Flights of Fancy

by Laura, aka, Illoria

Author's Note: Hi guys. Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed thus far and everyone who will review (nudge nudge) :P. :) The formatting messed up when I first uploaded the last chapter so there were no dividers between different sections, I'm sorry about that, and anyone who had to deal with the confusing-ness. It was fixed. :)

Chapter Seven: A Fine Mist

They stood out on deck, the Dauntless in a sea mist. A would-be sacred night, it seemed, curses warped in the vision-smearing fog, so that a glimmer of gold might be seen reflected in the sweetly undulating sea as a star to be wished upon.

Elizabeth had long wished upon the pirate medallion that she wore around her neck. How could she have known that all along she had been wishing upon curses?

"Peas in a pod, love."

-----

Elizabeth awoke in a shiver and cold sweat. Often she dreamed of her past... so often, in fact, that she sometimes wondered if the events of her past had really happened as she remembered them, or if they had been put through dream-filters, and so, to her, seemed different than they had really been.

Sometimes it got so intense, her not being able to tell if her memories were actual memories or dreams, that she wanted so much to talk to someone who had been there too, who had seen the same things that she had seen. But even so, this other person would not give the same narrative that Elizabeth would, because he would have seen things differently, through a different filter. Norrington saw things through a filter of reason most times, probably as intensely as Elizabeth saw things through a filter of dreams. Will saw things as he wanted to see them and not otherwise, and he refused to fully see things that went against his desires. Perhaps Jack Sparrow was the only one who really saw things exactly as they were, no more, no less, and deeply and fully, from a crow's-nest perspective.

But nobody knows for sure what anybody else sees.

All Elizabeth knew was what she saw, and what she had seen, and what she imagined she had seen. They all made up a delicious sparkling weave that she carried around inside of her.

-----

"Miss."

She turned around to face a merchant-looking man, with frills on the ends of his sleeves, a calico vest, and a small yet ornate hat. He had his hands folded in front of him and was smiling at her from beneath the shadow of his hat's feather.

"...Yes?" she said.

He unfolded his hands, only to clench them together again as he began speaking. "Now, hear me out, if you will, miss. I have a proposition to make you."

"I'm not interested," said Elizabeth.

The man opened his coat. Bags were tied to loose strings, supposedly containing coins or nuggets, and they clanked and clattered as he whisked about in front of Elizabeth.

"Short on money, miss?"

He was talking about her dirtied dress.

"No, sir." She tried to keep walking.

"No, listen to my proposition," the man said, blocking her way with a jangle.

"Please."

He leaned in close to her face. She could smell his sweat.

"A pretty girl like you could turn out with... quite a sum," he said. "What else are you going to do? Alone in Tortuga, are you? No contacts, no ties? You have nowhere to go and nothing to do to sustain yourself. What is a lonely lass like you to do?"

She again tried to ignore him and keep walking. He reached out his hand and held her back.

"Listen..." he said. "I would take great pleasure in being your first client."

His lips were wet.

Elizabeth ran. She would never know if the man had chased after her or not, for she didn't look back. She did not return to the inn right away, but went into shops, walked through the market, and then when she glanced around and did not see the man, she went back.

-----

Tomorrow would be her last day with a place to stay. The money she had given the innkeeper would only buy her so long a stay, and now it was running out.

She stared into the mirror and cried.

------

Freedom wasn't worth anything if she'd be turned out onto the nighttime streets of Tortuga, swept under the always-rioting crowd, in the place where they burned. Everything smelled like a cloud of rum. Elizabeth loved to keep her windows shut, forbidding their devil's festival to come anywhere near her.

But she couldn't forbid them to touch her if she were out in the middle of the festival herself. No one was immune on Tortuga.

------

I have to get out of here...

Elizabeth missed Will. Why hadn't she gone with him when he had come for her?

Oh yes. She still didn't even know if that had been a dream or not. It had felt like a dream, but then again, how many other things in her life lately had also felt like a dream? Too many to count.

Elizabeth missed Jack. Surely he would take her away.

She cried with the lady in the mirror. All she had ever wanted was all that had always and still escaped her. She took herself away from Port Royal, but now all she wanted was to be taken away from Tortuga.

Where next, then? You've run out of plans...

