In the style of a fairy tale.

[quigonejinn]

O nce upon a time, there was a man who had three sons. The man was not a king, so his boys were not princes, and the first boy could do with more attention to his studies, and the second boy needed to stop eating so many sweets, and the third boy was too young to have anything worth objecting to yet, though something was undoubtedly bound to crop up with the way his mother indulged her littlest baby with plays and stories, but they were very fine boys notwithstanding, and he loved them all very much. Thus, when it came time for each of them to make his way into the world, the father did not find a place for them at the prize agent firm where he worked and had made a very good living and could have used the help. Nor did he send them off to be educated at university and made doctors or lawyers or professional folk, though he could certainly have used the reduction in billing.

Instead, he took them to his brother, who had become a very rich sea captain during the wars in America, and lived in a grand house in London with a rose garden and two footmen, and the man had them ask their famous, rich uncle for help.

"I should like to become an officer in the Army and ride a splendid horse," the first boy said. He was a good-looking boy, with an elegant bearing and flashing dark eyes, much like the best Araby chargers, and the uncle bought him a lieutenancy in the 49th.

"I should like to become a member of the Royal Artillery and blow things to the dickens," the second boy said, his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the handsome clock ticking by the wall in the study. He was a less handsome boy, rounder, brown haired, but anyone could see the intelligence and boldness on his face. His eyes were as green as the cover of as a copy of 'Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima,' actually, and his uncle had him made a cadet with a full set of books and a fine pocket watch.

When it came time, the father took the third boy to London, too, up the grand curving stairs, past the fine clock in the study that his brother had so admired, past the bronzes of the hunt that his other brother had liked, and through another set of doors to a grand room with a very large bed in it, in which a wrinkled old man lay. The boy was in his best clothes, and he was supposed to ask to be a major in the Army, as his father had the greatest hopes of all for him, his littlest boy who was built so fine and strong and brave, and there would be a number of years yet in which the money might be gotten together for this, but the boy had been staring at the carvings of dolphins sporting around the stairs and the lintels. The uncle was to have a title if he could live long enough, and the Earls of Cassillis had dolphins as their hereditary sign, so they were on the the walls and the mantles. The handles of the doors were even cunningly carved so that it looked like dolphins were sporting in the waves and leaping between your fingers.

Thus, when he came to the great bed, when asked, the boy blurted out that he wanted to wear blue. He wanted go to the sea and become a famous captain in the Navy. Rule Britannia! Glorious war! Beauty ashore!

And the uncle studied him for a moment, and then he touched his namesake's shining hair and said, "I believe I might be able to find a place for you. I have many friends still at sea -- would you like to be a midshipman, my boy, on a ship of the line?"

The youngest boy, who had golden hair and a golden heart, raised his arms and cheered, and the uncle laughed and told him to take the model ship on the wall down and play with it. He could, in fact, keep it; it was a good replica of his first command, which he had gotten when he was not too much older himself, and the boy cheered again, so loud, at both the new toy and the thought that he might have a grand ship of his own very soon, that the doctor came to hush them all. The uncle roared at him, though, in what he still had of his gun deck voice, for he wanted to watch his nephew take the sloop around the Cape of Storms at the foot of the bed.

His own boy was lacking in physical courage and fire. He was a very great disappointment to his father, who had spent enormous sums of money on him, and it gave the old captain strength in his illness to see this sturdy, beautiful child who had been named after him and who, it seemed, loved the sea much as he loved it.

He still dreamed of it sometimes, when it was raining and possible to pretend.

"This boy may be the best of them all, Robert," he said, smiling, to his brother. "I will reccommend him to Keene, who has the Justinian, and we shall see what the Navy can do for our Archie."



Based on a happy little dorkish conversation that randomalia and I have been having about this and this.

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[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

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[randomalia.livejournal.com]

My days are empty without your amazing typos (TM)! I don;t have any chat type things currently but am telling myself I have the self-discipline to not be permanently attached if I did. Really. REALLY.

But yes, will do. <3