Cadentia Sidera

FanArt: Tia Dalma

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:43:37 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Didn't take the photograph used for reference. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! I've been wanting to draw Tia for years, and I finally purchased the supplies for the project. I couldn't imagine this picture in my usual black and white. Tia wanted warm tones.

Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
8 x 11.5 inches, pastel chalk pencils on Tiziano pastel paper.

Fic: Resurrectio (1/?)

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:05:06 GMT

Title: Resurrectio (1/?)
By Honorat
Rating: Not over PG-13 at the moment but who knows.
Disclaimer: Aye, Disney doesn’t let us make a profit but we’re not tryin’ to make a profit, are we?

Summary: Post AWE. A pirate walks into a bar. What is this? Some kind of joke? Two old friends or maybe enemies meet again. 1500 (more or less) words inspired by the prompt “rumors of my death” at Black Pearl Sails.

Thank you so much to geekmama as ever and always for the beta read.

* * * * *

High morning sunlight drifted through glittering dust motes, painting window-shaped stripes across the grimy floor of the tavern. The mistress of the house, having thrown open the shutters to let out the stale air, was bustling about repairing the ravages of the previous night’s carouse before the next nocturnal revels could begin.

Even at this hour the establishment was not without its patrons. One peacefully somnolent sot lay where he had fallen, his stentorian snores stirring patterns in the packed dirt. Another slept head down on his chest in a corner. Three-toed Jimmy and Olaudah were already perched at the counter engaged in their never-ending quest to drink each other under the table before noon. The persistent goat joined them, picking its dainty way among the rolling bottles and broken glass on the counter surface, nibbling occasionally at a scrap discarded by former diners.

In the gloom of the farthest back corner, untouched by any ray of light, slouched the figure of her most faithful patron. The weary woman considered him with displeasure. She really ought to have had him tossed out long ago. The steady stream of rum that had flowed his direction all night appeared to have tapered off, leaving him slumped next to his last long-nursed drink. Having spent his entire meager fortune on rum, the customer had progressed from collaring dubious friends to hailing not-quite-enemies to picking pockets with fumbling, rum-benumbed fingers in the effort to pay his tab. Since he’d only succeeded in lightening the purses of those drunker than he, his face was considerably the worse for having several unlearned lessons inscribed on it by outraged fists. The last few rounds he’d been punting on tick. She wasn’t sure why she’d relaxed her religiously held principles about handouts except that she had a certain unaccountable and unprofitable fondness for the pestilential rapscallion. And he always had been one of her better customers when his pockets weren’t completely to let.

A shadow suddenly dimmed the light in the squalid room. Mistress Ann turned to see who had entered the front door. Her first impression was “pirate captain.” The rakish, plumed hat, wide skirts of the great coat, embroidered waistcoat belted with leather and silver and silk, and the high boots might have spoken the gentleman, but the cutlass and daggers and brace of pistols forming the visible arsenal about the man suggested otherwise. Moreover, one didn’t see a person of that dusky colouring possessing either such sartorial splendour or such an air of arrogant assurance if piracy wasn’t in the mixture.

Bustling up to welcome the customer, Mistress Ann received a shock when the face and figure of her pirate proved to be that of a young mulatto woman. Nevertheless, she had not become the keeper of the most profitable tavern by the docks by asking awkward questions of her often-questionable patrons. Smoothly she inquired, “May I help you?”

The pirate woman, her eyes still adjusting to the darkness of the room, shrugged. “I’m looking for a man—or what’s left of him.”

“Aren’t we all?” Mistress Ann said wryly. “I have an assortment of partial men for you to choose from. Take your pick.” Her expansive wave encompassed the various figures occupying the tavern.

One corner of the newcomer’s mouth turned up. “But I already have a particular one in mind.” She scrutinized the motley collection of human flotsam until her gaze alighted on the man in the back corner.

There wasn’t much to see of him, folded over next to his tankard as he was, but what she saw appeared to be familiar.

“I’ll just take a look at that one, if you don’t mind.” She waved a hand on which gold glinted.

“Be my guest,” Mistress Ann said. “I don’t know if that one’ll wake up without you set off a cannon under ‘im.”

“Oh, he’ll wake soon enough.” The young woman said, danger striking sparks in her eyes like the flare of a flintlock. She strode purposefully across the room, avoiding the worst of the effluvia on the floor and the one body without seeming to glance down.

Fetching up at her destination, the pirate woman frowned for a moment at the somnolent tangle of hair and cloth and trinkets sprawled on the table. Then she deliberately picked up the half-full tankard and upended it over the unresponsive mass. The pile stirred, shook itself and grudgingly began to lift. A pair of dark, bleary eyes squinted up through the strands in injured outrage.

“Jack Sparrow.” The woman glared at her inebriated quarry. “I’d heard you’d come back from the dead, but I see reports have been greatly exaggerated.”

“Anamaria.” Jack sighed resignedly, disappearing again under his hair like a disturbed hermit crab. “I might’ve known,” he mumbled into the tabletop.

“You’ve lost the Black Pearl again, haven’t you?” Anamaria said disapprovingly to the back of his head.

The eyes reappeared, slightly brighter now. “I’ll get her back.”

At Anamaria’s deliberate and scornful perusal of his debilitation, he protested, “’S just a matter of time.”

She gave a delicate and disbelieving snort.

“I’ll have you know,” Jack Sparrow grew more animated if not more coordinated, “that I have a very good plan.” He attempted to stand, tripped over his own boots and resumed his seat with a thud.

Anamaria laughed.

Jack endeavored to look as though his return to the bench had been part of the aforementioned plan. “I just need to find a good boat . . .” his voice trailed off, and he eyed Anamaria speculatively. “You know, love, you look a mite dry. Have a seat here,” he patted the bench next to him invitingly, “and tell ol’ Jack what you’ve been doing with yourself this last year or two.” Attempting to offer her the remains of his drink, Jack seemed startled to discover his tankard was empty. After upending it and shaking it to make sure, he turned and sought out the figure of the tavern keeper who had returned to her cleaning. “A tankard of rum for the lady, Mistress!” he called.

Mistress Ann, having assessed the prosperity of the pirate woman’s accoutrements to the nearest farthing, produced the requested beverage promptly.

Anamaria ignored both the drink and the invitation. “If you think I’m going to let you get me too drunk to know better, Jack Sparrow, you’ve lost what’s left of your mind.”

She met Jack’s attempt to look innocently beguiling with a withering stare.

“Now lass,” he began placatingly, only to be interrupted.

“This time when you steal my boat to go after your ship, you scurvy varmint . . .” Anamaria grabbed the collar of his coat and hauled him upright with an admonitory shake, “. . . you are damn well going to take me with you.”

Jack winced as if she had dropped a mast on his head but nevertheless contrived to flash her his fallen angel grin. “Wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise, love.”

* * * * *
TBC

Fic: Crossing the Bar (24/?)

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:31:41 GMT

Author: Honorat
Rating: PG-13
Characters: : Norrington, the crew of the Dauntless, Jack Sparrow, and the crew of the Black Pearl
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat; Jack/Pearl definitely
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!

Summary: On board the Dauntless the search for the Black Pearl continues. On board the Defender, Jack Sparrow goes shopping. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?

Thank you so very much geekmama for the beta help

1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 1
19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 2
20 To Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favour'd Rage
21 Valour's Show and Valour's Worth
22 Between the Fell Incensed Points of Mighty Opposites
23 Mark'd for Hot Vengeance

* * * * *

24 Strength by Limping Sway Disabled

Scuttlebutt aboard the Dauntless had it that the old man had finally lost it. Plumb dicked in the nob he was, the foremasters agreed in accents of profound awe.

Lieutenant Gillette witnessed the transformation himself, entering the commodore’s wardroom to discover his commanding officer scowling at an untidy stack of charts on the table. He cleared his throat, and Commodore Norrington glanced up, the annoyed frown creasing his normally smooth features shifting like a fresh wind into a welcoming smile.

“Lieutenant Gillette!” the commodore exclaimed. “Just the man I need.” He pushed the charts towards his first officer. “Tell me, Andrew, where is Jack Sparrow at this moment?”

“Sir?” Startled and incredulous, Gillette stared at the commodore, trying to decipher what was obviously a rare and disturbing jest. When Norrington continued to look both expectant and completely serious, the lieutenant glanced down on the charts, hoping for further enlightenment.

He saw that Commodore Norrington had meticulously plotted the battle with the Black Pearl from the moment of their first sighting her to the moment when she had last disappeared into the gloom of storm and night. Interspersed with the charts of surrounding seas and islands were pages of data gleaned from previous encounters with Sparrow’s ship by the Dauntless and others, including her estimated rates of speed and headings in various winds and weather.

Realizing that if his answer to the commodore was to have any meaning, he would have to master the whole collection of materials as Norrington appeared to have done, Gillette reached for a chair and settled himself at the table in silence.

Over an hour later, he looked up to see the commodore gazing out the cabin windows.

As if sensing his lieutenant’s eyes on him, Norrington turned and raised a querying eyebrow. “Well?” he asked expectantly.

Unsure just what his commanding officer required of him, Gillette shrugged. “It is all just speculation, of course, sir. If even one of my assumptions is incorrect, we would be searching an entirely wrong area. However, given that Sparrow’s ship was scarcely sea-worthy when last we saw her, his object must be to put as much distance between himself and us as possible, under cover of night and storm, before he is forced to lay up for repairs or risk her going down under him. Evidence indicates that Sparrow has always been able to get more out of that ship than conditions would warrant, so I am being generous with my estimation of how far she might have traveled. Given the weather and seas last night, I would judge that the Black Pearl must have made it at least this far,” he indicated a point on a chart that did indeed strain credulity, “and possibly Sparrow could have driven her as far as this.”

The space to which he pointed was clearly impossible, but neither officer blinked at it.

Circling his index finger around a significant portion of sea, Gillette concluded, “I would propose this as the likeliest area to search.”

Norrington nodded thoughtfully. “Good work, Lieutenant. I concur with your deductions. Now,” his eyes flashed challengingly, “tell me where Jack Sparrow is least likely to be, given the same conditions and an equivalent estimate of the Black Pearl’s abilities.”

Baffled, Gillette bent his mind to the new project. In the end, the answer was not as difficult as it had appeared. “Here, sir.” He indicated an area far to the west of his first suggestion. “There is no chance of harbour to speak of, the winds are unreliable, and the currents are chancy, and it is not an area Sparrow has been known to frequent.”

“Excellent!” Commodore Norrington laughed. “Perfect. You have been of inestimable assistance, Andrew! Now,” his grin grew maniacal, “plot me a course to Jack Sparrow’s least likely location immediately. And order the Dauntless to come about.”

* * * * *

Commodore Norrington knew that his men considered him crazy for conceiving this latest plan. And perhaps he was, he acknowledged to the internal court martial regularly summoned by his mind to convene hearings on his various dealings with Jack Sparrow. However—he argued to that august and disapproving body of imaginary gold braid—flawless logic, back-breaking labour, consummate craft, even serpentine guile had availed him nothing. The notorious Sparrow and his cursed ship could scarcely ever be located, and when the Royal Navy did succeed in encountering the Black Pearl, the pirate captain always managed to maneuver Norrington’s ships into untenable positions for pursuit—into unexpected opposing currents or unpredictable storms or unfavourable shifts in the wind or even into dead lulls. The results were always the same: the Black Pearl would curvet gracefully away from her captors in a flurry of insulting stern fire, kick up her heels with a saucy flirt of charcoal sails, and vanish over the horizon.

Whether or not her hull could hold out water or her sails hold in the wind appeared to be irrelevant to the final outcome.

The conclusion was obvious: the only way to catch a madman was to join him in his insanity.

Mentally thumbing his nose at the bewigged, bespectacled heads glaring at him in his brain and feeling absurdly cheerful in spite of the fine mist laying siege to his collar with some success, Norrington prowled the quarterdeck in the dismal twilight keeping the crew on watch in a dither lest their obedience to his strange orders seem less than fully enthusiastic and thus merit his disapprobation.

The appearance of the doctor, clumping up the companionway, his expression distraught, interrupted the commodore in mid-stride.

“What is it, Gil?” Norrington inquired, his pleasant mood trickling coldly away.

“I’ve lost him, James,” Samuels said in disbelief, raising his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

Norrington had never heard quite that tone in the doctor’s voice before. A sickening and surprising sorrow swept over him like a rogue sea. “Not the little lad, Jip?” he asked, laying a comforting if cautious hand on his old friend’s arm. Gil was always surly and thin-skinned when he’d lost a patient.

“No, not what you’re imagining.” The doctor shook his head in frustrated denial. “At least, I don’t think so . . .” his voice trailed off.

When he didn’t immediately enlighten the commodore, Norrington abandoned sympathy in favour of exasperation. “Gilbert Samuels, make sense!” he ordered, accompanying the command with a brisk shake.

“I mean I’ve really lost him!” the doctor explained in bewilderment. “As in misplaced, mislaid, can’t find him, don’t know where he is. Lost!”

“How could you . . .?” Norrington thought better of the query and rephrased it more diplomatically. “How could he have gone anywhere?”

“I don’t bloody know!” Samuels exclaimed. “I would have said it was impossible. He’s still feverish, he’s missing a newly amputated leg, and I could have sworn I’d poured enough rum down him to capsize a child that size. But I leave him sleeping like the righteous, and when I return, he’s disappeared. I’ve looked, but he’s nowhere to be found.”

Commodore Norrington felt a headache beginning to grumble on his horizon.

“You don’t suppose he’s jumped overboard?” Samuels put words to his troubling suspicion.

“Of course not!” Norrington snapped more shortly than he’d intended, remembering Jip turning his own knife on himself. “Get some of the men to help you search this ship from stem to stern. Surely he cannot be that difficult to locate.”

However, though they combed the Dauntless from bowsprit to taffrail and poop deck to bilges throughout the night, not one sign of Samuels’ missing patient did they discover. All the ship’s boats were present and accounted for, so if Jip had managed to depart the Dauntless he must indeed have done so fatally.

* * * * *

No matter how desperately his mind tried to track its way out of the labyrinth of disaster in which the Defender was now lost, Captain Walton kept returning to the stomach-sinking realization that none of the past day would ever go away. He could not turn it aside with fist-clenched disbelief nor with tightly shut eyes nor with any other means of denial he tried, and he had tried them all. But always he was brutally wrenched back to the reality—his lovely ship was in the hands of pirates, his crew bound and made prisoner. Their faces, varying in degrees of rage and terror as they were dragged roughly below decks, haunted the backs of his eyelids, mutely accusing.

His actions had brought them to this.

Over and over his tormented thoughts sought for the one moment at which everything had gone wrong, the one false step that had plunged him off the path and into the briers. It was inconceivable that Jack Sparrow should not only have flown the trap set for him but also have turned it on its own perpetrators—and yet the man had done it.

A grudging respect for the pirate captain trickled amongst the great currents of hatred and disdain that swept through Walton’s unquiet breast.

At his most honest and bleakest moments he could admit that he had been outmaneuvered by a consummate strategist with greater craft and determination than he possessed. Jack Sparrow had taken the Defender as an eagle takes a fish—by sovereignty of nature.

The fact that his loss to the elusive pirate also placed him in an elite and rather numerous company was no comfort at all.

In addition, the thrice-damned villain possessed an absolutely vile sense of humour accompanied by a stranglehold grasp of irony. It had amused Captain Sparrow to allow his vanquished opponent to remain un-incarcerated while his ship was ransacked. Propelled along by assorted pirates variously violent, his hands uncomfortably bound behind him, his hip a red revolt of pain, Captain Walton stumbled, heartsick, after Jack Sparrow, forced to watch as the pirates cannibalized his beloved Defender.

The pirate captain sauntered through Walton’s ship like a housewife on a shopping expedition at a particularly fine market. Anything that could conceivably be used in the restoration of the Black Pearl was pounced upon with delight. It soon became obvious that the pirates would leave the little brig scarcely more than a shell. Bulkheads, canvas, spars, rigging, tackle, powder and shot, weapons, water, food, even the scanty personal possessions of his crew all fell prey, over the course of the day, to the voracious locusts under Sparrow’s direction.

The naval captain had to grind his teeth on his growing wrath to keep from blurting out any word that might inspire the wretched brigand to besmirch his problematic honour and order the Defender’s crew put to the sword so that he might finish his plundering in peace.

Sparrow seemed particularly charmed by Captain Walton’s bed. He ran a tar-stained, much be-ringed hand over the clean linens and poked an exploratory finger at the mattress, making a pleased little humming noise—exactly like a contented wasp, Walton thought bitterly. Leaning over, the pirate captain sniffed heartily a couple of times, then straightened with difficulty and beamed into his unwilling host’s face.

“I must congratulate you on maintaining such first rate sleeping accommodations, mate,” Sparrow said warmly to the naval captain. “And I thank you kindly for keeping them so hygienic, as it were.” He patted the cover with approval. “My own bed has been the site of a few too many surgeries and one too many assaults this day. In this instance, I believe the victor will generously allow the loser to have the spoils, and I will transfer this thoroughly unspoilt mattress to the Pearl—a plan remarkable for its perspicuity, wouldn’t you say, Captain Walton?”

As he pantomimed the proposed trade, the pirate’s grin had too many teeth in it for the pleasant tone, so Walton held his tongue and restrained himself to a short tip of the head. He reminded himself sternly that if Jack Sparrow chose to exact his revenge by needling the captain of the Defender into a frothing and futile rage, that was a small price to pay for the safety of his men.

“Tearlach!” Sparrow bellowed, turning and practically bumping into the chest of the silent giant who still trailed behind him, head bowed in the tight space.

“Oh, there you are.” The pirate reduced his volume slightly. “For a man the size of a mountain, you certainly are hard to keep track of. Can’t you make the least little bit of noise?”

The large man shrugged and obediently shuffled his feet on the deck.

Sparrow’s genuine smile flashed, and he waved an incongruously elegant hand in the direction of the bed. “If you would be so kind?”

The enormous crewman nodded carefully and, still stooping, picked up the mattress, bedding and all, as though it were a mere cushion, and wrestled the mass out the cabin door.

His place at Sparrow’s back was immediately taken by an equally silent, elderly pirate on whose shoulder perched a colourful parrot that glared balefully at Walton and occasionally snapped its beak with a fierce click.

If it had not seemed so very unlikely as to be impossible, Walton would have said that Jack Sparrow was being hovered over by several of his crew, rather as if he were a wandersome chick and they great, raggedy, ungainly hens attempting with no success to herd him to some more sheltered roost.

The impression strengthened when his egregious escort abruptly about-faced and all but dragged Walton back out through the door they had just entered. But not before he had seen Sparrow brought to his knees on the hard deck by a wracking spasm of coughing. The hens converged on their charge, clucking in consternation and hiding him from Walton’s craning backward looks.

Apparently the pirate was more badly injured than he wished to reveal to his enemy, for the two barbarians, who, Walton was prepared to swear, breakfasted on infants and picked their teeth with the bones, kept casting ineptly surreptitious, anxious glances behind them as they hustled their captive out of sight and earshot of their captain’s weakness.

Their relief was palpable when Sparrow reappeared, his impervious façade slightly marred by the lines engraving themselves deeper beside his tight mouth and the tinge of pallor under his tanned skinned. Walton suspected the comradely arm on which the pirate captain was leaning was more a necessity than an affectation.

There was a loyalty among these men, he observed, wonderingly. He had not expected to find such virtue amidst pirates. In fact, a great many of his assumptions about these wolves of the sea were coming under fire this day.

In truth, apart from his treatment of Walton, Jack Sparrow showed himself remarkably compassionate towards his captured enemies. Somehow, the man seemed to be holding in tenuous check the ferocious rage Walton saw blazing in the eyes of every pirate who looked at him. However, occasionally that control slipped. Observing several members of his crew turning against one of their helpless captives, Sparrow had ordered the offenders back to the Black Pearl, and Walton never saw them on his ship again.

When Walton realized in horror that the entire stock of food and water had been removed from the Defender, visions of long and ghastly starvation crowding his mind, he was relieved to see Sparrow verbally stripping the culprits down to the bone for their error. Later, those same miscreants could be seen sheepishly returning a reasonable portion of their stolen goods.

Perhaps the most surprising incident was when one of the pirates assigned to guard the naval prisoners brought a request from the Defender’s surgeon that he be allowed his supplies and equipment to attend those wounded in the battle for their ship. Captain Sparrow granted the request immediately and unconditionally but inquired whether, when the surgeon had seen to his own men to his satisfaction, he might offer his services to those of the Pearl’s crew injured during the previous days’ encounters.

Walton awaited the outcome with trepidation. He had no doubt that his surgeon would refuse to assist the pirates. The man had a hatred of the breed that surpassed anything the naval captain had ever seen. Patching up criminals and gallows bait would go against everything the good doctor held dear.

Captain Walton had not misjudged his man. When the emphatic response that the naval surgeon would fry in hell before he prolonged the life of any such “spawn of Satan” for a single minute was reported to Sparrow, the pirate captain’s mobile face went still as a snake poised to strike, but he merely nodded and said in tones that could freeze hot blood, “I see. Very well then. We shall contrive on our own.”

Fearing that the doctor’s principles had overwhelmed his prudence, Walton attempted to intercede for him.

Sparrow’s lip curled in scorn, but whether at Walton or his obdurate surgeon remained unclear. “What do you think I’m going to do to him? Filet him with his own scalpels? Men like that attract their own retribution, eventually.” He turned away and resumed his patrol of the Defender.

For once Walton was not unwilling to be herded after him. He wanted to hear what this unusual man had to say next.

“There’s no law says he has to love us, is there now?” The pirate shrugged. “And in the end, what difference is there between a man who’ll order a cannon fired at your head and one who’ll stand there, bandage in hand, and watch you bleed to death?” Sparrow tossed a raised-brow glance over his shoulder. “I’d just as soon none of mine be treated by a creature that desires nothing more than their demise. Your surgeon could have done me more harm had he been a less honest man.”

