5. FEAST

[hismasterpiece]

[Voice]

Hallo, pretty New Feathers! I am hosting a feast. A feast by the lake to the West.

[Not the southern lake -- she needs to keep certain peoples' attention away from the lonely house she inhabits there.]

You are all invited! I have prepared something for you. It tastes of mint and chicory and iron! Yarrow and tansy! It will make you stronger.


Come.

[/Voice]

[Action]

Drusilla will be stalking about the woods as usual, eager to assist anyone who HASN'T heeded her invitation.

There is a cage waiting there, hidden under the trees. It is large enough to house a full-grown adult human.

It tastes of mint and iron.

[/Action]

Comments

[abidinglaw]

He would have to carry the journal with him while he worked. On the sandwiches. It would not do to keep a lady waiting.

"Do you have a preference? Ham perhaps, I believe I have ham lurking somewhere. Cucumbers, tomatoes. How many will be in attendance?"

[namesthestars]

Ham always lurked. Drusilla remembered that about being alive and living in a house with a larder. The ham? It lurked. It lurked behind doors, as though it resented being a salty old ham and wished it could be a frolicking pigling once more. Dancing, happy, curly-tailed.

"I like ham. Will you slice them just so? Cucumber fingerling sandwiches? I do not know how many. I wish...

I wish for it to be you and I, my fair lord."

So shy, her, when she wanted to be. Shy and filled with girlish yearning.

[abidinglaw]

"I confess, that does sound lovely."

The admiral might be heard to chuckle. Presently, he might be heard to spread.

"But unlikely now that you have opened the invitation to all manner of new feathers."

[namesthestars]

"We shall have to steal away together, my lord." She peered into the journal, catching the hint of his smile. Oh, she wanted to lick it round the edges. To freeze it there.

"I shall bring elderberry wine."

[abidinglaw]

"Afterwards, perhaps."

She sounded common of voice, but noble of tongue. It was an intriguing conflict. A mystery.

"Once we have made good on your picnic. I should not like to disappoint anyone, and there is any man living to whom a picnic is not a cause for excitement then I certainly have not met him."

[hismasterpiece]

"Quite.


I know a place, my good lord. I know a quiet place for us."

[abidinglaw]

"I believe I have some basil hidden by."

He said, with his voice taking on a conspiratorial tone,

"I shall be sure to make a select few secret sandwiches. For you and I alone."

[hismasterpiece]

Secret sandwiches of your impending doom, James Norrington.

"I shall wave my fan at you," she giggled. "As a signal."

[abidinglaw]

"But -- how ignorant of me. You are the host. How should you possibly excuse yourself?"

[hismasterpiece]

"Will that offend? I do not wish to offend. I've few friends here, you know. Sad girl. Sad girl alone in the world."

[abidinglaw]

"Come now, you will make them soon enough. In fact you should find before long that all manner of people are flinging themselves at you left and right. It is the way of things here you see. They cannot help themselves."

[namesthestars]

"I love it when they fling. I love to catch them."

A beat.

"You are very handsome."

[abidinglaw]

"You are too kind. And regrettably, I am afraid that you are under a misapprehension. What you see before you is a fiction in a book. The Admiral James Norrington of flesh and blood is but hulking, comely and pale."

But he says this with a chuckle, and it is a charming sort of chuckle, which hardly helps his case.

[bloodwaif]

"But I like the pale." Oh, he IS so charming. She wants to smooth back his eyebrows and hold him as he dies. "I myself am pale, you know. Creamy. Like the milk of the moon."

[abidinglaw]

"Then I shall count myself fortunate."

How on earth had he ended up talking about himself at such length? About questions of his own physicality? Was he truly so unpracticed at this? Had it been so long?

"But enough of that. The sandwiches are prepared. One moment."

And setting the book down at last he vanished in search of a wicker basket.

[hismasterpiece]

"Beneath the spreading willow," she crooned into her journal. "Beneath the spreading willow by the bridge. Find me."

And Drusilla closed her journal, trusting that he would find her. The willow was a remarkable one, a landmark in and of itself -- enormous and hoary and lurking and sprawling. Waving. Weaving. Stretching beneath and across the river. It would be difficult to mistake where she meant to meet him.