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The Destination // for Greta
April 5th, 2020
The air is still too cold for Anne's liking, but it ain't so bad in the sun. Walking helps, enough that she can stand to have her hands outside her pockets. Not much of a victory, but it's one she'll take.
She don't have a fucking clue where she's going, but she walks with purpose anyway, eyes forward, steps even. If she looks lost, lingers too long to stare at anything, people try to talk to her. It's been months and she still stands out. She's made little effort to blend, but it ain't just her clothes and she knows it. It is in everything, all around her: she don't belong here, never did, never will. There is nowhere she can go where she won't be lost and vulnerable, where she won't need help from all these prying strangers. There is nothing for her to do here. It ain't enough anymore to follow Jack around, not when her purpose has become so uncertain. Jack don't see it that way; she knows that. But there are days she can't just stand at his side and watch. She needs to keep looking, even with nothing to find.
It surprises her some when she realizes she has followed a known path, in the end. She supposes it shouldn't. She'd expected to just walk until she decided to turn back, but there was no promise she'd find her same steps again. So she followed a path she remembers. One she's taken before. And she realizes there is one place, at least, that doesn't amount to strange terrain; one place where she doesn't feel lost, at least not in the same way.
Greta is outside her house, kneeling in the dirt, tending to her garden. Anne stands there a moment, close enough to make her presence known, but not sure how to start. She isn't expected. She has some dim sense that ain't polite. But Greta's never seemed to mind before.
Words are not forthcoming, so she ends up clearing her throat, softly so as not to startle, and lets her footsteps crunch a little heavier as she draws near.
The air is still too cold for Anne's liking, but it ain't so bad in the sun. Walking helps, enough that she can stand to have her hands outside her pockets. Not much of a victory, but it's one she'll take.
She don't have a fucking clue where she's going, but she walks with purpose anyway, eyes forward, steps even. If she looks lost, lingers too long to stare at anything, people try to talk to her. It's been months and she still stands out. She's made little effort to blend, but it ain't just her clothes and she knows it. It is in everything, all around her: she don't belong here, never did, never will. There is nowhere she can go where she won't be lost and vulnerable, where she won't need help from all these prying strangers. There is nothing for her to do here. It ain't enough anymore to follow Jack around, not when her purpose has become so uncertain. Jack don't see it that way; she knows that. But there are days she can't just stand at his side and watch. She needs to keep looking, even with nothing to find.
It surprises her some when she realizes she has followed a known path, in the end. She supposes it shouldn't. She'd expected to just walk until she decided to turn back, but there was no promise she'd find her same steps again. So she followed a path she remembers. One she's taken before. And she realizes there is one place, at least, that doesn't amount to strange terrain; one place where she doesn't feel lost, at least not in the same way.
Greta is outside her house, kneeling in the dirt, tending to her garden. Anne stands there a moment, close enough to make her presence known, but not sure how to start. She isn't expected. She has some dim sense that ain't polite. But Greta's never seemed to mind before.
Words are not forthcoming, so she ends up clearing her throat, softly so as not to startle, and lets her footsteps crunch a little heavier as she draws near.
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Besides, Saoirse's chief occupation, chore-wise, is the chickens. They're currently grazing in a circle of temporary fencing Greta helped the girl set up, now that there's finally grass worth picking through and bugs to find. It's near enough that whenever Greta unearths something that won't do her plants any favors, she simply lobs it into the pen to a flurry of cackling and ruffled feathers. The chicken version of applause, she supposes.
She's about to chuck them a weed when she registers Anne's approach, and then she pauses, eyebrows lifting. Her first, instinctive thought is that perhaps there's some sort of crisis, but she quickly pushes it aside. It's not fair; Anne has dropped by for no particular reason before. Really, it's only startling because she doesn't seem to use her phone much, and hasn't caught on to texting in advance, which... well, why would she? She's a pirate.
"Anne, hello," she says, the scrap of offending greenery still clutched in her hand. She glances down at it self-consciously, then chucks it in the general direction of the chicken pen. It misses by a significant margin, and she turns back quickly as the hens erupt in thwarted, indignant warbling. "Are you, er," Greta brushes a stray lock of hair aside with the back of her wrist, "out for a stroll?"
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"I was, yeah," she answers, and hesitates, not quite sure what else she has to say for herself. A few possibilities crop up, but none of them sound right — feeble lies about happening by, or a belated request for permission to be here. It all feels so foreign to her, rules of conduct she never learned and now can't grasp for the life of her. But even without that to consider, she still has no explanation, no reason she can give to explain her presence.
"Y-you're busy," she says, shifting her weight back in a sudden abortive gesture. "Don't mean to intrude."
