Fic: Marooned Ch. 9: The Magic of the Sea
By Honorat Selonnet
Disclaimer: Disney makes a point of avoiding sharing its profits with fanfic authors, and I'd hate to put a black mark on their record. So if you'll excuse me, I'll just be going.
Summary: Jack and Elizabeth and a phosphorescent sea—Mmmmmm. I couldn't resist sharing with them an experience I actually had. Some angst, some humour, some poetry, some squabbling. Somehow Jack and Elizabeth have to become more physically comfortable with each other. Here's my version how. Ninth in my Island Fic plus deleted scenes plus dragons. Here be the last dragon. The next scene is back to the movie.
Thanks and another chest of uncursed Aztec gold go to geekmama2 for beta work on this. Any errors and inconsistencies remain mine.
TheMagic of the Sea
by Honorat Selonnet
The last glow of the dying day faded in the west turning the sea from silver gilt to darkest navy silk. A faint cool breeze drifted in off the sea bringing some relief from the sticky heat of the day. Jack added more wood to the fire as the stars lit their lamps in the night sky, mirroring their pale faces in the deep water. Bright Atria glittered impassively in its Triangle. The austere Southern Cross loomed over the horizon with its ominous echoes of blood sacrifice. The moon would not rise for several more hours. Beyond the circle of the fire, the shadows seemed to press against the light, heavy with foreboding.
Elizabeth was the first to break the silence. "Where are they now?" she asked when he sat back down.
Jack didn't have to ask whom she was thinking of. His mind had been following his ship ever since she had departed. "They'll have another day's travel if the winds are fair."
At least Will was still safe. For the time being. Elizabeth contemplated the bandage on her hand. "They wouldn't have to kill him, would they?" she asked. That hope had been lurking in the back of her mind throughout the day.
Jack remained quiet for so long that she glanced up fearfully at him. The pirate's eyes were shadowed. One hand curled around the butt of the pistol in his sash. Finally he sighed, "They wouldn't have to . . . but they will. I'm sorry, love."
"Why?" The word seemed torn out of her heart.
"For vengeance. Because his name is William Turner. Because his father crossed Barbossa. Couldn't keep his mouth shut about what they'd done to me. Bloody honest idiot just like his son."
"But they didn't kill me," she whispered. "And they thought I was Mr. Turner's daughter."
"I'm sure you've heard of fates worse than death," Jack's voice was ironic. Barbossa would never have wasted such a prize. Particularly after ten years of no sensation. They would have killed her eventually, but not before she would have thanked them for it. Will, on the other hand . . . "They'll have no such use for young William," he told her, taking a fierce swallow of rum.
Elizabeth shuddered, remembering Barbossa's leering glance as he'd told her "Waste not!" His terrible intentions had given her time for hope. But Jack, who knew those men well, believed there was no time and no hope for Will. Will who would never have been in danger if it had not been for her. Now she understood what Jack had meant about what futures might show up in the dark. Elizabeth buried her face in her arms and sent up an agonized plea to whomever might be listening. She was too exhausted, too afraid, for eloquence. None of her childhood prayers seemed adequate—just meaningless inanities. Her heart could only repeat over and over again, Please God, save him.
"Elizabeth?" The voice of the pirate startled her. She turned her head to find him watching her with something that resembled concern. "You still alright, love?"
"No," her reply shook a little to her embarrassment. "No, I'm not."
"It gets to you like that," he responded matter-of-factly.
There were moments like these, Elizabeth reflected, when she was reminded that it had not been Captain Jack Sparrow, the legend, who had been marooned on this island ten years ago. And so she told the man who remembered what it was like to sit hopeless on the sand while his friend went to his death, "I was just praying for Will." Her tone was a little defensive, as if she expected ridicule, but Jack surprised her.
"No shame in that, love," he said softly. "I imagine if the Aztec gods could curse that gold, perhaps your God could bless young William."
She gave him a small grateful smile before she dropped her head again. Nor did she pull away this time when he rested a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"I promised to take care of him," Elizabeth whispered softly to herself.
