On the Island: Ceremony and Escape

[bringmethatnpc]

The sound of thunder rumbles through the air, heralding an approaching storm--

--no, wait.

That's not thunder; that's the beating of drums.

It's a beautiful clear day on the island, just perfect for a ceremony and celebration, as the tribe prepares to send their chief to the gods.

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[bringmethatnpc]

The drums beat a steady, hypnotic cadence, under the chanting of the natives preparing for the day's ritual. Most of the men are at work laying wood for the fire. It's piled high, as befits this day of celebration; the fire will be more than large enough for the purpose.

As the last sticks are laid in place, the group turns to face their chief.

[pirate_jack]

"No no! Wait! Oy! No no!"

Jack leaps to his feet from his seat upon the throne, waving his hands in violent protest.

"More wood! Big fire! Big fire!" He suits his gestures to his words, indicating the height of the blaze that he prefers as he demands, "I am chief-- want big fire!"

He turns, gesturing imperatively for the honor guard behind his throne to go and help.

"A-boogie snickle-snickle. Tout suite, come on! More wood!"

[bringmethatnpc]

The warriors exchange eloquent looks. The chief is weird.

However, he's also the chief, and divine, and it is his ceremony to return to the home of the gods. Shrugging, they turn back to the fire, tossing on more armfuls of wood.

[pirate_jack]

One sideways step, then a second, and a third.

When they turn around, they'll find that Jack is gone.

The wooden slat bridge shakes under his feet as he runs across it, arms gyrating wildly for balance-- and even more wildly as he skids to a stop at the edge of a cliff.

"Not good..."

Jack looks around and spots a nearby cottage. Hurrying inside, he paws through odds and ends salvaged from previous "guests" and shipwrecks, finally snatching up a large coil of rope.

As he heads for the door, his eye is caught by a shining silver gleam. He pauses long enough to pick up a paprika tin with the stamp of the East India Company upon it.

"Now that's interesting."

Still carrying the paprika, Jack hurries out the cottage door, where he comes abruptly to a halt.

"Oh bugger."

[bringmethatnpc]

Cold feet are understandable, on the eve of a ceremony this life-changing.

Understandable, however, does not mean honorable, and it does not mean excusable. When the chief is a god, he will remember them with gratitude, and favor their hunts and their voyages -- and, with the white men's huge ships coming ever more frequently, the blessings of a new god are greatly to be desired.

Right now, however, he doesn't have the powers or the perspective of the god. Until the ritual is done, he's still only the chief. And when the chief forgets his duty, it's up to the shaman and the warriors of the tribe to remind him of it.

This is why very nearly the entire tribe is now clustered around this cottage.

With spears.

[pirate_jack]

He shrugs the rope off his shoulder to the ground and smiles winningly as he takes the lid from the paprika.

Jack dusts lightly under both arms as he explains,

"A little seasoning, aye?"

A wave of his hand invites them to smell the delectable scent of spiced Jack, which floats strongly on the air given the amount of paprika he's used.

Among other things.

[bringmethatnpc]

...Right.

Well, it's not as if they're going to disagree with the impulse.

Three warriors step forward -- the bravest and most worthy of this honor, and incidentally the biggest -- to respectfully (but firmly) escort the newly spiced chief back to his glorious pyre.

[pirate_jack]

They're very efficient about it all, binding him securely to the spit with many turns of an extremely heavy rope.

"If only my crew were always this dedicated," Jack mutters to himself, darkly amused.

As the strongest warriors carry their chief to the fire, the ceremony resumes, the cadence of the drums setting a loud counterpoint to the shrieks of celebration.

As the spit is placed over the now-very-large pile of wood, Jack looks down at it and says dryly,

"Well done."

[bringmethatnpc]

One young lad overhears this, and beams. He doesn't really understand the English. But the chief's tone allows for interpretation, and the boy is eager enough that pretty much anything would be interpreted as praise. It's his first feast of this magnitude, and he has a fork and a knife all for his very own. Scraping them against each other, he licks his lips.

And then the steady beat of the drums speeds up, faster and faster, and the chanting underneath matches it, and even those who were silent before join in now as the chanting crescendoes, rising to a hypnotic fever pitch in the hot jungle air, lifting them all like heartbeats, faster and faster until it

stops.

Into the dead silence, the firebearer intones, "Fi-fi," and lifts his burning torch high.

The clearing erupts in ululations.

[pirate_jack]

With great solemnity, the firebearer approaches the pyre and bends to touch the sacred flame to the wood, while Jack eyes it grimly.

He hesitates, though, at the sound of footbeats pounding down the path. Everyone turns to look at whoever the fool might be who dares disrupt this most holy of ceremonies.

It's the guard from the cliff, whose panicked flight was made partly in determination not to be blamed for this. This is far more serious than a parrot's escape, after all.

He shrieks a warning of the prisoners' escape, and in horrified silence everyone turns to the chief for guidance.

In the quiet, Jack's stern order is very clear.

"Well, go on, go get them!" A beat. "Pe-la-la!"

[bringmethatnpc]

"Pe-la-la! Pe-la-la!"

Grabbing for spears, the group pounds after the guard, racing towards the cliffs. There's no time to designate someone to watch over the chief, and no real need to worry; even if he forgets his sacred duty to the tribe again, those ropes are nice and tight.