Such forbearance was little short of astonishing. Captain Walton couldn’t help wondering what had driven a man such as Jack Sparrow into a life of piracy.

* * * * *

Captain Sparrow did not sleep that night, vibrating back and forth between the two ships overseeing the transfer of loot and the repairs to his vessel. While Walton’s presence served no useful purpose, he was forced to remain awake as well, propelled hither and yon aboard his ship as various items were stripped from the Defender and sent on their way to the Black Pearl.

Near staggering with fatigue and pain, Captain Walton saw the disintegration of his slender, sky-raking Defender with hot-eyed, throat-tightened grief. Believing himself unobserved in the predawn gloom, he leaned heavily against the sturdy comfort of one of her ribs, resting his cheek against the rough-hewn timber, and whispered his apology for failing to keep her safe from such a fate.

Looking up, he was startled to realize that Jack Sparrow was watching him, an expression akin to sympathy in his dark, shadowed eyes.

At times, Walton felt the whole nightmare would have been easier to endure if he could have continued to view the pirate captain with unalloyed hatred.

* * * * *

As the eastern sky began casting out lures to the coming dawn, Commodore Norrington’s hope that they would find their missing pirate aboard the Dauntless went down for the last time and refused to resurface. His mind insisted on bringing up the image of a child left behind in the gathering night, alone on the deadly sea, leagues from any land, watching life and light sail away on the white wings of a tall ship. Had he regretted his choice at the last? Perhaps called for help, unheard?

No. The corner of the commodore’s mouth tilted in a sad half-smile. If the little firebrand they’d plucked from the sea had chosen to divest the Royal Navy of its prey, he would have gone to that fate with the same spirit and fortitude with which he had endured his amputation—and cursed them all roundly as he did so.

Norrington found himself wandering towards the surgery where he discovered a woebegone Samuels straightening his already immaculate tools. To the momentary glimmer of hope in the doctor’s uplifted glance the commodore shook his head fractionally.

“I’m calling off the search, Gil,” he said quietly.

The light quenched, and the doctor sighed. “So he’s really no longer aboard?”

“So it would appear,” Norrington said regretfully. “Even the other lads didn’t find him in any of their impossible hiding places.”

Samuels scowled at the retractor he was holding. “I wish he could have believed . . . “

His words were interrupted by Bailey bounding into the surgery, his wide white smile splitting his dark face. “They find him, doctor! The li’l pirate! In the fo’c’sle!”

The words transformed the doctor.

“Now that is excellent news,” Samuels beamed, thumping his assistant on the back hard enough to remove the air from his lungs.

In an excess of good spirits, Bailey threw his arms around the doctor. Not satisfied with the single hug, he turned on the commodore. Too startled to object, Norrington found himself being embraced by the overly enthusiastic crewman. But the commodore was neither given the time nor had he the heart to chastise the man for the familiarity.

Bailey was already tugging on the doctor’s arm. “Hurry, doctor. The li’l boy, he don’t look too good.”

Exiting the surgery, the men headed for the forecastle at a pace that perilously resembled an undignified trot, Bailey ranging ahead of the two officers and circling back like an eager hound.

The small crowd clustered in the narrow passage between the berths in the forecastle parted smartly to allow the commodore and doctor through. The watch had just changed, so none of the men had yet turned in. The object of their interest appeared to have wedged himself into the tiny space between a sea chest and the hull of the ship.

“I swear I laid me glims on that there chest just ‘alf a minute past,” a burly foremaster was proclaiming loudly. “An’ ‘e warn’t there. I jist nipped over t’ the ‘ead for a bit of a piss. An’ back I comes; an’ there ‘e is!”

Jip lay curled behind the large chest like a fallen cherub, his mop of gold hair matted with dirt, his clothing encrusted with all manner of filth, apparently unaware of the commotion surrounding him.

He roused briefly, when he was carefully pried out of his hiding place, to murmur, “Have you found my ship?”

“No, we have not,” Norrington told him.

“Good.” A small smile hovered on his lips, whisked away, and then Jip was unconscious again.

“Move out of my way you great lummox,” Samuels growled, elbowing the commodore aside.

“That is Commodore Lummox, to you,” Norrington remonstrated mildly. “At least counterfeit some respect if you have it not.”

The good doctor had never been able to see rank as anything more than a mass hallucination of the Royal Navy, but he generally humoured the delusional men with whom he served. However, whenever his medical instincts were roused, all divisions and gradations of men vanished from his mind without a trace. The commodore’s only evidence that his chiding had been heard was a preoccupied grunt.

Resigning himself to gross insubordination until Samuels had treated his errant patient, Norrington asked, “Where do you suppose he has been all this time?”

“Certainly not just hiding somewhere quietly. Look at this.” The doctor lifted one of Jip’s hands, revealing the calloused palm broken-blistered and bleeding. “And he’s been crawling quite some distance,” Samuels added, pointing to Jip’s bruised and scraped knees making their way into the world through his torn breeches. The filthy bandage covering his amputation glistened with bright, fresh blood. “He looks like hell,” the doctor finished cheerfully, “but there’s nothing wrong with him that time and rest won’t cure. His fever’s all but gone, now. He’s just thoroughly exhausted.”

Norrington frowned as Samuels and Bailey prepared to transport Jip back to his quarters in the surgery. Just what, exactly, had their little conundrum been up to that had left him in such a state? No good, that was assured.

“One minute.” He forestalled Bailey lifting the lad. “Search him for weapons.”

Samuels shot him an outraged look, but Norrington snapped. “Do it!”

Even the doctor gave way when that note appeared in the commodore’s voice. He nodded to Bailey, and his assistant rifled through Jip’s scant garments.

Only Norrington was unsurprised when the investigation revealed that Jip was once again in possession of the knife he’d brought aboard the Dauntless. Wordlessly, Bailey handed it to the commodore.

As Bailey began trundling the oblivious Jip back towards the surgery, Norrington turned the elegantly shaped, well-worn blade in his hands. Just what had the boy planned to do with that knife? Or had he already done it?

At the door of the surgery, Norrington delayed Samuels with a hand on his arm. “Keep a better eye on him, Gil,” he suggested.

Samuels grinned wryly. “I promise, either Bailey or I will always be in the room with him. He won’t be able to wander off again. In fact, I predict he’ll sleep for vast tracts of time before he awakens full of the Old Scratch.”

Privately, Norrington was convinced that Jip was already as full of the devil as he could hold, waking or sleeping.

Not a watch later, the commodore’s conviction was vindicated and the doctor’s reputation as a prophet lay in tatters. A sheepish Samuels reported to his commanding officer that their captive pirate was once again at large.

“I swear, he simply evaporated from under our noses,” the doctor complained. “I didn’t take my eyes off him.”

On a whim, Norrington felt his pocket where he’d absent-mindedly slipped Jip’s knife. As he’d half expected, it was gone.

Resignedly, he ordered the hunt for Jip resumed. After a brief moment spent considering just what a pirate the size of a bar of soap after a hard day’s wash might consider doing to interfere with the operation of a first rate Royal Navy warship, Norrington also ordered a watch set on the rudder chain and doubled the watch on the powder room.

The hunt was unsuccessful. The rudder chain and the powder remained unmolested.

Jip simply reappeared, hours later, sleeping in the hammock from which he’d vanished, as though his absence had merely been a figment of their corporate imaginations—except that he looked even more exhausted and filthy, if it were possible. His knife was not on his raggedy person.

His whereabouts and activities while he was gone remained a mystery. Jip merely looked blankly uncomprehending when questioned, as though the fact that he had been out of the room at all was news to him.

Commodore Norrington was not deceived by the innocent act. That a child might stray in delirium—possibly so. But that he should be impossible to locate and should pick the commodore’s own pocket under such circumstances—impossible. And yet they had no evidence that Jip had been up to anything subversive.

Pondering whether or not to solve his dilemma by locking the boy in the brig, Norrington decided on a compromise until he had a definite accusation.

“I’m sending you someone to help you keep an eye on him,” Norrington informed the doctor. “Two someones, in fact. Misters Murtogg and Mulroy could use something to keep them busy, and they have a certain amount of experience herding pirates.”

Having disposed of the problem of Jip for the nonce, Norrington returned to pacing the quarterdeck. The Dauntless was beginning to object to the course she was held to. Never at her best in fretful winds, she seemed sluggish and out of temper. His lady always had preferred her weather and seas to be ideal, circumstances he could seldom give her when pursuing Jack Sparrow, and particularly not on this, his latest wild throw of the dice. The currents in this part of the Caribbean were indeed vexing.

It was, Commodore Norrington thought bitterly, perfect Sparrow territory. If that miscreant wasn’t here, it was certainly his fault that Norrington was. All that was missing were hidden shoals. Perhaps Sparrow was busy arranging for them to be imported.

To add to the niggling difficulties of the day, his ship had apparently sprung a seam during the storm and her pumps had been required twice now. So far the ship’s carpenter had been unable to locate the leak, let alone patch it with oakum and tar.

It was shaping up to be a classic Sparrow hunt, indeed. Norrington hoped that, wherever he was, Jack Sparrow was having a close brush with hell.

* * * * *

TBC

FanArt: Sketches from Worthy of His Steel

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:25:07 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! These are some extremely rough sketches of the characters in my backstory for Will Turner in Worthy of His Steel the seven part Chapter 3 Canticle for a Blacksmith. I used no photo references for these.

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Brown

Will's First Swordfight with Gordon

Mr. Nipps and Susanna Brown

Joe, Gordon and Emily Brown

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 8 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

FanArt: Mermaid from “Beneath”

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:37:59 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: soft R
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Not making any money. No photo references used.

Summary: More Art! Here is my interpretation of the Mermaid in virgo_79's wonderful CotBP compatible story of the younger Jack Sparrow and his acquaintance with Bootstrap Bill, Beneath 1, Beneath 2, Beneath 3, Beneath 4, Beneath 5, Beneath 6, Beneath 7. This is a magnificent story and well worth reading.

Sequel to Catch of the Day, Salvage 1, Salvage 2, Salvage 3, Salvage 4, Salvage 5, Salvage 6.

Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

Fic: Crossing the Bar (23/?)

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:37:42 GMT

Author: Honorat
Rating: R for violence and language and disturbing content
Characters: Jack Sparrow, Anamaria, the crews of the Black Pearl and the Defender
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat; Jack/Pearl definitely
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!

Summary: On board the Defender and the Black Pearl things get even more complicated for the boarding parties. Who is going to end up with which ship? And what will happen between Banks and Anamaria? (Avoid finding out if your stomach isn’t very strong.) Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?

Thank you so very much geekmama for the beta help

1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 1
19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 2
20 To Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favour'd Rage
21 Valour's Show and Valour's Worth
22 Between the Fell Incensed Points of Mighty Opposites

* * * * *

23 Mark'd for Hot Vengeance

As the two hulls jostled each other across the constantly narrowing and widening strip of sea that churned far below, the captain of the Defender stood with the stillness of ease and iron will by the port rail of the quarterdeck. He was a slender man of medium height, but imposing in his assurance. At least he hoped he projected sufficient calm confidence in spite of the battle he was waging with the overwhelming desire to pace and chew his nails. A commanding officer could not afford the luxury of nervous mannerisms—at least not where his men could see him.

His ship grunted and creaked reproachfully each time the waves brought the ravaged timbers of her dark opponent clashing against her. Like a rock in an incoming tide, the waterlogged Black Pearl rode lower and lower, so that in spite of her list to port under the weight of her fallen masts, Walton had a reasonable view of the activity on her decks. His eyes, grey as the sky, if considerably warmer, followed the movements of his men through the fine drizzle that was still descending.

The tension aboard the Defender had eased ever so slightly as the seizure of the Black Pearl proceeded without incident. Nevertheless, Captain Walton had not allowed his remaining crew to relax their vigilance. None of the searches had yet turned up any evidence that Sparrow had survived their bombardment, but neither was there a body as proof that he had not.

If the stories contained any grain of truth in them, a man could not congratulate himself on having eliminated Jack Sparrow until he had that slippery rogue dead and rotted at his feet.

Some men were like that—nigh impossible to kill, so fiercely clinging to their own survival that they seemed to have all of the lives of a cat combined with that creature’s ability to land on its feet no matter from what height it was hurled. Acknowledging the alchemical mixture of seamanship, daring, desperation and luck that had allowed the pirate to slip his ship from the jaws of the original trap that had been set for him, Captain Walton paid Sparrow the tribute of not dismissing him now. If the man was still on his ship and among the living, he would be that most dangerous of animals—a predator cornered and fighting for its life.

Not for the first time, Captain Walton wished he were in any condition to lead his boarding party himself.

* * * * *

Alexander Walton had accidentally achieved his first command of a ship during a particularly grueling firefight with a French privateer when a cannon ball had neatly removed the head of his captain and left him, the first officer, to extricate the ship and crew from what was proving to be a losing battle.

He had unexpectedly managed to turn defeat into victory while refusing to leave the quarterdeck in spite of a length of iron bar driven into his hip. Returning to Port Royal with his prize, he’d scarcely been conscious let alone triumphant. When he could think at all, he had imagined he’d also just achieved his last command.

Nothing in his life ever turned out as he expected.

He had questioned, if not Commodore Norrington’s sanity, at least his judgment when his young commanding officer had breezed into his dingy sickroom with the light of the sun on the sea in his eyes and a set of orders confirming Walton’s rank as Captain in the Royal Navy. His feeble protests that he was incapable of walking out of the house let alone taking command of a vessel had been met with Commodore Norrington’s politely implacable disbelief. Surely no officer of the King’s Navy would let himself be routed by a handful of clucking old women and avaricious horseleeches.

“I have,” the Commodore had informed him, “as sweet a little brig as ever a man sold his soul to command, floating in the harbour awaiting her new captain. If an officer of your caliber cannot outwit Mistress Beedle and her ilk and present himself inside of a month at her commissioning, I tremble for England. There are dastardly pirates to chase, French pretensions to suppress, and the glory of England to uphold. I need men with brains, not legs, to accomplish these. Legs are what we keep minions and midshipmen for.”

“Begging the commodore’s pardon,” Walton could not keep the grin off his face, “but if England is really serious about quashing piracy and walloping the French, she will appoint Mistress Beedle to the Admiralty House post haste.”

That had surprised a rare crack of laughter from the commodore. “You may have a point there, Captain Walton. I shall be sure to mention it to them at the earliest opportunity.”

Against his own expectations, Walton had limped aboard the Defender to take command of her 100 feet of hull, her 18 six-pounders and two swivel guns, and her 110 officers and enlisted men, just as Commodore Norrington had ordered.

But the wreck that remained of his left hip had relegated him forever to ornamenting the quarterdeck rather than leaping between ships with his pistol drawn.

* * * * *

Moving to another vantage point with the limp that was so much a part of him he scarcely noticed it anymore, Captain Walton considered the status of his seizure of Jack Sparrow’s ship.

If his men aboard the Defender were more relaxed, such was not the case aboard the Black Pearl.

On one of his circumnavigations of the prize ship’s decks, Lieutenant Armstrong had confided across the few feet separating the ships that he’d never seen the men so spooked. “If I’m not careful,” he had grumbled, “I’ll have two parties come around a corner and open fire on one another.”

The humours of the Fates being what they were, several minutes later a shot rang out on the Pearl, electrifying the occupants of both vessels and sending Armstrong boiling down a hatch in a cloud of profanity that could have stripped the decking off a lesser ship.

When he reappeared, Armstrong was followed by two marines supporting a sheepish-looking sailor with blood dripping from his foot. Having successfully disposed of his unfortunate crewman across the planks to the Defender, the lieutenant informed Captain Walton that he would keel-haul himself if he ever issued that bloody idiot a personal weapon again. “That is the fourth time his nerves have overcome him, and he’s shot something inappropriate,” Armstrong said in exasperation. “At least this time he merely hit himself. Next time I’m like to lose something far more valuable.”

As the lieutenant stalked off, and the strain on the two ships abated somewhat, Captain Walton pondered the event with a growing sense of unease.

The echo of that shot had shivered through the pirates toiling over the pumps and the ship’s masts like a strong wind. Heads had come up as hands moved convulsively towards empty scabbards. A growl of voices, like distant thunder, had swelled and faded again before the captive crew slowly subsided into an unconvincing submission.

Walton could recognize men labouring under orders they found almost unbearable.

And yet the elderly pirate who claimed charge of the Black Pearl did not seem a commander forged of sufficient fire and steel to hold such a crew to such a course. Could Sparrow do so from beyond a watery grave? Or was this unnatural calm evidence that the pirate captain was still alive to enforce some mad and nefarious plot only such a mind could conceive?

* * * * *

When no further shots had shattered the eerie calm of the ship, Requin had almost begun to relax.

Then the cabin door swung open to admit Banks.

Hargraves had been all bluster but no real threat, and Requin had almost believed the sensible lieutenant would be seeing to their disposition. Though if Captain Sparrow was not winning the day over on the Defender, he supposed even the lieutenant would be handing them over to be hanged for the entertainment and edification of the masses. But Banks was back, sweating and triumphant and tossing his bayonet onto the tabletop.

“All rounded up,” he said smugly. “At least all of ‘em still standin’. What a passel of cannon fodder! Scarcely a man of ‘em fit to straggle out on deck. No wonder they lost masts in that storm. The middies could have handled this capture by themselves. Course we haven’t found Sparrow yet. Wardroom’s thick with stiffs, but he ain’t one of ‘em.”

As he was speaking, he stripped off his crossbelts and sword and began unfastening his coat. “And now for the just reward after a long day and night’s work. While the cowardly bastard’s hidin’ out shakin’ in his boots—or feedin’ the sharks—I’ll be plowin’ a furrow with his heifer.”

Tense with the need to do something, but having no clue what it might be, Requin tossed an anguished glance at Anamaria. She was watching the two marines, her face carved in unmoving mahogany, her eyes black with fury. Requin, like every member of the crew, had felt the lash of Anamaria’s temper before, but he realized now that he’d never seen her really angry. Those had been short afternoon cloudbursts before this looming hurricane. He didn’t know whether to be afraid for her or for what she might do to those two unsuspecting English marines.

Hargraves looked torn between eagerness and reluctance. “Captain might not be so pleased ‘bout this, Banks,” he said worriedly.

“Captain’ll understand,” Banks dismissed his apprehension. “It’s been a long six months to depend on shipboard fare. And what does it matter who does what to this trollop? She’s naught but gallows bait anyway.”

He approached Anamaria, teeth bared in a predatory smile. “Fact is, she might appreciate tuckin’ a real man between her legs before she swings, won’t you, sweetheart? Considerin’ you’ve had to make do with that poor excuse for a painted popinjay, Sparrow, eh? Sounds good for a change, don’t it?” He grasped the blanket under which she was hiding and twitched it onto the deck.

“You piss more than you drink,” Anamaria said flatly.

Banks’s smile twisted into a snarl. “Oh, you have been fed with a fire shovel, haven’t you, you dirty slattern!” He gripped Anamaria’s hair at the back of her head hard, arching her neck back until she winced. “Now listen to me, you filthy little harlot. This can go one of two ways. Either you cooperate, and I make this easy for you. Or you fight me, and this is going to be very, very hard. Understand?” With his other hand he was ripping at the neckline of her shirt.

Requin saw every muscle outlined in Anamaria’s arms as she clenched her fists by her sides. He leapt clumsily to his feet, his hands bound behind him throwing him off balance. “No!” he shouted. “You cannot do that! She is not . . .”

“Shut up, Requin!” Anamaria’s command was quiet but so intense it stopped Requin dead in the water. “Don’t make a cake of yourself. Please. This is between me and this . . .” the air was thick with unshed words “. . . fine gentleman,” she finally finished, the irony dripping like vitriol. “Just . . . stay calm . . . and don’t do anything . . . stupid.”

“That’s a good girl,” Banks relaxed his hold on her hair. “I knew you were fly to the time of day.”

Slowly Requin subsided into the chair again, still holding Anamaria’s gaze. This was what Captain Sparrow had meant when he’d said it was hardest to stand by and not fight.

Anamaria nodded her approval.

Requin wanted to look away. He wanted to close his eyes and plug his ears. But if this was all he could do—be an island of sanity in this sea of madness for Anamaria to cling to—then that was what he would do. The captain had asked him not to leave her alone.

* * * * *

It took the crew of the Defender a stunned eternal moment to register that their ship had been inexplicably boarded by what seemed an unending swarm of enemies. One instant the decks had been clear and peaceful, the next they seethed with ragged, dripping bodies and flashing steel. The startled reports of pistols and muskets, the heart-stopping cries marking accurate shots, rapidly dissolved into the glittering clash of blades.

In the moments before the fighting became too fierce for thought, horrified realization struck Captain Walton. However impossible it might seem, the pirates of the Black Pearl had made it onto the Defender.

Anguish speared his heart as he saw how vastly outnumbered were his remnant men. Knowing the disparity between Sparrow’s crew and his own, he’d committed the majority of them to boarding the Pearl. All that remained on the Defender were a section of marines in her tops, several gun crews, his cook and artificer, and the ship’s boys. Thirty souls in all—enough to work the ship but nowhere near enough to quell such an invasion.

Their only hope of salvation lay in the men aboard the Black Pearl being able to cross back over to the Defender. But the pirates had already shoved the boarding planks into the sea and hacked away all but two of the ropes binding the ships together. Apparently Sparrow had also ordered his decks cleared of grapnels and planks, because Walton could hear Armstrong above the din bellowing for a search to be made for them.

Through the haze of rain and recoil smoke, he could see pirates stealing up the rigging, taking some musket fire, at least one falling into the sea, but overcoming his valiant marines before they could reload. Below, his gun crews were doggedly defending their charges, but they could not hold out much longer against such superior numbers. And the youngest of his crew. Walton felt sick. He could just make out tiny Teddy Parker, he of the golden voice and dancing feet, fighting gallantly but falling to two pirates twice his size, his perpetually grimy face streaked with the white tracks of tears as the villains wrestled him to the deck. What would become of the children?

