Pirates of the Caribbean: Elizabeth Swann x James Norrington
Title: The Course of True Love
Author: Silmanumenel
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Pairing: Elizabeth Swann / James Norrington
Theme set: Alpha
Rating: PG-13
Important Notes: The sentences all take place in a universe where Elizabeth and James formed a strong and lasting friendship aboard the Dauntless during her and her father’s crossing to the Caribbean. They are not in a chronological order and span from pre to post CotBP, but disregarding
DMC and AWE. By the way, the title is a freely adapted quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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1. Comfort
He does not say a word, but James’ hand on her shoulder is an unimaginable comfort on this day, as Elizabeth once more mourns the death of her mother whose grave she cannot even visit in this strange country she now lives in.
2. Kiss
Like every young girl, Elizabeth daydreams about her first kiss, where it should happen, what it might be like, and her eyes fly open in shock when a blue captain’s frock instead of a brown blacksmith’s vest appears in her vision.
3. Soft
Elizabeth cautiously reaches out and is instantly surprised by the softness of the white wig, she had figured it to be much coarser; she is however not surprised by the softness in the green eyes watching her silently, as it is by now very familiar to her.
4. Pain
James does not even feel it when the sword of the undead pirate slices through his uniform and into his arm because compared to the pain that losing Elizabeth would bring this shallow wound is nothing.
5. Potatoes
He does not understand her obsession with the strange vegetable, but he simply is not able to say ‘no’ when she looks up at him pleadingly, so he sacrifices his free afternoon to go to the market and buy potatoes for the at the moment grounded governor’s daughter.
6. Rain
When the rain starts to fall, the ladies retreat to the parlour; all but Elizabeth who believes that nothing could be more wonderful for her thirteenth birthday than spinning around in the rain, hopping into puddles and catching drops with her mouth - until she sees James striding towards her with a smile on his face, for what could be more perfect than sharing all of these things with a friend?
7. Chocolate
James would never admit it to anyone, but what he misses most on longer missions to sea - apart from Elizabeth of course - is chocolate, and he is therefore quite stunned when he opens his sea chest to discover a carefully wrapped bar of the precious sweet, showing him once again that his fiancée is able to read him like no other person and leaving him with a very warm and tender feeling.
8. Happiness
“Sometimes”, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth tells an amusedly watching James, “happiness requires just a little bit of impropriety”, while ridding herself of her shoes and stockings and wading into the surf.
9. Letter
He is two months overdue, and Elizabeth flinches whenever a letter is brought to her, fearing it will contain the news that would surely kill her heart, but at the same time wishing to end the dreadful suspense because in some ways, not knowing is even worse than the harsh truth.
10. Ears
Elizabeth screws her eyes shut, covers her ears and shakes her head vehemently, not wanting to listen to even one other word James is saying because she was thinking he would understand her, while it is now painfully obvious that even the best of friends can have very disparate opinions.
11. Name
She knows her name means ‘God’s oath’, but sitting here on this godforsaken beach, crying her eyes out because everything she believed to know about herself just broke away, she wonders why her name is not something like ‘God’s incomprehensible sense of humour’.
12. Sensual
Elizabeth is not sure whether her fiancé is doing it deliberately, whether he has no clue or if she has finally gone mad, but she knows that writing a letter should definitely not be allowed to look so sensual.
13. Death
James has encountered death more often than he can count, has seen friends and soldiers fall, has been close to it on numerous occasions; yet he was always able to overcome these painful happenings with his head held high and his strength intact - until now, when he is holding his weeping wife and fighting his own tears as the small coffin bearing their firstborn child is lowered into the earth, wondering if this is his punishment for defying death so many times before.
14. Sex
When she was younger Elizabeth often wished to be a boy, then she would have much more freedom and all the members of her sex were artificial, simpering harpies anyway, but then James tells her about Queen Elizabeth I., and she thinks being a girl might not be so bad after all.
15. Touch
Being friends with Elizabeth has brought whole new aspects into James’ life, such as touch for instance because he is sure that there has never been that much physical contact between him and another person before, be it a small hand in his or an impromptu hug, and the truly strange thing is that he can no longer imagine it any other way.
16. Weakness
Dangling from the branch, she alternately curses her weakness and James, who can barely contain his laughter, while trying to hoist herself upward in an attempt to prove that she would very much be capable of climbing the rigging of a ship and should therefore be entitled to accompany him on one of his ventures.
