01 | 🕐 | audio

[mirrortouch]

[ It's not something that really ever becomes routine, it doesn't matter how often he wakes up someplace strange and uncharted. The voice on the line sounds about as scattered as he feels. ]

My name is Will Graham, it's- [ He's pulling back his sleeve to look for a watch that's not there. ] I don't have the time. I don't- I don't have the time.

[ Hang on, don't get too lost. ]

It's not clear to me exactly where I am, but- [ a dry laugh ] you probably already knew that. This isn't even my phone. But you probably knew that too.

[ He's missing details. He's missing plenty. His voice trails off for a short while before he can get his bearings enough to speak again, and even then it's almost unconsciously. ] I don't know. I don't know.

[ It's as if the fact that he has no idea sparks him back into the present. His voice grows more composed, if somewhat cracked. ] So if you're hearing this, if anyone is hearing this - [ is anyone hearing this? ] - any singular indication will be key.

[ Another beat. ]

I feel as though I've strayed a long, long way from home.

[ The air goes dead, and then so does the line. ]

Comments

[shakenandlimp]

So much the better. New arrivals try to prove themselves sometimes by causing an affray.

But if you are not minded to be violent, I would recommend the rum, myself. It will steady you.

[mirrortouch]

[ Violent-minded, he can't say he isn't. There are several parts of him now that wield sharp edges, bloodied and bent, but he hardly needs to bring it to light. ]

A riot's not going to improve my situation. [ A pause. ] Rum might. Whiskey's better.

[shakenandlimp]

There is a pub off the main deck; it takes a key, but I've one of those. Do you think you could find your way up?

[mirrortouch]

I've been to the deck.

You know, that's quite the trust you're placing in a newcomer.

[ It might almost be ominous, if he didn't sound so appreciative. ]

I'll be right up.

->Spam?

[shakenandlimp]

I've been told I'm not to threaten new inmates with a flogging or read'm the Articles of War, so you will have to content yourself with a drink.

[Bush will be waiting, a weatherbeaten, stocky Englishman in his middle forties, wearing a Royal Navy uniform two centuries out of date by Will's reckoning. He holds out a hand when he sees the new face.]

Captain Bush, very lately of His Majesty's Navy-- are you Mister Graham?

spam!

[mirrortouch]

[ Will returns the handshake as soon as he's arrived, though there's a certain way his eyes skitter, and never exactly lock onto Bush's in turn. Nervous tic, though impolite. He focuses on their hands rather than Bush for a moment, and then - belatedly - over his uniform.

How out of place. And yet what an attention to detail. ]

That - would be me.

[ His Majesty. ]

If you don't mind, Captain, you're, ah - [ How does he word this? ] When are you from?

[shakenandlimp]

I don't mind; it isn't the first time I've been asked and I daresay it won't be the last

[Bush, straightforward and unimaginative, doesn't trust that shifting gaze, but he has learned to be a bit more forgiving, and in any case, he will form a solid opinion after he's had time to know Will better. He shakes his hand, strong but not trying his strength, and his hands haven't yet softened away from years of labor, his callouses deep and hard.]

It was the winter of the year 1814, when I came here. And what about yourself?

[mirrortouch]

[ - Well. He's already learning by now that this isn't really the big stage act he'd thought (hoped, maybe) it all to be, and for the most part, when someone mentions where they're front, he's willing to suspend belief and take it at face value. Different planets. Different worlds. Different eras, apparently.

Will's own hands don't come without their callouses, boat motors and handywork and a little murder, but not nearly so much as Bush. ]

That - would make you a good, approximate 200 years older than me, Captain. [ Which is a trip in and of itself. ] That being said, I think it's safe to say that I could really go for something in the department of 'strong' by now.

[shakenandlimp]

Oh, earlier perhaps, but not that much older. Not more than ten years older. [He smiles; this is by way of being a joke, a laugh in the face of the impossible.]

Brandy for heroes, I am told, but the rest of us can drink it too. Come along in. [He unlocks the door with his compass, holding it to let Will into the pub.]

[mirrortouch]

At the very least, some of the wisdom that comes with it -

[ It's the beginnings of Will's return joke, but he's distracted by the inside of the pub, sizing up the walls, the furniture, the occupants. The liquor comes for some reason last on the list, as it's not entirely a drink that he's worried about first and foremost on this boat. ]

I guess wardens really do come with their perks.

[shakenandlimp]

One or two, it must be owned. But most of the inmates can get liquor if they are really driven to it-- not unlike seamen that way.

[mirrortouch]

Not unlike prohibition either.

[ He's sure he could get his hands on anything here, with enough motivation. But that's not his aim for the time being. Right now, and he's changed his mind on the subject, it's rising like bile in his throat, and he just really wants a drink. ]

And I suppose it must get dull having to ask. Nothing costs anything here, I hope.

[shakenandlimp]

We haven't any money; the barge works backward to my experiences. There is an excess of everything. I have never known us have to ration so long as the barge was sailing.

Prohibition of what? [He orders them both Brandy.]

[mirrortouch]

That hardly seems sustainable.

[ Right, 1800's. He wouldn't have a clue. Will gives him a nod of thanks for the order, scratching idly at his chin as he explains. ]

There was a strict outlaw of alcoholic beverages. It lasted a whole of about ten years before the country realized there was really no point to it. People will do what people will do.

[shakenandlimp]

Nothing here is sustainable. A vessel this size cannot carry enough fresh water for two hundred souls to bathe and drink their fill for months on end; I would not give it two weeks, as often as everyone here bathes. We put into port perhaps once every two or three months and yet there is always fresh fruit, exotic fruit. This place is unnatural. Money ain't the half of it.

[He toasts to this confusion, and takes a hearty drink of his own brandy.]

You surprise me, Mister Graham; I would expect two years without ardent spirits would set a country into a revolution that would put the frogs to shame.

[mirrortouch]

Yes, well. It wasn't my revolution.

[ Will swills his own drink, sipping and sighing at the burn on the way down. ]

Half of the occupants here are supposed to be dead, according to who you listen to. [ Flying space prison. He keeps repeating that but he's still not over the fact. ] This barge is bizarre at best, impossible at worst [ which does frighten him more than he gives it credit for ] and - well, I suppose it rings true that little makes sense here otherwise.

[ He raises his drink, a belated toast to Bush's, and watches the brandy in the glass. ]

This is the first normalcy I've had the pleasure of experiencing since showing up here.

[ A pause. ]

And I'm drinking with a 19th century naval captain.

[shakenandlimp]

You will have less chance to get acquainted with sea officers from my day than I have had to get used to Americans from the distant future: there are only the three of us. We are pretty outnumbered.

But more than half the ship's complement died before arrival. I am not the only warden who came here after his death.

[mirrortouch]

I'm imagining an overwhelming feeling of homesickness from your start here.

[ If it's difficult for Will to get used to, well -

He pauses to sip at his drink, eyebrows furrowing as a question sits poised at the tip of his tongue. ]

And you remember dying?

[shakenandlimp]

It was quick-- I don't know if I had time to feel much. But yes, for all intents and purposes, I do. I remember the moment I knew I would.

[mirrortouch]

A visceral instinct.

[ It's almost a confirmation, but if his seeing Abigail alive and well on this ship wasn't, well. He's not sure what would be. ]

I remember my own as though a dream, similarly quick, though not necessarily painless.

[ He steals a glance over at Bush. ]

In this moment you felt. Did you accept your death?

[shakenandlimp]

I don't think I had time to accept it or not. I knew it was happening. Nothing more than that.

Now I accept it. Probably lost a hundred of men, but we stopped Quiot's siege train, once and for all, and le Havre is independent a while longer.

[mirrortouch]

Plenty of time to reflect upon it here in the quiet of the barge?

[ That's almost poking fun, though more at the ship itself than at Bush. ]

Sounds like it was quite the memorable fight.

[shakenandlimp]

Oh, yes. One any survivors'll never see the like of again.

It was the barges carrying the gun powder, you see. At least fifty tons, though likely it was closer to a hundred. A shot was fired into one of the magazines.

There is probably nothing left of the horses, his troops, the field battery... the town they were anchored by...

Just wreckage floating down the Seine.

Pardon me, I don't mean to be so gloomy. I'm not bitter about it, you see, but I wish I could have lived to the end of the war.

[mirrortouch]

[ He doesn't think of Bush's war, he doesn't think of gunpowder treason and plot; he thinks instead of back home, his own tidy little war that he's been fighting. His own tidy little war that was cut so riotously short with its sidestep here onto the barge, with three little bullets that had stopped him so dead in his tracks. ]

Wouldn't anybody?

There's a feeling of finality that would have come with it, a closure. Without access to that, there's just instead left behind that - chasm, the overpowering sensation of the unfinished just at bay.