Ichabod Crane [Sleepy Hollow] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tobearwitness) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
all_inclusive2014-03-09 01:20 pm
tobearwitness) wrote in all_inclusive2014-03-09 01:20 pm
Entry tags:
chess on ice
Ichabod has always been plagued with an insatiable curiosity and in his quest to return to Sleepy Hollow as quickly as possible, he has often stumbled through doorways that lead to fantastic places. He tends to stick to the hotel as much as possible in the vain hopes that somehow Lieutenant Mills will find a way to contact him on his new mobile telephone (no such luck) but today he has taken a chance on a door that seems to have an excessive amount of cheering followed by periods of intense silence.
Beyond the door lies something he has not seen since his last trip to Scotland some years ago. There are two teams of men in brightly-colored garb calling plays and sweeping furiously as a granite stone whirls down the ice. It's a game of Scottish extraction called curling, one that he had been graciously allowed to play once among a group in Kilsyth long ago. It's always been an elegant game to him, full of strategy and tedium, and it seems he's wandered out near the players bench instead of into the stands with the adoring public.
There's another team there, one set to play after this current match is done and judging from their uniforms and accents, they seem to be American, possibly. It seems so strange that the Americans would be playing a Scottish game but who is he to judge? He, too, has chosen America as his country of residence so perhaps it isn't so strange as it might seem on the surface.
"You're the third," the captain tells him and Ichabod racks his brain for the rules of this particular game. He thinks he has a handle on it from that game so long ago but hopefully modern conventions haven't changed this one overly much; he isn't sure what could be complicated about something so simple and elegant as curling but the modern world has a tendency to confuse even the simplest of things.
"Right, yes. The vice-skip, then?" he asks, looking for clarification. Somehow, some way, he's become a member of the American curling team. May God have mercy.
[Either play with Ichabod or join him after the game while he's still decked out in Team USA gear.]
Beyond the door lies something he has not seen since his last trip to Scotland some years ago. There are two teams of men in brightly-colored garb calling plays and sweeping furiously as a granite stone whirls down the ice. It's a game of Scottish extraction called curling, one that he had been graciously allowed to play once among a group in Kilsyth long ago. It's always been an elegant game to him, full of strategy and tedium, and it seems he's wandered out near the players bench instead of into the stands with the adoring public.
There's another team there, one set to play after this current match is done and judging from their uniforms and accents, they seem to be American, possibly. It seems so strange that the Americans would be playing a Scottish game but who is he to judge? He, too, has chosen America as his country of residence so perhaps it isn't so strange as it might seem on the surface.
"You're the third," the captain tells him and Ichabod racks his brain for the rules of this particular game. He thinks he has a handle on it from that game so long ago but hopefully modern conventions haven't changed this one overly much; he isn't sure what could be complicated about something so simple and elegant as curling but the modern world has a tendency to confuse even the simplest of things.
"Right, yes. The vice-skip, then?" he asks, looking for clarification. Somehow, some way, he's become a member of the American curling team. May God have mercy.
[Either play with Ichabod or join him after the game while he's still decked out in Team USA gear.]
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Then again, so is someone asking about being 'vice-skip'. "I think they have another name for it," he says, wondering why no one cares that he's near the bench. Then again, it's not like he knew there were rule books for strange parallel door dimensions. "Not sure what it is. Curling's not exactly my sport."
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"It seems the blind may in fact be leading the blind," Ichabod says, mulling over the accent of the newcomer. It sounds to him similar to his own but it is nothing that he recognizes. There is a bit of difference, a certain twang that his admittedly-middling ear cannot decipher.
"Which country will you be lending your aid to?" he asks, in an attempt to see where the other man hailed from. Perhaps that would give him the answers he sought.
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"I'm Chase," he introduces himself. "I take it you aren't exactly a regular Olympic curler?"
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"No, I am not. The Olympics were ancient games of Greek origin, nothing like what I see here," Ichabod says, wondering why such a modern event has taken on the name of something rooted in ancient tradition. "Olympic athletes most often performed naked and none of their sports included Scottish games wherein one tosses rocks down a sheet of ice. Are you quite certain about the name?"
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That had been fairly amusing, until one of the nurses had almost broken her neck. "This sport probably wouldn't be very good naked, though. Bit chill for that."
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"The one game I have ever seen was during a particularly-harsh Scottish winter so, no, it does not lend itself to the Olympian ideal."
