[ for silver! ]

atoll: if your muse could go anywhere, without any restrictions whatsoever, where would they go? why would they go there?

Even though it has been sixteen years since he has seen her shores – and the last time he was there, all that which he knew and valued had been destroyed – Silver still considers Spain to be his home. If he thought he could return there without being held accountable for his father’s crimes against the aristocracy, he would not hesitate to return to the place where he was born and raised.

black: does your muse have a ‘bucket list?’ list some things your muse wants to accomplish before they die.

All of the goals Silver had in his past were designed and chosen for him. His mother had intentions for him – and his father broke him down and molded him into the precursor of what would one day be Silver. When it comes to being on his own, Silver took a great deal of time coming into his own – but ultimately, what he wants most in life is to regain what he lost.

He understands that his mother and grandmother will never stand at his side again, that his friends no longer know his face if they even survived the assault, and that even the servants who helped raise him are gone forever. What he longs for is a sense of security, a community that he can truly trust where he can be himself – and learn who he is without manipulations and masks to survive behind. A place where he matters, and where those around him mean the world.

In essence, he wants to find a home again, one that has a foundation of trust and care rather than deceit and self interests. He just isn’t certain that it is possible – and in the end, settles for what he considers to be the nearest thing. The crew of the Walrus care about him, even if there is no real trust to be found and everything is about a careful balance of charisma and control. It’s not a family, and it’s not a home – but it is security as long as it is maintained and it is something he can call his own – so it is good enough.

new leaf: what message would your muse send to their past self, if any?

Run.

The moment where Silver feels his life truly altered was when he saw the flames of his former home and raced his horse toward them. He had been out for training when the attack came, as the report from his father’s spy had maintained – he was never meant to see what had been done. He was meant to be deceived, convinced his mother wanted this new life for him, and manipulated through letters from a dead woman into behaving the way the Hope family desired.

Instead, he raced into the midst of the carnage, managed to bypass lingering soldiers who were ensuring that their victims were indeed dead and neither stunned nor faking, and find what remained of his mother and grandmother amid their escape party. He was too ravaged by the sight to think of doing anything but holding his mother and begging her to be alright, promising her he’d get help, to think of running. He was dragged from her side and when his screaming became vexing enough, he was knocked out.

If he were to give any advice to his past self, it would be to turn his horse and flee for the nearby city, to run as fast as he could for soldiers and men who could have, would have – stood between himself and the English that day. Had he run, had he been able to find a way to fight – he would still be among his people, he would be with an uncle or even an aunt, and he would never have seen English shores. Nor, would he have ever seen what truly happened that day, and spend the remainder of his life haunted by women in stained dresses.

🤧 – comforting them when crying | TF’s Joji to Abigail

{ Nonverbal Starters }

His presence so often calmed her that his arrival now did little to bring shame into her heart. He had seen her crumble before and never once had he offered judgement. Today was no different as he came and crouched before her, holding her hands until she gathered herself. So often this was all it took – a gentle touch and a sense that it would be alright, over time.

Her hands tightened in his, for today was her father’s seventh birthday in the afterlife – and his first where she had completely forgotten her tradition to visit the sea and speak with him. Her days were so filled with wonderful routines now – meditation, work, writing, her calligraphy practice and of course, the hand to hand training Joji had walked her through today.

It was more of the same motions she was growing ever more used to, but there had been a new form incorporated today and she’d become so consumed with memorizing it and working it into her present forms at practice, before heading to work, that somehow today had become – just another day. It had not been until she had gone to cross off her calendar at work that it had struck her, and surely seven years was hardly enough time for a daughter to forget her father! Let alone all else that had been lost in the fires that had consumed Charlestown.

She had tried to tell herself then – so as not to break apart at work – that it was understandable. She was allowed to move on, to acknowledge the past and the dead when it suited her and to live her life without being consumed by her ghosts. And it was enough, to get her outside and to the table where Joji would meet her to take her home – but business with Mr. Gallenger must have run late, for he was not there.

She had sat, and acknowledged the true reason she was upset wasn’t that she didn’t believe those things. It was that she hadn’t made the choice on purpose. There was a difference between deliberately moving past her father’s birthday and somehow – somehow forgetting it entirely. Even just this once.

She had not meant to cry, and she hated feeling guilty over something so arbitrary as respecting a day that had always been so selfish in life. Her father’s birthdays were always cordial affairs, with business partners and their wives coming to call for entertainment and discussion, often bringing new connections for him to meet on his special day as though these people were, in and of themselves, a gift just to talk to the once.

And her father never hesitated to treat them that way, so she learned the importance and value of networking would always outweigh whatever small thing Abigail managed to purchase or make for him – but she never found melancholy, for when the guests had taken their leave and the hour was late, her father would always find her in the garden or the library, wherever she had sequestered herself away from the din, and gather her into his arms as if she were his greatest gift. It was her favorite part of the day, and had been all of her life.

