i feel sorry for robyn
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Imbroglio
Rating: PG (language!)
Challenge: FOTD: imbroglio
Toppings/Extras: fresh peaches, fresh strawberries
Wordcount: 1,605
Summary: The kidnapping of Captain Jacob Graham.
Notes: How could I resist more timetravel shenanigans? Imbroglio: A complicated and embarrassing state of things. A confused or complicated disagreement or misunderstanding. Peaches: …an afternoon when anything can happen and probably will. Strawberries: used only because of its name: a head crash. Takes place, from Graham's point of view, the evening after The Harder They Fall.
“Here we are,” Lord Ashdown said with irritation in his voice. He turned to look at the members of the black ops team stood behind him, pale hands on his hips. He did not appear very happy about the mud on his shoes. “Captain Graham was grounded just offshore from here on the reefs. Whenever that happens, he always makes a camp somewhere in this forest.”
The pine forest lay spread before them, spindly trees rocketing into the sky and leafy masses covering the ground. Despite the fact that it was late evening, the atmosphere was still swelteringly hot and the humidity felt like the very air was sweating. Robyn wiped some perspiration of her own from her brow and sighed.
“So that leaves us only this massive pine forest to search,” Bradley said dryly. “Excellent.”
“It’s always in the same area,” Ashdown said airily. “Usually not that far from my home, actually.”
“Er, isn’t your house on the other side of the island?” Taisy asked. Ashdown rolled his eyes.
“I mean my other home,” he said as if it were obvious. “Now, if you don’t mind.”
He began striding away through the forest, nose in the air and a calm purposefulness to his gait. Robyn shrugged at her team members-Bradley looked bored, Taisy excited and Victor was gazing around at the surroundings as though hardly aware of what was happening.
Looking away from them, she jogged to fall into step with Ashdown. She had become more used to the greenery due to the various other trips through time they had had to make, but something about the sheer mass of it surrounding her still awed her. The trees had a simplistic pride to their appearance, narrow and tall, and the crepuscular shadows that fell as the sun set was a thing of striking beauty to a woman only used to metal and glass.
“You like living here?” she asked, just to make conversation.
“I suppose,” Ashdown responded airily. “I prefer it to London.”
There went that conversation. Robyn decided to bring it back to their mission.
“Is Graham as fearsome as they say?”
Ashdown snorted.
“No. Pirates can be dangerous but they are not fearsome. They’re nothing but hawks of the ocean-chasing the fat, helpless pigeons that are the merchants while running from the eagles of the Royal Navy. They are feeble drunkards and cowards, the whole rotten lot of them.”
Hmm. Looked like she’d hit on a particularly sore spot. The derision in his voice made her crack into a small grin, though she looked away from him to hide it.
“Right,” she replied vaguely. They all kept on walking.
Much to Robyn’s surprise, they actually came across what looked like a small campsite within half an hour, during which time Ashdown insulted Taisy for being Scottish, herself for being female, Bradley for being black and Victor for being ‘queer’, by which Robyn supposed he meant ‘odd’. She refused to be resigned to his archaic attitudes-attempting to educate him looked like it was going to be a lengthy and frustrating process. Nonetheless, she was determined to try.
At the moment, however, they had more pressing matters at hand.
It was evident that the campsite had been hastily put together by whatever the pirates had salvaged from their wrecked ship; bits of crate were used for tables and for firewood (the local pine did not burn easily), canvas was slung over tied branches to make tents and the cargo ropes were nailed into the ground to keep everything in place. Fires dotted the place but the atmosphere was subdued-Robyn couldn’t see any men around.
“Off scrounging,” Ashdown said in disgust. “But Captain Graham won’t be. In fact, I am quite sure I know where he is.”
And off he went, pulling out a flintlock pistol from an inside pocket mid-stride.
“Whoa there, little man!” Robyn cried in alarm, grabbing him by the shoulders.
“Let go of me, you filthy plebeian!”
The insult simply rolled off of her by now.
“Ashdown. Lord Ashdown. This is not part of the plan. Remember?” Robyn asked, calmly as she could. He spun to face her, pale eyes cold.
“What gave you the impression I care a jot about your plan?” Ashdown snapped. “As if I will tolerate any form of collaboration between myself and that scum. Did you not notice the years of rivalry and general hatred between the two of us? I am going to shoot him in the head and there is nothing you can do about it.”
