One Jump! (OPEN TO ANYONE)

[Liechtenstein]

Lily had never run so fast in her life, weaving in and out of the people in the crowded city. But she didn’t dare to stop, ducking into an alley way and squatting down behind a dumpster. She held her breath, clutching a plain, brown packaged to her chest as if her life depended on it.

It had all really happened in a blur. They had docked in South America earlier that week to resupply. It seemed though that the captain had had an errand to run, something she had noticed he had to do a lot. But no one on the crew ever seemed to question or notice it. Still, the German girl couldn’t help but be curious as to what kind of errands the captain was always running…

That was what led to this predicament. James had also been curious, and somehow convinced her into joining him in tailing the Captain. Of course, like always, the Captain knew they were following him. Surprisingly though, they did not get yelled at like she had expected. Instead he just sighed, and telling them to come along.

They’d gone to a bar after that. And then, then she wasn’t sure what happened exactly. Arthur had left her and James to meet with someone. When he came back, he had been carrying the package. They left after that, but on the way back to the ship… That’s when they had been attacked, by what she assumed was another group of pirates.

The Captain had shoved the package into her arms, ordering her to get back to the ship and protect it. She had hesitated at first, not wanting to leave them behind. But the Captain had raised his voice, shouting at her to go. Lily had turned and run almost immediately following. She didn’t risk looking back, even when she heard gunshots behind her. Lily just continued to run, even when her lungs burned.

That was how she ended up here, hiding in an alley way. Trying to catch her breath as quietly as she could. She didn’t know whether she’d been followed. She was just about to get up and leave when she heard footsteps, coupled with a voice, approaching. She curled up tighter, her hand moving towards the revolver James had shoved into her hands before they had separated.

Her heart pounded against her chest, and she forced herself to take a calming breath. Just stay calm, they would just pass by her. They wouldn’t see her. She’d be alright… It’d be alright…

((Alrighty~ This is a post for pretty much anyone to jump in. This is a topic for any crews to interact, or to draw you lurkers out of hiding. :’D –hopes it works and is okay-))

[Preußen]

Gilbert and his crew had docked in South America on what Gilbert had told them all was "official business." Of course, most of the crew knew better than to believe that, because Gilbert was simply not a man for business; he would avoid anything that even looked or sounded like work with a wide berth, simply out of laziness. Even if avoiding it meant expending more energy than going through with the task would have taken, anyway.

The real reason they had docked in South America was because the Captain had a play date of sorts. After spending multiple hours almost every night on the radio with the captain of the Medal Podsolnuh (he still that was a lousy name for a ship, even if the current Captain hadn't been the one to name it), they had arranged to meet at what Gilbert knew to be a rather dark and shifty bar in one of the port towns. The goal was simply to have a few drinks, talk, bond, whatever it was that captains who weren't rivals but weren't really friends either, did.

It had taken him a while to ditch his crew, and many alleyways and shortcuts later, Gilbert found that he was almost to his destination, cutting through yet another alleyway and chatting up the bird perched on his shoulder - his only company - when he heard it. At first he didn't notice the quiet, almost inaudible breaths, but as he got closer they became more defined. The breathing pattern of someone who had just run a long distance, and not for recreation. They had been running away from something, or someone.

He paused in his rant to the small yellow bird, which peeped quietly as he slowed to a halt in the middle of the dark alley, eyes straining against the dark of the damp bricks and slime-covered ground. He looked for a long moment, and was just about to give up, when...there it was. A small form, huddled behind a dumpster, holding something and shaking. He took a step back and reached for his Luger, keeping one hand on it as he slowly and cautiously reached the other out.

"You okay?"

[Liechtenstein]

Lily jumped at the sound of the voice. In a flash she had stumbled back to her feet, aiming to revolver at the chest of the man who had just come into the alley. With wide eyes she strained against the darkness, trying to make out the person in front of her. But the only thing she could make out properly was red eyes. And those eyes made her back away quickly, though her foot caught on some stray garbage. Nearly sending her toppling over to the ground. Barely catching herself, the small blonde kept her gun aimed.

"St-Stay away!" She shouted, voice slightly frantic. Keeping the packaged tucked close with one arm, the other holding the gun, she stepped back again. Could she out run him? Was he even an enemy? He seemed curious about her well-being but... But...

Vash... What would Vash do if he was here? Oh how she wished her brother was here.

[Preußen]

Upon having a gun pointed at his chest, Gilbert's first instinct was to draw his own gun and point it at the person targeting him. However, he resisted this impulse, instead slowly raising both of his hands, holding them up in a way that showed he was unarmed. He had a feeling that drawing a weapon on this girl - what was she doing in this sleezy back-alley, anyway? - was not going to help him earn her trust.

