To their backs, the hills rolled tall and dark, alive with its shimmering chorus of hidden creatures. Ahead, the waters spilled out like ink from shattered glass, stretching over sands as smooth and bright as scattered sheets of paper—traces of letters that would never be written in any human language. The scents of sweet brines and forest greens mingled on the edge of the foreshore, like the inhales and exhales between sea and mountain as they slept beside one another, peacefully. On these dreaming breaths, the world twirled wisps of Elizabeth's hair gently.
Will came to stand on her left and smoothed his hand down her head, while her eyes scanned the unbroken stretches before their feet with a subtle bend to her lips.
"So tell me: is there a reason you chose this particular beach? You said I'd see it, but I can't say I do."
When she looked at him he could see the sky in her eyes, glittering with wide possibility and anticipation.
His heart skipped a beat.
Alone.
"Well. I promised you I would treat you to an entire afternoon by the shore. Somehow it felt like this was the right place to get away from everyone else, like we used to do. The other beaches are on the harbor and so close to town, we'd either never be free from bystanders or we would have to watch for curfew patrols. Here, it's a secret we can keep all to ourselves… And the stars."
He saw her shoulders rise and fall on a long breath of her own.
When she said nothing else, Will began to question himself. There was nothing here, besides the world as it was made and them. He'd figured that it would be refreshing, after being called on by client and guest for hours they would have rather spent better. But now he was starting to wonder whether he ought to have done something else to make it seem more… impressive. What it could have been, he wasn't sure. Before their picnic, she had taken him on a little tour of the markets and let him pick the spot. For their weekend, she had opened every door in her home, lavished him with the finest food and drink he'd ever had, and yes given him places of comfort to sit.
Lacking those things for himself, he'd thought maybe the cover of night and secret escape away from the sights and sounds of civilization might feel like a little adventure. But now that they were here, he couldn't help feeling… cheap.
He cleared his throat. "I know it isn't anything extravagant. And it is evening instead of afternoon. But…. is this alright? For now."
Her eyes slipped closed to the breeze—still silent.
The skips of Will's heart began to grow nervous. Then…
"It's perfect," she whispered at last. And where her eyes opened again, they looked like pools of bliss. "I sort of feel like the sea's always been a part of all the moments that have mattered most between us. How we met. How we played"
"And all the lengths we know we'll go…" he agreed, heartened that she understood his hopes.
His hand had fallen upon her back, and his fingers played about the silken tips of her hair, the tickling fuzziness of her riding jacket, and the novel curve of her spine—not so unbowed and rigid as her stays had insisted she ought to be.
"Alright, boss! How shall we start?"
The question surprised him, but the answer came to him quickly: the letter in his pocket.
He was halfway through the motion of saying so, his fingers gracing the edge of his pocket, before a thought struck him: they'd just spent the entire walk down here talking about the smithy and money. How could jump from the long string of deeply needed but equally deeply unromantic, pragmatic points of discussion they'd just waded through? He could see himself now, holding out the letter like a bill of sale, hopping straight from questions over salaries and drunken masters and sales plans to demanding, "What does the word 'love' mean here, as you wrote it?" like discussion of such feelings was another business transaction.
Or would that make her laugh more? Could he even keep a straight face if he inquired, "How early is this 'convenience' actually meant to be, exactly?" like they were planning the delivery of some goods? Would it matter, if it was completely ridiculous?
He could try. He should try.
His fingers reached for his pocket…
"If you were to would—"
… then he slid his hand down his thigh as though drying it off, his face beginning to flush as flagrantly as if he had physically tripped over his own feet and falling into the dirt.
"—I mean…!"
Elizabeth's face twisted in quizzical positions. "Wood?"
"No. Well, yes! But…"
Perhaps, for once in his life, he could admit he was feeling a little nervous. Or more than a little. His pulse was starting to rush. And his mouth seemed dryer than usual. He'd never spoken to anyone so directly about questions like these before, especially not Elizabeth.
Who was looking at him now with her lips pressed together as though she were holding back a laugh.
Ah, maybe he shouldn't bring up the letter tonight after all…
No!
No.
He would do it. If he just slowed down, and thought things through, and breathed… then he could do it. She already knew about the letter anyway. And they'd both been waiting to solve its mystery for days now. And what did it matter if she laughed? That's what they always used to do, wasn't it? Laugh together? As friends? This wasn't all that different, was it? Even if it was over something a lot more 'friendly' than they'd ever chased together before. No… he had to do it. At this point he was certain it would start to eat him up inside if he backed down from the opportunity to finally know what either of them meant when they danced around each other in her father's presence. He thought he knew. But he wanted to be certain. And to do that they had to take one step at a time.
Speaking of which…
After clearing his throat again, he grinned to boost his own courage. "I don't know about you, but I think we ought to take off our shoes."
Elizabeth's teeth flashed with a sparkling mirth that reached into her crescent-shaped eyes. "Like old times?"
He almost forgot he could speak, as twin images of the dearest friend he'd ever known merged together, past and present. He remembered her with a wrinkled nose sun-speckled and rowdy from all her pursuits of childlike whims. Never could he have predicted he'd one day be standing here, after those freckles had somehow been powdered and shaded away, and still staring into the same whimsical rowdiness, as though it had never left.
"Like old times."
Together they set down their props and bent to free their heated feet from stuffy restraints. With the summer and all its hazards of jellyfish and sea lice passed, there was little reason to hold back.
"Are we going to race tonight?" she asked.
It took a moment for Will to realize what it was she was saying. But once he did, he laughed. She really meant 'like old times!'
"We could. Although there were a few other things I thought we should try out first," he admitted.
His buckled shoes and stockings came off as quick as looking at them, allowing him to bury his toes in the cooling squish of the sand in seconds. But when he looked to his companion, he found her still struggling to maintain balance as she removed taller riding boots, while preventing her silk stockings from touching the ground. He settled onto his knees and offered her a shoulder for balance, along with an extra pair of helping hands.
One foot was freed from boot and stocking, and together they moved onto the other.
As her fingers shifted their grip to steady her wobbling on his shoulder, he looked up at her and asked, "Do you remember how we used to spin each other to see who could run the farthest without falling?"
She threw her head back and cackled. "Yes! You got so wet every time! Why did you always end up tripping into the water, no matter where we started?"
He shrugged, and offered her a challenging smirk. "At least I went somewhere—you used to always just wander in circles."