“Hmm, OK,” Robyn said. She yanked him back and deposited him into Bradley’s grip. “In that case, you stay right here, sweetheart. I’ll take care of business.”
“How dare you! I’ll have you hanged!”
“Jesus, Ashdown, we’re meant to be on the same side!”
“I don’t care.”
Robyn flicked some hair out of her eyes and sighed loudly.
“Brad. Do me a favour and don’t let go of him.”
-----
There was something strangely pleasant about the campsite, a Peter Pan-like charm that made the entire place glow warmly. The cobbled-together tents and bits of recycled furniture-upturned buckets for seats, planks of wood for walkways over the squashier bits of mud-gave the place a classical gypsyish appeal. Lanterns swung from the branches of the lower, spriggier trees and a thick cluster of flourishing bushes created a cushy screen, hiding the place nicely. Without Ashdown, she was quite sure they could never have found it.
Treading deeper into the hidey-hole, she took a peer around the place, eventually becoming bold enough to glance into a few of the ramshackle canvas tents. A goat tied to a tree watched her shiftily as she made her way around the outskirts of the campsite. Ashdown said that Graham would be around here somewhere-unfortunately, his advice was not very helpful when everything was such a mess.
“Everything alright?” she murmured into her earpiece, because it always made her nervous to leave her teammates on their own: she knew that they were very capable people, but since Wolfgang had died she had become the ‘sensible’ one and it could be very hard going.
“Ashdown just called Taisy a peasant,” Bradley said, sounding more amused than annoyed. “Things are getting ugly.”
Sighing, Robyn crept towards a tent that was fairly central to the camp and looked inside, lifting one of the flaps. It took her a moment to realise that it was occupied; a wiry man was laid back against a pile of sackcloth, scarred arms bent up with his hands at the back of his head, one leg lolling atop the other. He opened one eye as she looked inside.
“Captain Graham?” she asked.
“Not me,” he said in a curly Welsh accent. “You’re lookin’ for the next clearing, over by the mangroves. Head left. My left.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Not a problem, m’dear.”
After that, he closed his eye again and appeared to go back to sleep. Robyn looked at him, confused at his lack of questions, and then let the flap drop shut. Then, turning right, she made her way across the deserted camp, fought her way through some greenery and eventually found herself on a small dirt-lined ridge that ran alongside a small swamp.
A little way ahead of her was a tumbledown cabin, of sorts, formed from a dinghy and even more canvas. A man she didn’t recognise, but knew to be Captain Graham, was stood with his elbow leaning on the edge of the keeled-over dinghy, bucket-topped boots slightly apart and one eyebrow raised impressively high on his weather-beaten brow.
She knew that it was Captain Graham because Ashdown was stood in front of him, pistol pointed towards his head.
“No time for the usual banter today, Captain,” he said quite cheerfully. “There are people from the future after me.”
“Eh?” Graham responded, and quite rightly: Robyn had a feeling she would have been about the same. She didn’t have time to explain, however-she simply lowered her head and ran, rolling the edges of her boots across the ground as she moved to make the least amount of noise, grabbing Ashdown just as he prepared to fire and jerking him sideways. He fired involuntarily at the sudden tackle from behind; the shot flew wildly off-course.
Robyn grasped him by the lapels of his jacket and practically lifted him from the ground, resisting the urge to shake him until he rattled. She knew she was in no danger; flintlock pistols could only carry one shot at a time, and he had fired that shot.
“Do you want me to drop you in the swamp?” she demanded. “How the hell did you get away from the others?”
He merely looked at her, gold lashes low over his eyes.
“Whoever yer are, missus,” Graham said graciously from somewhere to one side, “thanks very much for savin’ my life.”
Robyn looked at him.
“Yeah, no problem,” she replied, raising her tranquilliser gun and shooting him in the neck. He looked at her, faintly reproachful, and then collapsed. She dropped Ashdown back to the ground, where he began smoothing down his damask jacket in irritation.
“This is so unfair,” he whined like a schoolboy. Robyn wondered if slapping him would result in any punishment. When she decided that it would, she wondered if that punishment would be worth it.
“Don’t worry, Ashdown,” rang a voice from behind them. “If I’m in a good mood, I’ll let you shoot him next time.”
Robyn turned around to find herself face-to-face with her future self.
Again.
“Oh, Jesus bloody fuck.”