Perhaps that was why she was so keen to remember it – when she had been so wounded by his wrong doings she had forgotten so much of his goodness. Missing his goodness that first year had made her feel guilty for all his wrongs, and she’d had quite the bitter things to say to the sea that day. But the second year, she had missed him in all his faults and goodness, and she had wept by the sea for hours, mourning him – and mourning for herself, as well, for all she had lost and all that she feared. Being alone had been so very terrible, that second year.

It had been a different emotional journey every time she had gone to the sea to talk to him. On his birthday, and on two Christmases when she could bear the loneliness of them no longer, and even once on an Easter because she had been so boggled by the fact she was excited to work that day – and it was because she wouldn’t have to be alone.

This was the first time she had not felt any compulsion to honor him or talk to him, and it had caught her by complete surprise. Holding on to Joji’s hands, she supposed it was the surprise that shocked her most – it made sense, in a way, that she no longer felt so obliged. It was very much due to this man, who had done so much to make sure she wasn’t alone, that she was perhaps finally moving beyond the past.

“Sorry,” She couldn’t help but excuse herself, even though she knew he didn’t mind her tears like others did. They didn’t offend him, not in the least, and there were no true words for how much that meant to her. “I just had a bit of a shock – but I’m alright,” She promised, smiling for him and knowing deep down that her words were true. She was alright – and she would continue to be so.

She considered going down to the beach after all, but in the end she shook her head. It was time to make the choice – and she rather liked the notion that this year could mark the start of moving on. Squeezing his hands, she let out a breath before slowly rising to her feet. “I’d best get home – I’d hate to miss my evening meditations.” She could start them late, but then she’d get to sleep late, and she’d hate herself in the morning for it.

Warning; The content of this headcanon contains mention of child abuse that, while consistent with the period of Horatio’s upbringing, may be disturbing to some. Please read this only if you are comfortable. Elements include physical, emotional and mental abuses.

This is something that ties in with Horatio’s convoluted sense of emotions – and in particular his father’s stringent training of him to feel nothing. Or at the very least, to display nothing.

Horatio was never a rambunctious child. Most of his play tended to be very quiet, either listening to ( and later reading ) stories and poems, drawing or focusing on his studies. Even when he was very, very small, Horatio loved the written word and the art of mathematical equation. He was in many ways an ideal child – but, like most children, he possessed an incessantly inquiring mind and a somewhat horrific obsession with why? and how come?

Eventually, answers would run out and with them, patience. He was often cast out by those he harried, but there was a notable incident which took impression upon him. The first, was when he was struck silent by his schoolmaster when ( despite being asked to desist ) he continued to interrupt with queries. Having never been struck before, Horatio made – a scene.

Needless to say, Geoffrey taught him very well to never, ever make a scene again. Afterwards, he apologized to his schoolmaster and his fellow students, and asked no question out of turn. If he still had questions after class, he would stay an hour or more and write them down, then, seek the answers himself. What he could not find, he would present mutely in written format to the schoolmaster who would, in turn, provide either answers or potential reading material in which to do so. This lesson was gleaned at the age of eight.

When Horatio was ten, he got into an argument with several other boys in his class, which swiftly devolved itself into fisticuffs. Though he was the one outnumbered and sorely beaten, his father took him from manor to manor to apologize to the boys and their parents, and was sent to serve each household for a week in recompense. A month and a half in servitude to those of much more entitlement than himself – and the looming danger of further repercussions – taught him very loudly the dangers of being nothing to society and most importantly – to lock his jaw.

The final incident through which Horatio’s father shaped his understanding of the ‘crime’ of emotion came when Geoffrey made to dismiss the butler in exchange for a man whose hands shook less, and whose venerable age did not slow him down so. Horatio begged his father not to let the man go, knowing that the butler could not afford such a fate. When Geoffrey ignored his pleas, Horatio took a drastic measure upon himself and gathered all the coins he had saved from his allowance, and tucked it away in the man’s bags – knowing his pride would not let him take it.

The coins were found, and the man was accused of theft. Horatio quickly intervened when he learned of the arrest, insisting that he had given the man the money himself and begging his father to have the man released. Seeing a valuable teaching opportunity, Geoffrey refused and told him to think about the consequences of disobedience and allowing one’s self to be ruled by senseless emotions.

Horrified, Horatio ( even at the tender age of twelve ) was not prepared to give up so easily. He made an attempt to free the butler himself – first by speaking to the guards, who chased him off – and later by sneaking in. He was caught and celled, and his father upon hearing of matters, requested that he be taught a lesson and left him in the care of the jail for two weeks. By time of his release, the butler had died for his crime and Horatio’s emotions were finally placed under lock and key. He learned the importance of using logic and fact rather than impassioned pleas, and to never make a decision when heated by emotion – or so he thought. Jack Simpson, unfortunately, was precisely the kind of monster to break open those locked jaws – but that, of course, has already been seen.