"Failure Mode"
Apr. 21st, 2005 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalNotes: Rated PG, starring Tez.
By Royce Day
He started his voyage by dropping the keys in the water beside the dock, as the small sloop he’d built with his own hands shipwrights to delay or cancel construction) pulled away from the dock. A dock he’d also built himself, well away from any ports in any civilized areas (no chance of idiot government functionaries seizing his vessel moments after he finished construction.)
Then he sailed onward for thirty days, sticking to safe shipping routes for the first twenty-five days (no pirates to unexpectedly chase him down and enslave him), then sailing in a completely random direction, as far off the main route as he could find (no well-meaning merchants would come along to save him from himself.)
Then, when he was sure he was as far from civilization as he could reasonably manage, Tez set about killing himself.
Sails, oars, and most of the rigging were thrown overboard first, all weighted down by lead shot. Then he chopped down the foremast, and bowsprit, leaving only the mainmast intact. He even destroyed the centerboard and rudder. (No chance of making an impromptu raft should he come to his senses.)
Next was the pitch, six kegs of the stuff, which he swabbed liberally across the deck, belowdecks, and every other point he could reach that was above the waterline. (It will burn hot and fast, and once lit be beyond his ability to put out.)
That done, Tez began his final preparations, tossing all of his fresh food and water overboard (if I will not die in fire, I will surely starve.) Then he went below, and methodically chopped four holes in the bottom of the bilge, cracking the keel in the process. (If not by starvation, then by drowning.)
He was committed now. By his estimation the holes he’d chopped in the hull would lead to his little sloop slipping below the waters in less than a quarter-hour. Quickly enough, but he hoped to be dead long before then. He climbed swiftly to the top of the mainmast, via the remaining bit of rigging he’d left. There was a short length of rope hanging from a hook in the crow’s nest, one end tied firmly to the mast, the end bound into a hangman’s knot. (If not by fire, if not by starvation, if not by drowning, then by the snapping of the neck, as so many of his enemies had died.) Tez slipped it over his head, snugging it tight around his neck, the knot just behind his right ear. Next he drew out a torch that had been soaked in pitch, and lit it with a waterproof lucifer.
This was the point he was most certain the gods would attempt to cheat him again, which was why he had also brought two sets of simple flint and steel. But to his surprise the Lucifer caught without any trouble, and the torch came alight in his hand.
Tez held it for a long moment, staring in fascination into the fire. Fire, the first gift of the gods,he thought, and the first curse they laid upon us. For had not it been fire that had claimed the First Forest, where Elvenkind had been nurtured, and ultimately cast out of?
Then he held the torch aloft, and let it drop to the deck some twenty feet below. The seas were calm the day, and the ship did not lurch unexpectedly, and so the torch indeed fell to the deck, into the sticky, volatile pitch, and set the whole deck alight.
Quickly now. One last certainty, to prevent his sense of self-preservation from overriding his desires. From the same box in the crow’s nest that he had drawn out the torch, he took a ball and chain, which he snapped around his left ankle (no dropping into the water to swim to safety.) Then a pair of iron manacles, which he locked around his wrists, pinning his arms behind his back. (No freeing yourself now. No escape. No backing away, promising yourself life will be brighter.)
“I am sorry, my love,” he said aloud, the first words he had spoken since his sloop had pulled away from the dock, “but I am so very tired, and life without you will be empty for longer than I would be able to endure.” He sat on the railing of the crow’s nest, and in one swift motion swung his legs over the side, committing his soul to the gods and gravity.
And that was where he realized his mistake.
The leg hampered by the ball and chain lifted easily enough, but Tez didn’t get quite enough momentum to pull the heavy weight over the railing. Instead, the heavy ball caught as he plunged, leaving him hanging not by his neck, but by his legs, over the blistering inferno engulfing the deck below him.
“No! No, NO, NO!” He screamed, choking out the words as the heat from the fire blistered his face and seared his lungs. “You cheated! Stop cheating!” He kicked legs in fury, twisting his body every which way, trying to pull the object of his frustration loose.
There was a loud crack down below, as the sloop suddenly listed to one side, and the heavy mainmast shifted with it. With Tez and the heavy chains he wore near the mast’s apex, it was now top heavy. Not a worry normally, given it’s load of sails, but with the keel cracked and the deck buckling, the tall mast was now fatally out of kilter, and snapping from the strain.
Tez laughed wildly, as the mast went crack again, and tilted out of true with the surface of the deck. His body was hanging out over the water now, safe from the fire, but if/when the mast snapped in two or the sloop rolled over, the only place for him to go was straight into the water.
“I win!” he screamed towards the gods. “I finally beat you!”
There was a final, fatal CRACK as the mast plunged towards the water, taking Tez with it. He fell in, mouth open wide to suck the brine water into his lungs, to choke away his life. But the ball and chain provided inadvertent hindrance once again, as it dragged him down even as the wooden mast attempted to float. Caught between the two, the rope around his neck was drawn taught, trapping Tez’s final breath in his lungs. Not that it mattered. The amount of precious air was small, and already he could feel his lungs begin to burn, as his vision tunneled into gray, and then slowly black.
