Disclaimer: Consider this work disclaimed.
And, once again, thank you for all the kind reviews. I'd like to open the floor to criticism too, though. It really is very helpful. (Mast/sail. Got it ^_^) I'm afraid this chapter is a little stiff. I'm working the kinks out.
Also, my grasp of the whole Jack-speak is may be a little weak. I've read some fics that capture his tone really well, and I've read some that tried and failed. So...I dunno. I decided to err on the side of normal.
Has anyone noticed that there are about as many PoTC Mary-Sue parodies as Mary-Sues? This is starting to bother me, as a "writer" who has absolutely no problem with Mary-Sues as a general rule. Oh well.
*Chapter Three*
Lilian rubbed the little smear of drying blood into oblivion and examined her newly multicolored wrists in the thin pink beam sunset that managed to creep through the dirty porthole. This Anamaria must have had a lot of pull, she thought, to rate a window at all.
She'd left in a hurry, though; that was for sure. A trunk full of clothes and oddments lay at the end of the small bed. Mostly men's clothes; trousers, vests and coats, all well-worn and carefully mended, suited to the pirate life that their owner had lead. A couple skirts, tucked carefully underneath, of the same make.
Beneath it all was a pistol with no shots left and a slightly rusty saber; a balanced, solid make. It was adorned with little more than rawhide strips for a sure grip, and it was slightly shorter and slightly lighter than swords usually were. A woman's weapon.
She smiled to herself and tucked both weapons away. She longed to change into Anamaria's clothes, for they looked about the same size as hers, only far more comfortable, but that would require unlacing several layers of dress and her elbows didn't move that way. At some point, she would require assistance--but best not to think about that for the moment. She shuddered.
A much younger Lilian Turner had possessed an odd habit. Whenever the young girl found the world upsetting or stressful, or whenever she was bored or depressed, she would sleep. Anywhere, at any time, and for far longer than people, particularly three-year-olds, should be able to. The flip side of this was, apparently, an ability to not sleep at all if she so chose. Lilian, three years into the world, was able to go at least five days without sleeping without showing any negative side effects.
Will and Elizabeth Turner, who were, after all, new at parenting and understandably nervous, found this quite distressing. As soon as their daughter was old enough to comprehend this, her habits normalized out of compassion for two loving people who were obviously way out of their depth. Lilian, some fifteen years later, barely remembered her talents, but they remained nonetheless.
She was locked in a small, dim room on a pirate ship. With nothing in particular better to do, Lilian made herself as comfortable as the musty bed, long unused, and the miserable corset would allow, and slept.
It was much later, in the quiet wedge of night between midnight and dawn, when it is not only dark, but quiet and still, and even the waves seem to subdue themselves, that Jack, standing on the deck and watching the horizon, remembered her.
It occurred to him that she might be terribly frightened; bold facades tend to fade when one is locked away alone in a strange place (not his, of course, but other people's,) and it occurred to him that she was probably hungry.
It did not occur to him that she was sleeping.
Sleeping rather angelically, too, for someone who had recently bitten him hard enough to draw blood. She blinked at him, and growled, and any heavenly resemblances were gone.
"Mrrmph...go 'way."
He smiled at her unrepentantly. "Naw, kitten. Wake up! Its nice and quiet and we've some catching up to do!"
She stared at him. "You destroy my ship. You kidnap me. You lock me up for hours. And now, you wake me up, and you want to play 'Uncle Jack' in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?!"
He nodded cheerfully. "All by me onesie, kitten; Captain Sparrow gets bored easily. Come along now, it's a lovely night."
"Captain Sparrow is absolutely mad," she muttered under her breath, swinging her still-booted feet over the side of the bed. *If he calls me 'kitten' one more time...*
He winked at her. "Naturally, luv. Madness keeps a pirate on his feet and out of his grave. That," he added. "and very good hearing. Now, kitten: tell me about my dear old Will."
She sighed. It -was- a nice night, warm and clear with enough of a breeze to keep the humidity away.
"S'pose he and darling Elizabeth got married after all," he prompted.
"One would hope so, yes."
"And now they've got a whole litter of little Turners?"
"Five children. I'm the oldest. Besides me, there are two girls and two boys. And my name, if it slipped your mind, is Lil-i-an."
