May 1, 1888 - The Ship Voyager

It had been about a week since Cele and Claire had decided to take this grand adventure. For the first few days it had started off as excellent. They would sneak little bits of the crews food. They would sneak around to explore at night. It was great fun. That is, until Claire started to feel sea sick. It had started a few days ago. A little bit of bellyaching, some dizziness. Stuff that she wasn’t too bothered by. She felt it was more of the excitement than anything else.

But today it felt worse. She didn’t want to get caught though. She didn’t want to leave this delightful adventure, to see what could be found. It was an… ex…-something after all. But now she hoped some fresh air would help her feel better. Wandering up on the deck as her sister slept, she went to the side and gazed down. Not as cautious as usual, she simply walked over, arms wrapped around her belly. Leaning over, she hoped to catch a glimpse of a mermaid, or a fish at least. But with a shout startling her, she shrieked and slipped over the side that she had climbed on to get a better look. Screaming, she started falling, the night air like a rush.

All she wanted was to go back up, up to the ship deck, up to safety. Up, up, up. And… suddenly she was. Floating upward quickly. The shock did little to easy her screaming. She thought she heard her twin in the distance. But she kept going. Past the deck, still headed up. If it had been a crew member doing this to save her, she would have landed safely on the deck. But she was still going. Was this her? Was she finally showing a sign of magic. Still, this was not the time for celebration. More scared then proud, she continued to scream with fear.

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Open to one or more crew members of the ship. Special invitation to J. Alfred Darrow

  

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Magic by Bee!

French is mixed into her accent due to French parents and household staff

The majority of the crew slept belowdecks, in the large compartments with row upon row of canvas bunks, or else in the smaller but nearly as crowded staterooms, which were reserved for the officers and academics. They were typically located as far down as possible, because at the base of the ship the rocking caused by the waves was little more than a gentle lull that actually tended to help men sleep, rather than keep them awake &mdash, and, of course, because that was where there was the most room to house a large number of men. Alfred, on the other hand, had his cabin behind a door right on the main deck of the ship, just below the bridge. It made for much rougher nights, but it was also essential. A captain, after all, had to be readily at hand to deal with any crisis that arose, and though he was certainly hoping to avoid any crises altogether if he could, Alfred wanted to be accessible to try and stem off any disaster, no matter what time of day or night.

Even so, the screaming itself hadn't woken him up; it was the gruff knock on his exterior door as someone tried to rouse him. It was funny how, even a week back at sea, he'd fallen in to the same habit sailors had of being able to sleep through anything except very certain sounds. Even a light knock would wake him up; the worst storm Neptune could conjure up likely wouldn't be.

He was still hastily pulling on a shirt when he staggered out onto the deck, blinking at the girl (the child) drifting slowly up past the base of the main sail. "Well, someone get her down," he ordered, hoping that someone who was on watch at this time of night had a wand on them — it wasn't a requirement for the often uneducated sailors, and he'd left his own on his desk before he'd gone to bed that evening. "Where the hell did she come from?"

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Well this was quite terrifying. Though the air was cool and nice… it was still very scary to float up above the sea and further into the night sky. And she couldn’t stop screaming. It was like she was broken, and only the sound of screaming would exit her mouth.

Even as she felt the tug of another’s magic, she continued to scream. How flustering. Papa would get a kick, or a fright, out of this. Mama would be quite disappointed. Oh, what were Cele and her thinking? They were thinking of the adventure, such as this crew was.

The moment she landed, and felt as though she was not going to float to the heavens once more, she ran to the twin whom she had spotted immediately, and hugged her for dear life. The first words that were out of her mouth was a flurry of frantic French, not a word of English coming out.

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Magic by Bee!

French is mixed into her accent due to French parents and household staff

Luckily, someone did have a wand, and the girl was soon back on the ground, but no one seemed to have any idea how she'd gotten there in the first place. She hardly looked as though she'd just drifted up out of the sea, and Alfred thought he had enough experience with the various humanoid sea creatures to recognize one if it flopped down onto the deck of his ship — nevermind that none of the ones he'd ever met had legs. No, this appeared to be a very human girl.

