Many, many, many thanks to jedipati for the beta work!
Also, thank you to love2rite for her review. love2rite has the sweetest oneshot called I'm Not That Girl, about a silent admirer of Will Turner. An amazing perspective that'll hit you right in the heart.
Disclaimer: I still don't own POTC. :) Also, I do not own Gulliver's Travels
Having therefore consulted with my Wife, and some of my Acquaintance, I determined to go again to Sea. I was Surgeon successively in two Ships, and made several Voyages, for six Years, to the East and West-Indies, by which I got some Addition to my Fortune. My Hours of Leisure I spent in reading the best Authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good Number of Books ; and when I was ashore, in observing the Manners and Dispositions of the People, well as learning their Language, wherein I had a great Facility by the Strength of my Memory.
The last of these Voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary of the Sea, and intended to stay at home with my Wife and Family.
Elizabeth looked up from her page, realizing Gulliver's Travels was not going to soothe her at all.
…intended to stay at home…with my Wife and Family.
Elizabeth Swann, propped up by pillows and deeply covered by blankets, thought of marrying a commodore in His Majesty's Royal Navy, and how this would shape her life.
She would see him off again and again, each time turning her back on the sea and stepping into the dim monotony of her house, the heavy wood door thudding shut behind her. Then, probably be raising children, she would wait for her valiant husband to return and boast of all his adventures at sea.
Day after day after day.
Desperation bubbled in her chest. There was something wrong with her: she was supposed to want this kind of life, and she did not. Not only did she find it distasteful; she found it frightening. What had those pirate books, so passionately read in her young years, done to her?
Elizabeth swallowed gingerly, and felt a flash of anger. Thanks to the nerves of an upstanding British officer, her throat was sore from brine. Thanks to the ambitions of a very un-upstanding scoundrel, her throat was sore from a chain.
Elizabeth bent her head toward her book. She kept her mouth closed, but inside, she was wailing. This is not the way it's supposed to be!
Feet away, dark-haired Estrella scooped glowing coals into a bedwarmer. The coals sizzled softly to themselves as the maid lifted the comforters at the end of Elizabeth's bed and slipped the bedwarmer between the sheets.
"There you go, miss." Estrella moved up the bedside toward Elizabeth, straightening the blankets with worn hands. The light from the fireplace warmed her gentle face and the white cap that framed it. "It was a difficult day for you, I'm sure."
"Hmm." Elizabeth looked up. "I suspected Commodore Norrington would propose, but ...I must admit, I wasn't entirely prepared for it."
"Well, I meant you being threatened by that pirate," Estrella quietly eyed her mistress's tired face. "Sounds terrifying."
"Oh. Yes. It was terrifying."
"But, the Commodore proposed!" Estrella turned to uselessly straighten the nightstand. "Fancy that. Now that's a fine match, miss, if it's not too bold to say."
Elizabeth's smile stiffened. "It is a smart match." She bit her lip. "He's a fine man. He's what any woman should dream of marrying." Her voice shrank; her eyes fell to her book again.
The fire chatted.
"Well, that Will Turner," Estrella evenly met Elizabeth's startled gaze; "he's a fine man, too."
"That is too bold."
"Beggin' your pardon, miss. It was not my place." Estrella made a meek exit.
As her bedroom door closed, Elizabeth bit her lower lip again. She pondered Will Turner as she pulled the medallion from its new place beneath her nightgown.
The room seemed to shudder, and Elizabeth froze.
But it had only been the sudden flutter of lamplight. She stared at her wavering lamp, aware of the absence of any breeze. She fingered the warm medallion, then gripped it in her fist.
The lamp's flame died completely and the fear, the feel of invasion, was back in a suffocating wave. She sat in the darkness, unable to move, unable to breathe, as the hair on the back of her neck shivered upward.
Will Turner, unable to get some last sand-grits out of his eyes, had too much to think about, so he didn't give himself the chance to think at all. He worked at the blacksmith's shop instead, by light of candles and furnace.
