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Jack was enjoying his time at Hogwarts - particularly the company of the lovely Miss Michon - but no amount of
It was an unusually sunny day, though he shivered as he pulled off his clothes. He had learned that people nowadays did not generally swim in the nude; nevertheless, the thought of wearing clothes in the water seemed unnatural to him, and so by way of compromise, he always went swimming early, in a secluded area where he would not be seen by any early risers. Since the weather had turned chilly with the onset of autumn, he had learned how to perform a warming charm on himself so he wouldn't freeze to death. He performed the charm now, with the aid of his trusty oak wand, and waded into the water, which now merely felt comfortably cool rather than bone-freezingly cold.
The shore sloped sharply here, and only a few paces took him into deep water, where his friend the giant squid lurked. With surprising agility for such a large man, he plunged deep into the clear green water and, catching the squid's enormous eye, waved cheerfully at it. It gazed upon him in its usual benevolent manner, and appeared to wave a tentacle in return - at least, so he thought. It was certainly a most amiable beast. He still wondered if it liked rum.
Surfacing again, he pushed back his wet hair and gazed back towards the shore, wondering if Molly would show up soon.
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Date: 2006-10-15 05:56 am (UTC)Apparently much of the school didn't share her predilection for mornings--the school and grounds were empty when she wandered through them, crossing the dewy lawn in sweatpants and a T-shirt, her sword slung over one shoulder.
The lake was still and smooth, broken only by the faint ripples of Jack's passage, and the languid movements of the giant squid. Grinning, she leaned the sword against a tree and stripped out of her clothes, quailing a little at the thought of how cold the lake must be. Rather than ease her way in, and thus give herself an opportunity to chicken out, she did a flying cannonball into the water.
"Whee!"
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Date: 2006-10-15 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 06:23 am (UTC)"W-Wait," she said, her teeth chattering, "t-there's a w-w-warming spell?" Well, now she felt both cold and stupid. She cast the charm, and at once the frigid chill left her limbs.
"Okay, see, here I thought you had some sailor-type immunity to cold," she said, laughing. "God, I'm lucky that didn't give me a heart attack."
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Date: 2006-10-15 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 07:17 am (UTC)Molly wasn't oblivious to his staring, but she was rather amused by it. "How can you be a sailor if you can't swim?" she asked, doing a jellyfish and letting herself float, drifting with the lake's slow currents.
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Date: 2006-10-15 07:38 am (UTC)"Well, some say that knowing how to swim just makes things worse if you're drowning - it prolongs the struggle, you see. I wouldn't know, as I ain't ever drowned." Though he meant the comment to be humorous, the memory of the drowned men he'd seen gave him a little shudder. Changing the subject, he added, "Now, would you like to see the squid close up? He is right over there, as you can see."
Jack was nothing if not romantic.
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Date: 2006-10-18 02:15 am (UTC)"It's not hot like the tropics, exactly," she said. "Not nearly so humid, for one--if we weren't right beside the ocean, we'd be a desert. It can get humid, but that's more caused by pollution than anything, I think--naturally it's much more of a dry heat." Even winters weren't as cold as the weather in Scotland. "I miss it a little--the weather, that is. Much as I like home, it's nice to get a sort of vacation, but I wish I could have brought the warmth with me."
She raised her head at his mention of the squid, watching the giant creature as it bobbed in the water almost as languidly as she herself. "Sure," she said. "As long as he won't, you know, eat me."
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Date: 2006-10-18 02:32 am (UTC)He swam closer to the squid. "Oh no, it is a most friendly beast - I even saw it playing with a small child, a young friend of mine, and it never harmed her. If you dive, you can see it better. It has the most astonishing eyes." If Jack had known the true nature of Molly's relationship with Steve the Sea Beast, perhaps he wouldn't have been so eager to introduce her to the giant squid - in fact, he would have been quite jealous (not to mention appalled). Fortunately, he was ignorant of the whole affair.
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Date: 2006-10-18 03:06 am (UTC)"Steve ate a few people, but mainly just the assholes nobody liked," she said, recalling how he'd snapped that sleazy Winston Krauss in half. "He couldn't really communicate with anyone but me--couldn't read us, or something. I think we only managed to...I can't call it talk, really, but sense each other's thoughts...because I was nuts."
There was the whole other element of their brief relationship, which neither Jack nor anybody else knew about, and never would. After all, a lady doesn't speak of such things. Or something.
