Title: "Burning for a Cause"
Author: monimala
Fandom: POTC (both films)
Rating/Classification: suitable for all audience, futurefic, Elizabeth. 410 words.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the House of Mouse. No real spoilers here.
Summary: She is a witch. She is a whore.
She climbs the rigging, hand over hand, and the rope no longer reddens her palms or chafes. The skin there has become too tough. Every inch of her has become browned by the sun and she longer bruises. Doesn't break. Although Cotton would take issue with that if he could, since 'twas but a year ago that she broke her arm and commanded the deck with a fetching sling he'd fashioned for her.
She scampers up to the Crow's Nest, vaults in and stares out to sea. Most days, it is her only refuge from the crew. The only place where she can grab a bit of peace, of quiet, of memory.
Her bones tingle when it's verging on a storm.
She always feels it long before anyone spots a single cloud in the sky.
She lost an eye in a skirmish with a junk two years ago. She'd picked up just enough Chinese to know the blackguard was calling her a "witch" and a "whore" before all she felt was white-hot pain and all she did was cry out a name that has no place in her life anymore.
The patch that covers the gaping socket where her eye once was is soft and comforting and no longer itches. It is a part of her now. Like all her scars, all her marks, and every man she's left behind.
She is a witch, she thinks sometimes. She is a whore.
"Oi! Oi, Cap'n Swann!" Her first mate calls from below and she swears in Portuguese at the interruption. Not five minutes and the man can't find his ass without her aid.
She leans over the narrow rail, glaring at him rather effectively considering..."Oh, shut it!" she cries. "Adjust the course and point us to the southwest! The wind's changing!"
The wind is always changing.
That, too, is something she feels deep within her bones.
She's sailed 'round the world and back again and she's learned that it is considerably smaller than she imagined when she was a tiny girl bouncing on her father's knee and tugging on his crisp white wig. Considerably smaller and yet still so vast.
Every so often, she incurs wounds that Cotton cannot bandage, cannot patch.
Her skin has become too tough, but her heart…still bruises. It still breaks.
She scans the horizon for pitch-black sails but once more.
For a bit of peace, of quiet, of memory.
And climbs back down to her world.
--end--
July 14, 2006.