thebrigantine_tlv | "Then what exists to have or hold"

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"Then what exists to have or hold"

Maggie is careful to spend plenty of time in common areas of the Brigantine. On the deck, playing with her dog Fetch or helping to haul up nets. In the congregation hall, often sprawled on her stomach and reading whatever book she's managed to find in the ship's nets. Exploring all the weird little corners of the ship, because if she's going to be somewhere so strange for the indefinite future, might as well get to know it.

She's open and friendly, and makes a special point of checking in with Barge passengers when she finds them. "Hey. How're you holding up?"

[For Becks]

But one day, after she's settled in a little, she glances across the deck and scrambles her feet, sprinting toward the familiar figure.

"Becks!" she yells. That and the sound of running footsteps are the only warnings her friend is getting before Maggie launches herself at Becks in an enthusiastic hug, laughing with pure delight.

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Generally Laszlo wouldn't be able to set foot in a place like the congregation hall without the risk of spontaneously combusting, vampires being extremely allergic to Christianity and all, but in this case, it would seem as though the Brigantine's aesthetic was geared more to give an impression rather than represent an organized creed (thankfully, or Laszlo's entire existence on the ship would be reminiscent of being in Hell—which might be fitting if he were a Novice, but for some bizarre reason, the Deacon had made him an Initiate, fuck knows why). He does however, feel just a bit warmer than he'd like.

He can't recall offhand if he's ever spoken to Maggie, but the voice and face are familiar and he's glad of that anyway, missing his wife as he is.

"Hello there! Not too bad, really. Find anything good to read?" Fuck knows he hasn't, this ship having a huge lack of erotic literature.

Maggie grins up at Laszlo, because even though she doesn't know him, the Barge is a small enough place that faces get familiar fast.

"The books are pretty hit or miss. Some of them are good, some of them have me desperately missing my own books. And I definitely miss the Barge library. I'm Maggie, by the way. It's nice to meet you."

"Cute dog," Fitz says, idly crouching down to hold out a hand. He doesn't particularly seek out dogs, but he doesn't have any objections to them overall.

"Fitz, hi!" Maggie beams at him, glad to see another familiar face. "Haven't you met Fetch before in my cabin?"

He gives her a slightly crooked smile. "I'm afraid you have the wrong man. Easy mistake, from what I've gathered, you have the privilege of having met my clone." It's clear that 'privilege' is completely insincere, but he mostly manages to make it sound like a joke instead of just bitter.

Shaun and Becks have been on board the Brigantine together for a while--initially a little awkward, considering that she was apparently from the future and had a lot of memories that hadn't happened to him yet--but it had been nice, knowing someone in this crazy place. He hadn't expected to see someone else he knew.

"Maggie?" he called in disbelief.

That sure is a familiar voice, and Maggie's head snaps up and turns in his direction immediately.

"Shaun!" She sounds absolutely delighted, and approaches slowly enough that he has time to dodge if he wants to, but she's going for a hug.

Shaun doesn't dodge, though he is a little stiff accepting the hug. This kind of thing was easier when George was around for him to deflect attention from. Now that there's no one left to needs him to take their hugs for them, it's harder to accept contact for himself.

Another thing to talk about with the therapist he'll never see.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, pulling back to look at her.

She doesn't linger long, given his discomfort.

"I've been on another ship for awhile, but apparently the person running it was on the run. His bosses caught up with us, took the ship out of commission, and shoved some of us onto this ship. So I guess this is where I live now."

Almost halfway through the month, Tik-Tok wakes from a coma deep in the warrens of the Brigantine, and finds himself wandering the hallways in search of anything familiar.

"Tik-Tok! Hello!" Maggie's been keeping a careful eye out for fellow Barge folks, and considering he was her responsibility when they got caught in the first place, she definitely had an eye out for him. She hurries over once he's in view.

"I hadn't seen you around yet. Have you just been keeping a low profile the past couple weeks? Everything alright?"

"I spent quite a bit of time at low power. Not very keen on infrastructure, is it?" he asks dryly.

"Definitely not. And the Deacon is completely useless. I asked for bleach to deal with viral contamination, and he gave me a lecture, followed by supposed healing crystals and a pamphlet that looked like it came from a gift shop." So she doesn't think she'll have any luck asking for better power sources. "I can try asking him for a power source for you, but I'm not optimistic."

"Miss Doggett was gracious enough to acquire a generator for me, although it took a while to find it in the nets. Any fuel you find would be appreciated, however."

Because he's still rationing it carefully, powering down for long stretches in secluded and defensible areas.

Becks has been a Novice on The Brigantine for somewhere in the ballpark of a year. Ish? Time is a little wavy and weird and hard to keep up with, but that sounds right as anything. She was good at adapting, that was the life of an Irwin, after all, and she took to the life here as well as anyone might be able to manage. There's a second chance of it all attached to being here that makes her less inclined to really ever bother trying to leave, too.

She hears her name, and a split-second after registers the voice and she's only got seconds to turn, face lit up bright and shining, as the other woman flings herself Becks' way.

"Ohmygod, Maggie?" She laughs as she hugs her back just as tight. "When did you get here?"

"I've been on a different ship for awhile, but apparently that one was stolen. A bunch of us wound up here when his former bosses caught up to him and repossessed it, but far from everyone." Maggie got her two favorite people from the Barge, though, so she's doing alright at the moment.

"What about you?"

“Weird,” she scrunches her nose a little. “Can’t believe we’ve been like- right under each other’s noses the whole time and never knew.” How would they? She certainly hadn’t been aware of other ships like this out in the world. Sure, it made sense. How could they be the only one, but there was never any way to confirm it, no concrete evidence, just speculation. At least until now.

