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[gentlearcher]

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[It was a long walk to Caer Glaem. Fortunately, Susan was close enough that that the road to it was fairly safe. She would feel better about this whole thing if her brothers and sister were here, or if she had her bow, or even her horn. Instead she was wearing her school clothes, and they were none too clean at this point. Still, Susan was hoping for a better explanation, and from what the friendly fairies and townspeople had to say the castle was the place to get it.

She was hungry. Fruit trees and handouts didn't do much in the way of assuaging hunger when one was walking all day. She hoped there would at least be food in the castle; it was looming large in her vision now and she hoped to get there within the end of the day. It was a good thing, too. She'd bathed in a stream that morning, but--

"Lawkamercyme!" cried a high pitched voice, and Susan turned her head just in time to see a small, green-tinted fairy fall into a faint. A dark shadow globbed its way towards the fairy, Susan was sure it had foul intent. Dark shadows with gleam of teeth almost always did. She wished for her bow more than ever, but didn't hesitate to pick up a large stone at her feet. She was frightened - how did one fight a shadow? Oh, she hated to fight - but she wasn't about to just stand there and watch. She shouted, "You! There! Get away from that fairy!"

The shadow did not seem much impressed. And so Susan threw the stone with impressive aim, clipping the beast right in the mouth. It hissed and abandoned the fairy, heading towards her instead. She bent to pick up another rock.]

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[For a long moment, the locket shows a beautiful face with a furrowed brow, staring intently at its own reflection. Susan has never seen anything like this before. She is at the castle now, clean and clothed and fed, so her image doesn't look quite as dire as it had earlier that day, and her dark hair is swept back neatly in a braid.] Ah - so it does work! At least, I assume it does, and this is a message going out all over the lockets and not just some sort of fancy mirror.

[In either case, she's beginning to feel a little self-conscious. She reaches for easily remembered dignity.] I don't mean to intrude, but I have heard that this is something which happens often. And I wonder, is there anyone from England here? [She misses her family; two weeks of walking among strangers in a strange land was more than enough alone time for now, thanks.] Or even [marked hesitation] Narnia?

Comments

[gentlearcher]

Ah, now that was the name of a ship if she'd ever heard one. Still, better to ask, "Is that your ship?"

Yes, she could easily picture this man as a sailor - a 'free sailor,' probably, and her mind began to sketch in some imaginary details.

[all7seas]

"She's mine, I'm hers." It was a mutual love, although she seemed to enjoy leaving him behind. Hrmph.

"Well, you'd best take the sailor's cure for a sore foot, darling. And I'm warning you: it involves lots of lemons."

[gentlearcher]

Susan could tell when a subject was closed, although it had stirred in her a strange longing to talk about the Splendour Hyaline... well, she could take a hint. There wasn't much joy for a landlocked sailor.

So she gave the man a very pretty smile and said, "What do you do with a lot of lemons? It's not the same as a remedy for spots, is it?"

[all7seas]

Mostly Jack didn't want embarrassing questions about where his ship was, or whose debt he was in to sail her. Ugh. Tentacle-beards.

And wasn't that just the prettiest smile. Prettier even than Elizabeth Swann.

"You halve it and rub it across the soles of your feet."

[gentlearcher]

"And I thought sailors kept lemons on to cure scurvy," she said in the tone of 'you learn something new every day.

[all7seas]

"We do!" This girl seemed so interested in pirates, like the red-haired Alayne and the dark-haired Ariadne. "You can be scurvy-free and have lovely soft inviting feet at the same time, you know. They're not mutually expulsive."

Pirate spa, apparently.

[gentlearcher]

Susan laughed. She couldn't really help it. Picturing sailors with inviting feet... good Lord, all the sailors she knew would turn over in their hammocks, so to speak.

"I have to say I've not heard of that before." This was a lovely conversation, really. Lightly informative, and entirely distracting and she was glad of it.

[all7seas]

It felt rather good to make this girl laugh. Most girls didn't really appreciate his stories, he found. It was a shame she was in the Other Court. Jack wasn't sure whether his feet would be held to the flame in an all-out war or not, but he'd hate to be placed in that sort of position.

"Put a man and a barrel of fruit out on the sea for months, it's surprising what he'll come up with, lass. Me, I survived all alone on a tiny atoll in the middle of nowhere. Just my wits, you see!"

And a cache of rum and food and plenty of shade and even an old hammock that a smuggler had left behind. It had been marvelous.

"Though I don't want to give you any nightmares, what with the intense levels of excitement attached to any given story about my life."

[gentlearcher]

Oh yes, she's sure he just survived on his wits. She could almost hear Edmund say something like, 'No wonder they're a bit frazzled. And why are you talking to him anyway, Su, don't you have better things to do?'

