simplestgift | Twenty-two bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

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Twenty-two bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

[Filtered from known villains and Grell, 100% unhackable]

[The handwriting is disguised and the picture is obscured.]

For the benefit of the new feathers: if you feel unsafe somehow in your own home, you may go to the Welcome Center and be placed in a safe house until you can get back on your feet. There does not have to be a reason. Even if you have returned from a kidnapping and do not wish to be alone, this is available to you.

[/Filter]

[Later, another written message, without the picture obscured.]

To anyone who volunteered to help build the ship:

We will begin work on Monday, at eight o'clock in the morning. We will meet at the fountain and walk from there. It'll mostly be cutting and transporting lumber at first, I'm afraid, and that includes building a cart to transport the lumber in.

Thank you,

Lt. Kennedy

[Then, written more hastily a little while later:]

If anyone has stories about Dr. McCoy, I should like to hear them.

[Today, Kennedy is stopping at the grocery store and the smithy, hoping someone with experience at the forge will be up to the challenge he has in mind.

Tonight, he is back to work at Cloud Nine, mostly waiting tables and looking fairly miserable. It's his first night of work since Dr. McCoy left, and since he dislikes the job anyway, he's not doing great at it tonight.

Before he goes home, he will stop by house 7. He will be home late.]

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[For Norrington the relief comes in the form of a renewed belief in the English navy. Under Beckett, the navy was a tool of heedless ambition and merciless persecution. Pellew sounded like a hero indeed. If the navy of the future could foster men like him and Hornblower, if it valued men like these enough to raise them to positions of command, perhaps it would yet be redeemed. For the first time in a long time, then, he finds himself looking fondly into the past. It is a queer feeling indeed.]

At the height of my career, I commanded both the HMS Interceptor and the HMS Dauntless. The Interceptor was the fastest ship in all the Caribbean - Dauntless was unmatched for her strength.

[He had been Commodore, then, and would yet attain the rank of Admiral, but to be an admiral in a corrupt navy stirred no pride in him.]

Edited 2011-10-12 23:48 (UTC)

I was in the Caribbean, back home. Kingston, last I knew. [Probably buried there.] Quite different. I wish I'd been able to see home again. Before coming here.

[Wait...was he really having this conversation with Norrington?]

I suppose we must console ourselves with the fact that it is not a unique fate - a morose comfort to my mind, but there you have it. Men like you and I, Archie, we placed ourselves knowingly at the mercy of the wind and the whims of our kings besides. We cannot now look back indignant at where those currents have drawn us.

[Does the admiral even believe this himself? Well, some version of it. If nothing else, he believes that his own path was of his own choosing. He is too proud of that achievement to mourn its conclusion. Indeed, it was when the interests of the navy began to bend him to a path that he was unwilling to walk that he cut himself forcibly from it. Yet, he is not without regrets:]

We can not, however strongly we may wish to.

Edited 2011-10-17 11:00 (UTC)

[The use of the familiar name brings a surprised glance. Men like you and I. At first he wants to deny he is anything like the admiral, but then he is curious.]

When did you begin life at sea?

My father was an admiral before me - it was always expected of me that I should follow him.

[A pause]

I tell you this only so that you might understand that though it may be an unsatisfactory answer, nevertheless I must insist -- I cannot recall a moment in my life that I have not spent at sea - be that in thought, in fact, or in spirit.

Edited 2011-10-20 01:15 (UTC)

My grandfather was the sailor before me. Titled, you understand, but we weren't particularly wealthy, and being the third son I suppose it was inevitable I'd follow in his footsteps. And he wanted it very badly. He was always telling me stories of his adventures. Some of them might have been true, but of course to a young boy with romantic notions, it all sounded very exciting. To set it further in stone, my parents named me for him. It was all going to happen whether I wanted it to or not.

[He doesn't sound bitter or regretful.]

Then you do understand.

[Spoke the admiral in a tone that in actuality made the words sound more akin to - 'I understand']

I do. Although there was a time I thought I'd run off and join the theatre, but thankfully I was talked down from it. I'd've been dreadful. But I did not know that when I was nine.

[Perhaps it is the intimacy of the setting, the quiet comradery that this space afforded beyond the public eye. Perhaps it is the tone of the conversation, just another step along the same path that put the notion into Norrington's mind to use the lieutenant's first name. Perhaps, in fact, some of the madness of Buffy Summers and Jack Sparrow was rubbing off on him. Whatever the reason, the admiral first smirks and immediately thereafter scoffs into his tea-cup.]

It may not yet be too late to learn.

