[Gormenghast] fics20in20 Round 3 Entry: Cattegory: 5
Word Count: 158
If there was anything in Gormenghast that seemed a rare commodity, it seemed to be good sense, and it did not take much sense to see that, Titus thought. He was only a child, but even to his mind, the Rituals meant little: why should he spend his days tracing the exactly precise designs in the dust on the tessellated tiles of a certain plaza at a certain hour of the day with a rod of the exact length that the Ritual ordered? And why should it matter what color egg he had for breakfast? Would the Stones collapse if things were different? Anyone with good sense would reply with the reason for it all, in response to his questions, asked in earnest.
At least Professor Bellgrove listened to his complaints and treated him as a child and not merely as his lord, but he too lacked the good sense to reply to his questions to his satisfaction.
"Come to your senses"
Word Count: 123
"Shameless, what an utterly shameless young snippet, parading himself about in such a manner. You were right to come to your senses, Alfred," Irma twittered, after seeing her brother's former servant taking a dip in the lake, minus his shirt.
"As I recall, my sweet palimpset, the young snippet whose bare thorax has you flirting with apoplexy, removed himself from my service and did so unannounced," Dr. Prunesquallor replied.
"But even so, his lack of decorum was good reason not to recall him, What other ribald things might he have done in this household, to burn my virgin eyes?"
"You needn't induce angina, my dear sibling: perhaps he came to his senses and removed himself before he gave you more cause for horror."
"Lost Your Senses"
Word Count: 173
(Mild Titus/Steerpike pre-slash)
The days before the ceremony for Titus's seventeenth birthday glowed with heat causing the workers erecting the ceremonial scaffolding by Gormenghast Lake to broil beneath the blue sacking tunics the Laws required. Even Titus unlaced his shirt as he prowled the lakeshore watching the preparations he wasn't supposed to watch.
Something pale caught his attention and he looked in it's direction in time to see the young Master of the Ritual, standing knee-deep in the lake, shirtless, as he called out orders to the workers.
Titus had only seen the man clad in black to the neck and wrists, but spying him en deshabille caused him to pause and blink. How came it that such an odious man should be made so well seemed a cosmic joke, particularly if that sight caused his pulse to beat faster and his skin to warm for reasons beyond the heat of the day. The man must have been trying to make him lose his senses for a moment, and the glance Steerpike cast him confirmed it.
"Sense of Duty"
Word count: 120
The son and heir to the blood, the young earl who had assumed his crown at such a tender age lacked all sense of duty. Getting him to listen to the rubrics produced as much effect a teaching them to the Stones themselves, no matter how much Barquentine yelled at the youth. And one practically had to flog the youth to get him to follow them.
But he, the dispossessed, the bastard branch cut off from the tree by an accident of who had borne him, had that sense which the younger and legitimate heir lacked, a duty which he, Steerpike, intended to fulfill, however it took, even if he had to erase the bloodline that had cast him out.
"Lack of Sense"
Word count: 156
Titus had warned Fuschia time and time again that Steerpike likely had no good intentions in courting her, and no true interest in her as a woman. He doubted the man was capable of loving anyone or anything, except perhaps his own ambitions. He could see that the young Secretary of the Rituals was using her to prop up his own position in the court. But Fuschia lacked the sense to see this: all she could see was the darkly poetic man who whispered such sweet compliments to her when they met in the darkness.
And that lack of sense had cost her her life. Titus did not put it past the pale monster to have pushed her into the flood waters outside her window, though it was possible that despair had lead her to throw herself to her death. However it had happened, a lack of sense had lead her to a lack of life.