[ 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]

"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?"

[talentsgirl]

She tried and did not entirely succeed in keeping her laughter, "Good to know."

Oh, Lord, what is this conversation.

"And, yes, I think that tea would be a good idea right now," her stomach was full of bubbles and nerves and not the smallest amount of fear, so she wasn't sure she could eat, but tea? She could probably do tea.

[greenjacketed]

For his part, he had been wickedly hungry upon his arrival. But perhaps -- ah, well. To each their own? Especially those with fantastically coloured hair.

"Wonder if the pub does a tea..." No one had pointed out the tea shop to him. Not yet.

[talentsgirl]

Pub. ...and suddenly the thought of getting horribly drunk and making completely irresponsible decisions and not dealing with this occurred.

...

Molly glanced at him sidelong. Oh wow, that was tempting.

And then she ducked her head and laughed a little, "Only one way to find out."

[greenjacketed]

A cracked smile. "Aye, lass. Aye."

He nodded towards the watering hole in question -- not bothering to shake his coat out and don it for such a short walk. "If your poor feet can take it?"

[talentsgirl]

She gave him a startled look and a quick, flickering assessment all on the edges of another wryly tinged laugh. "Well, I'm not going to let you start carrying me now."

And she started towards the pub, a bit gingerly yes, but determined enough.

[greenjacketed]

"...Was only going to offer you my arm, Miss Molly."

[talentsgirl]

Grinning a little abashedly, Molly turned back to him. "You're too kind, sir."

The horrible thing was that - she meant it. Molly was usually able to get a good read on people, and although part of her insisted she should probably be wary, she didn't feel any reservations about trusting him.

So her smile gentled with a touch of wryness and she held out her arm, "I think I'll take you up on that."

[greenjacketed]

"They say," he countered as he slipped his arm around hers. Rigid and firm. Nothing to feel uncomfortable about. This was the cool-handshake of arm-holds. "That it's an officer's right and duty to aid a woman. No matter the colour of her hair."

[talentsgirl]

"How very forward-thinking of them," she said, and in fact allowed herself to lean a little, if not as much as her aching feet would have preferred, on him for support.

[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."