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psocopteraOkay... I think I'm going to do something I never do, and post a WIP. This is the first piece of what I hope to be a significantly longer story set, you guessed it, post-Pirates of the Caribbean, because I couldn't resist and just really wanted to write some pirate adventure. Yes, there will eventually be some slash.
Ten years is a long time.
Ten years is long enough to cut through rope with your fingernails, to
struggle up through heavy choking mud and slime without purchase, to swim
through endless lightless miles past dim white shadows of writhing squid
and lantern-jawed fish spotted with sickly glowing green not even sure if
you're still working your way up or are bootlessly parallelling the
invisible floor, the unimaginable surface. The dawn of a murky twilight
seems like a mockery, but as you're borne up into radiant blue, your
kicking by now so automatic a reflex that you've forgotten you're doing
it, the distant shimmer of light overhead is like a revelation.
When your head breaks the surface the blinding light stabs into your eyes
and you scream; it is the first sound you have heard since the hungry
laughter of the crew, the plunge of the anchor.
Slowly you take in the little splashes of waves, the glitter of the sun on
the water, the blank curve of sky overhead. You turn slowly, unsure when
you've made a full circle. There is nothing on the horizon to tell you.
You look down into the dark beneath your treading feet. Not even a trail
of bubbles marks your passage.
Bootstrap, you remember. They used to call you Bootstrap.
***
"An' *then*," he says, sloshing ale as he gestures, "She lost 'er grip and
went over the side!"
The laughter is raucous. Jack is bored, and his head aches. He thinks
hopelessly of a small table set with wrought-iron candlesticks, of
perfectly balanced butter knives and a fragrant stew of mussels and rice
served to him by graceful hands... *why*, exactly, is he here again?
The storyteller has started again, this one seems to involve a shipload of
missionaries and a carved ivory phallus. Jack's pretty sure he's heard it
before with a group of schoolteachers bound for Delhi, but whatever, the
men are hanging on every word like the secret of Mad Allen's success might
turn out to hinge on a pack of naughty nuns.
Anamaria catches his eye-roll and passes him a flask - nice thought, but
he needs to be - actually, nice thought.
The nuns have been thoroughly rogered and Jack's feeling a pleasant warmth
kind of trickling down the back of his brain when Allen quiets and leans
forward, elbows planted in his really *quite* brawny thighs, fingers
spread and curled as if he's, uh, Jack thinks vaguely, poised to grab
someone's head, and wishes briefly he's sitting in front of that chair.
He shakes his head quickly, trying to clear it.
"But the damnedest thing I ever saw," Allen says in a low voice, and Jack
swears the candles all flicker and lower on cue, "Was off the coast of
Sumatra just south of Medan. We'd sailed up the Strait of Malacca, we
had, lookin' for to maybe head up towards Rangoon and put off some cargo
we had come across, when the water all a sudden goes still and clear as
glass. Sails as limp as an officer's prick and the light from our
lanterns swallowed up, no reflections."
The crowded bar is silent, waiting.
"Suddenly one of the men spots bubbling coming up just off the stern. In
the dark we can't see a glimpse of what's down there, but the air, the
very air, starts to fill up with a smell like hingu gum. The water gets
to roiling like the fires of Hades have opened up under it and what comes
swimming up but four white tigers."
There are gasps of disbelief around the room.
"Four white tigers, I say, tigers the size of ponies, eyes glowin' like
opals and in their teeth they got ropes of gold. They start swimming for
shore hard like they're pullin' something and sure enough up comes after
them a little calash, what you might call a chariot, made of pearl and set
with diamonds. And standing on it is a woman."
Nays and nevers from the listeners.
"Six feet tall she is if she's an inch, and all dressed in white silk like
she's the bride of Neptune. An' in one hand she's got a long twisty staff
like a narwhal's horn and set in the top is."
Mad Allen pauses, licks his lips like they've gone dry.
"A diamond pure and clear as the heart of a virgin, an' the size of a
man's two fists."
He takes a hasty swig from his mug like he wants to wash away what he's
said, then another long pull.
"Didju go after 'er?" one of the ruffians bursts out. "Did -"
Mad Allen pins him with a stare that could stay lightening.
"They went swimmin' off towards the shore," he says. "She never looked at
me once, and I thank my Maker for that, I do."
He can see the protest on the faces of the men around him.
"Some things," he said, "Some things you just got to leave well enough
alone."
And there, Jack thinks, is the difference between a bandit on a boat and a
truly legendary pirate.
***
Ten years is a long time.