“I think it’s clocking in on a year now. Kinda hard to say,” she admits with a shrug.

"I'm honestly not sure how long I was stranded on a pirate world, because it was a month for some people and a year for others, but I had a whole other life stuffed into my head. I think it's been anywhere from six or seven months to a year and a half since I got to the Barge. Time gets weird out here." These things happen while you're traveling between worlds and times and dimensions.

"FYI, I make a fantastic pirate quartermaster, and if you thought I'd help overthrow and replace a captain who didn't treat my crew right, you'd be correct."

"Totally crazy shit like that happens here too. No pattern to it at all, either. It's like those AI script generators from Pre-Rising, if a computer could take acid." she shakes her head a little. "There was one time everyone was, like, sentient plant life?" She squints her face up and shrugs.

She grins widely at that. "That definitely sounds like you. I wanna be a pirate, how come you got the cool alternate life!"

Maggie grins. "Sentient plants, huh? I've had a couple good ones! I also attended a university where people were sometimes stolen away to Faerie. I actually got a boyfriend out of that one, because I dated someone I liked there and we still liked each other afterward." And they've been extremely fucking careful about Kellis-Amberlee transmission ever since.

"If you run into Tim Stoker here, he's one of my people. We're a lot alike, click pretty damn effortlessly."

"I was a rose, and I'm not entirely sure how to feel about it," she nods a little, lips pulled into a bit of a line. "It sounds like you got the better deal in this, I feel cheated." A grin spreads across her face, eyebrows arched a little, "Dating, huh?"

"Stoker- like the guy that wrote about Dracula?" She wrinkles her nose a little, though it's amusement rather than disgust. "You really do have a type, don't you?" The horror type, that is.

Maggie wasn't expecting to be paired with anyone so quickly here, and really, anywhere that thinks Samwise Gamgee needs redemption is clearly wrong. But she'd been meaning to meet him anyway after discussing him with Sweeney when he first arrived. Now she has even more reason to.

Rather than reading his file, she picks it up and takes it with her, going looking for him immediately, with Fetch trailing along beside her.

She'll offer a warm smile whenever she manages to track him down, and Fetch will practically quiver in excitement, tail wagging furiously. "Sam? Hello, I'm Maggie. I've got your file here, if you want to sit down and talk things over."

He looks up from the rucksack he's mending, with an awl and cord since he gave Sweeney his needle, and nods greeting, though his brow is drawn.

"My file," he repeats, a little uncertainly. "I suppose I'm meant t'have one here, aren't I?"

"Yes," says Maggie, grimacing. "I'm going to be frank and tell you that we have stories about your journey in my world, which I've read, so I have some idea of what's in here even though I haven't opened it yet. And I think the standards are pretty messed up here if you supposedly require redemption."

That being said, "But I'm here to help you any way I can. Should we get to know each other a bit? I managed to get my hands on cookies, if you're hungry." She'd rather have baked them fresh for him, but beggars can't be choosers. God, she misses her kitchen.

His head snaps up at that, hands halting halfway through rolling up his sewing project. "Stories? About- about Mister Frodo?"

Maggie nods. "About the whole Fellowship, him included. I'm certainly not going to assume I know everything about your life because I've read stories, but I would assume some of it holds true."

"Huh." The hobbit rubs a hand across his mouth, expression thoughtful. And concerned. "He wrote it all down, in Mister Bilbo's book, and he left it to me. Only I left it be'ind, on the Barge."

"I'm sorry. We all lost things on the Barge, but that's a big one. I'll keep an eye out for it in the nets, in case it turns up."

It isn't the same story as the one Maggie read, presumably, but she embraced multiverse theories quite awhile ago, when she first met Dracula. "It was published as fiction in my world. We don't have hobbits or elves or magic where I come from. I bet there's a world out there where my world is only a story, too."

He mouths 'fiction,' to himself, but doesn't ask what it means, lip caught in his teeth as he frowns absently. "I know as there's folk from different times. Give enough time or distance and all true things wind up just stories, I s'pose.

"Is your world only Men, then?"

"Yes," Maggie tells him, taking a seat near Sam and letting her dog climb into her lap. She sets a plate of cookies down between them, keeping an eye on Fetch so the dog doesn't get any ideas about stealing a snack.

"And what used to be men. Twenty seven years ago a virus, a disease of sorts, spread throughout my world. Now everyone who dies gets back up and tries to attack the living. ...It's a terrible thing to say we've gotten used to, but we have learned to live with it, more or less."

Well, ignoring them any further would be rude. He takes a cookie, turning it over in his hands, and takes a bite.

"Like wights?"

"Not quite, but that might be the closest thing there is, in your world. We call ours zombies, or the undead. I think the big difference is that everyone back home is a zombie waiting to happen. If someone killed me here tomorrow, I'd become one. If you ever find me unable to talk, with my pupils dilated, run and get a warning out if you can. A number of the Barge folks here know what to do, plus we've got a couple others on this ship from my world."

Edited 2022-08-28 03:54 (UTC)

He looks up at her, expression concerned. "Run, and not try to help, Miss?"

Maggie nods. "There's nothing to be done for me at that point, and if I bite you, or get any blood on you, it could kill you and turn you into one too. Staying out of reach and alerting people who could stop me at long range is safest for everyone. I'm not only asking you to run for your own sake." Though that's definitely a big consideration.

"Hopefully it won't happen, but I believe in sharing information and being prepared, just in case."

Sam nods slowly, expression ruminative. "Like a fox that's foaming at the mouth, then," is the best way he can frame it for himself, though he can't help either but think of Weathertop.

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"Then what exists to have or hold"

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