"Of course, Lilzie, of course. Any little Jacks running about?" he inquired hopefully.
That almost managed to eke a smile. "Sorry."
He sniffed. "A born pirate, turned diplomat, and he wouldn't even name a child after his dear old friend. I saved his life, you know!"
"You kidnapped his daughter, too."
He ignored her. "It's in the blood, you know, and I can't imagine it doesn't call to him. S'pose he's a diplomat as an excuse to much about on ships all the time."
She blinked. Oddly enough, she had always suspected that herself.
He sighed, almost sincerely. "I meant to keep in touch, you know. Never meant to sail off into the sunset, never to be seen again. You turn your back for a few years, and suddenly he's gotten himself a wife and a family and a big slice of 'respectable.' Should have kept an eye on him." He seemed suddenly despondent, and Lilian felt an odd wave of pity.
"You haven't seen him for nearly twenty years. Things have to change."
He looked at her blankly. "No they don't." He shrugged.
At first, she was tempted to ask him again the question he had ducked earlier. 'Shouldn't you be older?'
But the words that came out instead were:
"What was my father like when you met him?"
He smiled. "Now that's a long story, and I'm sure you've heard it before. But I don't doubt a few important details were left out. Come in and sit down love, and I'll tell you."
It was in this dimly lit cabin that her mother had encountered Barbosa. It was on that deck that ghostly pirates had walked for nearly a decade, terrifying the entire Caribbean.
He was a master storyteller, she had to admit, full of unselfconscious drama and flair, and if the story was highly fictionalized to give full sway to Jack Sparrow's ego, it was highly entertaining too. She added in the occasional detail from her parents' much more sober rendition, and as his tale ended, the much more mundane telling of what Will and Elizabeth Turner had been doing for twenty years began.
("And then your mother and I were trapped on the island together, and she was drunk out of her boots, she was. Never could resist a little rum, that girl...couldn't resist a dashing Captain either, but I stood firm 'gainst 'er, 'cause I knew that once I sailed away and disappeared over the horizon, after a couple o' days she would remember that she loved Will...")
And Lilian was a good listener. She laughed when she was meant to, and ooh-ed and ah-ed, just as the fantastical exploits of Jack Sparrow demanded. Slowly, and without realizing it, she was allowing him to slip back into the role he had occupied in her childhood: a magnificent, Robin Hood-type figure, famous in legend and story...not quite hero, not quite villain, but simply a astounding individual who couldn't possibly be entirely human.
Though a few traces of venomous resentment were left towards him--and justifiably, too; the man had kidnapped her, after all--Lilian was starting to view him as he seemed to view all of creation, with a sort of weary resignation, tinted with both fascination and humor.
As pink began to tint the lightening sky, the unasked question--'Shouldn't you be older?'--remained at the back of her mind, saved for a later date.
It was dawn, and she was feeling wide-awake. Sounds of waking were beginning, such as "Great merciful God, have I got a hangover," "be quiet, I have a hangover" and "if you sods don't shut up, I'm going to tear all your limbs off and feed them to the sharks!"
Lilian, for the early hour, was feeling surprisingly wide-awake and sober. So was Jack, as least as far as "awake." Sober, in his experience, was something that happened to other people.
"Breakfast," he suggested.
"Breakfast," Lilian agreed. "Would be absolutely delightful."
"Ah. Good. Don't go anywhere. Back in a tic."
The breakfast couldn't really be described as "delightful," but Lilian hadn't eaten since tea the day before, and was perfectly willing to settle for "edible." It consisted of a bowl of porridge, slightly bland and slightly cold and more-than-slightly lumpy, a few lumps of cold bread, and a bottle of rum, of which Lilian partook only a little. Jack dined on little else, and left most of the mediocre spread for his guest.
"Well," he said, clearing the dishes (shoving them to a corner, where a large collection of their fellows already rested.) "you really are very pleasant company, Lilzie, but a man's got to get to work."
"Of course."
"You should probably get some sleep."
Lilian shrugged.
"Although..." Jack's face took on an expression Lilian was not familiar with; those who had spent more time in his presence would equate it with impending, irreversible doom. "if you feel like being useful..."