And then the battle engulfed him.

Time for strategy ripped from their hands by this rapid attack, Walton and one of his two officers remaining on the quarterdeck emptied their pistols into the first pirate hat to show above the companionway. The shots hit home, flinging the hat helplessly into the melee in the waist of the ship. However, the head that should have accompanied it remained unscathed, appearing far below the upraised cutlass on which the hat had been perched.

Walton found himself facing the smallest man he’d ever seen outside a freak show. A single braid on his chin sticking out straight with excitement, blue eyes glaring, mouth distorted in a snarl, the little man attacked. Drawing his sword in a sweeping parry Walton sent his diminutive opponent reeling into the orbit of one of his lieutenants. But scarcely had Walton recovered from that encounter when a shout rang out: “’Ware, Captain!”

Whirling to meet the threat behind him, Walton’s stomach made a dive for the bilges.

The man was a giant. He loomed above Walton like a great bear, naked torso decorated with tattoos and scars, the glistening muscles of his arms equal in size to the Naval captain’s thighs. In spite of his great bulk, he struck with the speed of a cobra, what his bladework lacked in science thoroughly compensated for by the power and swiftness of his attacks.

Walton found none of his superior technique the least bit effective against an opponent who could continue an attack right through the parry that was intended to block it, as though the captain’s sword were a mere blade of grass.

Yet no expression crossed the man’s face. Silently and relentlessly, this Goliath of a man pursued his smaller opponent. As if, Walton thought wildly, a god, in hate of mankind, destroyed in such a shape.

The Defender’s captain knew he could not last long against such an adversary.

In the scramble of desperate footwork to avoid being cleaved in two like a beef carcass, Walton felt something in his protesting hip give way. Pain radiated like strokes of lightening, causing him to stumble and nearly fall to the rain-slicked deck.

The pirate’s blade narrowly missed removing the captain’s sword arm as Walton struggled to his feet, ignoring the agony twisting knives into his leg.

Inexorably, his colossal opponent forced the Naval captain back towards the taffrail. Fatigue began to stalk Walton, crushing his breath and filling his ears with the drum of his labouring heart. Sweat stung his eyes and the muscles in his sword arm quivered with the effort of withstanding the bone-jarring blows. He could not endure much more.

Twice more, Walton fell back against the deck for what he thought must be the last time, and twice again he managed to beat aside the killing stroke and regain his staggering footing. The third time, there was no mistaking it. Down on his knees, his sword hand pinned to the deck by one enormous boot, he saw the pirate’s cutlass descending in an arc he would never be able to evade.

Bracing himself for the bright, sharp impact of death, Captain Walton refused to look away.

Then the huge pirate’s blade stopped just short of Walton’s chest as a second blade snaked across his neck, biting the vulnerable flesh under which arteries pulsed in rapid counterpoint to his gasps for air. His sword was kicked from his nerveless grasp and his arm was wrenched back between his shoulder blades in a manner that drowned out the protest of his hip as he was heaved to his feet.

“Now, mate,” a husky, intimate voice breathed by his ear. “For two people who’ve never met, things have been getting a mite personal between us. You’ve been killing my men and trying your damnedest to take down my ship. So I thought it was about time we got to know each other.”

Jack Sparrow. It could only be he.

Somehow the pirate captain had managed to dissolve off the decks of the Black Pearl and rematerialize aboard the Defender. Commodore Norrington was right. There was something inhuman about the man.

Preferring a quick end to whatever vengeance Sparrow must surely be plotting, Walton made an abortive and entirely rash attempt to wrest himself from the pirate’s grasp.

“Unhand me, you bloody bastard!” he choked. Warmth trickled down his neck although as yet there was no pain.

“Owwww! Damnit, you mutton-headed gudgeon!” his captor swore. “Do you want me to slit your throat? Tearlach, hang on to this fool before he accidentally kills himself!”

Finding himself as thoroughly immobilized as a swaddled infant in the unyielding grip of the giant, Walton ceased to struggle and glared impotently at the pirate swaggering into view, worn cutlass blade continuing to radiate from the point where it touched his captive’s neck.

Curiously, Captain Walton scrutinized his arch-adversary, the legendary captain of the Black Pearl. Even amidst the horde of barbarically clad felons in the uproar of skirmishing, he drew the eye, a flickering flame of a man, sparks of colour glinting in his wild locks, gold flashing in his savage grin, perilous shadows lurking in his eyes.

“Let us keep this as civilized as possible,” the pirate addressed the Naval captain, all exaggerated cordiality and expansive gesture. “Since our mutual acquaintance Commodore Norrington is not present to do the honours, let me introduce myself.”

With mock courtesy, the pirate captain swept off his battered tricorn in a slight bow. “I am Captain Jack Sparrow, although not, alas, at your service.” He straightened with some difficulty and delicately replaced his hat. “Whom do I have the honour of addressing?”

“You whoreson knave! I'll see you hanged!” Walton spat, the urge to skewer the wretch stronger than his fear of the pirate’s intentions.

“Tut, tut, my good man.” Sparrow shook his head regretfully. “Manners must have changed a great deal since the last time I had call t’ use ‘em!” The enigmatic expression in his dark eyes grew more overtly dangerous. “You may want to consider carefully the fact that the man with his really quite serviceable sword at your throat is the same man you have been doing your very best to kill for the better parts of two days. You walk a fine line, Captain. My patience has worn thin.” His voice hardened like lava pouring into a cold sea. “Your name,” he insisted. The pressure increased to the point of pain on Walton’s neck.

In spite of his determination to show no weakness, Walton felt his treacherous stomach lurch. He had to buy Lieutenant Armstrong time to muster a counter attack. “My name, scoundrel, is Captain Alexander Walton,” he said, pleased that his voice did not betray the falling of his heart.

“Very good, Captain Walton,” Sparrow approved, relaxing his threatening cutlass. “I am afraid we shall have to dispense with the handshake.” He shrugged unapologetically. “No point in exhibiting that one comes in good faith and unarmed when one does not, eh?”

Several of the pirates within earshot guffawed heartily. That they had the leisure to do so was not a good sign. The fighting was decreasing rapidly as his men were overpowered, and Armstrong’s men were having difficulty aiming for the pirates on the opposite ship because the cowards were shielding themselves behind the Defender’s captive crew.

“I am very much afraid I shall have to order you bound,” Sparrow apologized insincerely, gesturing to his enormous minion to fulfill his word. “Vicissitudes of war and all that. I’m sure you understand. If you don’t put up a fuss, Tearlach will be careful not to break anything too valuable.”

“What do you want with my ship?” Walton demanded, ignoring the ropes being lashed around his wrists. Anything would be better than being manhandled by Sparrow’s monster, he decided.

“Correction. That would be my ship now, Captain Walton.” The smugness in Sparrow’s voice was unendurable. “She’s a sweet little brig. Though if you’re real reasonable, we might be able to discuss terms for you getting her back.”

Walton glared at the pirate with futile rage but could think of no response sufficiently scathing.

“And now Captain Walton, let us examine your situation for a moment, shall we?” Sparrow said. “It seems to me that you have a dilemma, don’t you?”

“That is an interesting way to put it,” Walton said attempting to match the pirate captain’s nonchalance. “My situation, as you call it, depends on what exactly your intentions are.”

“Just furthering your education, mate.” Sparrow’s fierce grin had far too much of the shark in it. “Now your crew is over there holding my Black Pearl. She’s dismasted and going down, and they have no guns. I, on the other hand, am in your former position—I can order these little cannon,” he waved his hand in the direction of the Defender’s guns, all in the hands of pirates now, “to blast your men to bits of blood and bone and gristle. It’s a hell of a feeling, ain’t it?”

“You wouldn’t dare!” It was less a statement of belief than a devout prayer.

The pirate captain closed measure with Walton until barely a hand span separated their eyes. “I’d not be so all-fire certain about what I would or would not dare, mate,” he said softly, his voice going dulcetly vicious. “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow—or haven’t you heard the stories?”

Walton had heard many stories, some more fabulous than others. Which ones were true was a question he wasn’t prepared to answer. But the one thing they all had in common was the fact that Jack Sparrow never quite lost a desperate gambit. He had the feeling the Defender was about to become another one of those stories if he didn’t think of something extraordinary very soon.

“Now Captain Walton,” Sparrow broke into his silence. “I’m taking a gamble that Commodore Norrington is a fair decent judge of men and that’ll make you a good man. So you’d best be praying I’m right, because we are about to see just how much your life is worth to your crew. I hope, for your sake, you’ve been fair to them.” Sparrow grinned madly at him. “So, Captain Walton,” he waved his hand in the direction of the Black Pearl, “I suggest that you have a word with your men.”

“My men know their duty,” Walton said with proud assurance.

“Ah, yes—to die for the sake of . . . what?” Sparrow asked impatiently. “That scuppered ship? The bit of swag drowning in her hold? Some misguided sense of honour? For the sake of what prize will you see them cold and bloody dead at your feet?” Anger licked at the edges of his words. “Let me chart another course for you. You order your men on the Pearl to surrender and all of us survive—or at least all of you survive and what’s left of us can go our way to live or die as fate sees fit.”

“I do not surrender to pirates, nor do I strike bargains with them,” Walton insisted doggedly.

“I’m not giving you that option, Captain Walton.” Sparrow’s tone was clipped and cold. “Your ship is mine, will you or nil you. My men outnumber yours. Whether you live or die will not change that fact. But as you wish.” He raised his hands in resignation and turned towards the Black Pearl, propelling Walton ahead of him to foil any attempts by Armstrong’s marines to pick him off with a well-placed shot. “I’ll have a word with your men.”

Aboard the pirate ship, Armstrong and his boarding party churned with frustrated violence, firearms aimed at the Navy vessel. At the first shots aboard the Defender, they’d immobilized the free pirates working to resurrect the Black Pearl. Only the men at the pumps remained, working resolutely at musket point. Sparrow’s sweeping glance took in the hair-trigger situation and alighted unerringly upon the man in charge.

Maintaining his one-handed grip on Walton, Captain Sparrow flourished his hat with the other hand. “Ahoy there, Lieutenant!” he hailed. “What say you to a bit of parley before any more unnecessary death and destruction occurs?”

“The only word I have for you, villain,” Armstrong’s retort blazed across the space of sea, “is that if you do not release Captain Walton, surrender your arms to him, and order your crew to stand down, I will kill every living pirate on this vessel,” he paused for effect, then delivered his coup de grace, “including the lovely young woman you have ensconced in your cabin.”

Walton started. What in hell was Armstrong up to now? What woman was this?

The pirate captain’s eyebrows flew up into his red scarf. “Now that’s a plan I hadn’t considered,” he said contemplatively. “Just what do you propose should be my incentive for doing any such thing? I might point out,” he offered with the air of a man dropping a bit of useful information, “that all I have to do is kill every Navy man on this vessel and set sail for the horizon leaving you to drown with my dead when the Pearl goes down.”

“Why only this,” Armstrong bared his teeth in a vicious grin. “You surrender, and we’ll let your woman go free. She won’t even come to trial for piracy.”

“And what if I’m not interested in your little exchange? ” A sneer curled the pirate captain’s lips. “That don’t seem like a fair trade to me. One senior naval officer, a handful of men, and a ship for a bit of a girl? Particularly since the rest of our necks are in the noose.”

The words were callous, cruel even, but Walton could feel the man who held him was quivering tense with an emotion that was not making it to his voice.

The muscles were working in Armstrong’s face. The man was not happy about what he was doing, Walton could tell. “Don’t give me that, Sparrow,” his lieutenant barked. “The longer you hold out, the less likely that young woman will remain in one piece.”

Captain Walton was horrified. Since when had the Navy been dealing in female hostages like—well—like pirates? “Captain Sparrow,” he hissed. “Please believe me, I had no idea . . .”

“Keep your mouth shut!” Sparrow snapped, his cutlass returning to Walton’s throat. Walton shut up.

“Now honestly, lieutenant,” the pirate captain spoke with sarcastic condescension. “Are you actually expectin’ chivalry from a pirate?”

He had been, actually, Walton realized. They’d all heard the stories about how Sparrow had rescued the Governor’s daughter at the risk of his own life.

“I’ll tell you the truth, mate,” Sparrow continued. “Not because you deserve it, but because she does. Anamaria is not ‘my woman.’ She belongs to nobody but herself. She is a member of my crew, first mate on my ship, and that is all. And if I let you use her to trap us again, she’d kill me. Besides, I’m not so certain you have her as captured as you think you have.” Thunder began to prowl in that voice. “So let’s just get one thing straight before you go trying anything stupid. I will do whatever it takes to make absolutely certain that you will never take that ship and that none of my men or women will ever hang on your gallows. And that includes blowing the Black Pearl to the depths, myself. Surrender and your captain goes free, your crew is unharmed and your ship will be returned to you with enough sail and provisions to make port. Which is mighty reasonable of me considering what you were planning t’ do to us if it were the other way around.”

Lieutenant Armstrong glared at the pirate holding his captain. “You’d never fire on your ship,” he stated confidently. The stories of Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl were even more legendary. “I’m calling your bluff, Sparrow. Surrender now, or my men open fire.”

“I’m not a fool, Lieutenant,” the pirate said coldly and even a touch sadly.

He turned his head towards his men on the guns, and his shout of command nearly deafened Walton. “Fire!”

Fire belched from cannon mouths, the guns lunged in their carriages, and cannonballs whistled across the decks of the Black Pearl and through her ravaged hull.

Walton felt each thundering shot vibrate through the man that held him captive, as though it brought Sparrow physical pain to attack his ship.

Again and again the powerful guns spoke.

Walton shuddered. When had their perfect trap turned into such a nightmare? He’d done everything right, but here they were in the clutches of this madman, who seemed capable of any atrocity.

Silence and a haze of smoke descended.

“Well, Lieutenant?” Sparrow asked mildly. “Shall I continue?”

At that moment a scream echoed from the captain’s cabin aboard the Black Pearl.

The grip on Walton’s arm tightened like a vise until he thought the bone might crack. He noticed that Armstrong also looked taken aback at the sound. A second, higher pitched scream started and refused to quit. Walton felt the bruises forming on his arm, but he was too horrified to care.

“Go ahead, Captain Walton,” the pirate said, loudly and clearly enough to be heard over that frightful noise. Walton marveled that his voice remained steady. “Give the order before anyone else gets hurt. You can always chase me another day, but you can’t raise the dead, nor can you come back from it.”

The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

There was only one thing Captain Walton could honourably do at this point. “Of course Captain Sparrow,” he said quietly. “Gentlemen,” he raised his voice to carry across the Black Pearl. “I see no other reasonable alternative. I am surrendering the Defender and this crew to Captain Sparrow, requesting that he honour his offer of mercy and offering him all assistance in the restoration of his vessel. We are not savages. Let us endeavor to remember that.” He met his lieutenant’s shocked gaze. “And for God’s sake, Armstrong, see that no further harm comes to that poor woman!”

“Sir, believe me, I only gave orders that she was to be guarded!” Armstrong lit out for the cabin at a run.

Walton found himself suddenly a freed man again, except for the bonds on his wrists, as the pirate captain leapt to one of the boarding planks that materialized in front of his feet barely in time to prevent him stepping off the ship into the sea. He bounded up the jouncing narrow strip as though it were level ground. Walton followed him, ignoring his decreased ability to balance, determined to know the worst. “I assure you, Captain Sparrow,” he growled, “the men who did this will feel the lash.” He only hoped the pirate captain would not take matters of justice into his own hands.

Armstrong was already in the cabin, but a young pirate was bolting out the door, his face pale. Sparrow halted him, which proved to be a mistake, as the lad threw up on the deck plates at his captain’s feet. Walton felt sick. What had his men done?

Sparrow, on the other hand, seemed perfectly calm. “Easy now, Requin,” he soothed. “It’s all over. How many of them did she kill?”

Requin gulped and took a deep breath, “None, sir.”

“None?” Sparrow looked surprised and alarmed. “Either the lass has learnt patience or this is going to be even uglier than I thought.”

“Sparrow!” Walton exclaimed. “You don’t mean to tell me you think a woman has bested my men.”

“Walton,” Captain Sparrow said tiredly. “She’s not my first mate because I like the look of her face. If your men threatened her and she let them live, they’ll be wishing they were dead about now. I’d best go see if I can detach her from visions of slaughtering the entire British Navy.”

The incredulous Walton followed the pirate into the cabin and halted in consternation. Whatever he had expected to find, this was not it.

In the midst of the ruined splendour of what had once been a beautiful room, on a bloodstained bed, lay a young mulatto woman, quite lovely for all of that, and quite evidently the victim of an attempted rape. Her shirt was ripped at the neck and part of her breeches had been cut away, exposing a great deal more of warm brown curves than he needed to see after six months at sea. What had attracted his men was immediately obvious.

But there the comprehensibility of the scene ended.

For all that she was suffering from a dreadful injury, the girl’s face was twisted into a snarl, and she was propped up on one elbow training one of his own men’s rifles on Lieutenant Armstrong who had his hands raised. A gory knife lay quick to hand at her side.

On the mahogany-paneled wall near the bed, one of his marines was pinned through the shoulder by a long dagger. The man was ashen-faced and bleeding profusely, but he tried to nod and smile at his captain. On the spoilt rug beside the bed lay another of his men, curled up into a tight ball of agony, breathing in a high-pitched whistle. His half-clad appearance proclaimed him the culprit in the assault on this woman, his breeches bunched around his ankles.

And there was blood where a man didn’t ever want to see blood.

“What did she do to him?” Walton exclaimed.

Sparrow shook his head resignedly. He held out one hand and pantomimed a scissoring action. “Snip, snip,” he said. “Man ought to have known better. He won’t be tryin’ that again.”

Walton didn’t blame the boy who had vomited. He felt quite ill himself. “That is barbaric!” he choked.

“Oh?” Sparrow raised an eyebrow at him. “And what he was doing to her was so very civilized. At least he’ll live. Geldings and bullocks do all the time. I thought she would slit his throat.”

The pirate captain strode quite nonchalantly up to the hellcat with the rifle. He crouched briefly to sweep up a fallen blanket. “It’s over now, Ana. They’ve surrendered. You can stand down.” He put out a hand and with a single finger tipped the barrel towards the deck.

Lieutenant Armstrong heaved a relieved sigh and backed carefully away.

Then the pirate spread the wet blanket over the woman he claimed was first mate of the dreaded Black Pearl, shielding her from Royal Navy eyes. Gently, he pried her fingers off the weapon and removed it from her bloodied grasp, but he didn’t touch the knife.

Turning to frown at his new wall decoration, Captain Sparrow settled on calling for assistance. Several burly pirates appeared, including the giant. Together they made short and uncompassionate work of removing the two injured marines.

Captain Walton was relieved when the pirate captain indicated that they were to leave the cabin. He didn’t think he could have endured the silent blistering hatred in that young woman’s eyes one minute longer.

* * * * *

Outside his cabin, Jack Sparrow found Peytoe observing the relocation of the offending marines to the Defender. The cook nodded towards the planks understandingly. “Laid a hand on the lass, din’t he?

“He did,” Jack affirmed, scowling at the disappearing Banks.

“Missin’ some bits, in’t he?” Peytoe persisted.

“He is,” Jack agreed with some satisfaction.

“Told ye,” Peytoe nodded again, pleased with his powers of deduction and with the universe for following its own rules.

* * * * *

Anamaria needed to kill something, but even the ship’s rats were surely drowned. Unfortunately, the seething violence trying to split her skin did not seem likely to find an outlet anytime soon. It was with relief that she heard Captain Sparrow returning.

Jack’s face appeared, peering tentatively around the doorway. “All right if I come in, love?” he asked with unwonted gentleness.

“’S your cabin,” Anamaria shrugged.

Jack entered, his arms bundled with what she recognized was her only spare clothing. “Thought you might like these,” he offered diffidently. But there was something ominous at the back of his eyes, like lightening flickering on the horizon.

Anamaria took the garments from him, searching his face for clues to the cause of that far-off storm.

For once, Jack didn’t leave her guessing. “That waste of a marine did not . . . ,” he paused, uncharacteristically searching for his choice of words, “. . . accomplish his mission?” he finally finished.

“No,” Anamaria said shortly. She didn’t want to discuss Banks at all. “Your little firestorm interrupted his—concentration.”

“How fortunate for him,” Jack said. His fingers brushed the hilt of his cutlass, then subsided.

“I know you didn’t want bloodshed on the Pearl,” Anamaria began, not sure what she wanted to say to the captain.

“If you hadn’t,” Jack interrupted her, in the light, dry, colourless tone that always took a half-hitch around her spine, “I’d have done it myself.”

Anamaria shivered. She wondered what Jack would have done to Banks had the man succeeded in raping her. Then she was glad she didn’t know. There were times when Jack Sparrow could be more dangerous than any other man she’d ever met.

For a space of time measured in heartbeats, Anamaria met Jack’s unnaturally still gaze. The breeze, stealing in through the shattered hull, the lifting and subsiding of the sea, were the only movements.

At last, Jack broke the silence before it became too burdened with the things that lay unspoken between them. Not sure whether she was sorry or relieved, Anamaria watched the mask of the Black Pearl’s mad captain slip down over his features.

“I’m off to do a bit of shopping aboard the Defender,” Jack said, his jauntiness reanimating. “Does the lady have any requests?” He bowed grandly to her, the effect somewhat spoilt by a grimace of pain.

Glancing down at the knife she was still unaccountably clutching, Anamaria remembered Jack’s last gift giving. She met his eyes again, her lips peeling back over a vulpine grin. “Diamonds,” she said firmly. “Diamonds will do.”

Captain Sparrow’s gaze flicked from the bloody blade to the splash of gore on the bulkhead where she’d run Hargraves through. One eyebrow climbed under his scarf. “Diamonds it is, love,” he said hastily and backed out the door. “I’ll do me best!”