Clang-clang-clang- he pounded flat the glowing end of a metal rod, existing inside the metal's ringing rhythm until–
He paused. Something had thudded outside, and for some reason, adrenaline was surging into his weary muscles; his body was ready for fight or flight. He felt like he was being watched.
Down went his hammer; he moved swiftly to the shop's back window. He opened it and stuck his head out into cold, soupy air. Down and up the dead-dark alley he looked, turning just in time to see a cat streak behind a pile of crates.
He breathed deeply. His body turned frigid as the hair on the back of his neck and arms shuddered upright.
Never in his entire life had he felt a simple night imbued with such malice.
Women are as changeable as the sea.
The saying had never struck home for Commodore Norrington as solidly as it did now.
Standing between himself and that scurvy Sparrow...Elizabeth had been so confident in herself, so disappointed in him. She had not been the meek young woman who had stolen his words away earlier, no; she herself had rippled, changing into a creature who would stand up to him for what she believed. He had not expected it.
Norrington loved the sea. He loved its dance of moods and the delicate skill it took to navigate them. So, he was not surprised that Elizabeth's show of raw defiance had opened his heart further to her. He knew, though, that he would have to have a good measure of submission from her. She had to understand the need for this, for she knew how naïve she was. Sparrow had taught her that, and very thoroughly. With satisfaction Norrington looked down into the courtyard where a new gallows waited. Sparrow would be well thanked for his pedagogic endeavors.
Norrington's hands clutched each other behind his back. If only he could be sure that Elizabeth was his.
"Has my daughter given you an answer yet?" Governor Swann seemed to read his mind. He walked with Norrington along the ramparts of Fort Charles, a military island in a sea of inky mists.
"No. She hasn't."
They strolled past shining wet cannons that peered through embrasures of stone.
"Well, she has had a very trying day," said Swann, his voice both encouraging and kindly defensive. The Commodore smiled, then slowed and let the Governor walk ahead.
A breeze oozed past Swann. "Ghastly weather, don't you think?"
"Bleak." Commodore Norrington's voice matched his words, "Very bleak."
Thud. Thud-thud. A distant heartbeat. The Governor stopped to look around. "What's that?"
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud. Then there came a faint dire whistling. Norrington was stunned. It can't be! But he threw himself at the Governor anyway, shouting, "Cannon fire!"
Both men sprawled against the low wall as a scream went over their heads. With a terrific bang it smashed the wall where they had stood seconds before. A wave of heat lunged across their faces and clumps of tan stone tumbled in every direction; more explosions could be heard all up and down the length of the fort. Norrington scrambled up, heart pounding. "Return fire!"
'Irregular' was too tame a word for the situation that rapidly unfolded itself over the entire harbor. More plausible were the words 'ludicrous' and 'insane.' This was because nobody in his or her right mind attacked the Port Royal. You could shake your fist at Port Royal. You could even thumb your nose. But an attack…everyone knew that, unless you had an armada of warships and then some, attacking Port Royal simply Wasn't Done.
Mostly because it was the equivalent of suicide.
No one really believed what he or she heard until the cannonballs emerged howling from the mists and tore into Port Royal's waterfront. Structures from Fort Charles to Fort Carlisle were burning in minutes, and then the sleeping part of Port Royal truly awoke with a panicked wail. Citizens, staggering from sleep and shock, rushed to save belongings and each other. It was worst at the waterfront, where men trying to save the boats that were their livelihoods were tossed this way and that like so many pieces of straw. The streets boiled with families and visitors dodging pieces of chimney and roof; trampling each other. A thousand desperate mouths shouted the question: who is out there?
Then, longboats materialized from behind the scrim of fog. When the few survivors at the waterfront saw the creatures that paddled the black vessels toward shore, precious fishing boats and nets were heedlessly abandoned as their owners fled, spreading, on a wave of terror the most dreaded word in the Caribbean–
The thumping cannons roused Jack Sparrow his sleepy lounge. "I know those guns." He pulled himself up on a stone ledge to peer out his barred window.
