edge_of_forever | Docking Plot: Dolios

John hadn't realized until today how long they were expected to be docked in Dolios, and the news had been a welcome surprise. If they were to have a few days to themselves, he was certainly going to make the most of them-- the port city was home to enough attractions (and distractions) that he would surely be able to keep busy.

The castle was the first stop on John's list, and he set off toward it on foot. He was interested in the rickshaw cabs pedaled by people on bicycles, but thought he'd be more likely to take advantage of one after he'd been meandering around a castle for a few hours. Also, after a few months on board the Persephone, he was grateful for the chance to stretch his legs.

A few blocks away from the shipyard, he came upon an open-air market filled with colorful stalls selling anything one could imagine. Watson paused before a wool-seller's shop showcasing beautiful knitted shawls in every color of the rainbow-- Cuthbert's talk of Christmas had gotten him thinking of Mrs. Hudson-- but before he could make a decision, was distracted by someone shouting his name.

"Mr. Watson!" Jack called through the crowd, making his way toward the man. He had been meandering through the market for an hour or so and already had a few parcels in his possession, one with a strange shape compared to the other smaller packages which were tucked into his coat.

When he reached him he smiled. "Do not let these swindlers fool you," he said and then nodded to the woman at the nearest stall, "No offense meant, Madam." He turned back to John and continued. "They are fierce bargainers. Best to keep sharp and know how to spot a sham," he finished with the full confidence of someone who at least thought himself capable of such a feat.

"Swindlers?" John grinned. "You must've come off on the wrong end of a bargaining bout yourself, to tar them all with the same brush." All the same, he let the shawl drop with a polite smile to the vendor; he might come back when he was feeling a bit more ready to haggle.

"What's your errand today?" he asked Jack instead, nodding at the open street before them. "Business or pleasure?"

"Oi, John!" Sherlock called in an uncharacteristically cheerful tone from the cafe patio where he sat. Under and umbrella. With a demitasse perched in his hand [looking properly Lilliputian].

He waited for John to stop looking stupid and join him.

John snapped out of his shock and wandered over to Sherlock, his brows drawing together in furrowed confusion. "Sherlock," he said slowly, trying to think how best to phrase his question. "Are you... feeling alright?"

The last time they'd docked, Sherlock had battled John's efforts to get him to leave the ship, shouting that there was nothing out there of interest to him at all, and marching John bodily from the little lab space he'd claimed, locking the door firmly behind him. So to say that this was a departure from John's expectations was putting things rather mildly.

Also, when had Sherlock ever said 'Oi' before?

"Sit down, have a coffee with me."

He flagged the waiter down and ordered a cafe au lait for his newly arrived friend. He even took his feet off of the chair opposite and closed his book.

"Glorious day, don't you think?"

John did, as a matter of fact, but he guessed that Sherlock wasn't asking for information so much as confirmation. "That's almost exactly the word I'd have used," he observed, accepting his coffee from the waiter with a distracted smile. "Bit of a surprise to see you out and enjoying it, though."

He thought it might be in poor taste to point out that Sherlock never enjoyed anything that wasn't a murder investigation or cataloguing different types of tobacco ash, and so just sipped his drink and waited for the other shoe to drop.

Jack stood in the marketplace looking pensive as he stared at the wares of a particular stall, his eyes traveling over each and every piece where it hung or lay on display. In his heart, he knew none were what he was looking for. They were too new or too alien, made of strange materials or in unfamiliar configurations.

Finally he pointed at one, and the stall owner who had been waiting on his word dragged a stool out to lift the instrument from where it hung, handing it and then a bow to Jack.

It wasn't a violin, at least not in a way that Jack recognized, but it bore a resemblance to the instrument despite the extra string, the mystifying knobs, and the shear lack of body.

He put it to his shoulder and tried the bow. Instantly the instrument screeched, making several heads turn to look at him with disapproval.

Jack frowned embarrassed as the stall owner fluttered around him, showing him how to adjust the instrument.

He put it back to his shoulder, but before he could begin he was interrupted by someone calling to him.

Holmes had never set foot in Dolios, and he was as always delighted to explore a new city. He had already gone through most of the docks, alerted the local authorities of two ongoing smuggling offenses, and had just reached the market place. There were new fruits and vegetables everywhere, but he was distracted from his conversation with a market gardener when the screech sounded, and Holmes winced with more pain than most.

Ah. Holmes cursorily thanked the gardener, and strode over to the stall where his fellow crew member was shouldering the instrument again. "Captain Aubrey," he called out to him. "I dare say, given the layout of the strings, you'll want to hold your bow just so," he held up his hand for example, although it held no bow. "Save us all a repeat of that horrendous noise."

Visible annoyance crossed Jack's face at this advice for it only underlined how fruitless his search for what he truly desired had been. At each planet that they'd visited, it had seemed far to much to ask to get an earth style violin. Ordering one had been also been out of the question both in price and in timing and Jack, for all that he wanted one, would not purchase one before he'd seen it and played it.

