AMONGST THE YOUNG
by SpelCastrMax
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, this a fic based on ideas from two of the three Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films, which is funny since the Adventures of Sinbad TV series is based on those same movies. Ah yes, it comes full circle.
Also, I am an true blue Sinbad/Maeve fan, but I chose not to write Bryn out completely. Don't worry, I'm not going to create any "love triangles". This is where the idea from one of the original Sinbad movies comes in. For those of you who have seen those movies you'll probably figure out which ideas I took. For those of you who haven't seen those films...well, you are heathen dogs and I will pity you until you educate yourself in the magic of Ray Harryhausen. Down with CGI!
CHAPTER TWO: BAROFF
The red headed little girl glared at Captain Sinbad. "Who are you? Are you one of his new spies?!"
The man's breath was caught in his throat and for a moment he could not answer. He wanted to sit on the tree trunk and think. However, he wasn't sure what the little girl would do if he came any closer. It was spooky how much the child resembled the lost member of his crew. "I...I'm not a spy," he managed to say to which she only rolled her eyes.
"Well, I wouldn't expect you to admit it," she scoffed. She even made expressions like Maeve's.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was laughing as they approached the trunk. They couldn't see the little girl from where they were, nor could they hear what the captain was saying. They assumed that Maeve had scolded him and the pair was about to break into an argument. Doubar lead them, picking up the pace a little due to the fact that if the pair was going to start one of their famous fights, he didn't want to miss it.
His new speed made Doubar the second to see the child. His jaw fell and he exclaimed, "What is this?"
Her frown deepened and she sat up instantly when the other three crew members joined the two brothers. They each showed their own version of shock, even Bryn who had been expecting to finally meet the famous Maeve. Standing up and brushing the dirt from her long robe, the child snapped, "Are you all just going to keep staring at me all day?"
"It's uncanny," Firouz whispered, "She's the spitting image..."
"You don't think...You don't suppose she could be...I mean, Maeve never had any children that we know of, right," Doubar slowly suggested, afraid of upsetting Sinbad.
Sinbad shook his head roughly. "No. Maeve was secretive, but I don' think that..."
"Will you all stop talking about me like I'm not here!" The crew all turned to stare at the child as she stopped her foot in the grass. They all continued to stare at her. "You all keep saying my name, but I've never seen any of you before in my life!"
The captain kneeled down to be at the child's level. He studied her familiar eyes as they glared back at him. "Maeve? What happened to you?"
Her face softened for a second and little Maeve's inhaled deeply. "Do I know you?" she asked.
Dermott squawked a little and the child squinted her eyes up at him. "No, I do not know who he is. And don't know you either so stop yelling at me."
"Did we go back in time?" Bryn questioned nervously.
"No, Maeve would still know Dermott, wouldn't she," Firouz pointed out, "Besides, time travel is physically impossible."
"So is a grown woman suddenly being only seven years old," Doubar gruffly responded, "But there's the living proof."
"I'm eight and a half!" Maeve snapped.
Rongar tapped Sinbad on the shoulder and pointed across the field. A man in bright blue robes wearing a loosely wrapped turban was walking towards them. Maeve took one look at him and her face darkened.
"Maeve," he called back to her, "I am done playing games. You come back right now."
"NO!" she snapped, then raised her arms upward. The tree trunk rolled towards the man and knocked him over like a bowling pin. Maeve then ran into the woods before he could regain his balance.
Dermott followed her while the crew stayed behind to quiz the man. Sinbad drew his sword and held it at the fallen man's throat.
The man's round face resembled a frightened dog. "C...Captain Sinbad!" he squeaked, "What a pleasant surprise!" He reached out to the blade with a trembling hand. "Could you...perhaps...point that someplace else?"
Sinbad moved the semetar's point only a couple of inches away from the man. In a confused tone, he asked, "How do you know me?"
Coughing nervously, the man replied, "I..I am Baroff, a friend of master Dim-Dim's. He told me that you might come, looking for Maeve."
"So that little girl really is Maeve?" Firouz responded in a startled voice that seemed to come out of no where.
"Yes. You see, I did that so no one would find her, but I guess that didn't exactly work, huh." Baroff swallowed an invisible lump in his throat and dug his fingers into the grass. "Somehow she still has her knowledge of magic so I was able to continue her um...training, just like Dim-Dim requested."
The large man attempted to scoot away from the sword once again, but Sinbad barked at him with more questions. "Why doesn't she know me?!" He paused, then corrected himself, avoiding the eyes of his teasing crew. "Us. I mean why doesn't she know us?"
