The Sea
Rating: G for the fact that there is nothing remotely provocative in here.
A.N.: I apologize for that awful html formatting. doesn't seem to accept i or /i or anything even though it says it does.
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He can hear the sea, every night from his window. It's summer, and the weather is warm, so they keep it open for the cool sea breeze. Elizabeth is sleeping next to him, and he can also hear her soft, rhythmic breathing. Sometime it falls in time with the crash of the ocean waves on the shore, faint from here but still audible. He catches his own breath falling into the same rhythm, which sends him right to sleep, but sometimes he just has too many things on his mind.
The sea... it's always been something in his life, as far back as he remembers. He has always lived by it, back in England with his mother, and then on the ship across the Atlantic. Port Royale, as a smith's prentice, for many years. The ocean was louder then, closer, but he hardly noticed it at night from working so hard all day. He used to drop off to sleep immediately, and wake to the shouts of his master. No time for the ocean then, just the clang of hammers and iron, the roar of the forgefires, the snores and shouts of Mr. Brown.
And thoughts of Elizabeth. She came to visit as often as she could, but it was not often enough. She was the closest thing to a friend Will had here in Port Royale; there were not many people their age around.
Maybe that's all it was, Will thinks now, lying awake at night. Maybe it was just needing a friend. And of course, obsession. Jack knew. Obsession, definitely. Hormones, inevitably. Love?
Love?
"Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate."
He was right, and Will knows it. Knows, because he can hear the ocean, and it's whispering things to him he never heard before. Slapping against the hulls of ships in the quay, rushing between rocks, pounding on the shores again and again, it speaks to him. Hissing as it withdraws from the bleached-white sands, it speaks.
Will can hear the water telling him to sleep, shhhhhh, shhhhhhhhh. Giving him night's blessings, and wishing him dreams.
Jaaaaaaack, it tells him. Jaaaaaaaaaack.
Will smiles in his sleep.
