Captain Crozier (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goingtobeunwell) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
singillatim2024-10-10 03:31 pm
goingtobeunwell) wrote in singillatim2024-10-10 03:31 pm
Hear me, men
Who: The Terrors and Erebites
What: Crozier tells all
Where: Crozier and Raju's cabin
When: ~October~
Warnings: #JustTerrorThings
Lying by omission is still lying.
Lying by omission was never a qualm Francis Crozier had. It was a choice he made over and over again as captain of Terror and then expedition commander, to withhold information for the good of the crew, to preserve their morale and help keep that little flame of hope still burning, but each and every time without fail the good-intentioned lie turned sour and haunting. It was never a lesson well-learned despite this, and the habit continued even when the truth was so obvious and the omission almost an insult to the intelligence and the personal tragedies of the men he survived.
Lying by omission is still lying, and with the arrival of one more in the their party - his second, his confidant and one he'd usually make complicit in those lies - Crozier slowly came to realize that this attempt to preserve did more harm than it ever did good. The decision to relinquish whatever control he still held over their collective narrative wasn't an easy one, but it was correct and just. It wasn't his story, even if it felt like he carried the weight of it on his own all those lonely years. That couldn't be further from the reality of what his men faced day-to-day as living ghosts now.
He was alive, and they had died. He couldn't keep lying to them. They deserved so much more than Crozier's craven attempt to protect them from what they already knew to be the truth.
He gathers them in the cabin in the woods by the basin. His cabin, a small but warm little thing, patched up in the roof and the floor and the walls, mismatched cups in the cabinets and bundles of dried herbs in the kitchen. All are invited save Hickey, the one man he wouldn't forgive, and given an herbal tea sweetened with syrup upon request. An odd thing for a captain to do, but then again, how many times had he asked them not to call him 'captain'?
The story begins in a place different than what might be anticipated. He opens the floor with the argument held by himself and Sir John about the dangers they were in, and then the admittance of what Hickey and Tozer had claimed on the day of the failed hanging: he was going to leave them. He was planning to resign his post and walk to Fort Resolution to bring them aid. Sir John's death put an end to these thoughts, but it was true. That much that Hickey claimed had been true.
Crozier apologizes. He waits a few beats, and then continues:
First with John Irving's death.
He tries to be careful with his words, and measure truth against callousness, but there no amount of wordsmithing that can be done with something so terrible. Most of them already knows what happens when they find John's and Farr's bodies - John Irving does not.
Irving also does not know about the fate of the Netsilik family that had fed him, or about the trial that had come after guilt was proven, or the assault on the camp by the creature, or indeed the kidnapping and escape by the mutineers. Harry Goodsir knows these things all too well, as does William Gibson, but not what happened after, how they burned the bodies of their men after and hoped beyond hope to somehow reunite the mutineers with the rest of their camp. They don't know what it like outside of that hellish camp, but he was sure they could imagine.
He outlines what most of them experienced next. A slow and painful trudge across the landscape and the ever-present stalking of both the creature and the mutineers. His voice is quiet as he describes how men would fall dead mid-step - they all know, they all know - and how they rotted from the inside out and boiled their boots just to have something to fill their bellies. The next death comes and its James', and he can't quite look at Fitzjames as he describes entombing him in his shroud and burying him under a cairn, but he does look at Little. Little remembers that day.
He tells those who don't know about Tom Blanky. An awful blow, Thomas' self-sacrificing death, and he feels it all over all again as he tries to explain the morbid little fact about the forks and rope.
Next comes Rescue Camp, where they rested with the men too ill to walk or be hauled. More of their numbers dead, more and more, and the creature looking ill as well. He recalls the scouting party, leaving those ill men behind in their tents, the men he promised to look after as they drew their last painful breaths, and how the mutineers caught up with them. There was a mole in their party. Who it was isn't important, what's important is they accidentally fired upon poor Thomas Hartnell, who cried as he died on the shale.