Baroff's round cheeks glistened with nervous sweat. "Well, if you could just lower that thing, I'll tell you what happened to the best of my abilities."
"Tell me or I'll take away your ability to talk at all," the captain responded as he glared downward.
Firouz glanced at Bryn and explained almost apologetically, "He gets like this when Maeve is in trouble."
Bryn tried not to laugh. "I've noticed that."
Baroff held up his palms in surrender. "Okay! Okay!" He started to talk quickly hopefully to get the words out faster than Sinbad could process them. "There was a little accident and the exper...spell caused Maeve to have selective amnesia. Please don't hurt me!"
With a long sigh and a silent exchange of expressions with his brother, Sinbad sheathed his sword. "Rongar, Bryn, watch this...man. Firouz and Doubar, come with me."
Baroff sat up, still trembling. "If you're going to find Maeve it won't do any good. She won't know you. You might as well just set sail and come back when you find Master Dim-Dim. I'm sure he could fix this....Ahh!" The man's yell came from watching Rongar remove two daggers from his belt.
"You mean you can't undue it?" Doubar gruffly spoke in almost more shock than he had been in before.
Barloff's responded with, "Are you going to kill me?"
Without another word, Sinbad started into topical forest. Firouz and Doubar followed, Firouz talking the entire time of cures for memory loss. "Sometimes all it takes is a lot of things the person knows, like the faces of friends or taking part in a familiar routine."
Dermott was waiting for them, already perched over a dying tree with long roots. The ground around the tree had given away on one side, creating a hole from which the sailors could hear a child's voice.
"...like a bird on the wing, onward the sailor's cry. Carry the lad born to be king o'er the sea to..." Sinbad was the one to slip down into the cramped space and interrupting the girl's singing. She was weaving grasses together and only briefly looked up at the captain. He was squished into the hole with his knees pushed up against his chest. She, on the other hand, was comfortably seated with her legs crossed.
"What do you want?" she grumbled, "Are you going to take me back to Baroff?"
"No. I just want to talk," Sinbad replied. He wasn't sure how to approach the situation. He was used to the adult Maeve who was always ready with a comeback or an insult. He missed that woman. This was just a feisty and angry little girl who seem to have no interest in anything except the three blades of long grass she was braiding together. "So...um. Is this your hiding place?"
"Today it is," she told him, "Until he finds me. I'll just run away again tomorrow."
"Why don't you just leave?"
"In case you haven't noticed, this a small island. Where would I go? I don't even know what else is out there." Maeve's little hands were still for a second as if she were studying the dirt under her nails and the cut on her pointer finger. "Baroff says I belong to him. Everyone on the island knows that. That's why no one helps me and that's why the other children on the island won't play with me."
Sinbad nodded at her, then glanced up to see Dobar and Firouz peering into the hole. "What if you let us help you?" he asked the child.
The eight and a half year old grunted in a way befitting of her age. "Why would you want to help me?"
"Are you sure you don't recognize me?" he question. Sinbad faced her again and for the smallest portion of a second he saw the eyes of an adult, mixed with independence, pain, and something he could never quite name. Less than an instant later the look was gone from her face and her eyes were once again those of a sad, innocent eight year old.
Maeve abandoned the grass weaving and anxiously wanted to know, "How will you help me?"
Making a face, the captain told her, "I'll figure out a way, but I'd feel better if we could talk about this someplace with a little more room to breathe."
After a motion of agreement from the young Maeve, Sinbad crawled out of the hole, then Doubar reached in and pulled out the child.
The burly man set her down, looking her over about three times before commenting, "We have had some bizarre adventures, little brother, but I do believe that this is the worst."
"I'm not that bad," she said, taking up her defensive tone for the umpteenth tone. Her eyes went upward to Dermott, obviously listening to him, "No one asked you."
The right corner of Sinbad's mouth went upward in amused annoyance. "At least it's good to know she's rude to everyone, not just us."
Just then, the trees shook violently from vibrations coming up from the ground. The sound of giant feet crashing down, coming towards them in swift strides made the three men arm themselves. Doubar threw the child behind him.
The girl's face lost all color. "Oops," she quietly squeaked from her hiding place in back of Doubar.
"What does 'oops' mean?" Sinbad wanted to know.
"It means I'm in trouble." Taking a hold onto Doubar's sleeve she fearfully explained, "I may have forgotten to lock the door of Niku's cage."
There was another stomp followed by a roar. Before anyone could ask what a Niku was, a creature as tall as a two story house stepped through the trees. It resembled a lioness with a woman's face and the tail of scorpion. Another roar and "Niku" charged at the small band, not even fearing the blades they pointed at her.
