The Bear and Barnacle

Faramir was given his first sword so long ago he doesn't remember not owning one and while he was at first much more interested in his books than in weaponry it was not long before the influence of his adored brother began to set in. Boromir is ten years his senior and Faramir has spent the entirety of his sixteen years thinking his brother a god.

In some ways the two could not seem more different even though they look so much alike. Even as children it was so. As Boromir sat beside their father Denethor in court and eagerly learned from the citadel guard all he could discover and some things he shouldn't have repeated, Faramir spent his time following the keeper of Gondor's ancient library and doing odd jobs for the Wardens of the Houses of Healing. He was at his father's knee only to ask for answers and stories rather than to absorb and adopt the ways of the ruler. By the time the brothers were eight and eighteen Boromir had picked up many mannerisms of their father and commanded his first expeditions with a tone and mind very familiar to the men in his service. Faramir was said to resemble his mother or neither parent in his shy nature and his willingness to listen to any snippet of lore or history that someone would tell him.

So it startled a few of his tutors and the servants of the house when at thirteen quiet, bookish Faramir began challenging Boromir to practice swordsmanship with him. Boromir indulged him and Faramir always lost.

But he persevered and refused when Boromir kept offering to go easy on him. He learned more from the losing than he would have from a swordsman of his own ability and soon that ability was greatly expanded. Their illmatched practice never seemed to draw more than half curious glances from Denethor, but Boromir's laughter and the rough hand ruffling Faramir's hair – those gave the boy a warm, steady glow that no other's praise and no other's touch could equal.

Now that he is uprooted from home and far from the warmth of his brother's love and the long-held hope of his father's approval, Faramir carries his sword close by him even though he's already noticed that very few in this place go armed. Its weight at his side is comforting as he pushes into the Pub having come on Mina's recommendation. Here in this strange and frightening place it is a touch of home and a memory of his brother that he cannot imagine doing without.

Rodolphus normally paid about as much attention to the weather as he did to the state of his fingernails. But now, finished with the young man snatched because of his resemblance to Harry Potter (he had dark hair and green eyes. Close enough), he realised it was stifling in the little shack on the beach he’d appropriated for his own. There weren’t any windows and the only door was shut and sealed so he wouldn’t be interrupted. Of course, there was a silencing charm on the place. It wouldn’t do for the screams of his victims to be heard. He surveyed the blood-soaked room, extremely pleased with himself. But Merlin it was hot! Normally, dismembering didn’t work up nearly this much of a sweat. He ran his arm across his forehead, leaving a red smear behind. He decided to go for a swim, just as soon as he put the crowning touch on the afternoon. Rodolphus picked up the skull at set it almost reverently on the shelf he’d prepared. It was the first of many he planned to decorate the shack with, and his only regret was that it wasn't the real thing. Rodolphus smiled into the green eyes he’d preserved in the skull, settling a pair of glasses procured for the occasion precariously on the face. It was hard to balance them properly as there wasn't any nose. “Don’t worry Harry,” he crooned, patting the bony, bloody cheek. “You won’t be alone for long.” Bugger all but this heat was murder! Rodolphus opened the door, squinting into the blazing sun. It was lower than he’d expected. He’d spent more time with Harry than he’d realised. He also realised that it was far hotter than it ought to be for January. Not his problem. He’d earned a respite and the water would cool him off as well as wash away all the blood. Amazing how far the stuff sprayed. Rodolphus stripped down and headed for the surf. He'd tidy up later. Maybe.

 
Used to walking everywhere no matter how long it takes, drawn into solitude by the grating of not-belonging in his gut, he arrives. He's seen it in the shiny, colored leaflets scattered about town, been there in the day more than once, and though he's more a creature of farmland, or even desert, he craves the relief of cool-aired silence and a place to just exist for a few moments.

( He slips through the closed, darkened shop. )

She's accustomed to being sent to odd places with little warning or explanation. So when the Crown informs her that she's needed in Margate, Mrs Mina Harker raises an eyebrow then starts preparing to move. By the end of the day, she has her essentials packed in a traveling trunk. By the next day she's selected and secured a flat out of the stack of brochures that were brought to her with word of her relocation. She'll purchase most of her furniture when she arrives, actually less expensive and less of a hassle than shipping her existing furniture, as she's discovered; but a healthy selection of her books, lab, and her bed are supposed to arrive when she does.

Early on Wednesday evening, her hired driver carries two small cases up to the top floor flat while she manages the larger trunk in one hand and a large rectangular case in the other hand. She can smell the closeness of the ocean, only a block away, and the fresh paint in the flat. Tipping the driver, she dismisses him and puts the trunk in the larger of the bedrooms. She considers the other case then carries it to the other bedroom and leans it against the wall commenting while brusquely, "Stay out of trouble for now, if you please."

Mina runs one hand over her hair, still pinned neatly up. Her white shirt is clean, the black skirt unwrinkled, and the red scarf still neatly wrapped once around her throat. In her pocket is a torn page from one those regional magazines that publish places to eat, things to see, and people to admire. Then with a final glance at the address that's been circled and the attached map, she leaves her new residence and strides down the street, wondering just what is going on at this pub.

When he sees the paper that morning, Severus snarls wordlessly to himself, state of mind throwing itself back several years in an instant, and leaves a note for Q asking him to take care of the day's brewing (except for the copper cauldron, which he should just throw a stasis spell on). Twice is coincidence? Sod that. He's still not going to write the 'all afire to be on campaign' note that he's been dying to for weeks, or call in the cavalry, but it is time to do something else. Just because no one's been actually killed yet means... enough to matter, but not to reassure; it's early days of a very familiar pattern.

( Some of the spells, he'd learned from Moody, once they'd resolved their differences.* )

At four o'clock, utterly drained from so many nearly permanent spells, letting the small presence-concealers and deceptions melting away slowly as he's nearly too tired to banish them, he presses Holmes's doorbell. Here's hoping that Albus isn't off having tea in a shop somewhere and can remind him of protections he's missed, that Holmes isn't and can tell him where people who need more protection than he's been able to lay on today live. Not having said a word to anyone all day, when the door is opened, he's not quite too weary to be startled by what comes out of his mouth.

* This had involved a two-hour duel, evenings on end of grading and reading through the Albus And Alastor Knitting And Comedy hour, an ambush on an attempted ambush (wherein Alastor got petrified and his wand stolen and sent up to Albus but not hurt, which Moody found persuasive, although not convincing), and a really dreadful pun involving cocaine and hallucinatory alligators, which had gone on for nearly ten minutes before someone failed to keep an entirely straight face. The final blow had been when Moody, during his recovery period from Crouch's box, had been cajoled by one of Severus's all-time favorite pupils into flying a kite outside, and then taught her a few charms to stop other students stealing her books and shoes. Severus had sent him an obviously-hexed card which, when the hex was disabled, manifested a bottle of really good lubrication for Moody's false leg, and Moody had smacked him so hard upside the back of the head on the way to the Great Hall the next day that he'd thought it was Hagrid. And that was that.

Gaav stares at his sister with his arms folded over his chest and radiates Not Amused. Dolphin moves a pawn in a direction that pawns are not generally allowed to move, she seems to be playing both sides, or possibly more as there seem to be three queens and four colors. "Well?" he says flatly.

Dolphin looks up and does a pretty good impression of an excited little girl seeing her favorite uncle, though the bouncing this results in inside her top is less little-girlish and pushes the chessboard carelessly aside so the pieces topple. "Brother! You look different. Did you cut your hair?"

( Read more... )

When he comes into the pub again for the first time in (Lady Bright, it must be) months, his smile is not a sociable one, but the serene little closed-eyed Metallium smile that isn't worried about how to fulfill any unexpected orders to kill (or worse, incapacitate) any given person. The pink glasses are not in evidence (they're in a pocket), and neither is the frilly apron with the chickie on it.

There's a minor ruffle in the kitchen when one of the new staff demands to know who he is and where the Dragon-Lady's gone. Only a few moments of being silently and blandly smiled at sees the man re-assigning himself to dishwashing duty, though, and Xellos spends the rest of the evening on the hibachi displays of knifework and blending across from the bar that the pub hasn't seen in a good, long time, during weeks of sandwiches and pastries and pub food, his face in a pleasant mask. He shouldn't be angry with Ivonka-san for letting the place forget what it ought to be, but by the third time one of the waiters asks him what today's specials are, the third time he says (snarls, by this point, however frozen in polite tones), whatever they ask for, he is.

Every so often, he pulls Iago away from the bar, click-clicking away on his new cast into secluded corners, and just folds himself into his arms, breathing him in with their fingers laced until he's steady enough to face all the eyes again, sliding his fingertips for reassurance into the pocket of Iago's apron, just big enough to snugly contain one little hiding cat, just in case. To keep from doing that every five minutes or so, he spends a lot of time with his weight all on his newly re-broken leg, occasionally bouncing gently on it. Sometimes he turns the night before, the night of breaking it, over meditatively in his mind as his hands fly (and, if the truth be known, his ethereal tendrils, because two hands alone, however fast, really can't whip together multiple dishes at once), and sometimes he just laps gently at the sweet, sustaining pain of it.

He pulled himself out of what felt like the best, most restful nap he’d ever had. In fact, he was a bit reluctant to wake, but something told his brain his work was done, and that the dream he was in could conclude itself. The boy…no, the man, had already succeeded. The world would be righted at last.

He blinked a few times, eyes adjusting to the sunlight streaking through the clouds overhead, and looked around. A beach. Well, there were certainly worse places to find oneself than the shore of England.

He knew very well he ought to be dead. Remembered dying quite clearly – a face, a flash of green light. And yet here he was, and quite sure he was living despite it all. He felt better than he had in years, in fact, as if a great burden had been lifted. Well, it had, he reasoned with himself. And his nose itched. He idly reached up with his right hand and then paused, eyes crinkling in amusement as a perfectly whole, un-cursed hand presented itself.

On a beach, seemingly whole and healthy, and with not a care in the world for once. He looked around again, and seeing buildings in the distance, began walking toward them. Being not-dead and waking from a long nap left one exceedingly thirsty. He looked at the signs above windows as he walked, finally seeing what was unmistakably a pub. Adjusting his hat and lifting the hem of his robes slightly, he stepped up and in the door.

“Of course it would be you,” Val says crabbily to the transparent figure. Crabbily because he's painfully aware of his smallness, of his still-faltering speech; also because on Val's personal list of favorite fellow-servants, Rigo is exactly two spaces from the bottom. “Couldn't be anyone else.”

Rigo stands with his arms folded and says nothing. He's a tall, dark man, lean and well-built with eyes that burn an uncanny deep red around diamond pupils. This is if one is lucky enough to see his eyes; he rarely makes eye contact, preferring usually a point in the vicinity of the left ear or shoulder of whoever he's speaking to.

Val crosses his chubby arms right back at him and at last Rigo sighs and speaks. “What happened to you, Val-san?”

“Got shrunk,” is the succinct answer. “So what? You're dead.”

Rigo nods, once, measuredly. And does not speak.

“This is gonna be a long month,” Val mourns softly, and hops off his bed to go tell Jack and Zel (and Amy, and Amelia) that they have yet more company.

"Hello, Jack."

Jack turns at the familiar-but-couldn't-be voice down the alley and sees it speaker matches it. "Oh, not again."

Leaning against the brick wall in same cream-colored trenchcoat she died again in, Suzie watches him, smirking. She even has the bullet holes and blood riddling her coat, appearing black thanks to the night leeching away the reds. "You aren't happy to see me."

"Why would I be? What'd you do this time? There aren't any gloves left."

"I didn't do this, Jack."

"Like hell." He turns to walk down the sidewalk more for effect than any real intention to leave her there. If it's really her, really there, then he can't risk letting her run loose on Margate. She may not have any motivation to murder again, but then she hasn't shown she wouldn't.

Just as he thought, Suzie comes walking out of the alley to fall into step with him. It's irritating. She should be dead and in cryo, or if she did get pulled her, a corpse lying around. She shouldn't be walking and talking again. And they hadn't left her corpse dressed in that, anyway. Where was the bodybag?

"You know, I never did believe in ghosts," Suzie says. "In spite of everything we saw, I didn't believe in that. The existence of ghosts would imply some sort of life beyond this life, and we both know it's just darkness."

"What's your point?"

"Can you smell me, Jack? Can you smell the blood, the death on me?"

He looks sidelong at her and frowns. "No."

"Surely you'd smell it if I was here in any corporeal sense. I guess we were both wrong that there's only the physical life. Something's brought me back without my body."

"So you got dragged back out of the dark, whatever of you was in there. And you came after me? Go haunt someone else, if that's what this is. How about a relative you didn't get around to murdering?"

She says without malice, just matter-of-fact, "You killed me. You shot me, and told Toshiko and Ianto about destroying the gauntlet, and killed me, just like that. Like it didn't matter. I never did matter enough to you, did I? Never mattered enough to ask—"

"Spare me the pity party. In fact, why don't you spare me listening to you at all? You brought it all on yourself. You can try to blame me again for it, but it's not my fault. You could've talked to me if you wanted to."

"Could I? Nobody could talk to you then and have you care." She laughs mirthlessly.

It snaps something and Jack turns towards her, hand going out to— something, pin her against a wall and stare her down, maybe— but it just goes on through and he nearly stumbles into the wall himself. She looks almost as surprised as he feels to see that.

"That's inconvenient," she says. "I wondered if I could only physically interact with you. I guess not. Face it, Captain Jack. You can't make me leave, and I'm not going to choose to. You're stuck with me unless something else changes it."

Jack groans.

He walks into this town as he's walked into a thousand thousand towns, cities, kingdoms and battlefields at a measured saunter, long strides eating up the ground below him. There's a broadsword the size of a sapling resting casually on the shoulder of a yellow trench coat that glares like a caution sign with grudge. He surveys the misty evening, the rows of houses with televisions flickering through windows and the now empty beach. He doesn't look impressed.

He keeps walking, the strolling sightseers parting before him like pedestrians ducking an ugly exchange of words on a sidewalk.

Nearly nine feet tall with a flame-red ponytail to his knees and a face like a jagged cliff, he should be stopping traffic. But only a few people glance at him more than once. People know him, not consciously, but for those who fight or soldier, he's a familiar presence. Even though he's just walked into Margate, he was already there. Chaos Dragon Gaav is everywhere. All that changes is if he lets you know it or not.

As he walks in even strides, he tastes the astral flavors of the city: the revolting joy of families on vacation, the more satisfying bitterness of the regular inhabitants who's town has been invaded, a pleasant rolling anger from a fighting couple. These tastes grow stronger as he makes his way through the town, mixing with resentment, hunger, drunkeness and friendship. It's the oddity of many species in one place that draws him toward the pub. Not to mention a few astral signatures that are familiar.