I loved the mixture of almost formal imagery and language and pure humour in this, in the first segments - this in particular made me laugh to myself:
"Jerusalem? Henry, you're a bore. And don't be so formal. After the things you've just done to the king's body..."
because Henry and Jerusalem really is a bore, apart from anything else, and it was so blissfully inappropriate here, just like all of Richard's comments. Which is probably just how I imagine Richard would be, in bed.
I love the way the banishment divides the fic as well as events, a small bleak separate moment that is all about the event and does not begin with something in relation to Richard - it made it all the more stark in its incomprehensibility after what's gone before.
The last section, though, was what really took my breath away, because it so beautifully encapsulates Henry's ability to justify his actions and never quite understand why he regrets them - that it's unexpected to him that he weeps, even with everything that's gone before, is a beautiful summation of his character and behaviour. Henry can even manage to hide from himself under the right words, and that's wonderfully shown in those last few lines.
It wasn't a trick of fortune, or an accident of birth.
The fact that you show how he's convinced of that himself while still making it into an argument made me smile completely inappropriately, because it was just so very like him - and his opinion of Richard, even said silently and to himself, is so nicely framed in the realisation of just what the throne will mean.
no subject
"Jerusalem? Henry, you're a bore. And don't be so formal. After the things you've just done to the king's body..."
because Henry and Jerusalem really is a bore, apart from anything else, and it was so blissfully inappropriate here, just like all of Richard's comments. Which is probably just how I imagine Richard would be, in bed.
I love the way the banishment divides the fic as well as events, a small bleak separate moment that is all about the event and does not begin with something in relation to Richard - it made it all the more stark in its incomprehensibility after what's gone before.
The last section, though, was what really took my breath away, because it so beautifully encapsulates Henry's ability to justify his actions and never quite understand why he regrets them - that it's unexpected to him that he weeps, even with everything that's gone before, is a beautiful summation of his character and behaviour. Henry can even manage to hide from himself under the right words, and that's wonderfully shown in those last few lines.
It wasn't a trick of fortune, or an accident of birth.
The fact that you show how he's convinced of that himself while still making it into an argument made me smile completely inappropriately, because it was just so very like him - and his opinion of Richard, even said silently and to himself, is so nicely framed in the realisation of just what the throne will mean.
Thank you - and now I am going to re-read it!