* * * * *

TBC
24 Strength by Limping Sway Disabled

FanArt: Warrior Elizabeth

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:22:47 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Didn't take the photograph used for reference. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! The way my life has been going, this has taken me over a year to complete. Elizabeth the Warrior in AWE.

Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

References: Women in the Age of Sail

Sun, 11 May 2008 11:46:41 GMT

Here are some of my favourite books that relate the history of women on ships during the age of sail. One should never presume that any feat is too daring and improbable for a historical woman to have accomplished during this time period! Compiled for potc_feminists

Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
by David Cordingly

Women Sailors & Sailors Women
by David Cordingly

Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920
Edited by Margaret S. Creighton and Lisa Norling

She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea
by Joan Druett

Hen Frigates: Passion and Peril, Nineteenth-Century Women at Sea
by Joan Druett

Petticoat Whalers: Whaling Wives at Sea, 1820-1920
by Joan Druett

Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages
by Jo Stanley

The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea
by Barbara Sjoholm

Granuaile: Ireland's Pirate Queen C. 1530-1603
by Anne Chambers

Seafaring Women
by Linda Grant De Pauw

Women Pirates and the Politics of the Jolly Roger
by Ulrike Klausman, Marion Meinzerin and Gabriel Kuhn

Romantic Liars: Obscure Women Who Became Impostors and Challenged an Empire
by Debbie Lee

Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail
by Suzanne J. Stark

Women Under Sail
by Basil Greenhill and Ann Giffard

Tribble: Shadow of a Dream

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:15:48 GMT

Author: Honorat
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Pearl
Disclaimer: Puts a chill in the bones how many honest writers have been claimed by this franchise.
Summary: I discovered these 300+ words somewhere on my hard drive, and the Black Pearl Sails prompt for this week, Black Pearl, seemed to be a good use for them. This somewhat fits in with my If Ships Could Speak series. CotBP compatible.

Much thanks to geekmama for the beta read.

* * * * *

Sometimes she dreams of sinking, of forever relaxing her seams and hatches and allowing the cool green water to bathe her tormented bulkheads and decks in darkness (she cannot feel the cold), growing heavier and heavier in her holds. She imagines her last sight of the sunlight on the sea—it is always daylight when she drowns. The rippling shimmers slowly become glowing rays of fractured light above her masts, gradually rising high above her as the shadows of the depths close in. She felt her last breath of wind long ago.

Then the weight and denseness will enfold her, embrace her, tighten and begin to crush her. Finally she will arrive drifting in broken pieces to her eternal rest against sand that she can neither see nor feel except as cessation of motion. Then the gold can call until her heart cracks. The pain can blaze through her timbers, her submerged sails can strain futilely, her screams can tremor the earth. But she will be safe. Safe in her self-imposed prison. Unable to kill for those cursed bits of metal ever again.

The images come to her in fragments. Frantic ships unable to outrun her, spitting their ineffectual fire in stinging gouts against her sides, water red with blood and flames. Great fortresses belching iron death through her decks, unaware that she cannot die. Towns echoing with roars and screams and then, worst of all, silence and the crackle of the inferno she always leaves in her wake.

Sometimes she wishes she could go completely mad, push herself beyond a knowledge of what she does, banish memory forever, blot out her awareness of what she has become—the slave of men enslaved by greed.

And yet she is held to the surface of the sea, to those last flickering splinters of sanity, by one fine thread—somewhere, she does not know where, out in the vast loneliness of the night, under the pitiless glare of the sun, her Captain still searches for her with freedom in his hands.

* * * * *

Fic: Crossing the Bar (22/?)

Sun, 27 May 2007 13:39:31 GMT

Author: Honorat
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Characters: : Jack Sparrow,Anamaria, Gibbs, Pintel & Ragetti, the crew of the Defender
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat; Jack/Pearl definitely
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!

Summary: On board the Defender and the Black Pearl the boarding parties prepare for their assaults. The Navy takes the Pearl, or do they? Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?

Thanks to geekmama for the beta help.

1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 1
19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 2
20 To Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favour'd Rage
21 Valour's Show and Valour's Worth

* * * * *

22 Between the Fell Incensed Points of Mighty Opposites

Mr. Gibbs met an uncharacteristically grim Captain Sparrow as the man emerged from under the companionway. Shed of his betraying sling and bloodstained clothing, bristling with useless pistols, and girded wrong-sided with his sword, the captain looked ripe for any desperate endeavor. Whether he was fit for anything other than a brace of days in bed was another question entirely.

Catching sight of his quartermaster, Jack Sparrow visibly rearranged his features into the semblance of enthusiasm and asked briskly, “Are the lads ready to turn tables on the bloody Royal Navy?”

Not to be outdone, Gibbs mustered a lugubrious cheer and informed him, “Aye, sir! Those what’ll be stayin’ are busy pumpin’ or riggin’ the tackle to raise her masts. Those what’ll be goin’ are waitin’ for the word.”

Gibbs himself would be staying behind. He’d let Jack talk him into more damn fool things during their acquaintance than he cared to remember, but mastering swimming was not one of them. “If the Good Lord had intended mankind to swim,” he’d informed his captain, “He’d have given us gills.” In the face of all blandishments, threats, and bribes Jack had waved in front of his nose, Gibbs had stuck to his guns. Jack Sparrow might be able to sweet talk the wind out of the sky, but he’d come up against an immoveable object when he’d tried to coax Joshamee Gibbs into water higher than his knees without a sturdy hull under his feet.

“Right,” Captain Sparrow nodded and swept past Gibbs along the heavily listing deck with a lilt in his step and a jaunty sway he surely must have borrowed from some other time and place.

As her masts settled even further into the silver-laced seas, the Black Pearl let out a whimpering groan. Gibbs saw Jack’s buoyant step falter for a moment and his shoulders flinch as though a lash had been laid across his back. But the captain was made of resilient steel, and Gibbs had not reached his side before the insouciant mask was back in place.

“I do hope the Defender is scurrying right along,” Jack observed. “Otherwise she’ll have nothing to capture of us but flotsam.”

Gibbs winced and followed the captain as he clattered down the stairway to the gun deck where the ragged boarding party awaited in the dim light of an open port.

Like a burning brand, Captain Sparrow moved among his weary men igniting their determination. They had scarcely slept in two days. Not a dry stitch of ragged clothing clung to any man’s limbs. Many had wounds still untended. Their stomachs were hollow and their hearts sickened with loss and fear. But somehow, with his own spirit, the captain stirred the dying embers of their courage and rekindled the flames of their hope. Jack Sparrow had a Plan, and as long as that was so, the universe would continue. Somehow he made this desperate and despairing last stand seem like the grandest adventure.

Against Anamaria’s advice, Jack had decided to put the securing of the Defender’s cannon in the charge of Pintel and Ragetti. Granted, they were tolerable gunners, but if those two chuckleheads could keep from making a mull of the entire business, Gibbs would eat his hat—if he could ever find it again. Nevertheless, the captain had insisted that these were the men he wanted.

Even now, as his crew slipped out the gun port and made their way along the fallen mast, Jack was hovering around those two clowns with last minute, highly repetitive instructions.

“As soon you’ve seized her swivel guns, aim them above the Pearl’s decks,” he reminded Pintel and Ragetti. “We won’t fire unless the Navy decides to get valiantly stupid and shoots first. Do not . . . I repeat . . . do not blow any more holes in my ship unless and until I give you the order!” The captain glared at them.

The Black Pearl gave a plaintive sigh and tipped a little further.

“Don’t you worry, ol’ girl.” Pintel patted the splintered timbers reassuringly. “Rags ‘n me is real good at this. What we shoots at, we hits. ‘An what we don’ shoot at, we don’ hit.”

“We won’t harm a hair on your head,” Ragetti added fondly.

“Ships don’t have hair!” Pintel scowled at his mate in exasperation.

“That don’t matter,” Ragetti maintained stoutly. “It’s what you call a metaphor. She knows what I mean.”

Gibbs reflected it was only at moments like these that he understood why Jack did not dump his former mutineers on the nearest deserted island. In their own way, they were nearly as foolish over this ship as he was.

However, as the two of them tried scramble out the gun port at the same time then had to untangle themselves and try again, Gibbs admitted to a certain amount of misgiving.

“This were a whole heap easier when we was immortal,” Pintel groused to Ragetti from the dubious safety of the ship as the younger man finally crept out to a line over open water.

“You were getting fat as a flawn anyway there, Pintel,” Gibbs said, giving the man a hearty slap on the back that did double duty as a shove. “This’ll be good for you.”

As Pintel’s bald head disappeared, Gibbs dusted his hands together. “That’s the lot of ‘em,” he proclaimed, looking back at Jack and the stolid Tearlach.

But the captain had turned away from his men to his ship, his hand resting in farewell, unmoving on one blackened beam, his face hidden in shadow. Jack Sparrow was no longer a maelstrom of seething energy. If anything, the fire had consumed him from the heart outward until he was nearly transparent with its glow, an ember crumpling at its edges into papery ash.

When he faced them again, the enthusiasm had drained out of him, and he simply looked exhausted. “Let’s get this over with,” he ordered Tearlach.

As the silent giant and, for once, the equally silent pirate captain maneuvered Jack through the gun port and down into the supporting embrace of the sea, Gibbs couldn’t help wincing in sympathy. That could not be easy on Jack’s ribs, but the air remained astonishingly clear of any foul language. Apparently the situation had got beyond the point where cursing would be a relief. Gibbs own ribs hurt just thinking about it.

This entire caper was insanity. Gibbs knew it was. But if there was one skill at which Jack Sparrow excelled, it was the trussing up of a man’s wits until he no longer recognized his peril. For a few fatal moments, the madness would seem divine. Then, by the time a body came to his senses, he would be in trouble up to his armpits and sinking fast.

“It’s always neck or nothing for ol’ Jack,” Gibbs grumbled to Tearlach. “Never sailed under such a rope-ripe jinglebrain of a captain.”

Tearlach grinned and nodded agreeably. He turned to follow Jack, but Gibbs put a restraining hand on his arm. The big man looked back at him questioningly.

“I know it’s an impossible job, but . . . watch out for him, will you?” Gibbs asked gruffly. “Keep him from killin’ himself?”

Tearlach raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

“I know. I know,” the quartermaster sighed in resignation. “I’d not hazard a wooden tuppence ‘gainst him doin’ somethin’ bloody totty-headed, but give it your best shot, eh lad?”

With a sloppy salute, Tearlach ducked out the gun port and lowered himself into the wave-washed rigging.

Gibbs watched until first Jack’s dark head disappeared under the fallen sails and then Tearlach’s shiny pate. At last there was no longer any evidence on the restless water that men clung to the vestiges of their ship, waiting.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the wet or the cold rippled along Gibbs’ skin. It seemed a terrible wrong, somehow, that they should commit their living to the sea even before they had a chance to relinquish to her their dead.

* * * * *

With the long snouts of her guns bristling from her flanks and red clusters of armed marines glowering in her tops, the Defender drew cautiously up beside the Black Pearl. Her commanding officer, Captain Walton, paced the quarterdeck with nervous, staccato steps. He was sure of his ship, of his men’s abilities and determination, of the helplessness of their quarry. And yet, as the gaunt, blasted sides of the grim Black Pearl loomed above him, he could not repress a shudder. This ship was legend. Men surrendered to her at the first warning shot across their bows, but she had never struck her colours.

Even now, with her hull made skeletal by the pounding she had taken from her opponents, with her black masts gouging gouts of froth from the heaving surface of the grey sea, and her gun ports resolutely sealed, she seemed silently menacing.

Thus the sense of dislocation was extreme when a round face, framed with enthusiastic grey side-whiskers appeared over the rail of the Black Pearl, and a cheery, gravelly voice hailed Lieutenant Armstrong, whom Walton had placed in charge of the boarding party, “Ahoy there, mate!”

The lieutenant aimed his pistol at the pirate.

“Welcome aboard the Black Pearl!” the man continued jovially, flourishing an arm, although his eyes watched the pistol warily. “Sorry we’re so inhospitable-like, but you’ve caught us at a bad time. I can’t give you the grand tour, but if you’ll just step across, you’re free t’ show yourselves about, wherever you like.”

The captain signaled his confused lieutenant to continue the boarding action. Whatever they’d been expecting on the decks of this doom-haunted ship, this wasn’t it.

* * * * *

Lieutenant Armstrong found the boarding of the Black Pearl to be somewhat anticlimactic. The usual cacophony of shouts and thudding grapnels and planks was met not with violent repulse but with a one man welcoming party.

“M’ friends call me Gibbs,” the elderly pirate offered heartily, holding out his hand. “And who might you be, young whippersnapper?”

The lieutenant caught himself staring in bewilderment at the grimy, calloused hand outstretched to him. Not knowing what else to do, he shook it briefly. “Lieutenant Armstrong, of His Majesty’s Royal Navy,” he said tersely. This was not going as planned or even as feared. He made a valiant attempt to steer the encounter back on course. “It is my duty to claim this prize in the name of the king and arrest you and the crew of this ship for acts of piracy . . .”

The pirate did not allow him to continue. “Yes, yes, of course it is,” he said soothingly. “You’re doin’ just fine, lad. But you’ll have t’ excuse me. We’re a mite busy at the moment. This ship is sinkin’ an’ if we don’t move right snappy, the sea’ll claim your prize and execute your sentence without a by-your-leave. You can just start with arrestin’ the men what has nothin’ t’ do. But I’d advise leavin’ the ones on the pumps ’til the last, ‘cause the minute they stop workin’, she’s goin’ down. Savvy?”

Indeed, the pirates were obviously preoccupied with the attempt to keep their ship afloat. Sweating, grimy men drove the pumps as though they had long since forgotten what they were doing and why. A half-rounded spar had been lashed on top of the gunwale for the parbuckles to lead over when rove, and temporary sheers were already being erected for re-masting the badly tilting vessel. Their self-appointed guide seemed far more concerned with this labour than with the fact that he was in the hands of the British Navy.

Armstrong found himself with his bewildered men at his side staring at the retreating back of the pirate. Gathering his wits from wherever this hurricane of confusion had scattered them, he snapped, “Halt where you are, mister, or I’ll shoot.”

The elderly man—Gibbs he’d said—turned, brow raised. “You could use a little polishin’ o’ your manners, young cub. But I’ll let it pass. What is it you want?”

“I’d like to speak with your captain,” the lieutenant said firmly, trying to regain the illusion that he was in control of this conversation.

Gibbs gave a gusty sigh. “Wouldn’t we all, lad. Wouldn’t we all.” But he made no move, either to direct his captor, or to call for his commanding officer.

This was not going well.

“Jack Sparrow,” Armstrong snapped, striving to remember that he was the one giving the orders here. “Bring me to him.” He jammed the muzzle of his pistol into one of the tarnished silver buttons on the man’s vest.

“Alas,” the pirate lamented, pushing aside the pistol with one aggrieved finger. “It pains me t’ be the first t’ inform you, what with your bein’ so concerned for his welfare an’ all, that the bonny Captain Sparrow took a shot in the head and is no longer with us. He’ll be sorely missed—by yourself not the least, I imagine.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Best captain in the Caribbee, he were. Couldn’t no one catch him. Looks like he’s slipped your noose one last time, Lieutenant.” He leaned confidentially towards his captor and winked. “Best place t’ search for ol’ Captain Jack right about now would have t’ be in one o’ the lower circles o’ Hell, but I can’t recommend it. If you’re lookin’ for the man what’s in charge o’ the Pearl till we get a chance t’ vote on it, I guess that’d be my humble self.”

The lieutenant stared at him in consternation. “Are you drunk, man?”

“Drunk?” the pirate said wistfully. “You wouldn’t happen t’ be totin’ a bit o’ rum with you? If I was drunk, I’d be perfectly sensible. It’s only bein’ sober has me head in a bit o’ a spin.”

Very well. Perhaps the pirate spoke the truth. It was certainly plausible that their bombardment had already accounted for their quarry. But the man could just as easily be lying. Sparrow had the reputation of never being where the Royal Navy wanted him. They would have to search the ship.

Deciding to ignore his unhelpful guide, Armstrong gave orders that rifles be trained on the pirates working to save the ship. The lieutenant could see no benefit in stopping the repairs. If these villains wanted to preserve this prize for the Royal Navy, far be it from him to hinder them.

As his men jogged to their various stations, not a pirate made a hostile move. A few glanced up at the Naval officers and marines, but most concentrated fiercely on the tasks beneath their hands.

The peacefulness of this conquest was entirely too eerie.

Those turned backs and averted eyes burned like molten lead. These men were neither beaten nor passive. Their resistance held a weight far heavier than the futile clash of steel.

Above the veneer of cheerful cooperation presented by the pirates, an almost palpable miasma of resentment and despair wafted along the bloodstained decks of the ship, as though the Black Pearl herself were incensed at what had been done to her.

The sense of uneasiness increased. Lieutenant Armstrong could see it in the staccato movements of his men, in the way they clustered together and started at the grind of wood on wood, the groan of stretching ropes, and the occasional shout as the pirates struggled to heave up the fallen masts.

He did not trust these criminals. The ship would have to be searched, but he would make sure his men were prepared for an ambush at every blind corner. The Black Pearl stank of treachery.

* * * * *

The chilling sounds of boarding action reverberated through the drenched and debris-scattered carpet under Requin’s feet. The thunk of grapnels and the hissing zing of rope pulling taut. The clatter of planks and the drumming of boots. Confused voices as the invaders discovered the lack of resistance on the weather decks. Crisp orders and the fanning out of search parties. But no shots, thank God.

He gripped the hilt of his cutlass tightly in his sweat-slicked palm. Fervently he prayed that he would not have to use it. He’d been a merchant seaman, pressed at age fifteen into serving before the mast, two of the worst years of hell he’d ever lived through in his short life, before Captain Sparrow, for whatever reason, had decided that he, the Louis Grimaud that once was, would make an ideal addition to a pirate crew and had kidnapped him during the plundering of their ship.

Which only went to show that the captain was truly quite, quite mad, because Requin had hated everything about the sea and ships and pirates and the food and the weather and particularly fighting. He still hated fighting, and he had never understood why this never seemed to bother a pirate captain like Sparrow.

But now, as one of the few able-bodied crewmen left on the Black Pearl, he had been given the job of protecting the disabled first mate. “Not that she’ll admit she needs help,” Captain Sparrow had shrugged. “But she can’t walk, and that limits a body in a tussle. Just tell her it’s captain’s orders and not for you to question.” He’d grinned. “She is, of course, bound to question my orders, but I am goin’ to be safely off the ship and out of range.”

When Requin had objected that he wasn’t any good in a fight, Captain Sparrow had reassured him, “I don’t want you to have to fight. Fightin’s a last resort, because we can’t win a fight. Just do nothin’ as much as possible. No surrender. No resistance. Confuses the hell out of ‘em.”

“Then why . . . ?” Requin had begun, confused.

“Why do I want you armed in my cabin, lad?” Sparrow had finished for him. “Because these are rough men, and she’s a woman, though she forgets it most times, and she may need backup if the wrong sort get their hands on her. She won’t likely be rousin’ any chivalric notions in any but the most unusual English sailor. Ain’t white enough nor delicate enough nor dressed fancy enough. Discipline ought t’ hold ‘em off, but it might not. War can make an ugly thing out of a man.”

“How will I know what to do?” Requin had worried.

“Anamaria will know,” the captain had assured him. “Ain’t nobody better at survivin’. So you just follow her orders. If she says fight, you fight. If she says stand and watch . . . well, she has that right, too. And I’m tellin’ you now, son, that’ll be the harder order to follow. But I’m not leavin’ her alone. Savvy?”

Requin had thought that the worst part would be informing Anamaria that he was going to be her watchdog, but she’d merely looked at him as he’d slunk in the door and said, “This was Jack’s bright idea, wasn’t it?” Which had allowed him to absolve himself of all responsibility with a single nervous nod. Anamaria had sighed. “Then you might as well sit down. Make yourself comfortable. I won’t bite.”

Requin wasn’t sure he believed that last part, but he’d done as he was told. However, as he listened to the rumble of the dreaded English marines approaching, he knew the worst was yet to come. These were men he’d been taught since childhood to hate and fear as enemies of his country. They were also representatives of the law that hanged pirates without appeal, never mind that he was a pirate entirely by accident. He’d only stayed because it was the first place he’d found where he hadn’t had to fear being beaten.

Anamaria tugged the blanket up under her chin and held it there with her hands, looking small and fragile. Requin felt every lack of inches he possessed as he heard voices and trampling outside the door.

“Put your cutlass on the table in front of you, just out of easy reach,” Anamaria hissed at him. “Then stay seated and don’t move.”

So it was to be watch and not fight. Requin didn’t know whether he was more relieved or terrified as he followed her instructions.

Then the door was kicked open and a burly, red-coated Englishman shouldered into the cabin, bayoneted rifle at the ready.

As his eyes adjusted to the lower light and he took in the tableaux in front of him, a huge snaggle-toothed grin spread across his homely features. “Well now, lookie what we have here!” he said jovially, winking at Requin. Catching sight of the abandoned cutlass, the intruder added it to his own baldric. “Hey Banks!” he bellowed back over his shoulder. “Come see what I found!”

“Cut your bloody yammerin’, Hargraves,” an irritated voice answered. “I’m not deaf! Now what is it’s got you in such a . . . Ah!” The owner of the voice was a much finer-featured, more slender man than the first intruder. His face was made attractive by rich blue eyes framed by thick dark lashes. But the smile he turned on Anamaria made Requin think of a shark.

Hargraves smirked. “Sparrow’s got hisself a little negra doxy tucked up all nice in his bed, don’t he?”

“If that don’t beat all!” the newcomer, Banks, exclaimed with a hungry note in his voice. “This here business is lookin’ more like a pleasure every minute!”

His blockish companion joined him in perusing Anamaria’s face and blanketed form as though they were customers at a market. The first mate stared back at them unflinchingly.

“Too bad she’s so dark,” the one named Hargraves decided. “Might almost be pretty with those dinner-plate eyes.”

