Maps of the World
Title: Maps of the World
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Disney's. I don't own it. No infringement is intended and I'm not making any money from this story.
Author's note: A little experiment. Written for the 1sentence challenge, where you get 50 prompts and are to write exactly one sentence for each of them. I've used the Gamma theme set. This takes place at an undetermined point in the future, in which the two of them are together. DMC is taken into account, but I'm keeping it rather vague, otherwise. Hugs to geek_mama_2 for beta advice during the writing of these!
Maps of the World
by Hereswith
1. Ring
Rings on the fingers that swoop and soar, spreading out wide like pinions, and though he isn’t even touching her, she’s swept on the tide of him out to sea.
2. Hero
He’s been a hero to her, but heroes fall down; he’s been a coward, and risen to his feet, but in the end ever and always Jack, balancing somewhere in between.
3. Memory
If she lives to be an old woman and as streaked with grey as she now is with gold, she will hold this memory fast: the beating of his heart, like the pounding of waves against wood.
4. Box
Boxed in between Gibbs and the wall, she watches him make his way towards them, navigating the tables and the customers with practised deftness, like he might have a turbulent ocean.
5. Run
She tried to run from him, from the reflection of herself in the mirror of his eyes, and she cannot fault the logic that drove her to it, but at this remove, she can also see how foolish she was to believe it would work.
6. Hurricane
The wind blows foul, a ripping beast, shrieking and howling, and she's rain-soaked, aching and freezing, but he's not; she glares at him as he swishes past, annoyingly cheerful and glowing with an exuberance even the hellish weather cannot douse.
7. Wings
He’s sprawled on the deck with his head in her lap, his eyes closed, though the lashes are fluttering, and his lips slightly parted: a sparrow with his wings folded, and she thinks him beautiful.
8. Cold
The past, like the Kraken, is reluctant to release its grasp, and sometimes it rears up from the deep to haunt her, wrapping its tentacles tight around her chest, all the warmth draining from her, then, returning only when she’s made sure he's still alive.
9. Red
“Do you trust me, love?” he says, and his voice is strained but it braces her, and she swallows down the red of the pain to answer him, unhesitating, in the affirmative.
10. Drink
She drinks, unaccompanied, to those who are lost, her eyes damp with the tears she doesn't shed, and as she enters the cabin, tipsy with gloom, he knows, he must know though he doesn’t speak of it, for he tucks her in, kissing the tip of her nose, his gaze oddly gentle.
11. Midnight
At the stroke of midnight, she’s out of patience, so she corners and confronts him, and the negotiations settle in her favour; he fetches her gift, which, to her astonished delight, is revealed to be not jewellery or precious stones, but a delicate wood carving of a swan.
12. Temptation
“Pretty as you please,” he replies, “and enough spirit and pluck to stand up to them, and to me, drenched as you were-dearie, of course I was bloody tempted.”
13. View
He’s poring over the charts, clad in nothing but his breeches, and she cannot resist staring at him: the curve of his neck, the lines of his back, the shift of muscle as he moves, and he seems unaware of it, so when he says, sounding amused, “You’ll burn a hole in me, Lizzie, if you keep that up,” it startles her into blushing.
14. Music
It’s unearthly, the music that hums through the shrouds, the halyards and the stays, it tugs at something sharp inside of her, but he states, calm and assured, ”Aye, she’s singing.”
15. Silk
She hasn’t worn silk in months, only coarser cloth, and as her fingers slide slow over the fabric, she thinks of Port Royal dances, of her father and Will, of days more innocent than these, before the pirate who lies snoring in the bed behind her, dove headfirst into her life.
16. Cover
They glide ghostly, under the cover of a gauzy mist, and he joins her at the railing, raising his brows at the sight of the coat she’s donned, then remarks, “As fetching as it undoubtedly and indisputably looks on you, darling, I’ll still be wanting it back by and by.”
17. Promise
“I’m not sorry,” she says, pushing him up against the mast and putting her lips and her hands to his skin, erasing what was and making it different, “I will never regret this.”
18. Dream
In her dreams of meeting him, the fabled Captain Jack Sparrow, she had not imagined she would, one day, be familiar with such an intimate fact as this: he’s highly ticklish right below his ribs.
19. Candle
They dine by light of candle, and though Cook is skilled, it's no sumptuous banquet, but she's more at home with this than with elegant dinners, and she wouldn't trade Jack's company for that of any lord of good renown.
20. Talent
Will used to tell her she had a rare talent for fencing, and that talent, honed through hours of practice and made more versatile under Jack’s informal but surprisingly watchful tutelage, now serves her exceedingly well.
21. Silence
When he pulls her hips close to his, in silent question, she nods and presses against him, in an equally silent response, because Gibbs is slumbering a mere few paces away, and she bites back the moan that threatens to escape.
22. Journey
Sea and sky bleeds shades of blue on blue, as the Pearl, his precious Pearl, sails onward, and from her perch up in the crow's nest, Elizabeth sees the horizon clear and vast.
23. Fire
She rips open his shirt and he hitches her legs up around his waist, her hair spilling loose down her shoulders as her hat is knocked off, and she takes his mouth, tasting him, taunting him, clutching at the trinkets and beads like wreckage.
24. Strength
He rubs at his temple, weariness seeping through the cracks tension has left unguarded, and she goes to him, catches his restless hand in both of hers and makes it still.
25. Mask
He isn’t quite as young as he appears; it’s a mask time should have displaced, years ago, but the signs of it are there, now that she’s learning to look, and it gives her a pang to note them.
26. Ice
The waters are colder here, there’s a chill in the air, and she sneaks up on him in the cabin, the brush of her icy fingertips causing him to jump where he sits, with an affronted, “Oi!”
27. Fall
“I fell,” she explains, when he asks about the scar on her right knee, tracing it lightly, like she often does with his, “when I was little, scrambling over the rocks on the shore.”
28. Forgotten
She never took to embroidery, but she doesn't mind so much to use the needle and thread aboard, and when she manages to sew his wound shut, neat and tidy, she's glad she hasn't completely forgotten her lessons.
29. Dance
The crew lights a small bonfire, on the beach where the ship's being careened, and she spins around until she's dizzy, her arm interlocked with his, like she did once before.
30. Body
When he mutters, “Devil take it, woman, would you have me beg?” in a throaty grumble, she feels a heady rush of power course through her body and lowers her tone to reply, “Yes, I would.”
31. Sacred
He lets her have the wheel, and she takes it with a curious sense of hushed reverence, edgy with nerves, but when he means to relieve her from the duty, the smile with which she greets him is more brilliant than his.
32. Farewells
At one fateful, dreadful hour, she left him behind, turned her back on him and walked away, and he harbours no lingering resentment; he's said, “Pirate,” and “The bargain was mine, Elizabeth, you did what was right by you,” but the details of it are branded in her, and that is a burden she bears.
33. World
The ship tilts violently and she’s in careless haste, she slips on the wet planks, the world going black; when she comes to, he’s beside her, and before he launches into a reprimand, relief cuts a bright swath through the shadows in his expression.
34. Formal
She throws the thick, leather-bound volume at him, anger overtaking her, and when he calls her Miss Swann, his face straight and impassive, she storms out, spending the night in the crow’s nest and the day and evening after that avoiding him, seething unchecked, until he comes to her with offerings of peace: a wry grin, a bottle of rum and the words, “Truce, love?”
35. Fever
He doesn’t like being coddled when he’s unwell, he swats and snaps at her, and she’s ill suited to be a nurse, anyway, but she stays with him, in case he needs her, as long as it takes the fever to subside.
36. Laugh
She wakes to find him gone and pads barefoot up to the helm, where he’s standing, alone with the ship and the stars, and he presents a fine and near fantastical figure against the arching sky, but then he gives her a roguish wink, breaking the spell, and she cannot help but laugh.
37. Lies
“Right, which of you scurvy dogs redid the braids in me beard?” he demands, after rum and exhaustion’s rendered him insensible during a celebration on the Pearl, and they all deny it, even Elizabeth disavows it, but is later off to collect the money she won for the dare.
38. Forever
This is how she marks him, this, here, is how she makes him hers, no matter the laws of God or of mortal men, no matter what fate and fortune might have in store.
39. Overwhelmed
In the midst of some tedious, commonplace task, a single glance from him, across the crowded, busy deck, floods her with thoughts of the evening past, and she shivers from head to toe.