The men took him, and he was separated from Little and Jopson and the rest. He admits here that he didn't know what happened to them next, he could only surmise from what evidence he saw later, but could only truly describe what he witnessed from his time with Hickey's men. He does say that he fought Des Voeux over Hartnell's body, but couldn't stop them from taking him for supper. The implication here is clear: this was their practice.
What he witnessed in Hickey's camp is next. Crozier's voice is still steady despite his own anger at what he experienced, what he saw done to men like Goodsir and Diggle, and Manson and Hodgson, and even the mutinous Tozer, who was only ever just trying to survive the best way he knew how. William Gibson was gone by this point. Relieved of his pain and eaten, as he was led to understand.
What happened to Harry Goodsir is integral to his survival, but he's cautious about saying too much. Without a doubt Harry Goodsir saved his life, but it was gruesome end, and one that he doesn't want to unearth without his say-so. He explains that Goodsir formulated a plan, and when he died Hickey and the others feasted on him. He too also ate from Goodsir, but just his foot as he'd been warned, and thus fooled the mutineers into thinking that the body hadn't been tainted.
He didn't know that Hickey's fascination with the tuunbaq had grown into an obsession. None of them really did, as was evident by Hickey's sudden turn on Tozer. It's with great exhaustion that he describes how he and the others were chained to a sledge and forced to haul Hickey, like some ridiculous king in longjohns and stolen boots and coat, to find the creature. He'd planned on performing a poor imitation of the ritual used by Lady Silence's people to bond with the creature, thus gaining some sort of godlike power, but naturally misunderstood entirely the purpose. As the men around him began to succumb to the poison, Hickey lured the creature to them and cut out his tongue as an offering.
The creature devoured him. Devoured them all, in fact. Attempted to kill him, but was too busy choking on the remains of Hickey to finish the job, and thus was easily choked with the boat chain.
The rest is hazy, but he's clear on this one point: Lady Silence had saved his life. She freed him from the chain and his unfortunate connection with the corpse of the creature by cutting off his hand, then nursed him back to health.
Of course, by this point in the story the ending is plain: when Crozier was able to move about once more and went in search of his men he was met with only frozen corpses. He touches briefly on the state of the camp where the ill had been left behind, how he discovered Jopson's body there (though kept the position he found him in to himself, not needing blame or more guilt thrown about unnecessarily) and others in their cots buried under the broken canvas, and then the various pockets of dilapidated tents and huddled corpses he discovered along the way to the final camp.
His recollection of the final camp is grim. Dead men lying on top of one another in tents, dismembered body parts, some still wearing tattered pieces of clothing, sitting in cooking pots or gnawed on raw outright. He doesn't spare the details here: these men suffered until their last breath, and it was horrible in ways that clearly haunt him. He pauses before confessing that there was one man still alive: Edward Little, though he doubts he even realized his captain was there. Little died not long after, delirious and gruesome in his appearance.
"Lady Silence...Silna then took me to her people. They took me in despite what I'd done to the tuunbaq, despite what we'd inflicted on them. I didn't understand how they could be so generous after all that...I still..."
At this point Crozier lowers his eyes to look at his hand and what remains of his left wrist. It isn't obvious what he's thinking until he speaks again.
"Silna was exiled for losing the tuunbaq. She left before I could stop her. I couldn't do anything,I had to accept it, they told me that I had to accept it, but I should have..." He can't quite meet Goodsir's eyes. He lied to him outright about Silna's fate, and he doesn't want to see the rage in his usually gentle stare.
"I stayed with the Netsilik for years. People came looking for us, but much, much too late. I never went back, even when Ross came through the camp. I couldn't go back with him; I never had any desire to."
He leaves the story there. It almost feels unfinished, and perhaps it is, knowing that they're all here now. It isn't satisfying, none of it is, and he feels ashamed for having lived. It's heavy on him now too, all the guilt and sorrow, but he expects more of it to come. It's going to be a long afternoon.
What: Crozier tells all
Where: Crozier and Raju's cabin
When: ~October~
Warnings: #JustTerrorThings
Lying by omission is still lying.
