potc100 Drabble Challenge: "Tarnished Idol"

[luvvycat]

Title: "Tarnished Idol"
Author:luvvycat   
Characters: Elizabeth Swann, Jack Sparrow
Rating: PG13/Soft R
Prompt(s): Vulgar and Liar
Word count: 100
Disclaimer: PotC is Disney's, not mine. *sniff*

Comments

Re: Praise from Willofthewisp

[luvvycat]

Ah, the ride home. I can just see Elizabeth, looking like a drowned rat, seething with rage.

Not only rage, but embarrassment, too. To suffer the indignity of appearing in her underthings, being manhandled by a pirate in front of her father and James and half the Royal Navy (particularly after she's just spoken out in said pirate's defence), must have been a supremely humiliating experience for her!

I know, I know, she still has a lot to learn about Jack, but I'm with her that he sort of undid that daring rescue.

Yes, it must have been quite a letdown for her, personally! Her rescue by Jack would have played so perfectly into her "pirate hero" image she'd held of him since childhood, so to have him suddenly wrap a manacle chain around her neck and threaten the life he'd just saved, it had to have come as quite an unpleasant shock!

From her point of view, of course he's a "dirty, vulgar, self-serving liar and common thief." She has every right to be so furious. Disillusionment often hits hard.

Absolutely! Childhood illusions don't die an easy death. And to have her "hero" reduced to (in her eyes) the most common and coarse kind of man had to have been the worst kind of disappointment for her.

It's so true to life that she wouldn't really catch onto the sexual undertones in that scene until later. The adrenaline, being in the moment itself, would blind her to it.

Yes, sheltered Governor's daughter that she is, she's a bit of an innocent, and not exactly accustomed to men making what she would consider "crude advances" toward her, or being sized up as a potential bedfellow. In her social circles, any prospective suitors would have likely been introduced in a very controlled environment, either at society balls or other acceptable social functions, or by chaperoned meetings arranged through her father. Naturally, these would be men of her own class, aware of her father's status and the power he wields, affording her the respect due a daughter of the aristocracy. Even Will, for all that he's of the "common" class, treats her with utmost civility and respect.

Then here comes this man--one of her childhood heroes, no less!--that has no respect whatsoever for societal boundaries, no concept of "personal space", who is clearly not a "gentleman" and treats her as no man has before: as an object of desire, as a sexual being. He's likely the first man who's dared to touch her without first asking, and receiving, her permission.

But now that she can reflect? Bam!

Her anger, her indignation did seem to dwarf all other reactions at first, but once she had time to order her thoughts, and think about exactly what Jack said and did and what it meant, and to analyse her own visceral reaction to his "attentions"--her response to his own raw masculine sexuality, the awakening of those kinds of unaccustomed, carnal feelings in her that she had hitherto thought "beneath" her--she'd be shocked anew, and angry not only at herself for being capable of having those kinds of "impure" thoughts, but also at Jack for being the one to inspire them in her!

Don't be so hard on yourself, Elizabeth. There aren't too many refined ladies who don't want a scoundrel at least once in a while.

Especially if that scoundrel happens to be an exceedingly handsome one named Captain Jack Sparrow! I seriously doubt that there have been many ladies, of any class, who could resist Jack for long! ;-)

I LOVE this! It makes all interactions after this that much more spectacular.

Oh, yes ... all those lovely J/E seeds planted, from their very first meeting! ;-)

Good job.

Thank you so much, as ever, for your wonderful Comments! I'm so glad you enjoyed this take on that scene, from Elizabeth's POV! ;-)

-- Cat