Shall I go on?
by SpelCastrMax
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, this a fic based on ideas from two of the three Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films, which is funny since the Adventures of Sinbad TV series is based on those same movies. Ah yes, it comes full circle.
Also, I am an true blue Sinbad/Maeve fan, but I chose not to write Bryn out completely. Don't worry, I'm not going to create any "love triangles". This is where the idea from one of the original Sinbad movies comes in. For those of you who have seen those movies you'll probably figure out which ideas I took. For those of you who haven't seen those films...well, you are heathen dogs and I will pity you until you educate yourself in the magic of Ray Harryhausen. Down with CGI!
CHAPTER TWO: BAROFF
The red headed little girl glared at Captain Sinbad. "Who are you? Are you one of his new spies?!"
The man's breath was caught in his throat and for a moment he could not answer. He wanted to sit on the tree trunk and think. However, he wasn't sure what the little girl would do if he came any closer. It was spooky how much the child resembled the lost member of his crew. "I...I'm not a spy," he managed to say to which she only rolled her eyes.
"Well, I wouldn't expect you to admit it," she scoffed. She even made expressions like Maeve's.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was laughing as they approached the trunk. They couldn't see the little girl from where they were, nor could they hear what the captain was saying. They assumed that Maeve had scolded him and the pair was about to break into an argument. Doubar lead them, picking up the pace a little due to the fact that if the pair was going to start one of their famous fights, he didn't want to miss it.
His new speed made Doubar the second to see the child. His jaw fell and he exclaimed, "What is this?"
Her frown deepened and she sat up instantly when the other three crew members joined the two brothers. They each showed their own version of shock, even Bryn who had been expecting to finally meet the famous Maeve. Standing up and brushing the dirt from her long robe, the child snapped, "Are you all just going to keep staring at me all day?"
"It's uncanny," Firouz whispered, "She's the spitting image..."
"You don't think...You don't suppose she could be...I mean, Maeve never had any children that we know of, right," Doubar slowly suggested, afraid of upsetting Sinbad.
Sinbad shook his head roughly. "No. Maeve was secretive, but I don' think that..."
"Will you all stop talking about me like I'm not here!" The crew all turned to stare at the child as she stopped her foot in the grass. They all continued to stare at her. "You all keep saying my name, but I've never seen any of you before in my life!"
The captain kneeled down to be at the child's level. He studied her familiar eyes as they glared back at him. "Maeve? What happened to you?"
Her face softened for a second and little Maeve's inhaled deeply. "Do I know you?" she asked.
Dermott squawked a little and the child squinted her eyes up at him. "No, I do not know who he is. And don't know you either so stop yelling at me."
"Did we go back in time?" Bryn questioned nervously.
"No, Maeve would still know Dermott, wouldn't she," Firouz pointed out, "Besides, time travel is physically impossible."
"So is a grown woman suddenly being only seven years old," Doubar gruffly responded, "But there's the living proof."
"I'm eight and a half!" Maeve snapped.
Rongar tapped Sinbad on the shoulder and pointed across the field. A man in bright blue robes wearing a loosely wrapped turban was walking towards them. Maeve took one look at him and her face darkened.
"Maeve," he called back to her, "I am done playing games. You come back right now."
"NO!" she snapped, then raised her arms upward. The tree trunk rolled towards the man and knocked him over like a bowling pin. Maeve then ran into the woods before he could regain his balance.
Dermott followed her while the crew stayed behind to quiz the man. Sinbad drew his sword and held it at the fallen man's throat.
The man's round face resembled a frightened dog. "C...Captain Sinbad!" he squeaked, "What a pleasant surprise!" He reached out to the blade with a trembling hand. "Could you...perhaps...point that someplace else?"
Sinbad moved the semetar's point only a couple of inches away from the man. In a confused tone, he asked, "How do you know me?"
Coughing nervously, the man replied, "I..I am Baroff, a friend of master Dim-Dim's. He told me that you might come, looking for Maeve."
"So that little girl really is Maeve?" Firouz responded in a startled voice that seemed to come out of no where.
"Yes. You see, I did that so no one would find her, but I guess that didn't exactly work, huh." Baroff swallowed an invisible lump in his throat and dug his fingers into the grass. "Somehow she still has her knowledge of magic so I was able to continue her um...training, just like Dim-Dim requested."
The large man attempted to scoot away from the sword once again, but Sinbad barked at him with more questions. "Why doesn't she know me?!" He paused, then corrected himself, avoiding the eyes of his teasing crew. "Us. I mean why doesn't she know us?"