Banks shrugged dismissively. “Whores are all alike when you close your eyes. An’ this one’s mighty shapely.”

Requin could understand enough of what they were saying to have to resist the urge to run Banks through on the spot. Suddenly, he could see a very good use for swordplay. But Anamaria gave no word, and he sat as though pinned. These two hulking Englishmen would easily make mincemeat of him, anyway.

Hargraves frowned. “Suppose we got t’ tell the lieutenant, eh?”

“What?” Banks seemed absorbed in his own sordid imagination. “Oh. Yes. I suppose so.” He turned and called out the door, “Lieutenant Armstrong!”

A shorter, stocky young man in a naval officer’s uniform appeared in the doorway. “What is it?”

“Found us the pirate’s game pullet, sir,” Hargraves responded. “Thought she might be useful.”

The lieutenant glanced at Requin, then turned to regard Anamaria. “I see,” he said dispassionately. “Good work, men.”

Requin was relieved to see only calculation in his face, as though the lieutenant was factoring Anamaria into his plans, but had no other interest in her.

“Young woman,” he addressed the first mate. “Where is Sparrow hiding out?”

“He was hit early on in the battle, sir,” Anamaria said evenly. “Lot of men went down back there.”

It was not even a lie.

Armstrong held her eyes for a long moment. Then he turned to the marines. “She may be telling the truth. It certainly matches with what the acting shipmaster told me. But I’m not taking that chance. Hargraves, you’ll remain here and keep these two under guard. Tie the boy up so he won’t cause trouble. The woman may prove useful as leverage if we do find Sparrow. Banks, continue searching the ship. There may be more pirates tucked away in corners hoping to escape our notice. I want them all rounded up. This could be an ambush, so be careful.”

And then the lieutenant was gone in a dignified flurry. Requin felt abandoned and helpless without even the hope of grabbing a weapon. However, he was grateful that if one of these cochons had to remain, it was Hargraves. Banks was the one who gave him shivers. .

However, Banks did not leave immediately. Instead he advanced on Anamaria. “You puzzle me, little draggle-tail,” he said in a silk-smooth voice. He reached out and gripped her jaw in the vise of long, elegant fingers, turning her head to study her features. “Whatever could have possessed Sparrow to break the code and turn a pirate ship into a hen-frigate, eh? I’ll wager you’re somethin’ out o’ the ordinary. Know any number of very fine tricks, hmmm?” His teeth glinted in that cold-blooded smile again. “I foresee you and me gettin’ much better acquainted when I’m done flushin’ out the rest o’ these cockroaches.” With a cruel twist of his wrist he released her face so that her head thudded back against the bedding.

Requin could see the marks of his fingers lingering on Anamaria’s jaw. He was surprised the bastard hadn’t burnt his hand; the fire in the first mate’s eyes could have slagged a cannon. But still she said nothing.

Giving his compatriot a brisk nod, as though they were two perfectly ordinary human beings and not absolute monsters, Banks strode out of the room.

As Requin allowed the burly marine to bind his wrists, he contemplated the irony that these men considered Anamaria the less dangerous of the two of them.

* * * * *

TBC
23 Mark'd for Hot Vengeance

One Shot: Playing Truant

Sat, 26 May 2007 17:04:06 GMT

One-shot: Playing Truant
By Honorat
Rated: PG
Pairing: Will/Elizabeth
Warning: SPOILERS
Disclaimer: If I weren’t crazy, this would never work.

Summary: SPOILERS. Sometimes a new job can bring surprises. My first post-AWE plot bunny. This one is just a little fluffy bunny, too. I haven't seen the movie, but have been most thoroughly spoilt.

Thanks to geekmama for the betaing.

* * * * *

Tiny souls, like flickering, fading beacons against the immense darkness of storm and sea, call to him. They reach into the space which once contained his heart and twist with adamantine chains drawing him to them. This night is no exception.

One life, bright and alone in all that vast expanse of water. No wreckage of ship on or below the surface of the sea. Perhaps this sailor has been swept overboard, his ship gone on unheeding.

He watches, silent and implacable, as his men haul the gasping, shivering wretch aboard.

Stoicism flees before astonishment as he realizes the drenched shoulders are shaking neither with exhaustion nor with terror but with—laughter?

One stride and his hand grips slender, calloused, impossibly familiar fingers. Wet hair flies aside like tattered shreds of sails revealing those dark, lightning-flashing eyes that have always spoken of the sea and endless horizons to him.

“Do you fear death?” she prompts him—as though his speechlessness is mere forgetfulness.

A stupid query. He already knows the answer. This woman has always taken fear in her teeth and crushed it.

He does not question this gift of the gods, but pulls her into his embrace, fierce and hungry, breathing her name against her hair: “Elizabeth!”

When at last they emerge from the sweet flames of a starving kiss for breath, for tears, for laughter, for words that swirl and tumble like breakers on a beloved shore—home and heart’s desire in the midst of unmapped waves—he asks her how this is possible. What reprieve of his ten year sentence have they been granted and at what cost?

Her eyes sparkle and the corners of her mouth quirk with that adorable mischievousness that has from childhood accompanied all her circumventing of the restrictions her guardians attempted to place on her desires.

“But Will,” she says, her voice all impish cajolery, “that was ten years before we meet on land. No one said anything at all about on water.”

He should have known she would find a way around, under or through any curse.

That night across the seven seas, no tempests rage, all ships sail in sweet peace, and the moon shines kindly on the love of the Captain of the Flying Dutchman and his Bride.

Original Art: In Memoriam

Tue, 08 May 2007 03:00:41 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G

Summary: It has been a season of losses. My tribute to absent friends and family. Portraits of them in their youth.

Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

FanArt: Anamaria and Jack

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 08:10:27 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Didn't take the photographs used for reference. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! A quick portrait of Anamaria and Jack sharing a humourous moment.

Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

Original Art: Dashing Through the Snow

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 03:33:15 GMT

by Honorat

Summary: My very own Seasonal Art! No Photo References. A sleighride through a forest. Again, the universe is twisted where I draw--no particular time or place.

Copyright 1998. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil 0.5mm B on printer paper.

FanArt: Anamaria with Pearls

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 04:57:33 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Didn't take the photograph used for reference. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! Another portrait of the lovely Anamaria with pearls. I can't get enough of this woman's skin tones. No time to write, but finally enough meetings to finish a drawing.

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

Art Rec for Talk Like a Pirate Day

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:38:34 GMT

I do not normally post anything here but my own art and fiction, but this is too good not to share. I present:

Blackbeard the Pirate's Rugged Tampons! by the inimitable ursulav who is the funniest artist and writer on the net. Make sure you read the artist's commentary under the picture!

FanArt: Anamaria 2

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 03:49:54 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Didn't take the photograph used for reference. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! Another portrait of the lovely Anamaria looking elegant.

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

Fic: Crossing the Bar (21/?)

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 01:31:51 GMT

Author: Honorat
Rating: R for blood and language
Characters: Norrington, Groves, the crew of the Dauntless
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat; Jack/Pearl definitely but not in this one
Warning: Primitive medical procedures described in detail
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!

Summary: On board the Dauntless the hunt continues and a surgery takes place. Not for the faint of heart or stomach. Nota bene: The failure to utilize opiates is historically accurate for this time period. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?

Thanks to geekmama for the beta help.

1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 1
19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 2
20 To Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favour'd Rage

* * * * *

21 Valour's Show and Valour's Worth

Under Gillette’s capable command the Dauntless was making good time in her rather aimless search for the Black Pearl, her sails bellying in the wind, spray flinging from her cutwaters to join with the steady rain, by the time Samuels’ assistant, Bailey, deferentially ushered the two conscripted officers into the surgery. Commodore Norrington saw Lieutenant Groves freeze for a moment as his vision adjusted to the interior lighting sufficiently to show him their small victim. When last the lieutenant had set eyes upon Jip, he’d been as lively as a cricket, sputtering and threatening like a hand grenade on the decks of the Dauntless in spite of his injuries, tying the smooth lines of activity on a king’s ship into knots of confusion all by his pint-sized, piratey self. Now he lay motionless in the swaying hammock, eyes half-lidded and barely tracking the swirl of medical motion that eddied about him, his face ashen and glinting with perspiration, his breath no longer spitting defiance but rasping quick and shallow.

It had been less than twenty minutes since the commodore had last seen the boy and already the margins of the mortified flesh surrounding the wound had expanded noticeably, dusky and livid. The characteristic foul-smelling, rusty ichor drained from the swollen and blistered tissue.

Groves looked stricken. “Poor little chap,” he exclaimed softly. “What have we done to you?”

The eyelids snapped fully open, and blue lightning flashed. “I am not a poor little chap, you damned Navy bag-pudding!” Jip objected strenuously.

“Watch yourselves, gentlemen,” the doctor laughed. “He may be indisposed, but this young devil can still bite your fingers off at the elbow if you run afoul of his mouth.”

“Ungrateful brat!” Groves decided, grinning.

Jip subsided, apparently appeased by the uncomplimentary epithet.

“That officer to whom you were so very polite,” the doctor said pointedly to his patient, “is Lieutenant Groves, who has kindly consented to assist me in saving your wretched life. So you might do well to treat him as a fairly mild form of enemy rather than as the arch-fiend of darkness.”

The lieutenant stepped to Jip’s side and held out his hand. “I’m always happy to meet a member of Captain Sparrow’s crew,” he said sincerely. “Best pirate and navigator I’ve ever seen. If I promise that not one word of sympathy will pass my lips, can we have a truce?”

Jip’s eyes were the only alive-looking feature about him as they studied the young officer warily. Norrington realized that his lieutenant was being weighed in some critical balance in that busy, feverish little head.

“Did you really meet Captain Sparrow?” the boy asked finally.

“Gave him grog and salt horse with these two very hands after he piloted us to the Isla de Muerta,” Groves said holding up the hands in question. “Didn’t wash for a month!”

“That was a whisker.” Jip decided, scenting the lie.

“A regular bouncer,” the lieutenant agreed, shrugging. “I ran to the doctor for a flea dip the instant I left his company.”

Jip giggled. “I have fleas,” he offered.

Groves pulled a disgusted face. “I’m not surprised. The moment I saw you, I felt quite sure of it.”

Samuels, watching the boyish young man charm his suffering patient, growled for the commodore’s ear only, “That was one of your better ideas if I do say so myself, James, my lad.”

Norrington nodded. “That those two would get along famously was a foregone conclusion,” he said.

The boy was holding out his hand now. “Truce,” he agreed.

Groves looked at the grubby little fingers then at his own hand. Turning to Samuels he asked, “Have you any treatment for fleas about?”

“I keep a vat of vinegar just for you, Theodore,” the doctor replied. “No woman in port will come near you for a month.”

“Very well,” Groves sighed. “I think I can risk it.”

“If we’re very fast, perhaps they won’t jump across,” Jip said mischievously.

Their hands met in a quick clasp, and Groves snatched his away as though in terror of a mass flea migration. Carefully he scrutinized every surface of his hand. Looking up at Jip who was still giggling like a teakettle on the boil, he frowned. “I do believe I’ve escaped contamination. But if I am bitten by a flea tonight, I shall know whom to blame and my retribution will be extreme.”

“Children,” said the doctor patiently. “While I do hate to interrupt such a heartwarming exchange of vermin, I am afraid we have work to do. That leg is not improving while we speak.”

The tone of the room sobered. Life and death had entered the lists in this gently rocking chamber out on the high seas.

“Commodore, Lieutenant, if you could carry the boy to the table?” Samuels suggested, gesturing with the sharp knife that he then laid down next to the rest of his tools.

As the two men detached the hammock, Norrington reflected that the child in it scarcely weighed anything at all. Once again he wished this fragment of humanity had not been caught up in their grinding mill of law and lawlessness. Carefully, trying not to hurt him further, they set him on the unyielding wooden surface, but even such a light jar wrenched Jip’s face and wrung a hiss from his clenched teeth.

“Sorry,” Groves muttered.

They stood back as Samuels and Bailey positioned the boy on the table. Then the assistant busied himself with pouring sand on the decking under the injured leg. It would soak up the blood and make the deck less slippery and easier to clean.

“Do you understand what I am about to do?” Samuels asked gently, meeting Jip’s gaze.

Jip nodded and bit his lip. “You’re going to cut off my leg,” he said very quietly. “I’ve seen it done before. Three times.” Large, fevered eyes searched Samuels’ face. “They all died,” the boy added in a small voice.

Norrington felt his stomach twist. Jip was correct. If the amputation itself were not fatal, the subsequent inflammation usually was. However, the boy was dying now. The doctor really had no other option. The operation would give the child a 35 percent chance of surviving.

But Samuels spoke reassuringly. “They were all older sailors, weren’t they?” he asked. “Drank hard, wenched hard and lived hard, right?”

“Yes,” Jip said. “They always said Hugh was going to pickle himself with rum.”

“Then you need not worry.” The doctor smiled. “As long as you’ve not been drinking and whoring and carousing much lately?”

Groves snorted and Jip gave a shaky laugh and shook his head. “Captain Sparrow won’t let me. He says it’s a good way to end up with an empty head and an even emptier purse.”

“It sounds like your captain is a wise man,” Samuels approved.

“No,” Jip said firmly. “Just a very bad example, Anamaria says.”

“Who is Anamaria?” Norrington asked curiously.

The little pirate’s eyes went suspicious and his lips clammed shut.

Out of the boy’s sight, Samuels made tongue-amputating motions with his fingers and mouth and glared at the commodore. Then he glided smoothly into the awkward silence. “There, I told you you had no cause for concern.” He squeezed his patient’s shoulder comfortingly. “You’re young and strong and healthy except for this leg. And we don’t have to take much off. You’ll be fine.”

No doubt lurked in Samuel’s voice or in his open countenance. Norrington wondered if the doctor really believed what he was saying or if he had merely mastered the art of the charitable lie.

In the interests of bolstering the doctor’s reputation, Norrington added, “You could not be in better hands, Jip. Doctor Samuels is the man I would want to take off my leg if it had to be done.”

“Such an encomium, James!” the doctor said dryly. “It quite unmans me.”

Norrington smirked humourlessly at his old friend. A thought occurred to him. “Have you given the boy rum?” he asked.

Samuels raised an eyebrow. “Treating him like an officer, are you?”

“Doctor,” said Norrington. “He is a child.”

“I know that,” Samuels said. “I’m glad to see you do, too. Of course I’ve given him rum. And I’ll be giving him some more. Bailey?”

Taking the bottle from his stocky, mahogany-skinned assistant, the doctor propped Jip’s shoulders up with a strong arm. “Here you go, lad. Bottoms up. We want you thoroughly foxed before this little procedure. Rip roaring drunk, in fact.”

Jip eyed the bottle suspiciously. “Will that make my head empty?”

“I certainly hope so,” Samuels said with hearty cheer that sounded a bit forced to Norrington. “You can worry about getting sober after this is over.”

“But I want to watch what you’re doing,” Jip decided.

Norrington and Groves exchanged incredulous glances. Samuels looked stunned for a moment.

“Son,” the doctor said kindly, “you don’t know what you’re asking. Trust me. You really want to be as close to unconscious as possible for this.”

“I want to see,” the boy insisted stubbornly.

“You don’t understand,” Samuels explained less patiently. “This is not going to hurt just a little bit. This is going to hurt like the bloody blazes.”

“Already hurts like hell,” Jip said with pig-headed determination worthy of his mentor.

“Obstinate whelp,” Groves put in.

“Now why do you want to do such a chuckle-headed thing?” the doctor asked.

“Because I’m int’rested,” Jip explained, attempting to raise his head to look at the mangle of his lower leg.

“He’s got you there, Gil,” Norrington laughed. “How can you resist the entreaty of such a budding scientist? It would be professional discourtesy!”

“Fever’s sent him round the bend, that’s my diagnosis,” the doctor groused. “All right you damned young paperskull. You empty this bottle to here,” he indicated a mark on the bottle several inches down that would assure that Jip had consumed enough rum to float a small armada, “and I’ll get these fine gentlemen to prop you up so that you can watch this operation for as long as you have the intestinal fortitude to do so.”

At Jip’s confused expression, Groves interpreted, “Guts, he means as long as you have the guts to watch.”

“I have lots of guts,” Jip said.

“More bottom than sense, that’s what you have.” Groves shook his head at their patient. “Most of us have guts, but we prefer not to see ‘em.”

Jip gave him a pitying look. “How do you find out anything?” he asked.

“We look at other people’s guts,” Samuels cut in acerbically. “Now drink your rum like a good pirate.”

In short order Jip was ensconced in a semi-upright position on a pile of canvas shreds that were well on their way to becoming baggywrinkles. His eyes, hazed with rum and fever, followed the actions of his four attendants with determined concentration. Occasionally he would hiccough gently.

Samuels directed Norrington and Groves to either side of the table and indicated that they should take hold of the boy’s arms and legs. The two officers shed their coats, rolled up their sleeves and did as they were bid. As the commodore closed his hands around the fragile-seeming limbs, it struck him again how very young their patient was. His fingers could nearly wrap twice around the slender wrist. The boy’s pulse fluttered like a trapped wild thing against his hand and the skin was disturbingly hot to the touch.

When the doctor took up a leather strap with a buckle on the end, Jip asked, “What’s that for?”

“This,” said Samuels, “is called a tourniquet. I’m going to place this just above your knee and draw it tight.” He suited his actions to his words. “This will pinch off the arteries and veins in your leg so that you don’t bleed to death when I cut into them. Those are the tunnels the blood travels in.” As he buckled the device, he pointed out the increased flush of colour on the boy’s thigh. “See. All the blood will stay there until we’re ready for it again.”

“Now,” Samuels instructed Bailey, “get the lad the stick to gnaw on.”

His assistant turned to pick up the object when Groves interrupted. “Wait,” the lieutenant said. “I forgot something.” Leaving Jip unrestrained for a moment, he fished about in the deep pocket of his coat. “Here it is!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “One of the midshipmen whittled this for you, Jip.” He held up a clean white length of wood.

“That is what I call a thoughtful gift,” Norrington grinned. “What do you think, Jip? Now you won’t have to chew on Navy spittle.”

“Do I have to?” Jip eyed the gag with distaste.

“Much as I hate to say this,” the doctor teased, “you really don’t want to chew off your tongue. Not that the quality of language wouldn’t improve around here if you did, but I took an oath. So open wide and bite, young man.”

Jip seemed more disturbed by his inability to talk than he was by the impending surgery. “You’ll tell me everything?” he insisted. “I can’t ask, but I want to know.”

“I’ll explain everything I’m doing,” Samuels reassured him. “I promise.”

As soon as Jip had the gag situated, the doctor held out his palm and Bailey handed him the knife. “First, I’m going to have to cut through the flesh down to the bone,” he told the boy, with clinical detachment that Norrington could only admire. “I’ll be amputating about four inches below your knee in order to be sure of removing all the dead tissue so it can’t poison you more. Fortunately you’ll keep the joint. It’s all right if you want to yell. Sometimes making a lot of noise helps you bear it.”

At the first bite of the knife, Norrington felt the small arm and leg go rigid under his grip. He tensed for a struggle, but although the child cried out, he did not fight the restraint and his eyes opened again almost immediately to watch in fascination as the crimson blood welled against his pale skin.

Samuels worked with his usual swift sureness, making the incision through the muscle, down to bone, first from above, then from below, leaving a flap of skin on the inside of the boy’s leg. “That’s to cover the stump when I close you back up,” he informed Jip.

The instant the last bit of flesh parted, Bailey offered a selection of crooked needles to the surgeon. “I’m using these to tack the severed arteries away from the area I’m going to be working,” the doctor continued, accomplishing this feat with lightning speed. “Retractor,” he said to his assistant. Slipping the leather cuff around the incision, Samuels explained, “This will fit over the bone and pull back the muscle so I have room to saw.”

Norrington glanced away. He could feel the corners of his mouth twisting in a sympathetic grimace. There was something too disturbing in such a violation of a body, no matter how many times he witnessed it, even though he knew that the intent was to heal rather than to harm.

Jip’s shivering flesh felt cold and damp now, like the spokes of a ship’s wheel in a storm. His face had lost all colour so that the dense black lashes that bunched against his cheeks when the pain grew too unbearable stood out with the contrast of soot on snow. His breath rattled around the wooden gag in gasps that held overtones of whimpers. And yet the child refused to look away from the doctor’s work for long. Lieutenant Groves, the commodore noted, had shifted from holding the boy’s arm to letting Jip clutch his hand. The lieutenant met his commanding officer’s eyes and pulled a wry face. Nodding to where the small tendons and knuckles strained claw-like as they crushed his fingers, Groves murmured under his breath, “He’s stronger than he looks. The doc is going to have me as his next patient!”

When an adequate section of bone lay revealed, Samuels selected a light saw. “You’ve such bird bones, young rascal, that there’s no need for the large saw I use on the legs of great hulking men like the commodore there. Don’t worry. I’m very fast at this.”

The forty seconds it took the doctor to saw through the tibia and fibula seemed to take hours, the sound grating harshly against nerves. Finally, however, the deadened and toxic limb was completely separated. Samuels let it drop, unnoticed to the blood-stained floor, making a dull thunk. With a flick of his wrist, he released the retractor and allowed the muscle to surround the bared bones.

“All done,” he informed Jip. “That shouldn’t be bothering you any more. Now I’ll just be applying ligatures to those divided arteries and veins so you don’t lose too much blood when I remove the tourniquet.” He showed the boy the thread. “Finest silk,” he said impressively. “No mere cotton or horsehair for the guests of the Dauntless!”

At this point the amputation was nearly complete. Only the preparation of the stump remained. Samuels was an expert sawbones—from the first cut to the last ligature, scarcely two minutes had passed—but Norrington felt as though he had stood for hours, and he imagined Jip felt it had taken days. The boy was trembling and sweating, and unacknowledged tears had left glittering tracks along his cheeks, but he was still valiantly concentrating on his first lesson in amputation, where he was both pupil and subject. The commodore readily admitted that he himself would never have had the courage.

