Fire and Ice -- Norribeth ficlet
Title: Fire and Ice
Author: ash_night
Pairing: James/Elizabeth (Will/Elizabeth subtext)
Rating: PG
Genre: AU set during DMC, romance, dark, angst etc.
Summary: James returns to the sea.
Disclaimer: Disney and its cohorts own the characters and so on and so forth. Please don't sue. I pay homage by going to the movies and buying DVDs. *worships*
A/N: No DMC spoilers. As always, I'm working on the next installments (and what long installments they are). If I manage to get to an end point -- rather than post the story in sections, I'll post the rest of it in one big clump. But that's... probably a good while from now.
As always, please read these first, in this order: The Cheshire Cat, Ghosts, King of Hearts, Trio, and Routine.
---
This is day one, and James is back on the sea in the fresh ocean wind, beneath the endless heavens, and over the glittering waves of water. He has almost forgotten his first love.
But as the day passes uneventfully, he knows that he can never forget his last.
---
Elizabeth dines with her father that night. The cook serves them twelve courses. By the time a delicate chocolate gâteau is before her, she discovers that she can only stare at it longingly.
Her father, however, devours his cake and hers. Between bites, he asks her, "How are you and the Commodore, Elizabeth?"
She smiles, remembering the night before, and looks at her plate. "We are doing well."
He gives her a knowing look and says no more. Despite the amusement marking his features, he appears older in the candlelight than when she last saw him Monday afternoon.
---
When night falls and he retires to his cabin, his memories of her sweep around him in a gold haze. There is her smile, her delicate hand cupping flower seeds, that slurping noise she makes as she downs her tea in the mornings.
When he writes in his ship's log, he can only think about her unladylike scrawl that manages to serve as her handwriting. When he reads from the Bible, he can only think about her voice at church.
When he strips away his clothing, studying a particularly vicious bruise on his shoulder, he can only think about how she makes him feel more naked and vulnerable than should be decent.
Her words, "I think I love you," resound in his mind.
---
Elizabeth reads her pirate books. Estella casts her sympathetic glances as she tidies up the bedroom. Ever the loyal and proper maid, she makes no comment about her ruined clothes and his shirt.
She thinks about the ocean and ships, coves and gold. She wonders what James is doing, and her thoughts drift to last night, making her blush.
She thinks she may have said, I love you.
Tonight is the end of day one, and with twenty more lonely mornings left, she hopes that she did say the words. Twenty days may easily turn into thirty or fifty days, or forever.
---
He stares blankly at the wood planking above him. About a month into his marriage, Governor Swann told him at one of their meetings that Elizabeth is, "How should I put this? A fiery girl."
He told him the stories a proud and indulgent father would. In England, she climbed the tallest trees, set many an unwanted fire and muddied her dresses to the washer girl's dismay.
Then the Governor informed him, "The way to her heart is to not clip her wings -- in a manner of speaking, of course." He wore a sad enigmatic smile that he gave to Elizabeth.
Now James ponders the woman Elizabeth has become, her small smiles and curtsies, the cooking and needlework, her small talk as they glided from group to group at dinner parties.
He wonders if he might have clipped her wings already by accident.
---
She dreams of Will and James, the Black Pearl and the Dauntless.
In her dreams, the Black Pearl, as speedy as ever, captures the lumbering Dauntless. The air crackles from the booming cannons and musket shots. Men scream and hit the ground, dead in midair.
And there is her James and her Will and their sword fight that seems to never end, and Jack watches, amused and grinning wildly. The Dauntless moans a death cry. And Will returns to the Pearl, and James returns to the Dauntless.
And he returns to his ship as it burns.
And he returns to his ship that he cannot lose, that he loves more than life and as much as honor.
And James returns to the ocean, that ocean, that captures him -- just a man in blue, white and gold.
---
---
The Dauntless is attacked on the seventeenth day.
The Tygre sneaks up on her in the obscurity of night, all lights aboard extinguished. With a fury that only Hell should have, the Tygre strikes, lighting the night sky with flares and smoke.
The fight lasts for an eternity, but finally the Dauntless proves her worth with her mighty cannons and sinks that bitch of a ship.
The captain of the Tygre is hauled below, and James surveys his decks covered with the blood of good men and moonlight for the second time that year.
---
In a quiet moment, away in his cabin, he carefully wraps his right hand in gauze.
---
It takes the entire night, but finally his men are accounted for, bandaged or otherwise buried at sea. He read verses from the Bible by lantern until his voice cracked.
The dead pirates were merely tossed overboard, the few live ones brought below.
Now with the breaking of night's heavy chill by the sun, he lets himself rest. He dreams of Elizabeth and her garden of wildflowers.
---
James goes below deck with Lieutenant Gillette to confront the former captain of the Tygre.
He finds a woman who curses at him in Spanish with dark skin, black hair and fierce black eyes. Her name is Annamaria, and she clenches the bars, her knuckles white.
"You killed my ship!"
He frowns at her, barely veiling his hatred. "You killed my men."
She spits on his shoes. "The cowards deserved their fate."
He wants to hit her, but her wild eyes remind him of Elizabeth's. Annamaria is a gale of trapped fire and bruises. She smolders on the outside the way he thinks Elizabeth smolders on the inside. Elizabeth doesn't belong in his world, and he doesn't know why she didn't leave with Turner.
"Commodore?" says Gillette.
He clears his throat and steels his voice, sharp and cool as a sword's blade. "You will hang first."