17. Tears
Elizabeth clings to him, tears coursing down her cheeks, sobbing pitifully and begging him not to die, and James wonders who in the blazes told a young, impressionable girl the story about Admiral Hosier and his squadron. *
18. Speed
He is racing along the beach as if the very hounds of hell were on his heels, all the while urging his horse to gallop faster, desperately hoping he might leave these new feelings for his best friend in his wake, all the while knowing that it is utterly in vain.
19. Wind
The wind blows her hair about her face and she struggles to somehow keep it in check, until gentle hands gather her brown tresses and wind a ribbon around them; and when she snuggles into his arms she muses that love truly is most visible in the small gestures.
20. Freedom
“They looked so sad, and therefore I decided to set them free”, eleven-year-old Elizabeth earnestly explains to an exasperated Lieutenant Norrington while the newly liberated chicken wreak havoc on the quarter deck of the Dauntless, one commiting suicide by fluttering over the railing.
21. Life
When the Interceptor blows up right in front of them, Elizabeth’s only thought is that life without Will will be absolutely unbearable, resolutely ignoring the tiny voice deep inside her insisting that had it been James, she would have gone into the water right then and there.
22. Jealousy
She grabs her glass tightly, glaring daggers at that .... that hussy importuning a much too polite James in such a shameless manner; it is only two years later, after a nightmarish adventure and an island of revelations, that she recognises the feeling that was then so foreign to her as jealousy - and suddenly everything makes sense.
23. Hands
James loves watching her hands as they fly over the keys of the harpsichord, mesmerised by their agility and surety, his gaze then being inevitably drawn to the simple gold band encircling her ring finger, and he once again contemplates what he ever did to deserve such a blessing.
24. Taste
Due to the often less than savoury fares during long passages on sea he is used to a lot, but if he has to sample one more of Elizabeth’s well-meant but horrible petit four creations he believes his stomach might actually desert him and set up residence elsewhere.
25. Devotion
She always thought devotion meant doing everything for that special someone without question or hesitation, but lying here, watching James sleep, she realises that true devotion is seeking the best for the other, even if that might entail incurring her wrath or protecting her from herself.
26. Forever
Her words from so long ago still ring in his ears, ‘We’ll be friends forever’, and he wonders if this will still be true after he tells her that there is no way to prevent Jack’s hanging on the morrow.
27. Blood
It is quite the scandal in Port Royal, the governor’s daughter marrying in a striking red dress, but the colour has a deep meaning for Elizabeth and James because it stands for the blood they both had to shed - literally and figuratively - to attain this bliss.
28. Sickness
Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth knows it is not a very nice notion, but she cannot help thinking that an ill James is quite cute; then, when he turns his feverish cheek into her cool hand, the phrase, ‘and keep him in sickness and in health’, suddenly pops into her head, and she recoils slightly at the warm feeling spreading through her being.
29. Melody
He hears it as soon as he enters the governor’s garden and follows the sound to the back of the house, chuckling when he finds Elizabeth braiding her doll’s hair, all the while loudly humming the melody of the ‘Drunken Sailor’ to herself.
30. Star
“Quick, you have to make a wish”, Elizabeth shouts, grabbing his hand and pointing upwards at the shooting star, but James is of the firm belief that everything he could ever wish for is right here beside him.
31. Home
She always wanted to be free from the restraints of her father’s house, wanted to see more of the world, but sitting here, huddled in the room’s corner on this ghostly ship, Elizabeth just longs to be home because ‘My home’s my castle’, as they say, and she will need the fortifications of a castle - or James, something inside her whispers - to ever feel safe again.
32. Confusion
The gathered company breaks into loud shrieks when the dozen or so dogs storm through the room, and in the general confusion that sets in James manages to drag Elizabeth out into the garden, silently demanding an explanation, but he cannot help grinning at her impish smile and when she steps on her toes to kiss him softly he thinks that a distraction has perhaps been exactly what they needed.
33. Fear
Elizabeth sees the naked fear on his face and tries to catch his eye to tell him that Jack would never hurt her, but secretly she is glad to witness this display of emotion in him because he has been a bit distant and aloof for the past few weeks, and the insecurities she had not even acknowledged before are laid to rest at this proof of his affection for her.
34. Lightning/Thunder
Their clashes grow worse the older she gets, and Governor Weatherby Swann often feels as if he is lost at sea in a thunderstorm, Elizabeth’s caustic rejoinders to his demands for more lady-like behaviour flashing through him like bolts of lightning, her disdain for society pelting him like hailstones; and it is with the greatest sense of astonishment that he often sees her in the company of Captain Norrington, whom he knows to be the soul of propriety and decorum, after one of their heated arguments, talking quietly with him and once even crying softly - and he wonders whether things might not yet turn out alright.