Exchanging thread for knife, Samuels ignored the boy’s tears and spoke to the fascination. “Now I’m going to scrape any ridges and sharp edges off the bone,” he explained. “You don’t want anything to irritate or work back through the skin covering the wound.”

There were few more horrifying sounds, Norrington decided, than the sound of steel scraping on bone. He noted that Groves was looking a little pale and was determinedly observing Jip’s face rather than the ongoing operation.

“There’s a reason I did not go in for Medicine,” Groves said fervently when he became aware of the commodore’s gaze. “If a shot ever gets me, I hope it gets me fair and square with none of this gradual removal of parts.” He smiled down at the young pirate’s startled blue eyes. “You’re a braver man than I am, Jip.”

Samuels gave a huff of amusement as he laid down his knife. “Brave or daft, it’s hard to say. Well, lad. It’s on to the last step—tucking all those loose blood vessels away and suturing that flap of skin back over the ends of the bone. It looks like you’re going to survive this day.”

With gentle skill the doctor completed the preparation of the boy’s stump, stitching it neatly except for a hole left for drainage. “There you are, Jip,” he said finally, setting down needle and thread and turning to scrub the blood off his hands in a basin of water. “As dandy an amputation as you could hope for. I told you not to worry. You can spit out that gag now.”

Jip did so with enthusiasm.

The commodore released the boy’s limbs, realizing his hands were cramping. Groves kept hold of Jip’s hand and patted it reassuringly. “You’ll be a grand peg-leg pirate now, won’t you whelp?”

Jip managed a shaky smile for the lieutenant. Then he turned to the doctor. “Can I see my leg you cut off?”

The doctor’s eyebrows lifted his hairline. “I’ve never had a patient with quite your level of insouciance, young man. That is not going to be a thing of beauty.”

When Jip showed no sign of repenting his desire, Samuels capitulated. “Very well. While Bailey here dresses your wound with egg yolk, oil of roses and turpentine and puts on the lint and bandages, I’ll show you what makes up a leg.”

Norrington gave a strangled noise of protest. There were some things he’d rather not know about his insides. Samuels stared at him witheringly. “You lily-livered officers are free to go now,” he said. “Jip and I are going to have an anatomy lesson, and then I’m putting him to bed.”

With unseemly haste, the commodore and the lieutenant scrubbed their hands that had been spattered with Jip’s blood and donned their coats. Nevertheless, they did not escape before hearing Samuels begin, “Now feel the difference between your healthy flesh and this crackly swollen area. There’s poison gas in there . . .”

The two heads, one grizzled grey and the other gold, scarcely looked up from the object under scrutiny to acknowledge Norrington’s and Grove’s farewells. Then they were back to the intriguing world of arteries and tendons and bone marrow and diseases.

Once outside the surgery, Groves leaned back against the bulkhead and mopped his forehead. “James,” he said weakly. “I am a relatively strong man, am I not?”

“Theodore,” Norrington grinned, “I believe I can safely say that of you without fear of contradiction.”

“Then why,” the lieutenant lamented, “are my knees weak and my stomach revolting at what clearly does nothing but amuse that pestilential child?”

The commodore shrugged. “I have no idea, but I admit to a strong dislike for such procedures, myself. Apparently pirates grow them tougher than civilization does.”

“Mark my words,” said Groves grimly. “When that imp recovers, we are going to discover that half a pirate with half a leg is too much pirate for this entire ship.”

“Do you really think he’s going to wait until he recovers?” Norrington asked dubiously.

He should have known better than to make such a prophecy.

* * * * *

TBC
22 Between the Fell Incensed Points of Mighty Opposites

FanArt: Pintel and Ragetti

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 01:10:44 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Didn't take the photograph used for reference. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! These two are such fun, both in the movies and to draw.

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

Fic: Crossing the Bar (20/?)

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 05:04:23 GMT

Author: Honorat
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Jack Sparrow, Anamaria
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat. Jack/Pearl most definitely
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!

Summary: The arming of the warrior. Every epic needs one. Jack and Anamaria prepare for a fight. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?

Thanks to geekmama for the beta help.

1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 1
19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To, Part 2

* * * * *

20 To Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favour'd Rage

The rising of the sun had done nothing to discourage the lowering clouds from a steady, persistent drizzle. The gentle undulation of the ship and the whispered patter of rain on her decks would have been soothing under other circumstances. However, the rough seas of fever kept alternately submerging Anamaria in struggling sleep and casting her, unrested, on the shores of consciousness. Pain broke her apart on the shoals, grinding her into fragments in the breakers of exhausted memory.

Gathering the pieces of her disconnected mind, Anamaria fought her way once again to the surface of wakefulness, drawn by a scuffling sound in the cabin.

In the light filtering through rain and broken glass she could make out Jack Sparrow pawing through a chest in the corner. Some time since she’d last seen him, someone must have helped him out of his coat and vest and boots, because he was in his shirtsleeves and barefooted and obviously on the hunt for a change of clothes. Already he had a growing pile of sartorial treasure around him.

“Goin’ courtin’, are you?” Anamaria asked, pleased that her voice came out as something more definitive than a croak.

Jack’s head appeared above the edge of the chest, grin sparkling. “Aye, love. There’s a bonny wee brig just beggin’ for a pirate captain to have his way with her. Wouldn’t want to disappoint the lass.”

Anamaria rolled her eyes. “And just how does your lovely Pearl feel about that?”

Jack smirked. “She don’t blame the Defender at all. Thinks she has rather good taste in men!” His mess of dark hair disappeared again. From the depths of the chest his voice echoed hollowly. “She knows she’s my one true love, so she don’t mind sharin’ the wealth.” He popped up again clutching a pair of breeches. “’Sides, it wouldn’t seem respectful-like t’ commandeer a ship of the Fleet in all me dirt. Got to observe decorum. This ain’t just any plebian merchant vessel after all. This one is a real lady.”

“And you want to impress the hell out of them,” Anamaria said dryly.

“Can’t hurt, darlin’.” Jack nodded. “We’re not exactly holdin’ the upper hand here. Wouldn’t do to look too much like I’m already half-killed if I want those Navy boys shakin’ in their boots, eh?”

He pounced into the chest again. “There you are! I knew you were in here somewhere!” A problematically white shirt waved like a flag above the edge.

“You surrenderin’?” Anamaria laughed at him. It was good to see Jack back in spirits again, though where he’d found them was a mystery.

“Merely lookin’ t’ parley, ma’am,” Jack said, gathering his chosen effects and lurching to his feet with a pained huff. “Though if it’s surrender you want,” he leered at her, “just say the word.”

“If I were the Pearl,” Anamaria suggested pointedly, “I’d be hittin’ you upside the head with the spanker.”

“Why ever for, love?” Jack asked with wide-eyed bewilderment. “There’s plenty of me t’ go around.”

Anamaria snorted. “Unprincipled rake,” she accused.

With a superior look, Jack said, “Those what can, does!”

He laid the clean garments on the table next to a tin basin of salt water, fresh water still being severely rationed, although they had now realized some success in collecting rain as the weather calmed.

The front and sleeves of the shirt he was wearing were dyed a shocking crimson, still wet with rain but growing darker rust as the fabric dried against the heat of his body. His forearms were red, and, although his hands were rain-washed, his nails were dark with old blood.

“Much as I hate t’ admit it, I might be in need of a bit of a bath.” Jack looked dubiously at what he could see of himself. “’Course a good swim’d take care of some of this blood, but not before it messed up me clean shirt.”

“And you reek like a pirate,” Anamaria observed, wrinkling her nose, although to be honest she was fairly sure she smelled just as bad. Rain and the wash of the sea only added a humid and salty pungency to the adamantly ground-in odour of dirt and tar and sweat and blood.

Jack preened. “Ain’t it grand, love?”

He made an abortive attempt to remove his stained shirt, then froze, breath hissing through his teeth. “Damn it all to hell! I bloody hate havin’ broken ribs!” He turned to Anamaria. “I don’t suppose you would be so kind?”

Since even she couldn’t argue with his reasons for luring her into undressing him yet again, Anamaria nodded shortly.

Positioning himself beside her so that she could reach his shoulders without sitting up, Jack leaned forward and allowed her to gather up the fabric and work it over his tangle of hair.

Anamaria’s fingers felt like lumps of soggy salt horse, and she had to force herself to handle the gory material. Some of that was her blood, she knew, but the rest . . . there was so much of it. It stained the bandage on his chest as well.

“Whose?” she asked as she drew the shirt down his arms.

Jack’s face shuttered instantly. “Number of people,” he said, his voice clipped and emotionless. “Diego’s mostly. He was too ripped up. I had to give him grace.”

Anamaria felt a sickness that had nothing to do with her swollen leg or the accompanying fever. That Jack, of all people, should have been forced to do such a task—there would be ghosts perching on his shoulders the minute he had time to slow down enough to rest. Her hands lingered of their own accord on the backs of his for an instant before she finished peeling the wet sleeves from them.

Jack shook his head, as though trying to clear it of some unsought vision.

After that, both of them shied away from any mention of the past, tacitly coming to an accord. Some things were too raw to be spoken.

“You’ll have to replace that too,” Anamaria said, changing the subject, pointing to the soiled bandage. “It’s as much a mess as your shirt.”

Jack just groaned a protest.

“None of that,” Anamaria told him sternly. “Help me untie it. Then, as soon as you’re clean, we’ll put it on again.

The arch of bruises, revealed by the removal of the bandage, rioted in a rainbow of colour across his chest. Anamaria cringed at the sight.

“Are you sure you can’t just let the men do this without you, Jack?” she asked, her hand tracing the marks without touching. “You’re not in any shape for a swim, much less a fight.”

“No, love,” Jack said decidedly. “It’ll require too much ticklish negotiation, since even in the best case we’ll have the brig’s crew hostage only at the expense of that Navy captain holding my crew over here hostage. I’d rather not give him the leverage of having me captured as well.” His eyes focused somewhere in the future, the frown creasing his brow into dark tracks of worry. “Besides, I’m the one what has the right to say how much I’m willing to let this cost us if it comes to firing on the Pearl. I don’t know if the men could do it, and I wouldn’t ask it of them.”

Anamaria wondered that Jack thought he could do it.

“Just what kind of bumble-brained plan have you hatched up to get aboard that ship?” she asked as Jack stood up and stepped to the washbasin. “You can’t climb.”

“Oh, no worries,” Jack said lightly, pulling a small dagger from his belt and beginning to scrape away at the blood caked under his nails. “Tearlach’s got a rope and he’ll haul me on and off one way or another.”

Nothing Anamaria could envision about that combination seemed pain-free in any way. But she imagined Jack knew that, so she didn’t bother to point out the obvious. Nobody better at trying to kill himself than Captain Jack Sparrow, after all. There was a reason the man was a legend.

Jack cursed perfunctorily as he tried to work up some kind of lather from the hard grey soap with the cold salt water. “Who makes this stuff?” he complained. “We’ve got to waylay a few more French ships and try to get us something with some quality.” Finally he managed to create an unenthusiastic grey sludge.

Anamaria started not to watch as Jack scrubbed the rusty stains from his arms. Then she decided they’d both had a rotten enough day and night, and harder was yet to come, for her to allow herself the indulgence of “enjoying the view”, as Jack would say, and him that of knowing he was admired.

There was nothing superfluous about him—no height, no mass of muscle or bone. Only the plain clean lines of a body deceptively slender, pared down to a fine edge of pure function. Anamaria knew she would never get enough of just looking at him, even though she seldom got the chance and even more seldom took it when she did. But in the back of her mind hovered the shade of knowing her margin of chances was shrinking. Either one of them might not survive the coming conflict.

And so she let her eyes linger, a pirate gazing on treasure, on the light and shadow rippling across the movement of his back, the old silvery lines of scars lacing the gold skin. In the dim cabin, he was like bright metal on sullen ground. And she imagined how if this were another time and place, and they were two completely different people, what it would feel like to trace reverent fingertips over those lines and feel the soft skin shiver under her hands.

Jack flinched and swore under his breath at his own touch as he swabbed at the blood that had seeped through his clothing onto his chest. But finally he was satisfied that the task was complete, and he wrung out the cloth in the water now gone murky.

Then he started to remove his breeches.

Anamaria squeaked in startled indignation. “Jack Sparrow! What do you think you’re doing?”

Jack looked at her with puzzlement and a devious glint. “A bright girl like you should be able to figure it out. These breeches are a disaster!” He gestured to his bloodstained thighs. “I’m changin’, love. You’re in my cabin. You don’t want to watch? Close your eyes.”

Since he didn’t stop, Anamaria frantically slammed her eyelids down.

She could hear the unshed laughter thick in Jack’s voice. “Though if you’d like to peek, I promise to make it worth your while.”

“Oh you wretch!” Anamaria wished she had something to throw at him. She could hit him with her eyes closed. Usually. At least when her head was working. How dare he ignore the unwritten rule that men on a ship with a woman aboard did not undress where she might see them? It was a matter of respect. It was a matter of the survival of her own control as well as theirs. How dare he tempt her like that?

But she resisted temptation, not opening her eyes until the shuffling and pained breathing told her that Jack was donning his clean garments. “All clear, love,” he assured her. “You can look, now. Nothin’ showin’ anymore to scare an innocent lass.” He paused thoughtfully. “Nothin’ to scare you, either,” he finished with a smirk.

Anamaria glared at him. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you with odious comparisons,” she said, as haughty as any society miss.

“I’ve had no complaints,” Jack said loftily, fishing his shirt and vest out of the clean pile. Then he added the leather splint and more bandaging.

“Silver will buy anything, won’t it?” Anamaria said, commiserating.

Jack raised an eyebrow and shot her a look that did disturbing things to her stomach. “Just how much silver are you askin’, darlin’?”

“Bastard!” Anamaria spat at him. Really, no man had ever possessed the talent to make her as furious as Jack Sparrow did, the silver-tongued villain.

“So there are some things it won’t buy, eh?” Jack shrugged. “Just checkin’.” He held up his shirt with a pleased chuckle. “Look! Buttons!” he said with satisfaction. “Much easier t’ get in and out of.”

And just that swiftly he was on another tack. Anamaria regularly sprained her brain trying to keep track of him.

The captain eyed her warily, then looked at the articles in his hands. “Is it safe to ask you to help me put these on?” he asked.

“No,” Anamaria retorted.

“Oh good,” said Jack. “I seem to be developing a taste for life-threatening adventures.” He sauntered over to her, alighted on the edge of the bed, his hip brushing hers, and dumped the entire pile in her arms.

She couldn’t stay mad at him when he was this close to her, smelling clean for once—a mixture of lye and linen and faint camphor and tar, mixed with the eternal salt of the sea that permeated everything aboard ship. Heaving a resigned sigh, she dragged a wad of padding from the pile.

Between the two of them, the captain was re-splinted and wrapped, clad again in a shirt with pretensions to whiteness, and inserted into one of his faded vests.

There was something that eased the storm-snapping tension in this calm, silent working together, Jack supplying any needed grip, Anamaria providing the range of motion he lacked. In the middle of the bloodstained and shattered splendour of the cabin on the crippled and sinking ship, something was being restored.

When they had finished, Jack rose reluctantly, tied on a clean sash and cinched it with his two grimy leather belts that jangled with his collection of odd tools and mementos. Then he retrieved his boots from where he’d left them by the door.

“You might need help with those,” Anamaria suggested.

But Jack sat down and proceeded to work his feet into the soft leather, turning the air of the cabin a pale indigo but finally succeeding.

“No I don’t,” he said triumphantly.

“Stubborn, mad-headed ape!” Anamaria said fondly.

“Spleenish weasel!” Jack retorted with a grin. He got to his feet, arms outstretched, and pirouetted. “How do I look, darlin’? Like a villain and the veriest son of darkness?”

Anamaria scrutinized him. “Your clothes look as fine as fivepence,” she decided, “but you need some work.”

“What?” Jack tried to scan himself.

“Your face,” Anamaria snickered. “You look like a . . . like a . . .” Words failed her and she wave her hands helplessly. “You look a right mess, Jack Sparrow.”

Jack’s eyes crossed as he attempted to observe his own nose. With a thwarted grunt, he gave up and glared around his cabin. “Now where’d that mirror get to?” he asked, since it was not on the washstand where it had been.

Wordlessly, Anamaria pointed to the debris by the port bulkhead. The mirror was definitely scuppered.

With a disgusted curl of his lip, Jack searched futilely through the fragments for one large enough still to serve.

“Seven years bad luck, that is,” Anamaria warned.

“We didn’t break it, so it’s their bad luck,” Jack said firmly. “Ow! Blast!” He sucked at the small cuts on two fingers. “So much for that idea. I’ll just have to remember where me face was.”

He did try. But since he couldn’t see what he was doing, the results were not remarkable for their success.

Anamaria eyed him critically. “There’s still a big smudge under your starboard eye. And a bigger blotch on your port cheek. And up on your forehead, and on your neck. Oh, get over here y’ lunatic peacock, an’ let me get that.”

“Thought you’d never ask, darlin’,” Jack said with his most annoying smirk.

Ignoring his antics, she beckoned him over.

Jack pouted rather unconvincingly, but he sat down beside her again, positioning the water on the bed next to her.

With stiffened fingers, Anamaria tried to wring out the cloth. After her second fumble, Jack wordlessly took it back, wrung it out and handed it to her. “Takes two of us, don’t it, love?”

Carefully, Anamaria cleaned the swollen area around the gash on Jack’s head, working the matted blood out of his dark locks. She could feel Jack tense as she neared the wound and hear the slight quickening of his breath, but he didn’t make any other sound. As she dabbed away the rivulets that had run down the side of his face and neck, he relaxed a little. The blood came off easily enough with the cold water.

The grey and black traces of kohl took a little more work to remove. She scrubbed at them with the unenthusiastic soap until Jack’s skin was red. This he did complain about. “’M not a bloody washboard, wench.” He ducked out of her reach.

“Stop squirming,” Anamaria ordered smugly, returning his head, with a smart tug on a lock of his hair, back to where she could resume her chore.

“You’re just gettin’ revenge,” Jack grumbled. “I think I’m clean enough.”

“Stop behavin’ like a little boy gettin’ his ears washed, Jack Sparrow,” Anamaria scolded. “You’re worse than Jip.” Her voice fell away suddenly and she bit her lip, the memory all the more painful for having been so briefly forgotten.

“I keep expectin’ him to come boundin’ ‘round a corner,” Jack said softly, eyes cast down to where his hands played restlessly with the frayed end of his sash. “I look up. And he doesn’t.”

Anamaria felt her eyes sting. Fiercely, she rinsed out the cloth in the basin, and this time she wrung it out without Jack’s assistance. When he simply endured the rest of her ministrations without protest, she wanted to hit something.

“If those whoreson bastards board this ship, I will kill them,” she said with hoarse conviction, twisting the cloth one last time as though she had a Naval neck between her hands.

“I’m hoping no one will get killed this time,” Jack said. “Us or them. I’ve told the men I expect them to offer our enemies mercy if it is within their power to do so.”

“You are impossible, Jack Sparrow!” Anamaria exclaimed angrily. “I don’t understand you at all.”

“These aren’t the men who shot Jip,” Jack said gently.

“No.” Anamaria could hear a wild edge to her voice. “They’re the men who shot you! And Matelot, and Diego and all those others.”

“I know.” He looked down at his hands, spreading the fingers, rotating his wrists as though seeing again the blood he’d washed off them and scraped out from under his nails.

“Jack, you bloody well know they’d not do the same for us!” Her voice tangled harshly with choking cords of emotion.

“Oh, aye,” Jack said mildly. “They’d like to hang the lot of us and nail my head to their bowsprit, I’ve no doubt.”

“Then why . . .?” she began plaintively.

Jack met her eyes, absolutely serious now. “Ana, you know why. Those men are doing what’s right by them—obeying their orders and doing their duty. I’ll not murder a man for that.”

Anamaria had always known that she would never understand Jack Sparrow, but she had underestimated the magnitude of that incomprehension. When a man trespassed upon whatever code of honour he himself professed, Jack could be as implacable as the sea in his vengeance. But give the captain an honourable foe, and the daft fool would tie himself in bowline knots trying to grant quarter. At times like this, that sodden-witted chivalry of his terrified Anamaria.

He sat there, head cocked, eyes bright and quizzical now in his freshly scoured face, looking like a boy dressed up as a pirate.

“Your kohl,” Anamaria said suddenly. “You forgot that.” For some reason it was now imperative that he not look small and vulnerable and human. She needed him behind the mask of the legend—enigmatic and frighteningly lucky and nigh uncatchable.

“Oh yes,” Jack agreed. “Wouldn’t do to be unrecognizable, now would it? They’ll need to know whose name to put in the stories.” He got to his feet, emptied the grimy, bloody water out the cannon hole and tossed the basin with a clang onto the heap on the port bulkhead. “Now where did I put that?”

A short, noisy quest through the drawers of the washstand turned up the small, flat-bottomed pot with its wide, tiny rim and flat, disk-shaped lid, the jar of olive oil, and the finger-length stick with its rounded ends. Jack glanced first at the items in his hand and then at the mirror fragments.

“Alas, love,” he sighed. “I’m going to have to presume upon your good nature. Have you any good nature?” he asked puzzled. “Never mind. I’ll loan you some.”

As Jack settled himself beside her yet again, Anamaria considered retribution for his comment, but decided that would merely prove his claim. She settled for pointing out, “I’d be careful how I insulted the person who was about to be poking a stick in my eye, if I were you.”

The captain raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m really almost entirely certain that other captains don’t have to put up with this kind of insubordination in their first officers.” He looked thoughtful. “On the other hand, their officers are really much uglier, so I don’t think I’ll trade.”

“Jack!” Anamaria warned.

“Right,” Jack agreed to himself. “Don’t provoke her into anything rash that we’ll both regret.”