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Date: 2006-10-18 03:29 am (UTC)"You are certainly an excellent swimmer, Molly," he added. "A veritable mermaid, I must say. Though with much nicer legs." Indeed, Molly had very shapely and muscular legs, though only faintly visible through the surface of the water.
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Date: 2006-10-18 03:48 am (UTC)She flashed him a grin, glancing down at the pale, blue-tinted outline of her legs. "You're going to turn me into a snob, with all these compliments," she said, secretly vastly pleased. "I haven't gotten many since I quit making movies--not sure how to handle them anymore."
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Date: 2006-10-18 04:03 am (UTC)They were quite close to the giant squid now, and one of its tentacles emerged from the water right next to Jack. He patted it in a friendly manner, treading water. "See, it is quite harmless. Good day to you, sir," he told it.
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Date: 2006-10-18 04:11 am (UTC)Molly reached out and poked at the tentacle--the only squid she'd ever seen live had been at a zoo, and had been maybe a twenty-fifth this guy's size. "I wish he had a name," she said. "I mean, I know animals don't usually have them in the sense we do, but it would be nice to be able to call him something other than, 'Hey, Squid'."
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Date: 2006-10-18 04:22 am (UTC)"I must admit, I do not even know whether this fellow is male or female," Jack went on, giving the tentacle another amiable pat. "You could give it a name - I hear you are quite adept at naming large sea creatures." He smiled despite his uneasiness.
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Date: 2006-10-18 04:46 am (UTC)"Well, you could sort of say that," she said. "It's the name of my particular brand of madness--it's Greek for 'shattered mind'. I don't really understand much about it, but I think a lot of the 'mad' people in your own time would be called schizophrenic today. Don't worry, it's not contagious," she said, tipping him a wink. "Hereditary, but not contagious."
She gave the squid another friendly poke. "I dunno...I only named Steve 'Steve' because I once had a goldfish named Stevie, and the whole fish-theme seemed to work. We could call this guy--" a snippet of Spongebob flashed through her mind "--Squidward. Works if it's a boy or a girl."
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Date: 2006-10-18 05:25 am (UTC)He looked down through the water at the squid - which stared up at him in its usual benign manner - and said, "I think Squidward is a splendid name. I hope he is happy with it. Or she, as the case may be." He glanced over at the shore, where Molly had left her sword. "I say, this warming spell will be wearing off soon - would you like to go back to shore and show me your swordplay? I have brought my sword too - my uniform sword, that is - I thought you might like to see it." Once again, Jack was innocent of any double-entendre.
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Date: 2006-10-18 05:32 am (UTC)She waved at the squid, wiggling her fingers under the water and watching the refraction distort their image. "Yeah, let's get out of here before we prune up," she said, grinning at him and striking out for the shore. The double-entendre wasn't lost on her, even if it was on him, but she knew that wasn't what he meant.
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Date: 2006-10-18 03:32 pm (UTC)"Now, this is my uniform sword (http://www.militaryheritage.com/images/1827nvy1.jpg)," he said, holding it up, "which I wear with my full-dress uniform, on formal occasions. Is it not fine? It cost me a pretty penny, more's the pity."
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Date: 2006-10-23 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 05:18 am (UTC)She took his sword from him, testing the balance--it was beautifully made. Shifting her footing, she swung it in a few experimental swipes, listening to the satisfying swish it made as it cut the air.
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Date: 2006-10-23 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 03:39 am (UTC)"I would not call myself an expert at swordsmanship - we mostly just use 'em when we board an enemy ship. Most fighting at sea is done with cannon. Lord, you should hear it when all the ship's guns fire a broadside at once. It is the finest sound in the world, though it does frighten the lubbers." He chuckled reminiscently. "I do appreciate a fine sword, though, and this is certainly one." He made a few experimental stabs with it, and then handed it back to Molly. "I should like to see you use it, if I may."
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Date: 2006-10-26 04:02 am (UTC)"They're mostly out of print," she said, which was a half-lie--they'd been out of print until the whole Steve thing, and they were still pretty rare. "But I can show you some of the things I did."
Thankful she'd thought to stretch first, she went through a quick warm-up of kendo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendo) moves--a series of precise, practiced sweeps and slashes, easing her muscles into the movement. "I'll show you the move that got me the part," she said, grinning, and with a complicated flick of her wrist got the sword spinning--its weight was so similar to that of her old theatrical sword that she'd adjusted to the change nicely, though the sharpness of the new one meant that if she screwed up, she'd probably slice her own ear off.