Her second foot was freed, and finally able to join the other in the sand—though not before giving his knee a playful nudge, nearly knocking him off balance.
Once her toes touched the sand, she sighed with pleasure as she immediately wiggled them and sank into the damp, grainy coolness. Happy to see her already enjoying herself despite the simplicity of his plans, Will took the stockings from her hands to better let her enjoy the moment. He paired them together and folded them around his hand, before stuffing them inside one of her boots. Then leveraging himself with his hands on his knees, he stood back up and reached for the lantern.
"You should let your hair loose."
His fingers paused before they could reach the handle, and his eyes turned to find her watching him with her hands in her own hair, as its ends waved in soft sea gusts. There was a hint of something coy upon her lips.
Well. It would become a mess very quickly whenever he let his hair loose. But it did feel pretty good to let the wind run its fingers across his head—and if things went as he hoped, Elizabeth's fingers would soon follow.
So with an answering smirk, he abandoned the lantern momentarily, in favor of untying the scrap he called a ribbon from his queue. He gave his head a shake to loosen up the damp, pomade coated curls, with the wind beginning its work tossing and coiling. He set about the same work he performed on Elizabeth's stockings by winding his hair's tie around the palm of his hand. Then in order to ask whether she was satisfied by the change, he stretched out his arms wide to present himself to her. He bowed—his hair fell over itself, and she giggled as he righted himself with it splayed across his face.
After he combed the locks over his head and behind his ears with a splayed hand, he found her looking at him with a warmer look in her eye.
"Very nice. And perhaps you could take this off too." She reached out and fingered a button of his waistcoat. "Makes me feel overdressed."
He didn't bother to hide his confused doubt from his face, as his eyes wandered over the fastened buttons of her riding jacket—and for the first time tonight, the gaps revealing her cleavage. "You still have your coat on."
She tilted her chin forward, and stood a little taller. "So? Maybe I'm cold."
"Well, we'll fix that," he assured, and adjusted the pack on his back, where his tinder bag had been stuffed.
"Good!" she agreed. Then she snapped her chin in his direction once more. "Take yours off."
At this Will tipped his head to one side and cocked one eyebrow. "You're very eager to strip me down to my undergarments."
Elizabeth didn't back down from the accusation—instead she pursed her lips in an amused smirk, as she puffed out her chest and perched her hands upon her hips. "Well, I've left some of mine behind entirely. So if you ask me, it's only fair."
That brought a flush to his cheeks, though he kept his linked with hers through the heat trickling down his neck and spine… and back to his pocket again.
He was speaking before he noticed he'd found words to answer.
"I'll take this off, if you re-read your letter," he challenged—although he'd shrugged his way out of the pack basket and set it upon the ground. Once done, his hands quickly found his baldric, lifting it over his head to be tossed below as well.
"I was going to read it anyway." His motion seemed to remind Elizabeth she too was carrying a sword, and she mimicked his action. "I've been wondering what it is about this letter that fascinates you so—my drunken self must weave very intriguing mysteries, for it to occupy your mind as it does."
The heat in him grew to a simmer, while he focused on his fingers working his belt free.
"This part was no mystery." The belt was tossed with the baldric. Now his buttons were his work—though these he unfastened blindly, having raised his eyes again in search of Elizabeth's. "I only wonder at your sincerity… or your readiness to reveal it."
This carved a deep furrow in Elizabeth's brow, as she clearly wondered more than ever what secret she could have told him.
Will's buttons were quickly freed. His arms followed soon after. And in hardly any time—and yet too long a time altogether, somehow—his waistcoat was tucked away into the pack basket, with the belt following in a quick afterthought. And now that it was done, he was grateful Elizabeth had insisted on it—he hadn't realized how sweaty his back had become underneath the press of the basket. The night air reached beneath the billows of his shirt with searching hands that cooled him, dried him, soothed him.
But his heart was a-gallop, and it could not be stopped.
Though the lantern's light shone crooked and seaward, he could see Elizabeth clearly, watching him with eyes twice as magnificent as richest ebony, waiting for him with a patient steadiness that belied her stormy nature. The ever-present stewing in his veins was beginning to simmer and burn from his gut to his itching fingertips.
It was time now.
Scanning the foreshore with swiftly searching eyes, he identified a small cluster of large rocks only a few steps away. Not knowing any better way to proceed, he extended one open hand towards them, while he offered Elizabeth his opposing elbow.
"Shall we sit for a moment?"
Her perplexity did not disappear, but a piqued interest joined it and raised her eyebrows' questions, all while she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. He led her to the rocks like a gentleman leading a lady off the dance floor, and accordingly held her hand as she settled on her seat.
His skin tingled where her fingers left his. And his hands felt unsteady when he retrieved her now-notorious letter from his pocket, and he nearly let it go too early when he handed it back to Elizabeth once more, at last. Then realizing he'd left the lantern behind, he breathed a soft excuse to fetch it and light their little scene, by holding it aloft for her.
There was a tightness in gut, as she unfolded the letter with a tight, careful grip.
She shook her head and laughed to herself. "I still can't believe I wasted all this paper—you must have been so disappointed."
"More baffled, than anything," he responded lightly, remembering the confusion of that night with charmed amusement, though inside he was coiled like a spring. "Then it became clear it came from you, and you were quite drunk, and I understood the situation well enough." He remembered afresh the words she was about to read. Was it alright for the heart to beat this fast? He could almost feel it in his fingertips. "I was… pleased you felt so compelled to write to me, even in that state."
The letter was open, but she wasn't looking at it yet—she was looking at him, so luminous and lovely. "I wanted to write to you during the day as well. I only resisted to save you the postage."
She could have reached her hand straight into his chest and squeezed his heart directly—the way she'd squeezed his hand at the beginning of their evening.
"I will always accept that expense without complaint or regret," he professed without hesitation. "Your letters mean the world to me."
'Including this one…' he added privately, as his eyes flitted to the open page fluttering against the pull of the wind, held fast between her elegant fingers.
His stomach churned nervously.
But he watched her smile reflect the moon and her eyes capture the stars, radiating a vibrant joy upon him that made him want to somersault backwards, knowing he was the one making her shine so. He settled for relishing in the feeling of his heart doing flips in his stead, and hoped the smile he sent back to her showed even half the regard for her he felt flooding him.