He removed the lid of the jar and set it on his leg; then he unstoppered the bottle, immersed the stick into the oil, wiped it off on a relatively unscathed bit of sheet, and dipped it into the dark powder.

“Here.” He handed Anamaria the tiny stick.

She smelled the odour of burnt almonds and copper and frankincense.

“Now,” he instructed. “Hold the stick horizontal to my eye, place the front end of it on my eye, at the inside corner, and move slowly outwards, keeping it between the two lids and still touching the eye.”

Anamaria eyed the object doubtfully. “You want me to stick this in your eye?” she asked incredulously. “As in touching?”

“Yep,” Jack grinned.

“Are you mad?” she yelped. “Never mind. I know the answer to that one. But Jack, I can’t! My hands aren’t the steadiest right now.”

“You’ll do fine, love,” Jack soothed. “I promise to squawk if you do anything dreadful.”

He leaned towards her. He really wanted her to do this. Anamaria would rather have gone another round with the chamber pot. With great trepidation she took hold of his face in one hand and brought the stick to the corner of his left eye with the other. Then she stopped, unable to bring herself to actually do it.

“Go on,” Jack encouraged. “I’m quite enjoying myself.”

“You scurvy ass,” Anamaria snapped, and set the tip to Jack’s eye. When he didn’t scream or go blind or hit her, she drew courage and began to trace the curvature of his eye with the dark substance, watching it cling to Jack’s lashes as it passed. To her surprise, she completed the task without incident. Withdrawing the stick, she watched as he blinked several times in rapid succession to clear the dark powder from his eye. He looked lopsided now, with one darker eye.

“Couldn’t have done it better myself,” Jack said, with what sounded suspiciously like relief. “Onward, me hearty. I’ve got one more eye.”

“Not after I’m done,” Anamaria groused. But she turned his face to the correct angle and began on his right eye with much less hesitation.

Finishing, she removed the stick and dropped both hands from Jack’s face. He didn’t look damaged. Except for the blinking, he didn’t even look uncomfortable. Anamaria sighed with relief.

“Don’t get comfortable, darlin’” Jack warned. “You’ll need to clean off whatever powder floats to the corners of my eyes and then do the outlining.” He handed her a cloth.

Carefully, Anamaria dabbed at the black clumps in Jack’s eyes. “Is this really worth it?” she asked.

“Keeps down the sun’s glare and they swear it guards against eye infections.” Jack shrugged. “And you have to admit, it’s rather striking.”

Anamaria did know that, but she didn’t have to admit anything. “Close your eyes, you vain thing,” she ordered. Reapplying kohl to the stick, she began to gently define the contours of his eyelids with with the dark powder. This was much less nerve-wracking business, and she had time to notice the sheer elegance of the man whose face she was handling.

How had this peacocky, two-thirds mad, annoying pirate managed to become so necessary for her peace of mind? And now he was off to risk all that was mortal and unsure on the thread-thin chance that he could save his ship and a few of his crew.

Her hands, freed from their task with the kohl at last, unconsciously traced the fine lines of his cheeks as though she were memorizing him with her finger tips.

Jack’s eyes flew open. Their faces were so close she could feel his breath on hers. Like candles in the night, his eyes glowed more fiercely framed with the dark shadows.

Unguarded for an instant, Anamaria whispered, “You’re beautiful.” Then she flushed hot and embarassed, biting her tongue and mentally cursing herself for stupidly letting that come out aloud. It must have been the fever.

But Jack made no snide riposte nor took any lewd advantage. His rare, slow, pleased smile lilted the corners of his lips and his teeth glinted briefly like sun behind clouds. He lifted one hand and drew a fingertip along the curve of her jaw.

“We’ll make it through this, love,” he said softly. “I promise.”

* * * * *

Although Anamaria couldn’t comprehend it, Jack Sparrow had ordered mercy for the crew of the Defender. Which was why she was surprised when he came in from the final preparations, soaking wet again, shaking rain like diamond drops from his face and hair, to give her the knives. They were long heavy knives, beautifully balanced for close and dirty fighting or for throwing.

“Haven’t had much call for these,” he mused, drawing one from its scabbard and watching the play of candlelight on its blade. “But these are works of art.” He handed her the naked blade, hilt first.

Works of art, indeed. Anamaria had always been attracted to knives, daggers, the lesser blades. They suited her smaller build, were easier to conceal than a cutlass, and they were her weapon of choice in a fight. But she’d never held a blade like this one. Wonderingly she ran a reverent finger along the silken folded steel. Hefting the knife, she swung it slicing through the air. Almost, she heard it sing.

“Pretty, innit?” Jack said, clearly satisfied at her reaction.

Anamaria looked up at him bewildered. “Yes, but why?”

Jack was silent for a space, drawing the other knife, and staring at it pensively. Then he looked up at her again. “Because I’m leavin’ this ship and allowin’ her to be boarded by men who may or may not be honourable. Because you’re goin’ t’ be a lot outnumbered in here, and you can’t walk. I don’t want you to have no way to defend yourself, Ana.”

Touched, but still confused, Anamaria pointed out, “Two knives ain’t goin’ t’ make much of a difference in the end if it comes to fightin’. Those marines’ll take us down.”

“Aye, I know,” Jack said. “But they’ll make a difference to you.”

Anamaria realized that he was right. Already, with that knife in her hand, she felt better about the oncoming confrontation. She might still die, but she wouldn’t die helpless. And she wouldn’t die alone. She’d be sure of that. The smile she turned on Jack had more than a hint of canine teeth in it.

“You’ll need to hide these. Their only use is as a surprise,” Jack said. “It’s a good thing this bed is already scuppered.”

Together he and Anamaria worked out the swiftest angle for her to draw the blades, one for each hand. Then Jack maneuvered them through the bedding and into the mattress. “No one’ll notice these in this mess,” he decided, wrinkling up the coverlet under which the hilts rested.

“Remember, love. As little bloodshed as possible. We can’t win this if it turns into a fight. Even if we succeed in commandeerin’ that brig’s firepower, there’ll only be different levels of losin’ if there’s fightin’ on the Pearl.”

Anamaria shivered at the thought of Jack having to give the orders to fire on his own ship. “Right,” she agreed. “No surrender; no fightin’. I think I can manage t’ keep that straight.”

She watched as Jack settled his sword at his right hip. The effect was strangely unsettling, as though he were a different person. Then he shoved two pistols into his belt. At her raised eyebrow, he commented, “They won’t work, but it’s the thought that counts.”

Not for the first time, Anamaria wondered how much of Jack Sparrow was put on for show.

Curious, she tried imagining what the Defender’s captain would see when he looked at the pirate captain. Jack had so many masks he wore, so many varied roles he played, but he was submerging into that rare manifestation when he was at his most dangerous. Gone was any acknowledgement of those broken ribs. He might not be moving with the feline grace he exhibited when uninjured, but there was still that taut bowstring tension to him, that sense of coiled potential violence, that iron-hard implacable strength.

As he raised his well-worn blade in his left hand, he quoted soberly, “Here draw I a sword, whose temper I intend to stain with the best blood that I can meet withal in the adventure of this perilous day.”

Somehow the grand words suited him in this moment, even though his mouth twisted with distaste after he had said them.

“Somehow, I doubt the Navy is going to appreciate that sentiment,” he said sourly, “or stand around to admire the gesture.”

Then, although Jack hadn’t seemed to move, his blade sliced the air in the beginnings of a shadow dance against an invisible opponent. Lunge, parry, riposte—thought becoming action like the flare of a shot. As he tested the less familiar reach of his left arm, he was a picture of perilous, swift motion.

The wild savagery of his wet hair, jangling with bizarre curios, flung about his head, interwoven with the twisting blood-dark strands of his scarf, as he feinted with the deadly blade. The rain-wet white fabric of his sleeve clung to the curve and flex of muscle in his arm, the shadows of tattoos showing like dim dark ghosts. He would not be wearing his heavy coat nor the hat because of the swim, so he was entirely sleek lines and sharp edges, slender and lethal like the sword he wielded.

In his darkly-outlined eyes, the light of humour had leached away, the softness of compassion had frozen solid, and all was deep, midnight storm struck through with flashes of lightning.

He was, she thought wonderingly, frightening and magnificent, barbarically splendid and completely the captain of the Black Pearl, the most fearsome pirate ship in the Caribbean.

This was not the face of the man who had ordered his men to show mercy. This was the face of the man who had given a gift of knives.

She considered that gift— how she could kill two men, if she threw them, but then she would no longer be armed. Or if she wished to hold on to a weapon, how a man would have to choose to come close enough for her to strike a killing blow, though why any one would do such a thing, she couldn’t . . . oh. Anamaria felt the skitter of claws up her spine and her pulse went from a pace to a gallop. That was why Jack wanted her to have concealed knives. She reached into the folds of fabric to feel the comforting weight of the hilts.

The captain was sliding his sword back into its scabbard with a ringing slice of steel. She could see that he was already out on the deck with his men, already striking out on that hazardous swim, already waging that desperate, last-ditch attack on the Defender. He was scarcely with her at all by now. But she wanted to tell him one thing before he was gone.

“Thank you,” Anamaria said quietly, as Captain Sparrow headed for the door.

He looked back, and for a minute he was just Jack again, tossing her a last word with a smirk. “Some men give their womenfolk diamonds. I give her knives and say go get your own diamonds, love.”

And then, like a flicker of shadow, he slipped out the door. Anamaria watched the spot where he’d vanished for a long time. Perhaps it really was true that on sheer force of personality alone Jack Sparrow could talk a man who held all the cards into surrendering the game.

* * * * *

TBC
21 Valour's Show and Valour's Worth

FanArt: Anamaria

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:29:22 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Didn't take the photograph used for reference. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! Just a quick sketch of one of my favourite characters. I love Anamaria and wish she were in the sequels.

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

FanArt: Scruffington

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 18:58:23 GMT

by Honorat
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Don't own POTC. Didn't take the photograph used for reference. Not making any money.

Summary: More Art! Scruffington! Oh my aching back the HAIR!

Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil on printer paper.

Fic: Crossing the Bar (19b/?)

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:18:42 GMT

Author: Honorat
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Sparrow, Anamaria, the crew of the Black Pearl
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat. Jack/Pearl most definitely
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!

Summary: On the Black Pearl Jack Sparrow is on the hunt for a way to get out of an awkward situation with his and Anamaria’s dignity intact. The Muse made me do this! I claim no responsibility. This has nothing to do with the plot, but do you think I could get it out of my head once the question was raised? I mean this had to happen and it had to be a problem, but why couldn’t I have ignored the possibility like ninety-nine percent of fanfic writers? Consider this a deleted scene that is being included because it’s written now and I might as well post it. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?

Thanks to geekmama for the beta help.

1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To

* * * * *

19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To

With the Defender sweeping down upon them, and the attack only hours away, Captain Jack Sparrow seethed with a whirlpool of plans that kept sucking down his ideas and spitting out new difficulties. The fact that his Black Pearl was masts down and leaking like an unstanched wench was gnawing at the back of his neck, but he was getting used to it. In the hour before sunrise, he’d made his peace with her. She would protect him with her broken wings. And he would make her persecutors pay.

At least he had succeeded in the one all-important thing. There was no sign of the Dauntless anywhere on the horizon.

With a trample of boots, the captain clattered down the companionway stairs and barged into his cabin, intent on ship’s business. The grey morning sky was just now beginning to shed enough light through the shattered windows that he could see Anamaria’s eyes were turned on him. Good. She was awake.

“Anamaria,” he said crisply. “I’m making up the boarding party roster, and I’d like your opinion.” Normally this would have been her task, but he hadn’t wanted to burden her with too much just yet. However, he valued her detailed knowledge of the crew. “Bishop, Mkosi, Bartholomeo, Asfar, and Scuttlebutt,” he listed. “They’re able-bodied, but I’m not sure they can handle the swim. Weather’s calmed down considerable, but there’s still a storm swell. What say you? Do I tell ‘em aye or nay?”

His first mate looked like a rag that had seen too many washings, except for a worrisome flush patching her cheekbones. She seemed to be having a hard time concentrating on what he was saying. Not good.

Crossing the room to her side, he laid the back of his hand against her cheek. She flinched away from his touch, but not before he felt the summer day heat where she should have been as chilled as he was. Just as he had feared, her fever had not subsided. In fact, if anything, it was worse.

“I’m fine,” she snapped at him distractedly. “Naught you can do about it anyway.”

He shrugged. She was right. Time enough to worry about inflammations after they’d survived the next few hours. “Can you give me any suggestions on the men?” he repeated.

“Asfar,” she said in a tight voice. “Strong as an ox. He’ll make it well enough, and you’ll need him on the Defender. Scuttlebutt. He’s improved a lot. Give him a chance. The others. No. Leave ‘em here.” Then she closed her eyes.

Jack nodded. Her analysis coincided with his own. But at the level of fatigue he currently found himself, it was reassuring to know he wasn’t making a drastic mull of things. “Thanks, love,” he said. “I’ll be off then. Anything I can get sent to you? Rum? Water?”

“Oh God, no!”

Her vehemence startled him. “No worries!” He held up his hand placatingly. “Didn’t mean to offend. I won’t send you a thing.”

When he received no answer and she didn’t look at him again, Jack turned to go. Likely Anamaria was in too much pain, and it was making her as surly as a spavined mule. He’d just sneak on out while his head was still firmly attached to his neck.

He’d almost made it to the door when her voice stopped him.

“Jack?”

He paused, startled. That was not a tone of voice he’d ever heard from Anamaria—plaintive and miserable.

He turned back. “What is it, love?”

She didn’t respond, and she was studying the bulkhead with fierce fascination although it looked like a perfectly ordinary, boring strip of planking. Well, it was a piece of his Pearl and therefore infinitely lovely, but still.

“Anamaria?” he prompted to the back of her head.

She seemed tense now and unwilling to speak, another unnatural phenomenon. Jack’s concern ratcheted up a notch. He took a step towards her.

“I’ve got to use the head,” she bit off fiercely, still not turning to face him.

Oh hell.

After all that rum and water, she would. He could hear her anger and humiliation at having to ask for help. She was never going to trust him to help her, either. And if she had to let him anyway, she was never going to forgive him. Then he remembered his ribs. He wasn’t going to be able to manage this alone.

Oh hell!

“No problem . . .” he started to say “darling” then thought better of it “. . . we’ll figure out something.” He tried to sound bracing and reassuring and indifferent and it wasn’t working. There she was, looking wretched and vulnerable. And Anamaria did not look vulnerable with four inches of steel driven into her thigh, as he had cause to know.

Oh hell.

If she’d been one of the lightskirts with whom he’d had dealings in any number of ports, he’d have had no difficulties in such a situation. Might even be a bit of fun. Certainly a lot of laughs. Definitely matter-of-fact. But this was Anamaria, proud and dangerous and thin-skinned and chaste as a nun while on board his ship. The men treated her with the utmost circumspection—well, except for him. Which wasn’t making this any easier now, was it?

Jack’s normally agile mind nearly stuttered to a halt trying to picture any way for the two of them to get out of this with dignity intact.

“You know, this would be a whole heap more convenient if you were a man,” he complained. “For one thing, you wouldn’t care if I saw anything I shouldn’t. And for another you’d not need to shed quite so very much. Are you sure we can’t just pretend this don’t matter? I swear if I see anything I’ve not seen before I’ll shoot it and run.”

Anamaria’s glare could have roasted a whole hog. If she’d been armed, she’d have shot him with no running at all. Jack backed up a step.

Wait just one moment. He was having a thought here. Life-threatening situations tended to do that for him. Lightskirts. There was a reason women wore those ridiculous, yardgoods-intensive contraptions other than just easy access for a quick tup in a dark corner.

“Wait right here,” he informed Anamaria. “I have just the thing.”

* * * * *

Wait right here, he’d said. Like she was capable of going anywhere!

Anamaria decided that she was in a state of revolution with her body. Normally she scarcely noticed she had one, but at the moment it was practically all she could think about. Her eyes felt like desert islands, hot and dry and full of sand, while the rats were viciously gnawing away at the backs of her eyeballs. Her mouth tasted of bilgewater. Her injured leg felt thick and stiff, as though she were dragging about one of the Pearl’s topgallant yards when she attempted to move it. But the pain and assorted miseries would have been endurable had not the need to relieve herself already passed from a good idea to a flaming necessity.

It didn’t help that her spirit was smarting. Confiding in the captain had taken an act of will more wrenching than crawling out on that bowsprit. Anamaria despised being helpless with a deep and eternal hatred.

Whatever brilliantly mad plan Jack had gone in pursuit of, it would require that she at least sit up. Therefore, she would sit up. Without his help. Even though she felt as limp as a sail in the doldrums. With teeth-gritted determination, she managed to make it up onto her elbows before Jack reappeared in the cabin doorway looking pleased with himself.

“Oh good,” he said. “You’re almost up. Look what I’ve got!” He waved about a pewter, jug-like container with a wide opening and a handle. “Item: One chamber pot. Every lady with a shard of spritsail yard driven up her leg should have one!” He plunked the object on the table and disappeared out the door again.

By his next entrance, Anamaria was sitting up, braced on shaking arms and slightly nauseous.

Jack was awkwardly kicking in front of him a rather worse-for-wear piece of furniture. “Item: One backless chair, courtesy of Tearlach,” he grunted. “Man don’t know his own strength. Between him an’ Matelot, it’s a wonder there’s anything left o’ the Pearl for the Navy t’ shoot at.” He manuevered the chair to the bedside and placed the chamber pot on the seat.

Anamaria, feeling as though her head was caught in a high wind, squinted up at Jack. There was something disturbing about him, she decided woozily. “There’s two of you,” she muttered. “No wait, there’s three, no two. Jack Sparrow, one of you is enough for this world. This is just wrong.”

“You’re only a little dizzy, love,” Jack reassured her. “It’ll pass. But if it don’t, there’s many a lass’d like more than one o’ me!”

Anamaria wasn’t dead enough to let that pass. “And more that’d like none,” she snorted.

All the Jacks smirked at her. “I knew you’d be feeling better soon,” they said.

However many of him there were became exceedingly interested in one of the chests across the room. He gingerly lowered himself to sit on a neighbouring trunk and unstrapped the lid. By the time Jack had finished rummaging through the contents which included, among other esoteric items, a carved elephant tusk; a red and yellow feathered mask, slightly tattered; a velvet brocade coat, extremely tattered; a large Chinese lacquered vase; and a dried and stuffed mermaid looking suspiciously like a monkey body attached to a fish tail and smelling vilely of camphor, Anamaria was focusing more clearly, although the ship still seemed to be wavering around her.

“What are you looking for?” she asked impatiently. The need for him to be done with whatever he was doing and assist her was not diminishing.

“This,” Jack exclaimed triumphantly, rising with an amorphous mountain of dark crimson fabric in his arms. “Item: One dress. I thought I remembered there was one in here. You could hide an army under this skirt, love. Possibly with room left over for a fully rigged ship. Or in this case a chair and a chamber pot.”

Moving to the side of the bed, Jack frowned at Anamaria as though she were a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. “Do I need to get someone to help you stand up?” he asked.

“No.” Anamaria said quickly. “Just you. Not one of the crew. I have arms and one working leg.”

“You do remember I’m not much use for lifting, eh lass?” Jack warned, waving a demonstrative hand at his sling.

“Just keep me from falling on my face, that’s all,” she answered grimly. But she quickly discovered that she wasn’t going to be moving her stiffened leg on her own. At least not and remain conscious.

Jack didn’t need to be told that she was in trouble. He swiftly supported her ankle so her leg did not drag on the bed and smoothly followed her movements as she turned herself with her arms and her good leg.

“There,” she said breathlessly when she was sitting on the side of the bed, her good leg propped on the deck, the other still held out straight in front of her. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“Of course not,” Jack said dryly. “That’s why we’re both sweatin’ like we just raced t’ the t’gallant yards. Now how are we goin’ to get this,” he nodded at her leg, “down there?” he jerked his chin towards the deck.

“Just let go?” Anamaria shrugged. “It won’t kill me.”

“No it won’t,” said Jack. “But you’ll be killing me shortly after.” He grimaced. “I’m sure this is the lesser evil.” And he sank with determined grace to one knee, keeping his spine unbent, supporting her leg all the way down and then lowering it until her foot rested on the floor. It hurt like bloody blazes, and apparently not just for her. As soon as Jack had removed his hand from her ankle, he told her in great and profane detail just exactly where she could insert her modesty and how far she could shove it, and how long she could leave it there.

Anamaria blinked.

When he’d finally wound down, he sighed. “There. That feels better.”

Anamaria laughed.

Jack glowered at her. “Anything else you need liftin’, up or down or sideways, I’m callin’ for help. Savvy? Tearlach’ll do fine.”

“Jack,” Anamaria protested weakly.

“No,” said Jack mulishly. “I’m pulling rank here. He won’t say a word. I promise.”

“Tearlach never says a word,” Anamaria said.

“Exactly.”

That had been the captain speaking. When matters reached that point, Anamaria knew argument was always futile.

Slowly and painfully, Jack got back to his feet. He grabbed the dress and held it out to her.

“Time to complete your toilette, my dear. It was quite the fashion for the gentlemen to assist the ladies with their gowns in the last generation.” He eyed the garment critically. “And, I would say this is at least a generation out of mode.”

Anamaria scowled at the object he was offering. “I can’t remember ever wearin’ a dress.”

“Not even when you were a little girl?” Jack asked as they sorted out the acres of fabric into sleeves and bodice and skirt.

“I was lucky to get my brothers’ cast-offs, and they were cut down from my father’s clothing when he wore it out. My family had no use for a girl, so I was just another one of the boys.” Anamaria hadn’t thought about that past in a long time. Suddenly she wondered about her family, what they were doing, if any of the boys had families of their own. Perhaps, someday, she would go home and see. If she lived.

“Well then, it’s about time you did wear a dress,” Jack said firmly. “I’m sure you were an adorable little mucky-nosed ragamuffin, but you’ll make a much prettier lady. Now put your arms up so we can slip this over your head.”

