Changeling!Hamlet compilation
This verse started with my response to a prompt on the Three Sentence Ficathon:
“dungeons and dragons”
“No, I’m Guilden the Sluagh, you’re a Boggan named Crantz!”
“We’re playing Changeling, not Stay-the-Sameling, so we have to switch out sheets once in a while, right?”
“That’s - that’s not - no, that’s not how anything works.”
and then spiraled off into a whole bunch of fills for the TSF, and a few longer bits I wrote by myself. Enjoy!
And all should cry, Beware! Beware / his flashing eyes, his floating hair
When a spirit’s time has ended it suffuses into a form even less substantial than before, unable to effect any change at all, or if royalty, its essence settles into the land itself and strengthens the bones. This shade of a shade is too real, too present, something from which the mortals would shudder with even more terror than from the Nothingness that claws at their sleeves in the presence of ordinary sprites.
The gaze of the thing which used to be his father the king drags him to his knees; “Speak,” Hamlet rasps out, “I am bound to hear.”
“don’t turn into a snake. It never helps.”
The serpent that stung his father’s life now wears his crown. He knew he wasn’t imagining the scales on that usurper’s shoulders at the coronation, though the glamour Claudius had used was good enough to fool those who wanted to believe this would be enough to bring the Dreaming back into the world.
It would be fitting to poison the so-called king in return, but it’s clear Hamlet needs to find something that will stick - he starts by shedding one skin for another and plays the role of a son unhinged by grief.
“Oh please,” Ophelia scoffs, knocking shoulders with her brother - and with the size of her wings it packs a wallop - “Like you’re not going to run off to be with that ne’er do well Robin Goodfellow the minute you’re out of our sire’s sight.”
“Of course not,” he gasps, but it’s hard to sound mock offended when you’re rubbing your shoulder in actual pain. She rolls her eyes at what’s probably meant to be a roguish smirk as Laertes adds, “Nah, me and Rey are going to see if we can get Mercutio to dance with us.”
“Oh, Lae,” she sighs as she fixes his hair. “You’re still sweet on that boy, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, and Reynaldo is sweet on me.” She folds her arms and stares him down. “Wait, you mean Mercutio?! What, no! He’s nothing, it’s just that he’s practically one of us already.
“No, he practically belongs to Queen Mab, and that’s a world of difference,” she points out. “Leave him for the Light, brother. She doesn’t like other people touching what she’s claimed, so his favors are not for you.”
Our Philosophy
The secrets Guilden uncovers when he turns over rocks and replies are dark and dismal, not the glittering drama of court intrigue that the king no doubt expects.
Crantz makes a good teammate in this quest to glean what afflicts him, and with his rustic hospitality the information he gains is of a warmer nature; they keep an eye on each other’s blind spots.
And Hamlet in turn, directs their gaze out to the quintessence of dust, so they can find nothing of their purpose except what he finds fit to let them see.
Ophelia keeps her eyes on the flagstones and flinches whenever Hamlet’s cloven feet come into view. “I have come, my lord, to return some favors of yours, which no longer reflect the balance of things. They were freely given and now are freely returned.”
The steady rhythm of his pacing ceases as soon as she finishes speaking. He always seems to know the future just a tiny bit in advance, which she used to find captivating, but lately it’s just unnerving. “Ah, favors, favors…” he murmurs, and the footsteps echo off the marble arches. His thinking noises seem to come from everywhere and she wishes she could just swim far away from here, and then he hisses down her spine: “I never gave you aught. No, and I don’t owe you anything either!”
She whirls to face the prince and his mad smile that’s coming apart at the seams. Something inside him is making him so sad and not at all the fey he once was. Two hours is not so very long, and even two months should not have wrought such a change. Still, she’s been at Court most of her life and knows how nothing flows the same for any two creatures. It could have been two eternities since the king died as far as she knows.
She’s drifting, she can tell, for the currents and eddies will carry her where they will, and Hamlet’s still speaking. “…or maybe it was my doppelganger, the helpless human boy whose place I took. Did you give your heart to a mortal, you cradle-robber?” His mockery hits her like a slap, like cold water that’s been purified and thus deadened, and again her eyes are salt.
“You know full well you wrote these letters, my lord!” It is only by massive effort that she keeps her voice from shaking.
Yes, she is fair. No, she is not honest. These are established facts for all at Elsinore and she can’t understand why he asks those questions with such hate in his voice. He talks in circles and she in wavering lines, but sometimes he seems to make sense for long enough to know he’s pleading for her to hear something between the lines. She sinks to the mud and the twisted roots of the opulent floor when she understands at last: his hidden meaning is that her father is hidden and watching them both. But what can she do? Shall she deny it so the prince can call her a liar again? Shall she reassure him that he’s not losing his mind, and thus betray the king?
