Chris was just settling back against the table, as soon as it looked like his brother was going to leave, when Martin stopped and a gift descended into his field of view. He blinked twice and sat back a little, taking it and watching him walk away before staring at the gift.
He fingered the side of it a moment; it felt like a book, a soft cover at that. Unwrapping it produced a journal, looking for all the world like it had been made of natural materials. The front of it was unmarked but as he flipped it over, he saw the back had "OPEN HERE" written in Martin's handwriting.
So he did.
Inside was a sight that made him draw in a breath. The first few, pressed-paper pages had been filled with reminisces of past creature adventures, less play-by-play descriptions and more words in a casual way, as if they were talking about them face to face. It started with their first- a joint adventure in Costa Rica -and jumped around until the Tortuga years, where it continued with highlighted trips of the brothers and the rest of the crew. Flipping too far found empty pages and he was confused for a moment, until he went back and found a note tucked in at the last Martin had written in:
"A CREATURE TRAIL'S STILL A CREATURE TRAIL. LET'S FILL UP THE REST OF THESE PAGES HERE; THE CREW WILL NEVER BELIEVE THIS! -MK"
As he held the book his thumb happened to slip in behind the 'back' cover, and it was here he blinked again as he felt something through his glove. A glance proved it to be a plastic sleeve for small mementos, into which there was a folded newspaper article. Pulling this out wound up being the biggest surprise, as it was a story about the crew and a conservation adventure that had made it to press.
Feeling decidedly mixed up now, for reasons that didn't have anything to do with his current predicament, Chris smiled as he leaned forward and smoothed out the article on the table, giving it a read-through.
no subject
He fingered the side of it a moment; it felt like a book, a soft cover at that. Unwrapping it produced a journal, looking for all the world like it had been made of natural materials. The front of it was unmarked but as he flipped it over, he saw the back had "OPEN HERE" written in Martin's handwriting.
So he did.
Inside was a sight that made him draw in a breath. The first few, pressed-paper pages had been filled with reminisces of past creature adventures, less play-by-play descriptions and more words in a casual way, as if they were talking about them face to face. It started with their first- a joint adventure in Costa Rica -and jumped around until the Tortuga years, where it continued with highlighted trips of the brothers and the rest of the crew. Flipping too far found empty pages and he was confused for a moment, until he went back and found a note tucked in at the last Martin had written in:
"A CREATURE TRAIL'S STILL A CREATURE TRAIL. LET'S FILL UP THE REST OF THESE PAGES HERE; THE CREW WILL NEVER BELIEVE THIS!
-MK"
As he held the book his thumb happened to slip in behind the 'back' cover, and it was here he blinked again as he felt something through his glove. A glance proved it to be a plastic sleeve for small mementos, into which there was a folded newspaper article. Pulling this out wound up being the biggest surprise, as it was a story about the crew and a conservation adventure that had made it to press.
Feeling decidedly mixed up now, for reasons that didn't have anything to do with his current predicament, Chris smiled as he leaned forward and smoothed out the article on the table, giving it a read-through.