13th Wave

[tentacruelest]

[Spam for Above]

[It's been....decades since he was in London. Centuries, it feels like.

Jones stands on paved streets in hidden disguise, for all intents and purposes looking completely human. The Barge magic does its work well: no one gives him a second glance.

He's on firm, solid land again. Hates it: keeps looking over his shoulder to check to make sure the sea is still there. And London itself has changed. Hundreds of years have passed here in the blink of an eye. The streets have changed, old haunts torn down to make way for the new. Even old staples he believed would last forever were now changed - the royal family no longer resided at St. James's, but in a new castle. Somewhere called Buckingham Palace. Ridiculous.

To the casual observer, his height and expression seem to be enough to dissuade strangers from striking up conversation.

But to the Barge residents, it's clear that Jones is uneasy and mildly distressed. He doesn't belong here, in every sense of the idea]

Comments

[shakenandlimp]

I am-- though it's two days travelling from here to where I was born.

[He looks at one of the machines roaring by and tries to calculate.] Well. It was two days travel. These things are faster than a horse or a river barge-!

[tentacruelest]

[Jones quickly steps back onto the sidewalk, scowling at the car as it takes off past them]

No doubt.

I expect we'd nearly have time to visit your stomping grounds, if we could enlist one of those...things.

[shakenandlimp]

[Bush now really considers the possibility-- of seeing a Chichester changed as much as London has changed. He realizes, abruptly, that if his mother's cottage is still standing, there will be strangers living there; that he might find the graves of his mother and sisters, and his sisters' children, and their children, and theirs-- he finds himself a man on a precipice of time, looking down at the ground where he once stood.

If he went to Smallbridge, would he find a Hornblower still in residence? Some great great grandson still the squire? He can stand on any ship's foretopmast without a qualm at the height, but this depth of time and displacement is too much for him. ]

...I don't think I want to see. London. London can occupy us.

[tentacruelest]

[He eyes the weight that settles on Bush's shoulders at the question, solemn and waiting. Yes; Bush can sense it too, now. The depth of no longer being a man of time. Jones felt it himself, in some small part, the first time he stepped back on land after years of the sea]

...London, then. We'll stay here.

[shakenandlimp]

[Now that he is firmly fixed on London and its dubious safety, there is nothing to do but plan the campaign; he pulls a folded pamphlet from his pocket.]

I have a sightseer's map here-- either this scale is off or the 'underground' makes better than twenty miles in the hour, but even by foot there is enough to keep us occupied. Trafalgar Square, of course, and across the river that great wheel is the London Eye... And near that, I don't know what. 'Sea life London Aquarium'. That's Greek to me.

[tentacruelest]

[Jones stretches to look over Bush's shoulder at the map, frowning]

What could possibly be in that building concerning sea life that I do not know?

[shakenandlimp]

We could find out, if we took this turn and went along-- by Jove, Whitehall! I know where we are after all, we will pass the Admiralty going that way. And then see about sea life as well.

[tentacruelest]

[He turns a perplexed eye to his warden, before looking around at the buildings, as lost as ever]

The Admiralty still stands?

[shakenandlimp]

I certainly hope so-! I cannot imagine it would ever have been abandoned.

[Nor has it-- though he will be disappointed to find it allocated not to naval affairs but to the uninspiringly named 'Department for Internal Development.']

Some of these buildings are familiar-- they have been kept up.

[tentacruelest]

Blame yer people's obsession with the past. I never saw the point of it.

[He begins to walk stiffly towards both Admiralty and Aquarium, and can't help but stare at some of the...fashions and advertisements of the new age]

Thank god I never lived t'see this.

[shakenandlimp]

It is like a foreign country. [That's agreement-- as distant as their times are from one another, they are both further from this new world, grown by its leaps and bounds.]

Everyone has little comms, have you seen? I wonder they don't do themselves an injury looking down at them. And coffee, man, it smells like heaven but it is three pounds for a cup. Three pounds!

But the food, man, just the smells walking down some of these streets. I have never eaten Japanese cookery--now, I didn't stick about in home waters, but I haven't tasted the half of what's on offer. There's even more than that fair in America. [They are strolling along as he talks-- and having turned onto Whitehall and gone down a ways, he sees the Admiralty, and attached Admiralty House-- and lets out an unconscious sigh of relief.]

[tentacruelest]

[A hundred years may separate Bush and Jones in their own times, but at least they can recognize and understand each other; here, it's nearly impossible. Jones eyes the comms and the shops and warily steps around both a fire hydrant and a phone booth, looking at the things without the slightest recognition]

It's too much. What the hell can a man possibly need so much for?

[He falls silent as they round the corner, eyeing the Admiralty as well. He doesn't know it and has never been to this part of London, but he recognizes Bush's expression and softens somewhat]

Still standing, then.