Title: Imbroglio
Rating: PG (language!)
Challenge: FOTD: imbroglio
Toppings/Extras: fresh peaches, fresh strawberries
Wordcount: 1,605
Summary: The kidnapping of Captain Jacob Graham.
Notes: How could I resist more timetravel shenanigans? Imbroglio: A complicated and embarrassing state of things. A confused or complicated disagreement or misunderstanding. Peaches: …an afternoon when anything can happen and probably will. Strawberries: used only because of its name: a head crash. Takes place, from Graham's point of view, the evening after The Harder They Fall.
“Here we are,” Lord Ashdown said with irritation in his voice. He turned to look at the members of the black ops team stood behind him, pale hands on his hips. He did not appear very happy about the mud on his shoes. “Captain Graham was grounded just offshore from here on the reefs. Whenever that happens, he always makes a camp somewhere in this forest.”
The pine forest lay spread before them, spindly trees rocketing into the sky and leafy masses covering the ground. Despite the fact that it was late evening, the atmosphere was still swelteringly hot and the humidity felt like the very air was sweating. Robyn wiped some perspiration of her own from her brow and sighed.
“So that leaves us only this massive pine forest to search,” Bradley said dryly. “Excellent.”
“It’s always in the same area,” Ashdown said airily. “Usually not that far from my home, actually.”
“Er, isn’t your house on the other side of the island?” Taisy asked. Ashdown rolled his eyes.
“I mean my other home,” he said as if it were obvious. “Now, if you don’t mind.”
He began striding away through the forest, nose in the air and a calm purposefulness to his gait. Robyn shrugged at her team members-Bradley looked bored, Taisy excited and Victor was gazing around at the surroundings as though hardly aware of what was happening.
Looking away from them, she jogged to fall into step with Ashdown. She had become more used to the greenery due to the various other trips through time they had had to make, but something about the sheer mass of it surrounding her still awed her. The trees had a simplistic pride to their appearance, narrow and tall, and the crepuscular shadows that fell as the sun set was a thing of striking beauty to a woman only used to metal and glass.
“You like living here?” she asked, just to make conversation.
“I suppose,” Ashdown responded airily. “I prefer it to London.”
There went that conversation. Robyn decided to bring it back to their mission.
“Is Graham as fearsome as they say?”
Ashdown snorted.
“No. Pirates can be dangerous but they are not fearsome. They’re nothing but hawks of the ocean-chasing the fat, helpless pigeons that are the merchants while running from the eagles of the Royal Navy. They are feeble drunkards and cowards, the whole rotten lot of them.”
Hmm. Looked like she’d hit on a particularly sore spot. The derision in his voice made her crack into a small grin, though she looked away from him to hide it.
“Right,” she replied vaguely. They all kept on walking.
Much to Robyn’s surprise, they actually came across what looked like a small campsite within half an hour, during which time Ashdown insulted Taisy for being Scottish, herself for being female, Bradley for being black and Victor for being ‘queer’, by which Robyn supposed he meant ‘odd’. She refused to be resigned to his archaic attitudes-attempting to educate him looked like it was going to be a lengthy and frustrating process. Nonetheless, she was determined to try.
At the moment, however, they had more pressing matters at hand.
It was evident that the campsite had been hastily put together by whatever the pirates had salvaged from their wrecked ship; bits of crate were used for tables and for firewood (the local pine did not burn easily), canvas was slung over tied branches to make tents and the cargo ropes were nailed into the ground to keep everything in place. Fires dotted the place but the atmosphere was subdued-Robyn couldn’t see any men around.
“Off scrounging,” Ashdown said in disgust. “But Captain Graham won’t be. In fact, I am quite sure I know where he is.”
And off he went, pulling out a flintlock pistol from an inside pocket mid-stride.
“Whoa there, little man!” Robyn cried in alarm, grabbing him by the shoulders.
“Let go of me, you filthy plebeian!”
The insult simply rolled off of her by now.
“Ashdown. Lord Ashdown. This is not part of the plan. Remember?” Robyn asked, calmly as she could. He spun to face her, pale eyes cold.
“What gave you the impression I care a jot about your plan?” Ashdown snapped. “As if I will tolerate any form of collaboration between myself and that scum. Did you not notice the years of rivalry and general hatred between the two of us? I am going to shoot him in the head and there is nothing you can do about it.”
