Note:
31days is a livejournal fic challenge where each day in August has a theme, and the fic written for a particular theme is to be uploaded on that day. I was doing this with a friend, but I got waylaid by art school and she got waylaid by packing for university overseas, so in the end we didn't get through the month.
With the exception of three fics that eventually became An Anatoly Gentleman in Dusith, everything stands completely alone. But it didn't quite make sense to me to upload things spanning about two-thirds of a page as seven separate fics, because I've always thought that a proper length for fic is around three pages, so.
All titles are stipulated themes, and are not my own.
Contents:
Ch. 1 - 3rd August: Like Hamlet
Vincent and Sophia, a year after Alex's death.
Ch. 2 - 8th August: You shimmer like words I barely hear
The closest to Alex/Sophia it'll ever get - which is not at all.
Ch. 3 - 10th August: Way of difference
Vincent, on having to capture the Silvana
Ch. 4 - 15th August: Air and stars
Vincent, on change and the possible end of the world.
Ch. 5 - 16th August: Kingdom of the mad
Alex and Ressius. On chess, Delphine, and the Guild.
Ch. 6 - 24th August: I am waylaid by Beauty
Moran Shetland, on the women in his life.
Ch. 7 - 25th August: The heart beats on and will not stop
Alex, after the Grand Stream.
Like Hamlet
Finished 26 July 2005
Polonius: Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
Hamlet: Into my grave? taken from Hamlet, 2.2
Sophia sighs, remembering the other tale Klaus told her once, a rather dramatic one, of the Silvana and a trail of desiccated bodies, the blood sucked out of them, while Lavie shuffled in embarrassment behind him, growing steadily redder in the face until she stomped off and Klaus excused himself, a little bemusedly, to see what was wrong.
It's amazing how Alex attracts only a particular type of story. The man in silver and black, who would kill without a word. The man with dead eyes. The captain of the grey ship Silvana. No one seems to remember that he was also the captain of the ship that saved both countries from a profitless war and gave them a second chance at life.
The two of them glance at the grave – white marble, sombre and dignified, almost innocuous.
"It's a rather charming story, actually," Vincent says. "I didn't have the heart to correct them. In fact, I wouldn't mind a ghost ship of my own."
It's impossible to imagine the Urbanus, with its gold trim and its decidedly earthly, even worldly, captain, as a ghost ship, Sophia thinks, and by Vincent's wistful smile he knows it too. "I shouldn't think Alex would have minded, either. It's his type of joke."
It's been a year since his death. Somebody has to be in charge of remembering the real Alex; the rest of the world seems to find ghost-ship stories more interesting.
Alex. For whom the ground became intolerable, a hopelessly complex web of emotions and ties that had ceased to be applicable to him. He took to the sky instead – clear, blessedly empty, the only thing to tie him down a tenuous kite-string of allegiance to Anatoly that he broke at whim. Alex, who made himself a tool for revenge, calmly eliminating whatever and whoever stood in his way with the terrible steady gaze of a man who knew what he was doing, who knew the consequences and would pay for all of it when the time came.
Sophia likes to think that he found peace. It's too much to imagine that he would be punished any more than he already had been.
"I think he admired you, you know," Vincent says, suddenly.
Sophia blinks at him, unsure of the direction in which this is going.
"For being able to get yourself out of this mess," Vincent continues.
She remembers, suddenly, the years she spent on the Silvana, hope like a controlled flame burning away until she had nothing left with which to feed it. "Did I?"
Vincent sighs. "Oh, Sophia."
There is nothing to be said to that, and they sit, staring out to sea, remembering a young man who was changed into something else, the fabled captain of a ghost ship. Sophia shivers, a little, in the evening wind. Vincent, instinctively chivalrous, absently stands, undoes his cloak and draws it around her shoulders, over her own.
It will be night soon; she should be leaving. Sophia smiles, vaguely. This is life, being subject to the elements. On the whole, it's not so bad. "We are the fortunate ones, aren't we?"
They look at the grave again. Alex, who was unable to extricate himself from his own mess. Vincent ponders. "I don't know. I'd still like to have that ghost ship." But he returns the smile, to show that he understood.
"You'd have to paint it some other colour first," Sophia replies. The next gust of wind flaps both cloaks against her hands.
"I'd best return you to your ministers before they decide I've abducted you," Vincent says. He turns, bows deeply. "Good night, sweet prince."
Alex was a soldier, not a prince. All the same, it seems appropriate.