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HOSTED BY:
My character:
Name: Jamison Harrington Nickname: Jamie or James Age: 14
History: At first glance, Jamie is a typical street child, unwashed, course language and a little underfed. However, James is aware that the circumstances he lives in now were not the circumstances of his birth. He was born to Lady Veronica Harrington and was raised in the lap of luxury until shortly after he turned five. The families assets were seized and he and his mother were thrown to the streets. James has no idea who his father is and although his mother did her best to give him an education befitting his former station, she was unsucessful. Jamie keeps the fact that he can read as a secret. He is a smart boy, a little on the quiet side and was living as a pick-pocket before the captain picked him up and employed him.
Personality: Jamie has a good heart. He has been hurt too many times in his life to be especially trusting but he does have a few close friends. His mother's death when he was twelve hit him hard. Jamie is a hard worker for the captian and this is his second voyage with the man. He loves the sea and being fed and clothed isn't bad either.
Training/Weapons: Jamie is agile and quick. He has picked up street fighting over the years and is a pretty good knife fighter. He thinks on his feet and knows how to get out of a situation when he needs to.
Other: The only thing unusual about James is his eyes, they are golden, with just the barest hint of green. He has no idea how he got such an unusal color of eyes and they have put him in both danger and protection over the years. There is something special about his father, what that is, we will soon see.
Plot:
Life goes on as usual in Bristol. Ships sail in, ships sail out. The schooner Lady Willow is getting ready to sail for the new world. The Revolutionary War in the colonies has just ended and America is experiencing a change. Many Loyalist are fleeing home to England and many others are flocking to the new born country hoping to make a place for themselves. The Lady Willow is bound for Boston, one of America's largest cities. Commoners, criminals, and noble gentry alike are bound for a new land. Most of them think the voyage itself will be quite easy. The days of lost seamen and low rations are a thing of the past. Little do they know the most dangerous time of their lives is approaching. A creature most think is fiction has snuck on board in the dead of night. Worse still, the creature is a rare and powerful day walker. Although weakened in sunlight they are able to function as normal humans. Let the hunt begin.
Samples: (each space is another scene...)
James hurridly and accurately went about his duties until the call for mess. He bolted down his food and pretending he was going to go rest for a while, snuck off the ship and into the market place. Being an old hat at this kind of thing, he spotted a table that would have all the things he needed and a fruit table with some salted pork and peanuts off to the side. Perfect! Taking out a boy's pea shooter, he aimed and shot a man that had been glaring at his companion. "Oi! Why you hit me!" "I didn't I..." Taking careful aim, Jamie shot the other man in the stomach. "You hit me!" "I DID NOT!" Fully knowing it would happen, James laid low until the men had distracted almost every eye around. For his final trick, he shot a large flat rock at a rope holding up one of the shades covering a booth. He had made sure the man's foot was close to the rope when he did so. Knowing that no attention would be on him at all, he crawled up to the first table snagging a shirt and a pair of breeches he hoped fit and two warm looking cloaks. He would consider it his bonus. Moving over to the fruit table, he jammed as many dried meat peanuts and apples into one of the cloaks as it would hold and ran back towards the ship. A woman had just poked her head out the window to throw her bucket of trash onto the street and was very surprised when a young boy grabbed the bucket from her and threw the trash to the ground as he ran. She was too stunned to even yell about the thief before he was far out of sight.
Sara looked through the stuff. The shoes did fit. She'd wait until evening to change. "James this is wonderful. And yes I can read. I always used to see papers and stuff laying around and I began to teach myself to read. I learned very fast on my own and soon was borrowing books from my master's library. Without him knowing of course. If he found out I could read I'd have been lashed with the horse whip into next month." Sara crigned remembering how many young girls had been punished. Thier screams of pain still haunted her dreams. She feared the lashing she'd get on the ship, but figured it could be no worse than the way her master had been treating her. And if it kept her on the boat it would be well worth the pain. Todd strolled casually around the ship, breathing in the salty air. He ran his hand over the rigging, feeling the coarse rope beneath his fingers. He looked down over the side, into the waters and thought to himself. This was it. This was his chance to have an adventure. His chance to go somewhere, be someone. His chance to give pride to his family name... his chance to help his ma. He felt slightly sad at the thought of leaving his family, and wondered if they felt the same way...
