A/N: welcome! this is for pure fun. done with the dialogue as is in the play. if you've read any of my other stories, you'll recognized the discriptions of some of the characters. i chose the appearences of my characters to fit them, and one choice a actor that was done in one of the movie renditions of Hamlet. i'll list them, but you can ignore that bit if you like. It's not all of them, just some. i do not own Hamlet or any of its characters.

Hamletta: Krystal Robyn
Claudius: Raphael Ortiz
The Ghost: Richard Smith
Ophelio: David Tennant (the featured actor)
Laertes: Mack Watson
Horatio: John Stewart
Rosencrantz: Jasmine Steele
Guildenstern: Zachary Mendrove

Chapter 1: The Apparition Appears

Francisco stood at the bow of the Elsinore, tethered at the port, sword on his hip as he looked out to the midnight water they sailed on. He was so concentrated on his watch, he didn't hear the steps behind him.

"Who's there?"

Francisco whirled around, drawing his sword and aiming it at the silhouette behind him, holding a lantern at eye level

"Nay, answer me!" he ordered, still holding up his sword. "Stand and unfold yourself!"

"Long live the king!" the silhouette replied, quickly and Francisco lowered his sword slightly, recognizing the voice.

"Bernardo?"

"He," Bernardo replied, the lantern light finally reaching his aged face and Francisco sighed in relief, sheathing his sword as the other man approached.

"You come most carefully upon your hour," Francisco noticed.

"'Tis now struck twelve," Bernardo confirmed. "Get thee to bed, Francisco."

"For this relief, much thanks," Francisco nodded. "'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart."

He stepped around Bernardo to head toward the hatch leading to the crew's quarters, but his friend stopped him.

"Have you had a quiet guard?" Bernardo asked, and Francisco turned to nod.

"Not a mouse stirring," he replied.

Bernardo nodded slowly in thought before smiling, "Well, good night. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the rivals of my watch, bid them make haste."

"I think I hear them," Francisco replied, hearing footsteps on the wood deck and drawing his sword to be safe as he turned to the sound. "Stand ho! Who's there?"

"Friends to this ground," one voice called in the dark, one Francisco recognized as Horatio, a slim, young man with black, curly hair and bright blue eyes.

"And liegemen to the Dane," another called, one he recognized as Marcellus, an older man of sturdy build and balding head.

"Give you good night," Francisco replied, sheathing his sword again.

"O, farewell, honest sailor," Marcellus nodded, holding his own lantern a little higher, but before Francisco could finally leave, he asked, "Who hath relieved you?"

"Bernardo has my place," Francisco replied, nodding to Bernardo as he stood closer to the bow. "Give you good night."

The three watched him disappear into the hatch before Horatio and Marcellus turned to Bernardo.

"Holla, Bernardo!" Marcellus called, stepping closer to him.

"Say," Bernardo replied then squinted in the dark as he lifted his lantern a little higher to see. "What, is Horatio there?"

"A piece of him," Horatio answered.

"Welcome, Horatio," Bernardo greeted. "Welcome, good Marcellus."

Marcellus stepped closer to Bernardo to whisper, "What, his this thing appeared again tonight?"

"I have seen nothing," Bernardo replied as Horatio stepped into their circle as well.

"Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy," Marcellus nearly growled in irritation. "And will not let belief take hold of him touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us. Therefore I heave entreated him along with us to watch the minutes of this night, that if again this apparition come, he may approve our eyes and speak to it."

"Tush, tush," Horatio scoffed, hugging himself against the cold. "'Twill not appear."

"Sit down awhile," Bernardo ordered, rolling a barrel over the deck to set it behind Horatio. "And let us once again assail your ears, that are so fortified against our story what we have two nights seen."

"Well, sit we down," Horatio sighed, sitting on the barrel. "And let us hear Bernardo speak of this."

"Last night of all," Bernardo began. "When yond same star that's westward from the pole had made his course to illume that part of heaven where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, the bell then beating one-"

"Peace, break thee off!" Marcellus interrupted in terror, turning behind him. "Look! Where it comes again!"

Horatio stood, the barrel tumbling to the deck at his sudden movement as the three stared in terror at the thing before them.

"In the same figure, like the king that's dead!" Bernardo gasped, backing against the railing behind him.

"Thou art the first mate!" Marcellus snapped, not taking his eyes off the ghost. "Speak to it, Horatio!"

"Looks it not like the king?" Bernardo trembled. "Mark it, Horatio!"

"Most like," Horatio breathed as the ghost stepped toward them, slowly. "It harrows me with fear and wonder."

"It would be spoke to," Bernardo advised.

"Question it, Horatio!" Marcellus ordered.

"What art thou that usurp'st this time of night," Horatio shuddered, the ghost stepping toward him. "Together with that fair and warlike form in which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march? By heaven, I charge thee! Speak!"

The ghost stopped an inch away from Horatio's face, making the man's heart nearly stop at the pale face and dark look in the sea green eyes of it. They all saw it wearing a sword on it's hip, an antique helmet upon its head, the face shield up. It stood for a moment before turning and stalking away again.

"It is offended," Marcellus breathed, stepping up next to Horatio as he let out a long sigh.

"See, it stalks away!" Bernardo called, watching the ghost as it stopped at the main mast and seemed to fly up toward the crow's nest.

"Stay!" Horatio called, now desperately. "Speak! Speak! I charge thee! Speak!"

