Chapter II: Gravity

Completed chapters of the serial storyline are stored here after completion.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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The Steward placed a reassuring hand on the archmage's shoulder. "You're quite welcome," he said, his tone now earnest. His monocle couldn't hide his own surge of emotion, as his other hand was raised to clasped her other shoulder.

"I've missed you, old friend," he said, as if Meris and Solomon were one and the same. On some level, thanks to the Seal and Naberius' extended trust, it could be argued that they were. As for the Steward, quiet exultation and relief lined his voice, making it lightly shake.

"Your humble servant awaits your command, Heiress."

As simple as this was, it was easy to tell the Steward had waded through disappointing applicants by the droves, over the course of History. People who awakened that particular spark and gave him hope again were so painfully rare, to the point where it was obvious he really wanted to pull her close and hug her earnestly. Similarly, the glance he sent towards the rest of the group was both relieved and excited, solemn and silently cheerful - as the Court would finally stop waiting in the shadows. It had allies, it had a newfound purpose, and it had something of a place within the mortal plane's spheres of influence.

Shyly, creeping from behind the Steward's facial hair, a giddy smile stretched out. 

"Shall we celebrate?"

Outside, rain had begun to fall, autumn's clear thunderclaps ringing in the air. There was energy outside - the sound echoing in the clouds above not being ominous so much as it seemed to evoke the rising tide of something joyous - something wild. The faint curtains of falling water turned into a solid Rhode Island downpour, and the ghostly sounds of a ship's creaking timbers - accompanied by ethereal fiddle bars - reverberated outside...
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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Meris sent him her own giddy smile, her eyes shimmering with both hope and joy. There was still a lot of work to be done, but it felt like a noteworthy victory, one that deserved to be commemmorated. That excitement was something she had experienced while studying and being with Nereus, having her sons, becoming an archmage, and now this.

Feeling the surge of wild and elated energy, the Heiress nodded happily, pulled him in for a fierce hug, and replied simply, "Let's celebrate."
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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"Git a room, y'all," Charles snarked, rolling his eyes. He couldn't help but smile too, though, which didn't exactly do good things for his face.

Hearing the sounds of a ship and her sailors at berth, Mary rose and went to one of the windows, hand curled into a fist so the others wouldn't notice it twitching. Would she ever get used to these arcane displays? Probably not, and she didn't want to either. Get used to something, and one became complacent, and Mary valued her edge too much to want to risk that. But was there actually a ship outside? she wondered as she looked.
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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Looking out, Mary would see a fog bank roil in from across the street, in what initially looked like a natural occurrence. Rhode Island's fall months were soggy and crisp, and were sometimes paired with balmy days worthy of Indian Summers. The juxtaposition caused the evening's drizzle to weakly steam away, at least until the night's chillier temperatures would manage to dispel the phenomenon entirely. As seconds passed and the sounds grew more precise, however, it became clear that this fog bank was anything but natural. The fiddle sounds followed along, as well as the slow, ponderous clattering of what had to be a capstan bar's mechanism. Soon, the street became entirely shrouded in fog, with lancets of steam evoking the masts of a brig. Wooden planks and Eldritch shrouds creaked and snapped as they lazily pushed out of the fog bank - an entire ship coming to rest right in front of Holden Hall!

Voices called, made clear by the still air. "She's docked, Cap'n! Anchor's in the bedrock!
- Good work, lads! Tell Jan we've only a few hours; this leave's an uncanny one!"


The second voice was hoarse but joyous, with some odd accent evoking Wales as much as it did Scotland, although Meris' nigh-on immortal ears might pick up Levantine traces in there, as well...

Someone else chimed in. "D'ye think the Lord would mind us foragin' in his spirits, cap'n?
- Belay that thought, Simmons - we be guests, not hosts! We bring our own casks, like civilized men-folk!"

A few more voices cheered at that sound, and a long, segmented plank soon slipped out of the roiling tendrils. A few seconds after its tip hit the entryway's pebbled path, booted feet came down. Archie's front path being long and wide, the figure that came down seemed tiny from a distance. It still took in the manor as if it were his. From afar, the only thing Mary could make out was that under the man's battered tricorn hat, his skin was of a seafoam shade of green. His festooned frock coat looked dark in the entryway's relative gloom, the lamps that lined it not being able to do more than turn the pink stones of the path and the Clank's front fountain into a pleasantly twilit area.

Hands at his hips, what had to be the ship's captain laughed - the sound defiant, carrying that hoarse edge that you'd associate to eccentrics and marginals or the slightly insane. It was still a joyous sound, though, as if the man's relief of being there could manifest as a physical force, something capable of ramming the manor's doors open.