She raises her voice in a swan song, begging whatever trickster may be watching to guard all their hearts, and that only sets Hamlet off on a tirade against marriage and Nature knows what else.
“For wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them!” Her fists tighten. Anyone who would steal a maid’s coat and turn her into something so hideous and vulnerable was already a monster. He knows her thoughts on the matter; they’ve discussed it enough times while looking at the stars. But that was back when he loved her, or when he made her believe so.
“Isn't a dingy and battered truth better than a shining lie?”
“No, lies are a much better currency,” Hamlet answers his uncle-father, “especially here, where the air is promise-crammed and all anyone ever does is offer favors and steal them back.” Claudius looks intensely uncomfortable and may be about to say something to that effect, when a clatter makes them both look up. “Ah, here come our favorite liars now, to sing a most excellent goat song.”
the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand
Grows Aslant
She will never live long enough to become a Swan Woman if she sticks around this court so she makes a plan: she is not allowed to steal her coat back, but Gertrude can. She pays for it with her own tears, gathered from the main hall where Hamlet forsook her, all the more valuable for having been ground into the dust.
As she is a creature native and indued unto that element, she breathes easier with each step deeper into the freezing river.
Laertes is very well aware how exchanges power the court. Everyone holds to the rules they’ve made, even if they’re capricious and arbitrary. Nothing is given freely, and when curtains move with no wind that’s a sure sign that someone’s eyes are on you to see that you uphold your end of the bargain. A deal is a promise is a vow is a pledge, and these things are taken very seriously here.
It’s true in the mundane too, only they call it commerce and contracts, and recompense is not a fact of reality, but something that must be enforced. Laertes did well for himself in France, where he learned the Napoleonic Code and used it as cleanly as any blade. A codified set of laws instead of precedent was exactly what he needed to do his job and feel secure in the doing.
When his father died, when his sister died, he was honor bound to return, but it was never about revenge, not really. Things had to be set right, but more blood would not point the court in the right direction, no matter how thirsty the briars were for it.
where you go, I’ll follow
Alive or dead, Hamlet is his prince, and Horatio must follow. But there’s the question: does loyalty mean standing by him in the earth beyond the Underhill, or standing by him in the stories he shares with those who remain?
He doesn’t even know whether his duty is to support him or replace him, because Hamlet was never stronger than the hour he fell.
This was originally posted at https://ernest.dreamwidth.org/8131.html. There are
comments there.
“dungeons and dragons”
“No, I’m Guilden the Sluagh, you’re a Boggan named Crantz!”
“We’re playing Changeling, not Stay-the-Sameling, so we have to switch out sheets once in a while, right?”
“That’s - that’s not - no, that’s not how anything works.”
and then spiraled off into a whole bunch of fills for the TSF, and a few longer bits I wrote by myself. Enjoy!
And all should cry, Beware! Beware / his flashing eyes, his floating hair
When a spirit’s time has ended it suffuses into a form even less substantial than before, unable to effect any change at all, or if royalty, its essence settles into the land itself and strengthens the bones. This shade of a shade is too real, too present, something from which the mortals would shudder with even more terror than from the Nothingness that claws at their sleeves in the presence of ordinary sprites.
The gaze of the thing which used to be his father the king drags him to his knees; “Speak,” Hamlet rasps out, “I am bound to hear.”
“don’t turn into a snake. It never helps.”
The serpent that stung his father’s life now wears his crown. He knew he wasn’t imagining the scales on that usurper’s shoulders at the coronation, though the glamour Claudius had used was good enough to fool those who wanted to believe this would be enough to bring the Dreaming back into the world.
It would be fitting to poison the so-called king in return, but it’s clear Hamlet needs to find something that will stick - he starts by shedding one skin for another and plays the role of a son unhinged by grief.
“Oh please,” Ophelia scoffs, knocking shoulders with her brother - and with the size of her wings it packs a wallop - “Like you’re not going to run off to be with that ne’er do well Robin Goodfellow the minute you’re out of our sire’s sight.”
“Of course not,” he gasps, but it’s hard to sound mock offended when you’re rubbing your shoulder in actual pain. She rolls her eyes at what’s probably meant to be a roguish smirk as Laertes adds, “Nah, me and Rey are going to see if we can get Mercutio to dance with us.”
“Oh, Lae,” she sighs as she fixes his hair. “You’re still sweet on that boy, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, and Reynaldo is sweet on me.” She folds her arms and stares him down. “Wait, you mean Mercutio?! What, no! He’s nothing, it’s just that he’s practically one of us already.
“No, he practically belongs to Queen Mab, and that’s a world of difference,” she points out. “Leave him for the Light, brother. She doesn’t like other people touching what she’s claimed, so his favors are not for you.”