"'Tis gone, and will not answer," Marcellus breathed, the ghost seeming to disappear into the dark above.

"How now, Horatio!" Bernardo questioned, shoving the other man on the arm. "You tremble and look pale! Is not this something more then fantasy? What think you on't?"

"Before me God," Horatio breathed, not looking away from the crow's nest. "I might not this believe with the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes.

"Is it not the king?" Marcellus questioned him further.

"As thou art thyself," Horatio admitted, finally looking away from the nest and leaning back on the railing. "Such was the very armor he had on when he the ambitions Norway combated. So frowned he once, when, in an angry parle, he smote the sledded Polacks on the ice. 'Tis strange."

"Thus twice before," Marcellus recalled. "And jump at this dead hour, with martial stalk hath he gone by our watch."

"In what particular thought to work I know not," Horatio admitted. "But in the gross and scope of my opinion, this bodes some strange eruption to our state."

"Good now, sit down," Marcellus gently ordered, quickly grabbing the barrel that had been knocked over and sitting Horatio upon it as he continued, "and tell me, he that knows, why this same strict and most observant watch so nightly toils the subject of the land? And why such daily cast of brazen cannon and foreign mart for implements of war? Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the week? What might be toward, that this sweaty haste both make the night joint-laborer with the day? Who is't that can inform me?"

"That can I," Horatio assured him with a sigh. "At least, the whisper goes so."

He waved the two sailors closer and they both leaned over him.

"Our last king, whose image even but now appeared to us, was, as you know, by Fortinbras of the Norway, thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride, dared to the combat. In which our valiant Hamlet – for so this side of our known world esteemed him – did slay this Fortinbras, who by sealed compact, well ratified by law and heraldry, did forfeit, with his life, all those his treasures which he stood seized of, to the conqueror. Against the which, a moiety competent was gaged by our king, which had returned to the inheritance of Fortinbras, had he been vanquisher. As, by the same covenant, his fell to Hamlet.

"Now, sir, young Fortinbras, of unimproved mettle hot and full, hath in the skirts of the Norway here and there sharked up a list of lawless resolutes, for food and diet, to some enterprise that hath a stomach in't. Which is no other – as it doth well appear unto our state – but to recover of us, by strong hand and terms compulsatory, those foresaid treasures so by his father lost. And this, I take it, is the main motive of our preparations, the source of this our watch and the chief head of this post-haste and romage in the seas."

"I think it be no other," Bernardo replied. "But e'en so, well may it sort that this portentous figure comes armed through our watch, so like the king that was, and is, the question of these wars."

"A mote it is to trouble the mind's eyes," Horatio explained. "In the most high and palmy state of Rome, a little ere the mightiest Julius fell, the graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, disasters in the sun, and the moist star upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse. And even the like precurse of fierce events, as harbingers preceding still the fates and prologue to the omen coming on, have heaven and earth together demonstrated unto our climatures and contrymen."

Horatio cut himself off, turning pale face and wide eyes ahead again at the sight suddenly before him as he stood and breathed, "But, soft. Behold! Lo, where it comes again!"

The two other men whirled to stare at the ghost as it came closer.

"I'll cross it though it blast me!" Horatio announced, fumbling around his pockets to pull out a rosary and held it up. "Stay, illusion! If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, speak to me! If there be any good thing to be done, that may to thee do ease and grace to me! Speak to me!"

The ghost's jaw dropped, as though it would speak when a gull called above them, a glimmer of sunlight shimmering off the sea and the ghost stopped, turning again to head toward one of the rails. Horatio followed it, still calling, "If thou art privy to they country's fate, which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O speak! Or it thou hast uphoarded in they life extorted treasure in the womb of earth, for which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, speak of it! Stay and speak! Stop it, Marcellus!"

The morning fog began rolling in and covered the entire deck to hide it as it stalked away as the three ran after it.

"Shall I strike it with my partisan?" Marcellus called, drawing his sword.

"Do it, if it will not stand!" Horatio allowed.

"'Tis here!" Bernardo called from the starboard railing as Horatio started toward the port.

"'Tis here!" he called in argument.

"'Tis gone!" Marcellus corrected from the center of the fog that disappeared almost instantly and they met at the bow again and he sheathed his sword. "We do it wrong, being so majestical, to offer it the show of violence. For it is, as the air, invulnerable, and our vain blows malicious mockery."

"It was about to speak when the gull called," Bernardo noticed as they all leaned on the railing.

"And then it started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons," Horatio observed. "I have heard, the gull, that is the trumpet to the morn on the seas, both with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat awake the god of day. And, at his warning, whether in sea and fire, in earth or air, the extravagant and erring spirit hies to his confine. And of the truth herein this present object probation."

"It faded on the calling of the gull," Marcellus recalled. "Some say that ever against that season comes wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated, the bird of dawning singeth all night long, and then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad. The nights are wholesome. Then no planets strike, no fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, so hallowed and so gracious if the time."

"So have I heard and do in part believe it," Horatio agreed before looking to the bow again to see the sun rising, putting his rosary away. "But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill. Break we our watch up, and by my advice, let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamletta. For, upon my life, this spirit, dumb to us, will speak to her. Do you consent we shall acquaint her with it, as needful in our loves, fitting our duty?"

"Let's do it, I pray," Marcellus nodded. "And I this morning know where we shall find her most conveniently."

A/N: reviews?