He realized the lantern was shining on her face more than the paper. So, he broke past the spell she cast on him, and moved to stand at her side, where he could focus the candle's light from over her shoulder, and light the letter properly.
Elizabeth shot an unspoken look of thanks at him from over her shoulder. Then she tossed her head and held the letter aloft as though preparing to read some important edict or decree—not unlike she had done before.
She was perfect.
Still, he remembered what it was she was about to read. And Will held his breath for a moment, while a nervous tension began to twist inside him. What would she say? Would she take it back?
"'My most handsomest of pirates,'" she pronounced as though it were the start of a grand monologue, "'When I return I shall shower you with this wine I've had, and which you've never had. You've also never had a proper bath, and you need one. Very soon."
She had to pause for a moment, as she'd begun to giggle more and more as she read along, and his joining her hadn't helped. She looked over her shoulder and flashed him her gorgeous, snaggle-toothed grin, nose wrinkling, tongue peeking out between her bite like it did at least half the times she laughed.
She was so, so perfect.
Her head whipped back to the letter all of the sudden. She took a breath and read ahead, "'I wish to make love t…'"
The words Elizabeth spoke tumbled into nothing, and the words he knew were written, but not read, dropped like stones atop his heart, shaking him one at a time. The waves collapsed and crawled on the sand in place of his held breath. She wasn't moving, only staring at the letter.
And staring.
And staring.
Then her clutching hands fell into her lap. She turned and looked at him, eyes wide and lips parted with a nearly mortified shock.
He could only smile in sympathy. He'd had his own mortifications before her, and though she'd laughed, she'd been understanding. Of course he'd try to return the favor, especially in something as personal as this.
"I said that?" she whispered so quietly he barely heard it.
"Apparently," he tried to joke and ease the tension.
"I wrote that?" she hissed.
His stomach clenched a little over the possibility that she'd never wanted him to know such a thing at all, or that it wasn't even true. Something felt strange about seeing the embarrassment bending her brow with her head turned so sharply to look up at him. So he moved to kneel before her, to come face to face, looking up on her instead..
"It would seem so," he answered, trying to maintain an even air that wouldn't feed her feelings of humiliation.
"I…" Her eyes searched his face, for answers to questions she had not yet asked. "… you've known all this time."
His throat closed on itself for a moment, as he wondered what that meant to her. Was it a secret he shouldn't have kept? A letter he shouldn't have kept?
His lips twitched from the effort to offer another reassuring smile. "Only a few days, if you think about it."
And yet it felt like an eternity.
This was feeling like an eternity. Silence stretched between them, though it somehow made him feel closer to her than ever before. Elizabeth's eyes were wide and glowing in the lantern light. His gaze fell into hers, drawn deeper and deeper with each flicker and flare of the candle. Somehow, he felt as though the world had begun to spin, and the sea was creeping in like it had in his dreams, lifting them both up until they were balanced together on the crest of a tidal wave—one that would break if either of them moved.
Then her lips parted as if she wished to say something, but all that left them was one shuddering breath.
And suddenly Will realized: there was too much to say now.
But that was alright. She knew what he knew. The answers to his questions would come when time allowed it. He could wait a little longer, if he needed to.
For now, he needed to break this spell… and calm the shaking in his hands. To warm the shaking he now saw in hers.
So Will reached out and curled his fingers around hers.
"Come build a fire with me."
Slipping quietly through the dark provided perfect opportunity for Elizabeth to calm her racing heart. However, the movements involved in their little shared activity of building what amounted to a very simple camp avoided that perfect opportunity entirely. He gathered wood, she collected rocks. She held the lantern. It should have been simple, a distraction. Yet those "distracting" motions she went through kept her blood in a constant, restless motion. Those glances she kept clumsily exchanging with Will kept her body searing. And those words from her letter, from the beginnings of her confessions, paced and prowled anxiously through her veins.
What had he meant by bringing her here, in the diamond-dark sea mists? Was speaking in a private picnic all they were meant to do? Or would they taste of other things, like she hoped? Would they relish what she hoped? Would they…?
While her thoughts drifted and churned, Will had finished collecting his fuel. His walking to the edge of the beach drew her back out of her mind for a moment, and she watched with some curiosity as he began staking several sticks near the spear, then balancing their shoes and stockings on the ends. Seeming satisfied by the strange fence he'd built, he began to walk back towards the center of the beach.
"Centipedes," he breathed, predicting the question she might have asked.
Then he let his baldric and blade fall to the sand, and waved her over to help him assemble a fire ring. She took her sword off as well, and laid it carefully beside his. Together they knelt and worked with only passing whispers, Will directing the formation of the stone circle, before requesting her cooperation to prop up a low, little wooden pyramid inside. His hands often grazed her fingers or alighted upon her back, while they snickered through their strivings to keep the sea breeze from scattering their little piles of kindling and tinder, or tipping their branches over before they were stable. And every brush with him sent sparks through her, each one somehow growing more and more vigorous than the last, until she could almost swear she herself would catch their fire on her own, well before Will ever set their candle to it.
Would she finally get to know what it felt like, to have the hunger yawning within her finally be satisfied instead of put fitfully to sleep? It was hard to predict without words. Will's face had been nearly as unreadable as a shroud ever since they'd unveiled her truth. But he'd known her longing all this time, known when he'd invited her here, not only to a place but at a time where few other souls would cross their paths.
'I shouldn't get ahead of myself. It isn't like him to be so forward. And he chose to come to an open beach over the privacy of his own quarters. He would never want to… Not in the open air… Would he…?'
Her heart pumped her questions through her, while Elizabeth left him to his building and instead busied herself with laying the blanket nearby on the sand. Her questions repeated each time she pinned down another corner with the extra rocks she'd gathered. While kneeling on the blanket, smoothing out its wrinkles, she saw the shadowy figure of their basket off to the side. The impulse struck her to consider peeking inside it, to glean clues on if this was meant to be the same as their other beach excursions, just a picnic taken in the dark, or if…
In a few blinks, there was a fire flickering to life. Mere seconds later, it was fully alive. Drawn by its warmth and tumultuous radiance, Elizabeth soon found herself staring not into the flames themselves, but up into the pleasing glow they cast over Will, crouching on the other side of the sparking, crackling light.
