Every once in a while whilst working on a big project, I need a break. To try something a little out of the ordinary, and set myself a little challenge to keep my aging brain firing.
So what follows is little sequence of vignettes - the sketches and studies that help inform my longer works - set between Frozen Harvest and Corpse Flower which sprang mostly out of emails and comments from the ever-helpful and supportive Pollywantasaharlock - and occasionally inspired by something she wrote…!
I set myself a rough word count (the sharp eyed will notice this was the first casualty of the contact betwixt fingers, brain and keyboard…!) and a few other little milestones, and tried to write one a day, and she very kindly agreed to be my guinea pig and commented on the results. Her unflagging enthusiasm kept me going on this, and so once again I find myself dedicating a fic to her!
Without further preamble, here's day 1 of 12. Posted as written - 1 per day - a kind of mini Harlock advent calendar… Happy Solstice 2016, dear readers!
2978.
On a ship of shadows, one more could go un-noticed.
Dissolving out of the darkness, fading into the light.
There were unfamiliar faces on the bridge. He stood in the shadows cast by the skull fronted upper gantry and stared around the bridge in bemusement.
Was that a girl? He snorted, unheard.
Should have known the rot would set in…
The girl in red brushed past him without turning so much as a ginger hair. Her arm should have elbowed him in the side.
It passed straight through him.
He looked down, insubstantial as mist even to his own eye. Huh…
On the upper bridge all was silent, and he wandered away from the skeleton crew who'd drawn the midnight watch, and took the stairs up to the place he'd died.
Twice.
Funny… I don't feel dead…
His cloak lay draped over the back of his chair, just as if someone had casually thrown it over the carved wood as they walked past. Both chair and wheel were unoccupied, and he lay an insubstantial hand on the worn baluster of the wheel, expecting his hand to pass straight through it.
His hand brushed against the wood, faint traces of blue lightning trailing in its wake. But the ship held course, creaking and groaning in the quiet of the graveyard shift. Still holding her on course, my friend?
There was no answer. The presence in his mind, a constant voice for over a century, was quiet. Or gone.
Has that bond been severed as well?
He turned to leave, sparing a glance to the pale blue globe that controlled the dark matter engine. Even this was quiescent, unguarded. Mimay?
He felt her presence, across the ship. In their quarters?
Maybe she could see him… He decided to take a look.
A blink of an eye, and he was outside his old doors.
Well, that was good to know. No need to walk anywhere… Like the doors of an ancient castle. And they had been, he recalled… Somehow in the reshaping that had followed the pain of dissolution and rebirth, the gates to the family home in Heiligenstadt had been recreated in all their Gothic folly on board the insane hybrid the dark matter had pulled out of his and Tochiro's memories…
He walked through them.
He looked around the room, at once so familiar and not. Women's clothing piled on the bed? He leaned over to peer, and stood back up, wondering if he blushed as a ghost or whatever… Blue satin briefs. Huh. Given the leather trousers and more obviously masculine sized sweater on the floor, he could only hope they didn't belong to the kid he'd left in charge…
The sheets were crumpled and the pillows scattered in abandon across the bed.
Jump in my grave as quick, Yama?
Short brown hairs on one, long blonde on the other.
Jump my XO as quick? But his mouth curled unbidden into a quirky smile.
Two sets of drawers now. One neatly stowed, the other with a couple of drawers hanging open. Two chairs at his old antique desk. The one that his father had sat at… a conceit, bringing it on board, given the weight and size, but he'd inherited so little apart from a drafty pile of stone in Bavaria that swallowed money like a black hole, that Tochiro hadn't begrudged having it placed in his quarters on Deathshadow 4 when he'd taken command…
Three wine glasses - empty - were on the edge of the desk. Two on coasters, one noticeably not and his lip curled into a slight snarl at the sight of a faint ring on the ancient oak. He instinctively reached out to move it, surprising himself when he was actually able to move the glass onto a nearby flimsy.
Voices. From his bathroom. A feminine squeal and a splash. Male laughter, and Mimay's bell-like gaiety, which he'd heard so rarely since…
...since…
Like a moth to a flame, he moved towards the partly open door, and peered round.
His damn hot-tub as well? Was nothing sacred?
Tochiro's "gift" for his birthday, not long after their first battle on board. An extravagance on a spaceship, even more so than the desk, but he hadn't complained. Though how the little guy had gotten that through procurement was a mystery he'd never gotten to the bottom of. His questions had just earned a smirk and a shrug.
Kei. Smiling. Laughing.
Something she'd so rarely done for as long as he'd known her. The solemn little waif who'd stared him down with bruised cobalt blue eyes so long ago and declared all she wanted was to be free had never unleashed that smile on him…
...if she had, I might have been tempted to break a cardinal rule after all…
Did dead loins tighten?
She's beautiful…
Her hair was longer. She'd allowed it to grow to almost cover her pink, full nipples. Wet hair occasionally drifted to uncover those little pearls and he took an involuntary step towards the tub.
...so like her ancestor… Maya.
Maya had looked at him once, the way Kei looked at Yama. Smiling tenderly as though he was the centre of her world. Planting a teasing kiss on his mouth and swirling her tongue against his, uninhibited and demanding.
...Maya… Her long hair cut short, holding a pistol on him, begging him to leave...
...Two little girls so like their mother - and five years too young to be his...
Bury that. Again. And Yama…?
Harlock.
Huh. Not getting used to that in a hurry... Yama was wearing it better than he'd thought he would. The wary diffidence was gone, along with that constant air of befuddled hurt the kid had carried around like a shield. Confident, calmer, with a few lines of care now in a face that looked a lot younger than his quarter-century.
Runs in the family…
He watched, a shadow in a blaze of light, as Yama blushed all over when Mimay reached over to lay a slim hand on his shoulder. Still got no boundaries, I see… well, you'll get over it. It's like having a human-sized kitten...
Kei seemed to have fewer problems with the naked Nibelung, but the watcher snorted as she slapped one wandering paw away from her property with a mock growl that provoked a sly smile from the offender and a nervous laugh from Yama. Figures. Always did take charge that one, once she got her head straightened out… He shook his head, remembering. Bossy. And smart. And an ass to die for when wriggling in his line of sight on the bridge… Far too smart to have an ass like that… or tits… Yeah. Eyes up there, and try not to snarl watching a woman who's the living spit of your ex shoving that altogether too ample cleavage into the face of an undeserving boy…
Mimay reached over for the bottle of his one hundred and twenty year old Sauternes and froze in the act of lifting it.
The last thing he saw before he faded back into the darkness was that bottle dropping from her fingers to smash on the floor, the amber liquid running in a tiny trail towards the doorway he'd been standing in.
What a waste… That bottle had been a wedding present… was his last, incongruous thought.