Still no pirate mojo.
Anyone who plays Zelda should come and join my RP. Go to Gaia and search "Enter the Void." I need peoplez!!
He's watching the sun rise. He can't watch the sun itself, of course. The window's far too high to see, not while sitting against the wall. The light comes in through the bars, though, and he can watch as the beautiful glow slowly covered the mud brick wall of the tiny room, the brightness bleaching all t he dirt and stains and turning it to gleaming white.
He likes early morning. He likes waking up before the other and spending a moment alone, sitting together with the only person who really matters, the only person he will ever care about. The person he loves.
He sighs, snuggling deeper into the warm embrace of his protector, his saviour. He promises himself he would never get used to this, never start taking this beautiful warmth for granted. Just like he will always appreciate his freedom. He has gone without, and now he'll savour every single instant with.
A shadow appears on the wall before him. It was fuzzy in the bright, but he can still make it out. A bird, tiny, and of a shape different than any of the birds he usually sees flitting around the plantation.
He doesn't get up. He doesn't need to.
He knows exactly what kind of bird it is.
"I've been waiting for you." His voice sounds odd to his own years. It's too deep, too old. It should be the stuttering lisp of an uneducated slave boy. But that was a long time ago. He's a pirate now, a captain. And he's been waiting.
"I know, child, I know." The woman shuffles over the leaf-littered floor, the beads on her dress jingling like rain into the open water. "You did na' 'ave to. Ya could 'ave called me."
"I know." He wants to stay here forever, in the warm and the calm. But the end is coming, and there's nothing he can do to stop it. "I lost your beads."
"I 'ave more." The woman laughs quietly, plucking one of the strings from her skirt and braiding it back into what was left of his hair.
For a long moment, there is only the shuffling of cloth, hair against skin and the clinking of metal and glass and stone. Will is still, breathing slowly, calmly. He won't wake up, not unless they want him to. And for the moment, he doesn't. This wasn't meant for Will.
The woman sits back on her heels, watching him with her dark oceanic eyes. He puts it off just a little longer, closing his eyes and letting the warmth of Will's body flow through him, comfort him. He could stay like this forever, he really could. But there's no avoiding it, no avoiding the question he has to ask.
"You can't save me, can you?"
The woman sighs, turns her gaze to her own ritually scarred hands. The weight of her sadness bows her shoulders, makes his breath stop for an instant, makes his heart skip a beat. It presses down on them both, crushing them slowly under the weight of hopelessness.
"Ye 'ave made a deal wit Davy Jones, Jack. Dere is no escaping from dat." Her hand traces the side of his face, an apology and a goodbye all in one. "You belong to 'im, now."
"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, luv." The fake cocky smile is so much easier than tears, than anger. "I belong to no-one."
"Except, perhaps, ta one William Turner?" She smiles knowingly, sad and amused, but mostly sad.
"Heh. Except perhaps to him." He can't keep smiling. The weight of their collective sorrow was too much to bear, even for him. But he doesn't cry. He absolutely refuses to cry. "How much time do I have left?"
"Not long." She sighs again, fingers tracing the stormy swirls of scars and tattoos. "Six months, perhaps a little longer, if ye run fast enough."
"Six… Six months." He can feel the tears burning at the edges of his eyes, but he refuses them, pushes them back and swallows them. "And… Will I… Will I remember him? When I wake up?"
"If ye want to." She doesn't touch him, doesn't try and comfort him, and he is infinitely grateful. "Aldough it may be easier on ye bot if you didn't."
"No. I'm not making the same mistake twice." He finds Will's hand, holds it tight, trying to ignore the shaking of his own. "I never want to lose them again. Either of them."
"Den so it shall be, Cap'n Jack o' da Sparrows." She smiles, presses the cool, damp palm of her hand against his forehead. "May ye be happy for de rest of your days, numbered dough dey may be."
"Thank you, m'lady." He feels strangely sleepy, his eyes already drifting closed in the half-light of the dream.
"Call me Tia, luv." The last thing he sees as he slips away is her smiling face as it slowly fades into waves and storm clouds and reflections in the water.
And then he's gone.