He was admiring their work with an almost peaceful satisfaction, and the fire's dances granted her satisfaction of her own in simply admiring him. After nearly a week there had returned a visible stubble to his lips and jaw, which nudged away the more boyish appearance he'd been sporting since Monday. His hair was loose again at last, unbound, curling and tousled by the ocean's gusty nighttime toyings. Those same breezes fluttered against his shirt, opening and pushing it securely against the broad, lean planes of his chest and stomach and arms, through temporary, revealing motions. His lightly sun-kissed complexion looked almost copper next to the fire. And when the flames bent just right, she could catch sight of his bare forelegs, ornamented by a dark array of hairs already dusted up to the ankles with sand. He looked relaxed and free and more like a dashing buccaneer than she'd probably ever seen him before.
Then his eyes fixed themselves to hers.
Charcoal black with amber pinpoint embers, deeply intent and steady, despite the obscurities of wavering smoke wafting up from burning wood. His lips tugged to one side, dimpling one cheek, and her lips parted, struck as she was by not a little by awe. To her, he was utterly striking, in a way that suppressed her clearer thoughts and induced her pulse's pounding so heavily, the force was beginning to leave her chest.
Still wordless, Will crossed around the fire, her eyes transfixed as he approached. Then with a muted grunt he let himself fall into a seat beside her, on the increasingly sandy blanket, close enough their legs were nearly met. The loose ends of the letter's message came back, and settled between them, unsettling. Yet Elizabeth still found herself at a loss for what to say. He knew of her lust now—after all that's what it was—at least, in a careless whisper. She still did not know what he thought of it, to what depths or heights or other measurements his own could answer her. She could have used these past several minutes to think about how to cajole him, but she hadn't. Instead, she'd spent her time wandering through the addictive haze of her own desire for this man who continually, obliviously tantalized her company.
Suddenly unable to keep still, she slipped her arms out of her riding jacket, letting it fall beneath her, while the cool air was granted permission to slip through the thinner cloth of her nightdress, tickling her skin even as it worked over her like a soothing balm.
Will seemed so quiet, and it was discouraging. Was he not yearning tonight, like she was? She still was figuring out how to ask him to—
"Would you like to play a game with me?" his voice suddenly cut through her thoughts. "Just for a little moment?"
She looked over at him with eyebrow arched, watching as he stretched for the basket and drew it closer to their places.
"What sort of game…?" she asked, recalling yet again their recent garden and smithy games, and tenuously hoping that's where his mind was fixed as well.
"Truth-telling game," he stated simply, while taking the lid of a crock he'd revealed. He went about propping it atop the fire ring for warming, the flatter stones a makeshift hearth. "We say three things. They may be lies, they may be truths. The other one has to guess which is which."
"That's a little different than I've played before," she observed, a little perplexed but not yet let down by his suggestion being one of the parlor games she often played in primmer company. "What sort of things are we meant to be saying?"
He paused for a moment, the fire lighting thoughtful hues in his expression as he slowly withdrew from the basket two handkerchief-wrapped bundles, and handed them to her.
"I figure… we could start with impersonal things first."
She let her lips tug into a pleased simper. "First" seemed to signal he did have another objective in this, eventually. And that being the case, she was happy to play along with whatever detours he was taking, for the time being—so long as the evening came to something closer to her desired destination.
But it wouldn't hurt to nudge them in the right direction.
She reached out her hands before her, happily stretching her legs and back for a moment, as though preparing for a different sort of contest to be launched between them. "And if we guess wrong?"
Will dipped his head in a voiceless laugh, his smile a perfect depiction of the halcyon beauty she always always pictured in his heart. He reached out her then with a single finger, and traced its back along the pleats that draped her nightgown over her shoulder. The tiny prickles rising in her flesh came cautious but instant.
"Perhaps we could forgo stakes, this time," he suggested, then raised his eyes to her with a careful glimmer. "The things we learn tonight will be their own prizes."
Elizabeth had nothing to say at first, so taken in she was by his looks and his manner and this place they were now, together. The rising, happy blush in her cheeks awoke her enough to smile through bubbles of complicated thrills frothing in her. Tearing her eyes away from him, the stuttering wheels in her mind began to turn a little again, teasing out the intentions behind his words, even as she teased the knots free from the wrapped packages that still sat on her lap.
So the parlor game would be played very differently, with a parlance that could pass between them and no one else.
Satisfied with the notion, she nodded at Will her approval.
"I'll start," he announced, quiet but assertive. Then, he reached for the unwrapped package on her lap, slipping free the cloth underneath what turned out to be a single loaf of bread. As he did so, three facts he carefully recited, one after the other, "The Black Pearl's crew tried to steal the smithy's donkey in the raid; Mister Brown is missing half his back teeth; there are crocodiles that sometimes come to this beach at night."
"Oo. Hm," she mumbled to herself, weighing the different choices in her mind. Doing so, she worked free the knot of the second package, while Will used a knife he'd brought to cut slices out of the bread. "I think it may be harder when it's not related to each other."
His little facts weren't as obvious as she had anticipated, because they were more general events than things more intimately related to him or his personal life. And seeing as they were playing a style where any number of their facts could be truths or lies, that made separating fact from fiction much less easy to do.
"Probably," Will admitted lightly, then reached for the second unwrapped good on her lap—a wedge of cheese, he was already beginning to slice. Once he'd worked a shaving free and set it upon one of the slices of bread, he set that upon the fire ring as well, where it could toast and melt while they spoke.
Elizabeth's mouth began to water a little, in spite of herself—she was actually hungrier than she'd anticipated, and now was grateful for this little treat Will had taken time to begin preparing.
While they waited and watched for their toasts to finish, she returned her mind to Will's proposed facts, and ventured out to make her decision.
"I think… the first one is a lie," she began cautiously.
"Correct," Will replied, with a flash of his warm grin—whether that or securing part of her first victory pleased more could not be said. He then laid a second slice of bread on the rocks, and dipped the tip of his knife into the crock and to test the warmth of its contents on his hand.
"The one about Mister Brown also seems false," Elizabeth went on playing.
Will followed her lead. "Also correct!"
Another grin. Another restless flutter in her heart.
Her eyes followed him while he used one of the freed food wraps to insulate his hand, carrying the little crock back to the blanket to sit between them. She could smell it now, a stew made fragrant with herbs, lemon, and just a little spice.
"Did you make this?" she asked, while her stomach began to beg for a taste.