"MERIS!" he then shouted. "MERIS, OLD GIRL! DO YE STILL FEAR DEATH, OR DID YE GIVE OL' JOHNNY CHAMBERS THE BLACK EYE HE DESERVES?!"

He them ambled up the path, loudly chuckling all the way, happily muttering at himself the way more gregarious drunks sometimes could. Stopping in front of the front steps, and nevermind how shouting was useless now, he went at it again.

"HO THERE, HOLDEN HALL! DAVEY JONES' COME TO DRINK WITH AN OLD FRIEND! NEW ONES, MAYHAP!"

Somewhere past the fog bank, a local dog objected to the noise by adding a few forlorn barks.
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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The McConmara siblings joined Mary at the window, taking in the new guest with both curiosity and excitement. Not exactly sure who to expect, they were somewhat surprised to see the green-skinned demon yelling like some slightly addled sailor who seemed to be friends with a perpetual barrel of rum. Aislinn, Ciaran, and Neasa turned to see the archmage strode through the front door and onto the porch of the Victorian house.

Still bearing the wide grin she had given to Naberius, Meris suddenly felt more at ease speaking in her Orcadian dialect than she had in a while. She chuckled heartily and greeted him, "I stared Death in th' eye wi' nae fear, an' I deud give Chambers tha' black eye he surely deserved." The aquatic demon likely knew what the former pirate woman looked like, but she had been frozen in the prime of her forties, now clad in the watery hues of the Regency period. "Ye're a sight fer sore eyes, Cap'n Sam."
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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Dress or no dress, it didn't seem to matter to the aquatic demon. A chuckle that might've seemed nefarious to wary ears escaped him, and he pulled the archmage into a short bear hug, treating her more like an equal than anything resembling the carrier of Solomon's legacy. "Me lass," he said, coarse fondness thickly lining the words, after which he held her at arm's length to look at her. 

"Aye, this is one soul the Reaper's pining for - and immortality suits you, too!" he said, appraising her with an approving smirk. "To think I knew ye smeared in yer mates' scurvy-ridden blood, as much the medic as you were the cap'n for yer men, always haggard and so happy for it... Look at you now - all hale and hearty and proper-like! If I'd known, I'd have shucked on a better shirt!"

He then noticed how his entrance had caused a number of people to peek outwards, which only caused him to guffaw. "Oh aye," he said, "I be snatchin' yer newfound prize right from your eyes!" he said, mirth twinkling in his eyes. "What'll ye do without yer Archmage, huh?"

Sam seemed to notice Three's sudden alarm, which only made him laugh and slap his thigh. "As if I'd take her," he said, choking with amusement and eyes tearing up, "as if I'd dare cross the Heiress! Och, you martals - I love ye!"

He lightly pushed Meris ahead with his right hand. "Let's get inside, before your white knights figure I'm cannon fodder!" he said, still slightly sputtering with barely-contained hilarity.
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"Some o' those white knights are me kin," Meris informed, gesturing to the three younger roanes as they went inside. "Descendants of me eldest son Kai. Only had a mere idea tha' they are me great-grandchildren. That's Neasa, th' oldest, an' th' twins Aislinn an' Ciaran McConmara."

She addressed the group and introduced, "This is Cap'n Samigina, or rather, Cap'n Sam, more widely known as Davey Jones. I knew him frae me days on th' high seas, interceptin' Void Weaver slave ships an' causin' general mayhem to th' point I was a thorn in Chambers' side. He gave me enough time tae complete the Ascension spell that allowed me tae be here wi' th' lot o' ye."
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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Mary had to wonder how she could still be surprised at this stuff, and decided her feelings didn't matter. "Charmed, I'm sure," she replied as the Captain was introduced. Preston didn't say anything, as usual, and in fact was hoping to avoid notice completely, but he still watched in wary silence.

Charles, meanwhile, looked thoughtful, as if he were going down a mental tally of ancestors trying to guess which of them might be serving with Samigina. His expression shifted slightly, as likely or unlikely candidates came up, but he too remained silent.
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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The captain parted with a deep bow, one foot sliding forwards in a bit of a balletic display, tricorn doffed expansively. "Thank ye," he said, "for what I'm sure would've been a warm welcome, if only you'd known."

Naberius had the look of someone who'd seen this a hundred times before. "Marquis Samigina," he said, settling with a short nod.