35. Bonds
She is not quite sure how she knows it, but Elizabeth is absolutely certain that James is somewhere nearby, and she is convinced that he will be able to feel it as well, but she thinks it cannot hurt to help him a bit more in finding her while she eyes the rum storage speculatively.
36. Market
Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth averts her eyes when they pass by Kingston’s slave market, gripping her father’s hand tighter and wishing she had not insisted on coming with him and James, instead looking at the brown-and-white badge fixed onto James’ collar, hoping she will soon also have the courage to express her opinions publicly as he does.
37. Technology
James tries for the umpteenth time to explain to her how the water pump in the bilges works, and although Elizabeth seriously wants to understand how it operates, she has to say that she is much more impressed with his unvarying patience than with this new technology.
38. Gift
Her hands are almost shaking with anticipation when he hands her the gift, and she gasps in delight when it is revealed to be a beautifully shimmering shell necklace, and though she knows the ladies of Port Royal will scoff at her again, this necklace is more precious to Elizabeth than any diamonds or pearls could ever be.
39. Smile
It never ceases to astonish Elizabeth how much James’ appearance is altered when he smiles, so she naturally tries to elicit a smile as often as possible, but she is utterly overwhelmed by the look of complete bliss on his face when she tells him she is with child, showing her once again that she has indeed married the very best of men.
40. Innocence
She blinks up at him with large, guileless eyes, the veritable picture of innocence, but James would bet his captain’s uniform that it was Elizabeth who somehow dyed Lieutenant Gillette’s wig red after he called her an annoying know-it-all.
41. Completion
She always felt incomplete in a way, as if something was missing from her life, and she supposed it was the freedom society denied her, but when James slips the golden ring unto her finger, gazing at her lovingly, she realises it is this feeling of belonging that she had unconsciously been searching for all that time.
42. Clouds
The clouds burst open above Port Royal, sending down a torrent of rain, and James thinks amusedly that the best way to spend such a day is with a good friend, however drenched and grumpy she might be at the moment.
43. Sky
Elizabeth falls onto her back, enjoying the warm sand beneath her and the blue sky above, watching the gulls sail along overhead and wondering where James is at the moment, whether he is alright, and if he watches the same sky, thinking of her.
44. Heaven
When Elizabeth runs into his arms, telling him that it has all been a big misunderstanding, that this is where her heart truly lies, James honestly believes he must have died and gone to heaven, and he can only hold her tight, hoping this moment will never end.
45. Hell
Every priest she ever came into contact with always preached her she would go to hell if she did not check her behaviour and become more obedient and demure, leaving a tiny seed of doubt and fear to grow within her, but one day she luckily confides all of this to James who laughingly replies that God certainly knew what He did when He created her the way she is and would never send her to hell for being true to herself.
46. Sun
Elizabeth sometimes wishes her best friend’s humour was a little less dry, especially in moments like these when he informs her with a grin on his face that the sunburn is rather fetching and that she at least will not have to worry about Miss Wiltshaw criticising her tan again because she is just red, not brown.
47. Moon
James is glad that he is still able to enjoy a stroll through the moonlight on a warm summer night even after everything that has happened recently, and he muses that this is largely due to the incredible woman standing next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder and watching the silvery glowing sea with sparkling eyes.
48. Waves
Elizabeth loves the sound of the waves rolling onto the shore because it invariably manages to lull her to sleep, and in her dreams she is then sailing the Seven Seas to distant lands and exotic places, never even pausing at the fact that it is always James with her on the ship instead of Will, whom her waking mind would suggest as the obvious companion.
49. Hair
Mrs. Anderson scrunches up her nose in distaste, fishing a light brown hair out of her soup, and while James apologises profusely and with a completely straight face, Elizabeth glances at him with barely concealed laughter and loving admiration, happy to witness his mischievous streak becoming more pronounced as his cat Alwilda** slinks off with a decidedly huffy miaow.
50. Supernova
Elizabeth has studied her astronomy book very carefully, learning about constellations, supernovas and planetary movement, but nothing could have ever prepared her for the brilliant burst of light and the stars she sees behind her closed eyelids when James’ lips touch hers for the first time.
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* Admiral Hosier led a disastrous Caribbean expedition in 1726. Of a squadron of 4.750 men over 4.000 died within two years, including the admiral, his successor, seven captains and fifty lieutenants. A whole generation of sea officers then dreaded service in the West Indies.
** Alwilda is said to have been a Viking princess around 850 who ran off to sea with a few friends and started pirating. She supposedly surrendered to the Prince of Denmark and later married him.
So, tell me what you think! I loved doing this challenge and hope you like my results! J