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Post by Ladorak on Oct 14, 2010 22:53:34 GMT -5
The Knight cringed, moving swiftly to avoid the barreling violin. That would do some damage...striking the wall like that. Would probably crack the side and ruin the instrument. Really? Ode to Joy? How had he missed that?
He was silent as she moved to get up, and storm out of the room. Her beret? Had she forgotten it? She'd come in...with her jacket unbuttoned...that had been rather nice, but otherwise, he couldn't specifically recall. A puzzled look crossed his snout as a...duck? It quickly began to follow her out the door. Was that a pet of some kind?
He sighed. Fine...run away...can't run forever. Saumarez was of a right mind to let her go, as he had no interest in chasing her. But...against his better judgment, the weasel sighed, slapping his forepaws on his thighs, and reluctantly rose to standing to chase her down.
"Priscilla!" he called, dashing out into the hall way and nearly running to the narrow wall. He pushed off of it with a paw, and gingerly stepped over the duck, who tried to nip at his heels as he moved. "Priscilla wait! Don't do this...please...don't be angry. I know it's wretched and I know that marrying me must be the last thing in the world that you want. I know that you're hiding your pain...I saw you after all...screaming into the grass...outside the bull stadium. Look..." he drew even with her, hoping that had got her attention, walking sideways while she walked forward. The duck honked after them. "I know this sounds crazy but I do genuinely want to help you. Why push me out? Is me wanting to help...wrong?" he glanced with narrowed eyes in his peripheral vision at the duck. "Is that...yours? Misplace a pet recently?" he asked, turning now to look more fully at the waddling canard.
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Post by spender on Oct 16, 2010 17:59:49 GMT -5
"Pip!" Steep scolded, scooping the duck into her arms. "Bad duck, you're not supposed to come out..."
Clutching the bird to her chest, Steep turned on Saumarez.
"It's not wrong, it's just pointless. What makes you think that you, of all beasts, can do a thing to help me? After dozens of doctors and physicians and self-claimed wizards and, Fates, Saumarez, leeches. Leeches. What could you possibly do to top that?"
She turned aside and kept going down the hall, though at a slower pace.
"If you want to help so badly, then stop trying to. That's all you can do. Keep your distance." She rubbed her scar and sighed. Pip's head wobbled all over the place as he strove to find equilibrium with her bouncing stride. "Just... forget about it. Go find wherever you're staying the night. If you're still here in the morning and you want to see me, just... pretend you know nothing about me. Start it over." She began to mutter, quieter: "Y usted puede comenzar con tratarme como I' m algo además de un problema que necesita fijar. Here."
Thrusting Pip at Saumarez, Steep turned to the door she'd stopped in front of and grit her teeth.
"Y mi día iba tan bien hasta ahora…"
Then she kicked the door in. Laughter flooded the two weasels.
"Mire! Soy Capitán Steep! Oooh, I mojó la cama y el humo y bebe los licores y hace el amor a mi pato! Daw, daw, daw, daw..."
A pine marten was dancing on one of the tables, the rest of the beasts in the room in hysterics. He had Steep's beret on his head, and was flapping his arms around with his wrists limp and his upper body tilted backward, in what he must have assumed was some kind of imitation of brain-damaged water fowl. Everything stopped when they noticed Steep in the doorway. The pine marten froze, mid-pose, his head cocked to the side to stare in horror at his captain.
"Devonshire, abajo."
The pine marten slid off the table and swept the beret off his head. He knelt, holding it out to her as if there were an invisible pillow beneath it.
Steep snatched it from him and whacked his ears soundly with her other paw. He winced and stepped back, straightening up. He spotted Saumarez in the doorway, and grinned hugely. He began nudging the rat beside him with his elbow while whispering something. Steep ignored them.
She marched back out of the dining hall, glared at Saumarez, as if daring him to comment, and held out her arms to take Pip back from him.
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Post by Ladorak on Oct 17, 2010 22:41:51 GMT -5
Saumarez glanced down, not meeting her gaze as she challenged him to top leeches. "How about companionship?" he muttered, frowning. "Someone to be with you when you need it...to help you." he walked beside her, cutting quite the strange contrast to her with his Welkin naval uniform. "That's what I was offering."