The captain rose and grinned, displaying misshapen teeth that felt more sharklike than human. "Nabby, mate. So yer done lookin', eh? You've found us a queen... Haven't been so glad ter slip in someone's past in a long while, I reckon. Someone who's got plenty o' sea-born kin, too!" he said, nodding approvingly at the selkies.

He nasal slits pulsated. "Ah - but there's a few scents I ken, I do..."

Sam turned to Amazo, his grin turning slightly contemptuous. "A lubber born and bred, someone I saw turn greener around the gills than 'is scales allowed when showed me ship..."

The demon's eyes slid to Jenkins. "...and some blood I knows."

He took a few steps closer to Charles, thrusting his chin forward a bit like a physician looking for lymph nodes by feeling along a patient's neck. "Aye," he said, "there's Jan's jaw, even with all that hardware under th' skin... The same eyes, too. I bet if I asked ya what I asked Jan, you'd answer the same, laddie."

He parted with a satisfied little chuckle. "You, that Katherine lass... Sea-folk that think they're lubbers. Even you, miss Jameson. Why else would ye climb Hong Kong's rooftops like a cap'chin hopped up on sugar? Yer hands need rigging, lass - they remember Thomas Hardy and Arno Jameson's calluses, the open air on their knuckles, me wife's salt in their hair..."

Samigina pulled out a pipe from one of his frock's deep pockets and lit it with an antique tinderbox. What wafted forth only began as strong black shag and its thick smoke, but soon hit the attendance's noses differently. Looking back to Jenkins, he deliberately blew some of the stuff in the man's face. Charles and Mary wouldn't register so much a scent as an atmosphere or a state of mind - the kind of joy Charles typically found out on the battlefield rising unbidden, while Jameson would feel the way she did after her muscles had grown loose and her stride relaxed and powerful.

He winked at Preston, as if knowing the man's more reserved attitude hid a different taste for risk, and slid his eyes across Holden and the selkies, as well as Three. "Spies and US Marines, roanes navigating a different kind o' sea... Ol' Solly brought me up to protect his kingdom's shores, but he thought my protectin' Israel alone wouldn't suffice. I did my time, thought I'd be released - but he did something I never coulda dreamed of..."

He held up what looked like an old compass, its needle spinning every which way. "He gave me the sea", he said, his voice now quiet with wonderment. "He saw how I used to look out across the docks on the edge of ol' Tel Aviv, eyes closed, listnin' to her voice in the waves - and he asked God an' the angels to give me a chance. I'd been born a Fiend, and every day I spent lookin' out to sea without having the right to sail it was torture.

The Water Throne himself met me in the king's chambers, and he gave me all of the sea's booty. He gave me the sea's dead, an' told me to give 'em a second chance, to save 'em from Leviathan an' the Black Goat. All the ruffians and scallywags, all the gentlemen o' fortune... He gave me Faerie's shores and the Far Reaches, all o' the sea's wonders and terrors! He gave me shores ye's never seen and never should see..."

Three frowned slightly. "Doesn't that contradict Matriel's responsibilities?
- Nay, lad," replied the demon. "His is water, and the sea's only one expression of it. I rule over the idea of it, the stories ye wrote 'bout pirates and corsairs, the waves Theseus sailed, the squalls Long John Silver braved. I's Adventure, too - what makes some people stick their necks out outta recklessness, or 'cause there's shores yet undiscovered. I'm the glint in a gold prospector's eyes, the free-runner's peepers lookin' fer handholds where others see mundane architecture. I's what got ye to enlist, too. I whispered o' the dry sea in the East, and ye heard. Ye were lookin' fer me, for what's mine."

Samigina smiled, mad joy in his eyes. "Ye found it. Yer findin' it, still."
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Re: Chapter II: Gravity

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"Jan? My ancestor, the Mad King?" Charles replied, in a voice full of wonder. Funny, he'd figured Jan would have fallen in with Gabriel's biker army. But then again, the old Nordic people were a seafaring folk, after all, so maybe it did make sense? Ugh. And what was that about Katherine? Katherine Starr, the ace attorney? He remembered a conversation he'd had with her before the Machae affair blew up, about the peculiar similarities in their life stories. Could it really be...?

Breathing in the smoke, Mary was intrigued by the sensation it elicited in her. Here was a fellow who understood, clearly. Who felt what she did, and perhaps knew where it came from. "I should try sailing, then," she murmured, wondering why she'd never done so before.

"So you'd know Edward K-Kenway, then?" Preston asked of Sam, a smirk crossing his lips. He didn't expect the Fiend to be familiar with the Assassin's Creed series, but then again, he wouldn't be surprised if he was, either.
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