Early Winter - 1893

It was that last letter that settled itself somewhere between his vertebrae and refused to budge. For endless days and nights, emptiness and darkness chased itself around in Ja--Vince's mind, followed always by some thin flash of what could be gold, if one squinted hard enough. He didn't dare to think he was privileged to believe her, this daring Ophelia who had come from nowhere with ghostly reassurances and half a mind to almost understand him. And yet, he kept the thin scrap of parchment tucked neatly in his side-table where the dreadful pirate had no reach, under lock and spell.

Finally, on one particularly dreadful evening, late beyond that which any decent person ought to be awake in the midst of December, Vincent felt the tug of rebellion in picking up his quill once more. This was his only escape.

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Ophelia,

It has been some weeks since our last correspondence. I would be remiss in not asking how you have been and yet it feels entirely inappropriate. Instead, I shall tell you that my darkness has been cast into a melodrama. I know not where it ends and I begin, these days accustomed to it like a dull ache that the body resets its baseline to accept as a new normal.

Tell me, has anything of interest happened in the wider world? Have you any stories to distract my bored, fraying mind from this monotony? Any trivial dribble will do. I yearn for company more than substance.

Yours,
Hamlet

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Shalott Dempsey

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i desire very little but the things i do consume me

Hamlet,

There are many stories with which I could distract your mind and soul. I often turned to them myself when the wind whispers too loudly in my mind and the clouds seep in. They tether me, holding me fast, drawing a line from my soul to my body, whispering to me to remain.

I do not know if you have read Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott but I often turn to it for comfort, I have sent you a copy of the poem, please excuse the writing for it was copied out some years ago in a moment of my own quivering spirit.

As you ask for the trivial I have also included my favorite play: Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

I confess I would rather the pictures that form from the words of a novel, rich with words, but poetry and plays evoke half formed images, scenes fanciful, yet all too willing to lift me with their golden threads and take me far away. However, perhaps these threads shall snag you from the darkness and pull you toward my ephemeral heights.

Yours,
Ophelia

This letter has been sent in return the same night as Hamlet's letter, it has been hastily penned and attached to it is a small cloth bag that has a hidden extension charm in it, inside is a well worn parchment decorated with inked flowers (the creation of a fifteen year old Lottie) with Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott copied out in overly flourished writing, and a copy of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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   Vincent Iago

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Perfect Lottie vibes courtsey of MJ <3

Early Winter - 1893

Stunned, and a little bit selfish, Vincent consumed the response like it was a lifeline. Idly he wondered, somewhere in the back of his mind, what would become of this correspondence once he was cured. Would he— (should he?) seek out his Ophelia out of a destructive curiosity to see him or her in person? Would it devastate everything of them he’d built in his half-sane mind? In that moment, Vincent couldn’t be bothered to care. He held onto his imagined ally’s response like it was the only thing that could keep the breath in his lungs and James from his soul. He waited to respond until the next evening, but the comfort of Tennyson’s rhyme echoed. The small parcels are tucked neatly in with the rest of his letters away from prying eyes.

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Ophelia,

I marvel at the likeness of our poor lady Shallot to the predicament of the mind we seem to share— if I may be so bold to assume. One side of the coin dipped in golden hope and anticipation, the other shadowed in longing and a desperate bid to have that which society denies. How much I feel her angst and pain.

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Reading his missive over again, Vincent drafted a few versions— each less insightful than the last. He had much to say about the contrast he felt with how desperately he loved that which he was never to have, but it wasn’t something he could ever share— not with his Ophelia. Not with anyone except his hearts greatest desire. Angry that Cassian had at last colored the one thing that had been free of his tarnish, Vince burnt the previous versions— never to see the light of day.

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This play however— I find infinitely less harrowing but feel equally as fully. I have devoured every one of our precious playwrights genius manuscripts many times in the course of my life, emblazoning them in my memory, and yet you’ve managed to help me find distraction and enjoyment in it once more. For that, I could almost thank you. For your timeliness, more so.

I have nothing of equal value or interest to share so I give you this letter as a token of memorandum: if ever we are to meet, perhaps I might do something for you, dear Ophelia.

Yours indebted,
Hamlet

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Shalott Dempsey

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i desire very little but the things i do consume me

Dearest Hamlet,

I am most glad I was able to provide you solace. I have tucked a poem into this letter for the next time you might need it. May its whimsical nature help lift your mind.

It is easier to confess to paper, to feel the inked words across the page, rather than to say such. But I feel a kinship with the Lady of Shalott. For as much as I fear her, I envy her. To feel something so deeply, to be pulled by such great currents away... I wonder what such depth of feeling would do. It intrigues me as much as her imprisonment terrifies me. I too often feel the gilded edge of that coin, the endless what if that drifts into the skies. The inked words charmed from the page into a butterfly. But what of true depth of emotion? How could I ever convey a story with as much depth as there is in Tennyson's words without having experienced it myself?

