[identity profile] slothbefouler.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] hh_mirror


Jack was enjoying his time at Hogwarts - particularly the company of the lovely Miss Michon - but no amount of smexing pleasurable activities could entirely remove the awkwardness he always felt when he was away from the water, his native element. He was like the opposite of that Greek fellow - the one who was helpless when his feet weren't touching the ground. Hence, his daily swim - which didn't quite alleviate his longing for the ocean, but was certainly better than remaining forever landlocked.

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.

Date: 2006-10-15 05:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
Molly had always been a naturally early riser, and had been up several hours before making her way down to the lake. She'd gone through her morning stretches, but had decided to forego her usual sword exercises--she didn't want to be too tired when she went swimming.

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!"

Date: 2006-10-15 06:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
She spat out water, shivering--it had been like jumping into an icebath.

"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."

Date: 2006-10-15 07:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
She grinned at him. "I grew up in California," she said. "The Pacific isn't very warm, but when it's hot out, everybody who can goes to the beach." And every year a few got eaten by sharks, but that wasn't maybe the thing to tell a man who spent most of his life at sea.

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.

Date: 2006-10-18 02:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
She shook her head, her grey-blonde hair floating around her like some weird sea creature.

"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."

Date: 2006-10-18 03:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"Never been to Boston--or any further east than Texas--but California's very pretty." She scissor-kicked, scooting forward toward the squid.

"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.

Date: 2006-10-18 03:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"It does--slang term for crazy, among other things." She smiled at the idea of Jack hanging around with a bunch of fruitcakes, pretending to be as nutty as they were--it was a terribly amusing thought. Though from her own experience, she wondered if some of the loonies hadn't really believed he was mad, too.

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."

Date: 2006-10-18 04:11 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
She stopped, treading water not far from the squid. "It's not that," she said, laughing a little, "it's that most people who know how I am--the schizophrenia--just treat me like a crazy person, regardless of everything else." Wrinkling her nose, she added somewhat impishly, "you should visit, though. I'm sure Mavis would LOVE you." In more ways than one, probably.

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'."

Date: 2006-10-18 04:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
Molly laughed until she inhaled water and started coughing.

"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."

Date: 2006-10-18 05:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"It's all right," she said. "The Stelazine is a medicine--a physic--for it, but unfortunately there isn't anything that makes it go away entirely. The best you can do is control it."

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.

Date: 2006-10-23 02:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"It's beautiful," Molly said. Obviously he took extremely good care of it--the entire thing shone with polish, and the edge looked keen. "May I see it?" she asked, looking up at him.

Date: 2006-10-23 05:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
Molly pulled her clothes on, shivering, and picked up her samurai sword, carefully setting the lacquered sheath aside. "It's over six hundred years old," she said, handing it to him. "Sixty thousand layers of folded steel...sharp, too."

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.

Date: 2006-10-26 03:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"No, there's not," she said, laughing. "I learned it because of the movies I was in--people now don't use swords very often, and there's a...a mystique about them that a lot of movie-watchers like." She quirked an eyebrow. "I've never met anybody I could talk swords with before, either--hardly anybody knows what the hell they're talking about." Of course, in his time swords were likely still used fairly regularly, despite the advent of guns--guns, so far as she knew, were still wildly inaccurate in the early nineteenth century.

Date: 2006-10-26 04:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
Oh, eek...danger, Will Robinson, danger, the Narrator said--neither he nor Molly had any idea what Jack would think of her movies, as they were considered pretty trashy even by modern standards.

"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.

Date: 2006-10-26 04:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
She pushed the hair out of her eyes, swinging the sword into a more relaxed hold. "Thanks," she said, blushing slightly. "I did a lot of gymnastics--what you'd probably call tumbling--as a child, and picked up the sword-stuff as I went along. I've studied kendo for a few years now, since Theo got me the sword." It really had been the nicest thing anybody had ever given her, and she took care of it accordingly.

"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."

Date: 2006-10-26 05:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
Molly snorted with laughter herself, both at the reminder of Nelson and at the mental picture of Jack trying to backflip--the image was undeniably amusing. "The gymnastics aren't a usual part of kendo," she said. "I just added that for the movies."

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?"


Date: 2006-10-26 05:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"Yeah, gymnastics are only practical in the movies," she agreed. "Flashy, but probably useless against someone who actually knew what they were doing."

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.

Date: 2006-10-30 02:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
Molly winced slightly. "That's right, you told me about that one," she said, recalling the somewhat gruesome mental image of the splinter that could do that kind of damage."

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."

Date: 2006-10-30 04:11 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"Real metal, but not sharp," she said. "Keeps it as realistic as possible. You can get hurt with them, but everyone has a lot of training to avoid it." Eee, she hoped this wouldn't upset him at all--she probably should have said something about Theo earlier, but she'd been enjoying everything too much to want to bring it up.

"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."

Date: 2006-10-30 04:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
Molly smiled with relief--good, that wasn't going to be a big, awkward Thing. "Yeah, he's in California still," she said. "You don't know how relieved that makes me--I mean, for me, I figured that it's like Las Vegas; what happens here, stays here. I didn't know if you'd feel the same, though, and I didn't want to lose your...companionship." It was a good word--it could mean friends, or lovers, or both. She grinned at him. "Hearing you say the same thing, now I don't feel so bad."

Date: 2006-10-30 05:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"It's a city in America--a gambling city, mostly. It's said that whatever goes on there, stays there."

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?"

Date: 2006-10-30 06:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schizowarrior.livejournal.com
"Twins." She smiled, holding her own sword at rest. "I always liked twins, though I think if I had any of my own I'd go off the deep end for sure. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to be away from your family for that long, though...the world now is so full of instant-everything." How awful must it be, to go home to your own children and have them not know you?

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