Lying by omission was never a qualm Francis Crozier had. It was a choice he made over and over again as captain of Terror and then expedition commander, to withhold information for the good of the crew, to preserve their morale and help keep that little flame of hope still burning, but each and every time without fail the good-intentioned lie turned sour and haunting. It was never a lesson well-learned despite this, and the habit continued even when the truth was so obvious and the omission almost an insult to the intelligence and the personal tragedies of the men he survived.
Lying by omission is still lying, and with the arrival of one more in the their party - his second, his confidant and one he'd usually make complicit in those lies - Crozier slowly came to realize that this attempt to preserve did more harm than it ever did good. The decision to relinquish whatever control he still held over their collective narrative wasn't an easy one, but it was correct and just. It wasn't his story, even if it felt like he carried the weight of it on his own all those lonely years. That couldn't be further from the reality of what his men faced day-to-day as living ghosts now.
He was alive, and they had died. He couldn't keep lying to them. They deserved so much more than Crozier's craven attempt to protect them from what they already knew to be the truth.
He gathers them in the cabin in the woods by the basin. His cabin, a small but warm little thing, patched up in the roof and the floor and the walls, mismatched cups in the cabinets and bundles of dried herbs in the kitchen. All are invited save Hickey, the one man he wouldn't forgive, and given an herbal tea sweetened with syrup upon request. An odd thing for a captain to do, but then again, how many times had he asked them not to call him 'captain'?
The story begins in a place different than what might be anticipated. He opens the floor with the argument held by himself and Sir John about the dangers they were in, and then the admittance of what Hickey and Tozer had claimed on the day of the failed hanging: he was going to leave them. He was planning to resign his post and walk to Fort Resolution to bring them aid. Sir John's death put an end to these thoughts, but it was true. That much that Hickey claimed had been true.
Crozier apologizes. He waits a few beats, and then continues:
First with John Irving's death.
He tries to be careful with his words, and measure truth against callousness, but there no amount of wordsmithing that can be done with something so terrible. Most of them already knows what happens when they find John's and Farr's bodies - John Irving does not.
Irving also does not know about the fate of the Netsilik family that had fed him, or about the trial that had come after guilt was proven, or the assault on the camp by the creature, or indeed the kidnapping and escape by the mutineers. Harry Goodsir knows these things all too well, as does William Gibson, but not what happened after, how they burned the bodies of their men after and hoped beyond hope to somehow reunite the mutineers with the rest of their camp. They don't know what it like outside of that hellish camp, but he was sure they could imagine.
He outlines what most of them experienced next. A slow and painful trudge across the landscape and the ever-present stalking of both the creature and the mutineers. His voice is quiet as he describes how men would fall dead mid-step - they all know, they all know - and how they rotted from the inside out and boiled their boots just to have something to fill their bellies. The next death comes and its James', and he can't quite look at Fitzjames as he describes entombing him in his shroud and burying him under a cairn, but he does look at Little. Little remembers that day.
He tells those who don't know about Tom Blanky. An awful blow, Thomas' self-sacrificing death, and he feels it all over all again as he tries to explain the morbid little fact about the forks and rope.
Next comes Rescue Camp, where they rested with the men too ill to walk or be hauled. More of their numbers dead, more and more, and the creature looking ill as well. He recalls the scouting party, leaving those ill men behind in their tents, the men he promised to look after as they drew their last painful breaths, and how the mutineers caught up with them. There was a mole in their party. Who it was isn't important, what's important is they accidentally fired upon poor Thomas Hartnell, who cried as he died on the shale.
The men took him, and he was separated from Little and Jopson and the rest. He admits here that he didn't know what happened to them next, he could only surmise from what evidence he saw later, but could only truly describe what he witnessed from his time with Hickey's men. He does say that he fought Des Voeux over Hartnell's body, but couldn't stop them from taking him for supper. The implication here is clear: this was their practice.
