[ 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]

"...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?"

[greenjacketed]

"How long does that make it, then?"

Oh so smooth, Richard.

[talentsgirl]

...not really that smooth. She couldn't help but be amused and wondered, if he found her hair so odd, why he bothered.

"Nearly six." She looked over at him and flashed him a quick, devastating smile. "So I've got plenty of practice."

[greenjacketed]

Odd didn't mean bad, m'lady. And his tasted tended to run towards the odd at times. The attention-capturing.

"It's eye-fetching. I'll give you that much."

[talentsgirl]

...this had to be one of the strangest conversations she'd ever had about her hair. Molly was usually able to get a read on if she was being chastised (which... fit his age) or being hit on (which... fit his demeanor).

"Well, thank you. I like it."

And by her tone, that was really the most important thing. Her father, she'd desperately cared about his approval... but she'd done it any way. It was her life, her choices, and it had to stay that way. The hair was her first reminder of that.

[greenjacketed]

It would take some getting used to but he couldn't fault the pretty face beneath the hair.

"You must, Miss Molly. To do it. For I can't figure anyone to go to such lengths due to not liking it."

[talentsgirl]

Oh, that did it. Her look was purely impish now, if he wanted to see if she'd make good on a threat, he was about to find out. "I think, Mr. Richard, it doesn't take as much effort as you seem to think."

The tattoo that he may have had a glimpse of, thorn that started high on her cleavage and curved its way down to her naval? That took great lengths, and fortunately enough, she still liked it too. The same with the whirls and circles drawn with whimsy and without any seeming pattern on her right hand and up to her shoulder.

"I change it every few months or so."

[greenjacketed]

What? Nah. He was too busy averting his eyes, earlier, to see the tat. Surely. Or if that wasn't the case, he certainly wouldn't own up to it. Not aloud. Not to her.

Oh well. At least she wasn't calling him 'Dick'.

"Every few months!" Gruff. Mock-shock. He said nothing else but simply nodded towards a particular building. Clothes.

[talentsgirl]

Of course, it was entirely possible that he would have missed the hint of that tattoo. Naturally. But the one on the left side of her neck in serpentine design was probably on full display despite the greatcoat.

"Didn't people use wigs and powder in your time? My way's much more fun - and it involves less storage."

...so her style history may not have been entirely the best. But if that was the clothing shop, thank God. She was very-nearly hobbling now, although doing her very best to hide it. Her steps quicken towards the door of the shop, "This is it?"

[greenjacketed]

"They're a bit out of fashion in England, lass. Thank the ever merciful Lord."

Another brusque nod and he opened the door for her. Held it wide. "This is it."

[talentsgirl]

"Thank you," and she glanced down as she entered the store, abruptly slightly bashful and... wow, she had it easy, didn't she. Waking up in a strange world and running into someone who'd still open doors for her. She felt oddly... humbled. Grateful.

And that feeling carried over even as she glanced around the astonishingly neat - no proprietor? Huh. - clothing shop. She turned to him a bit hesitantly, "You're sure everything's free?"

[greenjacketed]

Free was not a word he quite believed in. However: "They don't ask for any coin, Molly. It's there to be taken.

I'll wait outside?"

And so he'd let the woman do her shopping.

[talentsgirl]

Well. She certainly needed to take it. "If you like," and frankly, she wouldn't mind it. A minute or two to process on her own would be a good thing, and she didn't really relish the thought of accentuating everything she needed to pick up with him there.

But having him do that made her feel kind of guilty. Molly turned back to him,, her hands going to the buttons of his coat. "Do you want your coat back while you wait? It's still chilly outside."

[greenjacketed]

"Nah, lass. My shirtsleeves'll do."

He'd judged how much of that dress she'd ripped free for her feet and felt it best to leave her with the greatcoat for the time being. "If I get too cold, I'll give you a whistle."

[talentsgirl]

Molly was grateful for that, though she'd certainly tramped around in worse when she'd had to, all the same... she gives him a bit of a look for that. "I have a feeling that you're being too nice to me."

And suffering for it.

But her expression softens and she allows her eyes to dart to his for a moment. "But thank you."

[greenjacketed]

He accepted her gratitude with a gruff laugh and a wave of his hand.

"Go on, then. Get on with it, woman."

[talentsgirl]

"Right," she grinned at him, and turned around to do just that.

It won't take her long to find what she needed - ten, maybe fifteen minutes to find undergarments, jeans, a T-shirt and jacket... but once she's in the relative privacy of the dressing room, and has removed his coat and freed her aching wings...

Something about staring at the wreck of the dress, at those wings in those colors and - wings. She collapsed on to the small seat in the dressing room and put her hand on her knees and leaned her head between them, feeling violated and faint and alone and frightened.

God... help me.

She had places to go back home. She couldn't stay here. Harry. Her family.

Get it together, Molly.

Getting it together took a little bit. Maybe five more minutes or so, but then there was the sheer practicality of cleaning out her feet as best she could, re-bandaging the wounds with more strips of her dress, and figuring out how to put a bra on with those wings.

Right. About a half hour later, for his sins, Molly will come back to meet Sharpe (unless he should have come in to check on her during this process) with his greatcoat draped over one arm, wearing a pair of boot cut blue jeans, having managed to find a T-Shirt with a graphic on it, and wearing a practical, sturdy jacket and boots practical enough for running.

[greenjacketed]

Oh no, lass. He remained at his post just outside the shop door. Almost-but-not-quite at attention with his palm resting on his sword's pommel. A long lethal heavy cavalry blade which wasn't suited to infantry-work except that Sharpe was a tall and strong soldier with the ability to wield this clumsy weapon. A butcher's blade.

He pulled away from the wall when Molly stepped out. Eyes widening -- what she was wearing, it hardly seemed...

Well. It wasn't bad.

"Warm enough, mi--Molly?"

[talentsgirl]

"Yes, thank you," and feeling somewhat shy despite the practicality of it, Molly extended the great coat back to him. "This is much better than that dress."

[greenjacketed]

He lifted his coat from her arm. How well it had served the pair of them.

"I wouldn't call that slip of fabric a dress."

[talentsgirl]

"Maybe not after I was done with it," she admitted wryly. She'd thrown out the tatters of it in a convenient bin inside the store. "But it wasn't too short for a sundress back home."

...the relative sheerness of the fabric was another story, admittedly.

[greenjacketed]

"Hell, Molly. The thing was too short to be even a proper shift, back home!"

And he should know. He's seen so many of them.

[talentsgirl]

This was the most surreal conversation, and Molly couldn't help but be a little amused at it. Arguing about the relative modesty - or not - of what she'd been wearing. And vaguely, realizes that the importance of winning this argument means whether or not he's gotten to see her in something less appropriate than the under of his time.

Ha.

What an entrance, Molly Carpenter.

"Remind me never to take you to the shore of Lake Michigan." She can't help but let some of that wry amusement leak into her smile. "That dress was downright prudish compared to what you'd see there."

[greenjacketed]

"It'd be a feat if you could take me anywhere. But I do swear to go quietly if you did. For I am not a prude, Molly."

His amusement matched hers. "Shall we eat?"