simplestgift | Twenty-one Bells: [ACTION/VOICE]

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Twenty-one Bells: [ACTION/VOICE]

[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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Very Spanish Inquisition.

I think...people normally pass out from the smoke first, right? That's what's meant to happen?

I believe what's meant to happen is a cruel death no one has to clean up.

Well, either way? She never passed out. Gotta love that Slayer stamina. Endurance. Pain tolerance.

She felt everything.

It's one of the worse...of all the dreams. And they're always so real.

[ a deep breath. then, honesty: ] I hadn't had it in a while. It'd been so long since I'd been Eva. But that night, after Angel -- we feel it all when we dream it, Archie.

That was the dream, then. [He lets out a breath.] They can be so real. Did you tell Jack?

Some. Sorta. I don't -- he doesn't need something new to overreact about. It's not like he'll enjoy hearing about how I live other people's deaths nearly nightly.

It can't be worse than what he's imagining for himself.

...The dreams aren't really something I want to share with him, to be honest. I get hit with fewer of them when I'm around him. I like it that way. I don't what to get them all mixed up in my time with him.

That, I can understand.

He knows they exist. I just -- I don't know. Maybe I should say something. But I've dreamed these dreams for ten years, now. It almost seems pathetic that they'd bother me.

[ these two. peas. in a pod. a pod of 'damn you kids get some help'. ]

[Hell. Yes.]

That, I understand as well. But I can assure you you're not the only one.

People rarely are. The only one, I mean. Even Chosen Ones quickly become Chosen Twos.

I don't think anyone is the only one. The trouble is when so many fail to give any compassion simply because bad experiences are so common.

It's not tough to see that you think I'm one of those.

[ though her failure is rarely orchestrated. at least 9/10ths of the time, it's self-defense. ]

[Good catch, Buffy, but he hadn't been thinking about you this time. He'd been thinking about people he knew back home, Lt. Eccleston especially. Buffy's words suddenly bring up the comparison, though, and for the first time, he realizes how wrong it is. For all her tough talk, Buffy has never failed to show him compassion. Not really.

He lets out a breath.]

I've seen a great many evils and vices. Sometimes I see them where they do not exist.

[He knows because he's been told this. It doesn't make him especially willing to change.]

And I still think Marat was vamp-attacked.

[ that is, they were both prone to seeing evil everywhere. different evils, maybe -- but evils all the same. ]

Aye wyce ahint the haun. [It's uttered softly, as if to himself.] Something my governess used to say when I did something silly, like burn myself playing too near the fire.