[fic] Dreamwalking
Title: Dreamwalking
Author: Finny
Pairing(s): N/A
Categories: Angst
Warning(S): Angst
Spoiler(s): Kinda
Archive: Nope
Feedback: Yes, please, to quatre_luvs_trowa @ yahoo.com
Disclaimer: I own neither Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell nor Witchfinder Private Newton Pulsifer. Nor do I own Shadwell’s lack of dreaming, though it did inspire this bit of drivel.
Author’s Notes: This little piece came to me after I read Shadwell’s line about how he never dreamed when he was a kid, and I just had to write it. For some reason or other, Shadwell intrigues me.
“I never used to dream when I was a kid,” [Shadwell] said quietly (p 166).
In fact, he thought to himself, I don’t dream now.
Oh, he had dreams at night, when he was asleep, just like any other person.* But /real/ dreams, dreams about what you wanted to be when you grew up, or dreams about where you might want to go on holidays,** he’d never had those.
It wasn’t that he was content with his life, and thus had no reason to dream. No. He was no more content with his life than the next person,*** though he often pretended otherwise. But he still didn’t dream.
And when faced with someone like young Newt,****he felt that lack of dreaming far too keenly for comfort.
Rather like hearing the shrill call of a banshee howling across the moor on a dark Scottish night when you’re the only inhabitant of the castle and the wind’s blowing hard.
Young Newt, ready to go off on his first Witchfinding…how Shadwell remembered his own first Witchfinding…he hadn’t found any witches, but he’d done his level best all the same. And now it was Newt’s turn. How Shadwell wished he could go with the youngster, show him the ropes. How he hoped Newt would not face the same disappointment he had, when he failed to come across any witches at all, much less the one he’d set out to find in the first place.
Newt was still speaking, and some part of Shadwell recognized that he was responding to the young Witchfinder Private in his usual laconic manner, but the rest of him (the part of him that was /him/, so to speak, even if he didn’t know it) was, finally, after far too many years, dreaming.
* Not that he could ever /remember/ any of them, but he supposed that was just like any other person, too.
**Not that Shadwell had ever gone on holidays, or ever had any desire to go on holidays; his regular duties in the WA were far too close to “holidays” for his liking, especially considering the decided lack of witches roundabouts.
*** Newt, in this case, who did indeed have dreams, and always had. Not that they ever came true, but at least he had them.
**** Who, as noted, did indeed have dreams.
Author: Finny
Pairing(s): N/A
Categories: Angst
Warning(S): Angst
Spoiler(s): Kinda
Archive: Nope
Feedback: Yes, please, to quatre_luvs_trowa @ yahoo.com
Disclaimer: I own neither Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell nor Witchfinder Private Newton Pulsifer. Nor do I own Shadwell’s lack of dreaming, though it did inspire this bit of drivel.
Author’s Notes: This little piece came to me after I read Shadwell’s line about how he never dreamed when he was a kid, and I just had to write it. For some reason or other, Shadwell intrigues me.
“I never used to dream when I was a kid,” [Shadwell] said quietly (p 166).
In fact, he thought to himself, I don’t dream now.
Oh, he had dreams at night, when he was asleep, just like any other person.* But /real/ dreams, dreams about what you wanted to be when you grew up, or dreams about where you might want to go on holidays,** he’d never had those.
It wasn’t that he was content with his life, and thus had no reason to dream. No. He was no more content with his life than the next person,*** though he often pretended otherwise. But he still didn’t dream.
And when faced with someone like young Newt,****he felt that lack of dreaming far too keenly for comfort.
Rather like hearing the shrill call of a banshee howling across the moor on a dark Scottish night when you’re the only inhabitant of the castle and the wind’s blowing hard.
Young Newt, ready to go off on his first Witchfinding…how Shadwell remembered his own first Witchfinding…he hadn’t found any witches, but he’d done his level best all the same. And now it was Newt’s turn. How Shadwell wished he could go with the youngster, show him the ropes. How he hoped Newt would not face the same disappointment he had, when he failed to come across any witches at all, much less the one he’d set out to find in the first place.
Newt was still speaking, and some part of Shadwell recognized that he was responding to the young Witchfinder Private in his usual laconic manner, but the rest of him (the part of him that was /him/, so to speak, even if he didn’t know it) was, finally, after far too many years, dreaming.
* Not that he could ever /remember/ any of them, but he supposed that was just like any other person, too.
**Not that Shadwell had ever gone on holidays, or ever had any desire to go on holidays; his regular duties in the WA were far too close to “holidays” for his liking, especially considering the decided lack of witches roundabouts.
*** Newt, in this case, who did indeed have dreams, and always had. Not that they ever came true, but at least he had them.
**** Who, as noted, did indeed have dreams.