He had the duck thrust into his paws, and held the thing out, as if worried it might be diseased. The mess room was filled with guffawing soldiers, laughing at a marten who must have been doing an impersonation of his commanding officer...Saumarez's very own fiancee. So she garnered little respect in her own ranks? That was odd. Why wouldn't she be respected?
He didn't bother trying to translate what was said, though it was easy enough to deduce. He knew what was being laughed at without too much effort. He pawed the duck back to her, shaking his head, the frown still on his face, having metamorphosed into something more thoughtful.
"Actually...about my sleeping arrangements...the garrison commander said there were no more beds...and that I would be sharing yours. He seemed eager to set that up once he heard I was your fiance, but though I pressed him for something else, he apologized and said there really was nothing else. I..." he paused here, his boots echoing loudly in the halls. "Won't make a big deal about it if you won't. It's just a bed after all." he said, feeling that she'd probably be silently steaming right now.
"I'm sorry." he said, before she responded. "I meant what I said earlier...but if you really feel it an imposition...I suppose I could try and find something else...somewhere. One of the Welkin occupied forts perhaps..." or passage back to Welkin, he didn't add. That would be difficult...plus he'd made the choice to spend his leave with her...much of a mistake it might seem now. He just didn't want to regret this trip. He'd traveled all this way to spend time with her for the next few months...and already it was off to a rocky start. Maybe it was wrong for him to be here...but traveling back would take another month, and that would be more of his free time down the drain. There really wasn't anything for it aside from staying here.
"It's just...ultimately...I made the choice to spend my leave down here...with you...so here I am." he said, finishing up his thoughts with that. There wasn't any regret in his voice, it was just a simple statement. He fiddled with the cuffs on his jacket as he waited for her to reply.
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Post by spender on Oct 22, 2010 8:35:01 GMT -5
Steep crouched for a moment to let Pip flap to the ground. The duck ruffled his feathers and began circling around her footpaws, quacking every other revolution.
She leaned her elbow against the wall, rested her head against her paw. Her claws slowly dug their way into her scar, piercing it open again. She rubbed her forehead, wincing. She felt Saumarez move closer and held her other paw up, stopping him.
"I'm fine."
Deep breaths. In, out. Unclench the jaw, it does nothing. Make no noise. Make no face. Hold out. Hold on. Endure.
"I can take the chair," she said at last. "I haven't been sleeping well anyways. The bed's going to waste."
Another pause, this one hotter, sharper. Her eyes squinched tight.
"I'll try to say this again, because you don't seem to be understanding me. I thought I was translating it right... Saumarez, I'm... not... angry. At you. About the marriage. We each do our duty. I can tol...tolerate that. I can grow to like it. But this... this thing you offer me, it isn't companionship." She gestured down at Pip. "He is a companion. He sits with me and shares my time. Devonshire is a companion. We play cards, we eat together. What you are saying... what I am hearing from you, is that... You want to be my doctor. You want to make me better. That is all you talk about. You are sorry for being my fiance. You are sorry about my problem. You are a boring weasel. Listen, Saumarez..."
Here she paused, reaching out to touch his paw.
"You. Cannot. Help me. Stop saying that is what you want. It won't ever happen. I do not need help. I do not need another doctor. I do not need another father to fret over me. I need someone to talk to about things besides marriage and pain. I need companionship, but I can stand on my own paws. Your role is not to pick up after me. Let me be... what I am. You need to focus on... on being you. Not what you think I want you to be, but who you are without trying to apologize about being my husband."
She gazed into his eyes for a long moment, and then blinked away suddenly, when she caught herself starting to smile. She began walking back to her room.
"So shut up about it. There's nothing more to talk about in those subjects. Fates, I need a cigar. Where's that drink you brought come from?"
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Post by Ladorak on Oct 22, 2010 23:25:31 GMT -5
He had moved to help. He wasn't a fool He could tell that this wasn't no ordinary headache...it was running her life. It was her in a way...like some black leach wrapped about her heart...or her brain. Either way, he stayed back and listened to her speak.
He disapproved of her taking the chair. "Oh...I'm sure with enough alcohol you might be able to nod off...besides...a bed is nice and flat...but...if you do insist...thank you." he said. She was more gallant than even he would have thought. Offering him her sleeping space in favor of what must not be a very comfortable position to sleep in.