Anamaria almost fell over when she tried. In the end she had to hold up one hand at a time as Jack worked the garment awkwardly over her shoulders, consigning all women’s fashions to the devil. However, finally the ordeal was over.

“Hmmm.” Jack eyed her consideringly, one hand full of fabric still resting at her waist. “You’re going to need some sort of easy way out of this.”

Anamaria, ensconced in a huge puddle of crimson about her hips, wriggled uncomfortably. Jack removed his hand as though he’d been burnt.

Frowning, he decided, “We’d better leave the top off. You just need the skirt. Help me lace this bodice up enough to keep it from falling off.”

Since Anamaria needed one hand to prop herself upright, they attempted to cooperate in a tangle of hands and laces. Finally Jack just held her up himself while she secured the skirt with a large, loopy bow.

“Now do you think you can stand up, lass?” Jack asked, looking doubtfully at her.

“Of course I can stand,” Anamaria said defensively.

“Ha!” said Jack skeptically. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much. But let’s see you give it a try.”

Anamaria discovered that sheer bloody-minded determination was not going to be sufficient. She was too wobbly to get up enough strength. When her head cleared, she discover Jack’s arm, elbow bent, hovering patiently in front of her nose.

“Get a hold on that, love,” he said. “You’ll pull better than you push.”

With his dogged assistance, Anamaria made it to a swaying upright position, the skirt falling down around her legs in heavy folds. She let go of Jack’s arm—and began to tip. Jack lunged to stop her downward progress.

“Steady as she goes. You’ve lost a bit too much blood and you’re running a fever. I don’t want you collapsing on me.”

“’S there still a storm?” she asked.

“No. The storm’s been over for hours,” Jack assured her.

“Why’s the Pearl swooping then?”

“She’s not, love. The Pearl’s just rocking nicely. You’re the one that’s swooping. Whoops!” He took a firmer grip on her arm. “Almost lost you there! Now lean back against the bed again.”

“I feel very strange,” Anamaria said, when she was once more propped up by the edge of the bed.

“You look very strange, darling,” Jack agreed. “That shirt does not flatter that skirt. I could help you take it off. Dress you up proper,” he volunteered, forgetting himself for a moment.

“Jack Sparrow!”

“I know. I know, love,” Jack said apologetically. “It’s just me. You know I’m perfectly harmless.”

“The only time you were ever harmless,” Anamaria grumbled, “was before you were conceived. I bet you were a holy terror of a baby.”

Jack looked introspective. “I suppose I did break me mum’s ribs what with kickin’ before I was born.” He rubbed a thoughtful hand over the arm that braced his own broken ribs. “She never let me forget that.”

Anamaria held her breath wondering if he would continue. Jack Sparrow never talked about his family or his past. This was her first hint that he hadn’t just sprung from the sea, a captain astride the quarterdeck of his Black Pearl. But the moment passed in silence. Jack shook his head as though to clear it of some unsought picture.

“Now,” he asked, “Can you get out of . . . whatever it is you need to get out of . . . on your own?”

She almost smiled at his primness. It was so very unlike Jack to mince his words. His discomfort perversely made her feel more cheerful.

“I’ll be fine, Jack,” she insisted. The vertigo was decreasing the longer she remained upright.

“You’re sure?” He raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Because so far your prophetic talents in that regard have been, shall we say, less than accurate.”

“I’m sure.” Anamaria nodded firmly, then regretted the motion. “I won’t even have to stand up.”

“That’s good. Because you can’t stand up. Bloody independent female!” Jack said under his breath as he turned to go.

After the captain had betaken himself off, Anamaria simply hitched the skirt back up to her waist, one-handed, and fumbled the ties of her breeches undone. When she let the dress fall, she could keep holding her breeches up through the layers of cloth and let them drop when she was ready. With some trepidation she called for Jack, knowing Tearlach would be accompanying him.

However, Tearlach was too good-natured and dependable to leave her uneasy for long. He picked her up like she was a poppet with hands that nearly spanned her waist, and as Jack arranged her skirt around the chair, the big man set her on her feet, or rather foot, again.

Gripping the edge of the table, Anamaria discovered with a sense of achievement, that she could stand on her own.

“There you are!” Jack said triumphantly. “It’s as good as a tent. No one will know what you’re up to under there. Tearlach if you would seat the lady?”

Anamaria let go of her breeches and felt them pool above the bandage on her leg. Then she was being lowered to perch precariously on what felt like the far too inadequately-sized chamber pot. Her knuckles went white on the table as she balanced.

“That’s going t’ be a really tough angle to hold yourself at, love. You sure you want us to go?” Jack asked dubiously.

“I’ll manage,” she told him. “Go away.”

She felt the heavy clumsiness of her body returned to her own control as the two men stepped back from her.

“Just call when you’re ready for a lift,” Jack said as he and Tearlach headed for the door.

Unfortunately Jack was right about the angle. She could feel the muscles in her good leg quivering and threatening to give out. And the chamber pot was not making a sturdy base at all. She could picture herself falling and everything else falling and the whole embarrassing mess becoming intolerable.

She must have made some sort of sound, for Jack was back at her side in an instant. “Go on, Tearlach,” he ordered. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

And then his arm was around her, taking the brunt of her weight even though she knew it had to be killing him.

“Anamaria,” he entreated through clenched teeth. “This isn’t going to work. You can’t do this by yourself. I wish you could bring yourself to trust me.”

She shook her head in fierce denial, but he did not release her.

“In the past twenty-four hours,” he argued, “I’ve had your vomit spattered on my knuckles, I’ve finger-painted with your blood, and, on a much happier note, we shared a kiss that really qualifies as the highlight of an otherwise hellish day. So what’s one more body fluid among mates, eh?”

A small laugh escaped her. When he put it that way . . .

“I’d do this for Gibbs,” Jack continued earnestly. “Hell, I’d even do this for Pintel. You’re one of my crew, love. Let me help you.”

Anamaria began to cave in, not the least because she really needed him.

“Please,” he said softly.

She couldn’t bring herself to answer, but she nodded against his coat.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “I swear I’ll close my eyes and ears and anything else you wish. You won’t even know I’m here.”

Somehow she doubted that. But somehow, he’d made it all right.

* * * * *

Anamaria decided that she could be going to her own hanging, but if she had an empty bladder it would be all she asked of life. For the first time in hours, she could relax.

Jack, on the other hand, was breathing harshly in her ear. “Are you done, darlin’?” he said with teeth-gritting control.

“Yes,” she told him. “Thank . . .”

But Jack didn’t let her get the words out. “Tearlach!” he bellowed. “Get your arse in here and lend a hand, man! Now!”

As the big man’s arm took her weight off of Jack, the captain almost succeeded in squelching a relieved moan. She shouldn’t have been such a prude and put him through that, but she was so very grateful to him.

Carefully, the two men got her to her feet again without disturbing anything. Jack whisked the hem of her skirt over the chair and chamber pot while Tearlach kept her from wavering. Then the captain handed the pot to his crewman with the orders, “Remove this before someone knocks it over.”

Tearlach unquestioningly did as he was bid and emptied the contents out one of the cannon shot holes in the hull.

“Well,” Jack shrugged. “I knew there had to be a good use for those.”

* * * * *

Leaving Anamaria, hanging on to the table with one hand, to shed her skirt, clean up, and reassume her ordinary clothing Jack followed Tearlach out the door. He’d have been delighted to assist, but he supposed, that was the problem.

Jack let himself relax against the bulkhead and concentrated on ignoring the swordfight going on in his ribcage. Could one concentrate on ignoring with any degree of possibility? For a few minutes the philosophical conundrum conjured up in his brain distracted him from the fact that all the combatants were losing.

It was good not to move, not to lift, scarcely to breathe for a brief moment—even if any decrease in momentum seemed to be threatening to tip him over into sleep. He fervently hoped the men on the Defender were not much more rested than his own battered crew, or a four to one advantage might still not be enough.

Tearlach lounged with tireless stoicism on the other side of the door, as silent and massive and unflappable as a mountain. Somehow the presence of his giant crewmember always had a calming effect on Jack.

The big man met his captain’s eyes and a smile crinkled the weather lines on his placid, pleasant face. Sometimes Jack had to remind himself that this wordless colossus who took such care of his smaller mates was by no means a simpleton. The wry good humour in that grin was as clear as speech.

Jack nodded and smiled back. “Women,” he agreed. “Bless ‘em, they are complicated creatures. But I think we’re going to make it out of this alive, Mr. Tearlach. I thank you for your assistance.”

At Anamaria’s summons, Jack peeked in the door to check for the clearness of the coast.

“Just you,” she mouthed at him.

So he gestured for Tearlach to await further orders.

Anamaria was standing in a sea of crimson fabric, with her weight supported on her good leg and one arm, her grimy, bloody breeches clasped tightly to her waist with her other hand. Jack spotted the difficulty immediately. It was not possible for a person to both hold up a pair of breeches and lace them with one hand.

However, the look in her eyes warned him that retribution would be severe if he should make any comments of an off-colour nature. Biting his tongue, Jack also refrained from saying he was happy to oblige as he began with really quite admirable insouciance to truss his first mate back into her garments. He had to admit that he’d gotten his hands on more of Anamaria today than he’d ever hoped to. His agile fingers handled the ties while the rest of his attention was busily admiring the curve of her hip and the feel of hard muscle under worn fabric. Which was probably why she was so reluctant to accept his help. He could sense unborn slaps seething about inside of her.

The sentiment that he’d rather be removing these than putting them on her nearly made it past his lips before his instinct for self-preservation caught up to his impulse for wagging his tongue and ran that by his conscious mind. Not good. Those kinds of things were better said to Anamaria from a distance with a day’s head start.

But overall the day had been so very rotten that he allowed himself the indulgence of enjoying what pleasures he could in it. He just wished he could remove, erase, annul, or in some way expunge everything that had assured Anamaria of nothing but misery. Unfortunately, he was not the man whose touch could sweep away pain for her. He could only cause her more discomfort.

Against his personal inclinations, he hurriedly finished the task and pulled his hands away. Then he called in Tearlach.

“Time to tuck you back in bed, love,” he said. “You’re looking about done in, quite awful actually.” She did. Hollow-eyed and grey-skinned and haggard.

“You’re such a flatterer, Jack Sparrow,” Anamaria managed to retort, but she was clearly wilting.

“The word you’re looking for is toad-eater,” Jack suggested helpfully. “I’m feeling the need to ingratiate myself with your royal person.” He turned to the patiently waiting giant. “Tearlach, my man. Scoop the lady up and put her back where we got her before she falls over.”

Tearlach did just that, whisking Anamaria efficiently back to the captain’s wreck of a bed and laying her down as if she were a puff of thistledown.

“Now, love,” Jack said to his first mate, eyeing his crewman admiringly, “you really must admit that I could never have done that for you with even half the finesse. Not even if I were perfectly hale and sound.”

Anamaria nodded exhausted acknowledgment that Jack had been right to ask for help. “Thank you, Tearlach,” she said.

The crewman grinned at her, then tossed a salute at the captain as Jack waved him a dismissal. “Get along with you now, Mister. I’m sure the boarding party can use your help.”

When he was alone with Anamaria, Jack wasted a little more time, lingering to make sure she had sufficient covers pulled up to her chin. She looked up at him through half-mast eyelids. “Thank you, Jack,” she murmured. “I . . . just, thank you.”

“Feelin’ better, eh?” he squeezed her shoulder. “No trouble at all. You just rest now. I’ve got to run check on things, but I’ll drop by to look in on you in a bit.”

“I wish I could help,” she said wistfully.

“I wish you could too,” Jack agreed truthfully. “We could use you out there. But we’ll contrive, love.”

Anamaria smiled, her eyes closed now. “You always do.”

* * * * *
TBC
20 To Disguise Fair Nature with Hard-Favour'd Rage

Original Art: Laundry

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 02:36:25 GMT

by Honorat

Summary: My very own Art! An illustration for a story that I started to write. My attitude towards housework! This one just grew, so the physics is a little off, but I still like the expression on the young lady's face. This is her first time ever having to do her own laundry. "You have got to be kidding" is the basic sentiment. But the view is better than most.

Copyright 1998. All rights reserved.
8 1/2 x 11 inches, mechanical graphite pencil 0.5mm 2B on printer paper.

Fic: Crossing the Bar (19a/?)

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 06:40:16 GMT

Author: Honorat
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Norrington, the crew of the Dauntless
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat. Jack/Pearl most definitely. None in this chapter
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!

Summary: On the Dauntless Norrington is on the hunt for the Black Pearl. This is a short chapter. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?

Thanks to geekmama for the beta help.

1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
18 To Watch the Night in Storms

* * * * *

19a The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To

The dawn had barely raised the curtains of night sufficiently for Commodore Norrington to make out the pale ghost of the main course before he was pacing the weather side of the quarterdeck, his tongue firmly battened down between his teeth so that he did not frustrate the lookout with needless queries when the poor man could in no way have reasonably caught sight of anything other than the portions of spar and canvas closest to the maintop.

He’d spent a sleepless night, enduring the sounds and sights of the previous day’s work repeating themselves in gory succession on the insides of his eyelids. In his dreams the crimson-tinged water pouring from the Black Pearl’s washports turned the seas to blood. The spray of red dashing over the bow of the Dauntless spattered his uniform and his face until he could get neither his clothing nor his skin clean no matter how many nightmare hours he scrubbed.

Norrington had actually been grateful for the storm, arriving on deck several minutes before it actually struck. It was a relief to have something he could fight, even if it was only the elements.

But now as the sky reluctantly faded to a pearly grey, he found himself and his ship alone on a steel-colored circle of sea bounded only by horizon. Of the Defender and the Black Pearl there was not a trace. He hoped that Captain Walton was not undergoing a similar experience. As for Captain Sparrow, God only knew where he’d flown to. And Norrington had his doubts about that, though it was entirely possible the Devil would know. That pirate could very easily have altered course during the night, in which case the Dauntless could charge along as briskly as she pleased and never cross paths with that dark ship though she circumnavigated the globe.

If Sparrow had managed to elude the Defender, he would no doubt be whisking into some secret harbour to repair his ship as soon as possible. Which meant he could be in any of a thousand known or unknown hideouts in the scattered clusters of islands in this part of the Caribbean. The thought made the commodore’s head ache. If Walton did not have the Black Pearl in his sights, they were back to where they had started months ago—trying to find reliable intelligence on the pirate’s bolt holes. And then trying to find that slippery ship occupying one of them.

Reliable intelligence. A thoughtful frown creased Commodore Norrington’s brow. He had a source of intelligence aboard his ship at this very moment. His previous efforts to question the boy had not been remarkable for their success, but the child had spent a night seriously injured. He might not be so capable of resistance. Tiny prickles of conscience reminded Norrington that such a course might not smack so finely of honour, but he was tired and frankly desperate, so he ignored them.

It couldn’t hurt to ask a few questions.

As he approached the surgery, the odour reached out and twisted the commodore’s senses like a tangible claw—the too-familiar stench of decaying flesh. He knew before he opened the door that Samuels’ report would not be positive.

Peering into the dimly lit room, trying not to breathe, he caught the doctor’s eye and motioned for the man to join him outside.

“How is he?” Norrington asked in a low voice, when the door had closed behind Samuels.

The doctor simply shook his head.

“It is gangrene?” The commodore looked towards the closed door and wrinkled his nose.

“Yes,” Samuels sighed. “I’m going to have to amputate.”

“Damn.”

“It’s hard enough when they’re your own,” the doctor said, leaning an elbow against the bulkhead and rubbing his hand across his eyes. “But at least they have their mates, people they trust. This poor child is all alone here. Oh, he’s trying to act brave, the cheeky little blighter that he is, but he cries for that captain of his in his sleep.” The doctor paused and frowned. “Something puzzles me about that. That child has been beaten to within an inch of his life at some point in the past. More than once. He’s got scars worthy of a Navy hardcase. And yet, he seems quite attached to that pirate.”

Norrington shrugged. “He would not have been beaten on the Black Pearl. While I would never have considered Jack Sparrow as a father figure, he is not the type to abuse his crew.”

“Ah!” Samuels nodded, enlightened. “Well that makes some sense then. You never know about these pirates—some of the stories one hears . . . The boy would feel a sense of obligation to anyone who removed him from whatever situation left those scars.”

“Is he awake?” the commodore asked.

“Depends what you call awake,” Samuels said dryly. “He’s been drifting in and out all night. Feverish, you know. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to know where he is. He’s conscious right now, if that’s what you mean.”

“I would like to speak to him,” Norrington said.

The doctor shot him a sharp look with a touch of microscope in it. Norrington felt scrutinized, labeled and catalogued.

“That,” said Samuels severely, “was the commodore speaking. And I’m not sure he’s welcome in my surgery right now.”

“And that,” responded Norrington evenly, “was my old friend Gil speaking, when by rights it should have been the ship’s doctor.”

“Just what, exactly, do you intend to speak to my patient about?” Samuels demanded. “The weather? The latest social on dits? The criminal price of tea?”

“I have a few questions for which I am in need of answers. The boy may have those answers,” Norrington said.

The doctor’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “Interrogation. Really James, I had not thought it of you.”

“I do many things you would not think of me, Gil,” Norrington said, stepping towards the door. The doctor moved to block his passage. The commodore narrowed his eyes and said coolly, “Do I need to make this an order? I would see the boy.”

“No, Commodore,” Samuels said, the frost brittling his voice. “No orders are necessary.” And he stood aside.

But he followed the commodore into the surgery.

Commodore Norrington felt like a traitor, planning to utilize a child’s pain and fear and delirium to wring information that would lead the Navy to the Black Pearl. But the opportunity to plumb those secrets was not one he could afford to pass up. His mind felt dirty, as though he needed to scrub it with sand and rinse it thoroughly in clear water, but there would be no escape from this gritting discomfort.

“Doctor, would you please leave us.” It was not a request. He knew Samuels would disapprove. But he didn’t have time for arguments.

The look in the doctor’s eyes as he ducked back out the door could have ignited wet canvas.

Alone with the boy, he saw the sheen of sweat on the slight body, the too-rapid rise and fall of the thin chest, the restless movement of small hands on the rough cover, the lines of pain on a face far too young for such lines. There were times when Commodore Norrington’s rank and responsibilities pressed on his brow like a crown of thorns. Jip’s clouded eyes looked up at him but did not see.

“Captain,” he whispered fretfully.

“Your captain is not here, son,” Norrington soothed. “I’m sorry.”

“Captain!” The boy’s voice was stronger, more desperate. “Don’t let them . . .” he trailed off. Tears squeezed out from beneath dark lashes.

“I’ll take you to your Captain, Jip. But you must tell me where to find him,” Norrington suggested, holding his breath. Would the boy reveal anything of any use?

“I don’t know where he is! Why isn’t he here?”

“His ship was damaged. There was a storm. Where do you think he might go to make repairs?”

The blue eyes opened wide, fevered and sightless. “The deepest circle of hell!” the child gasped.

What? If that was an answer to his question, he’d already waited too long to ask it. Although the answer made a certain amount of perverse sense . . .

Jip closed his eyes again. “For betrayers.”

Oh.

“I will not tell you,” the boy whispered through clenched teeth. “I will not tell you anything.”

Norrington left the sickroom, his own face burning as though he shared Jip’s fever. He hoped Jack Sparrow appreciated just what kind of loyalty he possessed in this one smallest crewmember.

The doctor met him outside the door.

“Didn’t tell you a thing, did he?” Samuels was looking entirely too smug for a Royal Navy man. “Pluck to the backbone, that one.”

“Oh he’s a game one all right. It’s rather too bad that he’s on the wrong side.”

Samuels put a hand on the commodore’s arm. “Come on, James. Look me in the eye and tell me you aren’t glad he held out on you.”

Norrington’s mouth twisted wryly. “It is my duty to get that information any way I can, Gil.”

“Truth, James,” Gilbert Samuels persisted.

“Truth?” The question was thick with irony. “What is the truth? The truth is I failed. The truth is I set the perfect trap and Sparrow still flew it. The truth is I don’t believe Walton will take him. Not now. Not after that. And the truth is I have no idea where to start looking again, thanks to one stubborn child.”

“So?”

“So, you thorn in my flesh, yes. The truth is that in spite of it all, I am glad to find honour among thieves. Are you happy now?”

“I’m always happy when you cease trying to wriggle away from your humanity, my lad,” Samuels said gravely. “That boy may be a pirate and a source of information, but he is also a child who is injured and who has lost his only home and family. Remember that. And now that I’ve got you where I want you, I have a request.”

Norrington eyed him suspiciously. “Is this some sort of a trick?”

But Samuels did not have the look of a man who wasn’t serious. “I’d like you to assist me with the amputation, James.”

“What?” Norrington was startled, not only because that was not in the least one of the commodore’s normal duties. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it. He’d been involved in more than sufficient surgical procedures since he was a mid. But, “Why me?” he asked bewildered. “I did not think you would trust me with that boy.”

“Whether or not I trust you is a moot point, Commodore,” Samuels said. “Jip trusts you. Thanks to the recommendation of that pirate you’re pursuing. He’s got no one else on this ship whose name he even knows. I’m asking this for him, not you.”

Norrington raised an eyebrow at him. “I guess that has put me in my place.”

Samuels smiled ruefully. “You are a good man James Norrington, even though sometimes you lose your way in that labyrinth of gold braid.” He tapped the offending material on James chest. “Will you lend a hand then?”

“Yes, of course,” the commodore agreed. “And might I suggest Lieutenant Groves as well. The boy may not know him, but Groves appreciates his spirit and dotes most unprofessionally on that pirate captain of whom Jip is so fond.”

“Thank you, James. I’ll do that.” Samuels turned to head in his surgery door; then he paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Though, Commodore, if you open your mouth to ask that child a single question while he’s under my knife, the next thing that is coming off is your tongue.”

* * * * *
TBC
19b The Natural Shocks That Flesh is Heir To