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stonepicnicking_okapi) wrote in
the_scent_of_lilacs2025-05-17 06:01 pm
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Dracula: Mina's Souvenirs: Three Beads
Title: Three beads
Fandom: Dracula - original Stoker text
Length: 400
Character: Mina Murray
Rating: Gen
Also for: my GYWO Yahtzee prompt:
Notes: excerpts from Mina's diary
Summary: To distract herself from anxiety about no news from Jonathan, Mina takes to mudlarking.
To how many unfamiliar acts and endeavours must I turn for distraction? Thoughts of Jonathan and his fate are ever present though I know them to be as unfruitful as they are unhappy. My uneasiness grows to a fever. I wait for a letter, a telegram, a message, word any kind from any quarter. I wait and wait and wait.
In vain!
There is only so much arranging of flowers, only so much needlepoint in which one can indulge before even the most soothing of enterprises proves stale and then loathsome.
This descent has led me to mudlarking!
Lately, I can often be found flitting along the shore, scouring the line where land meets sea for discarded trinkets. I pick up stones, shells, bits of wood, any trove which catches my eye, and to make the hunt more challenging, I press myself to collect only the most remarkable and only one or two per journey.
I store my finds in an emptied jar, curating the beauty of the whole as well as the parts. The searching fills my mind with something besides the absence of my beloved, but the discoveries bring him back to me. Would Jonathan think his shell is pretty? Would Jonathan agree that this bit of wood resembles Mister Hawkins in profile? Would Jonathan also marvel at the origins of this sliver of metal with the name MARIA carved into it?
--
My first day back at mudlarking since the storm, and my discovery has stunned me. Not a shell or stone or bit of wood, but something much more singular and disturbing. I cannot say why it caught my gaze or my attention being so small and seemingly insignificant. I ought to have overlooked it.
I found three beads hung together by a short length of chain. The character of the beads and the chain are suggestive. I have re-read the cutting from The Dailygraph and believe this to have once belonged to the dead captain of the Demeter for it was reported that ‘between the inner hand and the wood of the helm was a crucifix, a set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel.’
These tiny pebbles witnessed the horror aboard that ship and, for I can be honest here if no where else, they seem to be screaming to me, crying out, pleading.
Three words.
Please. Deliver. Us.
Fandom: Dracula - original Stoker text
Length: 400
Character: Mina Murray
Rating: Gen
Also for: my GYWO Yahtzee prompt:

Notes: excerpts from Mina's diary
Summary: To distract herself from anxiety about no news from Jonathan, Mina takes to mudlarking.
To how many unfamiliar acts and endeavours must I turn for distraction? Thoughts of Jonathan and his fate are ever present though I know them to be as unfruitful as they are unhappy. My uneasiness grows to a fever. I wait for a letter, a telegram, a message, word any kind from any quarter. I wait and wait and wait.
In vain!
There is only so much arranging of flowers, only so much needlepoint in which one can indulge before even the most soothing of enterprises proves stale and then loathsome.
This descent has led me to mudlarking!
Lately, I can often be found flitting along the shore, scouring the line where land meets sea for discarded trinkets. I pick up stones, shells, bits of wood, any trove which catches my eye, and to make the hunt more challenging, I press myself to collect only the most remarkable and only one or two per journey.
I store my finds in an emptied jar, curating the beauty of the whole as well as the parts. The searching fills my mind with something besides the absence of my beloved, but the discoveries bring him back to me. Would Jonathan think his shell is pretty? Would Jonathan agree that this bit of wood resembles Mister Hawkins in profile? Would Jonathan also marvel at the origins of this sliver of metal with the name MARIA carved into it?
--
My first day back at mudlarking since the storm, and my discovery has stunned me. Not a shell or stone or bit of wood, but something much more singular and disturbing. I cannot say why it caught my gaze or my attention being so small and seemingly insignificant. I ought to have overlooked it.
I found three beads hung together by a short length of chain. The character of the beads and the chain are suggestive. I have re-read the cutting from The Dailygraph and believe this to have once belonged to the dead captain of the Demeter for it was reported that ‘between the inner hand and the wood of the helm was a crucifix, a set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel.’
These tiny pebbles witnessed the horror aboard that ship and, for I can be honest here if no where else, they seem to be screaming to me, crying out, pleading.
Three words.
Please. Deliver. Us.
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