"I did," he answered simply, and handed her the now-warmed and lightly toasted bread from the fire, with cheese melted fast to it—perfect for dipping into the crock.
She did so immediately, and was thrice surprised by her first bite. The soup was hot, but not unpleasantly so. It must have been fresh and kept at a fair temperature in the basket, with how thoroughly warmed it was, despite its short time by the fire. It was a welcome contrast to the somewhat chilly sea breezes. Unexpectedly, the bread and cheese beautifully married to the various flavors swimming in this simple soup of what turned out to be salted pork. It was hearty and salty, yes, but the complicated aromas had advertised a burst of bright flavors that lifted the creamy mixture towards something new and interesting. Even more of a surprise: she hadn't known Will knew how to cook at all, having assumed he always preferred to go to the taverns to save himself time. But this? This wasn't just a barely salted working bachelor's gruel.
"Will, this is delicious!" she half-gasped, half-moaned, and immediately dug in with gusto.
"I'm glad you like it. It was taught to me by a good friend," he laughed in a way that suggested he hadn't expected the heightened feeling to her reaction. He slipped his own bread into the crock following hers.
After chewing and swallowing a few more savory bites, Elizabeth was reminded they were in the middle of a game. Will's first two facts had been untrue—and even though there was no set number for how many there could be, a part of her doubted he would make every one of his first three facts lies. But this was the fact about crocodiles wandering the beach.
She frowned at Will for a moment. "… The last one isn't true, is it?"
"It is," he said simply, and smiled at her again—this time cocking his eyebrow at her in a look that was some strange combination between excitement and apology.
… No. No, not with that look on his face could that be true. First hogs now crocodiles? He was trying to pull the wool over her eyes. She was certain of it. Mostly.
And yet the thought he could be—virtually always was—honest with her left Elizabeth slightly alarmed, and cautiously casting her eyes over the open beach surrounding them—especially where it met the tree line. But despite her careful looking, she couldn't see anything. The fire's brightness had made her eyes blind to the surrounding darkness, and to her sands and see may as well have been washed over with thick pools of ink.
If he was right, she'd never be able to tell!
"Don't worry," Will laughed, reaching out to stroke her shoulder in reassurance. "They shouldn't bother us if any show up. Even if they did, we could outrun them pretty easily. They're not as fierce on land as they are on the water."
"Assuming we notice," she muttered with a roll of her eyes. In place of the darkness, a vision came to her mind, of her and Will managing to finally engage in a more intimate entanglement, entirely distracted by each other, as behemoth lizards crept up on them, jaws agape and completely undetected. She scoffed at herself, then leveled a little glare at her swain. "A really romantic location you've chosen tonight, Will!"
He responded by playfully nudging her with his shoulder, his smile as wide as ever. "I thought you like a bit of danger with your romance."
She could only shake her head at him and continue to glare, avoiding the temptation to answer his handsome grin with her own by licking her fingers clean of some of the broth accidentally dribbled onto them.
Will's smile slipped a little as he turned away from her, reaching into the basket over again. This time, he unveiled a dark bottle, and deposited it between them, besides the crock.
"Your turn," he said simply, and took the last bite of his slice of bread.
The bottle's appearance was well-timed—Elizabeth had just been craving a drink, after finishing off her own bread. She took the bottle up, and after wrestling the stop free, took a draught—a fruity, bittersweet ale that cut through the flavors of the stew with a refreshing bite.
"Hmm…" she wondered, and turned her head to the sea while she slowly pieced together her truths and falsehoods. "My friends Amelia and Violet once sneaked into a graveyard to try and catch a vampire; there are at least two lieutenants on Norrington's crew who are secret lovers; … and there's a crocodile coming up behind you right now."
The last fact she lavished with an extra teasing tone. In reaction, Will smirked back at her as he lifted the bottle out of her grip, and pointedly flicked his eyes towards the space directly behind him.
"Well, the last one's false for certain."
She raised her eyebrows at him as she took up the knife and the bread, to cut herself a new slice. "Or is it…?"
He raised his own eyebrows back at her, as though he were actually entertaining the creepiness of her suggestion. But the upward turn of the corners of his mouth continued the joking humor between them, even as he took a swig.
Without another beat wasted, he immediately continued the game by guessing, "Considering what I know about a good number of seamen, I'm just going to guess that the second one is true."
She only smiled at him to confirm his easy guess, as she had already popped another soup-soaked piece of bread into her mouth, and was occupied by her chewing.
After giggling for a moment at whatever silliness her expression had ended up being, Will's own face became screwed up by puzzling through her last shared fact. "Your friends tried to catch a what?"
"Vampire," she answered, before finishing off the rest of her bread.
He waited for her hand to clear the mouth of the crock before dipping his next slice in, himself. "What is that?"
Her mouth was still full when she mumbled out around her food, "Undead bloodsucking fiends."
The furrows in his brow deepened alongside the youthful carvings of his bemused grin.
"Ah, of course," he mused. Then after considering some things to himself, he shook his head at his own thoughts. "That sounds… true."
"It is not, sadly," she sighed, happy that he took the bait on that one. She licked her fingers clean once more, then dried them on the spare handkerchief that had been left upon her lap. "They talked about doing it often, though. We would read foreign stories Amelia had smuggled into her hidden library."
Will cocked his head to one side in admission: she'd gotten him.
She bestowed him with a gloating smile, then leaned backwards on her palms, content for a moment to merely sit and give him free access to the remaining soup in the crock. "Alright, you go."
Will finished his bread with intently squinted eyes, rubbing his hands through his own handkerchief, as he chewed through food and thoughts alike. When he was just about done swallowing, he tucked the napkin into the safety of the basket, then drew out two small golden-green fruits, a little smaller than limes, warmer in color, and much more smooth—june plums, for dessert. He took his knife back out, and as he spoke, he got to work carving off the stems and thin skin from the first of the two fruits.
"I found Jack Sparrow trying to pick a lock with an ox bone," he first claimed; "I once fought a crocodile and have a scar to prove it," he claimed second; "I once lost an arm wrestling contest to Missus Skipwithe," he finished his play.
She pursed her lips in a giggling grin—each one of his claims involved something a little silly, this time. And he was continuing what was quickly becoming a running joke, featuring their illusive crocodile, it would seem. But she felt she had a good handle on what he was doing, especially after the story she'd heard from him at Mister Brown's. He could try to use a silly story about Jack to try and distract her from the obvious, but it wasn't a trick as easily achieved without the story's subject doing its telling. She felt she saw right through him.