40. Whisper
He adjusts and readjusts the binding around her breasts with a thoroughness that isn’t entirely necessary, and when he’s done, leans in to whisper, his beard scratching her cheek, “There, much more better.”
41. Wait
Something itches, nudging her over the brink into rousing, and the first thing she spots is the feather; the second is Jack, waving the feather in question as he says, “Would be a crime letting such a lovely morning go to waste.”
42. Talk
Conversing with him was, from the start, both disturbingly easy and infinitely dangerous, and though the danger of it is no more a concern, the continued ease is something she treasures.
43. Search
He locates, unerringly and with utter confidence, the spots where she's the most sensitive, where a caress, a kiss or a graze of teeth might achieve the greatest effect, and she curses him for it, on occasion, but if he, scoundrel that he is, asks if he should stop, she'll have none of it.
44. Hope
He tells her of his childhood, of stirring hopes and of the boy he had been, quick and too clever by half, and she listens enthralled, the surroundings fading into the distance around her.
45. Eclipse
It wasn't a simple thing, it didn't come without a price, but she's paid the cost and she doesn't have to consult that mystical compass, she carries her bearings within; certainty eclipses all doubt, and the needle doesn't turn, nor does it waver.
46. Gravity
There are moments when she hates him, is sick to death of his quirks and harebrained whims, and he likely feels the same; it’s a strange accord they have reached, her and him, them, they chafe and struggle with it, at times, but what draws them together is stronger than that which would keep them apart.
47. Highway
“Was waylaid by one, a callow lad, back in England,” he informs her, nodding for emphasis as she frowns, “but I persuaded him said venture wouldn’t be to his advantage, and we parted on the best of terms.”
48. Unknown
She knows him and she can usually read him, but there are parts of him, yet, that are unexplored and uncharted, bits and pieces that make up the man, and her curiosity is far from sated.
49. Lock
She's floating, drifting with her arms outstretched, her eyes on the scudding clouds and the locks of her hair rippling with the water and, teasingly, he names her thus: “Fair mermaid.”
50. Breathe
She chooses him anew, chooses this life, again and again, freely and willingly, with every word, every action and every breath that she breathes.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Disney's. I don't own it. No infringement is intended and I'm not making any money from this story.
Author's note: A little experiment. Written for the 1sentence challenge, where you get 50 prompts and are to write exactly one sentence for each of them. I've used the Gamma theme set. This takes place at an undetermined point in the future, in which the two of them are together. DMC is taken into account, but I'm keeping it rather vague, otherwise. Hugs to geek_mama_2 for beta advice during the writing of these!
Maps of the World
by Hereswith
1. Ring
Rings on the fingers that swoop and soar, spreading out wide like pinions, and though he isn’t even touching her, she’s swept on the tide of him out to sea.
2. Hero
He’s been a hero to her, but heroes fall down; he’s been a coward, and risen to his feet, but in the end ever and always Jack, balancing somewhere in between.
3. Memory
If she lives to be an old woman and as streaked with grey as she now is with gold, she will hold this memory fast: the beating of his heart, like the pounding of waves against wood.
4. Box
Boxed in between Gibbs and the wall, she watches him make his way towards them, navigating the tables and the customers with practised deftness, like he might have a turbulent ocean.
5. Run
She tried to run from him, from the reflection of herself in the mirror of his eyes, and she cannot fault the logic that drove her to it, but at this remove, she can also see how foolish she was to believe it would work.
6. Hurricane
The wind blows foul, a ripping beast, shrieking and howling, and she's rain-soaked, aching and freezing, but he's not; she glares at him as he swishes past, annoyingly cheerful and glowing with an exuberance even the hellish weather cannot douse.
7. Wings
He’s sprawled on the deck with his head in her lap, his eyes closed, though the lashes are fluttering, and his lips slightly parted: a sparrow with his wings folded, and she thinks him beautiful.
8. Cold
The past, like the Kraken, is reluctant to release its grasp, and sometimes it rears up from the deep to haunt her, wrapping its tentacles tight around her chest, all the warmth draining from her, then, returning only when she’s made sure he's still alive.
9. Red
“Do you trust me, love?” he says, and his voice is strained but it braces her, and she swallows down the red of the pain to answer him, unhesitating, in the affirmative.