"What's that, love?" Jack prompted, although she hadn't been speaking to him.
The girl looked up at him blindly, as though surprised to find him there. Off in her head somewhere was Miss Swann, Jack recognized. Caught in the undertow of her thoughts. Not a good location on a dark night lost at sea. At least she seemed willing to talk now.
"When Will and I were children," Elizabeth explained, hugging her bottle of rum to her chest. "I was traveling on the Dauntless to Jamaica when we came across Will's ship. Barbossa and the Black Pearl had attacked her and blown her powder magazine. They were after Will's medallion."
If that wasn't just like that bloody wasteful bastard, Jack grimaced. Really, the Pearl was lucky Barbossa had managed to get them all cursed. Otherwise he'd have scuttled her long since with sheer lousy strategy. No wonder young William had such a grudge against pirates, if he'd seen that lot of miscreants at work laying waste a ship—not leaving any survivors. The wonder was that the lad had lived at all.
"We found Will floating on a piece of hull, unconscious," continued Elizabeth. "My father placed him in my care. That's how this all started." She looked over at Jack, guilt swallowing her dark eyes. "I took his medallion, because I was afraid they would think he was one of the pirates and would hang him."
Remembering the bloody-minded Port Royal enthusiasm for hanging pirates, Jack could understand her concern.
Twisting the bandage on her hand until she winced, Elizabeth confessed, "That's how the pirates found him again. But they found me first. And because I was afraid—afraid to tell them my name and give them leverage against my father—afraid to be kidnapped." She breathed a tiny bitter laugh at the irony. "I gave my name as Turner."
Well, that explained one thing that had been puzzling Jack. Certainly Barbossa was a wretched incompetent who shot first and asked questions later, but even he could not have been so dense as to take the wrong child. Now things made much more sense. Thanks to the lass's lie, Barbossa'd thought he had the right one.
"So they kidnapped me anyway," Elizabeth looked away. "And then Will came after me. And now, because of me, he's about to die." Her voice had a hairline fracture in it there.
If she failed to remember that she was about to die, too—and far more slowly and horribly than Will—Jack wasn't about to remind her. Impulsively, reckless of the slap potential, he brushed a strand of hair back from her face with the backs of two fingers for a brief instant.
"It's not your fault, love," he reassured her. He leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows. "Young Mr. Turner has his downfall grasped firmly in his own two capable hands. Telling Barbossa his name—of all the crackbrained things to do! He should have trusted me when he had the chance."
This caused Elizabeth to fire up. "Coming from you, that's a bit much, isn't it? You could have trusted him enough to explain your plan, couldn't you?"
Jack supposed she had a point, but trust didn't come easy to him now. Hadn't for ten years. People didn't often disappoint a man who only expected betrayal.
At least the lass was flying her colours again. No surrender for Miss Swann.
Really, if he had to be marooned with a woman, Jack thought, Elizabeth was a good choice. No panicking, no hysterics, no attacks of the vapours. She was suffering, but she was enacting him no tragedies. A bit of temper, a lot of fight and a good dose of sheer pluck in the girl.
"Come on," he said suddenly, setting his pistol aside and getting to his feet a mite unsteadily. "I want to show you something." He held out his hand and pulled her up beside him. "Don't forget the rum."
Elizabeth followed the pirate down the shore in the dark, not sure why she was clutching a bottle of rum. She also wasn't sure she wanted a walk, since her walk had become manifestly wobbly after all that rum, but she was sure she didn't want to be alone. As the fire shrank into the distance, she seemed to be moving through a world of sparkling black, the stars wheeling above, the sea rolling beneath. The world was so huge. She shivered with the loneliness. Why did Jack want to leave the warmth and light of the fire? She could barely see him ahead of her, a slightly darker, swaying piece of night. Suddenly she heard him curse—conch shell. The sound made her snicker a little.
"I should have known," he groused. "All it takes to make a woman happy is for a man to be miserable."
When she hit her own shell, she cursed back at him, greatly daring.
"That's my bonnie lass," Jack approved. "Consign the bloody things to perdition. We'll make a pirate of you yet."
