Post by concretegirl on Jul 23, 2013 1:49:26 GMT -5
“Do you realize what you're bringing down on your own heads? You threaten violence in the streets and then have the audacity to be surprised when it comes and pays you a visit!” Richard only had a few years on Gabriel, but his voice was already deeper-older. It communicated more than Gabriel felt that his did. It held more steel. The men gathered around the Wright home that night, twelve in total, were friends of Gabriel and Richard's father. The Declaration had brought them all on a night of final divide, and Gabriel could hear and feel the lines being drawn between all of them and his brother.
“Every move the king and his men have made have been about control, suppression! He expects compliance from men that live a world away from his reach!” said Louis Marksman, Gabriel's fathers close friend and colleague, exclaimed.
“Marksman, listen to yourself! Listen to yourself! You're in with all of it.We the people!? It's bloody treason, it's madness and you damn well know it!” Richard shouted. After that: the argument erupted full-scale. Men shouting at one another while Gabriel felt himself drifting backwards, side-ways.
Somehow in the midst of the argument Gabriel could hear the shuffle of movement against the floors above. He knew his younger siblings were awake (how could they expect to stay asleep through all of the shouting and fighting, after all?) Most likely Emily was trying to keep them in bed, but he knew they were all shaken.
His mother was downstairs, but a room away with the three women that had been brought along, two of the men's wives and then Marksman's daughter, Penelope, whose direction his parents had tried to push him in more times that once. The consequences of what these men talked about and decided would effect them directly, yet somehow they were expected to stay separate.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!” Gabriel's father's voice rang out clear and solid above the din. “Please...” he said again peaceably as the voices dropped. “Now we have been speaking about these events and our allegiances for... A long time now. For what feels like both a lifetime and a rushed moment. However: things are underway, my friends. The time for reconciliation has passed us by, and clinging to it will lead us nowhere. I have long considered myself a man of peace and the idea of war turns my stomach and it makes me wearier than I can convey...” he trailed off, and he met Gabriel's gaze for a moment and Gabriel could see it: the exhaustion. The feeling of failure as your desires for peace crumbled.
“But I know you all. You are my colleagues, my friends, my family.” he looked over at Richard, whose expression was both disbelieving and resentful. “And attempting to hide my sympathies for the colonies and for this struggle for freedom would be of no use. You know me too well and I think too highly of you all to deny it. In this quiet hour of night I called you here to let you know this. What you do with that information is up to you, and I earnestly hope that you know I am doing what I feel in my heart is best.” he looked around at them all, sighing heavily. “It is beginning, and so we must begin. To divide or come together, I only pray that we all make it through these coming times safely, and that we can find peace in our choices.”
Gabriel looked over at Richard, whose jawline was hard, his expression cold. He shook his head, before turning and walking out the door. Without thinking, Gabriel followed him.
“Richard!” he called, following him out through the back. He went through the kitchen, and his mother stood when she saw Richard leaving. The other women watched with quiet expressions. Penelope was seated at the table with them. Even at this late hour her auburn hair was done in perfect ringlets and her eyes were sharp. He moved past all of them and followed Richard out the back door and into the orchard.
“Richard, stop-”
Richard continued, until they were out among the apple trees, the moonlight making the spider's webs in the trees glow and the dewy grass glisten. Fruit hung heavy and full in the branches.
“Richard, please-”
Richard wheeled on him. “Please what, Gabriel?!” he snapped. “Please accept the insane treason that they are condoning? Please do as father asks just like you? Please join a fight that you cannot win?-”
“Richard-”
“It is suicide,Gabriel! You go along with father you're killing them. You killing all of them. Mother, Emily, Caroline, Sussanah, Tobey! They're all dead if you follow our father! Him and this radical movement, this unnatural movement! And don't forget your friends. That pretty little girl in there? Marksman's daughter? The one everyone in this town says you're going to marry? She's dead, too. Her father is just as much of a lunatic as ours-”
“That's enough!” Gabriel shouted, and Richard stopped, but his gaze was wild, his jaw set.
“That's-... It's...” Gabriel shook his head, his throat tight.
“Richard,” he began again. “you have to see why father is doing this,” he implored. “Why any of the men in there are doing this. Why I can't walk out on this. Why are you holding on to a monarchy that is crushing it's people?”
Richard shook his head. “You're a traitor, Gabriel.” he said, and then met his brother's gaze, his expression remote. “You're a traitor like them and I can't help you.”
Gabriel took a deep breath. “Richard, please-”
“No.” Richard cut him off, a strange ghost of his smile, tainted by resolution, pulled at the corners of his mouth but didn't reach his eyes. “Father's chosen his side and so have I. I'm sorry you've chosen to stay. But I can't, not even for all of you.”
