come_sailaway | I swear by my tattoo

Who: Blackbeard (Edward Teach) and YOU!
What: An Existential Crisis
When: End of April, beginning of May
Where: Everywhere
Warnings: Language?

[i. Nautilus]

This ship--floating city, really--is absolutely fucking MASSIVE. After all that weird introduction to the place, Ed's been wandering above and below deck with a wide-eyed, slightly baffled, slightly-awed, slightly alarmed look as he took in the metal hull, the lack of sails and rigging, the way you barely felt the roll of the ocean.

He had climbed over the rails and banged on the hull, amazed at the durability and evenness of the exterior. He had walked the longest of the decks, one foot directly in front of the other in an attempt to map the sheer scale of this beast. He had yet to figure out how the damned thing was moving.

He had tried to get into the wheelhouse, but that went down like a lead cannonball.

It was both the most amazing and most frightening place he had been in a long-ass time.

"This is wild."

[ii. Blow me down and pick me up! She swapped me for a trout]

Scattered around him are various drinking glasses, most empty, some with their garnishes still garnishing. He's eaten all the cherries, though, if they had cherries. And any citrus garnishes have been finished to their rind. Doesn't seem too keen on mint garnishes however.

"They come in so many colors--did you know that? This one is green!" He picks up a glass and points at the obviously green contents. "And none of them even TASTE like rum. How do they--and look, they have these little--" Ed plucks a paper umbrella from one of the cocktails, going almost cross-eyed to look at the parasol pinched between his fingers. "These little umbrellas! Look at that. How do you think they make 'em so small?"

[iii. Strange Man of the Seas]

By the end of it, this man with a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard and long hair, dressed in leather like a biker, is just laying on the deck. Not on a deck chair, just flat on his back on the floor, staring up at the sky.

Ed is overwhelmed. The lights--there's not a single candle to be had but everything is all lit up, and the casino even has colored lights, like stained glass but...not. There's a sink where he can turn a tap and the water can be hot or cold at request. The possibility of ghosts are the least of his concerns.

"But how the fuck is it moving?"

[iv. pick your poison]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Johnny (a short man with hair slicked-back, wearing a suit with a white dinner jacket) grins at the little umbrella being waved at him. The drink he's sipping at has a lovely yellow-to-red gradient and cherry garnish. "Some of the colors are new to me, but we had some in my day. I actually have a book of cocktail recipes I've been reading through, trying to learn as much about modern spirits as possible. Back home, I'm a bartender, among other talents."

Nevermind that Ed is...well, everything Ed is. Johnny's just going to be his usual friendly self, golden eyes warm. "I've been acquainting myself with all the whiskies at Tauva--the cigar lounge, one at a time, too."

Great. Even with eras of fashion separating them, it's easy to spot a rich man--nobody of Ed's class and social stature has the time or means to keep a suit like that so starched and white.

"Been to plenty of bars; never seen anything like this. Wonder why they're called cocktails?" He turns his current drink this way and that, as if the colored liquid catching the light will illuminate him with answers.

Whiskey perks his attention, as does the mention of cigars. More accustomed to rum, but he wouldn't say no to whiskey. Plus, that sounds like a classy joint, even to someone living near tobacco-trade central, and Ed knows someone kinda classy. "Anything good?"

For all his clear class and standing, Johnny seems at least to not be up his own ass about his money; he worked his way up from slinging cheap bears to the working class at a pub to where he is today. And with as motley a crew as the one on this ship, he's not about to judge Ed for his attire or manners.

"Cocktail comes from the French word coquetier. Which means egg-cup. A man named Peychaud used to serve a brandy drink in egg cups." Admittedly, this is just one theory about the name, but it's the one Johnny's taken to heart.

"As for the whiskies at Tauva, most are good--they're all, ah, very well aged, though. Same goes for the wines at Topy. To hear Palamedes tell it, they may or may not be thousands of years old."

"Course it would be French." Now the glass he is drinking from is met with some skepticism, as if to wonder if he really wants to put himself through drinking this. What the hell is an egg cup? More importantly, why did you need to put eggs in a cup? You cracked them into a pan, didn't you? Or boiled them up. Were people out there slurping eggs from little cups like they were oysters? (Maybe he had been introduced to one in his lessons on silverware and etiquette, but had mistaken it for a shot-glass or large sake cup?) Regardless, the French are weird, man. Figures they'd make a froufrou drink like cocktails popular.

He isn't so deterred though. He drinks the rest of this glass in one gulp.

Ed didn't know a lot about alcohol production, save for the basic concept of, say, bathtub gin or the fact that people stepped on grapes and them put them in barrels and it became wine.

"Has whiskey even been around that long?" Thousands of years old. That's like... Biblical in scale. It's hard to even imagine.

"No, probably not. It's one of the many mysteries of this ship--consider the fact that we're all being pulled from different points in time and different worlds. Except for those who aren't, of course--there's exactly one other person from my world on this ship."

He sips his drink, not in nearly as much of a hurry to finish.

"...One other from mine, too," he mutters into his drink. How comically Biblical--two by two.

"You think they pirated the whiskey like they did us? Plucked it out of time and plunked it on their ship?"

"Hah, entirely possible. I think part of the difficulty is that we don't know where or when we currently are. All twisted, that's what I say. I'm not nearly smart enough to come up with the answers alone. I just try to ask people smarter than me good questions."

He knows he's not the brilliant engineer or familiar with magic or any sort of spectacular. But he's good support, at least.

Ed's used to being the one in charge, making plans, having answers--but none of this is anything he understands, so he nods in agreement. Asking the right questions could generally produce good answers--or more questions, but sometimes those questions led somewhere interesting.

"Heard if there's ever been any calendars or clocks that might give a hint? Anything resembling a map?"

"There's calendars--they don't have a year, though. Oh, and there's a clock on the telephones." He pulls his out demonstratively, pointing at the time in the upper right corner. "No maps that I've seen, though. And the library's devoid of anything that's not fiction. That feels deliberate."

It's a good thing he pulls out the telephone because Ed had no idea what that was. He still has no idea really what it does, but good to know it has a clock. Ed fishes his own out of his pocket and glares at it, locates the time, and then puts it back. It certainly beats making tally marks on the walls of your ~~prison cell~~ cabin.

Ed gives a brief nod. What they need is to map the sky--and he wonders why he hasn't thought of that before. It's the sort of observation he makes without even thinking about it, but if someone tracked that, kept a record (not Ed of course)-- If nothing else, they could determine what direction they are heading and if their course has changed over time. If they could find a sizable rope, they could even determine the speed of the ship with a chip log.

"Can't promise anything about the when, but might be able to do something about the where. Sea navigation's a--hobby of mine."

He's going to have a fun time trying to deal with astronavigation when the constellations seem to move on a whim, as if specifically trying to piss people off.

"If the where isn't a place that exists in any of our universes, of course, that'll only do us so much good. But I'd still like to know if you're able to discover anything."

This place is a nightmare.

"Not sure if it has to be familiar so much as it has to be consistent." He doesn't expect to understand where in the world they are so much as to get an idea of their route, but even that assumes a lot, and Ed's going to discover that this place does not make it easy on him. Nothing is likely to be consistent, and he will probably give up on this venture soon enough. "But, sure, can let you know if I find out anything."

I swear by my tattoo

II

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