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One-Shot: The Confession of Sins
Title: The Confession of Sins
Fandom: PotC
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Jack/Elizabeth, perhaps a tiny bit of implied Elizabeth/OC, Will/Elizabeth mentioned.
Summary: "You asked for the truth, and this is the truth I choose to tell."
Notes: Format is a bit experimental. Written for the "Three Truths and a Lie" challenge at rough_magic, and my thanks to fabu and ceria_taliesin for their helpful comments there. I think the end is still a bit ambiguous, but I decided I like it that way.
The Confession of Sins
March 7th, 17--: The prisoner appears in good spirits; asked for rum; when refused, with the admonition that as she was doing penance for her sins it was perhaps best if she avoided further transgression, she laughed outright and replied that I should not waste my sermons on those who did not care to be redeemed.
I. Intemperance
There are certain moments in life which in hindsight seem inevitable, which shine forth like jewels from the secret chest of memory, to which one returns again and again to know that just then, just there, I was exactly where I was meant to be.
Every moment of my life with Jack was like that. All sharp ecstasy and bright desperation, freedom like wine, desire like fate. We were greedy for one another, for we both knew it could not last forever.
Not all treasure is silver and gold, you know. Or do you? You, my jailor, my confessor, my pardoner, upon whose forbearance my life and another's hang in the balance? Have you had a love like that?
No? I pity you, then. You have not lived. You are no more free than I; less so, perhaps, though I am on this side of these bars and you on the other.
* * *
April 20, 17--: Though she does not appear to have slept the previous night or perhaps for several nights, the prisoner is alert enough. She bends her head with its golden tangle of hair and speaks more softly than is her wont, placing her hand often and absently over the waxing curve of her belly; whether in sentiment or as her talisman against the waiting noose one would be hard-pressed to determine.
II. Inconstancy
William Turner? Aye, I loved him. Will was my shore, my rock, my harbor. But Jack was my lodestone, my horizon, and I was a compass needle spinning, spinning, until, dizzy, I came to rest in him. Even before I knew him well enough to love him, from the first, he drew me from the shore and out onto his wild sea; and I followed, pulled by a persistent, restless knot of longing beneath my breastbone, here, like a bird flying north by the stars of Spring, not knowing whither she goes nor why.
You will fault me for leaving my fiancé, for faithlessness and cruelty. To which I answer: pirate. But beyond that answer, which should serve well enough but does not, it seems, satisfy you, I submit to you this question in its stead: would it have been fair to Will, who loved me with his whole being and deserved no less than the same in return, to live his life with a woman who could ever love him only with half her heart, while the rest of her strained and yearned and broke for want of freedom?
Would it have been fair to me?
But perhaps that last matters not to you, a man loyal to God and to the Crown, who regards me with such grave disapproval and regret, as if I were but a child who has lost her way.
I have not been a child for many years, and I have not lost anything; I found my way and follow it still. I tell you now, I have no regrets. Not now, nor ever; except for being fool enough to be caught by you and yours.
* * *
May 1, 17--: She is defiant today; her eyes flash and her lips curve in a wicked, mocking smile, though she greets me with the regal bearing and propriety of her breeding. Her hair falls in dirty snarls around her shoulders, save for the single braid swinging bead-heavy against her left cheek, a white feather adorning its end; she looks like a haughty blonde savage, an Amazon queen of legend. There is a scar on her right cheek, a crescent nick in the smooth golden skin, as if from the point of a blade.
It does not decrease her beauty.
III. Imprudence
Do not look so restive and uncomfortable, Your Reverence. You asked how I, "a lady such as myself," became what I am now. Do not blame me if you do not like what you hear. Did you want me to say that piracy in the form of Jack Sparrow seduced me, coerced me, misled me, degraded me until I loved my degradation and its perpetrator? That he remade me in his image like a selfish god? The tale could be told that way, I suppose. Same story, different version. But you asked for the truth, and this is the truth I choose to tell.
Begin at the beginning? If you wish. But what beginning do you mean? There are so many, you see. Did you wish to hear of the first time I read his name in a book, and the thrill it gave me, thirteen years old and my body just stirring into womanhood? Of our first meeting, when he saved my life and I saved his, when he smiled at me as if he knew a secret about me I did not know myself? The moment I first realized I loved him; our first kiss; the first night we lay together, on the deck of the Black Pearl, naked between stars and sea?
You blush very charmingly, sir. But I beg your pardon; that was vulgar of me, wasn't it? You don't want to hear of that, how he looked at me, how he touched me, the way he spoke my name against my skin as other men might pray, and how I-
No? Are you sure? I could show you, if you like. You could be Jack to me for a little while, and I could teach you all the things he taught me. You might even learn something of what it is like to be free.