Nowhere. Everywhere. On the open sea, on the deck, at midnight, with the glowing moon reminding her of the ghost ship Pearl, with no one to hurt her –

She longed for it so much that she ached.

But what then? "With no one to hurt her" – on a pirate ship? But Jack would protect her. She cried and cried.

She could not live her whole life with someone to protect her. But right now, she was not. She had no one to protect her in Tortuga.

Then was this some sort of challenge?

No.

------

Knocks on the door. Will?

"Miss," said the innkeeper.

Elizabeth opened the door. It was morning.

"Miss, your stay is up."

-----

New morning, beautiful sky, clear fresh air.

It was remarkable how the morning started clearing away the night-riots of Tortuga. Throughout the day, there was scarcely a trace of them. The rioters were at inns, in apartments, asleep and hung-over. Or they were in alleys, but who in their right mind went in those? During the day, Tortuga was a bustling port town.

At least, so it appeared. But everyone has always known that Tortuga is not merely a bustling port town. If one wanted one of those, he would make for Port Royal. If one mischievous trickster wanted a safe haven, he would make for Tortuga.

But where would lonely lasses go? says the man with the clank-clattering coins.

------

Where was he going? To the North Star. To the pale blooms blossoming some frozen spring in a strange land far away. Nothing specific. Thoughts and notions whirled in colors bright and pale, but symphonic. In their own clank-clattering way.

He tasted something colder.

-------

Elizabeth slept at the docks. Under the dock where it met the shore, hoping that she wouldn't roll over into the water. She didn't.

She hit her head on the wood when she woke up. No footsteps above her yet; it was dawn. She scuttled out with as much dignity as she could find onto the beach, and stood there, watching the beautiful sliver of a moon disappear as the sun rose ever higher and the sea lapped moonshine and sunlight.

Strange hour of merging. She praised it then.

------

The Pearl docked in Tortuga, to replenish the supplies for the next voyage to Somewhere. Elizabeth was in town when Jack gave mishmash orders on deck for the crew to get this and this, that, that, whatever else seemed providential when it caught their eyes.

Elizabeth's heartbeat was punctual. She could feel every breath, and every bead of sweat given her by the Caribbean heat. Her senses were not elevated because she sensed something; rather, she was afraid of sensing something.

The Black Pearl's crew went into town before dusk. Elizabeth was very hungry, and had no money. And would not steal, even though she had come here dreaming of running away with pirates.

She avoided the market and went to the sea, because the sea seemed to calm her, and she needed all calm or else she would panic, for she was in a situation that definitely did merit panic.

She saw the ship and her heart stopped for a second. When it started up again, the world was changed. She stared and stared at the black sails furled.

Hunger was making her hallucinate, granting her this vision, only to rip it away when torture saw fit. Ah, but no. The ship stayed.

This was Tortuga. Anything could happen in Tortuga.

------

Jack's hand was tangled up in Iris's tangled hair. The wench smelled like the sea at her worst, when the fishermen come and go about their kidnapping.

Why did he do this? Tonight was not the night. 'Twasn't a full-moon night; only a little, beautiful sliver was up in the sky. What did it matter if it was a full-moon night or not? Jack didn't know. The heat that spotted his eyes at noon told him of mishmash notions, that something was here.

------

What would she do? Jack Sparrow was here. It wasn't right. Something wasn't right... Her memory of him seemed twisted. Like she couldn't quite conjure his image correctly. He escaped her.

She felt terribly dirty. But she was mostly safe here, unless some stragglers came out. Mostly everyone was in town; she heard small relics of gunfire and smelled the fires they burned, imagined once that she tasted the rum, and then couldn't get the taste out of her mouth.

Jack would come back. He had, already. Now he would saunter past without even looking, she was so confused.

Now that Jack was here, she wanted Will. He felt cleaner.

Oh, why did she play such games with her heart?

------

Summer always feels the same. It feels in a blast of color, juicy. It feels like being soaked in sunshine.

The crickets, as Elizabeth walked along the shore past the brushing reeds of tall sea-grass, were playing out both the beginning and the final chords of this summer, and their music reached up to the stars.

"I can't take it."

Elizabeth's mind was reeling. She hated this feeling, the one that she got, every-so-often. She had it right before the Pearl came. Fanning herself at Norrington's ceremony. She had been better at hiding it then.

That time she had fallen out of one fear and into another. Where was she falling this time?