Our Philosophy
The secrets Guilden uncovers when he turns over rocks and replies are dark and dismal, not the glittering drama of court intrigue that the king no doubt expects.
Crantz makes a good teammate in this quest to glean what afflicts him, and with his rustic hospitality the information he gains is of a warmer nature; they keep an eye on each other’s blind spots.
And Hamlet in turn, directs their gaze out to the quintessence of dust, so they can find nothing of their purpose except what he finds fit to let them see.
Ophelia keeps her eyes on the flagstones and flinches whenever Hamlet’s cloven feet come into view. “I have come, my lord, to return some favors of yours, which no longer reflect the balance of things. They were freely given and now are freely returned.”
The steady rhythm of his pacing ceases as soon as she finishes speaking. He always seems to know the future just a tiny bit in advance, which she used to find captivating, but lately it’s just unnerving. “Ah, favors, favors…” he murmurs, and the footsteps echo off the marble arches. His thinking noises seem to come from everywhere and she wishes she could just swim far away from here, and then he hisses down her spine: “I never gave you aught. No, and I don’t owe you anything either!”
She whirls to face the prince and his mad smile that’s coming apart at the seams. Something inside him is making him so sad and not at all the fey he once was. Two hours is not so very long, and even two months should not have wrought such a change. Still, she’s been at Court most of her life and knows how nothing flows the same for any two creatures. It could have been two eternities since the king died as far as she knows.
She’s drifting, she can tell, for the currents and eddies will carry her where they will, and Hamlet’s still speaking. “…or maybe it was my doppelganger, the helpless human boy whose place I took. Did you give your heart to a mortal, you cradle-robber?” His mockery hits her like a slap, like cold water that’s been purified and thus deadened, and again her eyes are salt.
“You know full well you wrote these letters, my lord!” It is only by massive effort that she keeps her voice from shaking.
Yes, she is fair. No, she is not honest. These are established facts for all at Elsinore and she can’t understand why he asks those questions with such hate in his voice. He talks in circles and she in wavering lines, but sometimes he seems to make sense for long enough to know he’s pleading for her to hear something between the lines. She sinks to the mud and the twisted roots of the opulent floor when she understands at last: his hidden meaning is that her father is hidden and watching them both. But what can she do? Shall she deny it so the prince can call her a liar again? Shall she reassure him that he’s not losing his mind, and thus betray the king?
She raises her voice in a swan song, begging whatever trickster may be watching to guard all their hearts, and that only sets Hamlet off on a tirade against marriage and Nature knows what else.
“For wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them!” Her fists tighten. Anyone who would steal a maid’s coat and turn her into something so hideous and vulnerable was already a monster. He knows her thoughts on the matter; they’ve discussed it enough times while looking at the stars. But that was back when he loved her, or when he made her believe so.
“Isn't a dingy and battered truth better than a shining lie?”
“No, lies are a much better currency,” Hamlet answers his uncle-father, “especially here, where the air is promise-crammed and all anyone ever does is offer favors and steal them back.” Claudius looks intensely uncomfortable and may be about to say something to that effect, when a clatter makes them both look up. “Ah, here come our favorite liars now, to sing a most excellent goat song.”
the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand
Grows Aslant
She will never live long enough to become a Swan Woman if she sticks around this court so she makes a plan: she is not allowed to steal her coat back, but Gertrude can. She pays for it with her own tears, gathered from the main hall where Hamlet forsook her, all the more valuable for having been ground into the dust.
As she is a creature native and indued unto that element, she breathes easier with each step deeper into the freezing river.
Laertes is very well aware how exchanges power the court. Everyone holds to the rules they’ve made, even if they’re capricious and arbitrary. Nothing is given freely, and when curtains move with no wind that’s a sure sign that someone’s eyes are on you to see that you uphold your end of the bargain. A deal is a promise is a vow is a pledge, and these things are taken very seriously here.
It’s true in the mundane too, only they call it commerce and contracts, and recompense is not a fact of reality, but something that must be enforced. Laertes did well for himself in France, where he learned the Napoleonic Code and used it as cleanly as any blade. A codified set of laws instead of precedent was exactly what he needed to do his job and feel secure in the doing.
When his father died, when his sister died, he was honor bound to return, but it was never about revenge, not really. Things had to be set right, but more blood would not point the court in the right direction, no matter how thirsty the briars were for it.
where you go, I’ll follow
Alive or dead, Hamlet is his prince, and Horatio must follow. But there’s the question: does loyalty mean standing by him in the earth beyond the Underhill, or standing by him in the stories he shares with those who remain?
He doesn’t even know whether his duty is to support him or replace him, because Hamlet was never stronger than the hour he fell.
This was originally posted at https://ernest.dreamwidth.org/8131.html. There are
comments there.