merrimanlyon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
merrimanlyon) wrote2005-05-16 03:51 am
merrimanlyon) wrote2005-05-16 03:51 am
(no subject)
[OOC: Immediately after this thread.]
The door could have opened to any time, any place in the world he had left behind. He might have simply returned to the time from which he had come, to the whirl of forthcoming examinations and the drowsy, smoke-filled silence of the Senior Common Room. He might have stepped into a place of tranquility and peace, of warmth and palm trees and blue sea on a wave-washed shore, the brilliance of late spring in Jamaica or someplace equally soporific.
But that was not where he wanted to be -- those places provided too much opportunity for contemplation. He wanted a place where such contemplation would be difficult, if nigh impossible. A place where thinking could be replaced by doing.
And so the door opens onto London.
Midnight, 11 May 1941.
The high, keening wail of the air-raid sirens rises and falls in maddening waves, but behind and beneath that noise is a far more ominous one: the steady drone of airplane engines. Both RAF and Luftwaffe, far more of the latter than the former.
Quickly, silently, he makes his way through the empty streets, passing sandbagged buildings and the hastily erected barricades which do little to conceal the anti-aircraft gun placements. The city's inhabitants, those unwilling or unable to leave, have taken shelter in the bowels of the Underground and any other location that might have been deemed resistant to the bombing. Blackout curtains shroud all the windows, and the streets are strewn with bits of glass and rubble from previous raids. The worst of the damage is still out of sight, over near the docks and in the East End --
(How strange, that the Germans should have been able to solve the problem of slum clearance that had been troubling London local government authorities for years.)
-- but this time the raids have moved farther to the west.
By the time he reaches the Cenotaph, halfway down Whitehall, the all-clear is sounding and the night sky is luridly bright. The Palace of Westminster is in flames.
It would have been a simple matter to remain half in and half outside Time, an observer only, unable to be harmed by the bombs or the burning debris of wrecked buildings. But then he would not have been able to smell the smoke, or feel the feverish heat of the flames.
The bastard prince, as callow and arrogant as ever was and still whinging about his sorry lot in life, centuries after that life had ended. Merriman cannot quite suppress his feelings of instinctive revulsion -- it is an automatic response, similar to that a man who can still feel pain in the non-existent toes of an amputated foot. Normally, that instinctive revulsion would come from the Dark's influence, but that one was not of the Dark. Not in the way that really mattered, at least, and in a strange way that made it all the more aggravating to hear it.
The former student, one of the fortunate ones who had not ended up as a name engraved upon the memorial walls of the chapels at Eton or Balliol. (Memento mori, lest we forget, we shall not sleep though poppies grow.) A thin veneer of sanity keeping him intact, and yet there are traces of the young man he had been and, apparently, still tries to be. But again, it is the watching that causes pain -- on his behalf, and on behalf of thousands of others, toy soldiers chipped and broken by a war they had not wanted, and worse, not properly understood.
And the harper. Talking about ends and means, choices and prerogatives and not truly knowing anything. Because part of what it means to be of the Light is to not have all choices open to you -- or to have to make the choices that no mortal man would ever have to make, and then to have to live with the memory of those choices for all Time.
There is too much to think about. And too much that needs to be done.
And so, the oldest of the Old Ones makes the choice to act.
Dark overcoat turned up against the ash and flying debris. Gas mask in its satchel slung over one shoulder. ARP armband and helmet in place, battery-powered torch to hand. A Chief Warden now, wading into the throng of men striving desperately to put out the fire before it can spread, clearing paths for stretcher-bearers, attempting to pump enough water from the soot-clogged Thames to douse the worst of the blaze.
He will work long into the night, well into the next morning, one man amongst many who fight the Dark as smouldering daylight breaks over England. And not far outside London, in the bedroom of a small semidetached house in Buckinghamshire near to Windsor Great Park, a very young girl will huddle beneath her bedclothes, barely daring to breathe as she watches the drift of every shadow on the bedroom wall, seeing in every movement the silent, deadly patience of a German paratrooper with a glittering bayonet.
Work is the best substitute for thought. And if the work serves the Light as mortal men often do -- unknowingly, but willingly -- then so much the better.
Wake not for the world-heard thunder,
Nor the chimes that earthquakes toll;
Stars may plot in heaven with planet,
Lightning rive the rock of granite,
Tempest tread the oakwood under,
Fear not you for flesh or soul;
Marching, fighting, victory past,
Stretch your limbs in peace at last.
Stir not for the soldier's drilling,
Nor the fever nothing cures;
Throb of drum and timbal's rattle
Call but men alive to battle,
And the fife with death-notes filling
Screams for blood - but not for yours.
Times enough you bled your best;
Sleep on now, and take your rest.
Sleep, my lad; the French have landed,
London's burning, Windsor's down.
Clasp your cloak of earth about you;
We must man the ditch without you,
March unled and fight short-handed,
Charge to fall and swim to drown.
Duty, friendship, bravery o'er,
Sleep away, lad; wake no more.
[The poem is Housman, of course.]