Ah. Very well, then. But you disappoint me. I know you're curious; I can see it in your eyes. You want to know what it tastes like.
It's useless to deny it. Do you think I never tried?
* * *
May 17, 17--: The child will be born soon, and the mother's agitation has increased apace. She paces the tiny length of her cell and back again, wringing her hands, at times pausing at the bars to gaze out at me with a gaze at once fierce and disarmingly beseeching. She even wept a little at one point in the audience, which affected me to an extreme that surprised me. She has never shown such emotion before.
Perhaps she has begun to repent at last.
Unreasonably, the thought brings me no joy.
IV. Humility
I feel the babe move within me every day now. Often I wake to its kicks like the frantic flutter of wings against the wall of my womb. I wonder if it knows it has been sentenced to be raised an orphan. The sins of the mother visited upon the child.
Am I frightened of death? Of hanging? Of course I am. Bloody terrified. I'm only a woman, after all. I'm not daft.
No. No, he is not dead. Did you see a body? Did anyone? Then he is not dead. This is Captain Jack Sparrow we're speaking of. Never forget that.
But you're wrong. I am not waiting for him to come for me. He does not come because he must not come. He's a smart man. He wouldn't risk it. Even for me.
No, not even for the child.
Jack wouldn't do a stupid thing like that. He knows this is a trap.
Leave me. Go. I will not speak to you anymore to-day.
No, there is nothing you can do for me. Unless...
Well, perhaps there is one thing. One small mercy, for the damned.
May 18th, 17--: The next morning, the prisoner's cell was found to be empty. I stood for some time, staring at the little space, cold and colorless and grubby now that she was gone.
Among the dirty straw littering the floor, something glinted. I bent to pick it up.
It was a lone bead, with a strand of flaxen hair threaded through it. I tucked it in my pocket, and smiled a little, despite the heaviness in my heart.
The legend has quickly become the newest in the collection of tales of Jack Sparrow: how he ghosted into a prison guarded by an entire regiment of the Royal Navy to rescue his lady love and their unborn child and slipped out again without ever being guessed at or challenged.
Is there truth to the legend, you ask? As much as any, I suppose.
She went free. What more does one need to know, for certain?
Fandom: PotC
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Jack/Elizabeth, perhaps a tiny bit of implied Elizabeth/OC, Will/Elizabeth mentioned.
Summary: "You asked for the truth, and this is the truth I choose to tell."
Notes: Format is a bit experimental. Written for the "Three Truths and a Lie" challenge at rough_magic, and my thanks to fabu and ceria_taliesin for their helpful comments there. I think the end is still a bit ambiguous, but I decided I like it that way.
The Confession of Sins
March 7th, 17--: The prisoner appears in good spirits; asked for rum; when refused, with the admonition that as she was doing penance for her sins it was perhaps best if she avoided further transgression, she laughed outright and replied that I should not waste my sermons on those who did not care to be redeemed.
I. Intemperance
There are certain moments in life which in hindsight seem inevitable, which shine forth like jewels from the secret chest of memory, to which one returns again and again to know that just then, just there, I was exactly where I was meant to be.
Every moment of my life with Jack was like that. All sharp ecstasy and bright desperation, freedom like wine, desire like fate. We were greedy for one another, for we both knew it could not last forever.
Not all treasure is silver and gold, you know. Or do you? You, my jailor, my confessor, my pardoner, upon whose forbearance my life and another's hang in the balance? Have you had a love like that?
No? I pity you, then. You have not lived. You are no more free than I; less so, perhaps, though I am on this side of these bars and you on the other.
* * *
April 20, 17--: Though she does not appear to have slept the previous night or perhaps for several nights, the prisoner is alert enough. She bends her head with its golden tangle of hair and speaks more softly than is her wont, placing her hand often and absently over the waxing curve of her belly; whether in sentiment or as her talisman against the waiting noose one would be hard-pressed to determine.
II. Inconstancy
William Turner? Aye, I loved him. Will was my shore, my rock, my harbor. But Jack was my lodestone, my horizon, and I was a compass needle spinning, spinning, until, dizzy, I came to rest in him. Even before I knew him well enough to love him, from the first, he drew me from the shore and out onto his wild sea; and I followed, pulled by a persistent, restless knot of longing beneath my breastbone, here, like a bird flying north by the stars of Spring, not knowing whither she goes nor why.