They were surrounded by complete dark night when Jack stopped, a fact she discovered by ramming into the back of him. "Ouch. Watch where you're going," he complained.
"I can't see a thing, Jack Sparrow."
"That's good, because I'm going swimming."
"You're what?" Elizabeth could hear a brief scuffle of some sort and then Jack handed her something that turned out to be fabric, possibly his shirt.
"Swimming, love. It's a beautiful night for a swim."
"You're raving drunk," she accused.
"Of course, darling," he said, depositing his sash on top of the shirt.
"Mr. Sparrow!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "That had better be all you're taking off!"
"Why, love? You can't see a thing. And it's Captain. Captain Sparrow. Or just Jack."
But he didn't hand her anything else. She heard the sand creaking under his feet as he walked to the water's edge, and then she gave a soft gasp.
As Jack stepped into the still sea, his feet lit up with blue-green sparks of light. He waded out to his waist, the shimmering lights clinging to the outline of his body. Then he dove into the water, pale fire flashing along his arms and chest, shivering in fans of light about his legs, glowing in the strands of his long hair. Elizabeth watched amazed at the magical sight.
He broke out of the water, like a merman, luminous streams of water cascading off him, calling to her, "Come on in lass. The water's fine." In the flare of greenish fire, his smile was so open and joyous and unshadowed that her breath caught. The beads in his hair chimed as he shook darting drops of light from his face. She had seen dolphins alongside a ship at night glistening with phosphorescence like this, and Jack seemed like nothing so much as another sea creature in his native element.
Leaving Jack's clothing and the rum he'd made her bring on the beach, Elizabeth walked to the sea's edge. Bending over, she swirled one hand through the water. The glittering fire traced the path of her fingers. She had no intention of getting her shift wet again, but she kilted up her skirt and waded out into the water, fascinated by the glow that clung to her legs, the trail of light beneath the surface. So beautiful. The liquid flames were so bright that she must be burning. Any moment the pain must start. She thought of Will, somewhere out in that dark night. How could such beauty and such horror be a part of the same world?
Elizabeth didn't notice what Jack was up to until a shock of water startled a small shriek out of her. "Jack Sparrow!" She spun about, but her protest died in her throat when, with a splash of his arm, he drenched her in a scintillating arc of light.
"Oh!" Elizabeth gasped, raising her hands to catch the silvery sparks. "How wonderful!"
As Jack painted the dark night around her with showers of cold fire, all her thoughts of remaining dry fled. Delighted, Elizabeth embraced the shining water, flinging armfuls of sparkles into the air to mingle with Jack's until she was no longer sure where the starry heavens ended and the fiery seas began.
The two of them wove in and out of sprays of blue-green embers, laughing and splashing each other. They danced a minuet through snowflake obsidian, trailing clouds of opalescent glory about their legs. Diamonds spangled their hair. Emeralds and star sapphires studded their clothing.
To Elizabeth, Jack was another element moving through her dance like the great slow sweep of the stars above and the ceaseless sigh of the waves against the sand beneath and the rain of liquid flame that flickered around her. She felt utterly alone.
The salt water ran down her face, and who would know if some of it was tears because the sea was so achingly lovely, because she loved Will beyond hope, because death hovered over them all, and because every moment, slipping through her fingers like grains of sand, was so precious.
And she laughed through the tears, because the sea was so jubilantly beautiful, because she loved Will beyond reason, because life thundered vibrant in her veins in time to the pulse of the sea, and because she held every moment cupped in her hands like the dust of diamonds.
Jack dove beneath the surface swimming fiery patterns around her. Elizabeth pirouetted, her arms outflung to the sky. Suddenly she was falling as Jack grabbed her ankles out from under her. Laughing and sputtering she collapsed into the conflagration of light, drowning in a storm of starlight, swimming through streams of stars. Catching her by the hands, Jack pulled her to her feet again, his grin glinting like phosphor.
She splashed him with a wave of bursting sparks. "Wretch!" she accused. He laughed and dived away from her.
