An undisclosed period of time later

"I have to admit, we misjudged you and the more recent developments in the music scene," Olympic muttered ruefully, still not quite at ease with himself over his (and his siblings') initial suspicions over Belfast and her music. "Some of this newer stuff is actually pretty damn catchy enough to get stuck in my head! Even if the rest of it leaves... much to be desired." Then again, one couldn't really blame the liners for being concerned - their first taste of modern music had been... off-putting and jarring, to put it mildly. The perpetrators were lucky SS France had not been there - old soul that she was, she would have taken even less kindly to the likes of Blurred Lines and Like A Virgin.

"Don't sweat it. You guys just needed a lot of catching up to do," Belfast replied, dismissing it with a handwave as she finished up in tuning her guitar. After her breakout performance at Scapa Flow, the Olympic-class shipfolk had in their spare time taken it upon themselves to revisit the music scene from the '60s to the present date, and now had decided to get together with Belfast and two more of their fellow White Star liners to show their collective chops at a benefit concert. The 'Harland & Wolffers', as they ended up being called, would be performing to raise support for the fleet among the general public, as well as raise morale overall as well.

Belfast, for her part, voiced her thoughts on the matter as she tuned her guitar. "I still can't believe you're even roping me into this. Remember? I didn't want to perform back then and only did it to give everyone else a break from your dated taste in music?" That earned a snort and a laugh from MV Britannic, while her taller hospital ship predecessor rolled his eyes at the implication and went to check that the air compressor for the pipe organ was good to go. "First of all," Mme Titanic began, "it's classical, not dated. And second, give it a chance just this once alright? You don't have to take center stage if performance anxiety is giving you second thoughts."

Just then, Georgic made her appearance, having come back from checking the arrangements on-stage. "Mics ready, backup folks on standby," she said, looking around to see where her sister had gone before casting her glance back at Belfast and company. "You folks ready yet? It's time." There was a moment or two of hesitation, then the Town-class cruiser nodded, adjusting the strap of her guitar. "Alright. Let's do this - but just this once."

**** *~*** *~~

"Ladies and gentlemen, civilians and shipfolks alike, the Harland & Wolffers!"

Britannic - the hospital ship, not the motor vessel - was the first to make his appearance on stage, to general applause as he settled himself at the console of the organ. Whatever entrance the audience thought was going to take place, they certainly weren't prepared for the intimidating strains of the Imperial March issuing from the massed ranks of pipes, certainly something nobody expected the incarnation of a WW1-era hospital ship to be playing. The applause grew significantly louder and less restrained at that, interspersed with cheers as the Harland & Wolffers ascended the stage, their very steps even matched in beat to the march's time. Showtime, ladies and gentlemen.

Perhaps desirous of breaking the stereotype that their fleetmates had of them after that incident with the speakers at Scapa Flow, the group had explicitly excluded any music before 1900 from the repertoire for tonight, which made for quite the surprising hodgepodge of selections especially considering that some of the liners had taken up more modern instruments - among others, Olympic with a bass guitar (his violin placed conveniently nearby as needed) and Georgic with the drums and other percussion.

There was, however, one exception. As the shipfolk-turned-musicians for the night took up their instruments, Belfast struck up a rapid-fire tune on her guitar, a piece taught her by the shipfolk of a past era, a brisk and almost frenetic Spanish-sounding riff. Titanic the gentleman soon joined in at the piano, and then Georgic came in to bring the beat into it: Albeniz's Asturias, the hectic flamenco-esque piece that in Belfast's hands spoke of the storm clouds that swirled within her, a ceaseless agitation and constant quest for inner peace now given voice through the music.

Their next piece however was decidedly more sobering, and who better than to tell it like it was than the reincarnations of the ship who went down with great loss of life? "I want to dedicate this one to- to all of you out there who've lost someone or something important to you because of this war," the good madame herself began. "And to those of you who feel it's a losing battle, like there's no end in sight and we're fighting in vain. Many of us, perhaps even all, know loss firsthand from our past lives. But we're going to keep on going, I hope you all know that. None of us in the fleet, civilian and naval shipfolk alike, we're not going to rest easy until this war is won and you all, as the Good Book says, 'dwell securely'."