You will fault me for leaving my fiancé, for faithlessness and cruelty. To which I answer: pirate. But beyond that answer, which should serve well enough but does not, it seems, satisfy you, I submit to you this question in its stead: would it have been fair to Will, who loved me with his whole being and deserved no less than the same in return, to live his life with a woman who could ever love him only with half her heart, while the rest of her strained and yearned and broke for want of freedom?
Would it have been fair to me?
But perhaps that last matters not to you, a man loyal to God and to the Crown, who regards me with such grave disapproval and regret, as if I were but a child who has lost her way.
I have not been a child for many years, and I have not lost anything; I found my way and follow it still. I tell you now, I have no regrets. Not now, nor ever; except for being fool enough to be caught by you and yours.
* * *
May 1, 17--: She is defiant today; her eyes flash and her lips curve in a wicked, mocking smile, though she greets me with the regal bearing and propriety of her breeding. Her hair falls in dirty snarls around her shoulders, save for the single braid swinging bead-heavy against her left cheek, a white feather adorning its end; she looks like a haughty blonde savage, an Amazon queen of legend. There is a scar on her right cheek, a crescent nick in the smooth golden skin, as if from the point of a blade.
It does not decrease her beauty.
III. Imprudence
Do not look so restive and uncomfortable, Your Reverence. You asked how I, "a lady such as myself," became what I am now. Do not blame me if you do not like what you hear. Did you want me to say that piracy in the form of Jack Sparrow seduced me, coerced me, misled me, degraded me until I loved my degradation and its perpetrator? That he remade me in his image like a selfish god? The tale could be told that way, I suppose. Same story, different version. But you asked for the truth, and this is the truth I choose to tell.
Begin at the beginning? If you wish. But what beginning do you mean? There are so many, you see. Did you wish to hear of the first time I read his name in a book, and the thrill it gave me, thirteen years old and my body just stirring into womanhood? Of our first meeting, when he saved my life and I saved his, when he smiled at me as if he knew a secret about me I did not know myself? The moment I first realized I loved him; our first kiss; the first night we lay together, on the deck of the Black Pearl, naked between stars and sea?
You blush very charmingly, sir. But I beg your pardon; that was vulgar of me, wasn't it? You don't want to hear of that, how he looked at me, how he touched me, the way he spoke my name against my skin as other men might pray, and how I-
No? Are you sure? I could show you, if you like. You could be Jack to me for a little while, and I could teach you all the things he taught me. You might even learn something of what it is like to be free.
Ah. Very well, then. But you disappoint me. I know you're curious; I can see it in your eyes. You want to know what it tastes like.
It's useless to deny it. Do you think I never tried?
* * *
May 17, 17--: The child will be born soon, and the mother's agitation has increased apace. She paces the tiny length of her cell and back again, wringing her hands, at times pausing at the bars to gaze out at me with a gaze at once fierce and disarmingly beseeching. She even wept a little at one point in the audience, which affected me to an extreme that surprised me. She has never shown such emotion before.
Perhaps she has begun to repent at last.
Unreasonably, the thought brings me no joy.
IV. Humility
I feel the babe move within me every day now. Often I wake to its kicks like the frantic flutter of wings against the wall of my womb. I wonder if it knows it has been sentenced to be raised an orphan. The sins of the mother visited upon the child.
Am I frightened of death? Of hanging? Of course I am. Bloody terrified. I'm only a woman, after all. I'm not daft.
No. No, he is not dead. Did you see a body? Did anyone? Then he is not dead. This is Captain Jack Sparrow we're speaking of. Never forget that.
But you're wrong. I am not waiting for him to come for me. He does not come because he must not come. He's a smart man. He wouldn't risk it. Even for me.
No, not even for the child.
Jack wouldn't do a stupid thing like that. He knows this is a trap.
Leave me. Go. I will not speak to you anymore to-day.
No, there is nothing you can do for me. Unless...
Well, perhaps there is one thing. One small mercy, for the damned.
May 18th, 17--: The next morning, the prisoner's cell was found to be empty. I stood for some time, staring at the little space, cold and colorless and grubby now that she was gone.
Among the dirty straw littering the floor, something glinted. I bent to pick it up.
It was a lone bead, with a strand of flaxen hair threaded through it. I tucked it in my pocket, and smiled a little, despite the heaviness in my heart.
The legend has quickly become the newest in the collection of tales of Jack Sparrow: how he ghosted into a prison guarded by an entire regiment of the Royal Navy to rescue his lady love and their unborn child and slipped out again without ever being guessed at or challenged.
Is there truth to the legend, you ask? As much as any, I suppose.
She went free. What more does one need to know, for certain?