Cicatrices Bellatricis--POTC, By Lokei
Cicatrices Bellatricis
By Lokei
Universe: POTC
Characters: Elizabeth
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. I’m not even terribly fond of Elizabeth.
Author’s Note: Originally meant for the aos_challenge prompt ‘scars.’ Which was of course months ago, due to my aforementioned failure with deadlines. But, hey, fic! My muse must have forgiven me, or something. Yay for amnesty month.
The light in the room was poor and the smell was worse, and the sole standing piece of furniture wasn’t much of a mirror, actually, but she liked it better for all that. She peered at her reflection critically in the marred surface, and took its imperfections for her own.
She started low, gaze lingering on a web of tiny fractures near her left leg. She shifted her weight so that the crisscross of white scars ran along her shin, the leg she should have broken falling out of that tree when she was ten. Will had told her the branch wasn’t strong enough-Will had broken her fall when she insisted on climbing anyway. Will had ended up with a dislocated shoulder and a rainbow of bruises for decoration. Elizabeth had gotten off scot free.
Further up, now, to where the rippled glass bore a liberal sprinkling of blackened specks, like the powder burns on Jack’s hands, or the holes in Will’s waistcoat from standing too near the forge fires. There were days when everything in her world was dry tinder, just waiting for a spark-yet somehow, she never burned.
She wore no brand, neither, despite the X that glowed pale on her reflected wrist, where some enterprising soul had scratched his mark. A nail, perhaps, to gouge the passive glass, and a way to leave proof of one’s passing. Elizabeth covered her wrist with her other hand irritably, only to have the anonymous X remain. King of Pirates she might be, but with only a single death warrant to her name, there were days she felt obscenely unqualified.
Something dark and sticky had been spilled or splattered down one side of her alternate face, smelling vaguely of rum and less vaguely of mud, and she felt beneath her fingertips the rough and abused wool of James’ coat, from what seemed an age ago. She had been kidnapped, manhandled, rescued, cosseted, kissed, cursed at, captained and kinged-and even after being dragged through all that, the slime of humanity seemed to wash away. If she had to, she supposed she could still pass for respectable-a bath, clean clothes, a chance to dry her hair by fire instead of by salt-laden sea wind, and she could don the voice and posture of propriety as well as ever she did. She thought of the hollowness in James’ eyes the last time she saw them, and knew others were not so impermeable to the muck through which they all had waded.
Thus far her eyes had skittered below, around, above-but so far avoided that dark jagged slash which cracked entirely through her mirrored chest, split to the very wooden backing and held together only by pressure and a grim determination which Elizabeth couldn’t help but attribute to it, inanimate as it was. If the dead could walk, after all, and some even come back to life, then it was not so unreasonable to assign emotions and intent to an object that clung to existence in the face of impossible odds and life-ending injuries.
It was the only wound she felt, and it wasn’t even hers.
Trembling fingers traced the jagged scar in the glass, their impression felt on her own skin, heart thumping erratically as if to make up for the one that was no longer there. Impulsively, she pressed her palm to her reflection, one tiny line of heat from a bone blade lining up perfectly along the shatter point, and waited until her heart accepted its prison in her chest.
Then, with a shake of her head, the Pirate King-beautiful, terrible, untouchable, and to outward eyes unmarked-sailed out to greet the dawn.
By Lokei
Universe: POTC
Characters: Elizabeth
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. I’m not even terribly fond of Elizabeth.
Author’s Note: Originally meant for the aos_challenge prompt ‘scars.’ Which was of course months ago, due to my aforementioned failure with deadlines. But, hey, fic! My muse must have forgiven me, or something. Yay for amnesty month.
The light in the room was poor and the smell was worse, and the sole standing piece of furniture wasn’t much of a mirror, actually, but she liked it better for all that. She peered at her reflection critically in the marred surface, and took its imperfections for her own.
She started low, gaze lingering on a web of tiny fractures near her left leg. She shifted her weight so that the crisscross of white scars ran along her shin, the leg she should have broken falling out of that tree when she was ten. Will had told her the branch wasn’t strong enough-Will had broken her fall when she insisted on climbing anyway. Will had ended up with a dislocated shoulder and a rainbow of bruises for decoration. Elizabeth had gotten off scot free.
Further up, now, to where the rippled glass bore a liberal sprinkling of blackened specks, like the powder burns on Jack’s hands, or the holes in Will’s waistcoat from standing too near the forge fires. There were days when everything in her world was dry tinder, just waiting for a spark-yet somehow, she never burned.
She wore no brand, neither, despite the X that glowed pale on her reflected wrist, where some enterprising soul had scratched his mark. A nail, perhaps, to gouge the passive glass, and a way to leave proof of one’s passing. Elizabeth covered her wrist with her other hand irritably, only to have the anonymous X remain. King of Pirates she might be, but with only a single death warrant to her name, there were days she felt obscenely unqualified.
Something dark and sticky had been spilled or splattered down one side of her alternate face, smelling vaguely of rum and less vaguely of mud, and she felt beneath her fingertips the rough and abused wool of James’ coat, from what seemed an age ago. She had been kidnapped, manhandled, rescued, cosseted, kissed, cursed at, captained and kinged-and even after being dragged through all that, the slime of humanity seemed to wash away. If she had to, she supposed she could still pass for respectable-a bath, clean clothes, a chance to dry her hair by fire instead of by salt-laden sea wind, and she could don the voice and posture of propriety as well as ever she did. She thought of the hollowness in James’ eyes the last time she saw them, and knew others were not so impermeable to the muck through which they all had waded.
Thus far her eyes had skittered below, around, above-but so far avoided that dark jagged slash which cracked entirely through her mirrored chest, split to the very wooden backing and held together only by pressure and a grim determination which Elizabeth couldn’t help but attribute to it, inanimate as it was. If the dead could walk, after all, and some even come back to life, then it was not so unreasonable to assign emotions and intent to an object that clung to existence in the face of impossible odds and life-ending injuries.
It was the only wound she felt, and it wasn’t even hers.
Trembling fingers traced the jagged scar in the glass, their impression felt on her own skin, heart thumping erratically as if to make up for the one that was no longer there. Impulsively, she pressed her palm to her reflection, one tiny line of heat from a bone blade lining up perfectly along the shatter point, and waited until her heart accepted its prison in her chest.
Then, with a shake of her head, the Pirate King-beautiful, terrible, untouchable, and to outward eyes unmarked-sailed out to greet the dawn.