What he saw made his breath quicken.
He had a smashing view of the harbor, which was being, well, smashed by the cannons of a ship floating in the center of the bay, a ship whose ink form was suggested every so often by the flashes from her sides. BOOM-boomboom–sound tumbled about the port's circled arms; a cannonball whizzed and slammed into the fort only yards from Jack's window, sending a shower of stone down into the dark. The fort's cannons were silent.
Jack Sparrow smiled. "It's the Pearl." The word slid from his lips like a prayer.
Bone Man came up to the bars and clutched them. "The Black Pearl?" His low voice quavered, "I've heard stories. She's been preyin' on ships and settlements for near ten years." He glanced at his saucer-eyed cellmates. "Never leaves any survivors."
"No survivors?" Jack turned with his eyebrows up, his dark gaze glinting. "Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?"
The creatures spawned from the Black Pearl's hellish hold set foot on land. Leaving their fog-shrouded boats behind they strode into Port Royal, yelling like crazed animals. Vile, they were, and dirty, greasy, with tattoos and earrings anywhere and everywhere, with rolling eyes, bulging muscles, long hair, and lean faces that knew nothing other than barbarian glee and lust for destruction.
Pirates.
"Watchit, Ragetti, you almost stabbed me!" A short pirate, bald on top with a ring of stringy hair sprouting about his head, glared with thickly yellowed eyes at his companion.
"Sorry, Pintel, but me eye was a'scratchin', and I'm tryin' to fix it." This one was tall and emaciated, with a gaping eye socket in a knife-like face beneath relatively short strands of chopped hair. He was cutting at something with a small dagger, biting his tongue.
"At a time like this!" Pintel exclaimed. His hairy chest and extensive belly exposed by a too-small coat. "You would!"
"Jus' a minute, Pintel. Please, don't go on without me. Just a lil' mor-"
"Hurry!" Pintel elbowed Ragetti.
"Aagh! You ruined me fix job!" Ragetti scowled.
Pintel rolled his eyes. "Addlepate. We've a town t' plunder, and everybody else is getting the best stuff first! See, there goes Jacoby, and he's got legs only half as long as us!" He pointed with one monstrous fingernail at toward the running figure of a small, bearded pirate who brandished grenades in both hands.
Ragetti looked. "Oh."
"Oh. Idiot. Come on!"
Ragetti's blew on the round object and shoved it into his gaping right eye socket. A squeaking noise rang out as the muscles of the socket moved the dull wood eyeball into position.
Pintel grimaced, but rallied to return Ragetti's grin, and they ran after the others.
"Come on, Mellie. Come on!" Terrible sounds from the street filled Will's ears and a drop of sweat trickled down his temple as he pulled the little mule forward. Legs stiff, she made a half-hearted attempt at hopping out of her pit and ended up with her knees on the pit's lip. Braying, she almost fell back, but Will tightened his fists about her halter and hauled her up. She hopped with her hind legs and came out of the pit like a newborn filly, legs going every which way. Will released her halter and rolled clear. Coming to his feet, he saw Mrs. Brown steadying Mellie. Though resolute, the woman's face was white with fear.
"But what about you?" she demanded.
Mr. Kempe strode up, looking formidable with two meat cleavers stuck in his belt. "We must go now or not at all."
Will nodded. A hand seized his arm. He turned to look into Mrs. Brown's pale eyes. "What about you?" she repeated.
"I'm going to look for Mr. Brown…help as much as I can." Will grasped her hand and curled her callused fingers around Mellie's halter. "I'll meet you at the fort." He gave Mr. Kempe a quick nod, and the large man drew Mrs. Brown and Mellie out the back door of the shop.
Will didn't see Mrs. Brown's resolution crumple as she looked over her shoulder at the closest thing she had to a son. He was already hurdling toward the racks where he kept his best hatchets, scooping up a sword as he went. By the time Mr. Kempe was leading a tearful Mrs. Brown and Katrien along a back alley, Will had burst out the front door into the street.
