Catch
by Oneiriad
Disclaimer: Pirates of the Caribbean does not belong to me. Neither does the old Nordic myths, but then, they don't belong to anybody as far as I know…
She has been tugging at her nets for what seems like - not forever, for she is one who knows the true meaning of that word - but still, it has been for a very long time. And yet there is one that is stuck. And stubbornly refuses to come unstuck, no matter how much she pulls.
Her husband has been out to see her several times - has even tried to convince her to give up on that catch. Surely, whatever it is cannot be worth that much bother. Surely, nothing can be.
She shakes her head at the suggestion, and the wind whips the waves to foam as she does so.
Eventually, she stops tugging at it constantly - after all, she has many other nets she has to attend to, and many catches. Bountiful catches. It gets to be only the very occasional tug - just to check that whatever it is is still there.
And then one day she tugs and something comes loose. She laughs, then, and the sea laughs with her, and she stares into the dark blue deep so as not to miss the first glimpse of whatever has been eluding her for so very long.
It is a man - like most of her catches. Mostly naked, as far as clothes are concerned - only sodden rags left. Covered in barnacles and seaweed and even a few sea anemones. Wrapped in chains - old, rusty - and they are in turn wrapped to a similarly rusted cannon.
He wears something that was once boots. A couple of pieces of sticky leather, now, and no straps to be seen.
Ran smiles. She has always liked a challenging catch.
A/N: The old Vikings believed that Ran - goddess of storms - would sink ships and collect drowned men in her nets...