Would you know the real sea if you only knew the picture?

Mar 28, 2011 15:54

Later, she remembers that night only in bits and pieces. When the memories come to her, as they do for the rest of her life, it would only ever be in flashes - of smell (sex, and embers, and autumn), of color (blue-black of night, ice-white of moon, wild orange of fire and Francis’ hair), of taste and touch (rough leaves beneath feet, the ( Read more... )

miranda, debut, marcus didius falco, francis abernathy, perseus jackson, camilla macaulay, dr. rob chase

Leave a comment

Comments 79

dr_robchase March 28 2011, 23:31:52 UTC
In his five years and change on the island, Chase has seen people in all sorts, but recently it had calmed down. It was almost like it was a breath of air that he needed before things progressed. When he saw the girl, though, he knew that calm was definitely short-lived.

He hurried to her side, pace quickening as he hurried, crouching over and regarding her with worry. "Miss, I'm a doctor," he introduced himself. "Can you look at me? Can you tell me your name?" he asked, wary of a head injury and wanting to keep her spine still.

Reply

artemiodes March 29 2011, 00:36:46 UTC
Camilla's large gray eyes are even wider than usual as she snaps her head in the direction of the unfamiliar voice. He is unknown to her, strangely, and where he came from she can't imagine, for she had thought they were miles from anywhere, that had been the point, Henry had said. Or had it? Everything besides that moment still seems lost in a fuzzy before, and she can't quite remember.

The man is speaking, she realizes, speaking to her, and she tries to answer. She wants to answer - she wants to ask why Charles, or Henry, or Francis haven't come, and which way the car is, and when she can go home. But all that comes out is a dry, spluttering cough. At a loss, she only shakes her head, a movement that causes a blood-soaked lock of hair to come loose from the rest and stick to her cheek.

Reply

dr_robchase March 29 2011, 01:15:54 UTC
Chase ducks down, wishing he had some medical instruments on him so he could check eye-reaction. "My name is Rob Chase," he spoke, brushing his fingers over the bloody lock of hair and studying it for a second. "Can you walk with me? I want to hold a hand to your head, but can you walk? Don't nod. Just blink twice."

Reply

artemiodes March 29 2011, 01:42:24 UTC
Despite his instruction, she tilts her head to the side, an instinctual gesture that makes her look terribly young. She could feel the muscles in her legs cramping, but she thinks her limbs can carry her still.

In a sharp flash, gone as quickly as it has come, the image comes to her: racing, racing, racing past trees on legs as swift as the wind, running as she never would again-

Camilla blinks twice and instinctively grabs his arm to help herself stand.

Reply


mdidiusfalco March 29 2011, 01:21:01 UTC
Let it never be said that M. Didius Falco was ever the type to pass up the opportunity to help a lady in distress. Especially when the lady in question looked as though she might just possibly be from somewhere that I knew.

"Juno! What happened to you?" There was an awful lot of blood on her hair, but I wasn't entirely certain whether I wanted it to be hers or not. If it was her own blood then she was injured and I was in no real position to help with that. But if it wasn't her blood then whose was it?

Reply

artemiodes March 29 2011, 01:40:51 UTC
The voice that comes to her (for some reason, her hearing is more reliable than her sight, and it is a moment before the man swam into view) has a strangely familiar accent to it, perhaps as a strange residue from the ceremony she had just enacted. Hands trembling slightly at her side, more with exhaustion than fear, Camilla tries to say that she is fine, that she needs a cold shower, maybe, but nothing more extreme than that - but her lips can form no words. Finally, she shakes her head, but more in frustration than in reply.

Reply

mdidiusfalco March 29 2011, 02:01:33 UTC
Mute then, but it was recent. No mute I'd ever seen back in Rome ever looked that frustrated at not being able to speak, even the ones who had been silenced on purpose. "Are you hurt? Is that blood yours?"

I crouched down closer to her. There was no wound that I could see, other than the cuts on her feet, and her chiton was oddly free of blood. Even with a head wound, and I had seen plenty of them, there would at least have been more blood on her clothing and face. It was an odd picture, but I was more than a little excited. After months on the island I was beginning to fear my investigative skills were going to seed.