What he witnessed in Hickey's camp is next. Crozier's voice is still steady despite his own anger at what he experienced, what he saw done to men like Goodsir and Diggle, and Manson and Hodgson, and even the mutinous Tozer, who was only ever just trying to survive the best way he knew how. William Gibson was gone by this point. Relieved of his pain and eaten, as he was led to understand.
What happened to Harry Goodsir is integral to his survival, but he's cautious about saying too much. Without a doubt Harry Goodsir saved his life, but it was gruesome end, and one that he doesn't want to unearth without his say-so. He explains that Goodsir formulated a plan, and when he died Hickey and the others feasted on him. He too also ate from Goodsir, but just his foot as he'd been warned, and thus fooled the mutineers into thinking that the body hadn't been tainted.
He didn't know that Hickey's fascination with the tuunbaq had grown into an obsession. None of them really did, as was evident by Hickey's sudden turn on Tozer. It's with great exhaustion that he describes how he and the others were chained to a sledge and forced to haul Hickey, like some ridiculous king in longjohns and stolen boots and coat, to find the creature. He'd planned on performing a poor imitation of the ritual used by Lady Silence's people to bond with the creature, thus gaining some sort of godlike power, but naturally misunderstood entirely the purpose. As the men around him began to succumb to the poison, Hickey lured the creature to them and cut out his tongue as an offering.
The creature devoured him. Devoured them all, in fact. Attempted to kill him, but was too busy choking on the remains of Hickey to finish the job, and thus was easily choked with the boat chain.
The rest is hazy, but he's clear on this one point: Lady Silence had saved his life. She freed him from the chain and his unfortunate connection with the corpse of the creature by cutting off his hand, then nursed him back to health.
Of course, by this point in the story the ending is plain: when Crozier was able to move about once more and went in search of his men he was met with only frozen corpses. He touches briefly on the state of the camp where the ill had been left behind, how he discovered Jopson's body there (though kept the position he found him in to himself, not needing blame or more guilt thrown about unnecessarily) and others in their cots buried under the broken canvas, and then the various pockets of dilapidated tents and huddled corpses he discovered along the way to the final camp.
His recollection of the final camp is grim. Dead men lying on top of one another in tents, dismembered body parts, some still wearing tattered pieces of clothing, sitting in cooking pots or gnawed on raw outright. He doesn't spare the details here: these men suffered until their last breath, and it was horrible in ways that clearly haunt him. He pauses before confessing that there was one man still alive: Edward Little, though he doubts he even realized his captain was there. Little died not long after, delirious and gruesome in his appearance.
"Lady Silence...Silna then took me to her people. They took me in despite what I'd done to the tuunbaq, despite what we'd inflicted on them. I didn't understand how they could be so generous after all that...I still..."
At this point Crozier lowers his eyes to look at his hand and what remains of his left wrist. It isn't obvious what he's thinking until he speaks again.
"Silna was exiled for losing the tuunbaq. She left before I could stop her. I couldn't do anything,I had to accept it, they told me that I had to accept it, but I should have..." He can't quite meet Goodsir's eyes. He lied to him outright about Silna's fate, and he doesn't want to see the rage in his usually gentle stare.
"I stayed with the Netsilik for years. People came looking for us, but much, much too late. I never went back, even when Ross came through the camp. I couldn't go back with him; I never had any desire to."
He leaves the story there. It almost feels unfinished, and perhaps it is, knowing that they're all here now. It isn't satisfying, none of it is, and he feels ashamed for having lived. It's heavy on him now too, all the guilt and sorrow, but he expects more of it to come. It's going to be a long afternoon.
no subject
Clearly this is what Little wanted, right? Getting called out on avoidant behaviour in front of everyone?
Not that Billy is going to waffle and not say it. He's pretty sure that they would figure out who exactly the wolf is even if he'd say nothing - it doesn't take too much to put together why Billy in particular would know so well who this is, while most of the others here don't.