Baroff's round cheeks glistened with nervous sweat. "Well, if you could just lower that thing, I'll tell you what happened to the best of my abilities."
"Tell me or I'll take away your ability to talk at all," the captain responded as he glared downward.
Firouz glanced at Bryn and explained almost apologetically, "He gets like this when Maeve is in trouble."
Bryn tried not to laugh. "I've noticed that."
Baroff held up his palms in surrender. "Okay! Okay!" He started to talk quickly hopefully to get the words out faster than Sinbad could process them. "There was a little accident and the exper...spell caused Maeve to have selective amnesia. Please don't hurt me!"
With a long sigh and a silent exchange of expressions with his brother, Sinbad sheathed his sword. "Rongar, Bryn, watch this...man. Firouz and Doubar, come with me."
Baroff sat up, still trembling. "If you're going to find Maeve it won't do any good. She won't know you. You might as well just set sail and come back when you find Master Dim-Dim. I'm sure he could fix this....Ahh!" The man's yell came from watching Rongar remove two daggers from his belt.
"You mean you can't undue it?" Doubar gruffly spoke in almost more shock than he had been in before.
Barloff's responded with, "Are you going to kill me?"
Without another word, Sinbad started into topical forest. Firouz and Doubar followed, Firouz talking the entire time of cures for memory loss. "Sometimes all it takes is a lot of things the person knows, like the faces of friends or taking part in a familiar routine."
Dermott was waiting for them, already perched over a dying tree with long roots. The ground around the tree had given away on one side, creating a hole from which the sailors could hear a child's voice.
"...like a bird on the wing, onward the sailor's cry. Carry the lad born to be king o'er the sea to..." Sinbad was the one to slip down into the cramped space and interrupting the girl's singing. She was weaving grasses together and only briefly looked up at the captain. He was squished into the hole with his knees pushed up against his chest. She, on the other hand, was comfortably seated with her legs crossed.
"What do you want?" she grumbled, "Are you going to take me back to Baroff?"
"No. I just want to talk," Sinbad replied. He wasn't sure how to approach the situation. He was used to the adult Maeve who was always ready with a comeback or an insult. He missed that woman. This was just a feisty and angry little girl who seem to have no interest in anything except the three blades of long grass she was braiding together. "So...um. Is this your hiding place?"
"Today it is," she told him, "Until he finds me. I'll just run away again tomorrow."
"Why don't you just leave?"
"In case you haven't noticed, this a small island. Where would I go? I don't even know what else is out there." Maeve's little hands were still for a second as if she were studying the dirt under her nails and the cut on her pointer finger. "Baroff says I belong to him. Everyone on the island knows that. That's why no one helps me and that's why the other children on the island won't play with me."
Sinbad nodded at her, then glanced up to see Dobar and Firouz peering into the hole. "What if you let us help you?" he asked the child.
The eight and a half year old grunted in a way befitting of her age. "Why would you want to help me?"
"Are you sure you don't recognize me?" he question. Sinbad faced her again and for the smallest portion of a second he saw the eyes of an adult, mixed with independence, pain, and something he could never quite name. Less than an instant later the look was gone from her face and her eyes were once again those of a sad, innocent eight year old.
Maeve abandoned the grass weaving and anxiously wanted to know, "How will you help me?"
Making a face, the captain told her, "I'll figure out a way, but I'd feel better if we could talk about this someplace with a little more room to breathe."
After a motion of agreement from the young Maeve, Sinbad crawled out of the hole, then Doubar reached in and pulled out the child.
The burly man set her down, looking her over about three times before commenting, "We have had some bizarre adventures, little brother, but I do believe that this is the worst."
"I'm not that bad," she said, taking up her defensive tone for the umpteenth tone. Her eyes went upward to Dermott, obviously listening to him, "No one asked you."
The right corner of Sinbad's mouth went upward in amused annoyance. "At least it's good to know she's rude to everyone, not just us."
Just then, the trees shook violently from vibrations coming up from the ground. The sound of giant feet crashing down, coming towards them in swift strides made the three men arm themselves. Doubar threw the child behind him.
The girl's face lost all color. "Oops," she quietly squeaked from her hiding place in back of Doubar.
"What does 'oops' mean?" Sinbad wanted to know.
"It means I'm in trouble." Taking a hold onto Doubar's sleeve she fearfully explained, "I may have forgotten to lock the door of Niku's cage."
There was another stomp followed by a roar. Before anyone could ask what a Niku was, a creature as tall as a two story house stepped through the trees. It resembled a lioness with a woman's face and the tail of scorpion. Another roar and "Niku" charged at the small band, not even fearing the blades they pointed at her.
Shall I go on?