Ten years is long enough to cut through rope with your fingernails, to
struggle up through heavy choking mud and slime without purchase, to swim
through endless lightless miles past dim white shadows of writhing squid
and lantern-jawed fish spotted with sickly glowing green not even sure if
you're still working your way up or are bootlessly parallelling the
invisible floor, the unimaginable surface. The dawn of a murky twilight
seems like a mockery, but as you're borne up into radiant blue, your
kicking by now so automatic a reflex that you've forgotten you're doing
it, the distant shimmer of light overhead is like a revelation.
When your head breaks the surface the blinding light stabs into your eyes
and you scream; it is the first sound you have heard since the hungry
laughter of the crew, the plunge of the anchor.
Slowly you take in the little splashes of waves, the glitter of the sun on
the water, the blank curve of sky overhead. You turn slowly, unsure when
you've made a full circle. There is nothing on the horizon to tell you.
You look down into the dark beneath your treading feet. Not even a trail
of bubbles marks your passage.
Bootstrap, you remember. They used to call you Bootstrap.
***
"An' *then*," he says, sloshing ale as he gestures, "She lost 'er grip and
went over the side!"
The laughter is raucous. Jack is bored, and his head aches. He thinks
hopelessly of a small table set with wrought-iron candlesticks, of
perfectly balanced butter knives and a fragrant stew of mussels and rice
served to him by graceful hands... *why*, exactly, is he here again?
The storyteller has started again, this one seems to involve a shipload of
missionaries and a carved ivory phallus. Jack's pretty sure he's heard it
before with a group of schoolteachers bound for Delhi, but whatever, the
men are hanging on every word like the secret of Mad Allen's success might
turn out to hinge on a pack of naughty nuns.
Anamaria catches his eye-roll and passes him a flask - nice thought, but
he needs to be - actually, nice thought.
The nuns have been thoroughly rogered and Jack's feeling a pleasant warmth
kind of trickling down the back of his brain when Allen quiets and leans
forward, elbows planted in his really *quite* brawny thighs, fingers
spread and curled as if he's, uh, Jack thinks vaguely, poised to grab
someone's head, and wishes briefly he's sitting in front of that chair.
He shakes his head quickly, trying to clear it.
"But the damnedest thing I ever saw," Allen says in a low voice, and Jack
swears the candles all flicker and lower on cue, "Was off the coast of
Sumatra just south of Medan. We'd sailed up the Strait of Malacca, we
had, lookin' for to maybe head up towards Rangoon and put off some cargo
we had come across, when the water all a sudden goes still and clear as
glass. Sails as limp as an officer's prick and the light from our
lanterns swallowed up, no reflections."
The crowded bar is silent, waiting.
"Suddenly one of the men spots bubbling coming up just off the stern. In
the dark we can't see a glimpse of what's down there, but the air, the
very air, starts to fill up with a smell like hingu gum. The water gets
to roiling like the fires of Hades have opened up under it and what comes
swimming up but four white tigers."
There are gasps of disbelief around the room.
"Four white tigers, I say, tigers the size of ponies, eyes glowin' like
opals and in their teeth they got ropes of gold. They start swimming for
shore hard like they're pullin' something and sure enough up comes after
them a little calash, what you might call a chariot, made of pearl and set
with diamonds. And standing on it is a woman."
Nays and nevers from the listeners.
"Six feet tall she is if she's an inch, and all dressed in white silk like
she's the bride of Neptune. An' in one hand she's got a long twisty staff
like a narwhal's horn and set in the top is."
Mad Allen pauses, licks his lips like they've gone dry.
"A diamond pure and clear as the heart of a virgin, an' the size of a
man's two fists."
He takes a hasty swig from his mug like he wants to wash away what he's
said, then another long pull.
"Didju go after 'er?" one of the ruffians bursts out. "Did -"
Mad Allen pins him with a stare that could stay lightening.
"They went swimmin' off towards the shore," he says. "She never looked at
me once, and I thank my Maker for that, I do."
He can see the protest on the faces of the men around him.
"Some things," he said, "Some things you just got to leave well enough
alone."
And there, Jack thinks, is the difference between a bandit on a boat and a
truly legendary pirate.
***
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*gasp*
Date: 2003-07-20 01:48 pm (UTC)This is a wonderful beginning and I can't wait to read the rest.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-20 09:07 pm (UTC)It was a cannon. Ahahaha, excuse me, I find that extremely funny... that's what we call ironic, making a mistake about *cannon*... heeee.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-21 09:49 pm (UTC)Write more. More!
Muahahahahahaha!
*laughs insanely because the world is finally going to agree with all of her ravings about the hotness of pirates*