Captain Aubrey (closetothewind) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-06-09 19:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, iskierka, jack aubrey, stephen maturin |
Who: Jack Aubrey, Iskierka, and Stephen Maturin
When: Afternoon of Saturday, June 1 [backdated]
Where: Off Newport, RI, onboard the Blazer
What: A fine day for boating!
Rating: Low
Jack wasn’t entirely new to trading on his name. Even in his young (if by no means short) career, he’d managed to build for himself a reputation that opened doors with the prize-hungry admiralty just as often as it slammed them shut with certain individual officers. After his few publicly-recognized triumphs, he had been by no means above accepting the odd glass of wine, invitation, or smile from admirers of the female persuasion. What was the point of winning something if one didn’t mean to spend it? But never before arriving here had he been treated to such extravagance by people who were merely well-disposed toward him. Of course, here the people who were well-disposed toward him tended to be of the yachting class. And while the precise conversions from 1805 to 2013 escaped him, he estimated said class to be somewhere rather above the one he’d been born into - but not so high that, gentleman that he was, he couldn’t fumble his way around it. And fumble he did through all the courtesies and foreign etiquette that characterized the New York Yacht Club, willing, as ever, to make his poor attempt at artifice as long as necessary if there was clear blue sailing on the other side. Clear blue sailing with Stephen would have been even better incentive; with Stephen and a young woman surprisingly well-versed in nautical matters, he was practically leaping of the dock. “She isn’t quite what any of us is used to,” he admitted once they’d put out and found a steady (and promisingly increasing) breeze, casting an not unaffectionate look over the length of the Morris 36. “But my God, there’s something to be said for speed, ain’t there?” Almost enough - almost - to get him into something fully motor-propelled. Perhaps next month. Though out of his depth, as always, Maturin felt secure enough in Jack’s ability to sail anything set in the water to be relatively at ease. At least, where the boat was concerned. He was less certain about the decision to encourage Iskierka into Jack’s vicinity but his eagerness to please the young lady far outweighed that particular risk. He found her exceptionally interesting, not only because she was a dragon, which was extraordinary by its own right, but also because of the strange similarities because of her world and his own. More than once, he’d found himself trying to picture just exactly the kind of Captain Jack might be if those mystical creatures had been among his crew. “There certainly is something to be said about it.” His tone was accented by a sharp, but fond glance in Aubrey’s direction. He had a feeling, a chill really, in the back of his legs, that told him he would be very much outvoted if he so much as hinted that there was no need to see exactly how fast their boat could go. "But she's so.... small," Iskierka said, wrinkling her face as she did, red hair whipping around. She hadn't quite known what to wear sailing, but she'd gotten Granby's things when he'd gone back through the Tesseract, so she'd tried to put on the uniform that he'd come through in. The breeches had fallen off her hips though, so she'd settled on jeans and a sparkly tshirt over a swimsuit - which someone had recommended she wear in case she get wet. Of course, she didn't know if swimming as a human was the same as swimming as a dragon. She was sitting near the bow, legs and arms draping through the rails to catch the salty ocean spray. It was as close as she could get to flying low over the ocean and she remembered the young boys on the ship laying in the netting to catch the spray on hot days. "I doubt she could cross the ocean or survive a storm." “Oh, as to that,” Jack said from his place at the mast, his hand slipping along the side of it (metal - such a curious feeling), “I’ll wager she could bob along nicely enough if she had to across something sweet-tempered - but no shelter in a storm, madam, you’re quite right. A pity, too - the way she’s decked out inside, a man could live like a king from Malacca to Port Desire. Finely built - finely built.” And one could feel it, too, in the way she answered at every touch - sweet little thing. Of course, the feeling of sure-handed euphoria that came of every trim of sail or miniscule adjustment of the rudder probably had as much to do with the fact that he hadn’t been on the water in what felt like ages - and with the strange young woman draped out foreward like a figurehead - than with anything else. He turned to Stephen, who, as usual, seemed quite immune to the essential human joy of plowing through the ocean at as many knots as one could muster, and gave the mast a ringing slap. “Brilliant engineers, these modern chaps. The way they’ve fit her out I daresay almost anyone could handle her - eh, Stephen?” He meant it quite sincerely, and in truth there was little he could imagine that would please him more than the sight of Doctor Maturin, of all people, at the helm. What a story. “Perhaps you’ll take her for a stretch when we’ve cleared the Vineyard.” When Jack was genuinely pleased by something his enthusiasm was always written across his face as plain as day. It was the only reason Stephen gave his suggestion any serious thought at all. While he wouldn’t put it past Aubrey to attempt to embarrass him, there was nothing mischievous about what he’d offered or how he’d stated it. Still, Maturin hesitated, taking a deep breath in through his nose before offering a shrug and a quick, “I suppose I could try.” Stephen doubted that Aubrey would overestimate his abilities; there was reassurance in that. And while he hadn’t exactly needed to twist Jack’s arm to get him to agree to this day, but this was still a favour, and if Jack got a little more enjoyment from the day watching him do his best to manage at the helm, then so be it. He leaned his weight on one arm, shifting in Iskierka’s direction, he thought about asking her if ordinarily she was a great deal larger than the boat herself. She’d given him measurements, but the size was hard to visualise without comparison. However, he decided that were he to ask, he’d be a very old man before Aubrey would grow tired of teasing him about asking a woman about her size. Instead, he decided on offering the dragon a smile. “You’re enjoying yourself?” "Never seen the insides of ships before," Iskierka said in response to Jack's comments about the cabin. "Unless they were burning of have destroyed. Small ship like this wouldn't be worth much in terms of prize money," she added. "Although I did steal a fishing boat once. Got yelled at. Granby and the crew sometimes slept next to me on the dragondeck. Warm in the winter." She smiled at Stephen. "Oh yes. I missed the salty spray," she said with a bright smile. "We had to learn how to fish but that was fun, flying low over the ocean and then diving in to snatch up a dolphin or big fish to eat. Fish aren't very filling though." She closed her eyes and leaned into the wind. "This is nice though. If we go faster, it might feel like flying." Still not having acclimated entirely to the idea that there was some version of the Royal Navy that used mythical beasts as - as what, precisely? weapons? - Jack found himself tripping over her observations, not quite certain how to respond to them. Anyone else who might have said she’d never seen the inside of a ship would probably have been subject to a somewhat condescending (if well-intentioned) explanation of the various interior spaces she could expect to find, but this … He hadn’t found himself in a nautical conversation he couldn’t swim through with perfect ease (hah) since before he was seven years old. Perhaps, he realized, this was what Stephen felt like amidst discussions of braces, brigs, and broadsides. “They’re - well. They’re hardly the best any vessel has to offer, of course. I don’t know a soul who wouldn’t rather be on deck, with the …” He trailed off, the image of the Surprise slipping away from him for a moment. “Dragon deck, you say?” And not some colorful colloquialism, most likely. He let a tasteless (and not fully-formed, at any rate) joke about St. George slip away. “It must be something of a challenge, all that open flame. Unless you’ve quite done away with powder.” Which would be a damned shame, in his opinion, but here he was standing next to a hollow steel mast. Who was he to say what was right? “We’ve trouble enough with candles.” And with the over-zealous naturalists who insisted upon them at inconvenient times. Stephen couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes at the comment about candles, but he did pride himself in holding his tongue. While his interest was primarily in dragons as a species and not how they functioned as assistance to the navy, he was curious about certain elements of their co-existence. Certainly gunpowder and fire-breathing animals must of caused all manner of problems, and so he he waited for the expert answer. He walked along the deck to stand beside Iskierka. He didn’t trust himself to sit down of weave his limbs into the railings as she had, but she did look quite comfortable and he had to wonder if there were any similarities between how she might swim now and how she had when she was a dragon, were she to enter the water. Iskierka leaned her head against Stephen's leg, a bit like a cat would do and smiled contently. Neither of them were Granby, but they were nice and they understood the world she'd come from more than most. She stretched before drawing her feet up and wiggling out of her jeans and t-shirt, tossing them haphazardly towards the cabin before resuming her position, limbs hanging over the bow and head resting against Stephen's leg clad in a swimsuit that was red and gold swirls. "I'm the only fire breather the Royal Navy had. It was a bit of a problem when I was young and couldn't control it, or when I