Twenty-two bells: [WRITTEN/ACTION]

[simplestgift]

[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.]

Comments

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

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.

[simplestgift]

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

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

[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.

[simplestgift]

[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.]

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

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

[simplestgift]

[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.

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

[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.

[simplestgift]

[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?

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

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.

[simplestgift]

[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.

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

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?

[simplestgift]

[A pause. He doesn't feel like Sawyer is really his story to tell. Keene, perhaps, but Keene wasn't a bad sort, just frail and oblivious.]

...Which events?

I can't spell. Apparently.

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

Why Lieutenant Kennedy, the events to which you have been alluding this short while past.

[An invasive question, yes, but he provided Archie with his perspective on this issue. It seems to Norrington that he is therefore due a little give.]

/points and laughs

[simplestgift]

I wasn't referring to a single set of events, sir.

[Just...mostly Sawyer.]

/cries all over his keyboard.

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

I see.

[It is possible that he is telling the truth, of course, posing a hypothetical puzzle. On the other hand, it is entirely more likely that he is withholding the circumstances of an event for which he feels shame or regret. It irks the admiral a little, but ultimately he has no claim to the knowledge. It is none of his business.]

Then I apologize for pushing the matter.

[simplestgift]

[He lets out a breath--releasing tension before speaking about something difficult, not registering impatience. Really, he can't talk about Sawyer to an admiral. Not when Horatio really was responsible for making the captain fall into the hold.]

There's no need to apologize. I...could tell you something about Captain Keene, but not...not the other one. It isn't my story to tell, I'm afraid.

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

I have no desire to compel you to speak on a matter with which you feel uncomfortable.

[That may not have been true a moment ago, but by now the sense of entitlement has begun to fade. To cover the following silence he leans forward and opens the lid of the tea-pot. Empty. He frowns into its dark interior.]

[simplestgift]

Allow me, sir. [Archie sweeps up the teapot, but not without casting the man a grateful, if brief, smile.]

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

[Norrington nods to that smile - or is he simply dropping his head to turn his attention from Archie to the table in front of him? With the side of his thumb he obliterates a ring which the pot has left behind it, a water-mark on the table.]

Were you present in Luceti last winter?

[simplestgift]

[Archie carries the tray into the kitchen and answers from there.] I was.

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

[He may not be able to see the Lieutenant, but Norrington isn't going to raise his voice. Not indoors. That would be undignified.]

Then tell me - what can I expect of the climate of this place? Will it likely snow? Or will we will rather be more concerned with rain?

[simplestgift]

Not really any rain, no. Quite a bit of snow. Not quite as hard as winters back home were. In Scotland, I mean, not on Earth in general. Not even in England, really. Somewhere in between.

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

[Suddenly, though, Norrington is not certain just how far he is willing to trust last year's forecast as a benchmark for the coming months. He had thought that it would do him good, but now? Now that he has the information he realizes to his dismay that Luceti is place of uncertainty, of sudden shifts and other surprises.]

A pity. A little more rain would not go amiss. I find that it brings England vividly to mind.

[simplestgift]

I preferred the sun in England. No reason it should change now. [Archie sets the electric tea kettle on to heat and comes back into the living room with a plate of ladyfingers for the meantime, setting it on the coffee table.]

Some corner of a foreign field shall be forever England...

[abidinglaw.livejournal.com]

[Norrington will not take one of the offered lady fingers until Archie does so first. Another matter of courtesy.]

I have had quite enough of the sun during my service around the islands of the Carribbean. Besides, I am of the opinion that rain is Britain's element. The hues of the place never seem quite right unless viewed through a veil of fresh and falling rain, beneath a viel of clouds.

[A smile teases the edges of his lips. Is he joking, perhaps? Or simply recalling a fond memory?]