"The last one is true," she declared almost immediately.
"Hey, not even a little benefit of the doubt?" Will laughed, only looking up from his task for a quick moment, to shoot her an unconvincing look of faux-outrage.
"It seemed too obvious," Elizabeth laughed back. The sea seemed to laugh with them for a moment, as a short but stronger gust rushed over her, temporarily dimming the fire with noisy pops and cracks, while tossing her hair out behind her. She shook her head into the breeze, enjoying its sensation, reveling anew at where they were now, together. "How old were you when it happened?"
"Sixteen."
She might have guessed—the same age as his little accident falling out the brothel window, and brawling with that Nathaniel Marshe boy. In fact, she thought she could picture it: being long enough at his trade to find it worthy of boasting, while being young enough to not realize how overinflated his pride had become. She wouldn't have been surprised if this Missus Skipwithe had simply been amusing herself by putting a scrawny lad in his place.
She'd have to ask for that full story later—probably while Mister Brown was there to make it more of a mess to tell.
"You seem to have been particularly foolish then."
"I fully admit it," he answered without offense. And glancing back up at her, he again flashed a glimpse of his one-sided dimple.
Flutter, flutter—again he left her a-flutter. And now that they were making such fast progress through their feast, she was beginning to wonder whether they could be making quicker progress through these challenges.
So she moved on, going after the brief Jack story with her next guess. It seemed silly enough to be real. And yet… she had a feeling…
"The first story is… false."
"It is true!" he declared, seeming both surprised and delighted that she had guessed wrong.
"Goddammit!" she groaned, regretting her second-guessing.
The sting of a defeat was severely lessened by how wide and bright he was smiling now. Her heart had begun to skip about with such delight at the sight of him, she barely registered his laughed-through explanation, "It was how he was trying to escape the fort when I freed him."
God, this man was gorgeous.
She rolled her eyes at herself, for slipping both in her temperance and her reasoning. "I thought the ox bone being out of place would make it true, but then I thought you were trying to make it obvious to trick me."
Her fingers reached out and took hold of the ale bottle again, to take another drink.
"Should have trusted your instincts," Will chided with a shake of his head.
"Honestly," she sighed in agreement, took one extra swig, then set the bottle back down. "The crocodile one is false."
He made a disappointed little tut with his teeth.
"You wound me," he accused satirically, an intentionally sharp contrast with the charming way he was now offering her a freshly peeled plum.
A smirk was what she returned to him, in exchange for his tall tale and the juicy treat she plucked from his fingers. "Not as badly as that imaginary crocodile, it sounds."
Elizabeth lifted the plum to her lips.
"Would you like to see the scar?" Will asked, cocking one eyebrow as he did so.
She paused before her teeth could break the plum's flesh, but did not drop the fruit from her mouth yet. Instead she narrowed her eyes and studied him, closely. He was teasing. He'd fought no crocodile—she would have long heard about it if he had.
Taking her bite out of the firm, sweet plum, she chewed for a moment before accusing him. "That just sounds like an excuse to remove more of your clothes. Are you trying to seduce me?"
"Only if you want me to," he quipped. He was already at work peeling the second plum, but seemed to be struck by a second thought. He paused to send her a certain look, half-flirtation, half-uncertainty. "Would it work?"
She made a point of pretending to be disinterested in him, focusing on eating around the plum's little pit.
"Who can say…?" she sighed. Then after she'd finished her fruit, tossed the pit in the flames, and he hadn't said another word, she frowned and looked at him again, at last. "Are you joking or are you serious?"
His lips bent in amusement, and he held the hand currently holding his half-peeled plum out for her examination. It was immediately obvious that no bite had ever marred his hand, so she wasn't entirely sure what joke or trick he meant for her to be spying. Something to do with the plum? Then she saw them: two minuscule dots on the outside edge of his hand, where teeth not much thicker than quilting needles must have once cut his flesh.
Glaring, Elizabeth threw Will's arm back at him, making him throw his head back in another round of laughter.
"Will Turner, if getting bit while playing with those little babies they sell in the markets constitutes a 'crocodile fight,' then I'm a bloody lion tamer!" she chided him while laughing with him.
"Alright, you're right," he conceded through the bubbles in his voice. "I mostly only have a few scars from burns… Well, and of course this new trophy on my hand."
He shook his right arm upward to coax his sleeve up his forearm without touching it with his juice-drenched fingers. Once sufficiently bared, Will held his limb out for her to take into her hands and observe, much like she had done with his hand before. Sure enough, in the dim light she could make out near his elbow a small streak of color ever-so-slightly different from the skin surrounding it—a point of contact once made with a searing hot rod of some sort, it seemed. But once she had spotted the wound and discerned its story, faded as it was, it failed to capture her interest for long. Instead, Elizabeth found herself taken once again by fire shadows across his skin, by the long, dark, yet fine hairs crossing his arm, by the long, defined grooves his tight muscles carved on their path to his fingers…
Unable to stop herself, she ran an admiring hand upward from his wrist, in an affectionate sweep not unlike one he had once done to her before, when they had been alone… on a ship at sea…
Did he remember? What it felt like…?
They were surrounded by stars instead of candles now. The only swaying in their surroundings came from the fronds and branches of the jungle trees, from the waves lapping at the edges of their camp. There were no fresh wounds to dress, no deathly encounters narrowly escaped for which either one needed comfort.
But fire was still their guide. And when Elizabeth's eyes met Will's again, the immense pull she felt inside her was very much the same…
However, he still had a sharpened knife clutched and pointing out from his hand, Elizabeth realized. He'd been cutting fruit for himself after giving the first one to her, and she had eaten it all, thoughtlessly. With that in mind, she abruptly let Will go—determining to herself she'd at least let him finish his own treat before toying with interruptions to his game.
"I guess it did work," he joked, and gave her a taunting little smirk while he went back to carving his plum.
"Shut up," Elizabeth laughed back, turning her face at an angle that she hoped shielded her confessing blush from him.
She reached for the bottle once more. Then remembering it was her turn to play now, she called to mind some new facts to share, some new half-truths she could wave to try and deceive her opponent. Will's facts had actually been about himself, this time—clearly he meant to gradually bring the game deeper into each other by degrees. She would follow his lead.