"No matter what the sea or season, at any given moment, there's always some of us going out on sortie, perhaps sometimes along with more conventional naval vessels," her gentleman counterpart added. "Somewhere right now, somewhere cold and unforgiving, this war is being played out one encounter and one battle at a time. Those folks out there might not seek acclaim or accolades, but they're fighting the good fight because they must, because there won't be anything left to fight for if they don't. So why shouldn't we pay tribute to them in our own little way?" Fittingly, the piece was titled Heir of Grief, here played in honor of the ones who this war had hit and hurt, and the ones who got right back up day after day to do battle with eldritch hordes. Throughout its entirety there were more than a few instances of teary eyes in the crowd, and a few of the shipgirls in the audience were going so far as full-on clutching each other with tissues or handkerchiefs.

And then the phone rang.

~*~* ~~*~ ~**

No really - the tinny, decade-old blare of a Nokia phone going off suddenly made itself heard throughout the venue, causing the group to stop mid-fadeout as whoever it was scrambled to find their phone and shut it off. "Alright, which one of you forgot to silence your phone before coming here?" Olympic called out, pointing his violin bow almost accusingly into the crowd as scattered bouts of muffled laughing broke out among the shipgirl contingent. Belfast, frankly, looked like she was going to facepalm so hard it'd leave a handprint on her face... until Mme Titanic saw fit to draw attention to the disturbance by playing the exact same tune on her violin with a displeased expression on her face. Evidently, the good madame was not amused in the slightest, and soon after, her gentleman counterpart responded with an equally offended rendition of the same ringtone on the piano, one that ended up transitioning into a full performance of Tarrega's Gran Vals, as if making the most out of that embarrassing interruption while yet calling the offender out on it.

That little stunt earned them a sitting ovation from the audience, and while Titanic the gentleman got up to take a bow as was proper, the show had to go on. "Now," he said, resuming his seat at the piano, "where were we again?" Things went more smoothly afterwards - with the mood now lightened after the poignant but determined feel of Heir of Grief, the Harland & Wolffers segued into a rendition of Wild West Hero that put a certain member of the group in mind of his wife all the way in the States, that beautiful and respected mother of all American carriers.

Later on came a treat that surprised Belfast, as the audience was treated to the liners' rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody (adapted for piano and strings), in which it seemed the bandmembers of Queen themselves were singing out from the strings. And then out from surreality came lighthearted good cheer - the ever-popular Mr Blue Sky, giving voice to that hope for a bright future after the Abyssal War's end. There was more still of which more could be written, but of course they saved the all-stops-out pieces for the end, a rousing show of support for their naval fleetmates. The motley delegation of shipgirls from Scapa Flow and Portsmouth in attendance (Victory, Thunder Child, and Warspite among them) all got to their feet as one, and the rest of the Harland & Wolffers set down their instruments, as Britannic began with the opening bars of the Royal Navy's unofficial anthem:

When Britain first, at Heaven's command, arose from out the azure main...

It didn't take long for the fleetgirls to break into song at that, and even a sizable portion of the audience joined in at the chorus - and why not? As their forebears had done in the days of the Blitz, and in the days of Napoleon, so too now would they refuse to bow to the Abyssal onslaught. Britannia may no longer rule the waves as in the days of old, but that indomitable spirit was still there, still going strong. And of course, to round out the evening, even more members of the shipgirl delegation brought out the brass and played a fanfare, to lead into one final round of patriotic hymnody that had everyone getting to their feet and singing in unison:

God save our gracious Queen, long live our noble Queen, God save the Queen!

**~* ** ~* ** *** ~*~* ~~~ *~* ~~~ ~* *~ ~

Fifteen minutes later...

"...they still haven't left. Or even stopped clapping." Georgic was, for lack of a better word, flabbergasted at the persistence of their audience's reaction-the rhythmic applause was, as she said, still going, with no signs of slowing down.

"Well, obviously, there's only one reason for that," Belfast stated. "They clearly want an encore. And if the last dozen decades have shown anything, there's only one way to follow that..."

-

The ovation when the Harland and Wolffers retook the stage was raucous, but the audience was quickly quieted at the silent gesture from Belfast, sitting in anticipation of what might come next. Again, without saying a word, the cruiser nodded her head to the rest of the brass-reinforced band, and, with them, started playing a familiar eight-bar brass-and-strings introduction that elicited a massive cheer from the crowd as they rose to their feet in unison-one that quickly dropped to respectful silence as the introduction transitioned into the jaunty marching tune Edward Elgar had awakened from a sound sleep to scribble down over a century before, telling his wife that he just thought of a new song that would be a million-seller, the audience standing, but dipping their knees in unison to the beat, driven by the kettledrums that Georgic had somehow scrounged up on no notice.

Once they got past the bridge, however, the assembled fleetgirls and humans were no longer so quiet, instead raising their voices in the lyrics written for the coronation of Edward VII:

Land of hope and glory, mother of the free! How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?