PotC -- Deeper Than the Seas
Total Jack/Elizabeth fluff! 18th century songfic!
This goes in the Nights Out series, and follows Eccentric Orbits http://artaxastra.livejournal.com/130637.html and Lover http://artaxastra.livejournal.com/133800.html though you don't have to have read anything first.
He knew he had lost her the fourth night after the end of the world, well and truly lost her.
The Black Pearl sailed through calm seas, her canvas spread to catch every breath of wind, but even so she barely made way. Above, familiar stars wheeled about. One would think they ought to be different, so far from home, but they weren’t.
Ragetti had his guitar out, and there had been a long series of rowdy pirate songs. Will sat on the forward hatch cover, looking aft as the scene degenerated into a series of bawdy tableaus, Pintel straddling one of the capstan bars and demonstrating a certain verse a bit too enthusiastically. Will’s ears burned for Elizabeth.
If she’d been cuddled up to Jack, he couldn’t have borne it. He would have gone below. It hurt too much. But she wasn’t. Elizabeth was sitting beside Ragetti on the main deck, watching him play and seeming very interested in his chording, while Jack was on the quarterdeck stairs, waving a tankard about with great abandon. They were fifteen feet apart, and hardly seemed aware of each other at all.
Will took another drink of rum, though it made his stomach tighten. There was nothing to say and nothing to do. Elizabeth had made her choice, at least for now, and the best he could do was take it as well as Jack had when the choice had gone the other way. At least she hadn’t fed him to the kraken. Will wasn’t sure he’d be quite as nonchalantly forgiving if it had been him. He wasn’t sure he was as nonchalantly forgiving when it hadn’t been.
The crowd on deck was thinning, men going to find their hammocks.
Elizabeth was still glued to Ragetti, leaning down to ask him something. Jack was standing on the steps, the tankard still in his hand, looking out over the sea.
Ragetti started a quieter song, a ballad Will had heard a hundred times, something to calm down with, the kind of thing to round out the evening, with only a few men still singing along.
The nobleman’s fair daughter
Came down the narrow lane
Met with Captain Wedderburn
The keeper of the gate
“Now my pretty fair miss,
You mustn’t fall in love
But you and I in one bed must lie
Roll me over next to the wall.”
Will leaned back against the gunwale. Ragetti had a rather good voice, he thought. He did the nobleman’s daughter well, telling the importunate captain that he must answer six questions if he wanted to bed her, everyone chiming in on the last two lines, roll me over next to the wall over and over.
What is rounder than a ring?
What is higher than the trees?
What is worse than a woman’s curse?
What is deeper than the seas?
Will sat up, blinking. That wasn’t Ragetti. It was Elizabeth’s clear soprano soaring like a lark, the voice she had never thought was good and that he had always loved to hear.
What bird sings first?
Which one best?
Where does the dew first fall?
You and I in one bed might lie
Roll me over next to the wall.
She was looking straight at Jack, her eyes dark and speaking. He had never seen that expression set on him, that smile that was almost a caress. He had never known what the expression “wearing your heart on your face” meant until now.
Jack had turned around grinning, and made his cue like a player at the fair, his back straight and one hand on the rail.
Earth is rounder than a ring
Heaven is higher than the trees
The devil is worse than a woman’s curse
Love is deeper than the seas.
He had a perfectly terrible voice, really, a fairly tuneless baritone rendered scratchy by salt and rum and too much shouting over gales, but one would have thought it was the loveliest thing, judging from her expression. There wasn’t any mockery in his face then, just a half smile, proud and heated, as though she had proved something certain, as though he had won a dangerous bet.
Lark sings first
Thrush sings best
Earth’s where the dew falls
You and I in one bed must lie
Roll me over next to the wall.
If there was anyone else on the ship, they didn’t matter. The look between them should have stayed in the bedroom. How something could seem unbearably intimate, when it was only words, only music, with fifteen feet of deck between them, was a mystery. Will turned his head away.
He takes her by her lily-white hand
Leads her down the hall
Takes her by her slender waist
For fear that she might fall
Lays her on a bed of down
Without a doubt at all
He and she lie in one bed
Roll me over next to the wall.
He had lost her. He had truly lost her to that incandescent desire that transformed her face, that crackled between them like lightning. Will knew it with a sinking pain that was as sharp and sweet as any blade, knew what James Norrington had known when he’d stepped aside, sword in hand. She had chosen, and James had taken it with grace. He could do no less. And in that was a kind of peace.
I have mostly followed the version of Captain Wedderburn recently recorded by Great Big Sea, though not entirely, and there are dozens of versions of this ballad. However, I will do a Pirates ficlet for the first person who guesses what one important word Jack has changed!