---
Author: ash_night
Pairing: James/Elizabeth (Will/Elizabeth subtext)
Rating: PG
Genre: AU set during DMC, romance, dark, angst etc.
Summary: James returns to the sea.
Disclaimer: Disney and its cohorts own the characters and so on and so forth. Please don't sue. I pay homage by going to the movies and buying DVDs. *worships*
A/N: No DMC spoilers. As always, I'm working on the next installments (and what long installments they are). If I manage to get to an end point -- rather than post the story in sections, I'll post the rest of it in one big clump. But that's... probably a good while from now.
As always, please read these first, in this order: The Cheshire Cat, Ghosts, King of Hearts, Trio, and Routine.
---
This is day one, and James is back on the sea in the fresh ocean wind, beneath the endless heavens, and over the glittering waves of water. He has almost forgotten his first love.
But as the day passes uneventfully, he knows that he can never forget his last.
---
Elizabeth dines with her father that night. The cook serves them twelve courses. By the time a delicate chocolate gâteau is before her, she discovers that she can only stare at it longingly.
Her father, however, devours his cake and hers. Between bites, he asks her, "How are you and the Commodore, Elizabeth?"
She smiles, remembering the night before, and looks at her plate. "We are doing well."
He gives her a knowing look and says no more. Despite the amusement marking his features, he appears older in the candlelight than when she last saw him Monday afternoon.
---
When night falls and he retires to his cabin, his memories of her sweep around him in a gold haze. There is her smile, her delicate hand cupping flower seeds, that slurping noise she makes as she downs her tea in the mornings.
When he writes in his ship's log, he can only think about her unladylike scrawl that manages to serve as her handwriting. When he reads from the Bible, he can only think about her voice at church.
When he strips away his clothing, studying a particularly vicious bruise on his shoulder, he can only think about how she makes him feel more naked and vulnerable than should be decent.
Her words, "I think I love you," resound in his mind.
---
Elizabeth reads her pirate books. Estella casts her sympathetic glances as she tidies up the bedroom. Ever the loyal and proper maid, she makes no comment about her ruined clothes and his shirt.
She thinks about the ocean and ships, coves and gold. She wonders what James is doing, and her thoughts drift to last night, making her blush.
She thinks she may have said, I love you.
Tonight is the end of day one, and with twenty more lonely mornings left, she hopes that she did say the words. Twenty days may easily turn into thirty or fifty days, or forever.
---
He stares blankly at the wood planking above him. About a month into his marriage, Governor Swann told him at one of their meetings that Elizabeth is, "How should I put this? A fiery girl."
He told him the stories a proud and indulgent father would. In England, she climbed the tallest trees, set many an unwanted fire and muddied her dresses to the washer girl's dismay.
Then the Governor informed him, "The way to her heart is to not clip her wings -- in a manner of speaking, of course." He wore a sad enigmatic smile that he gave to Elizabeth.
Now James ponders the woman Elizabeth has become, her small smiles and curtsies, the cooking and needlework, her small talk as they glided from group to group at dinner parties.
He wonders if he might have clipped her wings already by accident.
---
She dreams of Will and James, the Black Pearl and the Dauntless.
In her dreams, the Black Pearl, as speedy as ever, captures the lumbering Dauntless. The air crackles from the booming cannons and musket shots. Men scream and hit the ground, dead in midair.
And there is her James and her Will and their sword fight that seems to never end, and Jack watches, amused and grinning wildly. The Dauntless moans a death cry. And Will returns to the Pearl, and James returns to the Dauntless.
And he returns to his ship as it burns.
And he returns to his ship that he cannot lose, that he loves more than life and as much as honor.
And James returns to the ocean, that ocean, that captures him -- just a man in blue, white and gold.
---
---
The Dauntless is attacked on the seventeenth day.
The Tygre sneaks up on her in the obscurity of night, all lights aboard extinguished. With a fury that only Hell should have, the Tygre strikes, lighting the night sky with flares and smoke.
The fight lasts for an eternity, but finally the Dauntless proves her worth with her mighty cannons and sinks that bitch of a ship.
The captain of the Tygre is hauled below, and James surveys his decks covered with the blood of good men and moonlight for the second time that year.
---
In a quiet moment, away in his cabin, he carefully wraps his right hand in gauze.
---
It takes the entire night, but finally his men are accounted for, bandaged or otherwise buried at sea. He read verses from the Bible by lantern until his voice cracked.
The dead pirates were merely tossed overboard, the few live ones brought below.
Now with the breaking of night's heavy chill by the sun, he lets himself rest. He dreams of Elizabeth and her garden of wildflowers.
---
James goes below deck with Lieutenant Gillette to confront the former captain of the Tygre.
He finds a woman who curses at him in Spanish with dark skin, black hair and fierce black eyes. Her name is Annamaria, and she clenches the bars, her knuckles white.
"You killed my ship!"
He frowns at her, barely veiling his hatred. "You killed my men."
She spits on his shoes. "The cowards deserved their fate."
He wants to hit her, but her wild eyes remind him of Elizabeth's. Annamaria is a gale of trapped fire and bruises. She smolders on the outside the way he thinks Elizabeth smolders on the inside. Elizabeth doesn't belong in his world, and he doesn't know why she didn't leave with Turner.
"Commodore?" says Gillette.
He clears his throat and steels his voice, sharp and cool as a sword's blade. "You will hang first."
---