As he swung slowly upside down, watching the soldier looking fella approach, Ford was beginning to feel extremely odd. His gun slid from his belt and dropped to the ground.
“I really need to get a proper holster for that.” He muttered to himself.
Esther, apparently unphased, moves to retrieve Ford’s gun.
“I’d help, but. Baby.” She begins giggling. “Sorry, Ford. Sorry.” Her apology, however, is negated by the laughter she’s unable to stifle. “So! This is the forest I’ve heard so much about. Can we have the grand tour, once you’re a bit more… mobile?”
Dorchester starts to lift ford up so he is resting his wieght on the sergeants shoulders, then he tries to untangle the cords wrapped aorund fords leg, " if i can’t get this untied mate i might 'ave to cut you loose"
Having composed herself somewhat, Esther takes Harriet from her sling and holds her so that she can see the goings-on.
“Remember Ford, poppet? He’s the nice man who gave you that jar of jam. Which seems to have gone missing. One of the gypsies probably borrowed it, but that’s all right, Mama’s marrying Nicolai -the one with the sword and ribbons- which means they’re family, so it’s barely even borrowing, really. We’ll just borrow it back if we get the chance. You’ll learn all about borrowing when you’re older, your Aunt Lily will see to that…” She kisses Harriet on the tip of her nose. “And that’s Sergeant Dorchester. He’s new. Think he can get Ford down? Let’s wait and see, shall we?”
Dray walks over to help with the freeing of ford by untying the rest of the rope that has him trapped then in a fast movement is able to catch ford with one arm and stop him hitting the ground with too much trouble " interesting entrance you made there ford"
“Well done, Dray! I’d applaud, but I only ever have one free hand, these days,” Esther says. “Did you see that, Harriet? Such innovative problem-solving! Remember that and learn from it. Ford, what was the shrieking I heard a little while ago?”
Getting to his feet, Ford dusted himself and jammed his Very Fine Hat back onto his head. With a rueful glance up into the tree he replied “Much appreciated, Dray, and your new friend here too. We should really cut that thing down.” He gave the remnants of the hammock an experimental tug. "We put it up there for Forgetful to sleep in, but she kept falling out, and now it’s all rotted through, as you can see. I’d forgotten clean about it, obviously."
He stepped forward towards Esther, glancing at the wee babby. "Shrieking, Miss Esther? Can’t rightly say, but I’d bet a bushel of apples it had something to do with Forgetful, she has a tendency to fall in the well, ya see. Regular-like."
He looked the four of them over, his recent fall apparently already forgotten.
“So what brings ya out here anyway, were ya after some more jam perhaps?”
The sergeant takes a step back and removes his helmet. “whats this about jam?” he asks curiously
“Just Esther will do, Ford. Being called ‘Miss’ makes me feel like I’m back in the Church in London being told off for not practicing my Latin conjugations.” She frowns at Ford’s estimation of the source of the earlier shrieking. “Forgetful falls in the well regularly? That’s… worrying. She’s so sweet. She came with me to eavesdrop on the camp leaders’ meeting together on Saturday night. I don’t think she knew what eavesdropping actually is, mind -she thought we were going to be ‘dropping on eaves,’ whatever that means- but she was good company all the same. I’d hate for anything to happen to her. Maybe we could put a cover on the well?”
To Dorchester, she explains: “Ford gave Harriet a jar of jam as a gift. It was very nice of him, really, food with any flavour’s in such short supply.”
She smiles at Harriet, who’s unmistakably far too young to eat jam.
“that’s the truth ma’am, jar of ham in the trenches could get a chap along way i can tell you”
"Ah well, 'tis unfortunate, ‘cos we’re all out of jam. Got some freshly pressed cider, if you’re feelin’ thirsty."
Ford looks the stranger up and down, then sticks out a hand.
“I’m Ford, Ford of the Forest, and you would be?”
“Sergeant Roland Dorchester, 152nd trench battalion” he replies taking Fords hand and shaking.
as dray watches ford and Roland shack hands he gets this slight worry that if he takes ford away on this mission with Valencia what will happen to the Forrest people" ford remind me to talk to you a little latter ok" saying this should give Dray time to work out if there is anyone else who would take fords place when he left.