10. Drink
She drinks, unaccompanied, to those who are lost, her eyes damp with the tears she doesn't shed, and as she enters the cabin, tipsy with gloom, he knows, he must know though he doesn’t speak of it, for he tucks her in, kissing the tip of her nose, his gaze oddly gentle.
11. Midnight
At the stroke of midnight, she’s out of patience, so she corners and confronts him, and the negotiations settle in her favour; he fetches her gift, which, to her astonished delight, is revealed to be not jewellery or precious stones, but a delicate wood carving of a swan.
12. Temptation
“Pretty as you please,” he replies, “and enough spirit and pluck to stand up to them, and to me, drenched as you were-dearie, of course I was bloody tempted.”
13. View
He’s poring over the charts, clad in nothing but his breeches, and she cannot resist staring at him: the curve of his neck, the lines of his back, the shift of muscle as he moves, and he seems unaware of it, so when he says, sounding amused, “You’ll burn a hole in me, Lizzie, if you keep that up,” it startles her into blushing.
14. Music
It’s unearthly, the music that hums through the shrouds, the halyards and the stays, it tugs at something sharp inside of her, but he states, calm and assured, ”Aye, she’s singing.”
15. Silk
She hasn’t worn silk in months, only coarser cloth, and as her fingers slide slow over the fabric, she thinks of Port Royal dances, of her father and Will, of days more innocent than these, before the pirate who lies snoring in the bed behind her, dove headfirst into her life.
16. Cover
They glide ghostly, under the cover of a gauzy mist, and he joins her at the railing, raising his brows at the sight of the coat she’s donned, then remarks, “As fetching as it undoubtedly and indisputably looks on you, darling, I’ll still be wanting it back by and by.”
17. Promise
“I’m not sorry,” she says, pushing him up against the mast and putting her lips and her hands to his skin, erasing what was and making it different, “I will never regret this.”
18. Dream
In her dreams of meeting him, the fabled Captain Jack Sparrow, she had not imagined she would, one day, be familiar with such an intimate fact as this: he’s highly ticklish right below his ribs.
19. Candle
They dine by light of candle, and though Cook is skilled, it's no sumptuous banquet, but she's more at home with this than with elegant dinners, and she wouldn't trade Jack's company for that of any lord of good renown.
20. Talent
Will used to tell her she had a rare talent for fencing, and that talent, honed through hours of practice and made more versatile under Jack’s informal but surprisingly watchful tutelage, now serves her exceedingly well.
21. Silence
When he pulls her hips close to his, in silent question, she nods and presses against him, in an equally silent response, because Gibbs is slumbering a mere few paces away, and she bites back the moan that threatens to escape.
22. Journey
Sea and sky bleeds shades of blue on blue, as the Pearl, his precious Pearl, sails onward, and from her perch up in the crow's nest, Elizabeth sees the horizon clear and vast.
23. Fire
She rips open his shirt and he hitches her legs up around his waist, her hair spilling loose down her shoulders as her hat is knocked off, and she takes his mouth, tasting him, taunting him, clutching at the trinkets and beads like wreckage.
24. Strength
He rubs at his temple, weariness seeping through the cracks tension has left unguarded, and she goes to him, catches his restless hand in both of hers and makes it still.
25. Mask
He isn’t quite as young as he appears; it’s a mask time should have displaced, years ago, but the signs of it are there, now that she’s learning to look, and it gives her a pang to note them.
26. Ice
The waters are colder here, there’s a chill in the air, and she sneaks up on him in the cabin, the brush of her icy fingertips causing him to jump where he sits, with an affronted, “Oi!”
27. Fall
“I fell,” she explains, when he asks about the scar on her right knee, tracing it lightly, like she often does with his, “when I was little, scrambling over the rocks on the shore.”
28. Forgotten
She never took to embroidery, but she doesn't mind so much to use the needle and thread aboard, and when she manages to sew his wound shut, neat and tidy, she's glad she hasn't completely forgotten her lessons.
29. Dance
The crew lights a small bonfire, on the beach where the ship's being careened, and she spins around until she's dizzy, her arm interlocked with his, like she did once before.
30. Body
When he mutters, “Devil take it, woman, would you have me beg?” in a throaty grumble, she feels a heady rush of power course through her body and lowers her tone to reply, “Yes, I would.”
31. Sacred
He lets her have the wheel, and she takes it with a curious sense of hushed reverence, edgy with nerves, but when he means to relieve her from the duty, the smile with which she greets him is more brilliant than his.
32. Farewells
At one fateful, dreadful hour, she left him behind, turned her back on him and walked away, and he harbours no lingering resentment; he's said, “Pirate,” and “The bargain was mine, Elizabeth, you did what was right by you,” but the details of it are branded in her, and that is a burden she bears.
33. World
The ship tilts violently and she’s in careless haste, she slips on the wet planks, the world going black; when she comes to, he’s beside her, and before he launches into a reprimand, relief cuts a bright swath through the shadows in his expression.
34. Formal
She throws the thick, leather-bound volume at him, anger overtaking her, and when he calls her Miss Swann, his face straight and impassive, she storms out, spending the night in the crow’s nest and the day and evening after that avoiding him, seething unchecked, until he comes to her with offerings of peace: a wry grin, a bottle of rum and the words, “Truce, love?”
35. Fever
He doesn’t like being coddled when he’s unwell, he swats and snaps at her, and she’s ill suited to be a nurse, anyway, but she stays with him, in case he needs her, as long as it takes the fever to subside.
36. Laugh
She wakes to find him gone and pads barefoot up to the helm, where he’s standing, alone with the ship and the stars, and he presents a fine and near fantastical figure against the arching sky, but then he gives her a roguish wink, breaking the spell, and she cannot help but laugh.
37. Lies
“Right, which of you scurvy dogs redid the braids in me beard?” he demands, after rum and exhaustion’s rendered him insensible during a celebration on the Pearl, and they all deny it, even Elizabeth disavows it, but is later off to collect the money she won for the dare.
38. Forever
This is how she marks him, this, here, is how she makes him hers, no matter the laws of God or of mortal men, no matter what fate and fortune might have in store.
39. Overwhelmed
In the midst of some tedious, commonplace task, a single glance from him, across the crowded, busy deck, floods her with thoughts of the evening past, and she shivers from head to toe.
40. Whisper
He adjusts and readjusts the binding around her breasts with a thoroughness that isn’t entirely necessary, and when he’s done, leans in to whisper, his beard scratching her cheek, “There, much more better.”
41. Wait
Something itches, nudging her over the brink into rousing, and the first thing she spots is the feather; the second is Jack, waving the feather in question as he says, “Would be a crime letting such a lovely morning go to waste.”
42. Talk
Conversing with him was, from the start, both disturbingly easy and infinitely dangerous, and though the danger of it is no more a concern, the continued ease is something she treasures.
43. Search
He locates, unerringly and with utter confidence, the spots where she's the most sensitive, where a caress, a kiss or a graze of teeth might achieve the greatest effect, and she curses him for it, on occasion, but if he, scoundrel that he is, asks if he should stop, she'll have none of it.
44. Hope
He tells her of his childhood, of stirring hopes and of the boy he had been, quick and too clever by half, and she listens enthralled, the surroundings fading into the distance around her.
45. Eclipse
It wasn't a simple thing, it didn't come without a price, but she's paid the cost and she doesn't have to consult that mystical compass, she carries her bearings within; certainty eclipses all doubt, and the needle doesn't turn, nor does it waver.
46. Gravity
There are moments when she hates him, is sick to death of his quirks and harebrained whims, and he likely feels the same; it’s a strange accord they have reached, her and him, them, they chafe and struggle with it, at times, but what draws them together is stronger than that which would keep them apart.
47. Highway
“Was waylaid by one, a callow lad, back in England,” he informs her, nodding for emphasis as she frowns, “but I persuaded him said venture wouldn’t be to his advantage, and we parted on the best of terms.”
48. Unknown
She knows him and she can usually read him, but there are parts of him, yet, that are unexplored and uncharted, bits and pieces that make up the man, and her curiosity is far from sated.
49. Lock
She's floating, drifting with her arms outstretched, her eyes on the scudding clouds and the locks of her hair rippling with the water and, teasingly, he names her thus: “Fair mermaid.”
50. Breathe
She chooses him anew, chooses this life, again and again, freely and willingly, with every word, every action and every breath that she breathes.