Sentry Duty Written: July 26, 2005 Unbeta'd; written over a lunch break at Kiltie's request. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bonden is a lookout by nature. It’s a skill he is proud of, an honor he is grateful for, and a duty he takes as seriously as his oaths to the Navy and his Captain. It’s a quiet post, a still post. Bonden has grown adept at being still — he knows how to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut, to blend into the background and watch from the shadows and see without ever being seen. A lookout is an observer, a guardian from all dangers within and without — a protector and, if need be, a fighter. Bonden has been all of these things since the day he was born; and so, night after night, he keeps the best watch he can. He watches the brass lamp flicker in the gloom, guttering each time the swaying ship shifts the heavy air around its glass. He watches the light sparkle in the bottles on the table, white and gold and green, each one with its own scent mingling in the smoke that drifts across a flushed and trembling face. He watches the curving lines of sprawling limbs, flexing muscles, gasping breaths. He watches sweat glisten on a pale, smooth chest, rolling down between the halves of a dirty shirt into the folds of gaping trousers and the long fingers working feverishly there. Bonden can’t read well yet but he can recognize most of the words written on the faded bottle labels, and he knows their purpose if not always their origin. He knows them as well as he knows the words written on the paper crushed inside the doctor’s other fist, dangling off the chair and nearly to the floor, the thumb moving in tiny circles across the page’s worn surface. Bonden knows their inky shapes well, and in his mind’s eye he can see the scrawled loops of dearest joy and darling love unfolding with every shuddering breath. They never look the same when he tries to match their form with his blunt fingers. Some things, he supposes, take more than practice. Bonden watches the dreams that rush across the doctor’s brow and tangle behind his drowsy, fluttering eyes. Sometimes the dreams are good; sometimes they are not. He can’t speak any of the languages that fall from swollen, red-bitten lips, but he can tell when they are prayers and when they are curses. He can always see the moment when the haze grows too heavy and the tears flow too fast, and it is this moment he watches for most of all. A good lookout knows how long to wait before sounding the alarm, and Bonden will never allow the rocks to get too close. He cannot fight smoke and air, nor answer calls that are not his to hear. So instead he gives the only service he can, the service that only he can. He watches. Being a lookout is Bonden’s nature, and all a man can be is what nature makes him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ back