That Sacred Arrangement....

[all7seas]

Who: wise_maiden and lists_to_port; We are leaving this log WIDE OPEN. So if you are family or friends, you are invited and may mingle or gossip or be all dressed up or get drunk or do the electric slide or WHAT HAVE YOU. Are there any Wedding Crashers in Luceti? Ha!
What: Wedding
When: Monday afternoon
Where: That spot with the lilacs by the river in that meadow west of the village. You know that spot---we know you know that spot.
Summary: Jack and Raine get married, and everyone ships it hard forever.
Rating: G I expect? It's so hard to tell sometimes.



On the morning of his wedding, Jack sat bolt upright in bed and then vomited onto the floor. Several minutes after that were spent dry-heaving and gasping for breath, and then another several minutes crawling to the bathroom to put his head under the shower. Cold water---it brought back reality and rationality, and erased dreams of being a pirate and dying in some war and having a best mate and a lover who had always been forbidden him---ever since Jack Horner's lesson and the two weeks following it.

Sparrow figured it was a case of wedding nerves. Strange dreams were a new thing for him, after all--normally he slept dreamlessly and woke up alert.

Later, as he stood in the quiet meadow he and Raine had chosen for their ceremony among the fragrant lilac trees, that morning dream was forgotten. Sparrow was calm. Happy. Clean-shaven and dressed in the attire Buffy had picked out for him and eagerly waiting for his beautiful bride.

Comments

[herotypical]

"No?" He hadn't been doing so well? A dream that felt like a memory made her think of bridge-side robbery. But Buffy couldn't quite yet think that Sparrow could be capable of this trespass.

[all7seas]

"The fact is, Mrs. Horner, there are many people in deep to Nami. This robber fellow could be almost anyone in the village. I---I can't help you."

[herotypical]

How frustratingly unhelpful. Buffy's fist bunched in the fabric of her sweater -- just above where the sparrow had been sketched. "Whoever it is, they got greedy. You heard, right?"

The larger robbery -- she alluded to it with a tight, anxious voice. If she had any suspicions then they fell solely upon her husband.

[all7seas]

"Hmm? Heard? Heard about what?" He turned toward the fireplace and stared hard at the ashes there. Buried underneath was his share of Nami's gold.

[herotypical]

"Someone took the whole treasury. All Nami had -- during the festival, sometime."

While she had been on Albert's roof enjoying wine and muffins and the fireworks. Contemplating a different future.

[all7seas]

"Really? That's...that's absolutely horrible, Buffy. Really. Tragic."

[herotypical]

"The tragedy'll be what they do to the thief when they find him." And because his Annie still alarmed Buffy: "Or her."

[all7seas]

"And what do you think they'll DO to said thief when they find him, hmm?"

[herotypical]

"There were some pretty strong threats-o-violence. Depends on whether they stick to the official channels, I guess."

It was just about the coldest, most lifeless conversation she and Jack Sparrow had ever had but Buffy wasn't sure how to shatter her way into deeper talk.

[all7seas]

"He'll likely never come forward, then. Neither him nor the one what attacked those people--Jilly--in the forest."

Jack sat down on the edge of the hearth, turned toward her on the couch, now.

[herotypical]

"People? There were others?"

She sat up straighter -- if that was even possible -- and her fidgeting stopped. But oh, how the distance between them seemed to be such an awful lot of distance. Too much distance, almost.

[all7seas]

Uh oh.

"Hmm? Oh. I, erm...just assumed, darling, that there had been. Haven't there?"

[herotypical]

"Maybe. I don't -- I haven't heard about any more but I guess that makes some kind of sense."

Her sights narrowed. Sword-point. Grocery bags.

[all7seas]

"And was there anything else? Today is my wedding, isn't it. Are you going to be there?"

[herotypical]

She answered honestly because she was totally unaware of any lie she could offer that would sound any better. "I don't know. It's...been a weird day and it's only still morning. And weird days are usually...I mean -- maybe. Maybe I'll stop by."

[all7seas]

"A weird day, you say? What do you mean?" Because he had been having a strange morning as well.

"I've just been---dreams, you know. Odd ones."

[herotypical]

"Me too. Odd ones -- and not like the normally odd ones? Odder odd ones."

A rush of words. "And they seem a little wide-spread, from what I can tell. Shift."

A terribly cruel one, at that.

[all7seas]

"I dreamed---ha. I dreamed that we...on that couch, actually."

[herotypical]

And with every bit of speed she had, Buffy stood up. Off the couch -- a swift step away from it. She swallowed hard.

"Me too. I mean -- I...that's a thing that's been happening, too. Shared dreams. W-well, not shared. But two people having the same one."

However, she had been mostly certain that her dreams of Sparrow had nothing to do with these Shift dreams.

[all7seas]

Jack knelt on the floor at her feet, digging his fingernails between the cracks of the wooden floorboards--getting down close. "And it's as though there's a stain, just here; but I can't remember where it came from..."

[herotypical]

"I do," she breathed.

But -- no. Buffy shook her head and again took a step back. "I mean -- I can't remember because it's not even a thing that happened. It never happened. None of it happened."

[all7seas]

"Perhaps it's only a shift, and..."

But Sparrow had trailed off and was looking up at Buffy as she backpedaled over that admission: I do.

[herotypical]

They weren't the sorts of words one wanted to accidentally end up saying on someone else's wedding day. It all seemed more than a little tawdry.

"Of course it's a Shift. That's...that's exactly the popular theory. And the simplest explanation is best, right?" Buffy wanted some kind of affirmation.

[all7seas]

"....Sometimes. Sometimes it is best." Unless we're bein' shifted NOW, was what he wanted to say; but Jack left that part unspoken. It was one of the uncomfortable things about living in this place, really: to not know when things were normal or when they were skewed.

[herotypical]

"I mean, the things in the dreams are impossible things. A whole other place a-and...people."

Buffy tapped her fingers against her opposite palm. Hoping to convince both him and herself.