"You will forgive me for saying so," Jack returned, "but I believe noise may be all that this contraption can make."

Yet when Jack lifted this instrument again he did take Holmes's advice, altering just slightly the way he held the bow and began to play.

He started with something simple, testing the strings, the spacing of his fingers on the instrument which was smaller than he was used to, and quickly picked up tempo, pushing at it to see how far it could go.

His second showing compared to the first was like night and day, but Jack still frowned. Where he had hoped for sweetness and a mellow depth of sound, it was tinny and seemed more at home as a part of a ship than to be a thing of musical beauty.

After another few moments he finished, lifted the bow gently and handed it back to the seller.

"No," he said simply, shaking his head. He would not be taking that one.

"Not to your liking, then?" Holmes asked, rocking on his heels as Aubrey turned back to him. He was quite the player, from what Holmes had just heard, even with the shift of a wrist he had had to put up with.

"No indeed. Too far removed a relative to be a match and tinny besides," Aubrey assessed. No, he had decided that apart from the quality of sound he did not at all like the extra string nor the dials that reminded him much more of a ship's control panel than they did of tuning knobs.

"Yet, it is the closest thing I have seen so far," he added.

"Quite," Holmes agreed, and gestured at the stall owner. "May I?"

He was offered the instrument and bow to try out, and was subjected the man's questions about whether he played the biola, on account of the advice he had given Captain Aubrey. Holmes answered him with a short, "No," and put the bow to the strings, playing a piece by an obscure 21st century Earth contemporary composer that he thought might fit the sound of the instrument, such as he had heard it when Aubrey played it. He had never quite liked the piece on the violin, despite his best efforts to make justice to it, but now, it seemed to finally be everything it was supposed to.

As usual, he was fully immersed in the music as he played, and he only came back to the outside world as he lowered it from his shoulder.

Jack looked in Mycroft's direction, but it hadn't been him who called (he wouldn't). Possibly it was just someone calling out to someone else (it was a market place, there was a lot of shouting going about; all the more reason to keep quiet). "Please, I didn't mean to interrupt your trials. I didn't know you played." He did, of course.

"Not in some time," Jack replied, shaking his head in dissatisfaction. "Finding the proper instrument has been something of a trial," which was as far as Jack would go in expressing just how much of a trial that had been.

He raised, what in Jack's mind could only be called a device, again now that it had been adjusted, and with some trepidation attempted a bar or two once more. It complied this time, actually producing a sound that might have been called music to an untrained ear, but with every note Jack's face turned darker.

Abruptly he stopped and lowered it, handing it back to the man who owned the stall. "No, that will not do," was all that he would say.

He turned to Mycroft. "It seems that while stringed instruments are quite universal, the violin, and by God a decent violin, is a commodity of miracles. I do not know the name for that contraption, but it's maker did not know the delicacy of his craft."

Mycroft remembered Sherlock displaying similar dark faces when the sound was not to his liking, though he did not show the amusement it brought him.

"What composes music and what is experienced as pleasing can differ depending on culture," Mycroft said. Then, more hushed. "Though I agree that the traditional violin sounds better than this."

Jack nodded his agreement. The man might have sounded like Stephen if he'd taken any joy in the observation, but as much of Jack's experience with Mycroft, the statement had been simply dry and inoffensive.

"You may have the right of it, but even so it misses the mark."

"I defer to the ears of the expert," Mycroft said, with a curt nod. "My brother is the musical prodigy of the family. I never played."

"Hey!" Amy moved closer to him, her eyes sweeping over the instrument with a grin, hooking her thumbs into her waistband. "I mean, not to interrupt the symphony, I've just been looking for you, Jack." She was in a sweater, a miniskirt, and boots, which seemed a bit like Amy's defacto uniform. "I've found this really cool astrolabe... thing, but it can wait. Go on," she said in a rush, nodding to the 'violin'.

"I want to hear you play, first." Mostly because she couldn't play an instrument unless a triangle counted, and anyone who could? Amy would make them show her. Demanding one, she was. She grinned, raising her brows for a second.

There's wasn't that much to do for the Emissary in a tourist trap such as Dolios, but well, even Mycroft Holmes liked to stretch his legs once in a while.

Or rather, he liked getting away from the ship now and again, and tread solid ground. If such could be accomplished without the need for walking, Mycroft would have gladly taken that alternative. As it was, however, if he wanted fresh air and earth beneath his feet, he had to walk for it. (Sherlock had once suggested he should get Sharon to carry him, followed, of course, by a remark on his weight, but Mycroft had not merited it with an answer.)

Sharon was somewhere, of course, but for now, Mycroft walked contently over the market, sporting the umbrella he had just purchased, and walking to a stall with something surprisingly similar to Turkish Fruits. There were perks to being on land, certainly.