The door could have opened to any time, any place in the world he had left behind. He might have simply returned to the time from which he had come, to the whirl of forthcoming examinations and the drowsy, smoke-filled silence of the Senior Common Room. He might have stepped into a place of tranquility and peace, of warmth and palm trees and blue sea on a wave-washed shore, the brilliance of late spring in Jamaica or someplace equally soporific.
But that was not where he wanted to be -- those places provided too much opportunity for contemplation. He wanted a place where such contemplation would be difficult, if nigh impossible. A place where thinking could be replaced by doing.
And so the door opens onto London.
Midnight, 11 May 1941.
The high, keening wail of the air-raid sirens rises and falls in maddening waves, but behind and beneath that noise is a far more ominous one: the steady drone of airplane engines. Both RAF and Luftwaffe, far more of the latter than the former.
Quickly, silently, he makes his way through the empty streets, passing sandbagged buildings and the hastily erected barricades which do little to conceal the anti-aircraft gun placements. The city's inhabitants, those unwilling or unable to leave, have taken shelter in the bowels of the Underground and any other location that might have been deemed resistant to the bombing. Blackout curtains shroud all the windows, and the streets are strewn with bits of glass and rubble from previous raids. The worst of the damage is still out of sight, over near the docks and in the East End --
(How strange, that the Germans should have been able to solve the problem of slum clearance that had been troubling London local government authorities for years.)
-- but this time the raids have moved farther to the west.
By the time he reaches the Cenotaph, halfway down Whitehall, the all-clear is sounding and the night sky is luridly bright. The Palace of Westminster is in flames.
It would have been a simple matter to remain half in and half outside Time, an observer only, unable to be harmed by the bombs or the burning debris of wrecked buildings. But then he would not have been able to smell the smoke, or feel the feverish heat of the flames.
'And you, you are a fire. Large, cold, brilliantly white. And we are the moths, torn between falling into the void, and being burnt in the cold-heat of your righteousness. Your burn holes, and we fall. And then you just stand there, passive, serene...'
The bastard prince, as callow and arrogant as ever was and still whinging about his sorry lot in life, centuries after that life had ended. Merriman cannot quite suppress his feelings of instinctive revulsion -- it is an automatic response, similar to that a man who can still feel pain in the non-existent toes of an amputated foot. Normally, that instinctive revulsion would come from the Dark's influence, but that one was not of the Dark. Not in the way that really mattered, at least, and in a strange way that made it all the more aggravating to hear it.
'And there's nothing to be done, no way to stop it, no real way to apologise for inflicting it on the rest of the world....And even when we're sane we battle it out and you have to watch us do it.'
The former student, one of the fortunate ones who had not ended up as a name engraved upon the memorial walls of the chapels at Eton or Balliol. (Memento mori, lest we forget, we shall not sleep though poppies grow.) A thin veneer of sanity keeping him intact, and yet there are traces of the young man he had been and, apparently, still tries to be. But again, it is the watching that causes pain -- on his behalf, and on behalf of thousands of others, toy soldiers chipped and broken by a war they had not wanted, and worse, not properly understood.
'None knows better than I, lion, that your ends are ultimately our ends. That does not change the hurt done to those of us you use. And it seems as though you care nothing for that....Though that is, I suppose, your prerogative.'
And the harper. Talking about ends and means, choices and prerogatives and not truly knowing anything. Because part of what it means to be of the Light is to not have all choices open to you -- or to have to make the choices that no mortal man would ever have to make, and then to have to live with the memory of those choices for all Time.
There is too much to think about. And too much that needs to be done.
And so, the oldest of the Old Ones makes the choice to act.
Dark overcoat turned up against the ash and flying debris. Gas mask in its satchel slung over one shoulder. ARP armband and helmet in place, battery-powered torch to hand. A Chief Warden now, wading into the throng of men striving desperately to put out the fire before it can spread, clearing paths for stretcher-bearers, attempting to pump enough water from the soot-clogged Thames to douse the worst of the blaze.
He will work long into the night, well into the next morning, one man amongst many who fight the Dark as smouldering daylight breaks over England. And not far outside London, in the bedroom of a small semidetached house in Buckinghamshire near to Windsor Great Park, a very young girl will huddle beneath her bedclothes, barely daring to breathe as she watches the drift of every shadow on the bedroom wall, seeing in every movement the silent, deadly patience of a German paratrooper with a glittering bayonet.
Work is the best substitute for thought. And if the work serves the Light as mortal men often do -- unknowingly, but willingly -- then so much the better.
Wake not for the world-heard thunder,
Nor the chimes that earthquakes toll;
Stars may plot in heaven with planet,
Lightning rive the rock of granite,
Tempest tread the oakwood under,
Fear not you for flesh or soul;
Marching, fighting, victory past,
Stretch your limbs in peace at last.
Stir not for the soldier's drilling,
Nor the fever nothing cures;
Throb of drum and timbal's rattle
Call but men alive to battle,
And the fife with death-notes filling
Screams for blood - but not for yours.
Times enough you bled your best;
Sleep on now, and take your rest.
Sleep, my lad; the French have landed,
London's burning, Windsor's down.
Clasp your cloak of earth about you;
We must man the ditch without you,
March unled and fight short-handed,
Charge to fall and swim to drown.
Duty, friendship, bravery o'er,
Sleep away, lad; wake no more.
[The poem is Housman, of course.]