The blade spinning regularly, she launched into a seemingly impossible backflip, catching the sword and keeping it in the air each time her feet hit the ground. She fumbled the landing a bit--her old gymnastics instructor would have winced--but grinned at him nonetheless.
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Date: 2006-10-26 04:10 am (UTC)He applauded heartily. "Bravo, bravo, my dear! Where on earth did you learn how to do that? Why, you are as good as a tumbler, I must say." He wished he could show off some of his own skills for Molly, but in the absence of a ship, she would just have to use her imagination.
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Date: 2006-10-26 04:15 am (UTC)"Now," she said, "I don't know a thing about Western swordplay, so you'll have to teach me as we go along, and I can teach you some kendo moves. Hopefully we won't both wind up in the hospital wing, having sliced off our own fingers."
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Date: 2006-10-26 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 05:08 am (UTC)She stood in the accepted starting positon, feet apart, sword held at stomach height. "It's a very disciplined sort of fighting," she said. "You always start like this--it's called chudan-no-kamae. I don't know exactly how it translates in English, but it means this." She brought the sword around in a smooth arc, demonsrating the usual opening sweep. "Are there any real rules in practical swordwork on ship, or is it kind of catch-as-catch-can?"
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Date: 2006-10-26 05:20 am (UTC)He awkwardly mimicked Molly's stance, holding up his sword. He was agile in the water and on board ship, but like many sea creatures, on land he was rather clumsy. "There are rules in dueling and such," he said, "but on ship, in battle, it is kill or be killed. We use pikes and boarding axes (http://members.tripod.com/tomahawks-r-tatca/id71.htm) as well as swords in the thick of it - and guns, of course. You have already seen the marks they leave." He was referring to his battle scars.
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Date: 2006-10-26 05:25 am (UTC)She shifted her footing, taking one slow step forward so he could see what she was doing, and brought the sword around again in a kind of salute. "Now, keep in mind that in a real fight, all this is happening really, really fast," she said, realizing what she was doing probably looked quite stupid in slow-motion. "Since we're using real weapons, I don't want to take any chances at the start."
Wincing slightly at the memory of his scar, she tilted her head to one side. "Which of those weapons gave you that scar?" she asked. "Was it a sabre?" Whatever had made it, it looked as though it had been absolutely agonizing--it would had to have been, given how long and deep it was. And sailors in his time had taken that sort of thing as a matter of course.
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Date: 2006-10-26 05:48 pm (UTC)"You mean the scar on my back?" he said. "No, that was a splinter wound. When iron shot hits the ship's timbers, splinters fly about dreadfully. This is a splinter wound, too." He pointed to a faint line across his forehead. "These are from swords and pikes and things," he added, lifting his shirt briefly to show her the criss-crossing lines of old wounds across his torso. She had probably been too involved with the chocolate syrup to notice them earlier. "Stephen has put more stitches in me than he ever has in any garment," he added, chuckling.
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Date: 2006-10-30 02:47 am (UTC)She brought her sword around again, still slowly, conscious of the blade's sharpness. "See, that's where I was lucky," she said. "When you're making movies, they do everything they can to make sure you don't get hurt--" not that it helped her much in the end, mind "--so I didn't ever have to do this while knowing somebody else was trying like hell to kill me."
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Date: 2006-10-30 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 04:11 am (UTC)"Theo's my husband," she said. "I hope you don't mind I didn't mention him before...I was enjoying your company, and I didn't want to...I don't know, put you off at all."
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Date: 2006-10-30 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 04:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 05:13 am (UTC)She didn't flinch at the mention of children, but her expression did soften.
"No, no children," she said. "Theo and I didn't get married until I was almost forty, and when you're...artistic...like me, having a family would be hard. I mostly raised my little brothers, though, so they're sort of like kids to me." She smiled, thinking of them fighting over the Lucky Charms every morning while she ran around and found them something to take to school for lunch. "How old are your children?"
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Date: 2006-10-30 05:22 am (UTC)He lowered his sword and automatically went to put it back in its sheath, when he realized he wasn't wearing it, so he merely held the weapon loosely in one hand. "Fanny and Charlotte are eight - they are twins, you know, alike as two pins. George is three. I do not get to see them very much, being so often at sea. Once I came home and they did not recognize me." He still felt a pang, remembering that.
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Date: 2006-10-30 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 05:34 am (UTC)He lifted his sword, and then lowered it again. "I do wish to learn more swordplay," he said, "but by God, I would give my eyeteeth for a cup of coffee. What say you, my dear? Would you like to go to the Great Hall, or to Hogsmeade?"