simplestgift | Seventeen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

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Seventeen Bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

On July the 4th, 1776, one Horatio Hornblower was born in Kent. If you see him, bid him many happy returns. He will most likely grump about it all day and act ungrateful, but don't allow it to discourage you. He does appreciate it, he simply does not know it.

[For most of the day, Archie will be running around trying to furnish a bedroom in the house for a new housemate. He'll end up in the library, Good Spirits, the grocery store, then finally the Battle Dome, mostly staring in bewilderment at the controls before deciding this is too scary and leaving. At some point, he'll also take a walk in the woods, rain or no rain, in shirtsleeves and waistcoat but no coat. After a while, he'll get back on the journals.]

[Filtered away from Grell, 44%]

If you wanted to surprise someone dear to you, to cheer her up when she returned from being kidnapped, what would you do for her?

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[Archie beckons him to an aisle with bedsheets galore.] Most of them are cotton. I learnt something--the higher this number, the softer the sheets.

[Bachelors.]

Clever, clever. [Since it's free, William grabs some that seem to have a high number-- and feel precious fine to him-- and slings them over his shoulder. They're fairly plain, off-white and perhaps a little too big for his bed, but William will never complain of having too much of anything.]

This'll do me fine, Kennedy. You know, I've heard this place is awful-- don't like this Third Party business one bit. But... [William strokes the fabric at his shoulder. He's never owned anything this nice in his life.] I can't complain about the goods.

No, one can't. Here, you'll want pillow-cases. [He tosses some at William, nearly hitting him in the face by accident.] No one likes the Third Party business, no. Quite ugly, it is, even by our standards.

[He sputters a bit at being hit in the face with a pillow case, but, being an exemplary resilient sort of gentleman, recovers quickly.] Was wondering about that, myself. Heard there was a press or something. How'd you sign up? Do they keep commissions?

No, they don't do any of that. [Archie sorts through blankets.] Everyone in the village is a candidate, even small children. When the time comes to fight, they draw names and those are the ones who fight. No one can volunteer.

[William grabs a quilt that looks shockingly like the one he has in Chichester, throwing that over his shoulder also. This is nice. Familiar. He appreciates it.] Seems like a bloody awful way to go about it. How d'you expect to win anything with women and babes manning the gunnery? [He's not angry, just embarrassed for them. Don't they know how the military works?]

Babes I will grant you. There are women here, though, who can rip you apart, William. I've seen Buffy fight. Tell the truth, that isn't the worst of it. Last time, we were sent into the fray with no orders and not even a map. Their own scouts hadn't been able to return alive. We were only told to kill everyone we saw. What do you imagine happened?

Buffy? That poor girl? I think she told me of that. Shot a general by mistake, she did. [He tsks and grabs hold of a pillow.] Poor girl.

...She doesn't use guns, William. She does not like them. Thinks they're useless--she's said so. She prefers bare hands or blades.

Alright, fine, Archie, very funny. But how did she manage to shoot the general, hmm? Hard luck, I hear.

She didn't shoot him. She killed him, probably with a sword of some kind. I wasn't there for it.

Edited 2011-07-05 21:29 (UTC)

[Here, Archie, have the most incredulous look William's face can give you:] Archie. I saw her. My sister, I grant you, could give a good sock in the jaw, but she's smaller than them.

I've seen her fight, William.

Have you, now? [William drifts off, grabbing a duvet cover (he's going to use it as a light blanket in the summer. Bachelors.) He's not really listening anymore; he figures, when Archie starts talking sense again, then he'll give proper care to the conversation at hand.] With a frying pan? My little sisters're hellfire with a frying pan.

With a sword. She killed a creature bigger than you and me put together, sure as I stand here.

Yes, yes, and next she met Old Scratch himself and plucked out his eye.

I'm perfectly serious, William. Ask her to open a bottle of beer with her bare hands, she'll do it.

[In the midst of this undignified jest, he thinks it fine to try in something daring:] Archie, she is a barmaid. You said it yourself.

But these new bottles, William. They have caps that men like you or I have to use a tool to open. Metal lids, shaped so they hold on so--well. Just a moment.

[He's spotted something. He dives down one aisle and comes back with an old-fashioned soda bottle.] Like this, see? Try to open it.

[William siiighs. He puts down the blankets and tries and fails to open the bottle with his hands. For a time, he fiddles with the lid; William may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knows his basic mechanics-- wood and iron, glass and steel. He eventually gets it by propping the lid against the corner of a nearby desk, and then yelping when the carbonation causes the soda to burst forth and froth.] Bloody Hell, Archie, what is this thing?

It's a bottle, William. You pour something into it, normally something liquid, and it keeps it from running all about the place. Very useful things to keep drinks in.

[First Lieutenant William Bush of Hist Britannic Majesty's Sailing Ship the Hotspur was then at that moment very tempted to spash Archie in the face with soda.] I mean what's in the bottle, Kennedy.

It's a drink. You drink it. I can't remember what they call it, but it's quite popular here.

Looks bloody poisonous to me. [Yes. It's poison. Can't splash Archie with poison. He'd die. Again. Can't kill Archie again; then Horatio would be most cross.]

[He wipes the offending liquid off on his-- Archie's-- shirt, and picks up the blankets once more.] This place is so damned full of stuff, I swear.

One gets used to it. [Archie picks up a bobble-headed doll of a woman in a grass skirt playing a ukulele and stares at it a moment, first adjusting to its existence, then trying to figure out how best to troll Bush with it.]

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