2019-10-20: Back To Business As Usual
- Log: Back To Business As Usual
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Ashton Anchors, Jacqueline Barber
- Where: The Thames - Market
- Date: October 20, 2019
- Summary: Aboard the Thames, Josie works on repairing the Nostos Cannon... and soon has her path crossed by Jaqueline and a hung over Ashton. A little light conversation is had.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Since arriving, a few things have born out for Josephine Lovelace:
• Working out, precisely, where they'd ended up.
• This was not that hard, considering.
• Supplies, and the issue of money.
• ...Trickier! But managable, particularly after selling some Spiran junk she had on her and getting a bead on work to be done.
• Getting the parts she needed, on the budget she had.
• ...Difficult! But doable.
Which is, perhaps, the reason why the archaeologist, dressed down in a set of coveralls and squated down in an area on the engineering floor inside the Thames, has a good section of the Nostos cannon disassembled before her.
Or, at least, opened and in as many pieces as can be safely taken down without causing either 1) it no longer functioning ever again or 2) causing a Thames-wrecking explosion.
Josie has no idea which would happen, and perhaps in a self-preservational streak, doesn't want to find out.
She's currently...
...chipping away at caked-on sand inside a part of the cannon?
One would be hard-pressed to get her to admit it but Shalune had been right.
Storing the cannon in the Thunder Plains... questionable decision-making after all.
<Pose Tracker> Ashton Anchors has posed.
Meanwhile, things have been working out very differently for another of the returned Filgaian natives.
This is easily observable because Ashton Anchors is currently wearing three pirate hats at once, has gambled away half the coins in his purse and spent the last several hours being outrageously drunk with sailors.
Last several before passing out, at least. Which likely explains why he - bleary-eyed and headachey - comes crawling out of an empty fuel oil barrel with a groan.
And finds himself nose to nose with a cannon bore. He blinks uncomprehendingly at it.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
With the Carakin's amphibious mode, the Caravan Kinship was able to move about fairly freely through the waters of Aquvy. Even so, the Thames made a convenient point of reference and easy place to set off from. She could find anything she needed to perform maintenance on the vehicle, and there was no shortable of information to be found there.
And, perhaps most importantly...
There was no way the Carakin could carry all of their Gears at once, so requesting the help of the Thames was necessary. And so, today she finds herself at the Thames's engineering floor. They weren't going to hold the Gears for free, after all - so, in exchanged, she agreed to do some undersea salvage work for them. It was a typical exchange of services, common in the merchant business.
...But, before she can do that, her Gear needs to be equipped appropriately. And so she's killing some time for now, which is where she spots a couple of familiar faces.
"Ah, Josie, Mister Anchors! It's good to see you both made it out of things okay!" She says, approaching them with a bright smile.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Still scraping off accumulated sand from inside the cannon, Josie doesn't immediately notice she has company.
Not until Jay calls out to her, that is. Sliding out from the Nostos' guts (as it were; it's not that massive even for an oversized firearm) she steadies herself on her feet before rising to her full height.
Even for Josie, her hair is a mess. Parts of it escape the heavily pinned bun she's pulled it back into (none of her usual braids involved) and spill past the rolled handkerchief she's wearing about her forehead. Grime and grease streak her bared arms and one of her cheeks.
But outside of a bottle, she's possibly never looked happier.
"Heya, Jay!" she calls out, waving her good hand (with screwdriver).
Before glancing over at Ashton (dragons and all) and squinting a little.
If anyone ever knew 'hung over', it's her.
Even if the hungover fellow in question also has a pair of dragon heads.
...Considering her usual companions include a mystery witch, a girl who can turn into a puddle if she wants, an alien who can turn into a dragon, another alien (who doesn't turn into a dragon), a former soldier and fugitive, a young lady from a mysterious hidden nation with ominous intent, a young man with one hell of a dark side, and let's not forget a dead girl and her best friend, the best engineer of her generation, well...
She's not going to judge any.
"Needin' a bit of the hair of the dog, eh?"
Which is when she pockets the screwdriver and tosses him...
A flask. It's ice-cold.
In spite of the heat in here.
<Pose Tracker> Ashton Anchors has posed.
It takes a moment for Ashton to fully wrap his head around everything that's going on. But the mention of his name does manage to break through the fog.
Looking up, he flashes a slightly pained smile to Jay. "Good---" He squints around at the lack of windows to easily tell what time it is. "Hi," he finally settles on.