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This is ridiculous. The truth is, she's sort of flattered that Anne stops by like this. She isn't quite sure what the appeal is, for Anne — if pressed, she'd hazard a guess about the comforting old-fashioned-ness of the cottage, or the draw of spending time with someone who knows what it's like to do without all of Darrow's technological trappings, or simply the quiet — but Greta's always pleased to see her. Considering that Anne drew swords on her the first time they met, it feels like a compliment to have her here, on purpose, just... because.
Regardless, framing it as an intrusion is a bit ridiculous. It's not as if the chickens will be offended if she has company.
"You're not intruding," Greta insists, forcing herself to settle a bit, her tone gentler and more measured. She considers Anne for a moment, then smiles faintly and cants her head towards the plants. "Have you ever weeded a garden before?"
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"No," she admits, shifting her weight back but not quite coming forward yet. "Nothing like this." Her experience with this sort of thing is limited, the sort of shit she hasn't had to think about for so long it's like it never happened at all. She never had anything like this, though; a garden, time to spend making it look nice. The idea holds little appeal, but it doesn't matter. It ain't hers; it's Greta's.
It wasn't quite an invitation, but it was near enough, and Anne finally resumes pacing forward. It's toward the chickens that she ends up moving, crouching down briefly to pick up their denied offering, straightening again and lobbing it gently into their enclosure. She smirks faintly at the excitable flapping and clucking that follows, then looks back at Greta.
"Wouldn't know where to begin," she adds, a returned invitation just as implicit, and she picks her way over and finally, rather tentatively crouches down beside Greta, awaiting instruction.
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The invitation to help weed the garden was implicit, but it's still a slight shock when Anne actually takes her up on it. There had been some reasoning behind it: Anne has never been the type to sit and chat, and Greta doesn't think she's the type to sit quietly by while someone else works, either — not without some sort of occupation. Still, the thought of teaching a pirate how to weed is just outlandish enough that Greta grins outright, wry and a little incredulous, before recovering herself.
"Well," she says, hands resting on her apron for a moment or two while she considers where to begin. "Right. These here, along the border, are marigolds," she starts, pointing everything out as she goes. "They can stay; they help keep the rabbits out. And these rows here are mostly lettuce. All we're getting rid of are the little things that are sprouting in between them — like this grass, here, or this bit of clover, or... whatever this is." She plucks the offending mystery sprout with a tsk and tosses it, more accurately this time, to the chickens. "It should all come up easily enough. If you unearth any worms, you can leave them, but grubs or slugs can go straight to that lot." She jerks her thumb towards the chickens for emphasis, then glances over at Anne. "Make sense?"
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She waits, watching Greta for a moment longer before she starts in herself, pulling up some grass as directed, tossing it to the hens. She works slower than Greta, a little more thoughtful, not wanting to disturb anything important, and also because it just feels good. It feels like real work, even something so small and simple; the first work she's done in a long while.
"Your girls off somewhere?" she asks after a moment. The silence doesn't bother her, which in itself sets her at ease; but she finds she wants to speak anyway.
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The quiet (save for the chickens) doesn't really bother her, though the lack of any conversation does feel a bit odd. Saoirse is a natterer, and Regan — whose knowledge of gardening is about on par with Greta's own — pauses to sign often enough. But making conversation with Saoirse or Regan is familiar and easy; Anne, she still feels as if she hasn't quite got the hang of. She suspects her curiosity about what Anne's life was like might just come across as vaguely distasteful, so she doesn't want to ask about that. But she also suspects inane chit-chat would dissolve against Anne like so much bloody sea foam on a rock.
She's still puzzling over possible ways of breaking the silence when Anne goes ahead and does it for her. Greta glances over in slight surprise, then smiles. "Yes, they've taken the dogs to the beach. The water's too cold for anyone but Saoirse, but it's just as well. Gives them more privacy." It's good for all of them, she thinks: Saoirse hasn't been able to visit the beach as often during the winter, and after all that business with the goblins, it's good for Regan to take her on little outings that are relatively unlikely to end in disaster.
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"She swims in this weather?" she asks hesitantly, her gaze tipping back down as she refocuses her attention on the weeding.
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She can't imagine a reason why Saoirse wouldn't want Anne to know, though. Perhaps the opportunity to share just never arose. Still, the thought of just blurting it all out behind Saoirse's back doesn't sit well with her.
But neither does stonewalling Anne, who is plainly curious. Greta nibbles her lower lip for a moment, debating with herself, then ventures, "Well, she's... different to most children. A bit like how Sweeney's different to most men." At least there's that common thread, leaving her less concerned by the prospect of Anne's disbelief as Saoirse's disappointment.
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The comparison to Sweeney catches her by surprise at first, though it isn't hard to follow. Something to do with magic, if Anne had to guess, since that's practically commonplace here. It seems Greta doesn't want to cut right to the center of it, and Anne is curious, but not keen to push. After a moment's consideration, she goes back to her work.
"Irish?" she ventures with a fleeting, wry smirk, then ducks her head back down, adding, "Don't have to tell me, if you don't want. Not my business."
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At any rate, it irks Greta to think that Anne might have no explanation at all for why she's allowing her young daughter to hurl herself into the sea in the middle of bloody April. She might give Saoirse more free rein than the average Darrow parent, but she's not negligent.
"She's a selkie," she finally says in an undertone, glancing over at Anne. "That's why she can swim in this weather. She has her coat."
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"She can turn into a seal?" she asks, genuinely asking. Given how far Sweeney differed from her expectations, she isn't sure what assumptions she can make. The idea ought to be stranger to her, but Greta always has a way of introducing these notions so simply, like there's no argument to be made. That, and there's no reason not to trust her.
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"Yes," she confirms, plucking up an errant dandelion and tossing it to the chickens. "A baby one, no less. It's adorable." After a beat, she adds, "Her coat didn't come with her when she first arrived here, and when she got it, I thought she might just..." Greta gestures vaguely eastward; if Anne's familiar with selkie stories at all, she'll probably guess where the sentence was headed.
It's not something Greta likes voicing, though, and she clears her throat before continuing: "But she stayed. It just wears on her when she can't swim as often, so now that it's arguably nice out, it seems cruel not to let her go and play."
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Don't seem right to bring it up. Not sure what she'd say in any case. Saoirse's stayed; Greta isn't looking for reassurance. Wouldn't be much sense in looking for it from her.
She makes a soft, noncommittal sound and says, "Where I come from those are just stories. Mad Sweeney, too." There's nothing dismissive or skeptical in her tone, a pensive frown being the only thing separating this from small talk. "Seems sort of funny that I've already got used to it here." And much more besides, but she only indicates that with a slight shrug as she tosses the chickens a bit more stray clover. "You said... it was a while ago now. Mentioned a witch, and a curse. They had magic where you're from, too."
It's not quite a question, but she does look at Greta inquiringly. Not sure what she's asking, more like curious in general, what it must be like to grow up with all that as a day-to-day reality. Anne can't really imagine it, and wouldn't have bothered to try not very long ago. Now, after a hesitation, she asks outright: "What's that like?"
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"It wasn't so different from being here, really," she replies. "You might know people with some degree of magic, and you might leave out offerings for whatever might be living on your property just to be on the safe side. But if you were lucky, you could keep your head down and get on with things."
She pauses for a moment, mulling it over. Time here has made her complacent, she supposes: it's been ages since she had to explain how things worked back home to anyone, and ages since she's worried that she might be explaining it badly. The words come more slowly as she continues. "There were rules. Not written, necessarily, but passed down all the same. Things you could do to stay safe, or... unnoticed. Don't stray from the path, don't talk to the wolf — that sort of thing. Don't steal from a witch's garden."
Her smile has faded by now, and she snorts, soft and humorless. "But you can do everything just right and still get roped into something. Much like here."
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She tilts her head, watching Greta closely from beneath the brim of her hat, her curiosity piqued again by the subtle shift in Greta's voice and manner, as of some faint resentment, a story untold. She wants to ask and she isn't sure how, isn't sure if she's welcome, if this is the right moment.
It's her own distraction that saves her making any immediate decisions; when she tosses something toward the chickens, she misses by a small margin, near enough that the excitable creature makes a clumsy leap for it, bending the wire fencing just enough that it vaults itself to freedom, flapping and scurrying its ridiculous way across the yard.
"Shit!" Anne snaps, haphazardly pushing the wire back in place before lurching to her feet.
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Anne has the sense to fix the bit of fencing, first, so the others stay penned in (though one or two do watch with interest as their freed cohort sprints off). "Here," Greta says, starting to walk a wide arc around the escaped creature. "If we get her up against the house, or something, one of us should be able to make a grab at her. The dogs do this all the time," she adds with a wry smile, "so it can't be that hard."
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It moves like a chicken, which is to say erratically, and Anne stumbles as she tries to head it off, narrowly succeeding in startling it back toward Greta's general direction. And at that moment, whether it's her own seriousness unraveling itself or just the ridiculous way the chicken bobs around, the absurdity catches up to Anne and she feels herself start to grin.