An odd feeling flashed through him, followed by a wave of thoughts. Why was it important to gain her trust, anyway? He didn't know who she was, or why she was here. He didn't even care what it was she was clutching so close (although it was beginning to peak his interest, being a pirate and all). He could just as easily turn and walk away from this girl and leave her to whoever found her next, but something about that thought felt implicitly wrong; he wanted to protect her, wanted her to feel safe with him.

And then, even through all of those feelings, was the one that had been nagging at him constantly lately: he felt like he knew this girl. Truth be told, he was getting really tired of this constant deja-vu feeling with no real explanation, and the fact that he was getting it form some random girl in a random alley was about the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Whoa, whoa," he waved his gloved hands a little. "I'm not gonna hurt you, birdie, just wanna make sure you're alright."

He paused, taking a very slow, tentative step forward, a little closer to some light source; it wouldn't do him any good if she got spooked and shot him, after all. He showed her his hands again, hoping she could see a bit better now and confirm that they were empty.

"Probably not safe for a mädchen like you to be in this kinda place alone, huh? You got somewhere to stay?"

Mädchen = girl

[Liechtenstein]

Taking a shaky breath, she took a tentative step backwards. Her eyes narrowed, squinting through the dark lighting of the alley to make out the man in front of her. It was hard, but she eventually managed to make out more then just his red eyes. Her eyes remained wide, but now more from the jolt of deja vu that ran through her. She knew this man somehow. But how did she know him? She was positive they had never met. And yet...

A name was on the tip of her tongue. Pr... Pru...

But then it was gone. Leaving Lily to just blinked, a bit confused. The stranger was talking to her, and she shook her head to clear it from the odd sensation. She had never met this man before, that was right. Why had she though-

Her rambling thoughts came to a halt. For a moment she just stared at him, blinking wide eyes. The gun lowered a fraction of an inch, Lily swallowing a lump in her throat before speaking. "Yo-You speak German..?"

It had been so long since she had heard anything in her native tongue. Even just a word made her relax slightly.

[Preußen]

Gilbert let out a quiet breath of relief as the girl lowered her gun, even if it was just a little. He nodded carefully, keeping his hands up to show that he was still very much at a disadvantage in this situation.

"Ja, Ich spreche Deutsch," he replied slowly, feeling a bit better to know that this girl at least understood what he had said to her. Then again, there was the possibility that she was some German-hater who would only want to shoot him more, knowing his native language was German. However, judging by the girl's light accent on her words, she was also from a region near Germany...perhaps Austria, or Liech--

Gilbert's head throbbed suddenly with a sharp pain, causing him to wince and bring his hand up to his temple. A name flashed through his mind - Zwingli - along with the image of this girl standing next to man who looked very similar to her. Gilbert's mind informed him that that was her brother, and that they were very close, before the pain slowly ebbed away and he was left with...nothing. All of the loose ends he had been presented with, grasping at them blindly to make sense of the situation, were gone.

He lowered his hand back to mirror the other, open-palmed and facing the girl in a sign of surrender. He squinted through the darkness at her form, before speaking again.

"Wie ist Irh name? Mein name ist Gilbert Beilschmidt," he paused, lowering his hands a bit more. "I wanna help you; are you lost?"

Ja, Ich spreche Deutsch = Yes, I speak German
Wie ist Irh name? = What is your name?
Mein name ist = My name is

[Liechtenstein]

German, he was speaking German. And she had never realized just how much she had missed the language. Relaxing minutely again, she debated just lowering the gun completely. Ah, but there was still a chance he could be a bad guy right? Maybe he was one of the guys who had attacked them earlier, or chased her for the Captain's package or...

Gilbert... Beilschmidt? She blinked at the familiarity of the name. And for a brief moment, she was not in a dark alley way. She was sitting in a cafe. With Vash, Vash was with her. And a prim looking brunet man with glasses... And then this man, Gilbert, was popping out of a bush laughing about something. He was making fun of the brunet. Vash didn't seem too pleased. And then...

Then she was back in the alley, blinking owlishly at the man in front of her. Help, he wanted to help her? But how could she trust him?

"Lily Zwingli... Ah, th-that's my name." She shifted uneasily, finally lowering the gun fully. Hugging the package tighter. She swallowed the lump that had formed, nodding to his second question. "J-Ja... Just a bit sir..."

[Preußen]

Gilbert let out a breath of relief as she finally lowered the gun, and he in turn lowered his hands, wiggling his leather-gloved fingers to let a little bit of blood back into them, as they had started to tingle from being held in the air for so long.