Further commentary is interrupted by the airborne arrival of the flask - which he bobbles - and the much more careful unscrewing of it. A sip, a grimace and a deep sigh.
"Thank you kindly." Ashton pulls his legs up to sit cross-legged on the deck and actually face the two women. "It's a pleasure to see both of you made it, as well. Things have been a bit messy lately, haven't they?"
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline can't help but notice how happy Josie looks - that's good. She has to wonder if something happened, or if it's just due to working on that ARM. That was understandable, of course. Either way, she returns that greeting with a wave of her own.
And as for Ashton himself...well, she doesn't realise his situation until Josie calls him on it. There's an 'oh' of realisation but, thankfully, Josie's already on it.
"Messy is...one way of putting it." Jacqueline replies with a nod, after taking a moment to consider it. "It hasn't been the easiest...but at least things seem to have calmed down for now."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
A little of column A, a little of column B?
The Thames is her kind of place.
"Afternoon," Josie provides, a lopsided smile on her lips. "A bit of a long night, eh?" Her one hand rests on her hips as she regards Ashton.
"Give your buddies a nip if they want some," she suggests, gesturing stiffly with her right hand, then pauses. "Actually, on second thought, don't. I get the feeling dragons and drinking don't mix."
Rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck a little loudly, she glances over at Jay. "Jumpin' planets'll do that to you. One minute you're mucking about a temple, the next you're on a ship deck. ...Though I've got to say, of all the places we could've ended up, this one's the best of all possible worlds. I should've figured out a way to come ages ago." She quirks a smile again. "Heh. Kind of makes you wonder, what kind've life it woulda been..."
But she waves a hand again. "Anyhow." Her expression grows a little more serious. "You ain't seen Shalune or Lunata about, have you, Jay?"
<Pose Tracker> Ashton Anchors has posed.
Ashton glances to his left and right. The dragons are, at least currently, asleep. Or still passed out, it isn't clear. But he does smile a touch. "I can confirm that for you, Miss Lovelace. For likely the obvious reasons that occur to you."
Still, he maintains that pleasant and soft smile after another sip. "And I can also confirm for you what sort of life it would have been - if you ever feel like such a conversation." He motions with the flask vaguely north-eastward. "I'm from not terribly far from here, so this is actually comfortable. I'd rather have the sea than the desert any day."
Another sip - then he offers it over to Jay. Can't be a hog! "And I would not count on the quiet for too long. This many Drifters in a small area? I'm surprised nothing's exploded yet."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"Would it...even affect them?" Jacqueline considers. ...Okay, now she's curious about that, but she's not sure she wants to encourage that. Josie might have the right idea, there. Ashton, thankfully, has the answer, so she doesn't have to worry about that eating at her.
"Yes, that's true... I'm not sure I'll ever get used to that experience. It seems to have a certain fondness for landing us in the middle of inhabited places." Jacqueline replies with a chuckle to Josie's comment on planetary travel. She smiles, though, at Josie's comment. "They do seem like good people. Resourceful, too."
She does seem surprised when Ashton mentions that he's from around here.
"Oh, you are? I wouldn't have guessed!" She replies...and then chuckles, once more. "You're right, of course. I'm sure once the shock wears off it'll be back to business as usual."
Her expression falls, then, as Josie asks her that question. Her gaze falls to the floor and she folds her arms in front of her, nervously toying with the sleeves of her dress.
"...No, I haven't..." She replies quietly, shaking her head. "I...haven't seen either of them since... Well."
Josie was there. She saw Lunata fall into Lake Macalania, and Shalune go swooping after her.
"I just...hope they're both safe, wherever they are..." She frets. She's probably been worrying about that for a while.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Better leave sleepin' dragons lie, I say."
Josie grimaces as he calls her by that name. "Don't you 'Miss Lovelace' me! I'm not so old yet that you're going to get away calling me by my last name." She again waves her hand, as if to bat away an invisible fly. "Call me Josie."
For an short, there-and-gone moment, Josie regards him curiously, her dark-eyed gaze a touch distant.
Then she shakes her head, frowning.
"...Don't. On second thought, I ain't that interested in the road untraveled." Her gaze diverts to the cannon, then off towards Jay.
Whose expression speaks volumes before she even gets the words out.