When they had grown tired of sporting in the water, Jack and Elizabeth returned to shore. Standing together in the shallows, they looked out over the enchanted sea. The little breeze had stolen up over the point and was gently fanning the water. The crest of each small wave now winked with blue-green fire. Eventually, the magic light faded as the wind picked up, and the sea returned to its black inscrutability.
Elizabeth let out her breath in a small sigh. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for showing me that, Jack."
"The pleasure was mine, my lady." He caught her hand and gallantly bowed over it. He expected the lass would object to the familiarity, but some things were irresistible. Sometimes a sneak attack in the dark was the best strategy.
Stunned into inaction for a moment, Elizabeth felt the gull-winged brush of his lips on the backs of her fingers, the tickle of his moustache and little dangling beard braids. It was over before she could pull away.
But Jack did not let go of her hand as they waded ashore. Not the least among his reasons was to forestall that right hook the bonnie lass was so fond of threatening him with. To his surprise, she didn't try to hit him at all.
To Elizabeth's slightly rum-laced surprise, she found she didn't mind. She couldn't decide whether this was a good thing.
However, the accord between the two of them broke down at the water's edge.
"Alright, love. Where did you leave my shirt? And more importantly, where did you leave the rum?" Jack demanded.
"On the beach," Elizabeth replied doubtfully, trying to spot the missing objects in what seemed a uniform darkness.
"On the beach," Jack's voice was incredulous. "There's nothing but beach on this whole bloody island, darling. You'll have to do better than that."
That was a silly thing for him to say, she decided. He knew perfectly well what beach she meant. "They're somewhere around here," she pointed out with the patience of the sane for the truly mad.
The two of them stared about in the dark.
"Ah ha!" Jack pounced on a faintly lighter object. "Ouch! Bloody driftwood!"
Elizabeth covered her mouth with her hand, but Jack heard that snort.
Grabbing her arm, he pulled the tipsy girl to the sand. "You lost 'em," he explained. "You help find 'em." When Elizabeth didn't move, he ordered, "Come, come, love. We need to get back to the fire. It's too bloody dark here."
The lost was finally relocated by means of the two of them crawling and feeling about blindly in the sand.
"One thing a good pirate never forgets," Jack lectured her, "And that's where the rum is."
"I can believe that," Elizabeth sniffed.
Having used his sash to dry himself, Jack tried to get re-clothed in the dark. Elizabeth laughed as he cursed at getting his shirt on backwards.
"The things I do to spare your sensibilities, Miss Swann," he grumbled.
The trek back to their camp in the dark seemed to take longer. Elizabeth found her walk was growing even more unsteady; she had to grab for Jack's arm several times to keep her balance. It wasn't fair that he was so used to being unbalanced that he managed just fine. In fact, Jack was already drinking again as they staggered to the fireside.
Elizabeth was grateful to be back in the light. Too many things lurked in the darkness. Too many thoughts were more difficult to force away when they couldn't be distracted by sight. Settling down by the fire to dry her shift, she picked up her own neglected bottle and took a swallow of rum hoping to further dull her ability to feel.
As Jack dried himself off in front of the fire, he eyed Elizabeth speculatively. "Now, lass," he informed her, "You owe me a song." She looked like she could use a song.
TBC
Thanks for the lovely review, CaptainTish. I can't take all the credit for Jack's remembrances for the dead since I got the idea from Dee (cupiscent on Live Journal--dratted rules about no html), but I'm glad you enjoyed what I did with it. I also had a reading vocabulary that far exceeded anything I'd ever heard spoken. My arithmetic teacher cracked up over my pronunciation of circumference as cir-cum-FEAR-ance. Your pronunciation of Jacques would have been close to how the British pronounced it in Shakespeare's time (Jake-wees).The rest of Marooned is finished, so it will be updated regularly. I've already started a new story for the adventures on the Dauntless. I'm very much afraid I will have written the whole novel by the time I'm done. I've also got a companion piece for Marooned set in the Fort Charles gaol (now you know what it sounds like : ) before Jack's hanging that I'll be posting separately.