Pirates of the Caribbean Fic: Lost and Found
Lost and Found
My very first PotC fic. Set between PotC 2 and 3. Angst alert.
Warnings: PG- 13 for one swear word and death theme. DMC Spoiler.
Character/Pairings: Giselle, Giselle/Jack implied.
Disclaimer; Pirates of the Caribbean and all its' characters are not my creation. They just should have been.
Note: I don't know why, but during my multiple viewings of CotBP in the months before DMC came out, I suddenly fell in love with the Giselle/Jack/Scarlett romance. Expect more of this from me. But not often, as I am the laziest writer in the world.
By Joanne Francis
July 24 2006
It had almost seemed like an ordinary day. There was the brilliant sunshine, the bluest Caribbean sky, the slow build of bustle that was a Tortuga open market. Most people in Tortuga didn’t recover from the night before until noon, so the real quality shopping, as befits a sometimes comfortably coined lady of taste, was to be done in the morning. And browsing through the little kiosks on a beautiful morning, with new and exotic wares turning out to please all the senses, Giselle had almost been able to leave it behind her, and feel that it was just an ordinary, normal day.
And then the little wizened milliner who’d arrived in port just a week earlier turned from his straw-cushioned crates and dropped his latest offering on a stand directly in front of her. It seemed as though everything around her slowed to a halt, even her own breath. The blue sky, brilliant sunshine, and the market itself pulled away from her, becoming distant and unreal.
She’d looked for ages. Scarlett had as well, she’d learned soon after they had become friends. In several years of searching, and not a little distance traveled, neither of them had ever seen one, until now.
Now. Of all times now. Directly before her sat a simple leather tri-corn hat. Of the many variations of the tri-corn, this was the king. No ornamentation, no showy height or flatness, just the rounded cap flanked by three well-crafted folded up sides, a shape so ingrained into the leather that it could survive punishment beyond imagining.
Sitting at a jaunty angle on it’s stand, the well oiled and burnished black leather hat glowed richly in the morning sun, new and whole and almost perfect. A single white feather arched gracefully from the front right side, dancing ever so slowly in the gentle breeze.
White. It had to be white, the color that in flowers represented death.
Giselle’s quick little hands came up to press against her mid-section, which suddenly felt hollow to a painful degree, as though all of her insides had been sucked out of her mouth along with her breath. It felt as though something had struck her there. It felt of the weight of an immense wrongness in the world.
The overwhelming sense of unrealness the day had taken lifted a little as a movement from the milliner drew her attention. Her hearing came back to her in a rush that her mind could not keep pace with.
“A real beaut it is”, he was telling her. “Sure to please your gent to no end. Why, they say this ‘at will outlive it’s wearer by - “ And then the hapless man found himself bodily bouncing off the wall of his kiosk, very nearly bringing the whole thing down on him. He had barely registered the cause to be the sharp sound and sting of a powerful slap to the face when a small but heavy purse of coins landed hard against his chest, and his hands scrambled to grasp it.
Giselle neither knew nor cared if she had overpaid or underpaid. She violently seized the hat from its’ stand and ripped the offending feather from it, throwing it hard at the ground. Being a feather, it did not go there immediately, but instead drifted lazily down, as soft and easily as life itself could drift away on water.
Clutching the hat to her breast, Giselles’ fingernails scored scratches on it as her hands ruthlessly twisted it out of its’ pristine shape. She buried her nose in it, immediately hating the newness of its’ rich, un-salted scent. Turning from the kiosk, she barreled blindly towards the outskirts of the market, her eyes too bright with tears to avoid crashing into people. She didn’t care, and elbowed past them with the unchallenged authority that only a Tortuga woman could command. Damn them all anyway, for thinking this, or any other, was an ordinary, normal day.
The End.
My very first PotC fic. Set between PotC 2 and 3. Angst alert.
Warnings: PG- 13 for one swear word and death theme. DMC Spoiler.
Character/Pairings: Giselle, Giselle/Jack implied.
Disclaimer; Pirates of the Caribbean and all its' characters are not my creation. They just should have been.
Note: I don't know why, but during my multiple viewings of CotBP in the months before DMC came out, I suddenly fell in love with the Giselle/Jack/Scarlett romance. Expect more of this from me. But not often, as I am the laziest writer in the world.
By Joanne Francis
July 24 2006
It had almost seemed like an ordinary day. There was the brilliant sunshine, the bluest Caribbean sky, the slow build of bustle that was a Tortuga open market. Most people in Tortuga didn’t recover from the night before until noon, so the real quality shopping, as befits a sometimes comfortably coined lady of taste, was to be done in the morning. And browsing through the little kiosks on a beautiful morning, with new and exotic wares turning out to please all the senses, Giselle had almost been able to leave it behind her, and feel that it was just an ordinary, normal day.
And then the little wizened milliner who’d arrived in port just a week earlier turned from his straw-cushioned crates and dropped his latest offering on a stand directly in front of her. It seemed as though everything around her slowed to a halt, even her own breath. The blue sky, brilliant sunshine, and the market itself pulled away from her, becoming distant and unreal.
She’d looked for ages. Scarlett had as well, she’d learned soon after they had become friends. In several years of searching, and not a little distance traveled, neither of them had ever seen one, until now.
Now. Of all times now. Directly before her sat a simple leather tri-corn hat. Of the many variations of the tri-corn, this was the king. No ornamentation, no showy height or flatness, just the rounded cap flanked by three well-crafted folded up sides, a shape so ingrained into the leather that it could survive punishment beyond imagining.
Sitting at a jaunty angle on it’s stand, the well oiled and burnished black leather hat glowed richly in the morning sun, new and whole and almost perfect. A single white feather arched gracefully from the front right side, dancing ever so slowly in the gentle breeze.
White. It had to be white, the color that in flowers represented death.
Giselle’s quick little hands came up to press against her mid-section, which suddenly felt hollow to a painful degree, as though all of her insides had been sucked out of her mouth along with her breath. It felt as though something had struck her there. It felt of the weight of an immense wrongness in the world.
The overwhelming sense of unrealness the day had taken lifted a little as a movement from the milliner drew her attention. Her hearing came back to her in a rush that her mind could not keep pace with.
“A real beaut it is”, he was telling her. “Sure to please your gent to no end. Why, they say this ‘at will outlive it’s wearer by - “ And then the hapless man found himself bodily bouncing off the wall of his kiosk, very nearly bringing the whole thing down on him. He had barely registered the cause to be the sharp sound and sting of a powerful slap to the face when a small but heavy purse of coins landed hard against his chest, and his hands scrambled to grasp it.
Giselle neither knew nor cared if she had overpaid or underpaid. She violently seized the hat from its’ stand and ripped the offending feather from it, throwing it hard at the ground. Being a feather, it did not go there immediately, but instead drifted lazily down, as soft and easily as life itself could drift away on water.
Clutching the hat to her breast, Giselles’ fingernails scored scratches on it as her hands ruthlessly twisted it out of its’ pristine shape. She buried her nose in it, immediately hating the newness of its’ rich, un-salted scent. Turning from the kiosk, she barreled blindly towards the outskirts of the market, her eyes too bright with tears to avoid crashing into people. She didn’t care, and elbowed past them with the unchallenged authority that only a Tortuga woman could command. Damn them all anyway, for thinking this, or any other, was an ordinary, normal day.
The End.