[ 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

[talentsgirl]

"I guess it's good to go on knowing that you win," although her voice was uncertain, muted. This whole thing is so strange. Did she just break the space-time continuum by telling him that? She'd read something about memory loss, hadn't she? She really needed to sit down and study that guide.

[greenjacketed]

"Oh. Molly. There ain't a question of winning."

He kicked a dead log out of the way. There was only a question of whether he would be there to partake in the victory.

[talentsgirl]

...that was an interesting perspective. "You're that sure?"

[greenjacketed]

"We've fought them out of two countries. They're on the run."

[talentsgirl]

People fight harder when they're cornered. When it's their homes and families on the line.

And all of her thoughts were sober ones, of what it was she had to face when she returned home. So she shifted the topic slightly. "Have you been in the army long?"

[greenjacketed]

"Twenty years. Or thereabouts. Took the King's shilling when I was seventeen, Molly." A beat. "I think."

[talentsgirl]

Well, seventeen plus twenty equals considerably older than late twenties. He wears it well.

She caught that 'I think,' as well. An uncertainty about when he was born? Too personal for a 'first date.' "So for most of your life."

And that, too, explained the flavor of death and pain she was sensing off of him. Hearing he was a soldier had settled the 'whys,' but this explained the depth. "That's a long time to be fighting."

Her tone was soft with some kind of understanding.

[greenjacketed]

"I know it sounds daft, Molly. But it's a way to live. The army feeds you. It sometimes puts a roof over your head. Now and then it pays you."

Or lets you avoid prison. Most privates joined the army to avoid the law. It was a viable, legal, encouraged option. It made the ranks a dangerous mix of thieves and murderers and vagabonds.

[talentsgirl]

She won't comment on whether or not it's daft. She didn't feel fit to. For a brief time, a year or so, Molly had been little better than homeless, but that had been by choice. All the same, she knew the value of a meal when you were hungry, and she had paid enough attention, when she finally went back to school, to understand that the past held situations a good deal more desperate than her own.

"Actually, I was thinking that it was amazing you were still alive and seem mostly sane," still soft, and with wry honesty. "Fighting that long can do things to people, and my history is spotty but I don't think you caught much of a break between wars."

[greenjacketed]

"Maybe I am a bit lucky after all."

[talentsgirl]

"Here's hoping," because she suddenly very much wanted him to make it through his wars okay, and grow fat and happy on a bit of land with a family who loved him.

...okay, maybe not grow fat.

...she needed to stop thinking about her dad. "It looks like we're almost there."

[greenjacketed]

Don't worry, Molly. He will find himself a wonderful French widow and a farm in Normandy. After the war. Eventually? He'll even meet Napoleon during his exile. He'll have lots of children; he'll be a happily retired soldier.

But for now? For now, Sharpe still thirsted for entry into France.

"These shops are in the very centre. This way, lass." He struck their way down a particular path.

"Tell me, instead, about your America."

[talentsgirl]

"That's a pretty broad topic," she wasn't sure she'd ever been so grateful for paved streets. She was able to keep up with him much more easily now. "Where would you like me to start?"

[greenjacketed]

"Where are you from, lass?"

[talentsgirl]

"Chicago," she tucked a multi-colored strand of hair behind her ear, his sleeve flopping down as she does. "It's a big city in the middle of the country. I'm pretty sure it wasn't around--" when you were "--in your time."

[greenjacketed]

Chicago. Must've been a very popular place in America. His new acquaintance Harry Dresden was from there, too.

"Didn't reckon there was anything in the middle of that country. Truth be told."

In his time. His nose does seem to wrinkle at the statement.

[talentsgirl]

"Well, it's a pretty big country and a lot can happen in a couple hundred years."

She glanced around, taking in the community buildings. "Buildings like this are normal when I'm from. They're actually kind of small compared to Chicago."

There. A nice safe and entirely boring topic.

[greenjacketed]

London had some largeish buildings but none so casually large as this. Cathedrals, for example, were massive beasts of buildings. But different. Everything here was not quite as it should be.

"What about hair with odd colours in it, Molly. Is that normal when you're from?"

FINALLY. He remarked on it. Enough time, he figured, had passed.

[talentsgirl]

Her gaze cut over to him, her lips tilted up in amusement, "If they're normal where I'm from, how would I know if they were odd?"

...potentially, she should not have just said that as teasingly as she did, but if that wasn't the most polite 'What the heck have you done to your hair, girl' she'd ever heard, she didn't know what was.

[greenjacketed]

However, he knew not of a polite way to ask 'is there something wrong with it -- perhaps an odd malady of the hair?' and so Sharpe simply snorted.

"Never seen a woman with hair like that. Never before."

[talentsgirl]

Molly laughed again and shook her head. "Well, there aren't many. It's not considered 'normal.' I dye it."

[greenjacketed]

"Dye it? Like cloth?"

[talentsgirl]

"Well, with hair dye. But yes, pretty much like that."

[greenjacketed]

"...Ain't it difficult?"

And expensive. But he didn't voice that concern.

[talentsgirl]

"It took some practice, but I've been dyeing it different colors since I was about... sixteen?"