He didn't notice the dazed expression on her face as she experienced a moment of strange deja-vu, but different and more like a remembrance. He did, however, notice when she spoke again and repeated the same name his mind had whispered to him moments before. Zwingli, she said it in that tone, and his mind went reeling again, spinning into memories of this girl, her brother, another man with darker hair and his nose in the air, a woman with a frying pan--

And again it was like he suddenly came crashing back down from swirling cloud of sounds and smells and colors that formed memories that just ballooned inside his head. He winced again as the sharp pain in his temple returned, but this time he retained the knowledge that his mind had given him, and he decided to use it. With an attempt at a brilliant, comforting smile, he took a step toward her, hand out in offering for the girl to take, shake, or smack away.

"Well hallo, then, Frau Zwingli," he tried the name and decided he liked it, a spark of something coming to him and before he knew it he was speaking without thinking of the words to follow. "I'm supposed to be meeting a friend for drinks at a pub around here, and I was just taking this alley as a short cut. Would you like to join me? It's on a central street and you should be able to find your way to wherever you're going from there."

[Liechtenstein]

Lily stared at the offered hand for a long moment. It would be rude to not accept it. She knew that, she had always been taught to be polite. But she would have to either put the package down or put the gun away to shake it. Setting the package down was out of the question. The Captain had trusted her with it, and she was not going to betray that trust. But there still was the matter of if she could trust this man enough to put the gun away. Vash's lessons echoing in her mind. Do not trust strangers.

But then she looked at the man again, and her fears faded slightly. He didn't look threatening... No, he looked familiar. Very familiar. But she couldn't place how. All she could determine though was that she could trust him. So with that thought in mind, she finally tucked the gun away, before taking he offered hand.

"It is very nice to meet you Herr Beilschmidt." She murmured, shifting a bit uneasily from foot to foot. "I-If it's alright, may I join you? At least until I find a way to the docks?"

[Preußen]

Gilbert felt a jolt as she took his hand, and shook hers gently even as he felt like he might black out, his head spinning at an uncomfortably fast pace. Gilbird, who had been quietly perched on his shoulder this whole time, seemed to sense this disruption and fluttered a bit, peeping softly in his ear. The sound brought him back down, and he released the girl's hand to pat at the small chick, trying to catch his breath from the odd rush he had just experienced.

"Ja, ja, of course you can join me. Like I said, the pub I'm going to is on a main street; it should be easy to find your way from there," he agreed amiably, a slight grin coming to his face as he relaxed, tension flowing out of his shoulders as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"Let's get a move on, then," he urged, nodding toward the mouth of the alley that he had been facing for some time now, and took a slight step forward, moving around the girl and glancing over his shoulder to look at her. "Are you coming, Frau Zwingli?"

[Liechtenstein]

For a moment she just stared at the man in front of her. He looked about to collapse for a second, but then seemed to recover. Patting the small little chick's head. And Lily's eyes went wide. She hadn't even noticed the little bird before! "Th-there's a bird in your hair!"

The petite German couldn't keep herself from blurting that out, flushing slightly in a bit of embarrassment afterward. Nodding mutely to his question, she taking a few quick steps to catch up with him. "Th-Thank you very much sir..."

[Preußen]

Gilbert stared at the girl for a moment after her exclamation, feeling slightly confused. A bird in his hair...?

"Oh! Ja," he laughed a bit, pulling the small chick from her perch and holding her out to the young girl in front of him, grinning. "This is Gilbird; she's my loyal companion."

The small chick peeped softly, trying to keep her balance on Gil's hand as he continued to walk down the alley, showing her off. She stumbled for a moment before toppling over on his hand, and Gil laughed, placing her gently back onto his head.

"Now," he paused at the mouth of the alley, looking this way and that before taking a step into the street, turning right and heading toward a brightly lit and noisy building. "Don't fall behind, Frau Zwingli; it wouldn't be good if you got lost again, ja?"

[Liechtenstein]

"She's very cute." Lily giggled, cautiously reaching out her free hand and petting the top of the little chirping chicks head as they walked. Smiling she watched the bird settle back into the mans hair, before turning her attention back to him as he spoke. She nodded a little, resuming hugging the package close to her chest.

"Ja, I won't." She had no desire to be lost again. She even toyed with the idea of reaching out to grab onto his sleeve like she would do with Vash as a child.

[Allax Darksu]

A man in the shadows was watching...he had lost his brother somewhere, but he knew you as oneo f his 'friends'.
He walked towards you and he looekd very different from his brother....
Though he had the same color of hair, his eyes were emerald, liek Arthur's...
he dressed liek a Victorian Gentleman....odd...quite odd he tapped your shoulder.
"Oui, Guten Tag Gilbert....have you seen mein bruder around?"
He talked different too! A lot different...he didn't sound at all liek Francis, more like your brother Ludwig.

{Admin: using the human names for the hetalia characters if you haven't guess =.=}

[Allax Darksu]

Whoops sorry....