It was then that Saumarez breathed a sigh of relief. It was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. She openly admitted that she wasn't angry at him, or the marriage. She could even grow to like it? Well...that was good! More so than he let on. She had no idea how much it meant to him...and if she could do her part...he was more than willing to drop it and do his part for her. He could let go of the urge to help her...if that's what she wanted above all else. He wanted to help her...more than anything, because looking at her made him cringe as he thought about her pain, but she was insistent...
And he was boring? He pursed his lips, but reached out for her paw, grasping it and giving it a tight squeeze. He listened to her tell him he couldn't help her. He told himself it was rubbish, and that she was wrong...but even if she was, it didn't matter. She didn't want his help...and there was no way he could force that on her.
Their eyes locked then, and the least weasel found himself caught up in one of those weird time freezing moments that occurred infrequently with her. It had happened only twice before...and it was if she were gazing into his very being, looking at his heart and imploring him to be sensitive to her case and to shut certain parts of himself off. He too was gazing down into her soul, and giving her the assurance right then and there that he would. His thumb stroked her wrist without realizing it, and she was starting to smile in what must have been an involuntary reaction before she jerked away.
A smile? What had that been about? He let her paw go, letting her pull away. He matched her steps, heading back with her to her room. "Thank you by the way...for not throwing me out tonight. I don't think I would've gotten much luck fishing for a bed anywhere, even among my own ranks. Oh the alcohol? It's from the Imperium...in the west. You know...one of the nations across the Ceres Ocean. I um...served in action against them about ten years ago...though fortunately I never fought any Ferlusanians...and here we are...allies again after a hundred years." He was going to say that in his opinion, Rosferia had blackmailed Ferlusan into allying with them last time...but that wouldn't do any good.
"Ah...would you perhaps like to hear about my encounter with that Rosferian frigate a month ago? If you have some pens or something in your room, we could set up the battle on your desk." he stopped himself as they neared her door. "Or..." he checked himself. "Whatever you wish to talk about...anything at all." he said, smiling in an easy going manner.
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Post by spender on Oct 24, 2010 7:42:19 GMT -5
Talk. She didn't want to talk. Talking was the problem. Listening, too, for that matter. If only he would use Ferlusanian, instead of insisting upon his own language. Steep flicked blood from her claws, wondering how out of line it would be to, at the very least, request they converse in Rosferian. It would lessen at least some of the processing she had to do.
Her paw tingled from where he'd touched her back.
She wasn't sure what this was. She was exhausted, and yet... at the same time, it was like someone had opened a door, and there was this huge view yearning to be looked at, and how could you go to sleep without knowing what was out there? She hadn't felt this way in years. Even her own soldiers didn't come close to this. And this was just the start... the tiniest inkling of the feeling. It was the possibility of possibilities.
She had opened up to Saumarez, and there was no turning back. All that was left was acceptance, and then time would take care of the rest.
Would she take the chair? What was one more time in the confessional, really? Why was it so easy to sin when you knew you'd be forgiven the moment the priest was done with you?
They had returned to her room. She sat at the desk, began rifling through drawers, Pip hunkered in her lap. She'd hidden her pens after he'd started trying to drag them around in his beak, but where... She found her cigars first, and pulled two out. One for now, one for immediately after now. Steep paused, and then brought out a third in case Saumarez wanted it. Then she slid it back into the box and tossed the whole thing to him.
"No pens. These burn better."
A momentary flash; a grin, or maybe just a showing of teeth. She pulled out another bottle of alcohol. The Odde Tinge she would save for worse days. Today was... today had been good. One of the best in a while. Maybe it would get better again.
"Go on," she urged, "show me what it takes for Welkin to throw around Knighthood titles like pats on the back."
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Post by Ladorak on Oct 24, 2010 14:33:45 GMT -5
Saumarez caught the tossed pack of cigars. Cigars? Alright. That would work. He moved over to his desk, automatically returning what he perceived as her grin without thinking about it. Pulling two out, he brushed some letters aside, making room for the "ships".
"Now...let's see..." he said, crouching down beside her desk and laying the two cigars out. "Wind was...from the north north east. Cherbourg was down here, in the south." he stuck one of his letters at the bottom of the desk to represent the city. "We had received word of a Rosferian frigate preying off our shipping." he moved the first cigar around randomly. "She'd come out at night, and return in the morning. Well...her Captain was nothing but fluff...not a hunting species at all. I on the other paw, am a weasel. So I decided to lay a trap. I cruised off his port, passing him in the night as he headed out." Saumarez moved his own cigar back and forth in front of the "city", aka the envelope.