Edited 2011-10-20 13:14 (UTC)

It is most certainly too late. [See? This is becoming easier. Really, once things click with Archie, he's the easiest guy int he world to get along with, and that click has allllmost happened. Either way, Norrington is going to learn just how talkative Archie can be.] Back then, I had the good fortune to fall desperately in love with an actress. Of course when you're that age, everything is a terribly grave affair, so I sneaked to her dressing-room to see if I could talk to her or catch even a glimpse of my divine romantic heroine. Her servant nearly gave me a sound beating when he caught me, but the goddess herself came to my rescue. She said to me that if I wanted to be an actor, I had to have more love for the stage than for the plays. Gave me a good deal to think about. I remain content to be a lover of the art rather than a participant. Truth is, I prefer it, although my dear mother would tell you I was an actor from birth. Any time there was trouble, at least.

Terribly grave.

[The admiral agrees:]

You are a young man yet, Lieutenant. Perhaps if you see a promotion or two more you will be permitted to pursue both careers in tandem. There is much of acting in an officer's role.

[His uncharacteristically jovial spirit is exemplary of this. Might he be acting even now? Or is his accustomed severity the product of a long-extended performance?]

Edited 2011-10-20 13:47 (UTC)

[A bright, genuine smile that turns just a little sad.] There is.

[There was so much acting on the Renown.]

Sometimes I wonder whether the acknowledgement of that fact is what sets a good sailor apart from a great one -- in his worst moments, he must concede that his commander is a human being in spite of himself.

[Archie glances at Norrington, watching him carefully. After a moment, he nods softly.]

God on his own ship or not. Always seemed a bit blasphemous, that saying, though I understand what is meant.

And therein lies the act. No man is a God, but disobedience costs lives and as such he needs must be. Or - must be seen to be. For the good of all.

Edited 2011-10-20 14:26 (UTC)

[Carefully:] And if the captain is unfit for command?

[Also carefully..]

I must presume that you mean to ask what must be done if the captain believes himself a God in fact--

That is, as well as in the eyes of his men.

Edited 2011-10-20 14:42 (UTC)

[A pause.]

It's one interpretation, I suppose. But what if the captain...what if he is the greatest danger aboard his own ship? Mad, or cruel, or--

[Wow, he's really overstepped it now. He bites his own lips and looks apologetic.]

I am beginning to get the sense that this line of questioning may not have been entirely hypothetical.

Edited 2011-10-20 14:56 (UTC)

[Some rapid blinking, and a slight flush to his cheeks before he raises his chin, breathes in, and speaks evenly.]

I only wanted to know what your opinion would be, sir.

[Cutler Beckett was such a man - mad, ambitious, and worse. He seemed to take a sadistic joy in drawing others into his follies. That Norrington had made too small an effort to put an end to that man is one of his greatest regrets. Instead he had seen an opportunity for his own advancement in Beckett's ambition. And he had seized it.

Yet when he learned at last that he himself had been corrupted by the same fire that burned within Lord Cutler Beckett he had taken the steps necessary to ensure his own removal from the service. In doing so he ensured his own destruction. He would like to think that his own death subtracted from Beckett's power, even slightly.]

To allow such a captain to decide the fates of better men? I would deem that a form of madness in itself - and an inexcusable cowardice.

Edited 2011-10-20 15:25 (UTC)

[That's all well and good in theory, but in practice? Still, the answer causes the lieutenant to relax a little, and his eyes drop.]

He might be considered a hero already. Or simply...sick, dying, frightened, unconcerned with the goings on aboard his own ship. [Aaand the hypothetical captain is morphing into Keene now instead of Sawyer.] Were you his lieutenant, what would you do?

If I were his lieutenant? I would doubt the force of my own opinion in passing judgement on the sum of his being. Furthermore, I would shy away from inciting mutiny on the basis of my own, doubtlessly biased perspective.

Yet, if I were convinced of his evil beyond the slightest doubt and witnessed the weight of evidence of his brutality and incompetence grow bloated with every passing hour -- why then I imagine that I would seek to detain him, and that I would set about drawing up a list of his transgressions. I would undertake these tasks alone, and I would not for a single moment doubt the consequences due to me at the moment of making port.

All men of the navy pray that they are never led by such a man.

[I would not presume. It had been Dr. Clive's excuse. But the scenario Norrington had been given hadn't included the fact that all the other lieutenants were in agreement. He seems to give real thought to Archie's question, and that's important. Moreover, his solution is essentially the same as the one Sawyer's lieutenants came up with.]

Thank you. For answering my question, sir.

Thank you for inviting me into your home.

[He counters, bowing his head just slightly. Though it may seem to have been a contentious question to Archie, Norrington finds that he is only too willing to advise the young admiral on the manner in which he should conduct himself aboard a navy ship. Perhaps if James had been on active duty the admiral might have expressed greater reluctance, but the navy has no hold on him here, and he has no responsibility to it.

And furthermore, he is slowly coming to realise this.]

Now, perhaps you might oblige me -- how did these events conclude in actuality?

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I have apologize for the tenses in the previous post. I didn't know what I will be thinking.

lol It's okay.

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