James knew nothing of Dolios but this was no different than simply being on the ship. Something had happened to him, something he could not explain and it felt like his memories were locked away and he was scrambling for the keys to let them out again.

He remembered how to do things, a great many things, but remembered nothing of his past or anything aside from his name. It was maddening. He had hoped a trip into the city would jog his memory and had, thus far, been sorely disappointed. He sat at one of the outdoor cafe's with a demitasse and sipped it, trying to figure out who he was and why he was on the ship.

Damn.

James was one to keep an eye on. No, Mycroft was not in charge of security matters and no, Mycroft did not have access to any Big-Brotherlike information streams, but still. When it came to matters of keeping the ship together he felt a certain responsibility, beyond that of keeping up appearances for the sake of his duties as Emissary.

He purchased a cup of Dolios tea (which was delightful, the Englishman did not mind admitting) and approached James. "Mind if I join you?" He asked, kindly enough.

"Of course," James said, gesturing toward the chair opposite him. "I wouldn't mind the company."

It would be better than dwelling, which is what he was doing now.

Mycroft unbuttoned the jacket of his suit and sat down in the offered chair. "It's a good day to be away from the ship, don't you think? Sunny but not too warm. I do detest it when heat strikes - makes it virtually impossible to get anything done," he commented conversationally.

"I remember living in Scotland, once, when I was a boy. It was much colder than it is here and I have trouble with the heat."

Strange that he could not remember his parents or what he did after he left Scotland but he remembered an old manor house on a rocky bluff, far in the north.

"If that is the case than I must work best with drizzle," Mycroft joked lightly. "It always rains in London," he recalled fondly.

"It does. That much, I remember clearly. No matter where I travel, I think my heart will always belong to England in some way."

It only seemed that much more evident while on the ship, far-flung from home.

"Quite so," Mycroft agreed. "Details fade, but nostalgia remains. It will always feel like home." The words were far more emotional than Mycroft's usual dry words. However, he did mean them.

2013/11/12 commanderbond - DW Comment dw_null@dreamwidth.org

"Or, in my case, nostalgia is the only thing you can piece together in your memory." James was still bitter about that because he felt like he was a reasonably intelligent man and the clues to his past were walled away inside his mind somehow. It was so frustrating to know you were missing things and still being unable to seek them out.

"It'll all come back eventually, I hope, but until then I have to suffer with some very large gaps in my mind."

"There's recollection, and there's dwelling," Mycroft mused. "But to remember nothing at all is a different matter all together." And a most unfortunate one, as it gave a man the need to find out what the gaps were. Mycroft too had gaps. Small indications, such as the lines on his face that did not add up to his age, made him understand that something was amiss. He chose not to dwell - or well, to dwell privately. For the sake of the ship, it was best they did. "Have you tried seeking help?"

"No. I don't know much about myself but one of the things I do know is that I don't like anyone poking around in my head," James admitted. "But I'm eventually going to have to come off that."

Not neccesarily, Mycroft thought. From many outward tell-tales, Mycroft could deduce a great many things of this man. No need to 'get into his head' at all. But the older Holmes did not possess his brother's need to voice his abilities in deduction and anyway had no interest in helping this man remember. There were gaps of varying sizes in all their minds, but keeping them together was his first priority.

"I hope you find your past," was therefore, a lie. The next thing he said was true. "And I hope you can find a place for yourself in the present. Something beyond just being on the ship."

"Hopefully there is some function to me aside from sitting around and knowing nothing," James said, laughing bitterly. "Because otherwise, that's just a drain on hard-earned resources, isn't it? I don't like to be idle or useless. That much I've figured out about myself."

"That's something, at least," Mycroft agreed. "Perhaps our Captain can help you find a job. Something that needs doing on the ship. I sadly have no vacancies in my little corner of the ship. Unless you think you might be interested in emissary activities. I'm sure we could find you something to sink your teeth in."

"Not sure I have the training," James admitted easily enough. "Then again, what do I have the training for? I seem to be a completely blank slate."

"There's always something to learn. You might find you have a talent for something," Mycroft offered.

"Will you teach me diplomacy, then? It might jog my memory about something, at the very least." It wasn't the thing he thought he was good at but James was tired of dwelling on the memory loss. He wanted something to do.

"At least I don't have to unlearn anything."

Jack, sitting in the same cafe had not noticed Mr. Bond at first, being otherwise engaged in telling a joke to the proprietor of the cafe. When the man went back to his work though, leaving Jack alone to drink his coffee, he did notice his shipmate. He rose to his feet and crossed to the man's table.

"Would you care for company, Mr.Bond?" Jack offered.

"Bond? Is that my surname? I had forgotten." This was one more piece in an impossibly large and tedious puzzle but he was grateful for it.

"I would be delighted to have company, as it were."

Docking Plot: Dolios

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