His last thoughts were, I beat you at you own game. I finally beat you.
* * *
Death was a gentle rocking, as a mother would rock a child. Death was a soft blue light, filtering the sun. Death was…
…wet sand under his ass?
Tez opened his eyes. The light came from above him, filtered through seawater down to his resting place, a sandbar, sitting atop of a large hill. Some sort of proto-island, lacking sufficient height to reach above the waves, but providing a suitable environment for what would normally be shallows dwelling creatures. A few yards from where he lay, he could see the burned out remains of his sloop, resting against the sea bottom. It was surrounded by vaguely humanoid creatures, with the torsos of men, but possessing elongated flukes instead of feet and legs. Merfolk, he thought. So the old seafaring legends are true.
One of the creatures, a female with blue-green skin and long, blond hair that shifted with the waves, broke away from the group examining his stricken vessel and swam towards him. She was quite naked, and her body flashed with pulsating lines of swirling bio-luminary patterns, perhaps some form of silent communication. But the bright smile she gave him was easily translated at least. He was curiosity to her, not evidently a threat.
She touched his throat, and he looked down, to see a choker made of seaweed twine, shells, and bright coral tied around his neck. It smelled of magic, some form of shamanistic protection for surface dwellers that ventured into the merfolk’s range.
He could figure out the rest. His brilliant plan of simultaneously burning and sinking his sloop had inadvertently attracted the attention of these creatures, and their curiosity had only been further inflamed by his perilous state. So they had rescued him, and saved him from the fate he had tried so hard to achieve.
He sighed, closed his eyes against the merwoman’s friendly look, and lay down on the bright white sugar sand. He knew where things would go from here. The gloom that he had maintained, with some admitted stubbornness, for well over a year now would pass. Against all reason he would once again find reason for living. He would travel with these strange creatures for a time, then find himself at some uncharted shore, and presented with a series of stimuli to explore, he would move on, and begin to live again, and too think life was not such a torture, as he had believed before. That would all come in time, as inevitable as death was to everyone except himself.
He didn’t feel that way now of course. Now he wanted to kick and scream against the gods. Now he wanted to curse them for all eternity in Hell. Now he wanted to tear the damnable choker from his neck and fling it away, allowing the seawater in his lungs to turn to fatal poison once again, and give him the death he had fought so hard to achieve.
But of course he couldn’t reach for the choker right then, because his hands were manacled behind his back, the Merfolk were unlikely to have knowledge of fire and bending iron, and he had no way to unlock them on his own.
Because of course when he had started this voyage, he’d been so very careful to drop their keys into the water by the dock.
The End
By Royce Day
He started his voyage by dropping the keys in the water beside the dock, as the small sloop he’d built with his own hands shipwrights to delay or cancel construction) pulled away from the dock. A dock he’d also built himself, well away from any ports in any civilized areas (no chance of idiot government functionaries seizing his vessel moments after he finished construction.)
Then he sailed onward for thirty days, sticking to safe shipping routes for the first twenty-five days (no pirates to unexpectedly chase him down and enslave him), then sailing in a completely random direction, as far off the main route as he could find (no well-meaning merchants would come along to save him from himself.)
Then, when he was sure he was as far from civilization as he could reasonably manage, Tez set about killing himself.
Sails, oars, and most of the rigging were thrown overboard first, all weighted down by lead shot. Then he chopped down the foremast, and bowsprit, leaving only the mainmast intact. He even destroyed the centerboard and rudder. (No chance of making an impromptu raft should he come to his senses.)
Next was the pitch, six kegs of the stuff, which he swabbed liberally across the deck, belowdecks, and every other point he could reach that was above the waterline. (It will burn hot and fast, and once lit be beyond his ability to put out.)
That done, Tez began his final preparations, tossing all of his fresh food and water overboard (if I will not die in fire, I will surely starve.) Then he went below, and methodically chopped four holes in the bottom of the bilge, cracking the keel in the process. (If not by starvation, then by drowning.)
He was committed now. By his estimation the holes he’d chopped in the hull would lead to his little sloop slipping below the waters in less than a quarter-hour. Quickly enough, but he hoped to be dead long before then. He climbed swiftly to the top of the mainmast, via the remaining bit of rigging he’d left. There was a short length of rope hanging from a hook in the crow’s nest, one end tied firmly to the mast, the end bound into a hangman’s knot. (If not by fire, if not by starvation, if not by drowning, then by the snapping of the neck, as so many of his enemies had died.) Tez slipped it over his head, snugging it tight around his neck, the knot just behind his right ear. Next he drew out a torch that had been soaked in pitch, and lit it with a waterproof lucifer.
This was the point he was most certain the gods would attempt to cheat him again, which was why he had also brought two sets of simple flint and steel. But to his surprise the Lucifer caught without any trouble, and the torch came alight in his hand.
Tez held it for a long moment, staring in fascination into the fire. Fire, the first gift of the gods,he thought, and the first curse they laid upon us. For had not it been fire that had claimed the First Forest, where Elvenkind had been nurtured, and ultimately cast out of?