Shakespeare, I find it easy to believe, must have had some true passion to write such stories, to pull one in as he does. His words evoke the greatest feeling and emotion, from happiness to the greatest sorrow. Even madness as the Great King Lear fights against. It is as if the playwright felt the vastness of every emotion in his life.

Tell me though, if you have read his works, what rests above the rest? What brings your mind solace?

Yours,
Ophelia[/i]

This is sent the day after his letter. The poem included is Lewis Carroll's poem Jabberwocky.

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   Vincent Iago

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Perfect Lottie vibes courtsey of MJ <3

End of December, some few days before Christmas - 1893

Some few weeks pass and by the time December has come to its end, Vince is starting to be back to rights. His Ophelia’s last question, having gone unanswered, lingers in the periphery of his mind day in and day out. Which of the bards great works has had the greatest impact upon him, in his lifetime? Vince isn’t sure he has an answer to that question. All of his favorite plays, for one reason or another, are tinged with the sentiments he has attached to Cassian. For better or worse, even his own name carries with it a weight that only Cass has ever been able to shift, if not remove entirely from his shoulders. It feels unfair to bring the blonde into their secrets however, and so Vince keeps the letters to himself and does not answer his Ophelia. One snowy afternoon, after some few weeks since James’ last visitation however, Vince finds himself re-reading the missives and he stumbles across her Jabberwocky.

If nothing else, the poem’s cadence brings a rhythmic lull to his busied thoughts and Vince decides to take quill to ink. Perhaps just this one last time, as a thank you—of sorts. To the one person who understood him when nobody else could.

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Ophelia,

I suppose I owe you an explanation as much as I might owe anyone for the recent silence. My vorpal blade has at last gone snicker-snack. And, while I don’t have a head to galumph around in warning to other such mental pains that may rest in the future, I feel the need to brandish at least this one shining ray of hope in your direction.

Without delving into further detail, my mind is at last free of some of its shadows— or so it seems.

As such, with life beginning to return to rights and confinement finally lifted, I yet find myself coming back to our correspondence, time and again. Lovely, dearest Ophelia— won’t you find means to occupy less of my time? It is not your fault but mine; I have let the crutch of my weakness facilitate this kinship and now I find myself at loss of how - or will - to sever it.

I cannot answer your last question at present, and perhaps I never shall. Each of our bards triumphs carries with it a weight and sentiment I cannot separate from the text. I can concede however, that to carry such depth of feeling upon one’s shoulders must have indeed been a harrowing feat. I sense a likeness of this trait in you, sweet Ophelia. Have you yet tried to master wrangling such emotion into your own writing? Even from our letters alone, I see potential for great talent.

Keep me (not) in suspense, or do— as you like it. I am always here, your eager ear, and certainly with no poetry in my own future. (Ridiculous, banal dribble that it is.)

Yours ever still,
Hamlet

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Shalott Dempsey

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i desire very little but the things i do consume me

Dearest Hamlet,

You write that the darkness has lifted, yet hinted it remains simmering below. There is no way I could quit my pen and paper at such a juncture, as you yourself seem unsure. This, perhaps more than any of our previous discourses, perturbs me. Dearest Hamlet, I shall wait for you, your Ophelia, and pen you words from reality so when the shadows sink in again, winding their magic about your wrists, you shall have a tether, a solace, in the face of such thoughts. I take no presumption that my words themselves may be a tether, instead I leave that in the humble hands of Alexandre Dumas, a man with a quest written into the very parchment his own quill scratched upon.

You speak of putting my emotions and words to my own writing and I admit that I have often found myself penning such words, twisting plots and characters together as charms and magic might were it not my quill that steered them. Yet each story remains unconnected, a basic piece of the puzzle absent from the words that letter my pages. How to connect that deep depth of feeling, the magic coursing through my veins, from sorrow to euphoria seems an impossible task.

Always your Ophelia

Attached is a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo

  

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Perfect Lottie vibes courtsey of MJ <3

January, 1894

With the holidays and winter come distraction, enough to keep thoughts of his ever persistent Ophelia at bay. It's only on one frosty afternoon, when the after-effects of the delusion James has left behind are the most tedious that Vince finally tugs the letters free and deigns to respond.

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Ophelia,

Perhaps you know better than I how the darkness in one's mind works. I have been alleviated of my most jarring affliction, but the remnants of curse remain. There are moments, whispers, where I feel it creeping in, long tendrils of rot and gore scratching at the top of my brain...

Have you lived before with such a sentiment? Do you know what it is like to feel at a loss of one's control so fully?


I am delighted to hear you have put your talented pen to good use, in more than just altruistic companionship to that which you do not know. Should I ever be able to return favor, if by looking over your notes and drawling parallels or conclusions, perhaps even making suggestions— do not hesitate to ask. I cannot say that I will be the most timely, but for you, dearest Ophelia, I shall set aside the effort required.

Yours,
Hamlet

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Shalott Dempsey

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i desire very little but the things i do consume me