Author's note: Hornblower fic heavily inspired by 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak. So heavily inspired by it that you could almost call it a crossover except I wandered away from some of Zusak's premises and ideas. You don't need to have read that to follow this; I just borrowed his narrator and some concepts. Many, many thanks to BeyondInsane and Bamberrific for betaing services. Further notes at the end.

I am, as you can probably imagine, quite busy. There are a lot of humans, and although I have all the time in the world,  it still isn't enough time to notice every person. I take their souls and that's it. Their faces, their lives, are nothing to do with me. Every so often, though, there will be one who catches my attention, whom I allow myself to be distracted by. Distraction is important in my line of work; it keeps me sane. This job is pretty relentless. So occasionally, I will allow myself to be drawn into the lives of those with whom my path crosses more than once.

The first time I noticed Archie Kennedy was in a prison cell in Spain. In retrospect, we must have met many times before that (anyone who lives that life must encounter me all the time) and I'm fairly certain I remember him from a couple of occasions - I saw him from a distance, floating alone in a rowing boat, and there was the aftermath of a fight where his friend lay in an inn, red blood vivid on white skin, soon to be acquainted with me. I think there may have been an incident in his childhood involving a horse, where he caught a glimpse of me but never really got close. But the first time I noticed him, the first time I really paid attention to the man and not just to the soul I was preparing to take into my arms, was in Spain.