(Untitled)

[royal_commodore]

While many seafaring men hated the planning and logistics of a long journey by ship, it was the planning and charting of maps that Norrington liked best. As a boy, he'd spent hours in his father's study filling in the blank places on the map and imagining what sort of adventures he'd have in places like India, Madagascar, Australia and the like.

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[dishabille_mal]

For the first time in ages, Maladicta was wearing the spanking red uniform jacket she had arrived in, over her plain cotton tunic and a pair of low slung black cotton pants of the sort she hadn't come across before the island. It was all a bit unbuttoned and tousled and, well, deshabile, but it was a look that suited her and made her comfortable, besides.

With the passing of the new year, another year, any comfort was welcome. She wasn't technically on patrol, but she had her sword at her hip and her uniform on and by the Duchess, it felt better than not having those things would have.

The only sound for a while had been that of her boots crunching over the snow, really the only thing she wore suited to the weather- up to the knee, black. Military.- and that stopped when she heard, and caught sight of, James Norrington. She was suddenly struck by how long it had been since she'd seen him. Then she thought he looked a bit young.

Which one was this? How many James Norringtons had she known, now? It was a disconcerting question to be faced with. She wished for a cigarette. Her hair, cut shorter for the last play, was creeping around her shoulders, and she absently knocked it out of her eyes with an easy toss of her head before she started toward him.

"Commodore?" she ventured. It seemed a safe bet.

[royal_commodore]

She wasn't a woman he recognized and her manner of dress was both odd and comforting at once; it wouldn't have looked so terribly out of place on a man but on a woman such as she, quite outside the scope of normality. Elizabeth had favored trousers over the frills dictated by her sex and station and Norrington presumed this woman was a rebel in that same vein, eschewing sewing and tea parties for swords and pistols.

Of course, that was an awful lot to presume before names had even been exchanged and Norrington dipped his head a bit in deference.

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar, miss. Are you part of the king's navy, perhaps?"

Women were held to be bad luck on a ship, even a young girl, and he couldn't imagine a woman rising to any high rank within the Navy proper. The only alternative was that she was a pirate and, if so, Norrington hoped she held a grudge against Sparrow.

[dishabille_mal]

Her eyebrows rose a little, and it took everything in her not to purse her lips, or, alternately, grin in that particular way that showcased her fangs over the edge of her lower lip.

It was tempting, though. She tried to keep her expression neutral.

"Not, in fact. Borogravian Tenth Foot Infantry as it happens but not for some time now. Corporal Maladicta von Borogravia de Worde, at your service."

[royal_commodore]

Norrington wasn't familiar with Borogravia but there were a great many countries that changed names almost daily with the changing of hands. It could be one of the Serbian countries, or a Slavic one, or any number of holdings over near Austria that he was utterly unfamiliar with. Those places were, for the most part, land-locked.

"A pleasure, Corporal," Norrington said, dipping his head slightly in reverence. He used her rank and not a softer epithet as he would normally with a woman; she'd introduced herself as a corporal and he felt duty-bound to honor that rank even if it wasn't granted by his own government.

"I am Commodore James Norrington, but I suppose you knew that given how you addressed me?"

[dishabille_mal]

"Sure did," Maladicta said, almost under her breath. She squinted up at the sky, which managed to be wintry bright even without the sun, then looked back to Norrington.

"I take it you've only just discovered yourself here."

[royal_commodore]

Norrington gave her a short, sharp nod. "Just now I was in my study, about to drink a bourbon and now I'm here. It's not exactly what I'm used to, magically appearing in one place when I was so firmly in the other and I've never been the type of man to suffer from flights of fancy. Where is here, exactly?"

[dishabille_mal]

"It's an island," she said, and felt her throat tense up. She was going to explain this again. Again. And to him, of all people.

"There's no getting off of it and it can't be found by anyone who isn't on it, and it pulls people from all manner of worlds and times, and sometimes it flings them back again and sometimes they pay multiple visits, but they never remember it having happened once they've gone and come back."

[royal_commodore]

That sounded like a flight of fancy and it was incongruous with the manner in which Maladicta had thus presented herself. It didn't match up and Norrington had always hated things that didn't match up and fit into their proper places; he'd never been one for disorder in any aspect of life.

"And how long have you been stranded here, Corporal?"

[dishabille_mal]

Well, that was a doozy of a question, wasn't it?

"...years," she said, blinking a few times. The first time she'd spoken to James Norrington she'd been smoking a cigarette and cursing the sun, barely a week there and hating it viciously.

"Almost five years."

[royal_commodore]

Norrington blinked in response for a few moments, trying to imagine how someone could be stranded on an island for years and not have lost what precious sanity they'd had to start off with.

"Five years? And not once has there been any hope of a rescue? No ship, nothing?"

[dishabille_mal]

"No," she said, almost murmured. She looked back up at him, eyes focusing, clear and blue.

"There are false signs of rescue, or sometimes you'll... dream vividly of home for extended periods and it's difficult to tell the difference. But no, any ship that founders here stays, whether seafaring or space faring. Everyone's just as bloody stuck as everyone else regardless of how they show up. Any boats that sail from the island inexorably find themselves back on its shores. Sometimes not in one piece." She shoved her hands in her pockets.

"And before you notice them and feel awkward, yes I have fangs. It's really not that odd a thing to come across, here."

[royal_commodore]

Norrington narrowed his eyes a little and looked at her mouth, seeing a set of pointed fangs. How...odd. Still, she'd told him not to feel awkward and Norrington endeavored to do his best, however pathetic attempt that might be.

"May I ask how you got them, exactly?"

[dishabille_mal]

"Born that way," she replied, "vampire. Only not here, clearly. Perhaps not clearly- people arrive here who didn't used to be people, precisely, but this place makes everyone human."

[royal_commodore]

"I've never heard of such," Norrington admitted freely, wondering what, exactly, a vampire was. He was fairly familiar with all the usual sea legends but outside of that bit of superstition, he didn't really care much for frivolous ideas and flights of fancy.

[dishabille_mal]

Maladicta stared at him for a moment.

"....of.... really? We're quite popular, most plac- well, no, I suppose you wouldn't. All right, ahm... Well, you can read up on them some other time," she said.

"Might I escort you to the compound, Commodore? It's warmer, there, and passes of the hub of civilization here."

[royal_commodore]

"I would be grateful for even the barest vestiges of civilization," Norrington said, flashing her a quick smile. He didn't smile often, not anymore, and he found that while it was stiff from disuse it wasn't an entirely unpleasant action.

"Is there tea there, by any chance?"