The closest thing Gabriel had felt for conviction for the war was that night, and the memory was so hollow it made him ache. You're killing all of them, Richard had told him. As he took his place across from Emily, the words crashed around in his mind so loudly he could barely stand it. All of them out here were so close to death, ever hour, every minute they seemed to be marching towards it. Some of them could revel in the fight that might take their life, but Gabriel couldn't and the cause had lost its meaning.
He had to renew his resolve in those same hours and minutes and each time it was weaker and weaker. The resolve he'd mustered up earlier was already fading. Day after day of blood and rot and fighting something so massive and aged: all so he could lose his family? So it could break apart, and now maybe die before his eyes?
“Wright? You still with us?”
Gabriel shook himself out of his thoughts, looking up in the dim light to see Singer looking both amused and expectant.
“Oh, I-... I'm sorry. What was it you were saying?”
“Oh, we were just talking about things we're waiting to get back to soon. Actual food, real beds, women, hell, I miss a combination of any one of them.”
Gabriel glanced over at Emily, who, if she was uncomfortable with a remark that likely wouldn't have been made in her presence if they knew she was a woman, she didn't betray it.
“And I was just asking if you had anything like a girl waiting for you?” Singer clarified.
“Oh.” Gabriel shifted. “Ah, I'm not really sure.”
“Not sure? Sounds like trouble.” Singer mused.
“It's, ah...” Gabriel glanced over at Emily again. “There is a girl my mother would have liked to see me with, but, I haven't heard from her. No commitments to her or anything.” he said, not daring to mention the girl that no one he could think of would like to see him with, no matter what side of the war they were on. Besides, bringing her up in such a careless, casual conversation intended for amusement would have felt so irreverent to him, he didn't even consider it.
“What's her name?” Singer asked.
“Penelope Marksman. Our fathers are colleagues.”
“Sounds like a good match. She pretty?”
Gabriel shrugged, then glanced over at Emily again. “I wouldn't mind the combination of her and a few different things, if that's what you mean.” he said, his tone thoughtless and casual, but he was watching Emily closely. She doubtlessly had heard crass conversations before being among such a large group of men with no women in sight for months, but he'd never seen her in the middle of one. He was curious to how she reacted. Which, he also found strange because he also had the urge to drag her out of it now before it got any worse.
“What about you, Hallewell? Any girls back home?” Singer asked, conversationally.
And Gabriel, despite himself, found himself unable to hide the edges of an amused smile as he looked to her for a response.
[Super weird and jumbly because this is my first post in, uhm... Oh, wow, like a year. Getting used to the characters and it's kind of all over the place. BUT I POSTED SOMETHING!
]
“Every move the king and his men have made have been about control, suppression! He expects compliance from men that live a world away from his reach!” said Louis Marksman, Gabriel's fathers close friend and colleague, exclaimed.
“Marksman, listen to yourself! Listen to yourself! You're in with all of it.We the people!? It's bloody treason, it's madness and you damn well know it!” Richard shouted. After that: the argument erupted full-scale. Men shouting at one another while Gabriel felt himself drifting backwards, side-ways.
Somehow in the midst of the argument Gabriel could hear the shuffle of movement against the floors above. He knew his younger siblings were awake (how could they expect to stay asleep through all of the shouting and fighting, after all?) Most likely Emily was trying to keep them in bed, but he knew they were all shaken.
His mother was downstairs, but a room away with the three women that had been brought along, two of the men's wives and then Marksman's daughter, Penelope, whose direction his parents had tried to push him in more times that once. The consequences of what these men talked about and decided would effect them directly, yet somehow they were expected to stay separate.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!” Gabriel's father's voice rang out clear and solid above the din. “Please...” he said again peaceably as the voices dropped. “Now we have been speaking about these events and our allegiances for... A long time now. For what feels like both a lifetime and a rushed moment. However: things are underway, my friends. The time for reconciliation has passed us by, and clinging to it will lead us nowhere. I have long considered myself a man of peace and the idea of war turns my stomach and it makes me wearier than I can convey...” he trailed off, and he met Gabriel's gaze for a moment and Gabriel could see it: the exhaustion. The feeling of failure as your desires for peace crumbled.
“But I know you all. You are my colleagues, my friends, my family.” he looked over at Richard, whose expression was both disbelieving and resentful. “And attempting to hide my sympathies for the colonies and for this struggle for freedom would be of no use. You know me too well and I think too highly of you all to deny it. In this quiet hour of night I called you here to let you know this. What you do with that information is up to you, and I earnestly hope that you know I am doing what I feel in my heart is best.” he looked around at them all, sighing heavily. “It is beginning, and so we must begin. To divide or come together, I only pray that we all make it through these coming times safely, and that we can find peace in our choices.”