Reply

artemiodes March 29 2011, 02:19:43 UTC
Camilla has to bring a hand to her hair, feeling carefully, mouth turned down in a thoughtful frown, before she answers with a shake of her head. Though her heart still beats rapidly and her eyes are over-wide, her senses are returning to normal, and something of her strange predicament slowly occurring to her. Where am I? she wants to ask, for she realizes now what should have been obvious immediately: this is not Vermont. But mute as she is, she can only grip this man's arm and hope that he is trustworthy.

And that he doesn't ask too many questions.

Reply


phoinikothrix March 29 2011, 01:48:38 UTC
Francis had never been fond of nature walks; certainly not after that fateful afternoon in April. All the same, there was little else to do on the island--the bookshelf resolutely determined to give him nothing but murder mysteries and various translations of Watership Down, the ocean a touch too frightening to swim in, were he so inclined. Despite the alarming profusion of insects (large insects. terrifyingly large insects.) and the cloying, muggy humidity of the jungle, there was something exhilarating about discovering the hidden glens and limpid pools concealed within the wilderness.

Limpid pools like the one he found himself staring at right now. Limpid pools that shouldn't have a chiton-garbed, strangely familiar young woman sitting by them.

"Camilla?" he called, wanting it to be her even as he hoped that it wasn't.

Reply

artemiodes March 29 2011, 02:25:03 UTC
Ah, finally here is a voice that she expects to hear, and a figure she recognizes. Camilla turns her head slowly to spy the young man whom, only an hour or two before by her reckoning, danced like a ginger-haired maenad in the moonlight. Though she is still cold and dizzy, and her empty insides churn, she smiles with relief and holds out her arms to Francis, for a moment forgetting the blood that drips from her hair.

Reply

phoinikothrix March 29 2011, 03:33:37 UTC
His first, brief instinct is to shrink back, to run from the blood-soaked wraith that has arrived, surely, to drag him down, to force him to face the things they did--such a talented band of friends they had been!--and to make him pay.

All the same, overlaying his terror is another memory, of Camilla just as she is now, curled childlike in the arms of her brother carrying her back to the car. It is this Camilla that wins out, that must win out, the blonde angel that he knows is there beneath the blood and the swaths of fabric and the hunted--hunting?--look in her eyes. And it is the memory of this Camilla that moved him forward into her embrace.

"Camilla, it's--it's going to be all right," he murmured, one fine-boned hand rubbing the small of her back in gentle, calming circles. "I'm here, petite cherie." And if his embrace is a touch hesitant, or his heartbeat a hair too wild, or his gorge beginning to rise at the coppery scent of blood perfuming her hair? That's just from the shock of seeing her again, surely.

Reply

artemiodes March 29 2011, 03:59:26 UTC
The warmth of Francis' familiar embrace hits Camilla like a sledgehammer of reality. No longer is she a creature of air, and mist, and sweat. No longer is she Diana wild. No, for the exhaustion and pain hits her too-human body all at once, and she is merely a girl again - a slight and pretty girl in an unfamiliar place, with the soles of her feet cut to ribbons and blood in her hair. Her arms curl around his gangly frame as tears of exhaustion and shock begin to pour down her face, making tracks in the dust and mud that has caked her features.

Reply


percy_jackson March 29 2011, 04:32:00 UTC
I was walking Mrs. O'Leary when something caught her attention. She sniffed the air, then let out a big WOOF! before bounding off ahead of me. I immediately had visions of the hellhound barging in on someone and scaring the living daylights out of him or her. With my luck, it would be Katniss. So I hollered, "Stop! Mrs. O'Leary! Heel!" And, when that didn't work, I raced after her. She appeared to be making for the waterfall ( ... )

Reply

artemiodes March 29 2011, 04:46:44 UTC
Under normal circumstances, the vision of a great dog bounding towards her in such a way would have made Camilla laugh like a girl, and coo, and coddle the creature until it raced off or its owner pulled it away. But these are not normal circumstances, no. The dog might have been a hellhound, even Cerberus himself, for the way her eyes go wide and her skin turns a shade paler still.

