[POTC challenge fic] - "Spine" - PG-13
Challenge: Write a scene for each of the words below using characters from Pirates of the Caribbean.
1)spine
2)song
3)smoke
4)gold
5)box
6)flee
7)snake
8) memories
9)henna
10)eyes
Here's my first one.
1)SPINE:
It's taken at least five hours, but Elizabeth is proud of her work. The books dried nicely, and she’s nearly finished mending the last of the torn sails.
During their latest raid on the merchant vessel The Silver Lily, the row of windows above Jack’s large collection of books shattered, drowning nearly the entire library but leaving the rest of the room virtually unaffected. The brackish water pooled in their bindings, was drawn languidly into their pages over the course of the boarding, and lacy fingers of ink now fanned out across many of the pages. Elizabeth discovered the mess, having returned to change her bloodstained shirt. She noticed the scent first. Something stale and musty and damp: a wave of brine and binding glue and wet pulp assaulted her nostrils and alerted her to the tragedy.
“Blast,” she’d muttered, eyes finding the sparkle of glass shards. Jack was going to be heartbroken. And so she mopped up the mess carefully, gathered the books in a blanket, and carried them above deck to crisp in the sunlight.
That was about five hours ago. Dipping low in the sky, the sun paints the horizon a promising red. Across deck, Jack passes the wheel to Gibbs, momentarily walking away to examine the minor damages to the Pearl for the eleventh time. There is a frenetic energy about ship, the crew set to mending and Jack in his victorious glory. He flashes her his golden smile, winking shamelessly. For their audience, she makes a show of consternation, smirking as he returns to his ministrations. These are Elizabeth's best loved moments. Apart yet together and all the ship set to a purpose.
Elizabeth runs her fingertips across the spines of Jack's sun-baked books. The few that still lay open make a lovely fluttering sound in the breeze. Dante. Donne. Shakespeare. More and Spenser and Virgil. This is not the collection of the near-mythic, nefarious Captain Jack Sparrow - not the library of the man she watches prancing about deck, bawdy and hell-bent on an evening of rum and tall tales. No, these are the books of the man beneath that skin of bravado, an educated man that learned to read as a little boy in Kerala, sister nestled in his lap, the two of them struggling for comprehension as his fingers glanced across the verses of a pilfered volume of Paradise Lost. Elizabeth smiles a small, secret smile remembering the evenings spent with those books. He read each tome to her with reverence, his voice low but his fingers animated, tracing the words on her bare back. She learned him that way: drowsily, in the deepest pockets of night, Jack's voice rum-warm and purring.
The seawater has dried on their covers in crackled tributaries that remind her of the tangle of scars on his left arm. The pages are curled and hazy with water, but drying well. She blots at several stubborn spots. Tonight she will read a few pages to him. She imagines her own fingers marking soft sentiments in lazy curls across his belly, translating his scars into various clusters of verse. She will remember how to erase and rewrite him.
Until then she watches the sun slip low on the water, its last rays warming her captain’s books.
Title: Spine
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Spoilers: Through DMC and occurs post AWE, although Lord knows I haven't seen it.
Pairing: Jack/Elizabeth
Rating: PG-13 (a very light PG-13)
Word Count: 547
Summary: Written for a friend's ficlet challenge - the first of ten. Jack's got a library, and his books are all wet.
Disclaimer: I don't own POTC or any of the people in it. Would that I was that rich....
Note on the work: Although I've been writing for dog's years and an avid fan of several something-or-others for even longer, I'm fairly new to the POTC (and livejournal) world. I decided to stop lurking and try my hand at some fanfic. No beta as of yet - just my strained eyes and a sloppily-earned English degree on which to rely. Be gentle on a lady. It's my first time.
Feedback would be lovely!