(no subject)
Aug. 5th, 2006 10:55 pmYou don't venture into the captain's cabin, on board the Dutchman. Especially not when there's any sort of music coming out. When it's the music-box it's especially deadly to interrupt him ... but it's almost as bad when it's the organ.
Tentacles clutch and hammer at the stepped keyboards like the hands of a madman, and the organ groans and bellows and thunders like the storm outside.
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Lightning flashes, wind tears at the sails; rain slams down, making the deck slippery and treacherous. The crew of the Dutchman works through the storm, hauling a cannon into its new place.
Over the noise of the thunder, the bo'sun bawls "Secure the mast tackle, Mr. Turner! Step to it!"
On the rain-lashed deck below, two Mr. Turners look up and move to obey.
Tentacles clutch and hammer at the stepped keyboards like the hands of a madman, and the organ groans and bellows and thunders like the storm outside.
Lightning flashes, wind tears at the sails; rain slams down, making the deck slippery and treacherous. The crew of the Dutchman works through the storm, hauling a cannon into its new place.
Over the noise of the thunder, the bo'sun bawls "Secure the mast tackle, Mr. Turner! Step to it!"
On the rain-lashed deck below, two Mr. Turners look up and move to obey.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 05:45 pm (UTC)"Yes."
no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 05:57 pm (UTC)He can't actually argue that it couldn't have been worse.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 06:17 pm (UTC)"...one hundred years before the mast," Bootstrap is saying, low and contemplative. "You lose who you were, bit by bit. You end up -- end up like poor Wyvern."
He gestures at the wall, where there appears to be a carving of a --
No. It's not a carving; it's a man sprouting growths of coral, melded into the ship. And, apparently, mercifully unconscious.
"Once you've sworn an oath to the Dutchman there’s no leaving it," Bootstrap continues. "Not 'til your debt is paid."
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Date: 2006-08-07 06:36 pm (UTC)"I’ve sworn no oath." he says.
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Date: 2006-08-07 06:48 pm (UTC)But not for his son.
"Then you must get away," he says, almost sharply.
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Date: 2006-08-07 07:00 pm (UTC)"Not until I find this," he says firmly. "The key."
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Date: 2006-08-07 07:05 pm (UTC)Slowly, parts of him shifting in ways unpleasant to look at too closely, Wyvern pulls himself from the wall and stares at both Turners.
A creaking whisper: "Th' dead man's chest."
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Date: 2006-08-07 07:07 pm (UTC)"What do you know of this?"
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Date: 2006-08-07 07:10 pm (UTC)"Open the chest with the key, and stab the heart..." His voice quavers, with uncertainty or with the unfamiliarity of long disuse. "The Dutchman needs a living heart, or there'll be no captain. And ... if there's no captain, there's ... no one to have the key."
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Date: 2006-08-07 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 07:40 pm (UTC)A moment later it's as though he never moved in the first place.