[Video]

[flickerflash]

[She'd been waiting for hours to see if they'd turn up.

Just a little after dawn on the 25th a piece of smudged notepaper gets carefully tucked into Katie's journal, and then she tosses the whole thing into the hollow log she's sitting on out in the forest.

The video clearly picks up the message. It's not very long.]



   Gone fishing.
Everyones invited
   except Raine.
  No drowning.



[There won't be any replies. She's gone.]

Comments

[nothing]

[all7seas]

[Jack reads this message over and over again. If she needs him, he figures, she will fetch him. He'll be able to tell.


No drowning.]

[surprise attack tag!]

[flickerflash]

[He won't hear from her for several days. But if Jack is home on the 28th at all, his hearing might pick up the soft creak of footfalls in the attic.]

: O

[all7seas]

Katie? [This he calls up the stairs.] Little Katie? You home?

:'D

[flickerflash]

[The footsteps pause a moment, then continue their pacing. Back and forth around the edges of her attic space. Muffled, the response comes back.]

Katie isn't here right now. She died in a terrible octopus attack.

[all7seas]

Did she at least show that octopus what for before she snuffed it, I hope?

[flickerflash]

Oh, yes. She tore it to pieces.

[There is the sound of something a little caustic and scratchy. Almost as if she's scrubbing the floor.]

[all7seas]

Ah. Bet she did, at that.

[A pause. What is all that scrubby noise?]

You need a hand up there, lass?

[flickerflash]

I already have two. A third would seem terribly greedy. [It's her walls under attack. Katie isn't scrubbing them clean, but she is making them frightfully unrecognisable.]

[all7seas]

I could give you FOUR! You're a pirate-child, after all! Greed's allowed!

[flickerflash]

I suppose it's true I have always been a greedy child. [There's a soft giggle, and a pause in her cleaning. Then:] Perhaps you should come up, after all.

[She needs to talk to you. No time like the present.]

[all7seas]

[So moments later he will be tentatively knocking at her attic door. Jack won't enter until invited. It's her place, after all.]

You? Greedy? Nonsense!

[flickerflash]

Perhaps I could stand to be more greedy, then.

[There's a brief pause.] Come in.

[Jack will find that two of her four walls have sort of morphed into splotches of unrecognisable colour, not particularly artistic at all. She's scrubbing away anything that vaguely looked like a picture, leaving wet streaks of blobby, mournful chalk colours.]

[all7seas]

[And Jack is horrified. He LOVED her mural of Luceti.]

Hens' teeth, child! What've you done to all your pretty and macabre pictures!?

[flickerflash]

I sent them on a holiday. [Katie isn't terribly happy to do so herself, but on the walls are all the dreams and desires of Luceti. They have to go.] It's not fair to be trapped on a wall for the rest of their lives. They might go insane from boredom.

[all7seas]

Well....aye. Or dead from too much scrubbing.

'S why I'm not particular about cleanliness, myself.


You alright, darling?

[flickerflash]

I've never been better. Top of the world, bottom of the river. [She gives a couple of scrubs to a fresh new wall, then turns to look at him over her shoulder.] Has anyone ever told you there are too many hands in the world? I suspect I'm too greedy after all.

[all7seas]

[Carefully:] You want some toast? Or popcorn?

[flickerflash]

Both, if you wouldn't mind. [She bites her lip.] I have a lot of time to eat, after all.

[all7seas]

Right -- you stay here. Keep.......washing. Me? I'm going to pop you and toast you tasty treats. Make enough for James to share if he happens along and is peckish. Savvy?

[He begins to back out of the room. Maybe the child just needs a bellyful of good snacks. Children do, he's heard.]

[flickerflash]

[Her expression flattens at the mention of Norrington.] Are you so sure James would want to share with me? He doesn't like me very much.

[all7seas]

What? Outrageous! 'Course he does! Has he been giving you troubles?!

[flickerflash]

He doesn't believe in magic.

[all7seas]

He's lying. James Norrington has seen plenty of magical doings in his day.

[flickerflash]

Really? To hear him go on, magic has no place in the world. [She resumes scrubbing. Giles becomes a smear of colour, a squiggly monster bleeding into the outline of a city.]

[all7seas]

Well...that could very well be the man's attitude. But to deny its existence? Even he could not be that self-deluded.