[shakenandlimp]

Still standing. Oh, you can tell things have changed, for it's peace and there isn't a crowd of half-pay officers lurking around the gates and hoping for preference, to be chosen for one of the few commands. Saw a good bit of that. I only know this part of London for the Admiralty-- never spent much time in the rest of it. Knew Portsmouth better, of course.

This area up ahead that it calls Trafalgar Square, that is what they called Charing Cross, I think?

[He frowns in concentration. Despite having visited a few times and being familiar with the area surrounding the Admiralty, he can't really claim to be very familiar with London.]

[tentacruelest]

[Bush is far more familiar to London than Jones is; he isn't English, and it's been over a century since he stepped foot in the city. Long before he was cursed, in fact. He grimaces, reaching for the map]

There's no shame in being lost.

[shakenandlimp]

It's not called that any more, at any rate. No, it's ... here? [He frowns at the map a few moments more and then reluctantly hands it over.] Hard to miss this at least!

[Trafalgar Square, that new establishment, is wide open and rather grand to Bush's eyes, with its grecian architecture, the column atop which stands a statue of-]

Admiral Nelson! See? I can't make the face from this distance but the empty sleeve, must be.

[There is also, inexplicably, a great blue statue of a cockerel which Bush refuses to gape at, because for all he knows, fifteen-foot statues of cockerels are in vogue and it would mark him out as an ignorant visitor to stare.]

[tentacruelest]

[Jones takes the map in hand, carefully reading it. He has an eye for navigation, but it's usually on the sea; never on land before. Glancing up, he eyes the Square...and the cockerel. And says nothing, because maybe in London that's supposed to be there. But he's unhappy about it either way]

Well, go on, then. Head over.

[shakenandlimp]

You can stay and try to make sense of the map, then! I won't burden you with the history of it.

[Difficult not to-- not to say how he only ever saw Nelson like this, from a distance-- to talk about the Trafalgar action itself, the daring tactics, the near-loss of the Victory, the chaos that he mostly saw through portholes as he commanded a bank of guns on the lower gun deck. The storms! He will never forget how they whipped up and near battered French and English alike into wrecks.

He goes around himself, and doesn't tell these stories, for the better. When he returns he is melancholy again, as a man will be when he stands in a monument to a great battle that has been all but forgotten by passers by, a monument given over to modern art and small brass plaques that tell the history of buildings not constructed in his lifetime. He manfully tries to conceal it all, of course, coming back with a cheerful smile that he tries to make look natural. .

Well. Well! Made any headway with that map?

[tentacruelest]

[Jones has parked himself on a bench by the end of it, map splayed across his knees as he studiously puts pen to paper, getting a sense of where things are. As Bush approaches, he lifts his head, eyeing the man's expression]


Somewhat. I know enough to know we're nearly lost.

What is it?

[shakenandlimp]

What-?

I meant we should try to go see what they know about Sea Life in London.

[tentacruelest]

Not a lot, by my assessment of most Englishmen here.

[He stands up, looking curiously to Bush but finally deciding it's not worth the trouble of trying to figure out his warden]

This way. Said your goodbyes to your Admiral?

[shakenandlimp]

You're ridiculous, Jones. Even I know it's only a statue.

[A very old statue, and the expression of a man lost that passes over his face might have the answers he was trying to hide from Jones with it.]

I'll let you navigate us; mind we don't wind up swimming to Scottland.

[tentacruelest]

[He sees the expression...and decides not to comment. Bush has always been very considerate of his own demons of the past: he'll do the same]

Swimming to Scotland would be preferable. I miss it.

[But he turns, and begins walking the rest of the way towards the aquarium]

[shakenandlimp]

I can't swim. There are easier ways of ducking my company, I'm sure-!

[Bush follows along, trying to be in good spirits-- given time, he can talk himself back into a decent mood, and does, even breaking their journey just long enough to make the daunting experiment of ordering coffee. Largely by dint of asking for something 'strong and sweet and plenty of it, whatever you recommend,' which he is fortunate that the barista finds charming instead of maddening.

He is entrusted with a mocha, pays his five pounds(!) for it, and quickly follows after Jones again.]

[tentacruelest]

[He looks at the mocha, full of doubt and amusement, before halting at the doors of the aquarium]

Any idiot can at least float, Bush. Perhaps one day I'll toss yeh over the side for a quick lesson.

[He pulls open the door, glancing up at the glassy interior]

[shakenandlimp]

Not even you can swim in space, Jones-

[Whatever an aquarium is, it is crammed below a county hall and Bush expects very little.

His expectation is so strong that he isn't looking for anything but the price of admittance, which everything seems to have-- nearly forty pounds for two men, and more cash than he might see in one place for a year at a time, that. But the Admiral's credit is good, and he gets their tickets and turns to Jones with one outstretched-- and stops, at his first glimpse of a thick wall of glass and dappled bluegreen light.]