Except... no, she really didn't.

"Oh, I think I'm due for a nightmare," she said. "I ran into one of those shadow things earlier. If I'm going to have a nightmare anyway, I might as well get a good story out of it."

[all7seas]

Edmund would object to Jack immediately. No question. As for the shadow issue, he kept his voice careful and nonchalant.

"Did you, now? A shadow? And did it eat your shoes?"

That would explain her hurting feet at least. And her alive-ness would explain the fact that she hadn't been devoured by the shadow-thing.

"If it did, it would be exactly like Rory Cadwalader, the shoe-gnawing Welshman."

[gentlearcher]

"No, it didn't eat anything," and she sounded rather satisfied about that. "A dog got it first."

Susan had a long history with disliking things that ate sentient beings. It had been the main cause of their war with the giants to the north, after all, and that was a war that even she had fully supported.

And still, she wouldn't be forgetting that row of teeth any time soon.

"I didn't know that shadow-creatures and Welshmen shared a similar appetite."

[all7seas]

"Only THIS Welshman, child. He were peckish for leather uppers, mainly, though I saw him swallow a heel once on a bet. Insisted it did his gut good. Plenty of fiber.


Glad you had the dog, though."

[gentlearcher]

"Was he a sailor too? Lemons and leather uppers - that's a curious diet."

She was glad that the dog had arrived, really. That wasn't really a story she wanted to get into. Still, though... "Thank you. I was too."

[all7seas]

"Pirate. Piratical sailor, aye." It was curious if only because he was making it up on the fly. "They used to call him the Mad Tiger Shark, because his tastes ran to other rindy, unseasoned, metallic sorts of things. Whatever dropped in the water and fetched against his hull, really."

He also loved an opportunity to undermine the reputations of Welshmen. And speaking of dogs:

"Once ate a dog, just to get the collar. And that, darling, proved his ultimate undoing. For that dog belonged to Queen Ilarya Mongosa, and she would have none of it."

[gentlearcher]

Susan, like most British people, had an inordinate fondness for dogs. "Well, I am glad to hear that. There are some points at which, strange appetite or no, one should really draw the line."

She also could guess that this was mostly a tall tale, but she didn't really mind. "Are you a pirate as well?"

[all7seas]

"Captain Jack Sparrow, darling. Pirate." She was going to find out sooner or later. "I was present when the Princess's eunuchs took it upon themselves to retrieve her dog. They cut the Mad Tiger Shark open and out jumped Bitty Fifi, not even digested!

Goes to show you shouldn't overload your innards with leather. Completely stalls out the pipes."

[gentlearcher]

Ah, a pirate. Well, she had suspected as much. Still, he was at the very least an entertaining pirate, and as long as she didn't trust him and kept space between them...

"Shame about Mad Tiger Shark," she said, pronouncing the Welshman's name with barely a pause. "But I am glad for Fifi. It turns out all that sole-eating did him some good. Maybe that is why the shadow creatures are afraid of dogs."

It was as good a theory as any she'd heard, anyway. It felt good to talk nonsense, especially since she'd felt so on edge for the past two weeks.

[all7seas]

Ugh. Shadow creatures. Jack hated intangible things. "Aye. Though I can't imagine the dog gets much pleasure out of chomping down on one."

[gentlearcher]

"I don't know about that," Susan said, a touch wryly. "There is a certain satisfaction in doing something for its own sake."

She had certainly taken a great deal of satisfaction from the shadow creature's disappearing; from the way the hound had set upon it, Susan assumed it felt the same.

[all7seas]

"Agreed. If there's a sea? Sail it because it's there!" Shadow beast? Bite it! "'S why we all must divine what we're put on this grand earth for."

[gentlearcher]

What they were there for did seem to be the pertinent question. She gave a quiet little laugh.

"That does seem to be so, yes."

[all7seas]

"They tell us we're here for some great battle, but I've been here for months and I've yet to see any of that sort of thing. Likely nothing to worry about."

[gentlearcher]

And yet the castle where she stayed very clearly bore the results of some great conflict. Susan wasn't exactly going to offer that information to Jack - she was not an idiot - but she did think she had cause to be concerned.

"I have heard a good deal about that," she said. "About shards and allegiances and the kings and queens of this land. It seems as though there is more than enough to worry about."

[all7seas]

And that's why rum is important.

"Tell you what -- you ever get worried? You can locket me!" How generous.

[gentlearcher]

Susan blinked a few times. She hadn't expected that sort of offer. It was kind if... well... she had to admit at the least she had enjoyed the conversation. Maybe similar nonsense would help her in the future, who knew?

She gave him a warm smile, "Thank you, Captain Sparrow. I may do just that."