Then he held the torch aloft, and let it drop to the deck some twenty feet below. The seas were calm the day, and the ship did not lurch unexpectedly, and so the torch indeed fell to the deck, into the sticky, volatile pitch, and set the whole deck alight.
Quickly now. One last certainty, to prevent his sense of self-preservation from overriding his desires. From the same box in the crow’s nest that he had drawn out the torch, he took a ball and chain, which he snapped around his left ankle (no dropping into the water to swim to safety.) Then a pair of iron manacles, which he locked around his wrists, pinning his arms behind his back. (No freeing yourself now. No escape. No backing away, promising yourself life will be brighter.)
“I am sorry, my love,” he said aloud, the first words he had spoken since his sloop had pulled away from the dock, “but I am so very tired, and life without you will be empty for longer than I would be able to endure.” He sat on the railing of the crow’s nest, and in one swift motion swung his legs over the side, committing his soul to the gods and gravity.
And that was where he realized his mistake.
The leg hampered by the ball and chain lifted easily enough, but Tez didn’t get quite enough momentum to pull the heavy weight over the railing. Instead, the heavy ball caught as he plunged, leaving him hanging not by his neck, but by his legs, over the blistering inferno engulfing the deck below him.
“No! No, NO, NO!” He screamed, choking out the words as the heat from the fire blistered his face and seared his lungs. “You cheated! Stop cheating!” He kicked legs in fury, twisting his body every which way, trying to pull the object of his frustration loose.
There was a loud crack down below, as the sloop suddenly listed to one side, and the heavy mainmast shifted with it. With Tez and the heavy chains he wore near the mast’s apex, it was now top heavy. Not a worry normally, given it’s load of sails, but with the keel cracked and the deck buckling, the tall mast was now fatally out of kilter, and snapping from the strain.
Tez laughed wildly, as the mast went crack again, and tilted out of true with the surface of the deck. His body was hanging out over the water now, safe from the fire, but if/when the mast snapped in two or the sloop rolled over, the only place for him to go was straight into the water.
“I win!” he screamed towards the gods. “I finally beat you!”
There was a final, fatal CRACK as the mast plunged towards the water, taking Tez with it. He fell in, mouth open wide to suck the brine water into his lungs, to choke away his life. But the ball and chain provided inadvertent hindrance once again, as it dragged him down even as the wooden mast attempted to float. Caught between the two, the rope around his neck was drawn taught, trapping Tez’s final breath in his lungs. Not that it mattered. The amount of precious air was small, and already he could feel his lungs begin to burn, as his vision tunneled into gray, and then slowly black.
His last thoughts were, I beat you at you own game. I finally beat you.
* * *
Death was a gentle rocking, as a mother would rock a child. Death was a soft blue light, filtering the sun. Death was…
…wet sand under his ass?
Tez opened his eyes. The light came from above him, filtered through seawater down to his resting place, a sandbar, sitting atop of a large hill. Some sort of proto-island, lacking sufficient height to reach above the waves, but providing a suitable environment for what would normally be shallows dwelling creatures. A few yards from where he lay, he could see the burned out remains of his sloop, resting against the sea bottom. It was surrounded by vaguely humanoid creatures, with the torsos of men, but possessing elongated flukes instead of feet and legs. Merfolk, he thought. So the old seafaring legends are true.
One of the creatures, a female with blue-green skin and long, blond hair that shifted with the waves, broke away from the group examining his stricken vessel and swam towards him. She was quite naked, and her body flashed with pulsating lines of swirling bio-luminary patterns, perhaps some form of silent communication. But the bright smile she gave him was easily translated at least. He was curiosity to her, not evidently a threat.
She touched his throat, and he looked down, to see a choker made of seaweed twine, shells, and bright coral tied around his neck. It smelled of magic, some form of shamanistic protection for surface dwellers that ventured into the merfolk’s range.
He could figure out the rest. His brilliant plan of simultaneously burning and sinking his sloop had inadvertently attracted the attention of these creatures, and their curiosity had only been further inflamed by his perilous state. So they had rescued him, and saved him from the fate he had tried so hard to achieve.
He sighed, closed his eyes against the merwoman’s friendly look, and lay down on the bright white sugar sand. He knew where things would go from here. The gloom that he had maintained, with some admitted stubbornness, for well over a year now would pass. Against all reason he would once again find reason for living. He would travel with these strange creatures for a time, then find himself at some uncharted shore, and presented with a series of stimuli to explore, he would move on, and begin to live again, and too think life was not such a torture, as he had believed before. That would all come in time, as inevitable as death was to everyone except himself.
He didn’t feel that way now of course. Now he wanted to kick and scream against the gods. Now he wanted to curse them for all eternity in Hell. Now he wanted to tear the damnable choker from his neck and fling it away, allowing the seawater in his lungs to turn to fatal poison once again, and give him the death he had fought so hard to achieve.
But of course he couldn’t reach for the choker right then, because his hands were manacled behind his back, the Merfolk were unlikely to have knowledge of fire and bending iron, and he had no way to unlock them on his own.
Because of course when he had started this voyage, he’d been so very careful to drop their keys into the water by the dock.
The End
