Lucius Spriggs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
draughtsman) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2022-05-29 01:13 pm
draughtsman) wrote in come_sailaway2022-05-29 01:13 pm
A day with Mr. Spriggs [OPEN]*
Who: Lucius and You (and probably a Captain Bonnet)
When: After the Meet-n-Greet
Where: Various Locations
Summary: Lucius is working and he hates every minute of it.
Warnings: General piracy and swearing.
Checking on Captain (Bonnet) [Closed]
Lucius's knock on the cabin door is a reasonably firm, professional rapping, it's the sort of knock that says 'I am here' but also 'I'm not sure if I want you to answer me.' He waits, in case the Captain's cabin mate is around to answer, but gets no response. After another round of slightly firmer knocking he opens the door and peeks his head into the dark room beyond.
He's worried.
With the way both Stede and Blackbeard stormed off, the shouting that preceded it, and the potential for concussion on both counts, Lucius had decided that a wake up call was reasonable. Unfortunately, it was also possible that one or both of them had gotten rip-roaring pissed after that on-stage debacle. So...he might be giving a concussed and hungover Captain (or two) a wake up call.
The situation was, to put it mildly: less than ideal.
"Captain?" he hazards and steps inside.
He closes the door behind him and squints into the dark, searching for any sign of life on the bed. His low light vision is dreadful, unfortunately, so Lucius mostly just pulls a face into the gloom of the cabin. New plan--he sets about looking for a direct path to the window so he can draw the curtains. He ends up finding the path with a minimum of toe-stubbing and faffing about, which is a fantastic change of pace. The room is very similar to his own in terms of layout, so actually navigating across it is less hassle than expected. When he makes it to the far wall, he wastes no time and pulls back one of the curtains, bathing the room in brilliant mid-morning sunshine.
Checking on Captain (Teach) [Closed]
Blackbeard is a bit harder to track down than Stede Bonnet which, yes, of course he would be. The fact that Lucius is a little worried about how it will go when he actually finds him is irrelevant--he has the same concerns for Blackbeard that he'd had for Stede, after all, and he's not about to let a little thing like the threat of grievous bodily harm get in the way of soothing his own conscience. (Well, not yet anyway.)
Lucius doesn't actually know which cabin belongs to the man but, given how he'd left the stage and the state Stede was in, Lucius can guess that he probably isn't in his cabin. He tries the normal bars first, peering in and looking about and then meandering back out of them. He's got a sword wrapped in a pool towel with him but, thankfully, doesn't run into anyone he has to explain that to.
Eventually, Lucius's search pattern pays off. He finds himself in what he would have otherwise called an upscale gentleman's club. It smells of whiskey and cigar smoke and has a number of very comfortable looking leather chairs. Draped in one of those chairs, with his feet propped up on the table nearby, and looking like he's either dead or in a deathlike slumber is Blackbeard. There's a bottle of fine decanted whiskey, empty and on its side next to him and several husks of cigars littering the carpet.
He doesn't have blood in his beard, at least, so that's an improvement from the last time Lucius saw him.
And now he's here to wake him up and give him a weapon. Fantastic choices, Spriggs.
Today at Work. (Stede and Lucius joint prompt.) [HERE,OPEN]
Carpentry and Such 1 [OPEN]
Lucius has a few errands that he's got to do on his own and, of all of them, this is the one he's least equipped to manage. He has to make a Traverse Board.
No, correction: he has to make the nicest Traverse Board that has ever been made. Out of spite.
Finding the raw materials is something he can do, there are certainly enough pieces of furniture around here to cannibalize, but finding the tools is proving trickier. He has no idea where he might locate actual, legitimate tools for this task and ends up standing in the middle of the promenade, peering at the storefronts with general frustration, all while dragging a wooden barstool behind him.
The barstool is, thankfully, completely wood unlike most of these modern chairs. It drags with a satisfying wooden sound and is clearly stolen from The Drunken Sailor. Now he has to figure out how to turn it into something else and make it look absolutely stunning. He has a schematic tucked under one arm but, as he lives and breathes, he has no idea where he is going to get something to do carpentry with.
He's not even really very good at carpentry.
He glowers at the gift shop and wonders if they have any big, fuckoff knives he could use for carving. They might.
He would still need a drill though.
Carpentry and Such 2 [OPEN]
Lucius is not a fan of hard work. Obviously. He doesn't care for it, never has, and never will. So, when it comes time to separate the top of the barstool from the legs he chooses the easiest possible method. (A screwdriver would have been nice to have but he is currently lacking one.) He shoves the whole stool off the side of the promenade on deck seven and watches as it crashes onto the deck a level below. The legs of the barstool break immediately, three of them snap and go in fun directions. The fourth is still hanging on, but only by the barest mangled thread of wood and splinters.
He leans over the railing and stares down at the mangled corpse of the barstool and, really, feels quite clever. The seat looks like it's in perfectly fine condition, just a dent here or there, and he can pare those right off when he shapes the thing. Probably.
Belatedly, he realizes what a dangerous idea that was.
He certainly hopes nobody was standing down there, even if he clearly missed them.
Bad Library Etiquette [OPEN]
Lucius hates combing through libraries. It's just so tedious. But, of all the tasks he is often given, this one is one he knows how to do well, even if he hates it. Despite the fact that the library has absolutely no books that aren't fiction, Lucius moves through it and gathers up anything he recognizes that might have anything to do with feathers. It's a lot, unsurprisingly. He'd started out gathering all of them but, by the time he reaches the second stack of books, he becomes much, much more discerning about what qualifies as relevant.
If anyone else is in here, they'll grow frustrated with him within an minutes as he climbs a ladder, pulls a book, reads it with audible judgments, either puts it back, or tosses it down into the growing pile behind him and moves to the next.
If there was a way to violate every rule of good library etiquette at once, Lucius Spriggs would find it.
Moping at Sunset [OPEN]
It's sunset and despite this being some heretofore unknown level of Hell, between the clouds and the infinite expanse of ocean, it is extremely romantic. It looks like a dream off the side of the ship and Lucius sits on the deck, legs dangling overboard and chin propped on the railing, and just watches the clouds crawl by. He's moping, he knows, and he probably looks like the biggest sad sack who ever wandered the afterlife (which is an achievement, to be sure), but he's alone at the moment and feeling self-indulgent.
He's got his sketchbook on him, as he always does, and after a few minutes of staring longingly at the ocean he retrieves it and flips it open. He's got a dozen sketches of either Captain and, while he's not exactly desperate to look at either of their faces more today, the little sketch he'd done of them napping is the exact sort of dull pain he wants to grind into his heart at the moment. He flips to it, right at the back of the book, tucked into the cover so the pages seem fake, and stares for a while. When he's done tormenting himself with that, he picks his pencil out of the binding, flips to a clean page, and just starts sketching the crew.
Not this crew, the old crew, and all the faces he misses so terribly at the moment.
When: After the Meet-n-Greet
Where: Various Locations
Summary: Lucius is working and he hates every minute of it.
Warnings: General piracy and swearing.
Checking on Captain (Bonnet) [Closed]
Lucius's knock on the cabin door is a reasonably firm, professional rapping, it's the sort of knock that says 'I am here' but also 'I'm not sure if I want you to answer me.' He waits, in case the Captain's cabin mate is around to answer, but gets no response. After another round of slightly firmer knocking he opens the door and peeks his head into the dark room beyond.
He's worried.
With the way both Stede and Blackbeard stormed off, the shouting that preceded it, and the potential for concussion on both counts, Lucius had decided that a wake up call was reasonable. Unfortunately, it was also possible that one or both of them had gotten rip-roaring pissed after that on-stage debacle. So...he might be giving a concussed and hungover Captain (or two) a wake up call.
The situation was, to put it mildly: less than ideal.
"Captain?" he hazards and steps inside.
He closes the door behind him and squints into the dark, searching for any sign of life on the bed. His low light vision is dreadful, unfortunately, so Lucius mostly just pulls a face into the gloom of the cabin. New plan--he sets about looking for a direct path to the window so he can draw the curtains. He ends up finding the path with a minimum of toe-stubbing and faffing about, which is a fantastic change of pace. The room is very similar to his own in terms of layout, so actually navigating across it is less hassle than expected. When he makes it to the far wall, he wastes no time and pulls back one of the curtains, bathing the room in brilliant mid-morning sunshine.
Checking on Captain (Teach) [Closed]
Blackbeard is a bit harder to track down than Stede Bonnet which, yes, of course he would be. The fact that Lucius is a little worried about how it will go when he actually finds him is irrelevant--he has the same concerns for Blackbeard that he'd had for Stede, after all, and he's not about to let a little thing like the threat of grievous bodily harm get in the way of soothing his own conscience. (Well, not yet anyway.)
Lucius doesn't actually know which cabin belongs to the man but, given how he'd left the stage and the state Stede was in, Lucius can guess that he probably isn't in his cabin. He tries the normal bars first, peering in and looking about and then meandering back out of them. He's got a sword wrapped in a pool towel with him but, thankfully, doesn't run into anyone he has to explain that to.
Eventually, Lucius's search pattern pays off. He finds himself in what he would have otherwise called an upscale gentleman's club. It smells of whiskey and cigar smoke and has a number of very comfortable looking leather chairs. Draped in one of those chairs, with his feet propped up on the table nearby, and looking like he's either dead or in a deathlike slumber is Blackbeard. There's a bottle of fine decanted whiskey, empty and on its side next to him and several husks of cigars littering the carpet.
He doesn't have blood in his beard, at least, so that's an improvement from the last time Lucius saw him.
And now he's here to wake him up and give him a weapon. Fantastic choices, Spriggs.
Today at Work. (Stede and Lucius joint prompt.) [HERE,OPEN]
Carpentry and Such 1 [OPEN]
Lucius has a few errands that he's got to do on his own and, of all of them, this is the one he's least equipped to manage. He has to make a Traverse Board.
No, correction: he has to make the nicest Traverse Board that has ever been made. Out of spite.
Finding the raw materials is something he can do, there are certainly enough pieces of furniture around here to cannibalize, but finding the tools is proving trickier. He has no idea where he might locate actual, legitimate tools for this task and ends up standing in the middle of the promenade, peering at the storefronts with general frustration, all while dragging a wooden barstool behind him.
The barstool is, thankfully, completely wood unlike most of these modern chairs. It drags with a satisfying wooden sound and is clearly stolen from The Drunken Sailor. Now he has to figure out how to turn it into something else and make it look absolutely stunning. He has a schematic tucked under one arm but, as he lives and breathes, he has no idea where he is going to get something to do carpentry with.
He's not even really very good at carpentry.
He glowers at the gift shop and wonders if they have any big, fuckoff knives he could use for carving. They might.
He would still need a drill though.
Carpentry and Such 2 [OPEN]
Lucius is not a fan of hard work. Obviously. He doesn't care for it, never has, and never will. So, when it comes time to separate the top of the barstool from the legs he chooses the easiest possible method. (A screwdriver would have been nice to have but he is currently lacking one.) He shoves the whole stool off the side of the promenade on deck seven and watches as it crashes onto the deck a level below. The legs of the barstool break immediately, three of them snap and go in fun directions. The fourth is still hanging on, but only by the barest mangled thread of wood and splinters.
He leans over the railing and stares down at the mangled corpse of the barstool and, really, feels quite clever. The seat looks like it's in perfectly fine condition, just a dent here or there, and he can pare those right off when he shapes the thing. Probably.
Belatedly, he realizes what a dangerous idea that was.
He certainly hopes nobody was standing down there, even if he clearly missed them.
Bad Library Etiquette [OPEN]
Lucius hates combing through libraries. It's just so tedious. But, of all the tasks he is often given, this one is one he knows how to do well, even if he hates it. Despite the fact that the library has absolutely no books that aren't fiction, Lucius moves through it and gathers up anything he recognizes that might have anything to do with feathers. It's a lot, unsurprisingly. He'd started out gathering all of them but, by the time he reaches the second stack of books, he becomes much, much more discerning about what qualifies as relevant.
If anyone else is in here, they'll grow frustrated with him within an minutes as he climbs a ladder, pulls a book, reads it with audible judgments, either puts it back, or tosses it down into the growing pile behind him and moves to the next.
If there was a way to violate every rule of good library etiquette at once, Lucius Spriggs would find it.
Moping at Sunset [OPEN]
It's sunset and despite this being some heretofore unknown level of Hell, between the clouds and the infinite expanse of ocean, it is extremely romantic. It looks like a dream off the side of the ship and Lucius sits on the deck, legs dangling overboard and chin propped on the railing, and just watches the clouds crawl by. He's moping, he knows, and he probably looks like the biggest sad sack who ever wandered the afterlife (which is an achievement, to be sure), but he's alone at the moment and feeling self-indulgent.
He's got his sketchbook on him, as he always does, and after a few minutes of staring longingly at the ocean he retrieves it and flips it open. He's got a dozen sketches of either Captain and, while he's not exactly desperate to look at either of their faces more today, the little sketch he'd done of them napping is the exact sort of dull pain he wants to grind into his heart at the moment. He flips to it, right at the back of the book, tucked into the cover so the pages seem fake, and stares for a while. When he's done tormenting himself with that, he picks his pencil out of the binding, flips to a clean page, and just starts sketching the crew.
Not this crew, the old crew, and all the faces he misses so terribly at the moment.
Library intensifies
...somewhat spoiled by a. the books opening the wrong direction, even if he can read them just fine that is jarring, and b. someone else deciding to cause a ruckus a bit deeper into the room. Ginko can't quite see them from where he's sitting.
With a sigh he gets up, though he decides to leave his box where it is. He shouldn't be long.
Following his ears, he finds the culprit quickly enough, a young man on a ladder, who is tossing books around. He ends up catching the next one that's thrown down and flips it open to look through it.
"What are you doing."
SO MANY LIBRARY BOYS. Perfect.
It's a lot more effort but it's also quite a bit safer.
When the next extremely attractive, smooth, masculine voice startles him, Lucius does a little surprised shuffle and bangs his elbow on the ladder rung above him. That gets him cursing very quietly but, notably, he does not fall off the ladder again.
So: small victories.
He grimaces as he carefully unwinds his arm and then steps all the way down the ladder before turning. Every fellow he's met today has been unfairly dashing and handsome and he expects nothing less as he spins on his heel. He is not disappointed. He will blame the slight swoon he suffers on shifting books beneath his feet, if asked. As it is, he just smiles brightly, rubs his sore elbow, and leans casually on the ladder beside him.
"Looking for books--it's a bit of an endeavor," he explains sweetly.
no subject
"Well..." he turns his head to scan the shelves and lets his gaze linger on the many books all over the floor. Clearly the guy is looking for something in particular. "Mind if I ask exactly what kind of books you're after?"
no subject
"I'm looking for books with superstitions or stories about feathers," he explains and then gestures to the pile on the floor and then the mountain on the table at the other end of the stacks. He's got the better part of sixty books over there, and another twenty or so in the heap beneath the ladder.
"So, I have to sort through what looks useful book by book."
no subject
"Feathers, huh?" Why the hell this guy wants to know about feathers is beyond Ginko, but as luck would have it, he's probably looked into much weirder things. "I'm not bad at research myself, you know. I wouldn't mind helping out."
He takes another look at the various piles of books, and sighs a little. He isn't even getting paid for this. "But first I think we need to organize this or we'll never get anywhere."
no subject
"That would be lovely," he replies, his smile and expression coquettish to a fault. "I adore company and this will go so much faster with two people."
He regards the pile on the ground and takes a steadying breath.
"Help me gather these up and we can start?" He turns and then, abruptly, recalls his fucking manners.
"Oh! What was I thinking--Lucius Spriggs." He whips back around and offers a hand to shake.
no subject
"Ginko. Why don't you sit down and start looking through the ones already there? I can pick these up."
