[ Action, Video, and Voice! ] Good Golly, Miss Molly .001

[talentsgirl]

[Molly woke up on her side, in pain, and cold.

That's strange. I wasn't asleep a moment ago. Was I?

Also, her brain felt fuzzy. That wouldn't do. Deep breaths, Molly, and she remained still and safe for a moment - movement was a tell, and until she had her focus back she wasn't going to do anything until she was sure she could hide. Then slowly, Molly sat up.]

Woah.

[She was on top of a tree house. In what looked like a tree village, no less. And where the heck were her clothes?]

Let me guess. I'm not in Kansas anymore.

[Molly twisted around to try to see the source of pain on her back, only for bright pink to meet her eye - a single pink wing! With a blue one to match. Oh. Hahahahahaha, this must be a dream. She gave a light tug on one of her wings and the dull pain turned into a shooting one which made her grit her teeth against the sudden flare behind her eyes. OK, girl. The wings stay on. And if this was an illusion, it was a hell of one to sustain that much pain. She glanced around, found, and opened the journal.

Huh.]

...a magic book with my name on it. That's not at all suspicious. Well, I guess I'm already through the looking glass...

Hello, in the book! I'm looking for a white rabbit, he was supposed to give me the time. Or maybe the place? Either way, I'm late for an important date.

[No time to say hello, goodbye... either way, she couldn't sit around waiting for the magic book to talk back. Magic didn't work that way. And it was still here, she could feel it humming but... faint. And very much like it was through a looking glass. Strange.

Either way, she wasn't one to just sit around in a tower - or a treehouse - and wait to be rescued. She held the book carefully opened by inserting one finger in it and closing the book around it in case of a response, not knowing that flashes of video could escape through it as well, and began to make her way down as best as she could in a dress entirely too short for her long legs and thin enough to hint at just how low the thorn tattoo starting high at her neckline curved down. Time to wander the forest in hope of... something. Some kind of clue or direction.]

[Part the Second: Or if you'd rather not rescue/inform a New Feather]

[Clothed in jeans a light jacket, and boots, one tall young lady is poking about all the shops in the square. Maybe you'll run into her there?]

Comments

[greenjacketed]

"We're not all bastards, Molly. Just most of us."

A crooked grin. "If you'll pardon the French. Who are the biggest bastards of all."

[talentsgirl]

That startled another laugh out of her, which amused her in its own right. She didn't think she'd be laughing this much, kidnapped and modified and isolated from everyone that she knew.

But what could she say, Richard Sharpe was funny and laughter was very good for the soul.

"I guess I'll let you know about the pardon if I meet a Frenchman," she said once she'd recovered, using her free hand to tuck a multi-colored strand of hair behind an ear.

[greenjacketed]

"What," he grabbed the pub door just as he had done at the shop. "Do they not have Frenchmen in your far-off future?"

[talentsgirl]

"They do," she said, accepting the door with a smile and a nod and entering the 'pub,' "but I've never met one."

[greenjacketed]

"It's just as well."

He allowed the door to close gently behind them. "They're a fightful sight, lass."

[talentsgirl]

Molly had paused at the doorway to glance around. The pub was clean, modernish, and sparsely populated, with tables and a bar. She didn't see a second exit, but the windows were big enough... hmmm.

And no Threshold, of course.

As it was, she was busy taking stock of the place and so not watching her words overly-much, "Really? Then they've been misrepresented."

[greenjacketed]

Another laugh. But: "Bar or table, eh?"

[talentsgirl]

"Table." It was closer. And meant that she could keep an eye on the rest of the bar... just in case. In case of what, she wasn't sure, but. In case.

[greenjacketed]

Then be prepared to have Sharpe release your arm only to pull a chair out for you, Miss Molly.

[talentsgirl]

She took the seat, wincing only slightly in relief when her weight came off her feet. "Thank you."

She set her journal on the table next to her.

[greenjacketed]

"Take a load off your poor feet. I'll fetch us a pair of brews."

[talentsgirl]

"Sounds good. Thank you," a quick smile. "Again."

She waited until he'd turned his back before opening the journal and quickly finding the guide once more.

[greenjacketed]

Don't flirt with the barmaid. Don't flirt with the barmaid. Don't bloody well flirt with the barmaid.. Richard kept his eyes down as he ordered two teas. Perfunctory words were exchanged with the bartender before he returned with the steaming mugs. And balancing a little platter of cream and sugar bowls on top of one.

"Couldn't say how you'd take yours so the woman just gave me the fixings."

[talentsgirl]

Molly probably wouldn't have noticed - or minded, much - if you had flirted with the barmaid, Richard, although the pirate you were speaking with the other day would likely appreciate you respecting his claim. As it is, she's so engrossed in her reading that she starts in her chair when he approaches.

