Ficalbum challenge CD/song: Prospekt's March - Glass of Water
Author's Notes: Okay, so hurrah for first Pocahontas fic EVER! And it surprisingly doesn't have Pocahontas in it. Anyway, Coldplay's "Glass of Water" talks about thoughts of the future, and that just kind of made me think about John Smith's crew - why would such a diverse group be leaving their home for a strange new world? So I used the first stanza of that song (which I can't post here, grrrr, be sure to look it up) for inspiration. Thanks to Uldaren Bardaniel for the title! Anyway, here we go, R&R, please!
Worlds Away
The Susan Constant is setting sail at last; "All hands on deck!" a rusty sailor's voice shouts from his little basket perched among the rigging. The ship's colored masts plunge into the sky, looking like towers of some ancient castle, the English pennant snapping back and forth high above all the people below, as they revolve around one another in their final goodbyes to the Virginia Company.
Shoving his green cap to the back of his head, Thomas looks around at the massive crowd, milling across the square, weeping and shouting; at the people from a hundred different ranks and trades, of a thousand different minds. The girls look lovelier than ever, now he's leaving (of course, that's how it always goes); the men, why, they look amazingly strong and capable. Not at all like himself - a lad of seventeen, the youngest in his family, probably the youngest on board, not even wielding a razor yet. "Little Tom," he is (Mother's weeping it right now). He used to imagine that's all he'd ever be, the tagalong brother getting into scrapes with his clumsy, thick-headed habits. How else can he shake the association, Thomas thinks, unless he leaves?
The New World. Sounds so exotic, like one of God's other stars. Why, there, he can be anything he pleases. It's a chance, to prove to himself and to the whole world, maybe, that he can be brave, worthy of respect and admiration. Maybe one day, he can be one of those confident fellows, who never has to take a word from anyone.
Maybe he could be something more.
-X-
Some people don't leave to see the world - they leave to forget their own.
London's so crowded, thinks Ben - simple dull Ben, in his suit of steely, rusty grey; habitually half-shaven Ben, irritable and coarse - as he plows his way through the mass with his sea chest hoisted high on his shoulder. How glad he'll be to leave this noise, this stench, the disease - and the ghosts.
Since Martha died - claimed and spirited away in the winter from the raging sickness - the world has been empty. Every room a testament to what once was, mocking the monotonous clanging work of the smithy, till nothing matters anymore, and it seems there's no God in Heaven, no danger or excitement anywhere, just dull greyness and harsh sounds.
He just wants to be done with it, all of it. He wants to leave his memories and the hurting and the drone of days behind.
He'll go a world way, and drown it all in beer and bullets.
-X-
The sight of seagulls cheers that burly 43-year-old romantic, Lon; he likes to think how free they must be, soaring up there: no worries. He'd like to be like that. Not tied down by duty, or responsibility, or any of those mundane kind of things. And then he thinks - it's almost a hope unspeakable, a tantalizing thought in the back of his clotted mind: in the New World, he won't be under anyone. He'll still be one of the King's Men - he don't mind that - but they'll need him as much as any other man there, maybe more. Even though, here in England, he's just a lowly bachelor helping-hand, to be yelled at as a commoner.
Freedom from rank, and duty. From others' expectations of what he is and isn't, should and should not be.
He hopes that he finds that treasure - freedom - in the New World.
-X-
Not everyone sets sail for adventure. Lord knows (pardon the vulgarity) that Wiggins don't intend it. On the contrary, he expects the New World to be quite...filthy, all out in the open as it is (he isn't much of a one for dirt, except perhaps the topsoil in a nicely pruned garden). No, the Englishers, led by the illustrious Governor Ratcliffe, will have to spruce it up, give it a good sweep, so to speak, and help the poor ignorant savages make themselves civilized and cultured and happy. Wiggins is so excited to be able to assist at all in this good mission, and travelling in the company of the governor, no less, is unimaginably thrilling! Wiggins estimates that if anyone can set the heathens straight, it is Ratcliffe and his men. Why, it won't be difficult to enlighten the unhappy savages on the subjects of education and civilization, mercy and integrity.
Wiggins is certain the Londoners will simply have to lead by their own shining example!
-X-
And looking out over it all, aloof, perched high among the rigging and contraptions of the mighty Susan Constant, is the captain of that ship.
It's ironic, really. Out of all these men piling onto the decks, looking to him for encouragement and guidance, he wants to leave least of them all. It unnerves him, the dark way he's thinking; usually, the prospect of uncharted territory thrills him, sets his skin on edge, opens up possibilities unheard of. But today, somehow, it's different.
It's not that he's afraid to leave something behind. There's nothing there to leave; no home, wife, children, no real job to speak of. He severed all those traditional ties long ago, cut himself adrift, like some strange cloud floating alone in a void sky. No, there's nothing in England, John Smith thinks, with a tinge of bitterness unusual in his normally careless spirit.
And the really terrible thing is, he's starting to think he'll always be that island of a man, wherever he goes. So many strange new worlds he's seen. Utopias, none of them - all the same, all so promising at first, then lapsing into a state of uselessness. Deep inside his weathered core, he's tired of searching for that utopia, and that goddess he knows he's seen in his mind's eye for one bright second before she disappeared. They just don't exist.
John pounds against the mast, as he thinks of it, of his own jaded dissatisfaction, and he hopes, sincerely, that whatever these sailors are looking for, they'll bloody well find.
Maybe they can give him some answers. He, who has traveled the world. How can there be so much he doesn't know?