“Hmm, OK,” Robyn said. She yanked him back and deposited him into Bradley’s grip. “In that case, you stay right here, sweetheart. I’ll take care of business.”
“How dare you! I’ll have you hanged!”
“Jesus, Ashdown, we’re meant to be on the same side!”
“I don’t care.”
Robyn flicked some hair out of her eyes and sighed loudly.
“Brad. Do me a favour and don’t let go of him.”
-----
There was something strangely pleasant about the campsite, a Peter Pan-like charm that made the entire place glow warmly. The cobbled-together tents and bits of recycled furniture-upturned buckets for seats, planks of wood for walkways over the squashier bits of mud-gave the place a classical gypsyish appeal. Lanterns swung from the branches of the lower, spriggier trees and a thick cluster of flourishing bushes created a cushy screen, hiding the place nicely. Without Ashdown, she was quite sure they could never have found it.
Treading deeper into the hidey-hole, she took a peer around the place, eventually becoming bold enough to glance into a few of the ramshackle canvas tents. A goat tied to a tree watched her shiftily as she made her way around the outskirts of the campsite. Ashdown said that Graham would be around here somewhere-unfortunately, his advice was not very helpful when everything was such a mess.
“Everything alright?” she murmured into her earpiece, because it always made her nervous to leave her teammates on their own: she knew that they were very capable people, but since Wolfgang had died she had become the ‘sensible’ one and it could be very hard going.
“Ashdown just called Taisy a peasant,” Bradley said, sounding more amused than annoyed. “Things are getting ugly.”
Sighing, Robyn crept towards a tent that was fairly central to the camp and looked inside, lifting one of the flaps. It took her a moment to realise that it was occupied; a wiry man was laid back against a pile of sackcloth, scarred arms bent up with his hands at the back of his head, one leg lolling atop the other. He opened one eye as she looked inside.
“Captain Graham?” she asked.
“Not me,” he said in a curly Welsh accent. “You’re lookin’ for the next clearing, over by the mangroves. Head left. My left.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Not a problem, m’dear.”
After that, he closed his eye again and appeared to go back to sleep. Robyn looked at him, confused at his lack of questions, and then let the flap drop shut. Then, turning right, she made her way across the deserted camp, fought her way through some greenery and eventually found herself on a small dirt-lined ridge that ran alongside a small swamp.
A little way ahead of her was a tumbledown cabin, of sorts, formed from a dinghy and even more canvas. A man she didn’t recognise, but knew to be Captain Graham, was stood with his elbow leaning on the edge of the keeled-over dinghy, bucket-topped boots slightly apart and one eyebrow raised impressively high on his weather-beaten brow.
She knew that it was Captain Graham because Ashdown was stood in front of him, pistol pointed towards his head.
“No time for the usual banter today, Captain,” he said quite cheerfully. “There are people from the future after me.”
“Eh?” Graham responded, and quite rightly: Robyn had a feeling she would have been about the same. She didn’t have time to explain, however-she simply lowered her head and ran, rolling the edges of her boots across the ground as she moved to make the least amount of noise, grabbing Ashdown just as he prepared to fire and jerking him sideways. He fired involuntarily at the sudden tackle from behind; the shot flew wildly off-course.
Robyn grasped him by the lapels of his jacket and practically lifted him from the ground, resisting the urge to shake him until he rattled. She knew she was in no danger; flintlock pistols could only carry one shot at a time, and he had fired that shot.
“Do you want me to drop you in the swamp?” she demanded. “How the hell did you get away from the others?”
He merely looked at her, gold lashes low over his eyes.
“Whoever yer are, missus,” Graham said graciously from somewhere to one side, “thanks very much for savin’ my life.”
Robyn looked at him.
“Yeah, no problem,” she replied, raising her tranquilliser gun and shooting him in the neck. He looked at her, faintly reproachful, and then collapsed. She dropped Ashdown back to the ground, where he began smoothing down his damask jacket in irritation.
“This is so unfair,” he whined like a schoolboy. Robyn wondered if slapping him would result in any punishment. When she decided that it would, she wondered if that punishment would be worth it.
“Don’t worry, Ashdown,” rang a voice from behind them. “If I’m in a good mood, I’ll let you shoot him next time.”
Robyn turned around to find herself face-to-face with her future self.
Again.
“Oh, Jesus bloody fuck.”