And, once again, thank you for all the kind reviews. I'd like to open the floor to criticism too, though. It really is very helpful. (Mast/sail. Got it ^_^) I'm afraid this chapter is a little stiff. I'm working the kinks out.
Also, my grasp of the whole Jack-speak is may be a little weak. I've read some fics that capture his tone really well, and I've read some that tried and failed. So...I dunno. I decided to err on the side of normal.
Has anyone noticed that there are about as many PoTC Mary-Sue parodies as Mary-Sues? This is starting to bother me, as a "writer" who has absolutely no problem with Mary-Sues as a general rule. Oh well.
*Chapter Three*
Lilian rubbed the little smear of drying blood into oblivion and examined her newly multicolored wrists in the thin pink beam sunset that managed to creep through the dirty porthole. This Anamaria must have had a lot of pull, she thought, to rate a window at all.
She'd left in a hurry, though; that was for sure. A trunk full of clothes and oddments lay at the end of the small bed. Mostly men's clothes; trousers, vests and coats, all well-worn and carefully mended, suited to the pirate life that their owner had lead. A couple skirts, tucked carefully underneath, of the same make.
Beneath it all was a pistol with no shots left and a slightly rusty saber; a balanced, solid make. It was adorned with little more than rawhide strips for a sure grip, and it was slightly shorter and slightly lighter than swords usually were. A woman's weapon.
She smiled to herself and tucked both weapons away. She longed to change into Anamaria's clothes, for they looked about the same size as hers, only far more comfortable, but that would require unlacing several layers of dress and her elbows didn't move that way. At some point, she would require assistance--but best not to think about that for the moment. She shuddered.
A much younger Lilian Turner had possessed an odd habit. Whenever the young girl found the world upsetting or stressful, or whenever she was bored or depressed, she would sleep. Anywhere, at any time, and for far longer than people, particularly three-year-olds, should be able to. The flip side of this was, apparently, an ability to not sleep at all if she so chose. Lilian, three years into the world, was able to go at least five days without sleeping without showing any negative side effects.
Will and Elizabeth Turner, who were, after all, new at parenting and understandably nervous, found this quite distressing. As soon as their daughter was old enough to comprehend this, her habits normalized out of compassion for two loving people who were obviously way out of their depth. Lilian, some fifteen years later, barely remembered her talents, but they remained nonetheless.
She was locked in a small, dim room on a pirate ship. With nothing in particular better to do, Lilian made herself as comfortable as the musty bed, long unused, and the miserable corset would allow, and slept.
It was much later, in the quiet wedge of night between midnight and dawn, when it is not only dark, but quiet and still, and even the waves seem to subdue themselves, that Jack, standing on the deck and watching the horizon, remembered her.
It occurred to him that she might be terribly frightened; bold facades tend to fade when one is locked away alone in a strange place (not his, of course, but other people's,) and it occurred to him that she was probably hungry.
It did not occur to him that she was sleeping.
Sleeping rather angelically, too, for someone who had recently bitten him hard enough to draw blood. She blinked at him, and growled, and any heavenly resemblances were gone.
"Mrrmph...go 'way."
He smiled at her unrepentantly. "Naw, kitten. Wake up! Its nice and quiet and we've some catching up to do!"
She stared at him. "You destroy my ship. You kidnap me. You lock me up for hours. And now, you wake me up, and you want to play 'Uncle Jack' in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?!"
He nodded cheerfully. "All by me onesie, kitten; Captain Sparrow gets bored easily. Come along now, it's a lovely night."
"Captain Sparrow is absolutely mad," she muttered under her breath, swinging her still-booted feet over the side of the bed. *If he calls me 'kitten' one more time...*
He winked at her. "Naturally, luv. Madness keeps a pirate on his feet and out of his grave. That," he added. "and very good hearing. Now, kitten: tell me about my dear old Will."
She sighed. It -was- a nice night, warm and clear with enough of a breeze to keep the humidity away.
"S'pose he and darling Elizabeth got married after all," he prompted.
"One would hope so, yes."
"And now they've got a whole litter of little Turners?"
"Five children. I'm the oldest. Besides me, there are two girls and two boys. And my name, if it slipped your mind, is Lil-i-an."