He's actually planning to do all this organizing himself, please sit down. If this wasn't a library he'd find a way to make you tea or something, jeez. He might not be an actual doctor but he can clock someone in pain by the way they move easily enough.
no subject
"Right, thank you, what a gentleman," he declares and gingerly makes his way over to the table to sit and start flipping through the books he's already accrued.
no subject
But now he's offered and he can't just walk off, so. He bends down and piles up five or six books to start carrying them over to the table. He's actually picking them up with some care, trying to get books that are all kind of the same shape and size in each group. This is not remotely the way he intends to organize the books, but it's the best he can do without knowing a thing about these books beyond that they're on the floor and Lucius apparently wants them on the table.
He does not sigh, but he is questioning his sanity a little as he does this.
Once all the books are off the floor and somehow packed on the table he's going to start trying to figure out how to organize those, too. Any suggestions are welcome.
no subject
He's working and he just made a man work on (presumably) his day off.
"Hey, come here and I'll explain what this is all for," Lucius says and pats the chair next to him. He doesn't have to sit at alarming proximity but it helps. Probably.
"Might help with how to sort it."
no subject
He does grab a book as he sits to so he can have something in his hands. He's also looking through it a little but he's listening, promise.
"Knowing exactly what you want to do would help. I was going to start organizing these by subject."
Other than having something to do with feathers all these books are wildly different, but it's a starting point.
no subject
"I'm not entirely certain what we're looking for. I think it's more to do with the actual properties...or superstitious properties of feathers, themselves...but it might be the whole bird."
He clucks his tongue and picks up the nearest book. He doesn't hold very high hopes for it, but The Firebird had seemed a sensible choice.
"If it is the whole bird and not just that the feathers are symbolic, part of a ritual requirement, or decorative, then it's probably about a rooster? But then we get into what roosters symbolize and whether their symbolism is what defines the feather...so I just went with all birds. It...seemed easier."
no subject
"Well... I don't know any stories about roosters, but I do know one about a bird and one about feathers. I could tell you them if you think they'd help?"
He picks up a different book at random and flips it around until he can look at the words printed on the back. Helpful.
"I don't know if it would be any help, or if you've found them already. One's called the Crane Wife and I usually hear the other one referred to as the Robe of Feathers."
no subject
(No, but he is fundamentally lazy and lucky, so maybe that latter one will pay out.)
"Tell away, I've not heard either of those before," he assures him and promptly props his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand.
no subject
"So... the Robe of Feathers. The way I've heard it, it starts with a poor fisherman finding a beautiful robe draped over a branch near the sea. It was a beautiful thing, pure white and finely made, and he immediately resolved to take it for his own.
No sooner had he touched it than a beautiful maiden, naked as a babe, emerged from the sea and told him that it was her robe and she would have it returned to her.
The fisherman was taken by her beauty, and looked upon her boldly, but he refused to return the robe, saying 'I found this robe and I mean to keep it, for it is a marvel to be placed among the treasures of Japan. No, I cannot possibly give it to you.'
'Oh!' cried she. 'I cannot go soaring into the sky without my robe of feathers, for if you persist in keeping it, I can never more return to my celestial home. Oh, I beg you: restore my robe to me!'
The fisherman, who must have had a heart of stone to refuse such a plea, said, 'The more you plead, the more determined I am to keep what I have found.'
She recited some poetry at him, I think, but I can't recall the verse. It was something about losing her wings and wanting to soar through the sky, I think. Anyway.
After some time and more pleading and arguments, the fisherman finally relented a little. 'I will restore your robe of feathers, if you will at once dance before me.'
The maiden replied, 'I will gladly do so, the dance that makes the Palace of the Moon turn round, so that even poor transitory man may learn its mysteries. But I cannot dance without my feathers.'
The fisherman refused this offer, on the grounds that if he gave her robe back she would immediately fly away and not dance for him at all. She rebuked him for this, saying, 'The pledge of mortals may be broken, but there is no falsehood among the Heavenly Beings.'
At this the fisherman finally felt shame for his actions, and gave her robe back immediately.
Once she had put on her robe, she began to dance. Suddenly music sprang up all around her, from invisible instruments, and the maiden sang of her home on the Moon, the mighty palace where many monarchs ruled, and the many wonders that resided there. Midway through the dance, however, her feet left the earth and she flew away with the music, back to her home."
He'll tell the Crane Wife story after a pause to catch his breath. It's really a shame they can't have tea in here, he could use a drink after that and the other story is longer.
no subject
"That's close to one I've heard," Lucius says. "But the one I know isn't about birds. Interesting he didn't try to marry her though."
That was the creepy bit about the stories with selkies, Lucius can't honestly say he's sad to see it go, but the idea of a woman who turns into a crane and flies off if she gets her feather cloak back is...interesting. Might even be relevant. He pulls his notebook from his jacket and jots down a summary and Ginko's name next to it.
no subject
He shifts a little so he's more comfortable in the chair and clears his throat.
"The Crane Wife... there was once a poor farmer, out tilling his fields. Suddenly a crane fell down, landing not far from where he stood. It seemed like it was having trouble, so he went to see if he could help the poor creature.
It permitted him to come close, and before long he could see why: there was an arrow sticking out of one of the wings. He was able to break the shaft and remove it without doing any more damage, and the crane further permitted him to clean the wound with his water-gourd. With a few moments to rest peacefully, the crane was soon able to fly away. This good deed done, the farmer thought no more about it and got back to his chores.
The next day, he was woken by someone knocking at his door. As he had few friends and no family, he could not think who it might be, and he got up to answer the door and see for himself. Opening it, he saw a beautiful woman who was wearing fine clothing, a beautiful comb in her hair. He immediately asked who she was and what she wanted, in some astonishment.
'Why, I am your wife,' was her reply. More astonished still, it was all he could do to invite her inside.
Despite all his protests that he could not possibly take her for a wife--he was a penniless farmer, all he owned was his house and his land. He couldn't even offer her breakfast, as all he had to eat was a pitiful fish he was intending for his lunch. 'Not to worry,' his new wife said immediately. 'I have with me a sack of rice, and I will make us breakfast.'
So saying, she made a large amount of rice and they had a good breakfast together. Thereafter the farmer stopped his protests, and they led a happy enough existence. The sack of rice never seemed to grow any smaller, and the farmer was able to add to their meals with things he grew and traded for.
One day the wife told the farmer she needed a room where she could weave. The farmer loved his wife so he did not question this, but built the room with his own hands. Once it was complete she went into the room and told him he must never look in while she was weaving. Again, he obeyed her wishes. Every day she went into the room to weave, and every night she emerged looking thin and drawn. The farmer worried, but she brushed off his concerns.
After the seventh day she emerged again, this time with the most exquisite cloth he had ever seen. 'Sell that in the market, and we will never want for anything again.'
He did so, and the cloth indeed sold for more money than he had ever seen in his life. Happy, the farmer returned home with the good news, and his wife smiled at his joy.
The next day the wife went back into the weaving room once more, and that night she looked thinner and more wan than ever. The following day, he could not contain his worry and curiosity, and peeped through the door to see what she was doing in there.
In the room he saw not his wife, but the crane he had saved so long ago. Even as he watched, he saw the crane pluck a feather from her own wing and place it on the loom where it turned into the thread she then used to weave the fine and beautiful cloth. Bursting through the door, he cried for her to stop, as she did not need to hurt herself for his sake.
The crane said, 'You now know my true form, so I cannot stay here any longer.' So saying she immediately left from the window of the room, and all he had was the cloth she had been weaving to remember her by."
That actually wasn't as long as he remembered, but there you are. The feathers in the thread was the main thing he was thinking about anyway.
no subject
"That's a sad one," he says and lets out a huff of a sigh. "So she just...left him when he was happy being poor? He didn't want her to hurt herself? That was...why she married him in the first place, yeah? Doesn't make sense."
These fictional people are having problems Ginko and he's upset about it. Now he's just going to be thinking about a poor farmer missing his crane wife all day.