It's unfortunate, then, that the firebearer dropped his torch in the furor. On bare ground, yes, but not on level ground.

And doubly unfortunate that, when the torch rolls into the pyre, the kindling catches.

[pirate_jack]

He's unnerved when the torch hits the ground so close to him, calling out, "Wait! No no!", but it's a little half-hearted, considering the situation as a whole.

As he's left alone in the clearing, Jack watches a spark fall into the straw, igniting it.

"Not good--"

He blows on it, attempting to blow it out or back away from the rest of the tinder.

Unfortunately, as Will Turner the blacksmith's apprentice could have told him, air on smoldering tinder causes it to burst into brighter flame. It's the entire point of a bellows, after all.

His efforts get more desperate as the fire rises.

[bringmethatnpc]

Any of the tribe would hastily smother the flame, if they were nearby. They want the god to be freed from his madman's flesh, after all, but not before the proper time. These things need to be done properly, for good luck and divine favor.

Unfortunately, they're all off chasing a bunch of escaping prisoners.

Whoops.

[pirate_jack]

Jack looks around wildly for assistance, or failing that, inspiration--

Bugger bugger bugger bugger... a-HA!

-- or perhaps it's all just a matter of the proper leverage.

He begins to fling his weight wildly back and forth, causing the strong green branch of the spit to bend and flex more and more as he bounces, up and down and up and down-- and finally up, as the spit bounces all the way out of its holder.

Jack falls to the side, rolling clear of the pyre, and manages to kick his legs free of the rope.

That'll do -- there's no time to lose waiting about here for the tribe to return. Arms still bound to his side and spit still attached to his back, Jack goes running across the bridge, out of camp.

[bringmethatnpc]

The whole tribe didn't go chasing the prisoners. Very nearly, but there are still a few who were in the middle of other necessary tasks, and didn't or couldn't drop what they were doing to go recapture the escaping food.

And then there are a few who are young enough to be distractable, and have a hard time keeping up with charging adults anyway.

Like this boy, who stopped by the bridge to examine his knife and fork with pride. They're his, and brand new, and also his legs are tired from running. So this is much more gratifying.

Except here's the chief, still tied to his spit, and by all appearances shaming himself horribly by trying to run away. The boy just stares.

[pirate_jack]

Sometimes, there's really just no good way to explain things.

Jack flashes a quick smile, then hops sideways down the small hill until he's at the same level as this lad. With a quick sideways scuttle, almost like a crab, he's in range-- and snatches the knife from the boy's hand.

Pirate.

As the boy flees, Jack begins to saw hurriedly at the ropes over his chest.

[bringmethatnpc]

Remember those tribesmen engaged in other necessary tasks?

Yeah.

Here are two of them.

They're large, and armed with rather sharper knives, and holding bowls of fruits and vegetables intended for the ceremonial feast. And they are deeply unimpressed with Jack's current activities.

[pirate_jack]

There's a rather impressive silence for several seconds, while they stare at the chief and Jack stares back at them.

And then--

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

Jack charges, running at the two of them as fast as he can and bending low so that the spit behaves as an odd sort of lance.

[bringmethatnpc]

The two tribesmen do the sensible thing, when faced with a charging, yodeling madman wielding a giant stick tied to his body.

That is to say: they sidestep.

[pirate_jack]

He goes hurtling past them with far too much momentum to stop, so it's really a lucky thing that there's a pile of coconuts directly ahead.

CRASH!

Staggering a bit, Jack backs up. One of the coconuts comes with him, pierced through the end of the spit.

Without a moment's hesitation, he spins around, sending it flying back across the clearing as a rather effective projectile weapon.

[bringmethatnpc]

One native catches the coconut directly in front of his face. Both hands.

Smack, is the sound it makes.

Very slowly, he lowers it.

And... my, that's an impressive glower.

And then an impressive snarl.

[bringmethatnpc]

They don't want to hurt the chief. He might take it amiss, later, when he's a god again, and the last thing the tribe wants is to give itself a god with a grudge against them.

On the other hand, he's clearly trying to escape his own feast.

The man not holding the coconut waves in an agony of indecision. (There's a reason he and his friend aren't high-status hunters, and it's that they're not really all that bright. Carrying fruit around is widely deemed to be the best occupation for them.)

And then he has a Brilliant Idea.

He grabs a mango from his bowl, and flings it at Jack.

[pirate_jack]

It's hard to duck when you're attached to a big wooden spit with heavy ropes, Jack finds-- not that he doesn't try. His beaded braids swing wildly as he jerks to his right and down a little--

"Hey!"

--and the mango makes a rather wet sound as it's impaled on the pole, coming to rest not far from his face.

[bringmethatnpc]

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a quantity of squishy fruit must be in want of a good food-fight.

Also, as previously mentioned, neither of these fellows is precisely a tactical genius. Fruit-throwing seems to both of them to be as good a strategy as any for chastising and retrieving the chief.

Both men, shouting, launch volley after volley at Jack, and the air is full of flying fruit and spattering pulp.

[pirate_jack]

He spins back and forth, batting at fruit and vegetables with his hands and with the pole on his back, until finally--

"STOP IT!"

The two men freeze, melons and mangoes in hand, staring at their chief, who is teetering back and forth slightly in an effort to keep his balance against the weight of the now food-loaded spit.

Jack turns his head sideways, giving them a look of disbelief.