Josie fumbles with something in her pocket -- a pack of cigarettes -- before, perhaps, assessing the likelihood of 'blowing up the workshop' and thinking the better of that course of action and leaving them be.
So instead she sighs.
"Those damn kids..." she mutters, shaking her head.
Unfortunately for her, her worry is naked, no matter what words she might opt to clothe them in.
"...Let me know if you see 'em, ok? Tell you what-- Ashton-- oh, you're already on it. Good lad."
So said, as Ashton passes the flask about. "It ain't the best tasting stuff, but it'll set you right. And I think you could use a knock of that now."
<Pose Tracker> Ashton Anchors has posed.
The answer to Jay's first question is summed up by Ashton in a simple statement: "I have never been quite so foolhardy as to put enough flammable alcohol into a fire-breathing dragon's mouth to discover its tolerance level."
He diverts for a moment to flash a wink at Josie when she scolds him about her name.
And then he's back to Jay's other question. "I'm from Meria Boule. And I'm surprised you weren't able to guess I'm from around here by the name." He makes a motion like he's throwing something overboard. "Anchors. It's how my family got their start - smiths forging iron for the shipwrights, or at least that's what my grandfather told me." He pauses to stifle a burp. "As for the others... while I don't know Lunata as well, I do know Shalune. And it will take more than a bit of a fall into an icy lake to stop her adventuring. I'm sure they're all around here somewhere. The Thames is rather huge, I must admit."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"I suppose that's fair." Jacqueline replies with a slight chuckle, and nods as Ashton explains that he's from Meria Boule.
"Ah...I see. I'm not very familiar with the Aquvy region yet, I'm afraid - my experience has been primarily with Ignas." She explains.
Jacqueline watches Josie's expression as she hears the news from her. She can tell that she must be worried, too. She nods once, quietly.
"...I will. I've been looking for signs of them everywhere I go." She replies. "...So, hopefully..."
Hopefully if they were alright she'd find them, sooner or later.
Ashton speaks on Shalune and Jacqueline smiles, just a touch.
"...I know. If Lunata still has Shalune with her, then...I'm sure they're both fine. Shalune's the one who keeps the two of us grounded, really." She comments. "We're both, ah...perhaps a little reckless, in different ways..."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie's response to said wink is to smile at him, lopsidedly, and shake her head as if she doesn't know what to do with him, tossing her one hand up into the air overdramatically.
"'Anchors', huh. Well, ain't that on the nose," she remarks, then glances at Jay, as if to silently inquire after the younger woman's own surname.
What does that make a name like 'Lovelace', then? ...Without love?
"It's been a while since I was about Meria Boule. Probably too long. I wonder if..." she starts, then shakes her head. "Well, I guess I'll see, won't I?"
"Thanks. I gotta give those two a piece of my mind, pulling that kind of stunt..." she mutters, then looks away, as if uncomfortable.
She did shoot Lunata. Maybe that's why.
Ashton offers a little shining ray of hope. "Maybe," Josie replies. "If they haven't shoved on off to other parts already. Lunata and that Gear..." But she shakes her head, then glances over at Jay.
"...Maybe a bit," she agrees. "But it ain't like I've room to talk."
She stiffly flexes the fingers of her bad hand as if thinking on that again and winces.
Some wounds never stop hurting.
<Pose Tracker> Ashton Anchors has posed.
"None of us have the room to talk," Ashton sagely advises. Or it would seem sage, if he weren't hung-over. "No one joins this little fraternity of fools without being a bit touched. Which is why I'm certain they're just fine."
He chuckles quietly. "At worst case, they've fallen in with another set of Drifting ilk in another part of the Thames and are currently having silly adventures that they'll bring back tales of."
He doesn't seem to even consider that there's far worse that could have happened.
"Once we come to shore, it will all work out." A pause. "And if we -do- come ashore in Meria Boule, well. If you haven't been in a while I feel obligated as a native to play tour guide."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Josie glances at Jacqueline, and she chuckles sheepishly.
"...W-well, I suppose I am good at treating people... don't ask me about hair, though, I don't think I'd be very good at that..." She comments.
She doesn't have anything to say about Meria Boule, but she does nod when Josie mentions giving them a piece of her mind.
She hasn't forgotten and Josie shooting Lunata - but after Leon saved her from falling debris back at Macalania Temple, it was hard to hold a grudge against any of them for it. She knew there wasn't any malice in it.
...And besides, she wasn't much one for holding grudges.