"Alright. I once… sabotaged the violin of a man who wouldn't permit me to play it; I once lost my mother's pearl earrings in a round of cards and father had to buy them back; I once…" she mentally cast about for memories or an idea, "… stole a guest's earrings when I was a child, and father made me personally return them with my apologies."
Will finished peeling his plum, and took a hearty bite before he considered her options. After nearly a minute of chewing and thinking, with his eyes leveled at her in comical slits of scrutiny, he swallowed.
"True, false, true," he eventually rattled off with confidence.
She stuck her tongue at him as she grinned. "The last one is false."
"Fuck."
The night progressed and so did the game, in care-free steps that minded not the time. Together, the lovebirds kept plucking at food, drink, and outlandish stories which, as Elizabeth had predicted, were drawing closer and closer to the more hidden parts they had of themselves. There were glimpses of untold mischief, hints at hidden talents, and winks at plenty of foolishness. But after some time, they were neither eating nor properly playing the game by its rules at all. Instead, they'd each fallen on their backs to gaze up at the stars, with their fingers interlocked between them, binding tighter the confessions they'd begun making, of feelings they'd wielded for and towards each other over the years.
"When we were young," Will was now admitting with small notes of nervous laughter, soothed by the strokes of his thumb across hers, "in the second year or so of knowing you, I used to imagine scenarios to play where one of us could kiss the other at the end of the game. I was never brave enough to suggest them back then. We'd gotten too old for games by then anyway."
Elizabeth wet her lips and smiled broadly at the sky, wondering at how his youthful wishes had lasted long enough to predict their future wiles. "I once got caught writing love charms with my friends. Mine was for my future husband… with your name written as mine… I think that's why father first sent you to the stables—before the incident."
He squeezed her hand. She squeezed his in return, and held it—a long, steady embrace between them, made smaller and more quiet.
"I took over your father's sword commission for the commodore without permission. I left Brown dead drunk to make the delivery. All because I wanted to steal more chances to cross paths with you."
A little gasp left Elizabeth's lips. And a little shame pricked at her heart, to be soothed by a little understanding she felt from this newest confession on the paths desperation could lead a person down. After all, she'd done the same to Jack. But that had been right before…
Her throat tightened around a whispered answer that blended with the sounds of the breaking surf. "I agreed to marry the commodore to persuade him to save you. He meant to leave you behind, no matter how else I begged, and I couldn't…"
She couldn't…? She couldn't even finish the thought. The alternate possibility of what could have happened at the Isla de Muerte was something she'd tried to banish far, far from her mind.
In her purview, Will's head turned in her direction. But for a reason inexplicable she was afraid to turn back, to look and see this piece of ugly truth churning in his eyes, even if his judgment was kind. She wasn't sure why. How different was it, really, making pretenses at love, when compared to intentionally wrapping a drunkard in the chains of his own vice? Was it wrong, the things they'd done before, to others who cared for them? All because they couldn't…
Though their hands remained linked, Will drew himself up, to allow himself to sit and stare into the fire instead. Elizabeth watched the way the flames burnt halo-like rims of light around his head and arms, glancing over him in sharp contest with the deepened shadows of the night. His thumb moved over hers again, easing the clench that had come to her stomach as she'd wondered whether she'd finally found a way to mar his image of her.
When he spoke, his voice was low, cutting through high-pitched hushes of wind and water. "I meant to run away on the Black Pearl, if I lived through Jack's escape. I couldn't bear the thought of watching you marry someone else. And … I felt selfish for not being able to simply stay and be happy for you."
There was a knot in her throat, an aching in her stomach over the thought of such a thing ever having happened: watching him and Jack both leap over the parapets in flashes of red, hoping blood hadn't broken free while he'd emerged through the sea's surface; then teetering on the edge as he broke free and swam away…
If that had happened…
"I would have followed you," she declared instantly, and used the anchor of their joined hands to draw herself up to sit and speak in his ear, to look in his eyes once again, now that fear of her own shame had passed. "Even if it had to be on a different ship the next day, I would have turned pirate myself, and tracked you down. And chewed your ears off. I couldn't…"
She'd stopped herself again. But this time the words she'd been swallowing hung over them both like a haunted specter: '… imagine life without you.'
The night breezes shifted, pulling their hearts out towards the harbor like an answering call to their paths not taken. Something trembled in the air around them, prickling over Elizabeth's skin as she felt not just the shape of Will's hand clasped so closely with hers, but its warmth and weight in renewed wonder. Memories. So many times and places and circumstances had come before this moment, where this hold they had could have been broken. She could see them all, one after the other, from the morning Will had been sent away to work at the smithy, to the afternoon he'd turned his back on her and hurled his sword into the bullseye of a new death penalty.
But for some reason, of all the times that played back in her mind, there was one that stood out above the rest. She could see it again: aboard the Interceptor, his fingertips barely reaching through the helmsman's grates to touch her splayed hands, calling her name as the water climbed around him. Then she'd been taken, torn away, and…
How had they ever survived it all? She could hardly breathe thinking about it, remembering how desperately she had cried and clawed and thrashed through her panicked despair over not holding onto him as tightly as she could have.
So, she simply clutched his hand tighter now, and breathed in relief when his fingers accepted hers wholly, immediately. She shifted her legs from their outstretched position to sit like he was, with knees bent up. And in doing so, she used the motion to sidle closer to him, enough to lean against him and lay her head upon his shoulder. With a chuckling sound in his throat, Will brought his head to rest atop hers as well.
Before them, star-glittered waves fell and melted over moon-dusted sands. The night was heavenly, shining while singing songs of forest and sea together, and stretching out with hours more of unbroken potential. Despite a tightness in her throat from unshed tears of relief, Elizabeth also felt bubbles in her stomach and a little rush inside her heart, simultaneously serene and simmering from Will's unhindered closeness.
A closeness that they had fought so long and hard for.
"I meant what I said in the letter," Elizabeth finally admitted.
She felt him turn his head ever so slightly, felt his fingers twitch and his breath catch. But the fire popped, the waves rushed, the trees swayed, all while Will kept silent, listening. She hooked her free hand around his arm, nestled herself a little closer.
"The wine didn't sway my feelings. It only removed any wariness I might have had in writing them down." She felt her cheeks and neck begin to glow, remembering some of the hazy love sickness with which she had been so violently afflicted that night—how sloppy and foolish and yet so deeply, truly sincere she had been, scrawling out her feelings for him, while he was still unreachable. A small laugh puffed up from her chest. "I hope… neither my actions nor my … passions have offended you."