Make that two very human girls; although in the hustle he hadn't noticed another one join the crowd, the floating girl had spotted her and now the two were hugging each other and speaking something that sounded like French. Alfred knew a bit of it, but not enough to follow what she was saying.

"Merlin's beard, there are two?" he asked incredulously. He glanced over at his first mate, who had risen with the commotion and was now standing just off to Alfred's right, as though to signify that this was somehow his fault. "Or perhaps ten, or twenty? Exactly how many French children did we decide to onload with the stores?"

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

After a bit of frantic French ramblings, she came to her senses, slowly. It had seemed that they had stirred at least half the crew! Oh, they were in trouble. Big trouble. Oops. Well, at least they were together. But one thing was on their side. Neither twin had seemed to have said a word of English. Perhaps that could be on their side.

Noticing the… captain? Most likely, he seemed to be in charge. Well, noticing him, she turned to face him. ”Hello, I am Claire, and this is my twin, Céleste. We did not mean to wake you.” She said in French. Perhaps none of them knew French. One could hope.

It was hard not to laugh at his comments about the possibility of there big many young girls, running about the ship. Now wouldn’t that be a sight? Claire would definitely have had a lot of fun with more children to cause more mischief with. Though, they would have been caught sooner.

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Magic by Bee!

French is mixed into her accent due to French parents and household staff

Alfred's familiarity with French had been scant at best when he'd learned it as a teenager, and he'd only used it on occasion when visiting French ports. At one point in his life he'd been able to ask for directions and other rudimentary conversation pieces, but it had been years since he'd last been anywhere near France. At the moment, he was getting just enough to recognize the language as French, but not to understand much of what either girl was saying. One seemed as though she'd made some attempt at introducing herself, but he couldn't really be sure.

"Je ne — parle français," he said after a brief pause. He thought that was right. It was as close as he was going to get, anyway. To his first mate, he said in English, "Does someone on the crew speak French? I want to know where they came from. And where they've been sleeping," he said with an incredulous glance back at the girls. And why no one found them before this, he added silently. It wasn't as though they could have gotten onboard since they'd set sail from London, which mean they'd been here for a week without his knowing of it.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

The look on his face seemed to be a blank one. Well, at least her plan was working so far. Perhaps they could come along for the rest of the trip? Papa would find all of this to be rather amusing, and perhaps mama wouldn’t be so mad if they at least weren’t such a bother at getting home.

Tilting her head, she slowly smiled, giggling a bit. At least he got that right. Well, at least the captain was amusing. Though he wasn’t too loud when speaking to another grown up, she could hear some of his words. Something about where they had been sleeping? How odd. Funny, but odd.

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Magic by Bee!

French is mixed into her accent due to French parents and household staff

The little girl was laughing, which Alfred supposed meant she wasn't seriously hurt or traumatized by her little adventure through the sails. Wherever they'd come from, though, one thing was clear, and that was that they could hardly stay there. They'd come too far now to turn around and head back to London just to offload a couple of stowaways (which must be what they were, since they hadn't pulled in anywhere else and they were decidedly not sea creatures, and they looked far too solid to be spectres or ghosts), but he didn't know where else they'd be able to go to get rid of them.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath, then turned to his second-in-command. "Get the navigator and the quartermaster to my cabin," he said with a weary but authoritative tone. "Have someone take these two below, and keep an eye on them — I want them in sight at all times until we can get them off the ship." Merlin, what a bloody hassle. As if the crew didn't have enough to do already without posting a babysitting watch on two French brats. Not to mention the inconvenience of trying to find a port to dump them in — and coordinating things so that there was someone to dump them on, instead of just abandoning them in some dockyard town. Hopefully if he wrote to someone at the Ministry, they'd know who these two were, or be able to figure it out, because Alfred did not have time for this.

He'd have to write the Commodore onboard the Ophelia and explain that they would be delayed, too. Merlin, what a pain in the ass. Women onboard ships — even tiny women — were the worst kind of luck.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER