paixaorpg | Are you worth your weight in gold? [active]

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Are you worth your weight in gold? [active]

Character(s): Jack! Open to anyone~
Content: Jack arrives in a city with a name that means Passion. How can he pass that up?
Setting: Vanaheim gate area
Time: Afternoon, week 35
Warnings: None for now.

“Just to be clear!” a particular pirate captain states loudly, “whatever this is, it is not my fault, Mr. G -” he swung around, a finger poised in the air, ready to point, but there was no Gibbs to point at and Captain Jack Sparrow frowns. He drops his hand to his side, peering suspiciously around him, but there was nowhere for the stout pirate to hide behind. His eyes dart to the gates, curiosity waring with his sensibilities, but then, what was he supposed to do? Spit and spin in circles or some other strange ritual of Gibbs' in order to get him out of whatever situation dumped itself over him?

Because this was not his fault. He was on a beach! With his Pearl-in-a-bottle in hand (which to his greatest of great displeasures, he was currently lacking). There was very little Jack could have done to trigger this delusion -

Ah. No, he knew exactly what this was! He was lacking rum. It was making him delirious, hallucinations sprouting out from the sand that clearly must still be under his feet; or, under his back if he had fallen unconscious from the sheer lack of rum. He pats himself down, trying to uncover a flask, but to his irritation he was also lacking in that department.

Instead, his hand runs over his compass, and with a grin he slips it into his palm and flips it open. Rum! He wanted rum!

The needle spins in countless circles. Jack's earlier frown returns, deepening immensely. He shakes at the compass, but the needle doesn't settle. “Rotten -”

Cold washes as panic sinks in. “No, no, no.” He closes the compass and bolts to the desk by the gate. “Lass, darlin' lass, please tell ol' Jack that this quaint little place isn't the Locker!” Because the last time his compass was this erratic -

She tilts her head at him. “This is Paixao.”

“Pai -” he starts, then stops, mouthing the word over and over several times, changing the pronunciation, until it sinks in fully. It only made him look more confused, and he says, quietly, “Passion?”

“Your name, sir?”

He's still deep in thought, an elbow on the counter top, his hand drawing up to tap fingers beneath his lip, that he mumbles without his normal inflection, “Captain Jack Sparrow.”

“Here you go, sir.”

She hands him the journal. He just stares at it, bewildered, but he was never one to deny something that was free and so he takes it, brushing a finger over the surface.

“Passion, aye?” he says again. The grin returns, and he flashes her his teeth. “Who could pass up a city with that kind of name?” And he swaggers inside – right into a snowbank, causing him to trip, and sink into several feet of snow.

“MmmMMPH!”

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Alice sighed as she walked through the city. The snow, pure and clean, had been invigorating, at first, but that wasn't the case any longer. In fact, she was getting quite tired of it all and wished it would stop. But how could it snow inside of a domed city? Ah, now that was the question. Perhaps a snowman really had gotten a cold.

Alice's musings were interrupted by the sight of a very strange and apparently drunk man falling into the snow. She quirked an eyebrow, her lips curving up slightly (though she wasn't quite certain she should really be amused). She made no move to help him, at least for now, merely crossing her arms to see whether he would get up again.

"BuhggnrBuhggnrBuhggnr," his voice came from the snow, muffled. He wasn't getting back up. At least, not right away. There was some side-to-side flailing of legs, trying to get the snow off him and a snow-angel-making similar method, but it got him nowhere. Finally, he pushes his upper body out, flakes still clinging to his dreadlocks and beard.

He does not look to be happy one bit. "Passion" was quickly losing its charm. He couldn't see Alice from where he was, but he did get a better view of the city. A very white city.

"Bugger," he says again, now unmuffled. He doesn't move from that position, no matter how cold he is. Getting up doesn't do him any good if he can't find a place to move and get warm again.

From what Alice could see, Jack simply looked like another rogue. A rather eccentric rogue, to be certain, but one nevertheless. Still, Alice was bored and annoyed with the Hatter again, so she decided to take a chance and step closer, her boots crunching against the snow. If worst came to worst - which she somehow doubted it would - she did always have her knife.

Rocking back and fourth on her heels, Alice addressed the strange man. "It's not usually like this, from what I've seen and heard," she offered, "but something seems to have gone wrong for the moment." It had been a machine, hadn't it? But Alice was hardly a factory worker and so hadn't the faintest idea of what to do.

"Eccentric" was the minimalistic approach to Jack. There wasn't really a good word to describe Jack - at least, he had yet to find one that others agreed on (his choices: genius, captain, genius captain).

He turns his head to look at the girl and raises a brow. "No stricken goddesses havin' a fit over previous lovers comin' back to wrong them, I hope?" Because Calypso sure could throw weather out of whack, so who's to say there wasn't a more frigid beau that could do the same here.

Jack finally stands again with a bit of a wobble and a sway, pausing with his hands in the air before brushing the snow off him.

Where in the world had this odd man come from? Either he was from some strange world (although that was nothing unusual here) or he was as mad as Alice was. It could always be both, as well. "I don't think so," came the slightly amused reply, Alice idly brushing snow off her gloves. "I heard it was something about a weather system, whatever that means." For all that Alice preferred not to speak too much over the journals, she did at least pay attention.

She watched as Jack regained his balance, wondering if perhaps he was drunk. Well, it wasn't as though she wasn't used to dealing with drunks in the slums of London. She could handle herself.

Good. He didn't need to find himself in-between another lovers' spat. Not that Jack was in-between the last one. That little thing between Tia is nothing that the ol' tentacle-faced Jones should even think about (just in case he ever surfaced again).

In terms of drunk, Jack certainly wasn't as intoxicated as he would like to be right now. If it came to rum versus a place of warmth, rum would win out; if he could get both? Now wouldn't that be splendid?

"Well lass, I seem to have misplaced both my ship and the beach I had been standin'. Don't suppose you know anythin' about that? Or, at least, where one could find the fancy of a spot of rum?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you with that," Alice replied with a shrug. "From what I understand, this strange city pulls in people from all sorts of worlds." Even worlds where the Hatter was perfectly well again (for a given value of "well"; the Hatter had always been mad and always would be). Even worlds filled with people who knew her (Except she didn't know them back).

"As for the rum, I'm not certain. Surely there's somewhere around here where you may get as drunk as you like, but if there is, I'm unfamiliar with it." Not that Alice ever did drink, even if it was tempting to forget everything while maintaining some semblance of her lucidity.

Jack wrinkles his nose when she says "world", because while it's something Jack's thought about before - he doesn't really want to think about it right now. His life just kept getting stranger, didn't it? What about the old days where it was him, his ship, and the sea?

"Drunk as I like! That sound charmin', I must say." He takes a step towards the girl, unbalanced more than normal by the snow. Strapped to his side most notably were his cutlass, and by the knot of a tied sash was a shrunken skull. His pistol rested tucked in his belt. "A man should not have to deal with such oddities as these without rum, lass. If you wish to accompany me while I find a place to drink, the company would be most welcomed."

The beginnings of a frown started on Alice's face. But why not? If she truly was insane, she may as well do as she liked. A few more moments of consideration and she nodded. After all, it wasn't as though she would be drinking, and with the way this man dressed, he may as well be from Wonderland himself. "Well, then. I've no idea where a pub might be. You may as well lead the way."

She didn't want to turn her back on someone so strange she'd only just met. After all, the inhabitants of Wonderland could be perfectly pleasant one moment and dark and murderous the next. If she really was hallucinating, as she still very much suspected she was, she may as well exercise the caution she'd learned long ago in Wonderland.

"Splendid! Come, I'll buy you a drink, love," Jack announces, then chooses a direction, and marches along as though he knew exactly the way. A nose for rum! An internal compass! They'd be there in no time.

They're not. Jack is lost. Lost and cold.

He turns to face the girl. "You wouldn't by chance have a map now, would you, lass?" Something he probably should've asked in the first place, but one couldn't blame for Jack trying to look competent in a completely different realm. He needed the sea.

Alice wrinkled her nose at Jack, but she was well-used to condescending nicknames. "My name is Alice," she replied testily. After a few moments, she searched her apron for her journal and flipped it open, bringing up the map. Honestly, she should have thought of it sooner, but the Englishwoman was still getting used to the device herself, to say nothing of the city. She searched through it, showing it to Jack. "Here's where we are," she told him, pointing it out on the map, "and these are the surrounding buildings. Your own journal should have the same function."

She'd yet to even so much as go to the cafe, herself, but at least it was public, and the city seemed to be keeping an extra eye on the non-natives.

"Alice. A pleasure! Captain Jack Sparrow," he introduces himself. He ogles the map that she showed him, having never seen anything like it. He says nothing of it, except for a whispered "Interesting" and mentally calculates what the value of something like this journal could hold back in his realm.

"The Cheap Prayer," he says, pointing a dirty finger at the map and grinning. "Sounds like my kind of place." Sounded like a kind of establishment that could fit right at home with Tortuga. He made a face, remembering where Alice had said they were, and then waves a hand through the air, silently determining the proper direction to move, and then awkwardly continues off in the direction of the Cheap Prayer.

"Captain?" Alice repeated, raising an eyebrow. "You hardly look the part." Then again, who was she to say? This was another world - and not her Wonderland, either, but one entirely new to her. The rules, if there even were any, were completely different now.

The Londoner didn't even blink at the mention of the Cheap Prayer; back home, she had frequently paid visits to a brothel in order to visit her old nanny. She followed Jack without a word, amused at his odd way of moving.

He looks affronted by her comment. "I'll have you know, I happen t'be one of the most known pirates of the Caribbean!" At least, he better be now, what with the whole diabolical debacle with Blackbeard and the Fountain and all that life-threatening nonsense Jack would rather wash his hands of. Figuratively.

"And I have quite the magnificent ship!" Which is in a glass bottle, and currently not in Jack's possession. He could only hope that Gibb's had her safe and - ...no, actually, that was a terrible thought. The last time he left Gibbs to watch over his Pearl, he LOST it to Barbossa -

And then Barbossa lost it!

No. The Black Pearl should have been right in Jack's protection only, where she belonged.

But this was all neither here nor there. His subconscious mind digresses.

When they finally made it to the establishment, Jack could have planted a kiss to the door. It was exactly as he dreamed, though it looks sad amongst the snow, its usual outdoor bar closed, and the shack of a tavern seemed as though it could just tip over if too much more snow landed atop it. But Jack had confidence in it. And besides, even on the small, miniscule happenstance of the building collapsing with them inside, he much preferred that to the snow.

At least inside there would be drinking involved.

Unfortunately the inside's warmth was not much better. It protected from the chill of breezes, but there was little heat to be had, even though it seemed that the workers were trying to set something up involving metal barrels and wood, or something of the like.

Jack leads Alice through the weaves of the tables, candlelight the only kind of light to guide his path, and proceeds to take a seat, pausing, then awkwardly shuffling back up and pulls out a chair for the girl, shadows dancing over the uncertainty in his face. Gentlemenly things. He could attempt those.

Sometimes.

"Here you are, la - Madam." Pause. "Alice." His eyes shift to look around them.

"Are you?" replied Alice lightly, looking her strange companion over. He certainly looked the role of a pirate, but Alice had never heard of him. Then again, weren't several people from several different worlds and times? It wasn't exactly something the Londoner could grasp, but she had little enough trouble believing it, especially when she still wasn't certain she hadn't completely lost her mind. She may as well go along with it. She listened to Jack's slight ramblings about his ship as they moved through the snow (and wasn't it all becoming a bit much by now? Surely, something could be done about it).

At last, they arrived, and Alice followed Jack to the table he chose, not particularly caring where they would sit. She was surprised, however, when he actually pulled out a chair for her, and she sat down, giving a slight nod to Jack in return. "Thank you," she replied, the words strange and almost foreign on her tongue.

"Oh yes," he tells her with confidence. He sits down with a small bit of grace, his arms spread out as though to gingerly balance himself, and he grins, all teeth, after ordering and receiving his drinks: a large pint of some honey-colored liquid for himself, and a similar something-or-other for Alice. Whether she wanted it or not. Jack would drink it, if she didn't.

He slips a coin off to his waitress, then downs a third of his drink.

It's as putrid as he enjoys. Not rum, but it would do.

"Now, tell ol' Captain Jack about yourself, eh?"

There was more to this man than met the eye, Alice could tell. He rather seemed the sort to act like a fool one moment and completely turn it around in the next instant. Of course, he would merely be a madman of some sort, but Alice's years of being around certain kinds of people, however reluctantly, had taught her that there was often more to others than what met the eye. She didn't touch her drink, figuring that Jack would simply have it himself, and shrugged a little.

"There's not much to tell, I'm afraid," she told him. "My name is Alice, and I grew up in England. When I found my way to this place, I felt sure I'd gone mad." Again, she told herself. Then again, there was no proof that this place wasn't a dream, after all...

England. He makes a face of displeasure. He'd been in England quite recently, chasing stories, Gibbs, imposters. His cringe deepens. Stuffy King George the Second.

"Lovely," he says, though the word is like a bad taste in his mouth. He supposes maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't complain so much about the whole debacle. It did get him back to his Pearl. Tiny, and in a bottle, as it was.

"Well, of course you're mad," he adds after a moment, drinking more, the warmth of alcohol finally putting off the chill. "We're all mad."

It appeared Jack was just as fond as England as Alice was - that is to say, not in the least. She cracked an almost approving smirk at his remark, amused. "It's quite lovely," she replied, sarcastically of course. She'd hated England, and found herself quite pleased to be trapped here instead, as it was. At least here, she didn't have to put up with Nurse Witless and her extortion.

The Londoner laid her hands in her lap and nodded. "Of course I'm mad," she agreed with a shrug. Being mad didn't bother her, not in itself. Others' reaction to her madness, however, did. But those people weren't here, wherever "here" was.

"Wonderful! Let us then toast to our madness!"

Yes, he's still trying to get her to drink with him. Really, what fun is there in drinking alone? ...Despite the fact that Jack did it almost always, having a companion was often a benefit. As long as they didn't later try to slap him for things he almost-certainly wasn't at fault for.

He pushes a mug that he had yet to sip from towards her and winks, raising his own glass, expecting her to meet him half way in toast.

He's going to be disappointed, isn't he?

Alice simply stared at Jack for a few moments, then shrugged and sighed, hesitantly raising her glass. What could a sip hurt? She wasn't about to get drunk, after all - she was hardly the type to go gadding about with a drink, and besides, she'd seen how some of the idiots in London had acted under the influence. But her madness had helped Alice work through a lot of her grief, and led her to discover her own inner strength.

On the other hand, it was a large part of why her life had gone to utter hell once her parents had died. Nevertheless, she supposed just one sip couldn't do any harm.

Ha! Victory! Jack's grin stretches wide. He clinks their glasses together with obvious satisfaction, calling out a loud, "To madness!" so that all in the Cheap Prayer could hear (and some may have tipped their heads in their directions, others may have outright ignored their presence), and then he leans away, downing more of the drink.

You know, Alice... It always starts with a sip. But how about another? And maybe another...

...Staying with Jack might not be the safest of plans.

Alice couldn't help but give an amused smirk at the toast, but preferred to simply give a not entirely disagreeable shrug. But frankly, a sip of the vile stuff was enough for Alice; she couldn't prevent herself from making a face at the taste of it. Setting her mug down, she looked up at Jack, raising a quizzical eyebrow at him. "How do you stand the taste of it?" she inquired. "It tastes rather like one might imagine tree bark to."

Of course she didn't have to imagine; one of the children at Houndsditch had complained of a stomachache after devouring some of the stuff, and had confessed to Alice what it had tasted like.

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Are you worth your weight in gold? [active]

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seriously going to cause LJ harm for all my missing notifs :|

<3

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