Ichabod cannot help but laugh at the idea of attempting this game while naked, though, and his tone is light and full of mirth.
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Chase is definitely amused at the mental image, but it doesn't really change the fact that he doesn't understand what's going on, why he's in an Olympic curling arena, or whether he's supposed to be doing something here. "Are you going to give it a try?" he asks. "See if maybe there's some kind of hidden skills in you?"
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"I imagine it is a matter of angles and simple mathematics," Ichabod says, taking his turn at throwing a stone and attempting to aim it such so that he blocks the next team's throw. It's all about thinking ahead and predicting the future and it exercises his mind in a way that nothing really has since he left Sleepy Hollow.
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"Well, as soon as you introduce scalpels into it, then I'm on board," Chase jokes, watching as Ichabod takes his turn and throws the rock (thing? Stone? He's not sure what to call it, exactly) and is impressed by the general accuracy of the throw. "Not bad," he says, lips pursed as he smiles, giving a gesture to where it's landed. "You seem to not completely suck at it," he jokes.
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"And yet, there is an athleticism it requires that I do not seem to possess," Ichabod muses, watching as the other team throws and knocks his guard away. He hadn't forseen that particular outcome and thinks next time he will have to be at least two or three steps ahead. He is a fair strategist, yes, but executing it may be another thing entirely.
"Are you some sort of surgeon, then, to use scalpels?"
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Sometimes, he feels like a parrot who's been repeating the same thing for nine years and it's starting to sound stale.
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"So you...diagnose things. Is this not what all old doctors do?" The specific term is foreign to Ichabod but he has never professed any drawing or proclivity for the medical arts. His talents lay elsewhere, in investigation and research, and the idea of holding someone's life in his hand is a frightening prospect. He has respect for the profession, yes, but no desire to pursue it on his own.
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"Medical doctors, yes," Chase agrees, because generally, that's what they should be doing. "I guess the best way of explaining it is that my department looks at the puzzles, after all the rest of the doctors have had their chance to diagnose and they couldn't figure it out. We're the last resort." And they definitely come up with plenty of solutions that skirt around the near-impossible, but sometimes, they're right.
He's not sure how to explain it better, not without getting into a show and tell. "Really, it's a lot of frustration with some big victories."
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"Ah, that sounds like something I would be more interested in. I am something of a puzzle solver myself," he explains. It is a bit of an understatement but the entire story would be difficult to explain.
"How long have you been a doctor, then?"
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"Starting early means plenty of room for accomplishments," Ichabod says, laughing lightly at the mention of nepotism. He had received his own throughout the years and it had given him a tremendous advantage in the academic world.
"Years ago, I was just a professor of history. Now I've become a soldier and a spy, so your path is not always as clear as it might seem at first."
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"Sorry, I don't remember getting your name," he admits.
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"Forgive my rudeness. I am Ichabod, Ichabod Crane," he says, offering a hand in greeting to the other man. He had gotten so caught up in the man's line of work that introductions fell by the wayside.
"It is an absolute pleasure, of course."
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He vaguely recognizes the name, but he's been a doctor for long enough that he's run into patients of all kinds and types and come across all manner of names, so it's not like it's that familiar to him so much as it sounds like something he's heard before, maybe once. "You're a lot more polite than I'd expect coming from a soldier-spy," he says wryly. "I think I was expecting a bit more aggressive posturing, maybe some clandestine stabbing."
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"English," he says, as if that explains anything.
"Besides, one may always capture more flies with honey over vinegar."
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"Only if you want to catch flies," Chase says, because he's lived his life in a world of vinegar and verbal abuse and part of him has come to accept it as though he ought to expect it; as if he ought to somehow deserve it. "Does this happen often? You know, wake up, get dressed, walk through a door and become an Olympic curler?"
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"It is not as strange as it could be," Ichabod says, laughing lightly. "But my life has taken a turn for the exceedingly strange of late, what with the happenings in Sleepy Hollow and arriving here at the hotel."
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That name, he recognizes. Still, it's not like Chase has never had to deal with someone with a delicate state of mind before, and this is more of that same verse (or maybe not, because he did just walk through a door and hit the Olympics, so maybe he's a little crazy, too. "I take it you had a bit of crazy in your life before, then?"
