I haven't figured out the workings of the magic.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 05:59 pm (UTC)If the park has a pond or a brook we should be able to use a body of water instead of a mirror.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 06:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 06:44 pm (UTC)He spied the juggling tree and sighed to himself. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, scanning the crowds of people for Sheehan.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 06:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 07:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 07:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 08:18 pm (UTC)"Handsel," he murmured, raising the letter as he continued to read. "Path would be the reflective surface, and an envoy."
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 08:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 10:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 10:42 pm (UTC)"Well, hello," he told the birds. Feeling particularly foolish, he shifted his stance. "How are you? We need your help. If you don't mind. Do you know how to find Jonathan Strange?" he muttered.
To his surprise, one of the ravens hopped onto a lower branch and tilted its head towards Sheehan.
"Captain, I think we have a volunteer," he called over his shoulder.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 10:52 pm (UTC)"Oh. You actually found one. Do we...should we give it the letter?" Was it supposed to carry the letter, or smell it, or read it? Did they have to pay the thing for its services?
He felt very much out of his depth.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 11:04 pm (UTC)He turned to the bird. "Do you eat bread?"
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 11:21 pm (UTC)"I think that means yes."
Or Crozier was assuming, because what the hell did he know about ravens and what they generally wanted? All birds loved bread.
"There's a tavern not far from here. Since you seem to have made friends with the bird, you can entertain it while I find something to feed it."
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 11:26 pm (UTC)"So...do you have a family?" he asked with a laugh. "I don't normally do the talking, you know. I don't suppose you have anything that you want to talk to me about? Any dark secrets? Did you kill your wife? I had a patient once who stabbed her husband in the back with an ax." He chuckled darkly. "I felt sorry for her, but at least she could avoid prison. Truthfully, though, her husband was quite the asshole."
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 11:37 pm (UTC)He returned with half a stale loaf in hand. This should be enough to placate the raven--
What was Sheehan doing?
"Sheehan! Are you having a conversation with that thing?"
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-01 11:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 12:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 12:22 am (UTC)"Well, look at that."
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 12:39 am (UTC)"What do we do next?"
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 12:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 12:51 am (UTC)At least there were others practicing magic around them so they didn't look so foolish.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 12:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 01:30 am (UTC)He waited a moment, peering into the fountain, and then watched as the raven lifted off his perch at the edge of the fountain and flew off.
But it didn't fly magically away, or disappear in anyway. It hopped into a tree, then across the park with the letter still in its beak.
"Jesus Christ! That bird just stole our letter!"
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 01:31 am (UTC)He watched the bird fly away, into the clouds, and sighed, though he was still grinning. This was ridiculous.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-06-02 01:36 am (UTC)"That bird just convinced us to feed it, then fucked off."
But then again, that was what they deserved for trusting a damn bird.
(no subject)
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