"Come daylight, we spotted her, and she immediately headed to the east...probably trying to make Cherbourg." he explained, pushing the first cigar towards the right of her desk. "We chased see? Came up on her larboard...left side, and the action commenced. Sharp cannonade between the two of us." He made some low booming noises that resembled mock gunfire, then quickly silenced himself as she might think him odd. "Ahem...yes...right...well we...did some damage to her foremast." He didn't go into further detail, as she probably wouldn't understand what a fore yard was.
"However...we quickly ran into trouble. One of her shots toppled our fore topmast...think of...the upper half of the foremast simply falling over the side. This was a problem, as our advantage in speed was rapidly diminishing. The Reunion, their ship, would be able to escape if i didn't do something quick. So...this next part I'm particularly proud of." He looked up at her, a giddy expression on his face, his eyes gleaming with dibbunish light.
"So...do you much about how a ship uses the wind to move and maneuver Priscilla? Have you ever been aboard one? Studied any of its workings? What do you think I did next?" he asked, standing up and stepping back to let her look at it. It was a novel yet brilliant maneuver, though she probably wouldn't come up with it.
"And don't worry...it's...not something that's glaringly obvious. Oh! Yes forgot to mention, we'd destroyed her rudder, so the only direction she could keep sailing in was east. Knowing that my opponent couldn't move...what do I think I did?" he asked, beaming now, folding his paws behind his back.
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Post by spender on Oct 26, 2010 2:18:48 GMT -5
"I... know enough to know to leave it to sailors," Steep said slowly. "I've been on a ship before." She wondered if he thought she had walked here from Crittenden.
She looked back at the cigars and letters, leaning forwards. One paw absently stroked Pip's neck.
How would you move something faster...
"Did you point all the cannons to the rear and fire them all at once?" she wondered. Judging by the expression on the male's face, this was wrong on so many levels. She grimaced playfully. "Hold on, one more guess..."
Pylaris would do that, too... it must've been something males did. Immersing themselves in a replay of a battle so much that they would make wooshing noises for storms, click their claws for rain, and do whatever it took to emulate the boom and rattle of cannon fire...
"You had your crew strip, shave, and then fashioned their fur into a long rope, which you then used to loop together some delfíns to pull the ship along?"
Even Pip craned his neck around to stare at her incredulously. Although, to be fair, that was Pip's standard stare; he could have been asking her to keep petting him, or for his own cigar, or if she thought Saumarez was boring and if she would like to ditch this joint and join him on a balcony to honk at the stars.
"Okay. I give up. Stop laughing. What did you do?" Yet, not being one to let herself be defeated, she added as a last resort: "Grappling hooks? Crossbows with fire arrows? Did you have an onager on your ship, like the Imperium's do (the idiots)? An aviary force launched from your hold to chase them down?"
This last one left a bitter taste in her throat. No one ever listened to her ideas for making a regiment entirely out of birds of prey. Or using plovers for messengers, despite how fast the little buggers could scoot.
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Post by Ladorak on Oct 26, 2010 14:56:07 GMT -5
At first, Saumarez shook his head, smiling a bit at her suggestion. Much to his surprise, the jill suddenly became competitive, but in a playful way. He let her have more than "one more" guess, as it turned out, and each time his smile grew just a bit wider, until he was starting to laugh a bit, but so too was she.
It was almost as if they were both drunk...drunk off each other's happiness perhaps, but intoxicated all the same. "Hahah! No...I'm not laughing!" he said, this time in her native Ferlusanian, though it was quite clear that he was, despite his best efforts to suppress it. Why he spoke in her native language was a mystery to him...but perhaps he wanted to go a bit easier on her for the moment. He half expected her to slam a pillow into his snout as she went on.
"No, no...heheh...none of those things." he waved a paw at her, shaking his head and trying to stifle his laughter. "Here...let me show you." he snorted his giggles back down into his throat. All that was spoke in Ferlusanian, and he straightened up, trying his best to speak in her language. "OK...so...here we go...I used the wind...but in an unconventional manner." he was still using her native tongue. He moved the cigar up north, directly into the wind. "So I steered right into the wind, and kept delivering broadsides to her as I went." His Ferlusanian wasn't bad, but he struggled with some bits.