Gabriel looked over at Richard, whose jawline was hard, his expression cold. He shook his head, before turning and walking out the door. Without thinking, Gabriel followed him.
“Richard!” he called, following him out through the back. He went through the kitchen, and his mother stood when she saw Richard leaving. The other women watched with quiet expressions. Penelope was seated at the table with them. Even at this late hour her auburn hair was done in perfect ringlets and her eyes were sharp. He moved past all of them and followed Richard out the back door and into the orchard.
“Richard, stop-”
Richard continued, until they were out among the apple trees, the moonlight making the spider's webs in the trees glow and the dewy grass glisten. Fruit hung heavy and full in the branches.
“Richard, please-”
Richard wheeled on him. “Please what, Gabriel?!” he snapped. “Please accept the insane treason that they are condoning? Please do as father asks just like you? Please join a fight that you cannot win?-”
“Richard-”
“It is suicide,Gabriel! You go along with father you're killing them. You killing all of them. Mother, Emily, Caroline, Sussanah, Tobey! They're all dead if you follow our father! Him and this radical movement, this unnatural movement! And don't forget your friends. That pretty little girl in there? Marksman's daughter? The one everyone in this town says you're going to marry? She's dead, too. Her father is just as much of a lunatic as ours-”
“That's enough!” Gabriel shouted, and Richard stopped, but his gaze was wild, his jaw set.
“That's-... It's...” Gabriel shook his head, his throat tight.
“Richard,” he began again. “you have to see why father is doing this,” he implored. “Why any of the men in there are doing this. Why I can't walk out on this. Why are you holding on to a monarchy that is crushing it's people?”
Richard shook his head. “You're a traitor, Gabriel.” he said, and then met his brother's gaze, his expression remote. “You're a traitor like them and I can't help you.”
Gabriel took a deep breath. “Richard, please-”
“No.” Richard cut him off, a strange ghost of his smile, tainted by resolution, pulled at the corners of his mouth but didn't reach his eyes. “Father's chosen his side and so have I. I'm sorry you've chosen to stay. But I can't, not even for all of you.”
The closest thing Gabriel had felt for conviction for the war was that night, and the memory was so hollow it made him ache. You're killing all of them, Richard had told him. As he took his place across from Emily, the words crashed around in his mind so loudly he could barely stand it. All of them out here were so close to death, ever hour, every minute they seemed to be marching towards it. Some of them could revel in the fight that might take their life, but Gabriel couldn't and the cause had lost its meaning.
He had to renew his resolve in those same hours and minutes and each time it was weaker and weaker. The resolve he'd mustered up earlier was already fading. Day after day of blood and rot and fighting something so massive and aged: all so he could lose his family? So it could break apart, and now maybe die before his eyes?
“Wright? You still with us?”
Gabriel shook himself out of his thoughts, looking up in the dim light to see Singer looking both amused and expectant.
“Oh, I-... I'm sorry. What was it you were saying?”
“Oh, we were just talking about things we're waiting to get back to soon. Actual food, real beds, women, hell, I miss a combination of any one of them.”
Gabriel glanced over at Emily, who, if she was uncomfortable with a remark that likely wouldn't have been made in her presence if they knew she was a woman, she didn't betray it.
“And I was just asking if you had anything like a girl waiting for you?” Singer clarified.
“Oh.” Gabriel shifted. “Ah, I'm not really sure.”
“Not sure? Sounds like trouble.” Singer mused.
“It's, ah...” Gabriel glanced over at Emily again. “There is a girl my mother would have liked to see me with, but, I haven't heard from her. No commitments to her or anything.” he said, not daring to mention the girl that no one he could think of would like to see him with, no matter what side of the war they were on. Besides, bringing her up in such a careless, casual conversation intended for amusement would have felt so irreverent to him, he didn't even consider it.
“What's her name?” Singer asked.
“Penelope Marksman. Our fathers are colleagues.”
“Sounds like a good match. She pretty?”
Gabriel shrugged, then glanced over at Emily again. “I wouldn't mind the combination of her and a few different things, if that's what you mean.” he said, his tone thoughtless and casual, but he was watching Emily closely. She doubtlessly had heard crass conversations before being among such a large group of men with no women in sight for months, but he'd never seen her in the middle of one. He was curious to how she reacted. Which, he also found strange because he also had the urge to drag her out of it now before it got any worse.
“What about you, Hallewell? Any girls back home?” Singer asked, conversationally.
And Gabriel, despite himself, found himself unable to hide the edges of an amused smile as he looked to her for a response.
[Super weird and jumbly because this is my first post in, uhm... Oh, wow, like a year. Getting used to the characters and it's kind of all over the place. BUT I POSTED SOMETHING!
]