Careless, Molly. "Oh - that's great. Thank you."

She shoved the open journal to the side to make room for the tea and fixings.

[greenjacketed]

Oh, don't worry. It was the pirate's claim that brought out his restraint in the first place. The fellow had seemed so taken. Besotted.

On the subject of their own table, however: "Been reading more?"

[talentsgirl]

She nodded, "A bit. I got stuck rereading the first bullet points."

The casual reference to magic, specifically. The wings are also very sensitive to the point that if they are broken or injured, there isn't very much that even the most powerful healing magic can do for them as they recover, so you should take care. As if healing magic was something that was normal, common place, instead of extremely arduous and dangerous to master, as if healing magic was regularly practiced here, and out in the opened. Sure, Harry advertised himself as a wizard-for-hire in the phone book but... the only people who took that seriously were people who were desperate or in the Know.

She fixed her attention on a different aspect of the original bullet points, however. "It said that we were tattooed with a bar code on the back of our necks."

She tilted her head down and to the side, lifting up the wild mane of her hair so that the back of her neck was visible. "Do you see one?"

[greenjacketed]

He reached out a hand that didn't dare come within inches of Molly's nape. Instead, Sharpe touched the air at an appropriate distance from the women -- frowning.

"There are marks there, lass. But I can't rightly say if they're this bar code are not." A beat. "There are bars."

[talentsgirl]

"Okay," she let her hair fall back down on her neck and straightened slowly, her brow furrowed as she turned this over. She was both rationally weirded out and frightened because of all the implications of a barcode, but she was also irrationally upset.

Tattoos had always been a form of self-expression and independence for her. Defiance, in the face of expectations and rules that she didn't agree with, and there had been joy in the inking of her skin as well, the whimsical circles and flares on her hand and arm she'd doodled a thousand times before actually getting inked, the tribal vine and thorn curving downwards from her cleavage, she'd thought it beautiful, and the snake on her neck...

And now they'd taken the expression of her freedom and turned it into an expression of captivity. They'd numbered her like a box of cereal.

I think I'm almost ready to take that personally.

But when she speaks, the only hint at her thoughts being elsewhere is the somewhat absent tone in her voice. "That means that even if the wings are a natural part of being in this world, like it said, we had to have passed through someone's hands to get these before waking up here."

[greenjacketed]

"...It's not one of your own?" He gestured loosely at her neck, turned away as it was. Because he had seen one of the others, and...

"Would you mind checking if I've been slapped with one, Molly?"

[talentsgirl]

"No," her tone was slightly more distant, her gaze downcast. "No, it's not one of mine. I'd never chose to wear a bar code."

She turned to him, deliberately lightening her expression, although it remained serious. "Sure, I'll be happy to check."

So sit down or turn around or... something.

[greenjacketed]

He shifted in his chair -- turning entirely so that his chest faced the seatback. Long (almost mulletish, to be honest) hair was drawn aside and the loose linen shirt loosened further. Damn good thing he wasn't wearing a bloody stock at the same time.

"...Don't even know what one of'em are. Bar codes, lass."

[talentsgirl]

"They're used for identification on my world. For shopping, mostly."

She leaned forward, and without touching his skin, casually tugged the back of his collar down with one long finger. There it was, sitting low and raw on the back of his neck with the freshness of a new tattoo. And Molly felt her cold anger turn hot in a flash.

It was one thing to do this to her. But to do this to him? To every person here?

"It's a computer thing and I don't really understand how it works, but you shine a specialized light on the bar code and it-" some of her anger leaks into her tone- "tells you the price of something."

[greenjacketed]

"Crimping," he hissed. Of course, he'd shut down one crimper only to be handed off to the next. "Are you telling me we're being crimped?"

Buying and selling of soldiers. Murky business.

[talentsgirl]

She released his shirt and leaned back and tried to tell herself to breathe and banish this anger. She wasn't any good like this. She'd... end up doing something bad, if she was able to do anything at all.

It wasn't working well. The anger was something solid to focus on, and was doing wonders to drown out fear.

"I don't know what that means."

Powerful emotions fuel powerful magic, Molly. What are you fueling right now? Come on, girl. Get it together.

[greenjacketed]

"Crimpers," he turned back to face her -- a flick of his wrist adjusting his shirt so that it settled more comfortably. Bloody Hell. "Crimpers take recruits and auction'em off to the highest paying regiments. Like a bleeding horse sale."

His neutral-but-rough composure broke now into a sort of righteous indignation. "Bloody well just shut an operation down a week ago, lass. Thought I were done with it."