A Prayer in Red

The sun sank in a blaze of glory, tracing each cloud in gold, turning the rest to a flaming, fiery red.

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight . . ."  It was an old rhyme, one that most children who ever moved within sighting distance of water knew, that some sailors scoffed at and others swore by, as with all superstitions.

Was his prey watching the same sunset?  Did the captain hear the same simple rhyme?

Did he believe it, if he knew it?

Or was all the red that he saw that of blood?

Elizabeth swore that wasn't true.  She had made him listen to her, not by physical force, no, though she had seemed willing to try if he had made the mistake of walking away . . .but simply her demeanor, her need for him to hear her, had been enough to halt his retreat.  She had told him, again and again, how Sparrow had saved her life twice, how the ball that he put into Barbossa's heart was one he saved for ten years . . .how it would have been wasted if Turner hadn't acted . . .how he was a hero, an unlikely, unkempt hero . . .

And he couldn't help but listen to her, and, in some part of his mind, believe her.  There was no need for Sparrow to save Elizabeth the first time, certainly no need the second time, not at such a personal expense.  If he took life so lightly as most pirates, Brown and Turner would have been dead in the smithy, and the Pearl still sailed by her ghostly crew of the damned.

Then there was that look . . .that look that Elizabeth and Will hadn't been able to see, facing only the pirate's back . . .that look that simply would not leave his mind.  It was the look that many men wore to the gallows, but one that had been missing from Sparrow's face there.  It was . . .hopelessness, a hopelessness that cut deeper than any sword wound as the pirate surveyed the water before him and saw that his ship was gone, that his crew had left him behind.

It was a look no one was ever meant to see, a hurt that should have been hidden from all eyes, would have been hidden from all eyes, if Galileo had not sought the stars and financed his journey with the spyglass.

For the first time in his life, James Norrington was beginning to wonder if he wanted to catch his prey at all.

The Commodore quickly shook the thought from his head and sighed.  "No red mornings anytime soon for either of us, Lord."

It was an odd prayer, but it would do.