"Of course, Lilzie, of course. Any little Jacks running about?" he inquired hopefully.
That almost managed to eke a smile. "Sorry."
He sniffed. "A born pirate, turned diplomat, and he wouldn't even name a child after his dear old friend. I saved his life, you know!"
"You kidnapped his daughter, too."
He ignored her. "It's in the blood, you know, and I can't imagine it doesn't call to him. S'pose he's a diplomat as an excuse to much about on ships all the time."
She blinked. Oddly enough, she had always suspected that herself.
He sighed, almost sincerely. "I meant to keep in touch, you know. Never meant to sail off into the sunset, never to be seen again. You turn your back for a few years, and suddenly he's gotten himself a wife and a family and a big slice of 'respectable.' Should have kept an eye on him." He seemed suddenly despondent, and Lilian felt an odd wave of pity.
"You haven't seen him for nearly twenty years. Things have to change."
He looked at her blankly. "No they don't." He shrugged.
At first, she was tempted to ask him again the question he had ducked earlier. 'Shouldn't you be older?'
But the words that came out instead were:
"What was my father like when you met him?"
He smiled. "Now that's a long story, and I'm sure you've heard it before. But I don't doubt a few important details were left out. Come in and sit down love, and I'll tell you."
It was in this dimly lit cabin that her mother had encountered Barbosa. It was on that deck that ghostly pirates had walked for nearly a decade, terrifying the entire Caribbean.
He was a master storyteller, she had to admit, full of unselfconscious drama and flair, and if the story was highly fictionalized to give full sway to Jack Sparrow's ego, it was highly entertaining too. She added in the occasional detail from her parents' much more sober rendition, and as his tale ended, the much more mundane telling of what Will and Elizabeth Turner had been doing for twenty years began.
("And then your mother and I were trapped on the island together, and she was drunk out of her boots, she was. Never could resist a little rum, that girl...couldn't resist a dashing Captain either, but I stood firm 'gainst 'er, 'cause I knew that once I sailed away and disappeared over the horizon, after a couple o' days she would remember that she loved Will...")
And Lilian was a good listener. She laughed when she was meant to, and ooh-ed and ah-ed, just as the fantastical exploits of Jack Sparrow demanded. Slowly, and without realizing it, she was allowing him to slip back into the role he had occupied in her childhood: a magnificent, Robin Hood-type figure, famous in legend and story...not quite hero, not quite villain, but simply a astounding individual who couldn't possibly be entirely human.
Though a few traces of venomous resentment were left towards him--and justifiably, too; the man had kidnapped her, after all--Lilian was starting to view him as he seemed to view all of creation, with a sort of weary resignation, tinted with both fascination and humor.
As pink began to tint the lightening sky, the unasked question--'Shouldn't you be older?'--remained at the back of her mind, saved for a later date.
It was dawn, and she was feeling wide-awake. Sounds of waking were beginning, such as "Great merciful God, have I got a hangover," "be quiet, I have a hangover" and "if you sods don't shut up, I'm going to tear all your limbs off and feed them to the sharks!"
Lilian, for the early hour, was feeling surprisingly wide-awake and sober. So was Jack, as least as far as "awake." Sober, in his experience, was something that happened to other people.
"Breakfast," he suggested.
"Breakfast," Lilian agreed. "Would be absolutely delightful."
"Ah. Good. Don't go anywhere. Back in a tic."
The breakfast couldn't really be described as "delightful," but Lilian hadn't eaten since tea the day before, and was perfectly willing to settle for "edible." It consisted of a bowl of porridge, slightly bland and slightly cold and more-than-slightly lumpy, a few lumps of cold bread, and a bottle of rum, of which Lilian partook only a little. Jack dined on little else, and left most of the mediocre spread for his guest.
"Well," he said, clearing the dishes (shoving them to a corner, where a large collection of their fellows already rested.) "you really are very pleasant company, Lilzie, but a man's got to get to work."
"Of course."
"You should probably get some sleep."
Lilian shrugged.
"Although..." Jack's face took on an expression Lilian was not familiar with; those who had spent more time in his presence would equate it with impending, irreversible doom. "if you feel like being useful..."