"It is Cornelius, of course. And I am sure we would all like to hear his reasons for spending so much time around Mr. Crozier as a wolf." Babe, you have some explaining to do!!!
no subject
So James shifts his gaze back toward the wolf--Hickey--once more, and stares at him with an expression somewhere between betrayal and disdain for a few moments. Then he looks away, turning his body away as well as he crosses one leg over the other in a clear indication of being done with this whole situation. You're being shunned, Hickey-wolf. Shunned.
This really is a day of disappointments.
no subject
And it's not like Hickey would be able to slide away from this and keep pretending he's a wolf. Fitzjames already obviously believes Billy—which really, that's rude of him, he was enjoying those head scratches. So loathe as he is to admit it, the jig's up.
The shifting is objectively a little weird to watch as where there once was a wolf, now there is Cornelius Hickey. Entirely naked. Dick out for the world to see, ass scars on full display. And really, he doesn't like that but if he expresses something as basic and expected as 'shame' or 'a desire for clothes' they'll see it as a weakness. Besides, like hell Crozier's going to give him clothes anyway.
"Rude of you all to host a little get-together of former Terrors and not invite everyone. Can't blame a man for being curious."
no subject
Crozier’s stomach, which had been rolling as though he were on a ship in the middle of storm since Gibson’s initial question, sours completely at the reveal of who had been sleeping in his home. A wave of nausea nearly knocks him off his feet, and he finds the nearest piece of furniture - in this case Fitzjames’ chair - to hold himself steady.
He’d lived his private life in full view of Hickey. For weeks and weeks - no, months now, he’d invited Cornelius Hickey to eat his food and sleep on his floor and listen to intimate conversations and be generally adored in an almost apologetic way for how he’d ignored Neptune.
Neptune, the dog that Hickey killed and ate.
“Get out.”
As little as he’s moved his jaw, as stone-faced and hard his expression, there’s something visibly broken behind his eyes. A vulnerability exposed, a violation of his inner life, exhaustion and disgust and rage all embroiled into one simple glance directly towards Hickey and Gibson both.
“Get out.”
He turns on his heel and starts for the door to his bedroom. There’s a naked Cornelius Hickey standing in his home and he thinks he might retch or burn the place down in his anger, perhaps both. He can’t even manage a word to the others to reassure or attempt to explain this debacle - he can’t bear to look at any of them, he can’t bear to exist in the same space as anyone else, let alone himself.
The door slams behind him and latches shut.
no subject
So the entire display is met by a roll of Billy's eyes. Not particularly towards Crozier's outburst, but - if anything - more at the way Hickey just decides to show his everything to the world here while still ignoring Billy's very valid question.
When Crozier slams that door, Billy steps over to Hickey to shove his coat into the other's arms - practically a full length gown on Hickey, considering their height difference. But even if Billy was the one to out Hickey's deal here, he's not going to let him keep standing here in front of all these others with his butt scars out.
And he's not going to let Hickey just turn back into a wolf to escape that fact when Billy still wants answers to his question.
"Don't cause a scene. Let's just go."
no subject
As it is, he's immediately distracted by Francis having to actually lean on his chair for support, and he would've stood to help if he thought that wouldn't just make things worse. So he instead watches with concern as Francis disappears into the bedroom, and then turns his attention back to the rest of the scene, even if he's still very much not looking.
He doesn't say anything, deciding to let Billy handle this for now, but he'll step in if he has to.
no subject
Though Hickey's accusatory, his tone of voice is more 'married couple having a light argument' than anything harsher. This situation is...well, it's not good. And he's actively going to have to avoid Crozier for a while, simply because he's certain the man would try and kill him the moment they meet in person. But that's not Hickey's fault! He didn't do anything wrong! This conversation could have gone better if someone shut up!
And though he really wants to stay and cause more trouble (or at least find out what the fuck was going on there), Hickey is slowly growing aware that he is in the metaphorical dog house. So he'll follow Billy's advice for the moment.
no subject
Thankfully it seems like the other guy hasn't decided to only argue, but is also actually looking like he's following Billy - so Billy just moves to leave the cabin with Hickey in tow.
Have fun with the aftermath of this entire awkward experience, everyone else!