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"More than a little," Ichabod confirms. "It seems that the strange has become my bedfellow, odd as it seems, and I have come to look at it as something familiar instead of something frightening. I have embraced my unique set of circumstances as much as I can and it seems it's for the best, since things keep getting more and more unusual the more time I spend in this place."
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In another time of his life, he might have advocated faith. As it stands, he still feels broken apart from it, questioning why he had lived instead of died, and he's not entirely sure how much he would turn to God in a moment of strange need. "This might be completely forward and totally out of line," he admits, "but how do you cope with that? How do you embrace that?"
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"I learn as much as I can about it. It is the unknown that is more frightening than anything else, honestly, and by knowing as much as I can about something, I fear it less," Ichabod explains.
"Was that the answer you were looking for?"
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"Not sure," he says, admitting it freely. "I had a scary, strange moment of my own recently and I'm not entirely sure how to cope with it," he admits, his smile terse as he presses his lips together, one hand covering where the wound had been. "It's left me questioning a lot of things in my life."
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"Faith can be a tool to help cope with such things but I have found that my faith has morphed and changed over the years," Ichabod explains. "Some of the things I've learned and seen cannot be quantified by faith and can only have other, outside explanations."
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His smile turns rueful, thinking that this isn't really a conversation for a curling rink. "I was going to be a priest," he provides, because he feels like that's important information to have, especially about this conversation. "But I, uh, I don't exactly have a whole surfeit of faith right now. It's pretty much the main reason I left," he says. "I still believe," he admits. "Not enough to be an advocate to others, though."
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"It takes such conviction to be a member of the clergy. It's a wonder more of them aren't disillusioned from the outset," Ichabod says. He has increasingly become fascinated with things in an academic sense, things he can test and measure. While he deals in the fantastic, he's seen it all with his own two eyes.
"How long did you study?"
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"Not very long," he admits, the chill of the ice around him starting to get to him. "It was fifteen months at the most before I realized that the faith in my favourite verse wasn't exactly something that I really had," he says with a shrug. "So I followed in my father's footsteps and I became a doctor. Not that he really ever said anything about wanting me to." Or that he was around to even notice.
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"I am an academic, something my father decidedly did not want," Ichabod admits.
"He is peerage, of course, and thinks my studies are folly."
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"Landed gentry with a voice in the House of Lords," Ichabod explains, wondering why such a term has fallen out of disuse. Even in England these days, there was still the peerage, wasn't there?
"He thinks academia is having my head in the clouds."
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Chase had definitely never heard of and had never used (or been) peerage, then. "Well, where I come from, academia is pretty much the wave of the future," he promises. "People spend decades in school trying to get degrees. I finished secondary, did my pre-med, then med school, then I've still been specializing until all of three years ago," he admits with a scoff. "I don't know that it's head in the clouds anymore. I think it's just life."
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"I could be a student forever," Ichabod admits readily. "Learning does not stop at some predetermined age once one has learned sums and writing."
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"At some point, I need to start working," he admits, rubbing his arms and nodding to the door. "Not to be completely an arse, but I'm kind of freezing and while it was nice, at first, for the wound, it's starting to get a bit numb. I don't suppose you're about to win the match or something?" he asks, trying to get his best guess at the rules of this.
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Ichabod frowns at it. "No, I think I'm about to lose. I have another stone," he says, "But I'm not throwing. I suppose we could leave and leave it all to chance. I'm not terribly invested at all, not if you're in discomfort."
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Chase still felt like he had no hope in hell of figuring out how the game worked and didn't exactly have much investment. "Maybe just a quick return to the hotel, check the bandages and warm up. I mean, I'm not supposed to have any alcohol with the meds, but maybe I could buy you something to warm up. Or are they free. I haven't exactly figured that place out."
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"I insist, let me buy you something warm. You're injured," Ichabod says, concerned about that even if Chase is a medical doctor and the expert in this particular matter. He has certain manners and standards to uphold and offering to aid this man falls in line with them.
"Nothing alcoholic, certainly, but something to chase the chill?"
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"It's getting better," he promises, because it's been enough time that he's bored with healing and recuperating, even if the wound isn't really to let him do things like get back to the lifestyle he was used to, before. "And I'd never say no to a hot cocoa," he says warmly. "I don't think anyone would."
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"So long as the levied taxes aren't astronomical. It was my understanding the colonists fought against such usury. Maybe I picked the wrong side of the war," Ichabod scoffs.
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