Scherzo
The third movement in a symphony; from the Italian,
meaning "joke".
He'd become accustomed to being alone, insulated amid close heat, smells, strenuous but calming exertion, and the deep satisfaction of making useful things, and, sometimes, of creating beauty. For a long time, his brief forays outside had seemed like dreams: enjoyable, for the most part, but alien.
Now, his perception had altered. Considerably.
Odd that a pirate should be the one to drag him from the quiet dream of the forge into wildly shifting light, into the arms of the sea, and now to this place of riotous, raucous, cacophonous reality.
Jack was babbling something about the 'sweet, proliferous bouquet' of the place, and demanding to know what he thought.
What he thought! What could he think?
"It'll linger," he finally managed, and knew it for the truth as the words left his lips.
For good or ill, it would linger.
o-o-o