Feedback is greatly appreciated!
This goes in the Nights Out series, and follows Eccentric Orbits http://artaxastra.livejournal.com/130637.html and Lover http://artaxastra.livejournal.com/133800.html though you don't have to have read anything first.
He knew he had lost her the fourth night after the end of the world, well and truly lost her.
The Black Pearl sailed through calm seas, her canvas spread to catch every breath of wind, but even so she barely made way. Above, familiar stars wheeled about. One would think they ought to be different, so far from home, but they weren’t.
Ragetti had his guitar out, and there had been a long series of rowdy pirate songs. Will sat on the forward hatch cover, looking aft as the scene degenerated into a series of bawdy tableaus, Pintel straddling one of the capstan bars and demonstrating a certain verse a bit too enthusiastically. Will’s ears burned for Elizabeth.
If she’d been cuddled up to Jack, he couldn’t have borne it. He would have gone below. It hurt too much. But she wasn’t. Elizabeth was sitting beside Ragetti on the main deck, watching him play and seeming very interested in his chording, while Jack was on the quarterdeck stairs, waving a tankard about with great abandon. They were fifteen feet apart, and hardly seemed aware of each other at all.
Will took another drink of rum, though it made his stomach tighten. There was nothing to say and nothing to do. Elizabeth had made her choice, at least for now, and the best he could do was take it as well as Jack had when the choice had gone the other way. At least she hadn’t fed him to the kraken. Will wasn’t sure he’d be quite as nonchalantly forgiving if it had been him. He wasn’t sure he was as nonchalantly forgiving when it hadn’t been.
The crowd on deck was thinning, men going to find their hammocks.
Elizabeth was still glued to Ragetti, leaning down to ask him something. Jack was standing on the steps, the tankard still in his hand, looking out over the sea.
Ragetti started a quieter song, a ballad Will had heard a hundred times, something to calm down with, the kind of thing to round out the evening, with only a few men still singing along.
The nobleman’s fair daughter
Came down the narrow lane
Met with Captain Wedderburn
The keeper of the gate
“Now my pretty fair miss,
You mustn’t fall in love
But you and I in one bed must lie
Roll me over next to the wall.”
Will leaned back against the gunwale. Ragetti had a rather good voice, he thought. He did the nobleman’s daughter well, telling the importunate captain that he must answer six questions if he wanted to bed her, everyone chiming in on the last two lines, roll me over next to the wall over and over.
What is rounder than a ring?
What is higher than the trees?
What is worse than a woman’s curse?
What is deeper than the seas?
Will sat up, blinking. That wasn’t Ragetti. It was Elizabeth’s clear soprano soaring like a lark, the voice she had never thought was good and that he had always loved to hear.
What bird sings first?
Which one best?
Where does the dew first fall?
You and I in one bed might lie
Roll me over next to the wall.
She was looking straight at Jack, her eyes dark and speaking. He had never seen that expression set on him, that smile that was almost a caress. He had never known what the expression “wearing your heart on your face” meant until now.
Jack had turned around grinning, and made his cue like a player at the fair, his back straight and one hand on the rail.
Earth is rounder than a ring
Heaven is higher than the trees
The devil is worse than a woman’s curse
Love is deeper than the seas.
He had a perfectly terrible voice, really, a fairly tuneless baritone rendered scratchy by salt and rum and too much shouting over gales, but one would have thought it was the loveliest thing, judging from her expression. There wasn’t any mockery in his face then, just a half smile, proud and heated, as though she had proved something certain, as though he had won a dangerous bet.
Lark sings first
Thrush sings best
Earth’s where the dew falls
You and I in one bed must lie
Roll me over next to the wall.
If there was anyone else on the ship, they didn’t matter. The look between them should have stayed in the bedroom. How something could seem unbearably intimate, when it was only words, only music, with fifteen feet of deck between them, was a mystery. Will turned his head away.
He takes her by her lily-white hand
Leads her down the hall
Takes her by her slender waist
For fear that she might fall
Lays her on a bed of down
Without a doubt at all
He and she lie in one bed
Roll me over next to the wall.
He had lost her. He had truly lost her to that incandescent desire that transformed her face, that crackled between them like lightning. Will knew it with a sinking pain that was as sharp and sweet as any blade, knew what James Norrington had known when he’d stepped aside, sword in hand. She had chosen, and James had taken it with grace. He could do no less. And in that was a kind of peace.
I have mostly followed the version of Captain Wedderburn recently recorded by Great Big Sea, though not entirely, and there are dozens of versions of this ballad. However, I will do a Pirates ficlet for the first person who guesses what one important word Jack has changed!
Feedback is greatly appreciated!