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[whisted]

@ HORNBLOWER
text ✰ voice ✰ holovid

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emoji nonsense, pretend this is many texts | text, un: a.kennedy

[jollyboat]

Horatio!!!!!

Horatio look at this!!!

🍍⛵️⚓️🏝🗺🇬🇧🌊

You can send pictures, Horatio!

#blessed content

[whisted]

[What


in the world is happening.

Give him a few minutes to just squint down at the screen.]

How

[No time for punctuation he needs to understand a thing.]

SO good

[jollyboat]

Like this!

[So a brief walk through of how to do, before there's another spate of them sent his way.]

🐟🐬🦞🎭

Isn't it exciting???

[whisted]

[There is no reason for this he can think of. There is no additional utility from these tiny little pictures.

And yet.]

🐠

[jollyboat]

🦀

[This is the best thing to ever happen.]

Did you see they have faces, too?

😊

august event aftermath stuff

[ettersberg]

Did you go over onto the other vessel?

[whisted]

I did.

[And he almost manages to end there, on the factual statement, but his gut twists abruptly under the weight of the only reason his addled mind can find for the inquiry.]

I'm sorry, sir.

[ettersberg]

[ it's a sad thing, that that is the only reason his mind can find. ]

It was not a reprimand.

Any injuries?

[whisted]

[It's new, not being dressed down for surviving. It takes a beat to breathe into this new shade.]

Most of us.

[It takes a beat before he can hazard:] It's nearly all scars, now.

[tombing]

[ they're married and this is their wedding night.

lara's mind catches on that. they're married. it's —it doesn't mean anything. it's just that it was the easiest way to make their troubles disappear, it's an administrative thing, it isn't anything that ties them together in ways they weren't before.

it doesn't mean anything.

she clings to that because if it means something, that makes this too dangerous, too much. (what if he disappears? what if he dies? what if he leaves? better not to care, isn't it?) ]

You're really going to have to start calling me Lara now. [ she settles on in the end to break the silence, instead of saying anything about the size of the bed in the room or how it's the only thing there, really, aside from a large wardrobe. ]

[whisted]

[It won't mean anything once they leave this place. It barely means anything now--at least in this particular moment, when the rest of the planet has been shut out and the tension of being tugged here and there by their tenuous position in Sarano society. There's no one else here to put on a show for. There's no one else here to require them to pretend that the fact that they're married now means something.

Which they are, but it doesn't mean anything.]

Hm. [Maybe that's the thing to focus on. Maybe it's just a positive that they won't have to pretend quite as much--that this one little piece of themselves will be allowed to simply exist rather than being locked in deep.] There's that.

[There's also the fact that the best place to sit and tug off his boots is the bed. Their marriage bed.]

[tombing]

[ for a moment, lara thinks he's going to deny it. that he's going to insist on formality even now, when they're married —even if it doesn't mean anything. it's almost enough to let laughter bubble up in her throat, but she swallows it down and watches him look at the bed, watches him sit there and tug off his boots.

and then she says hm as well and sits next to him and kicks off her own shoes. ]

You're going to have to help me with the dress.

[ just. putting that out there, a hint of haughtiness in the tone that has nothing to do with any actual sense of superiority and more with not quite knowing what to make of this, of the knowledge that sits in her chest of yes, i do, of putting on a show, of there being no one to put on a show for, now. ]

[whisted]

[Responding to the tone is easier than working through the sensation of this particular wrinkle. Having a to do helps as well, even if the sole item currently on the list is helping his new wife out of her dress.

Best not to think of it that way, perhaps.]

How'd you get into it? [Not that it matters. Not that it isn't just something to say as he shifts slightly back on the bed to start the process of gently feeling for the stays to loosen in the intricacies of the the dress's pattern.]

during the space pirate event;

[ettersberg]

Mr Hornblower. What's your status?

[whisted]

Steady on the cannons, sir.

[ettersberg]

Good to hear it. Carry on, then.

[whisted]

Aye aye, sir.

[Although.]

Sir?

[There's not enough time to check in properly, but it's hard not to instinctively want some reassurance.]

[tombing]

you out flying?

[whisted]

yes

safe?

[tombing]

feeling a bit bloody useless
but yeah

[ give her an hour or two, she's going to learn about spaceship engineering so she can fix shit ]

guess i shouldn't ask you the same thing
but come back in one piece, all right

[ he's got to. because no matter how much she'll claim she doesn't care, the thought of losing him makes something in her chest ache. ]

[whisted]

injured?

[Not that there's anything he could do about it. He's barely got the attention span for fully sentences.]

trying.

after the anomaly things have died down

[saucily]

[ things have been-- very much a confusing mishmash of events lately, and Archie is pleased to see them die down.

he's also intrigued at the idea that people can now go back to their homes now, if they like. not something he's interested in for self-evident reasons, but on the whole he likes the idea in an abstract kind of way. his assumption is that he and Horatio and Bill will all stay here, obviously.

he nudges horatio with his foot one evening as they settle into their evening routine of reading and research and general relaxation. ]

Funny thing, people getting to home now all of a sudden. I'll miss a number of them, I think. The Danae won't be the same without them.

[whisted]

[It's odd to find what a relief it is to be at one place at one time. It's odder still that this isn't the first time since arriving on this particular ship that this very specific form of relief had been ground into his bones.

For better or worse, it's a relief to know that, by the looks of things, he'll keep sitting exactly where he is until he gets up to move himself. Also a relief to feel the sensation of Archie close at hand, despite being half-absorbed in his reading.]

Hm. [Horatio's attention is largely distracted by the charts and figures he's sorting through, but his toe nudges idly back against his friend's.] Suppose we'd miss them either way.

[saucily]

[ the gentle toe-nudge in return is almost enough that he misses just what either way might mean.

he stares at his book a moment, then looks up with amusement ]

It'd be hard to miss them if they stay. This isn't exactly a First Rate and the crew isn't quite that large. I've got to make active efforts to avoid some people.

[whisted]

[There's a disconnect here--which, despite the displacement and the timelines and the odd discrepancies between their memories, is a bit unusual. Still, they'll have to come back to that, because that's not what's furrowed Horatio's brow and dragged his own eyes up to Archie.]

You've people to avoid here?

[It would be a far, far worse disconnect if he'd missed someone Archie needed (or even just wanted) to be protected from. (Just thinking of Simpson, even this far away, prickles the skin at the back of his neck.)]