Her head moved with Will's shoulder as he took a long, deep breath.
"Only if you've offended yourself," his soft voice hummed through his bones, against her ear. She faintly heard him swallow, and was grateful that the nervousness beginning to buzz through her limbs wasn't troubling her alone. "Do you regret saying it?"
She didn't think, hearing his question—she only felt. Her fears, which once had plagued her hopes and tainted her memories, melting away like candle wax. Strange burdens on her shoulders and pressures in her chest lightening, measure by measure. Unspoken regrets dissipating like paint stirred through a crystal glass of water.
And a lingering question of her own.
"No," she answered carefully, winding her fingers more tightly into his sleeve as she plucked out the words she wished to say. "But… I do regret not knowing… the full extent of your feelings in return."
Will lifted his head at that. Not with haste, but with a movement clean in purpose. So when his fingers found a place beneath her chin, asking her to look at him and pay close attention, she was not surprised. She let his eyes bore into hers while she pierced into his in return, seeking out the deepest parts that lay inside those fathomless windows to her lover's soul, in exchange for the pieces she had already offered from her own.
"My desires for you have completely bedeviled me since I was old enough to know them," he avowed, unwavering and clear.
The stars could have tumbled in showers upon the waves and ignited the sands—it would have seemed utterly unremarkable in comparison to the surges of elation running over her now. In some ways, she thought she ought to have felt silly for it. Will had told her he loved her tens of times now. He'd shown her possibly a hundred more. His love could not be doubted—not anymore. And yet, somehow, knowing this for certain, that he not only cared but burned for her in the ways she'd agonized for him, felt like learning it again for the first time.
There came a dawning bliss on their faces, reaching into every corner of each other's hearts, warming her far more deeply than the little fire before them.
His thumb traced an adoring path under the base of her bottom lip. Enraptured, she watched Will's eyes drifting between versions of her, past and present. "I've believed before… that if you discovered the number of nights where my restless thoughts of you stole my sleep away would have revolted you."
"As have I," she dared to laugh, amazed. "But I'll confess it now: you left me languishing Monday night. I could not find peace without you until it was nearly dawn. It was not the first time."
He led their joined hands to his mouth for a kiss kindled in firelight. Once. Twice. Three times. Softly, his lips lingered on her skin, and the sight of him stirred her insides before they had had any chance to settle. She was ready for him to repeat himself more, for his lips to stay longer—no, to wander all past her hands and arms and face.
When he didn't move right away, she opened her mouth with mounting impatience—
"What are we meant to be now, Elizabeth?" he breathed the question that had been on the tip of her own tongue for what seemed the entire night. Her words were stilled on her breath. Then he lowered their hands and looked at her with those deep, earnest eyes. "If I kiss you tonight, where do we end?"
Her hand tensed around his.
A new gasp of reality began to drift over her, with him. She craved Will's touch as much as any other part of his company—to become lovers in more than only promises. More than tacitly[1] he was admitting that he felt something comparable, and the realization was slowly overcoming her with cautious excitement. Here and now, there were no arbitrary etiquettes, no prying eyes, no other person or thing to bar the space remaining between them. There was only the secrets in the desires they had yet to speak, the specters of the choices they had yet to make.
Where could they end? Anywhere they wanted.
And yet, wondering where that even was or should be…
"I don't know," Elizabeth confessed her thoughts, and in spite of herself, fell a little farther into her ardor. Her heart was beginning to clamor, her limbs gently buzzing with tentative anticipations. "I've never been here before. I only know how madly in love I am with you, and I…" She was up and on her knees again, her un-held fingers reaching out to cup the side of his face, stroking the lingering laugh lines in his cheek. The moment his other hand found her waist, the buzz expanded into a persistent whir of wanting. "Will, I've been aching for the moment we might finally begin."
He also knelt and turned to face her, as she had him. With her hand brought back to his lips, he sighed against her with eyes shut tight, wrestling with something inside himself. And he caressed her knuckles with all the time and tenderness they'd never had before.
"So we both have ached apart, all this time." He unhooked their hands, and laid her palm over his heart. "How lucky could it be that we have wanted the same thing?"
Somehow, she continued to be taken aback by how much heat she could feel seeping out of him when they touched. Though the night was chilled by the sea's influence, prickling her skin with salted gusts and flecks of midnight, he felt nearly as warm to her as the little pyre beside them. Matched by the swelter swirling inside her, his heat practically lured her closer, beckoning her to bring it out and surround herself with it, with him.
The call was irresistible. And soon Elizabeth was leaning with her lips a mere feather's breadth away from his, brushing and yet not. Her tongue hung poised behind her teeth in suspense, ready to do as she'd done nearly every time before and simply take what she wanted from him. But there was something different about this moment, about the slower, careful way Will was seeking her feelings out, bringing their longing into alignment. Something tantalizing and intriguing.
So, she decided to continue following his lead, to revel in the discovery of where he would take them tonight, under the stars.
Lips still grazing, the next breath she shared with Will tremored on its way back to him. "I want to know every part of yourself you are willing to give me."
His hands encircled her about the waist and gently drew her toward him, until her middles had met, and the energy which had whirred inside Elizabeth flared into a clamor that ran up and down her spine.
"Which parts of yourself do you wish to give?"
Her knees were growing weak. It wasn't helped by the way his voice was a hush and a rumble at once, one she could feel in her chest. Teetering on the edge of her balance and her inhibitions, she all but threw her arms around his shoulders, and felt her chin scratch against his. She could barely stand it anymore. He was stretching her waiting until it nearly hurt. If he asked even one more question, made one more delay, she would have to take the first move.
"Any you wish to take," she offered herself with every ounce of honest feeling: 'take me, take all of me.'
He answered silently.
With his eyes dressed down by lashes laid low, Will brushed both his lips over Elizabeth's with sweetest intention. She breathed in. Carefully still, but with more purpose, he followed by nudging his bottom lip against hers, gliding carefully upward in a taunting stroke, until his lips each had nestled above hers. Then he paused, as though waiting for some unspoken signal. She breathed out.
"Elizabeth?"
She breathed not at all.
"I love you," he confessed, as earnest as though it were the first time all over again.