RETURN TO THE BLACK PEARL
People who use multiple exclaimation points frighten me.
No, really. No one can be that happy.
CAST OF THOUSANDS: You know, you frighten US sometimes.
And I don't normally do this, but: Raberba girl, I was so sorry to see your "Really Bad Eggs" fic taken down. I just loved it. Seeing it gone made me so mad. And Divinia, I hope the plot is going fast enough for you. Please, keep the encouragement coming!
Chapter Two: From Out of Nowhere, Continued
Elizabeth was jolted out of a sound sleep by a noise coming from down the hall. Sleepily, she climbed out of her bed to investigate its source. Shrugging on a housecoat, she grabbed a candle and lit it. As a precaution, she picked up an unused chamber pot and hefted it thoughtfully in her hand. It never hurt to be careful—she had learned that the night she'd been kidnapped by pirates. Not that that had turned out badly. But still.
The source of the noise seemed to be coming from the library. Although one of its French doors was slightly ajar, no light came from
within, and the sounds emerging were the disturbing ones of objects being tossed and thrown about carelessly with an occasional shattering noise as they were broken.
She knew if she hesitated, she'd loose her nerve. She carefully laid the candle on the floor, where its light could not be seen from inside the library, and briefly wished Will was there. Holding the chamber pot protectively before her in both hands, she slipped into the room.
One glance was all it took. Even in the darkness, Elizabeth could see books tossed everywhere, plus the shattered remains of the priceless artifacts that had once graced the library. The person responsible for the tossing and the shattering had dark, dirty hair and dirtier clothes.
Elizabeth's felt her nose wrinkle. What a stench! was her first thought, but before she'd finished thinking that thought, the intruder turned his face to where she stood half-hidden in the shadows. She saw the whites of his eyes widen, in surprise or alarm, she couldn't tell. He had seen her. She screamed, "Thief!" and swung the chamber pot.
It glanced off the intruder's shoulder, causing him no apparent harm. There was no response to her call that Elizabeth could hear, so she screamed again, and when the intruder regained his scattered senses, he pushed her aside to clear out the door.
Elizabeth stumbled. Her flailing hand lost its grip on the chamber pot and it clattered to the floor nosily with a thunk. "Help!" she screamed again. Regaining her balance, she took off after the intruder, who had escaped out the half-open library door.
And ran smack into him. His arms were held firmly by the butler and a footman and the expression on his face was one of such undisguised fury that Elizabeth had backed up several steps before she realized it. Annoyed with herself, she stopped her backward trek and faced the intruder with chin held up haughtily and met his eyes. He had been apprehended just several feet outside the library doors.
Her father appeared somewhat belatedly, still outfitted in a white undershirt and scrambling to get his wig on. Several maids and the cook appeared as well. Estrella, Elizabeth's personal maid, was one of them. When she saw the pirate, she emitted a piercing scream. The intruder half-twisted in the arms of his captors to give her such a glare that she immediately clamped her plump hands to her mouth and crumpled dramatically to the floor in a dead faint.
By the time Estrella had recovered, the intruder had been turned over to Norrington's marines, whom a scullery boy had fetched, and Will, whom one of the marines had fetched, had arrived on the scene. Norrington had come and gone, but had left several marines to guard the governor's mansion for the remainder of the night, and Will had volunteered himself for the job as well.
As soon as Elizabeth had finished fussing over Estrella, her father began fusing over Elizabeth. When she couldn't take it anymore, she escaped outside to join Will.
She closed the door behind her softly, but Will jumped at the small noise. "It's just me," she called, enjoying the feel of the warm breeze that caused her loose hair to fly around as if it had a life of its own.
They stood in silence for a few minutes that way, standing shoulder to shoulder. "Who was he?" Elizabeth asked finally, and felt Will stir uneasily beside her.
"Why do you ask?"
She studied his profile, silhouetted against a sky that was beginning to lighten. "Because I could tell that you knew him."
Will gave her a half-smile that caused her stomach to flutter unexpectedly. "I don't know his name, but I, um, ran into him earlier today." He paused. "He's a pirate."
Elizabeth gave him a look. "So not your normal, everyday intruder, then," she said with more than a trace of sarcasm. "You didn't tell me about an encounter with a pirate when I asked you about your day."
Will seemed embarrassed. "It wasn't exactly the high point. I sort of helped him fight a bunch of people that threw him out a window." He released a long, slow breath. "Then he knocked me out."
Elizabeth watched him closely. She asked her next question anyway, even though she figured she knew the answer perhaps better than Will. "Why?"
"Why did he knock me out?"
"Why did you help him?"
There was a long moment, in which neither one of them spoke. Elizabeth knew he wasn't ignoring her question, he was trying to find an answer; any answer.
"I thought he was like Jack," Will said finally, sounding pensive. Elizabeth nodded, even though he wasn't looking at her; he was looking out to the horizon, where the sun was busy emerging to preside over the day. That was the answer that Elizabeth had provided for herself. But she hadn't thought that Will would actually admit it. And the way she saw it, the pirate was like Jack, who might have knocked Will out, too, if it suited him. Will saw only in black and white; he couldn't seem to find a gray area, which was what had made it hard for him to accept that any pirate, including his father and Jack, could be a good man. Now the reverse was true—Will saw all pirates as being good—and now it got him into trouble.
It was Elizabeth's opinion that while Jack might be a good man deep down—deep, deep down—that didn't make him trustworthy. She could see how Jack's mind worked—she understood him, even thought she might not agree with him. But she was beginning to suspect that Will couldn't.
Is it good? Is it bad? Should I quit my day job? Review and let me know!
