Shakespeare one shots

Justification and villainy (a character study)

Very obscure Howl's Moving Castle reference. Blink and you'll miss it.

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Hamlet, mostly, was a prince.

He gave out his heart freely and cried when it was broken, then cried harder because it made him feel so distinctly un-princelike. In his bed, alone, he imagined his father scowling at him, telling him to man up, sniffling like a child is no way to run a country.

He did not want to be prince. He wanted to fence with Laertes and not feel bad about losing. He wanted to make flower crowns with Ophelia and not pretend to love her. He wanted to read books with Horatio about philosophy and mythology without needing to stop to write his political science essay.

But he lost, and he loved, and he wrote.

~~~

Ophelia, mostly, was a maiden.

She let the prince love her, and tried not to love him back. She tried not to smile when he laughed, tried not to blush when he tucked her hair behind her ear. She tried not to let her brother hate him.

She did not listen to her father. She loved him, but did not trust him. When she couldn't sleep for dreams about her mother and sewing was too much work and thinking was a chore, she climbed into Laertes' bed and trembled. He would make an annoyed sound, but would always open the covers for her and hold her close. He held her above the rain, and when the storm was finished, he was soaked and she was dry.

Even though they both learned to swin.

~~~

Laertes, mostly, was a son.

He fenced and he studied, studied and fenced, and did it all so well that his father pushed him even harder. Laertes grew up trapped in a shrine to the perfect son he performed as.

He stopped sitting in gardens with Ophelia. Men did not like to giggle about flowers with little girls. He stopped praising Hamlet even though he lost. Men did not love men.

When he died, he thought of the air in France, and how much his sister would love it there.

~~~

Ros and Guil, mostly, were jesters.

From birth, they were raised together. They were never parted. Even when their families began to have disagreements, they took comfort in the fact that it would always come back to RosandGuil, and they would never have to live a life as two separate halves of the whole they made together.

On the ship to England, they ran around the deck chasing gulls and read books upside-down. At night they wrapped up in blankets and cloaks, shivered into each other, and talked about how life might change. Ros said he missed Hamlet. Guil nodded.

(Hamlet was three rooms away, forging a letter.)

Guil said he'd like to grab the prince and his scholar friend and take the four of them back to Wittenberg. Ros nodded.

(Hamlet pressed his ring into the wax.)

They said at the same time, "I'm glad you're here with me," and laughed.

(They knew what was in the envelope.)

~~~

Yorick, entirely, was dead.

If he was not, he would have seen the prince he used to carry on his back cry, holding his skull with shaking fingers late at night.

He would have comforted the prince, filled the empty space left by a man more King than Father, and coaxed him away from the dangerous precipice of madness in his mind.

But ashes are ashes, dust is dust, and if a human skull looks put-upon, well. No one but the gravedigger will know.

~~~

Gertrude, mostly, was a queen.

She wished a thousand times, in her last breath, to have been a mother instead. In her time she had watched her child, her joy and pride, stumble from one heartbreak to the next with only words and no mother to guide him. She wished to have been there for her son.

She cursed herself, sometimes, for her innate frailty. She was often ashamed for pushing that same frailty on the much stronger Ophelia, who, in another life, she could have called daughter. But love fades, tenders are lost, and she relented to the poison with the name of her son and his father on her lips.

~~~

Horatio, mostly, was a friend.

He was friend to Ophelia, discussing flowers and responsibilities and love. He was friend to Laertes, providing a listening ear and skilled fencing partner. He was friend to Ros and Guil, always ready to talk utter nonsense and not mind being out of their loop. He was even friend to Gertrude, he liked to think, over tea and polite remarks with double-meanings that they didn't acknowledge.

In proportion to whom he was much more than friends with, it would not be a lie (for Horatio hated lies) to say that he, mostly, was a friend.

He was very much a friend to the prince as well, mind. He discussed flowers and responsibilities, listened and dueled, talked nonsense, and dropped double-meanings. The difference was in the nature of motivation behind each action.

It was the nature of something deeper than friendship that made him reach for the poisoned cup as his prince lay dying in his arms. This same nature made Hamlet demand he live.

Hamlet and Horatio were not so different, really. Behind the trappings of prince and scholar, of "sirrah" and "my good lord", they functioned in much the same way.

Horatio lost Hamlet, who he had loved, and thus wrote his story.

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Can't sleep. Head hurts.