Fire.
Fire was on pirate Jacoby's mind as he ran alongside a shop. Smoke from the incense in his long beard filled his nostrils and burnished his mind to a hot numbness that was only broken up when he did this–
An armed grenade he yanked from his bandoleer flew through one pretty golden window. The cry of shattered glass washed over his explosion-dulled ears.
And this–
Another window crumpled.
And this–
Shards flew.
Then the pretty windows ended. Anticipation roared through Jacoby's mind as he kept running, his eyes fastening on a woman in her nightdress, also running. He cackled and charged after her, waiting, waiting...BANG–
The shop exploded behind him. Exhilarated, he clattered down some steps in pursuit of the form beneath the billowing nightgown–
A blade slammed into his spine. The shock of the impact drew a cry from him as he fell on his face, hands instinctively curling. He knew when someone yanked the blade from his back, but he never felt a thing.
Will Turner, blood hot, grasped his retrieved hatchet and ran into the hazy confusion. Men and women and children ran blindly now for the fort, every one for him or herself. The pirates laughed and slashed and shot without regard for age or gender. He ran against the flow, determined to reach the taverns and Mr. Brown.
It was hard to keep his head clear; he had never faced such violence since pirates attacked his ship, the Seeker, from England so many years ago. Sickened, he fought memories as he watched his body employ every move drilled into it, becoming a killing machine.
A pirate jumped into his path; sword whistling, Will deflected the attack. He gasped when he saw the pirate's face, for he'd seen this face before…leering above him as a huge hand grasped his twelve year-old throat. Teeth gritted, Will viciously stabbed the pirate in the belly then ran on, unable to watch the pirate curl to the cobbles.
He dodged a woman running with a bawling toddler in her arms, and for a moment pressed himself to a wall. His eyes scoured the street for any Marines, anywhere. His eyes found none. Desperation and betrayal tightened his throat. Where are they? Quaking in their fort and watching this slaughter?
Norrington ducked as a cannonball shrieked over his head, swearing as his burning eyes followed the projectile's path straight to the gallows.
The gallows shattered. Flaming wood bloomed in all directions, scattering the harried troops trying to assemble and defend the fort's doors, which shook under the pirates' assault. Many refugees had been herded into the fort's halls, but many more were trapped outside between the closed gate and the attacking pirates. Norrington knew because he could hear them screaming.
He had never faced such a quandary. The doors could not be opened to let troops out until the troops could make a stand against the pirates. Distress flares had gone up to appeal to Forts Carlisle and Charles, but everyone knew that help would never arrive in time.
And the busy cannon crews had yet to score a hit on whatever blasted vessel was lurking down in the night mist. Norrington paced the ramparts, seething. "Sight the muzzle flash!" he bellowed at the sweating men. "I need a full strike fore and aft!" Cannons barked, leaping back over the stones. The cannonballs vanished into the harbor. There was no sign of impact anywhere, but Norrington had seen this too many times to be disappointed. He strode down the ramparts, rallying the exhausted men to another effort, keeping an eye on the troops in the courtyard.
He almost ran into the Governor of Port Royal. He mentally cursed himself as the bewildered older man gaped at him. "Governor!" he barked. "Barricade yourself in my office."
A cannonball hit the bell tower in a threatening mess of stone and the Governor cried out, shielding his eyes with his lacy wrists.
"That's an order." Norrington's eyes blazed at Swann, who sputtered then scrambled shakily to do as he was told.
"Again, men!" Norrington turned back to his cannon crews. Gillette was suddenly at his side, hat gone, wig askew, face streaked with soot. "We can open the gates, sir! The troops will suffocate if we do nothing!"
Norrington glanced through billowing smoke at the waiting troops below, bracing himself as the parapet shook under another salvo from the harbor. The Governor was out of sight.
Norrington opened his mouth to give permission and the doors exploded. Gillette raced for the stairs as the pirates poured into the fort like a disease.
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