Suddenly, he heard a yell like a wounded cat. It peirced the air and shattered Todd's daydream, but he smiled. He'd know that battle axe screech anywhere "Mam!" he cried out, running onto the dock and waving at the plump old woman, her hair scraped back under her bonnet. "Todd!" came the reply, from the mouths of the large family. They hugged, the girls cried, the boys grinned and all the time Todd's mam held him by the shoulder. She turned to him. "Now i know that your pa would have been proud of you. Today, you settin' off over seas an' goin to th' new worl'... well that makes you more a man than he ever was, god rest 'is soul." "Ma..." todd squirmed, embarrased but humble by his mother's words of love. "No you lis'en 'ere young man. Now don' you go forgettin us. An' don't you go forgettin ter say yer prayers. God speed, Todd. I'll always love you." Todd smiled and hugged his ma. He suddenly felt so young. He was thirteen. He still needed his family, but he wouldn't cry. He set off back on board, and waved goodbye to his family. Charlie, his elder brother, cried out "an' don't come back you rotter!" but their mother quickly slapped him on the head. "oh i will charlie!" todd called back, grinning. "an' i'll give everyone lots of money, except for you. You'll have to work for me!" and with that, the family was separated, and the future beckoned.
Impressively, James didn't move a muscle when the girl delivered her news. He just leaned a bit more over the rail and started tossing bits of paper that would look like bread to anyone on shore into the water below. He knew that the long boats of outgoing ships would be a likely place for the man to look and that Sara would be caught if he didn't do something. "What does he look like? I want you to go ahead and change as quietly and carefully as you can into the shirt and breeches I brought you." He slipped her his hat. "Pile up your hair and make sure all of it is tucked in. You might want to tear some strips off your old dress and err... wrap them around your chest, tight." He looked around and spotted a bucket of pitch. "After you do that, I want you to smear every inch of skin with the stuff I'm gonna bring you. I know it's dirty and will be very hard to get off but it may be the only option you have."
James waited until no one was looking and her old 'master' had gone below decks in the ship next to them. Then he reached into the tarp and almost violently ripped the girl out of the long boat. "Thought you could sneak onto this ship did you? Well you've got another thing coming." He looked her over. She was adequately covered in pitch and from a few yards away, looked like a native african. He leaned in as close as he dared and whispered, "Just trust me." With that, he drug her down the crew gang plank and over to a crawl space within the pier. It was cramped and someone would have to help her back out lest she fall into the water but it was out of sight and only ole sea dogs tended to know about the place. He helped her in and snapped the wooden cover down over her. "Just stay quiet. I'll be back for you when it's safe. Dont' worry. I won't leave you here."
"Let's just say I know a lot of businessmen who would rather another ship take care of their cargo." Senna raised an eyebrow at the man's words and shrugged casually. "Well the Lady Willow has built a reputation for efficiency and accountability, one that I'm sure her passangers will consider before simple talk and rumor" She didn't like the man and wanted him off the ship as soon as possible, yet Senna was inclined to give him what he wanted before getting rid of him. She gesutred toward James and continued. "He's told you already that your property is not on this ship and I'm inclined to believe his story more than yours. Nevertheless, I'll give you limited access to search the deck and holdings-only the deck and holdings. I will escort you on this search and want you off this ship once you're done" Senna really hoped she wouldn't be proved wrong.
Todd grinned. "no problem. You didn't think i'd snitch on you, did you? I may not have money, but that doesn't mean i'm thick. I know we're gonna have to work together, and as long as you're happy that means i'll have one less person to worry about. " He licked his lips, winked at James, and set off after the first mate. He caught up with them and called out. The position of Cook, to a lateral thinker, is actually one of suprizing power. Without a cook, would the crew be fed? And without a good cook, would the crew be satisfied. Todd was both a good cook and a lateral thinker, so he used this knowledge to his advantage. "Ma'am!" He called to the first mate, as respectfully as possible. "I was just wondering ma'am, what should the cast-off dinner be? If we were to have a meat dish, it would inspire the crew, but it would also mean that we would have to limit it for the rest of the voyage. What do you think ma'am?"
James hadn't been idle in the meantime. He had snuck off the ship and hurried over to where he had hidden the girl. As he ran, he debated where to put her where she wouldn't be found. Wait... the ship had a rather advanced venting system for it's day, in the kitchen there was a rather large pipe heading up from the oven. It was just large enough for the girl to fit in. Better yet, if she was able to crawl into the pipe and into the bend it made before it opened back up into the air, she would be completely out of sight and the only member of the crew that might follow her were not gonna snitch on her. It was perfect. "Hey, Sara. I've got a place for you to hide. We need to be careful though. The man is still on the ship." As this gets too long I'll shorten it...
sara-ane · Tue Feb 27, 2007 @ 11:50pm · 0 Comments |
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