Josie agrees that she's reckless, but Ashton comments that they're all like that.
"I suppose so..." Jacqueline admits. Ashton's comment as he goes on gets a laugh out of Jacqueline, too - it seems to have cheered her up a bit.
"I'd like to think that." She replies. She'd like to think they were having adventures of their own, wherever they were...
And as for Meria Boule...
"I should visit sometime." She considers. "I really ought to get back to business. I've got my merchant reputation to keep up..."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"Listen," Josie says, completely earnestly. Completely seriously. "If you could do anything about this disaster area," and she gestures towards her own locks, "you'd be a Fengalon-damned miracle worker."
"Fallen in with another group... heh. Do I have to get jealous, too?" She smiles, though there's a gap in it, a space that should more lively and isn't.
It was a rough situation with no real good answers, is what it was. Cut and run, stay their hand and possibly die there while hoping for a reprieve, or...
Josie is an amoral creature at the best of times, but there are still, it seems, standards.
And they really are just kids.
Even if one of them can't die.
"...Yeah," Josie demures, before glancing away again.
"That's a good thing to think."
Meria Boule, huh. "Not a bad plan. It's a pretty busy place. That or Damzen's your best bet around here." She jerks a head as if to indicate where they now stand. "And here, of course. Maybe you'll be storming the gates of Guild Galad next. Ain't that gonna be a sight..."
She reaches over and thumps the top of the cannon.
"Tell you what. If I ain't heard hide or hair of those two in the next half dozen days or so, how about you and me team up for a spell? See if we can find those kids. I'm just fixin' up this baby and then I'm out on the road." She pauses. "Or sea."
She adds, after a fashion, "If they ain't tangled up in whatever issues they got, I'll see if I can flag down the others on it." She pauses. "Listen..."
There is for a long moment silence.
Then Josie shakes her head. "...Never mind it. Anyway... I guess I should get back to it. Caked-on sand's not gonna excavate itself." She pauses, regarding the both of them in turn."Ashton, go hit up the mess hall. They can do you up somethin' good with a raw egg or two for that. Trust me. I know. And Jay?" She manages a smile. "Maybe I'll see you around soon, yeah? But here's hoping I won't need to."
<Pose Tracker> Ashton Anchors has posed.
Ashton slowly stands up, shaking the sleep and alcohol from his limbs. "You ask if you should be jealous, then immediately make plans to run off with another lady in your mechanical death machine?"
Of course, he winks playfully at that.
"Perhaps that's one of the benefits of the sellsword's life - no need for jealousy or bad blood. Last week's best friend is next week's dueling rival."
He turns - and promptly has to stop and re-arrange the sleeping dragons on his shoulders.
"I believe I shall get something to eat - and if I do see either of you in Meria Boule? I have very reasonable rates as a guide and I suspect I owe each of you at least one drink for saving my hide at some point or another."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"I think it's beyond me..." Jacqueline replies with a nervous chuckle.
She goes quiet for a bit, then, and nods as Josie mentions Meria Boule - that or Damzen. Jacqueline nods, taking note of them both.
"Those are good suggestions..." She murmurs to herself - then pauses, going quiet as Josie makes her suggestion.
"...Yeah, that'd...be a good idea, I think." She replies with a nod. "I'll keep looking myself, but...help would be nice."
There's some silence - and, as Josie says to never mind it, Jacqueline nods.
"Here's hoping..." She agrees, with a nod and a slight smile. "...Or, at least, when you do, it's with good news."
She nods toward Ashton then, as well.
"I'll keep that in mind." She replies, and looks back.
"I should go back to check on my Gear, as well...I imagine they must be almost done by now." She replies. "Take care, you two."
And, with that, she's off.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie plants a hand on her hip. "What can I say," she says, with only the slightest of smiles. "I'm a loose woman."
On the subject of friends becoming enemies and the reverse as well, Josie only remains silent for the moment. Then:
"Ha. So I hear."
Before her gaze diverts to Jay once more. "Well, buck up. If they went into the water, they must have found their way here," she says, in an attempt towards positive thinking. "It's just a matter of getting the word out, yeah?"
Here's hoping.
Giving the both of them a small short wave as they make their departure, Josie crouches again, summoning an orb of Symbological light to investigate inside the cannon.
"..."
...How did sand get up in there?
Wonders -- and horrors -- spring eternal in this world, it seems.