Just some random words to get the creative juices flowing...
The War Prize
She watched them board her. Loud and boisterous they were. Uncouth barbarians in all but name. But they were victorious. She had no more tears to shed, no words, no screaming in defiance as the American fast battleship ghosted past her.
Alone.
Her only sister dead before her. Some say by accident. Some say by treachery. In the end it mattered little. She rubbed her arms as if to wash the unclean feelings from them, as the Americans moved about her, taking what they wished, mocking her service.
And then they were gone and she was alone again.
Then one day more ships appeared and she heard them talking. Her understanding of English was broken and not well, but they were preparing her for a trip. She heard them argue. Some said she should be destroyed by the very weapon that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but others said a different fate was in store.
Her hull was repaired and made seaworthy again, and under escort by several American cruisers and destroyers, she set sail. She watched her homeland recede in the distance.
Days past as the small fleet sailed east.
Eleven days later she began to hear it.
Wailing.
Rage.
Loss.
Hate.
Familiar islands came into view. And thus she was led into the harbor to sight she was all too familiar with. Another like her stood on the water over the ruins of a ship, screaming. Black tears matching the oil slicked waters were fuel still leaked. Red eyes full of hate as she was taken under tow and brought to a solitary mooring just north of Mokunui Island.
The screaming never stopped. Yet even the screams masked other voices. Hooded eyes caught sight of two others. Oklahoma. Utah. Both wept at their fates. At their losses. They paid her no need as they mourned. Only the martyr stared at her as she screamed her hate.
She settled down and closed her eyes, and tried to close out the screams.
Days past. Months stretched to years. Her hand stroked the rusting metal, the flaking paint of her hull. There was no last battle or final service, just the endless march of time that threatened to do what the American Navy could not. There were no crew, no visitors, nothing but solitude. She closed her eyes.
Then.
Sounds. People.
She raised a weary head to see. They were American Sailors. But these were different. They were…cleaning her decks. She glanced around. Where the Martyr wailed there was silence. A massive arch over her grave where she could see many people there. She turned back to the young men on her deck, her mind going back to her youth, when young men learned their craft on her decks, to perhaps better days. Before the war.
She watched.
Her rotting decks replaced with fresh wood, the rust and corrosion of the sleep decade scoured away, and new paint, actual paint from Kure! It was strange. Her enemy, her captors, were restoring her to her former glory at the height of the war. She was changing. Becoming.
Then, they arrived.
And she wept.
Those few crew that had survived stepped foot upon her once more. Old and frail, but still carrying that inner spark of life that she saw so many years ago when each and everyone one of them were entered into her crew manifests. Then an unexpected presentation as American Officers brought forth an item she once flew proudly and mounted it in a place of honor amongst her memories. Her battle flag. They spoke of the past, and of those terrible years of war, and the lessons learned and friendships made.
She watched silently from the sidelines as her crew recounted tales and memories of the past. It was bittersweet. These old young men would soon leave her again.
There were places inside that were still not right, but her hull was intact and she wore her colors again, and those young American sailors were replaced by others, and she heard whispers that the Grand Lady herself, Mikasa, was restored to her former glory by similar hands. She wished she could talk to them, show her appreciation, but it was enough to know that they were watching over her and the others that slept here in the harbor. Maybe, soon, she too would sleep.
A ship's horn caught her attention. She looked out to see another American Battleship being towed into place. Missouri. She too would sleep here, and for a moment, she could see an old young woman standing on the bow. A signal lamp flashed from the warship, to which she replied with her own.
She yawned.
It was time.