post AWE challenge responses
And some more...not sure how much one post can hold =)
Title: By the powers
Prompt: 18, Letters of marque
Characters: Elizabeth
Rating: possibly PG, for talk of remorseless pieces of metal
Length: 100 words
She had thought that she knew where death lay. In swift pistols; in long straight swords, balanced to a hair's breadth; in hot explosions; in the timbers of a dying ship as she was smashed to pieces about one; few knew better than Elizabeth how surely one's life or death could be determined by these. Among all the weapons she had wielded and faced, however, she had never counted a piece of parchment. Yet here it was, a few words written in ink upon paper, promising life just as the warrants had held death. The might of the pen, indeed.
Title: The day you almost ate Captain Jack Sparrow
Prompt: 17, King of the cannibals
Characters: Jack
Rating: PG
Length: 200 words
Perhaps, Jack reflects, he should have settled for being merely a king. The thought is of course dismissed as soon as it arises; he is Captain Jack Sparrow, after all, and the day has yet to dawn when Captain Jack Sparrow disregards an opportunity to acquire some more legendary, undying glory. Unfortunately, at the present time it seems that while the glory may be undying, Jack will not. This disturbs him somewhat.
Becoming a god-metaphorically speaking-sounded like such a good idea at the time. In retrospect, however, Jack has decided that divinity holds few of the benefits it promises.
These people don't even obey their own god!
Jack wonders at this as he meditatively chews on a toenail, then wonders why he wonders. Human nature, savvy?
People tend to get possessive of their gods, to obey only when it bloody suits them, to start putting words in their mouths. And fire in their breeches.
A lesser man might have been content to be a mortal king with, perhaps, some heavy artillery to support his pronouncements; a king whose subjects didn't start getting fancy ideas about deities needing released form earthly cages.
But not Jack. Oh, no, not Jack.
Title: Whatever we lose
Prompt: 8, Oaths and promises
Characters: Will
Rating: PG
Length: 350 words
In the place between life and death, Will dreamed. He dreamed of a ship and the angry sea, pacified by his wish; he dreamed of distant stars under other skies; he dreamed of cold fingers and the clinging entanglement of drowned women's hair. His every dream was lit with a green glow, and into them all came Elizabeth-vibrant and fierce and alive with the wind in her face, or slain and grey upon a wooden deck. And over all that happened in his visions, above every strange path he walked, he heard the echoes of two voices, mingling and unravelling.
“A touch of destiny,” Tia Dalma murmured, sometimes low and soft, sometimes great and terrible. “I'd die for her!” his own voice reverberated, though he did not, then, recognise it.
“I'd die for her!”
“I'd die for her!”
I'd die for her.
Conscious and-for a certain value of the word-alive, the words remained with Will, as he leaned on the rotting rail of the Dutchman. He had spoken them thoughtlessly, but only because no thought was required...since he was twelve years old, he had been willing to sacrifice anything for her. That had never really changed, though at times he had wondered if he was a fool for his fidelity. Had he been given the choice again, he would have answered in the same way-but he had not been asked again. Someone had already heard those impetuous words, and though they had postponed judgement, in the end had returned to collect. The irony was not lost upon him; near two years to the day, it was, since the moment he spoke those words and made himself a pirate with the saying. Two years between the time he finished that near-perfect sword and the time it finished him; two years between the making of the promise and the redeeming of it.
I died for her.
A high price indeed, but he had been prepared to pay even more dearly and receive nothing in return, when he mortgaged his life to the fates.
“That depends on the day.”
Title: By the powers
Prompt: 18, Letters of marque
Characters: Elizabeth
Rating: possibly PG, for talk of remorseless pieces of metal
Length: 100 words
She had thought that she knew where death lay. In swift pistols; in long straight swords, balanced to a hair's breadth; in hot explosions; in the timbers of a dying ship as she was smashed to pieces about one; few knew better than Elizabeth how surely one's life or death could be determined by these. Among all the weapons she had wielded and faced, however, she had never counted a piece of parchment. Yet here it was, a few words written in ink upon paper, promising life just as the warrants had held death. The might of the pen, indeed.
Title: The day you almost ate Captain Jack Sparrow
Prompt: 17, King of the cannibals
Characters: Jack
Rating: PG
Length: 200 words
Perhaps, Jack reflects, he should have settled for being merely a king. The thought is of course dismissed as soon as it arises; he is Captain Jack Sparrow, after all, and the day has yet to dawn when Captain Jack Sparrow disregards an opportunity to acquire some more legendary, undying glory. Unfortunately, at the present time it seems that while the glory may be undying, Jack will not. This disturbs him somewhat.
Becoming a god-metaphorically speaking-sounded like such a good idea at the time. In retrospect, however, Jack has decided that divinity holds few of the benefits it promises.
These people don't even obey their own god!
Jack wonders at this as he meditatively chews on a toenail, then wonders why he wonders. Human nature, savvy?
People tend to get possessive of their gods, to obey only when it bloody suits them, to start putting words in their mouths. And fire in their breeches.
A lesser man might have been content to be a mortal king with, perhaps, some heavy artillery to support his pronouncements; a king whose subjects didn't start getting fancy ideas about deities needing released form earthly cages.
But not Jack. Oh, no, not Jack.
Title: Whatever we lose
Prompt: 8, Oaths and promises
Characters: Will
Rating: PG
Length: 350 words
In the place between life and death, Will dreamed. He dreamed of a ship and the angry sea, pacified by his wish; he dreamed of distant stars under other skies; he dreamed of cold fingers and the clinging entanglement of drowned women's hair. His every dream was lit with a green glow, and into them all came Elizabeth-vibrant and fierce and alive with the wind in her face, or slain and grey upon a wooden deck. And over all that happened in his visions, above every strange path he walked, he heard the echoes of two voices, mingling and unravelling.
“A touch of destiny,” Tia Dalma murmured, sometimes low and soft, sometimes great and terrible. “I'd die for her!” his own voice reverberated, though he did not, then, recognise it.
“I'd die for her!”
“I'd die for her!”
I'd die for her.
Conscious and-for a certain value of the word-alive, the words remained with Will, as he leaned on the rotting rail of the Dutchman. He had spoken them thoughtlessly, but only because no thought was required...since he was twelve years old, he had been willing to sacrifice anything for her. That had never really changed, though at times he had wondered if he was a fool for his fidelity. Had he been given the choice again, he would have answered in the same way-but he had not been asked again. Someone had already heard those impetuous words, and though they had postponed judgement, in the end had returned to collect. The irony was not lost upon him; near two years to the day, it was, since the moment he spoke those words and made himself a pirate with the saying. Two years between the time he finished that near-perfect sword and the time it finished him; two years between the making of the promise and the redeeming of it.
I died for her.
A high price indeed, but he had been prepared to pay even more dearly and receive nothing in return, when he mortgaged his life to the fates.
“That depends on the day.”