landfall | 01st Landing / Video

[ Here, island, have Racetrack, aka Margaret Edmondson, navigator on the Redeemer, poring over her maps. Her maps, the ones she's embellished on from the Navy standard ones.

(She's known as more-or-less reliable. She's better in a crisis than in a long, boring voyage. Good drinking buddy. Plays a mean hand of cards.) ]

So, I've been looking over my maps, and... [ She glances up to the device and realizes, to her horror, that it is broadcasting in the clear. ]

Frak.

[ Private to the Redeemer crew, sob ]

I've been looking over my maps. And as far as I can tell... this island doesn't exist. Either that or I'm so far off in my calculations that we're hundreds of miles from where we should be.

[ And she glares at the camera, daring someone to suggest this is the more plausible option. ]

...I'll keep working on it.

[ open spam ]

[ She probably grabbed you from your duties. Or ran into you in the forest, and decided to drag you along because she sure doesn't want to climb trees and pick fruit. Or maybe it's a scouting party to check out the state of that pirate ship across the way. Or she just wandered a little ways off from the ship and got totally lost, as excellent navigators tend to do.

Either way, she's not very stealthy. Especially when cursing a blue streak at a plant that's entangled itself with her limbs, clothes and/or holsters. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Too bad. It doesn't like you.

[If nothing else, Mal is an accomplished fighter. And though she spits casual from every line of her body right now, there's something around the eyes that advertises she draws quick. One pistol at her waist, because she doesn't need two - her own way of bragging.]

And the island doesn't seem to like you, either. No friends around here.

. . . I heard you were looking over your maps.

You don't think so? I think it does good things for my figure.

[ Ah. Maps. Damn. A flicker of consternation over her face because seriously how could she have made such an incredibly stupid mistake?

At least navigators are in high demand. More likely for her to be captured than killed outright. ]

You'd be surprised how many of my friends are close.

[ That lagoon is around here somewhere, isn't it? ]

[A neutral and inherently dishonest noise. It is a nice shirt. Rest in peace.]

But they're not here.

[And now her fingers twitch. Hm, hm, hm.]

[ Wow nope nope nope. Sees the finger twitch, and she decides to act before it, drawing a pistol and taking a shot, at the same time throwing her body into the dubious cover of a thicket of bushes, the main virtue of which being that they don't have bark made of grabby prickly things. ]

[She dives to the side, manages to dodge though she feels the bullet go past her ear. By the time she's tucked away behind a tree, she's laughing, a little too happily. Well, what of it, though, she's been on that ship for far, far too long.]

Best you can do?

[Now she draws her gun, and the knife in her boot.]

[ Obviously not, as it was the first shot, and obvious also is the fact that this pirate is completely crazy.

Racetrack slides out of the bush and slips behind a slim tree, judging it wide enough to hide her somewhat diminutive form. The beach is that way. The path Racetrack had been following was that way. And there was a dangerous-looking steep-sloped streambed that way.

Option 3 it is.

She darts to another tree, moving (hopefully) swift enough not to get shot. ]

[Oh, all right, that's how it's going to be - Mal shoots after her, not with any real intent to kill or even hit. Just making it a little more fun.]

[And then she sees, or thinks she sees, where Racetrack's headed, and smirks. She adjusts her posture, crouching on the balls of her feet, knife in her teeth and one hand balancing her on the ground. The other, of course, holds her gun.]

[She watches the trees.]

[ Darts to another tree then another, as a bullet wings a piece of wood; she's pretty sure by this point Mal has lost track of where specifically she is. She pauses, then, to consider her tactics.

One pistol spent, the other still has shot loaded. It would be good if she could tempt Mal out into the open, so the shot wouldn't be wasted. She looks down at herself...

Ah, well, the shirt was ruined anyway, right? And it would make a good story. That time that Racetrack went out to fight a lady pirate and came back without a shirt. She has an undershirt on, and her chest is bound, it's not like she's risking much in the way of ruined modesty. Showing bare shoulders, oooh.

She shrugs the shirt off, and smacks it against the thorny bark where it catches immediately. It's invisible from Mal's angle right now, but hopefully the breeze will hit it and move a sleeve and make it look like Racetrack is just badly hiding behind a tree.

She ducks down into the undergrowth and moves - actually fairly quietly, now that she's really trying - and finds a tree with smoother bark near the start of the steep streambank. That, she starts to climb, shimmying up where the branches are thick and won't shake leaves. She has a pretty good view of the decoy shirt now, and so she nestles in to wait and listen. ]

[Mal is a good shot. Actually, she's a great shot, when she puts her mind to it. She has tight focus, and once she latches on to something, she's dogged in ripping it to pieces.]

[Of course, this can be a weakness as well as a strength - because when she sees the flutter of cloth she focuses in on it too hard, to the exclusion of everything else.]

[She smiles around the knife, starts circling around to the decoy, tapping her gun lightly against her leg every few feet. If Racetrack's quiet, Mal's silent, but she's moving fast enough in a straight enough line that she can be seen if someone's looking closely.]

[She makes it to a tree a few feet from "Racetrack," crouches, watches - notices something's not right. The movement of the shirt's too regular, not like breathing - like the wind.]

[Her eyes narrow. Hm.]

[She circles away from the tree again, not far, still visible from Racetrack's perch, but every line of her body's suspicious now as she tries to get a better look.]

[ Racetrack takes careful aim. She doesn't want to waste this shot; she'll only get one chance. (Well, conceivably she could reload the pistol and take another, but let's not gamble, shall we?) Pistols aren't even all that accurate at this range, but she doesn't have much choice.

She pulls the trigger. ]

[She hears the shot, but not in time to dodge nearly as effectively as she'd like to, and it hits - in her right shoulder, grazes anyway. She can feel blood running down her arm before she registers the thunk of the bullet into the tree trunk behind her.]

[There's a moment of pain, very nearly of fear, and then she thinks: well. Could've been worse. And, wincing, she moves over to snatch Racetrack's shirt off the tree before disappearing behind a bush.]

[It's satisfying, ripping it to ribbons with her teeth. Use what supplies are to hand. It's very nice cloth for bandages anyway.]

[ Her hands shake a little as she reloads the pistols, painstakingly, making sure to breathe and take her time and not spill gunpowder all over everything. She has them both when she's starting to move, and she slithers down the tree, trying not to disturb any leaves too much.

When she's on the ground, she pauses, trying to catch her breath. ]

Who's desperate now, pirate?

[ C'mon, give away where you are. ]

[Nope, nothing doing. Not a chance, not anymore. She breathes through her nose, circles around, dagger held loosely in her hand. She's quiet as a cat.]

[ Aren't pirates supposed to respond to taunting? Frak. Yeah, Racetrack needs to skedaddle. Time to get out of here as quickly and efficiently as possible. ]

[By the time she sees Racetrack, she's probably too far away to catch up with. Mal sighs quietly, leaning against a tree, then straightens up and narrows her eyes, hefts the knife again.]

[And throws it, quick and accurate - not to kill, not even to graze, but close enough to her that it'll lodge in a trunk feet from her and (hopefully) make her jump.]

[Then she ducks behind her tree and sinks to the ground, finishing tying her bandage. Her laughter rings through the trees.]

01st Landing / Video

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