Prepare for the #LodanRespawn2024 Existing characters may choose to be displace from/have memories of different timelines, thereby allowing returning members the option to retcon their whole character. These changes are the result of the "Unnatural Fog" plot device that is running between now and the Respawn. The plot is simple: no matter where your character is, that place is shrouded in a thick fog that suspends time, but not thoughts or memories, so even if they're repeating the same day over and over again, they continue to remember, so each time feels like a new day. For those retconning OCs; this is where new versions of themselves have the opportunity to replace the old versions. Official lore and tree updates will be announced asap
Levi's gaze adverted Caitlin's as she strolled past him and into the cell. He quickly stretched out on arm and snatched the wooden chair from its corner, pulling it along the floor with some heinous screeching. He looked over at the two as the blonde worked her magic about to fix up the man. A quick lift and spin of the chair to have the back of it face the pair before setting it down with a thud. Levi straddled the chair and brought his arms up to rest on the top of his new throne, where he watched Caitlin interrogate the man. There wasn't much to speak for on this captain's end. That man was an imposter through and through to Levi.
Though his mind did start to take a few steps back, attempting to recall the time Caitlin's been gone along with his own ghosting. Perhaps something happened that was out of there control. The last thing he remembers spending time landside doing was making breakfast with Caitlin. He brought his thumb up to his lip, gently rubbing at the tenderness from before. It wasn't until the hollow pop of a ball returning to it's socket pulled him out of his lull did Levi take notice of the man again. His eyes scrutinized his every detail, from the toe chillers rubbed through the front of his boot, to the cut of his jib!
This man was not a crewmate of The Whistler. Levi squinted at the man's face.
Post by Caitlin Cockfoster on Oct 22, 2023 19:38:19 GMT
The prisoner was just about to answer Cait when Levi snapped at him and made the man visibly flinch. He lowered his frightened eyes to stare at his healed wrist as he began to speak. "We were attacked by pirates. The captain was trying to outrun them but they shot harpoons and tore through our blimp. The balloon started to deflate and the ship was sinking, so me and a few others were commanded to... to climb up the lines, and to... to cut the harpoon cords tying us to the pirate air ship. I almost cut through mine when our ship... it..." He started to tremble, but pressed on, a tightness starting to constrict the timber of his voice. "It ignited and burst into flame. I was launched up and my wrist was tangled in the line. It snapped like a twig but that wasn't the worst part."
He looked up to Caitlin, eyes full of terror as though it were happening now. "I was going to burn alive. I could feel the heat from the explosion flying towards me. I would have died if the pirates hadn't discharged their ballast. Their ship rose upward while the ballast water rushed downward, drenching and passing right by me to smother the flames." Now that Cait thought about it, the redcoat man did smell like smoke. It lingered around his body, and the stain of it was all over his damp clothes. It wasn't dirt or grease after all.
"Then what happened?" She asked gently, prompting him to continue. He took a deep, shaky breath.
"Then the pirates cut the harpoon lines on their end, and the line around my wrist jerked me downward with my fallen ship. I watched the fog swallow our ship before it covered me. After that... I can't explain it. I was just here, on this ship, clinging to the windows for dear life."
She sat her glass down next to the decanter and leaned back. This was nice... like falling into a vat of marshmallow fluff. Calm, muffled, the rest of the world blocked out by the closed door to his cabin, and here they were safe inside. Safe from reality, safe from their own complicated lives. Safe from duty. Safe from context. Just. Safe. --Caitlin
The thick leather sole on Levi's foot tapped the floor of the cell. It was rhythmic, a quickly paced thud as the man bounced his knee with anxiousness. His eyes wondered between the two, the man's retelling of the story inline with how the ander remembered it. In silence he sat until the man finished his story.
"That all sounds about right..most of it at least, I don't remember telling the crew to cut ties, but I can agree with just being -here!-" Levi raised his hands to gesture around them, the ship, the crew, the uncertainty of it all "I just wanna know why I was K.O.S. Kick arse on sight! On a BOR ship of all things?!" The captain raised his upper lip into a small scowl as he brought his attention back to the captive. He rolled his eyes up and down the would-be turncoat before standing out of his chair to step over to the door. A quick wave and holler to the guard brought them over, and Levi quickly pestered them to find someone to fetch him a hot tea. "Tell them to add something strong to it. Just none of Jenny's Cat Syrup..foul stuff that is." Smiling with a pat on his shoulder, Levi sends the guard off.
Only to return with a pickpocketed cigarette clipped between two fingers. Levi lifted it to his mouth and hung it off his bottom lip, bringing his thumb up to light it with a small, emberlike glow from his fingertip.
At least, that was, until he remembered Caitlin never cared for such a habit. He dropped his hand and slouched his free arm up over the chairs back. He rolled the cigarette from one end of his mouth to the other as he raised his leg and sat his left ankle on his right knee.
"So, what do you say we do with you? It's not like ya know much, Trial." Levi shot a very 'I told you so' look to Caitlin, dipping the smoke with his lips for great effect.
Post by Caitlin Cockfoster on Oct 23, 2023 3:00:37 GMT
Caitlin listened patiently, though it was hard with Levi's foot tapping audibly. When the prisoner finished, Levi was quick to corroborate his story, or most of it. Whether the Whistler cut the lines or not would be hard for a redcoat to see even if he was cloud surfing out in the open. "Sorry to break it to you, sailor, but those pirates you were running from: that's us." Levi went a step further to ask why the BOR were attacked in the first place, to which the other man simply looked shellshocked. Probably wasn't high ranking enough to have that answer.
Unsatisfied, Levi turned his attention to the person an duty and charmed them into fetching some tea. The watchman gave a brief glimpse to Cait as if to check if it was ok then vanished to do Levi's bidding. As soon as they did, Levi flashed the stollen cigarette clip and helped himself to one. Caitlin scrunched her nose and rose from the cell cot. Striding with quick steps she crossed the floor to stand before Levi doing his best to lounge in the chair like the scoundrel he'd always presented himself to be. He didn't address her at first, questioning the redcoat instead before giving her that smug look.
"Trial?!" the human asked with a quiver in his voice. Caitlin ignored him for a moment and leaned over Levi in an attempt to seem intimidating, despite her long hair falling forward and brushing across the leg bent over one knee. Her face was cast mostly in shadow with the main light source in the space behind her.
"I wasn't finished," Cait said before plucking the cigarette from Levi's lips and putting out the cherry between two finger tips. Then she reached that hand out to grip the back of his chair passed his slack shoulder. "I want to know more about the fog. Were you not stuck in this fog when the fight started? Did you go into the fog too, like him over there, before appearing here?" She asked flicking the thumb of her free hand over her shoulder to indication 'him' and pointing an index finger at the floor to indicate 'here'. "Or have you been trapped in this fog for weeks, same as us?"
She sat her glass down next to the decanter and leaned back. This was nice... like falling into a vat of marshmallow fluff. Calm, muffled, the rest of the world blocked out by the closed door to his cabin, and here they were safe inside. Safe from reality, safe from their own complicated lives. Safe from duty. Safe from context. Just. Safe. --Caitlin
Levi's eyes rose to her accuser, the angel of vindication of standing before him interrogating him now as well. His eyes scanned her face as she plucked out his cigarette, the rays of light casting her expressions into the shadows; her eyes however, oh her eyes. Levi smiled as she finished up her questioning. He looked off to the side with a smug smirk as he answered the question in his head before facing his Captain. "Well, we've been out of port for awhile, returning with our 'scavenged' goods from the mission, when the Reds came out from around Pike's Peak. They engaged on us, we retaliated. We saw their ship fall with our harpoons hooked in deeply, no way they came loose - and we didn't cut the lines. We dropped our ballasts to gain lift, but..as we rose, they rose faster." Levi leaned around Caitlin to look at the trembling man, who was clutching his hands together, rubbing palm over palm. "We noticed the lines slack, but I'm not fool...the chances of loosing all three harpoons at once? Heh..riiight! The stranger thing was their ship gaining velocity, AND lift as they speared us with the point of their hull." Levi brought his hand to his face, squeezing his nose as he began his sentence. "and I..I left the helm." He squeezed his eyelids with serious intensity between blinking the thoughts away. He looked back up at Cait. "I rushed to the starboard to inspect the lines...and we didn't notice the ship coming until it was too late. I fell overboard..as did Jordon and Li-Li." Levi pushed himself as far as he could into the chair's back, slinking down as his boots ran toe-to-toe with Caitlin's. "When I hit the fog I must've passed out, like I said, the only other thing I remember is waking up on this ship..I was hoping the others did too." The melancholy was clear in his body language. The loss of two crewmates was just eating him up. He anxiously rubbed his index and middle finger together, as if rolling a cigarette in between.
"Well, I never guessed I'd see you in my brig," he grinned at Levi from his viewpoint near the entryway. Faolan was holding two cups of freshly brewed coffee in his hands as he surveyed the surroundings. Levi might not have been in an actual cell, but it was still unexpected, to say the least.
"I've been looking for you," he said to Caitlin as he moved to her side, kissing the top of her head for a moment before handing her the other cup and freeing his left hand, which moved to rest on the hilt of his sword. He was wearing his usual long brown overcoat, opened and draped back, and his eyepatch was still the same bland double strapped black piece he'd been wearing the last time he'd seen Levi.
"So I take it we still have no idea what this damned fog is or how to get out of here?" He cocked his head slightly, looking between Levi and the man in his cell. He brought the coffee cup up to his lips, taking a sip and savoring the feeling it provided.
Post by Caitlin Cockfoster on Oct 25, 2023 4:19:00 GMT
Caitlin started to felt bad for pressing so hard when Levi slumped in his seat, boots sliding along the floor till they ran into her own toes. He seemed no more the wiser about the fog than they themselves had been.
The sound of Skye's voice coming from the doorway startled Cait. She released Levi's chair to stand upright and gave Faolan her full attention. “Funny, considering everyone else was looking for you.” The man walked in with two mugs of coffee, and Cait couldn't help but wonder if he'd taken them to the captains quarters before someone from the crew finally spotted him and sent him down here.
"I see you brought breakfast!" She said with a warm smile. Her eyes flitted closed for just a moment as he kissed the top of her head then opened again to soak up the steaming mug of life's most precious elixir. Conveniently right on the captains heels was the officer on duty with a cup of tea for Levi, as requested. The pirate entered the room and wordlessly handed off the mug to the raven haired man in the chair before resuming their own post behind the desk.
"Assuming you heard everything then. it would appear the mystery perseveres." She answered Skye's question with a heavy sigh. She took a few steps back then leaned her back against the cell bars for support as she inhaled her drink. They all could use a hot beverage to calm them down and stimulate their brains to action. From the cell behind her, the man without a drink cleared his throat and proceeded to ask his single syllable question again.
"Trial?"
"How about we start with your name," Caitlin countered. Mentally she kicked herself for not asking sooner. Had she been that distracted by the one she knew that she'd lost all sense of etiquette?
"Charlie" the redcoat said. "Charlie Yearwood, ma'am.... and captain.... and... captain?" He bobbed his head as he tried to acknowledge all three of them equally.
She sat her glass down next to the decanter and leaned back. This was nice... like falling into a vat of marshmallow fluff. Calm, muffled, the rest of the world blocked out by the closed door to his cabin, and here they were safe inside. Safe from reality, safe from their own complicated lives. Safe from duty. Safe from context. Just. Safe. --Caitlin
"Ah, you know it's sort of a homecoming, really." Levi shifted his gaze to Skye, his head cocked like an interested dog. He eyed the cups off coffee before following the hot pot into Caitlin's hands. He rolled his eyes as the guard snuck their way into the room, pawning off the cup of tea to the beaten sailor. "Thanks mate." Quipped Levi with a sharp tip of his hat. He brought the warming liquids to his lips, the steam rising from the cup offering that reinvigorating warmth to being. He watched as Caitlin answered Skye's request before finding respite in the bars of the cell.
As the man mentioned his name however, Levi's eyebrows quickly rose and fell in what was practically one fell swoop. He swished the tea around in his mouth and swallowed deeply, though hopefully without any noise to accompany. The man surely wasn't from any pirate trial that Levi had a hand in, no, but that name did sound familiar, perhaps he heard in passing through the drunken speeches at the bars, or read it somewhere.
This couldn't be the same man however. Charlie Yearwood? The man who slaughtered countless innocents, the lackey that overthrew his captain and hoisted the red flag? Improbable...but not impossible. Levi leaned on his chair to get a better view of the shaken man.
"He's either a liar, and a damned good one...or, a really, really stupid one." Levi seemed to focus in on the man, picking apart the small details of his being.
Faolan raised the cup of coffee to his lips, blowing gently at the top of the liquid for a moment before taking a small sip. The act was less than necessary, as the coffee had cooled from the boiling point in his journey from the kitchen to their quarters and then down to the brig. Warm enough, he thought as the liquid passed down his throat, bitter but enjoyable.
For the most part, he watched the exchange between the other three. Being late to the discussion he wasn't sure what had transpired, but he wasn't going to interrupt to get a full rundown. Someone would give him a briefing later, for now it was better to simply listen and analyze.
Levi seemed ill at ease with the sudden drop of the name, but Skye couldn't put his finger on the significance. He spun the name over in his head, knowing he'd heard it before, but unsure as to where.
Post by Caitlin Cockfoster on Nov 29, 2023 18:39:17 GMT
Caitlin for her part, had no idea what the name meant. "Charlie Yearwood, hm." she repeated back, noting the way it ruffled Levi's feathers, and piqued Skye's interest. Should she know the name? Was it significant? She turned to face the misplaced sailor and gave a small smile as and a bit of an apologetic tilt of her brows as she pulled the cell door shut and proceeded to lock it.
"I hope you'll forgive the accommodations, but for the time being I think this might be the safest place for you. Please make yourself comfortable. And let the watch know if you need anything... blankets, something to eat or drink. The captain," to which she nodded her head in Skye's direction (it was his ship afterall) "will reconvene with you once he's had time to decide how to proceed."
Following that she gathered the other two men and motioned them toward the door, leaving only the watch to well.... watch over their post.
"Lets head to the bridge and put together the rest of this puzzle from our best vantage point." She suggested. "Perhaps on the way, Levi, you can explain to us what you meant exactly when you said Chalie was lying?"
She sat her glass down next to the decanter and leaned back. This was nice... like falling into a vat of marshmallow fluff. Calm, muffled, the rest of the world blocked out by the closed door to his cabin, and here they were safe inside. Safe from reality, safe from their own complicated lives. Safe from duty. Safe from context. Just. Safe. --Caitlin
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