Beach | Late Sunday Morning

[long_memory]

The last thing Silver had remembered was being underwater, his metal excuse for a leg trapped in some netting that had exploded off the Walrus during cannon fire. By the time he had managed to free himself from the peg leg entirely his vision was already starting to tunnel from the lack of oxygen. It only got darker as he tried to swim up to the surface, chest burning and frantically trying to use whatever strength he had left to get above water. His thoughts went to Madi and Flint, briefly wondering if they would use his death as an act of martyrdom for their cause...and then everything faded away completely.

Silver awoke with sunlight hitting his face and the uncomfortable feeling of having been in wet clothes for too long. He winced as he sat up, feeling the effects of not only almost drowning but the battle beforehand as well. Since his false leg was at the bottom of the sea he couldn't do much but sit for a while to regain his strength and then crawl over to some of the debris that had washed up on the beach to try to fashion a makeshift crutch.

The longer he sat the more he would notice that this was definitely not the Bahamas.

[And Silver is on the island. FYI he probably looks like an angry wet cat and is very clearly missing his left leg below the knee. Post is open!]

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[dauntlessdragoon]

Freya had been training for most of that morning, as she did for most of her mornings here on the island, and she planned to finish up with various leaping exercises on and off of some of the higher vantage points she'd been able to find thus far. From one, she had an excellent view of the beach, and would often pause there, to look over the ocean and the horizon, to ponder how strange it was to have land not cloaked in mists or to not see a sky dotted with airships. And the stretch of sand, sometimes speckled with woodchucks or squirrels or the occasional teal deer, the other fauna she knew now to avoid, and currently, it would seem, a lone humanoid figure.

For a fleeting second, a crazy thought hit her, made her heart jump in her chest, and on that sudden whim, she lept down from her height, into the sand, and started to rush forward, though, as she approached the figure, it became increasingly clear just how misguided her hopeful inclination had been.

Why, it was just another human. No tail or snout or peaked hat like her own at all, and she felt foolish for having even thought it could have been possible.

But now that she was here, and she was closer, her keen eyes could also see that the man had most certainly seen better days, and it was with more caution now that she approached, head tilted curiously.

"Hello?" she ventured. "Are you alright?"

Because what else could possibly make being washed upon a foreign shore better than being greeted by what appeared to be a giant rat girl dressed like some sort of fancy medieval squire?

[long_memory]

Silver jumped when he heard a voice but that was nothing compared to the shock he felt when he saw who (or what?) the voice was coming from.

He died. That was what happened. He drowned and now this was some form of the afterlife. A form he was not very pleased with considering rat girl and the fact that he was still missing a leg.

"I don't think so," he said weakly. What had he done to deserve this kind of afterlife?

...quite a lot, actually.

[dauntlessdragoon]

"What happened?" Freya asked next, kneeling down for a better look, and thinking it would really be a good idea to keep some potions on hand for when she was training, except for the fact that she wasn't entirely sure where to get proper potions around here. "Are you hurt?"

Hurt instead of injured, because the latter was evident; the missing leg had not escaped her notice, but it hardly seemed...fresh, though her gaze did sweep around the beach for any sign to prove her assumption wrong.

[long_memory]

That leg had been left somewhere in the Atlantic ocean off the South Carolina coast years ago.

"I think I might've died." 'Cause clearly that was the only way to explain Freya. No offense.

[dauntlessdragoon]

Look. Freya couldn't help it that this world was woefully homogenious and utterly lacking in a proper anthromorphication of its sentient species. Besides, she was just visiting.

"Then consider me impressed," she said. "I don't think there's many people doing that who can still manage to...talk," yes, she was going to say walk and talk, but, with a flick of her tail, amended herself in time, "after that, let alone breathe."

Then, she considered him thoughtfully.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

[long_memory]

"Swimming," he replied. "My leg--my iron leg--had been caught in something. I pulled myself free and I tried to swim to the surface."

He tilted his head up to get a better look at Freya. It didn't make his 'I'm dead' theory weaken in the slightest. "I'm sorry--who are you?"

[hatesparadise]

"Hey!" Danny was starting to think there was no way for him to just walk around this place without something weird or dangerous happening. Because all evidence pointed to that being the case.

[dauntlessdragoon]

Freya blinked her one green eye not hidden by the shag of hair over her face at the man.

"Right," she said, shook her head a little. "Sorry. My name is Freya. Freya Crescent. I'm a dragon knight of Burmecia, though if that actually means anything to you, you'd be the first. Who are you?"

That goes around swimming with iron legs. Her gaze shifted to the ocean, wondering if that iron leg had just found itself a new home instead.

[long_memory]

By this time Silver was well into the disassociation portion of his panic attack so the first thought he had when seeing Danny was "this might as well happen".

He had at least managed to scrounge up something resembling a crude crutch so he wasn't completely stranded on the beach now if this conversation turned badly. "Hello?"

[hatesparadise]

Just don't hallucinate an entirely alternate reality where Danny liked to wear Aloha shirts and was blissfully married or something, okay? That was all he was asking here.

"Did you just wash up on shore?" Danny asked, taking stock of the situation with a glance up and down the beach and then back at drowned rat guy.

Not to be confused with the rat girl in the post.

[long_memory]

Silver had understood the bare minimum of that sentence. The words were English but all put together was just jibberish.

"I'm John Silver," he said, his ability to be polite apparently sticking with him in the afterlife. "I'm sorry I'm just...very, very confused."

[long_memory]

"It seems that I did," he said. "And I'm not entirely convinced that I didn't die and this is just some strange version of the afterlife that the Bible didn't remark on."

[hatesparadise]

"Ha," Danny said in a complete deadpan. "If only."

...sorry, pal.

[dauntlessdragoon]

"I can see that," said Freya, who knew she probably wasn't making things much better, but she did at least hope she wasn't making things too much worse. "You know your name, though, so that's a good start."

Her humor really was much too dry for this wet of a situation.

"Do you know where you are?" she asked.

Because, yes, the answer to that will certainly help matters a ton.

[long_memory]

"I was afraid of that." Crush his hopes and dreams about being dead, why don't you. "How often do you find men stranded on the beach?"

[long_memory]

"I..." That was a good question. He might have not been the best at seafaring but he did know when he hadn't washed up on a tropical island. "Last I checked I was on the shores of Nassau but I'm going to guess you are going to tell me differently."

[hatesparadise]

If Danny had to live in this hellscape, so did you, Silver!

"This is honestly a new one." He had to sort of pause because O'ahu and 5-0 made everything crazy. "Here, at least. How about we get you some medical attention, Cap'n Sparrow," he drawled.

[long_memory]

"Captain what now?" Somewhere Flint was furious at the hint of someone suggesting Silver was a captain.

[hatesparadise]

Just you wait until Danny went on a rant about the Navy!

"It's a joke," Danny replied dryly. "Don't worry about it. You good to walk or need help?"

[dauntlessdragoon]

"You pick up quickly," Freya complimented, "for a dead man. You're on an island called Fandom, off the coast of a country called the United States, which meant about as much to me when I arrived here as Burmecia and Gaia probably means to you. It's a very....strange place." If he couldn't tell already. "But it's peaceful," if she sounded unconvinced about whether or not this was a good thing, it was merely because she simply didn't trust it, "and the people are nice, even if the woodchucks and gremlins are not."

[long_memory]

"I don't need help." The sentence came out without Silver even having to think about it at this point.

Just...hold on a second and watch as he struggled to get himself steady on a piece of driftwood he was calling a crutch until he found something better.

Stubborn ass.

[long_memory]

"Exactly how much of that am I expected to understand?" He picked up quickly but he didn't pick up that quickly.

[hatesparadise]

Danny raised his hands like he was appeasing him here. "Place has a lot of stairs."

Just as a warning. Danny wasn't missing a limb, but he did have a fucked up ACL thanks to one Steven McGarrett.

[long_memory]

"I can manage," he insisted. "At least this is solid land; try doing this on a ship."

[hatesparadise]

"Yeah, hard pass," Danny said without missing a beat. "I'm more of a land based person. Firmly on land, in fact. The less time I spend on boats or dingies or whatever, the better."

He gave the guy another once over. And while, yes, he totally looked like a hobo. He had this terrible, sinking suspicion that more was going on here.