Elsinore, Denmark; the end of July
More than anything, Hamlet found being dead to be kind of frustrating.
He'd always expected to die someday. It was natural; everyone did, eventually. While he was rather annoyed at himself and his uncle and Laertes for making him die so young of poisoning (to say the very least), in those final minutes he'd at least accepted his own death.
No one was more surprised than he was to find himself rematerializing in the same spot in the main hall a few days later as a ghost, stuck being 18 years and three months old forever and a day. Why? What possible unfinished business did *he* have lying around? He'd already avenged his own murder most foul back when he was still alive.
The most frustrating thing about the whole situation was that he couldn't *do* anything. No one seemed to be able to see him. He'd go right through objects. He'd spent hours talking at Horatio telling him that he was okay, and that Horatio shouldn't grieve so much, and that he wished that he'd worn something else to die in since he'd be stuck in the same black outfit for all of eternity, and everything else under the sun, but Horatio didn't seem to be able to hear him at all.
Was this what it had been like for his Father? Was Purgatory like something out of that Patrick Swayze movie? No wonder the old man was cranky all the time.
Being a ghost had also meant, by the by, having the unique experience of attending his own funeral. They'd buried him at Roskilde Cathedral with the rest of his royal ancestors, and they'd even marked his burial site as the resting place of King Hamlet II of Denmark. Not that he'd done much in his very short reign but lie dying on the floor, but it still gave him some pleasure to finally get the title he'd craved his whole life. He'd spent a couple of days afterwards in the Cathedral just staring at the gravestone before making his way back to Elsinore.
He'd heard Horatio mention Rikku's name when he got back to the castle. His old friend had probably had to break the bad news to her at some point. Poor guy, having so much weight dumped on his shoulders.
The state, of course, was a mess. Fortinbras was appointed ruler for the moment, but a distant relative of his named Margrethe had also appeared recently, and Parliament had broken down in wild debates about who was more suited for the crown. Hamlet didn't especially care whichever of the two of them won out. He did wish he could figure out how to move items, to dump water on Fortinbras, but that was neither here nor there.
Overall, Hamlet didn't really know what to do with himself. The rest of his immediate family was dead, and unlike him, they all seemed to have moved on to the afterlife fine. Or at least they weren't still kicking around this part of the mortal coil. So maybe for now he'd keep sulking around Elsinore until he figured out what to do with his afterlife; it wasn't like there was anything more important that he had to do.
OOC Note, or What this crazy chica is doing with her character.
[So, Hamlet is officially dead (something I've been planning off and on for a year now), but he's not totally gone. There are no big resurrection plans to return him to life. In Shakespeare, dead means dead. Um, except for Queen Hermione, who managed to bring herself back to life through a statue. But aside from the bizarreness of The Winter's Tale, characters who die stay that way.
There is however, one tiny loophole in his canon, and I chose to take it. So, he's going to stick around a little bit longer, as a ghost like his Daddy before him. At the moment he's intangible, and completely invisible to all but a couple people, as is the way ghosts work in the play.]
He'd always expected to die someday. It was natural; everyone did, eventually. While he was rather annoyed at himself and his uncle and Laertes for making him die so young of poisoning (to say the very least), in those final minutes he'd at least accepted his own death.
No one was more surprised than he was to find himself rematerializing in the same spot in the main hall a few days later as a ghost, stuck being 18 years and three months old forever and a day. Why? What possible unfinished business did *he* have lying around? He'd already avenged his own murder most foul back when he was still alive.
The most frustrating thing about the whole situation was that he couldn't *do* anything. No one seemed to be able to see him. He'd go right through objects. He'd spent hours talking at Horatio telling him that he was okay, and that Horatio shouldn't grieve so much, and that he wished that he'd worn something else to die in since he'd be stuck in the same black outfit for all of eternity, and everything else under the sun, but Horatio didn't seem to be able to hear him at all.
Was this what it had been like for his Father? Was Purgatory like something out of that Patrick Swayze movie? No wonder the old man was cranky all the time.
Being a ghost had also meant, by the by, having the unique experience of attending his own funeral. They'd buried him at Roskilde Cathedral with the rest of his royal ancestors, and they'd even marked his burial site as the resting place of King Hamlet II of Denmark. Not that he'd done much in his very short reign but lie dying on the floor, but it still gave him some pleasure to finally get the title he'd craved his whole life. He'd spent a couple of days afterwards in the Cathedral just staring at the gravestone before making his way back to Elsinore.
He'd heard Horatio mention Rikku's name when he got back to the castle. His old friend had probably had to break the bad news to her at some point. Poor guy, having so much weight dumped on his shoulders.
The state, of course, was a mess. Fortinbras was appointed ruler for the moment, but a distant relative of his named Margrethe had also appeared recently, and Parliament had broken down in wild debates about who was more suited for the crown. Hamlet didn't especially care whichever of the two of them won out. He did wish he could figure out how to move items, to dump water on Fortinbras, but that was neither here nor there.
Overall, Hamlet didn't really know what to do with himself. The rest of his immediate family was dead, and unlike him, they all seemed to have moved on to the afterlife fine. Or at least they weren't still kicking around this part of the mortal coil. So maybe for now he'd keep sulking around Elsinore until he figured out what to do with his afterlife; it wasn't like there was anything more important that he had to do.
OOC Note, or What this crazy chica is doing with her character.
[So, Hamlet is officially dead (something I've been planning off and on for a year now), but he's not totally gone. There are no big resurrection plans to return him to life. In Shakespeare, dead means dead. Um, except for Queen Hermione, who managed to bring herself back to life through a statue. But aside from the bizarreness of The Winter's Tale, characters who die stay that way.
There is however, one tiny loophole in his canon, and I chose to take it. So, he's going to stick around a little bit longer, as a ghost like his Daddy before him. At the moment he's intangible, and completely invisible to all but a couple people, as is the way ghosts work in the play.]