It is only a boy and his dog, she struggles to tell herself as reason and consciousness battle off the last vestiges of madness.

She tries to speak, to answer his question as calmly as she can, despite the way she trembles with tired and shock, and the way her feet feel full of glass. But strangely, no words come, and she stares at boy and dog, mute and uncomprehending.

Reply

percy_jackson March 29 2011, 04:51:10 UTC
As she opens her mouth to speak, I feel a little trepidation. What if she's from ancient Greece. Would I understand the language? I could read ancient Greek back home, but I could also breathe underwater, and that ability had gone by the wayside thanks to the Island's stupid magic. I'm dreading the communication gap.

But as the woman has her mouth open, and as no words come out, I begin to realize something else is wrong. "Are you okay?" I said again. My frown deepened. "Can you speak?"

Reply

artemiodes March 29 2011, 05:25:25 UTC
Camilla makes a soft scoffing sound, as though the answer were obvious - and it seems to be, until she tries to speak. But her question about who he is and what he is doing here never comes to her lips. The thought forms in her head, but the words won't follow.

It's a terrifying sensation.

She nods firmly, but then pauses and frowns, and with somewhat more trepidation, shakes her head.

Reply


bothgodown March 29 2011, 16:08:56 UTC
The ways that men and women can be taken in are of a vast and almost unknowable number. They can be done in by one another, by spirits, by potions, by force. They can be left as they are or changed from one shape to another. These are things that Miranda knows, even if she has only half-experienced them.

The girl wrapped in white startles her for a moment and she breaks from her path away from her home. What should have come to this girl if Miranda had not strayed? If she had lingered longer in her house before leaving it? The idea of more damage being done by such a trick is one that she quickly casts away. Kneeling next to her, her knees squishing in the soft earth of the bank oblivious to the water that is creeping up the hem of her short dark red dress.

"Dear girl, have thou lost thine way? Taken a tumble and fallen where thou should not have tread?" she asks, curious and well-meaning as she extends her hand. "I beg thee, let me give thee aid."

Reply

artemiodes March 30 2011, 23:41:34 UTC
The girl that emerges from the trees in bright red and who is so suddenly kneeling before her has a strange, airy quality to her, and for a sharp moment Camilla thinks she still must be caught in whatever dream had brought her this far. By instinct she takes this girl's hand and grasps it hand, and the cool dryness of her palm again Camilla's damp one is too real, too solid for this to be anything but truth.

Where am I? Camilla stares hard at the girl, and it is a moment or two before she realizes that the words have not reached her lips. She tries again, and again, but the thought stays trapped in her mind like a tiger pacing the perimeter of a cage. Then Camilla pulls her hand back and shakes her head sharply, this mad turn of events more difficult to believe than anything that came before.

Reply

bothgodown April 1 2011, 00:28:14 UTC
The dampness of the girl's hand nearly makes Miranda recoil. It is a strange sensation, but with a more careful look at the state of this girl Miranda comes to believe that it is not all that out of place. Wherever this girl had been before, whatever it was that she had been doing, it was far and away from the sort of things that did have a way of happening here.

For a moment Miranda frowns, her concern no less genuine but the lack of an answer gives her pause. Perhaps this girl is a mute, one of those creatures who has lost their voice through some error of man or god. Clasping her hands in front of her, Miranda looks around for a moment as she tries to figure out what to say.

"You have found haven," she decides is the best place to start. "This might be madness, but tis safe and far from ill. It is an island, whose name is unknown to most who arrive here. It is strange, I do know, but such strangeness is commonplace."

Reply

artemiodes April 1 2011, 01:10:17 UTC
'Haven' is not the word that Camilla would use to describe her surroundings, as strange, unknown, and oppressive as they are. She looks about her slowly, first at the treetops from which broad-leafed branches of deep green hang, and down at the pool, so clear and perfect as to be eerie. Finally her gaze settles on the girl, her expression one of almost humorous skepticism. Cocking her head to the side, Camilla waits for her to continue.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up