Twenty-one Bells: [ACTION/VOICE]

[simplestgift]

[Archie has barely been around town lately, but he does appear in town this afternoon, dashing about to various shops and stores and picking up various one-use items and lots and lots of groceries. He seems to have one thing on his mind.

Later, he'll sit at the fountain and send out the voice message:]

This is Mr. Kennedy. If anyone is in need of me, I shall be at the beach house for most of the week. You can reach me there or on the journals.

Moreover, Mr. Hornblower and I are wondering if anyone would be interested in helping to build a ship. A sloop-of-war, to be specific, with room and ports enough for eighteen or twenty-two guns. I cannot claim we have a practical use for itm besides exploration, but it would be something to do. We have the plans drawn up, and all we need is enough hands to make it possible. We would be grateful for any help at all.

[After this, he'll be walking back to the beach house, where he's been babysitting Jack Sparrow since yesterday.]

Comments

[simplestgift]

Some time into the dinner, Archie remembered to mention, "I'm having dinner tomorrow night with Captain Aubrey and Captain Hornblower." The two titles rolled out with ease, without thought, as if it hadn't been so long since he'd been at home at all. "Just for a few hours, I imagine."

[all7seas]

"Aubrey, eh? How's the man settling?" It was a relief to have a distraction topic at hand. Aubrey had seemed alright, for a Navy man, but you never could tell.

[simplestgift]

"He's staying in...well, what used to be William's room. I doubt he'll remain there. Jolly fellow, he seems, and he claims he can cook."

Archie was unbelievably excited about this dinner, as evidenced by the stifled smile spreading over his face.

[all7seas]

"Funny, isn't it, how life gets more better when someone cooks good things for you?"

[simplestgift]

Archie's gaze ticked up to Sparrow, and the message clicked home a moment later. "You like the dinner?"

[all7seas]

"Aye. I like the dinner. This sort of dinner, Kennedy, is what we'd have at Christmas time on the Pearl. The officers. Oooor celebratory, after we'd taken a fair prize. Not day-to-day fare for us."

[simplestgift]

"Nor for us." Archie stabbed a bit of beef with his fork. "Fresh vegetables, as you know. The ship's cook had to make do with what kept, as always, and a few days in we were knocking the weevils off the biscuits. But on land, at my father's estate..."

He hadn't been back there in about three years.

[all7seas]

"We'd get the usual--flour, salted meat, anything what kept--chickens, too, for longer journeys--but our voyages were short-ish. Hopping between the islands, mostly, with the Pearl. Marauding from Venezuela to Florida. We'd stop for fruit and water and game along the way. We knew where all the women were what would bake us things, as well. We knew the ones to beg, steal, and borrow from.

We ate like kings, though, if we did make a good haul. Ha! After sacking Nassau port..." The pirate smiled as he remembered that sacking. Oh, but it had been a grand sacking, and not a single shot fired.

"On your father's estate...?" Jack prompted between bites. "Grand place, was it?"

[simplestgift]

"Not grand." Archie took a moment to think about this. Not grand, but classic and elegant, not vast, but still an estate and therefore grander than many are used to. Not grand, but home. He smiled.

"I suppose anyone might say that about where they grew up. But it isn't grand, as far as estates go. It's still a bit odd to think of it belonging to my father, although my grandfather died several years back. It's still his, if you take my meaning."

He took a sip of brandy. "Now. Tell me about the sacking of Nassau."

[all7seas]

"More estate than I've got," Jack showed his teeth in a real smile now, all ivory-and-gold. "Me dad's a sort of importantish type in the pirating world. A stay-at-home sort of pirate, in the end, but he did take quite a few prizes with the Troubadour, and even more with the Misty Lady. That were the ship I grew up on.

Ahhhh, Nassau..."

[simplestgift]

"What happened at Nassau?"

[all7seas]

"There were a large detachment of marines at Nassau, you understand. And we had our sights set on the shipment of silver they were meant to guard on its way to the king's coffers. Silly king! What's he want with more specie?

I had a man in their midst, as well. I ever mention Joshamee Gibbs to you, Kennedy?"

[simplestgift]

Archie shook his head.

[all7seas]

"My first mate, was old Joshamee! But before that, he were a Navy man. A warrant officer, and far too interested in rum to advance much. Capital sort of old bugger, is Joshamee Gibbs. A good man. Set my dad free from prison once.

And a way with a story, mind you. I got word to him and the next day he went about infecting the ears of those marines with the story of King Pachacuti."

[simplestgift]

"What did they do?"

[all7seas]

"They laughed at him and called him a drunk old sod, which---true. But then? Then the fleas arrived."

[simplestgift]

That got a smile, and Jack had the complete focus of one Lieutenant Kennedy.

[all7seas]

"King Pachacuti, you must understand, believed himself the source of horrible plagues. Well night biblical, if you will. It was quite a sight, all those soldiers bein' deloused under the bright Caribbean sky!"

[simplestgift]

"In the middle of the day?"

[all7seas]

"Was the only way they could see whether they'd got all the vermin off, wasn't it. And Gibbs kept up his whispering, all the while. And some folk started to listen."

[simplestgift]

"About King Pachacuti's curse?"

[all7seas]

"Aye! 'Course, bein' marines, they didn't talk so badly as ordinary sailors might have. But they misliked standing guard duty over that silver more an' more.

And then the frogs came.

....Ooooor it was one frog, actually, but it was a rather large and horrifying one and it jumped directly out of the soup during the men's mess."

[simplestgift]

A laugh.

1/?

[all7seas]

"Right! So! Frog! And then there was a badger."

2/?

[all7seas]

Wait...no...nononononooooooo BADGER, bollocks...