Disclaimer: Not mine, yada yada yada.
Summary: "I am trying not to look at her ankles." Norrington first-person POV during Elizabeth's rescue from the island, N/E-ish. Drabble times three, written for BPS Challenge "Extremities" and somewhat inspired by my very favorite PotC outtake.
Ankles Aweigh
She has soot on her nose and fire in her eyes as she climbs out of the boat onto the deck of the Dauntless, shaking off her father's attempt to assist her. "James!"
"I am very glad to see you safe," I say; and it would not be proper to say just how glad. Then I see the braided and bedraggled creature stepping delicately from the skiff behind her. "Jack Sparrow again--! He was with you?"
The rogue leaves off casting affronted looks at Murtogg and Mullroy--who possess sufficient sense to seize and hold him fast--long enough to wave at me cheekily.
I train my most threatening glare upon him. "If you have so much as touched the lady--"
"I'm all right, James," snaps the lady in question. "My virtue is quite unbesmirched. May I ask why we are sailing in the wrong direction?"
"I beg your pardon?" I am trying not to look at her lovely ankles, brazenly displayed as they are; for thoughts of ankles lead to thoughts of calves, and thereby to knees, and from there—-well, by such thoughts a gentleman would be lost indeed. "Perhaps you'd best leave the navigation to us," I hear myself say. "Our bearing is north-north-east, Elizabeth, towards Jamaica."
She certainly doesn't look unbesmirched, she in her slip again, salt-stained and sandy-hemmed. It's the second time that villain Sparrow has returned her half-naked and barefoot, hair unfastened in a wild tangle around her white shoulders, giving much more the impression of a dunked milkmaid then of a well-born Governor's daughter...
Somehow, the look suits her. Flashing eyes, fierce roses on her cheeks, and all---
Oh.
"But we've got to save Will!"
Damn and blast.
I might have seen that coming, were it not for those brazen ankles.