"Now the wind...was blowing right against our sails...and started pushing us back...until we eventually fell off and did a bit of a loop see...whooop!" he said, unable to help but laugh at the noise he made. Maybe he was feeling the Odd Tinge a bit more strongly than he originally suspected. He spun the cigar around, so that the front was now facing southwest. "And proceeded to cut in behind him by executing a wear...a turn where your stern passes through the wind." he spun the rolled tobacco so it was facing southeast now, and began mimicking a few cannon noises again.
"Until my broadside was right behind him, firing away and ripping him to shreds. With no recourse, he soon struck his colors...and that...Priscilla...is how I...how did you put it?" he asked her in Ferlusanian. "Got my Knighthood like a pat on the back? 120 casualties on his side...and not a jack on mine." he said, closing one eye and thrusting the cigar back and forth at her, jabbing in her direction, though he didn't actually touch her. "I can hardly believe it myself really, when you look at it that way." his last jab did poke her arm, and he pulled the cigar back, smilingly sheepishly. "Sorry...seems that booze I brought was a bit stronger than I reckoned." he hiccuped, quickly raising a paw to his mouth and smiling in a guilty manner at her from behind it. Only one drink...and he was already this tipsy? Jeez...whatever was in that stuff was at least three times if not four what he was used to...
"I bet Pip even got all that...didn't you ducky?" he asked, quacking right in Pip's face, and doing a right good impression of it too, though the duck still tried to bite his snout. Saumarez barely pulled back in time, chuckling all the while.
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Post by spender on Oct 29, 2010 8:26:11 GMT -5
Steep was smiling... or something was happening to her face to make it passably pleasant. The feeling was not familiar. But inside, her mind was calculating, trying to make sense... Swooping and twirling cigars, wind passing through the stern—what was the stern, again, and why did it have holes for the wind to go through? How did all that mucking about keep them up with a ship heading straight? This was hurting her head...
... but at the same time, some of her pain was being eased by his ... interesting Ferlusanian. The pronunciations were a bit off, but the words seemed right, for the most part. The effect of hearing his voice in her language was... It was nice, she decided.
He was nice. When he wasn't being a pansy little mopey wet nurse. Was it the Tinge talking, or was he really that handsome? Would he be better looking if she cut off that annoying fringe of outgrown fur on his forehead?
Oh, now he was poking her with his cigar. Did he want a light? What an odd little fellow. Oh, he most certainly was drunk. Steep curled her lip, unsure whether to keep laughing, or grimace at his antics. So long as he didn't get any other ideas, she supposed... And thank goodness that wasn't a lit cigar.
"I see," she said, in Ferlusanian, as it seemed he was capable (at the moment) of conversing in that language. She wasn't sure what else to say. It was interesting, but what questions would be worthwhile? She didn't know enough about things to know what else to add to it all. And he was starting to be really weird now...
Oh...
Oh dear.
He quacked.
Steep clamped her arms around Pip, restraining him. He struggled in her grasp, wanting to get out and honk right back at Saumarez and fight the other male away; Pip was a very dominant sort of fellow, and wouldn't have any challenger go unmolested on his watch. Steep settled for grabbing a pawsock off the nearest bedpost and draping it over Pip's head. She put him on the ground and he waddled into the wall and sat down thoughtfully.
Then she turned to look at Saumarez.
She took the cigar out of her mouth, flicked the ash away onto the floor.
She took a step closer. And then another, and another, until she was standing just in front of him. Saumarez seemed to wobble as he looked back up at her.
She reached a paw out, and slowly brushed his cheek, feeling each individual whisker as it slid under her pads. Her mouth opened, just a crack... and then shut again. She blinked, her eyes roaming back to his cowlick. Her head shook almost imperceptibly.
"I think you're drunk," she said, now in Common again. "You should go to sleep soon."
She dropped her paw from his face, then stuck her cigar back in the corner of her lips and rubbed her scarred nose.
Once again she got on all four paws and reached under the bed. This time she drew out a silver tea tray—filled with dirt. She scooted it into the corner of the room and took the sock off Pip's head. He was already asleep, and didn't wake.
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