(no subject)
Twas nearly impossible, to make ready such a gaggle of confused, aimless women and children whilst ordering about soldiers and her lord’s men. Sum it with poor Horatio who did stare wordeless with wide, wounded eyes when she brought him supper, and Viola began to mourn for Cesario’s place beside her lord, for that small role in which she need only make him grin at some witticism.
And yet here was the place and the task he had asked of her , and thus here she did stay, patching together poor wretches whose battered innocence caused them to flinch and shy away though she had not the means to prolong their pain regardless. Instead, out went messages, in her own poor hand, searching aid and homes and relatives, places safe and away from the unkind reach of war. Amongst these letters was word to her lord, assurances and reports and fond wishes that they might speak again soon in voices more intimate than such cold and unmusical letters, the better to address their thoughts. Such thoughts, she realized with a start, as unfit for a missive from a man to his lord, too full of her own childish melancholic wishes to be of any use or pleasure to her lord. And so she crumpled it up with a sharp twitch of her hands, afore beginning anew.
He fled away, back down and into the darkness where he could no longer hear Horatio’s sobs or angry accusations that did ring too true for comfort. Through nothingness, stumbling and paying no attention to where his steps traveled, as mattered not, not when come morn he would be forced to return to flame and with no hope this day for the nighttime.
So he did run, fleeing aimlessly until he ran into something solid and shocking in this nowhere darkness, falling back and coming to himself again as he looked up at it with eyes widened in further shock.
“Hello, Hamlet,” said his uncle calmly, bending and hauling him by the arm without ceremony to his feet. Hamlet came to himself, jerking away and hissing.
“Touch me not, beast.” His arm where the man had touched him felt afire, as an he could feel the foul poison of sickness crawling across his skin. Hamlet placed his other hand over the spot, rubbing anxiously.
Claudius smiled like a snake. “Now, Hamlet, thou hast no seeming manner of greeting thy father nor thy uncle.”
“And thou art neither. Indeed little but a foul abomination, some cockroach that does crawl and hide in such dark and Godless places as these. Hiding from thy deserved punishment?” He knew not even where he was, only that twas dark and unknown, neither his hellish daytime house nor the world as was allowed at night, and Hamlet took a step back as his uncle advanced.
“Hamlet.” Claudius’ voice was frightfully gentle, thin smile on his visage as he reached forward and took Hamlet’s chin in hard fingers. “O, Hamlet.”
Twas wrong. He felt as were he small again, receiving a chiding for some childish slight and equally unable to turn away. Twas unwise to turn his back to a mad beast, e’en were it to run. Claudius’ mouth was bloody where the wine had dripped free. “And what wouldst thou call these nights spends thou above, in the unwilling embrace of your last victim?”
“I care not for thy trickery,” Hamlet hissed, trying to pull himself free and finding the man’s fingers tight as a trap. “The devil has more purpose to it than thee, and the madman more art.”
“Thou wilt never find thyself removed from this hellish existence with that pride, fool. And thou hast twice the murder to account for as I. Patricide does sit more ill with that above than does fratricide, and who is to speak of the difference that splits incest and thy own sexual miscongress? And poor Ophelia did believe she was to be wed!” Claudius laughed, hard, cruel, snubbing his chin and shoving him across the empty space. “Thy fair mother and I will recline in Heaven as thou suffer still for thy wretched madness and unbecoming hate.”
Hamlet stared, and opened his mouth, and for the first time ere he could remember had no words, no witticism with which to deflect. Claudius laughed again, and from far away twas the distant sound of a cock, and Hamlet was again pulled away to that which he had felt must simply be endured for a time but of now was unsure. As his own screams filled his ears they did naught to erase his laughter nor Horatio’s sobs, and twas truly, truly Hell.