“Oh, Ford,” Esther says, “may I ask a favour? Some of the Folk seem to be under the impression that I’m a demon-worshiping cultist. Actually, I’m certain they’re under the impression that I’m a demon-worshiping cultist, because I gave it to them. Deliberately. Would you mind passing on the word that I’m not actually a demon-worshiping cultist? It was only necessary to keep up the illusion of being one for some work I was doing for the Church of Van Helsing, but now that the assignment’s over, some of the things I said while I was pretending to be a cultist prisoner seem to have had lasting effects on peoples’ memories. Anyway.” She reaches for her bag, and fumbles with the straps, then digs through an array of medical and demonological supplies until she produces a flask, which she then offers to Ford. “Here, why don’t you take this? I’ll need the flask itself back -I borrowed it off a friend- but the contents are yours. Consider it a peace offering between myself and the Forest Folk for all the times I threatened them over the last few months. I didn’t mean it, honestly. And I don’t think the person I borrowed it from would have had anything but the best quality”
Ford took the flask and held it up to the light, giving it a speculative shake.
"Right you are, Miss E-, Esther. Just a trick, you say. We understand that around here well enough. I’ll pass the word around, make sure everyone knows what’s what. Was there anything else I could help you with today?"
But as he tucked the flask away carefully in one of his vest pockets Ford was more interested in what Dray had said about talking to him later. it had seemed important, maybe Dray wanted to give him something too. He hoped it was cake. Ford liked cake.
Addressing Dahlia, “Interesting fellow that Mr Howlet, eh Doctor?” His words were more to fill the gap in conversation than a real question.
Now things had quietened a little Daniel went back to the matter at hand, or more accurately arm.
“Your wound flared up again Doctor?” The question hung in the air.
Addressing Dahlia, “Interesting fellow that Mr Howlet, eh Doctor?” His words were more to fill the gap in conversation than a real question.
Now things had quietened a little Daniel went back to the matter at hand, or more accurately arm.
“Your wound flared up again Doctor?” The question hung in the air.[/quote]
She snapped back to reality a little “Uh, yes. Well, it just does that sometimes. Quite strange really”. She didn’t want to discuss it fully with her father present. The last thing he needed was to be more worried about his daughter, especially when she hadn’t had the heart to tell him the story of what happened after he last saw her.
“It feels okay now” she smiled bleakly.
“Would it be all right if I cut some of the flowers that are growing around here? My infirmary’s looking a bit drab, and we’ve at least one long-term resident who could do with some cheering up.”
Replying with a slightly tired looking smile “I’m glad to hear it, we’ll take a proper look at it tomorrow once you’ve had some rest.”
A number of tests flooded Daniels mind, mostly involving holy water and one of the artefacts that he’d collected on his travels.
Sitting on the edge of the metal framed bed next to his colleague he turned to her, “What do you suspect to be going on in there?” Indicating her arm with a glance of his blue eyes.
Oh good, she thought. This was something she was hoping to avoid, at least for a while.
[quote=“Bryn”]
“What do you suspect to be going on in there?” Indicating her arm with a glance of his blue eyes.[/quote]
She sighed “Unfortunately my knowledge of anything demonic only extends as far as my people’s mythology takes me-” She cut herself off as a thought popped in to her mind. The blueness of Daniel’s eyes made her think.
Dahlia looked at her father “Papa, leit það eins og draugen, en þeir geta ekki vera til …I must have been seeing things. Too many stories from you” she laughed, nervously.
“No, can’t be that. That would be silly. They’re just stories. The ones that look like them here are different” she muttered as she shook her head
“All that happens is that around well… some strange presence, usually magical of some kind, it just… feels differently. Usually with all the… methods that I had been taking to not feel it, I could ignore it. Now it seems to have moments where it feels everything again. I suspect there must be traces of some form of energy in there…”
It was strange. As a child she believed in Odin, Thor, mythical creatures; everything her father and mother had told her. She never imagined that growing up she would start seeing things like that in person.