was sick, but usually I'm pretty good about getting it where I want it to go." To demonstrate, she checked the wind before turning her head before releasing a small fireball downwind over the ocean, letting it dissipate over the waves. "The others do things like spit acid and such. Temeraire has the divine wind. Some don't have powers and are just used for battle or as couriers. Dragons for every need really. Except the little rascals in Australia. They were pointless." Jack had had frequent cause to remind himself here of the promise he’d made on board the Lively. In a place where everyone seemed to have license to walk around wearing next to nothing, it was difficult not to spend one’s days in a constant state of low-level guilt over the strength and prospects of past assurances of fidelity. His reaction was always more or less the same: his face went its characteristic shade of red as he attempted as carefully as he was able to keep his face completely blank. The sight of a not-very-clad young woman warming up to Stephen like they were the very best of friends wasn’t calculated to elicit any other response. He spent a few long moments gazing very studiously indeed out to the horizon, as though he could pick out some approaching cloud from the completely unbroken blue - Until it was broken quite spectacularly by flame. His surprise overtook his embarrassment in an instant, and he turned his eyes back to her with an admiration and a curiosity that had nothing (well, not much) to do with her appearance. “Divine wind - that, I like the sound of. No more drifting in the doldrums and cutting out only on dumb luck. But fire, that seems like no great way to take a prize, I must say. There ain’t much use in being left with ashes, is there? You must be damned careful about it.” He paused, and realized, for the first time, that perhaps there might be a bit of a wrinkle in this heretofore encouraging development: “I don’t suppose there are any French dragons?” Spending time with Iskierka, Stephen had grown accustomed to her rather different behaviour. She’d certainly conducted herself well at the prom, but she’d been affectionate in ways that Stephen was not used to in formal company. She was eager and excited, she liked being near to him and, like now, was quite physical. He imagined it had at least something to do with her former life. She had been socialised as an animal, and so she behaved as one. There was nothing lewd or untoward about the way she behaved and it was unfair to expect her to act like a young woman from any time period because the truth was no matter how she might look, she was a dragon. He dropped a hand warmly to her shoulder and brushed his fingertips along the side of her neck when she’d settled in after sending the fireburst out across the water. He was still getting used to her abilities (though she’d shown him some of what she could do before, when he’d mentioned off-hand that he enjoyed fireworks), and he wondered just how dangerous she could be if she really set her mind to it. “French Dragons?” He looked at Jack and smiled. He hadn’t the slightest idea what the answer might be, it was just strange to hear Aubrey ask the question. Dragons. Stephen looked down at Iskierka, biting the inside of his cheek to keep his expression pleasant. Because no matter what he knew, what he’d resigned himself to and what he believed, Iskierka didn’t resemble a dragon and there was only so much he could rationalise to himself when under normal circumstances he’d respond very differently to a woman at his side wearing next to absolutely nothing. At least in part, he was trying to keep his head just to be decidedly unlike Aubrey. Iskierka made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a purr, if a creature could purr, at Stephen's fingers, leaning into the touch and closing her eyes. She rubbed her face against his leg, as if to cover him with her scent. She was becoming attached to him, and wasn't sure what she'd do if the Tesseract took him away as well. "The Divine Wind wouldn't help," she said softly. "Or Temeraire couldn't control it enough - when he used in battle, it cracked the masts of the biggest frigates, destroyed sails, it's- big." She made a face when asked about French Dragons. "Yes. Unfortunately. Too many. Napoleon wouldn't have had such success conquering Europe without them. Flamme-de-Gloire is their fire breather, but only a middleweight, I'm much bigger than those and my fire has a bigger reach, not to mention the spikes going down my back and tail," she said, running her hand over her back and bottom and down over an imaginary tail. "Fleur-de-nuit which are nearly invisible at night and can see in the dark, Petite and Grand Chevaliers, Chanson-de-guerre, Chasseur-Vocifere, Pecheur-Raye, Plein-Vite, Pou-de-Ciel, Defendeur-Brave, Garde-de-Lyon, Honneur-d'Or, Papillon Noir, Pecheur-Couronne. I think those are all the French breeds." She furrowed her brow and steam came out of her nose and ears. "And Lien. The other Celestial. She is working with the French now. I do not like her at all." |