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Challenge: First Day
September 29 , 2005

By Lorraine
September 30, 2005

~ The First Day of the Rest of Your Life ~

By Corrielle
September 30, 2005

~ Things Half Hoped For ~

Elizabeth Swann moved through the halls of the governor’s residence, a small, pale ghost in the darkened rooms where sun had not reached for months. The rooms were cavernous and empty, as many of her father’s things had not yet arrived from England. She skirted corners and stayed close to the walls. She lifted the edges of the sheets covering the furniture, pulled dusty books from the library shelves, and gingerly pressed the keys of the harpsichord in the ballroom.

Her father showed Elizabeth the room that would be hers. The window opened on the crescent of the bay, and she sat at the window long into the night as the rest of the house slept, searching for a half-hoped for ship with a black flag and a white skull, coming to tempt her away to piracy.

By Geek Mama
October 1, 2005

~ A Change In The Weather ~
Prequel to "A Word In Private"

By Geek Mama
October 2, 2005

~ A Fine Day ~
Another prequel to "A Word In Private"

By Geek Mama
October 4, 2005

~ Wooing A Lady ~
Fraternal twin to Honorat's "A Lesson In Manners "

The fizzing vexation in Will's blood had died away, for the most part, replaced by an anxious determination to prove he could be of use in this foreign element.

"I can do it! Just show me," he'd said, stubbornly, and set his jaw when he'd been eyed askance.

But Sparrow had finally given a sniff of acceptance. "Right then."

Taking her wheel, the Interceptor felt like a live thing, and Will had to admit it was real work to hold her to her proper course while the pirate climbed aloft to make various arcane adjustments to the sails. As these were accomplished, however, she began to ease a little under his hands.

Sparrow finally dropped back to the deck and ambled toward Will, utterly in his element. Will felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

"Better, eh?" said Sparrow, and nodded thanks as Will gave over the helm. The pirate's hands closed on the spokes, sure and firm, and he gave an unfocused, beatific smile. "Better!" he murmured. "I'll take care of you, lass. Don't you worry." But then he glanced at Will, with a nod and the arch of a black brow. "We'll take care of you!"

For the life of him, Will couldn't help smiling a bit, too.

By Honorat Selonnet
October 4, 2005

~ A Lesson In Manners ~
Fraternal twin to Geek Mama's "Wooing A Lady"

By Honorat Selonnet
October 5, 2005

~ On The Shoals ~

By Galadhir
October 5, 2005

~ Business As Usual ~

By Melusina
October 6, 2005

~ Equinox ~
Also written for a Picture Drabble Challenge on Live Journal

Somewhere on this, the first day of autumn, there are crisp leaves, crackling fires, and the lush, rotting smell of summer dying. Somewhere busy ants are virtuously putting aside stores for the winter. But here in the warm waters off Tortuga, the day is coming on hot and muggy, with a faint rainbow on the horizon where the last of the previous night's storm lingers. The air is redolent of salt, tar, and dead fish.

Jack, who always preferred the grasshopper to the ants, is lounging on the quarterdeck, a bottle in his hand and his bare head tipped up to the sun. The dark boards beneath his feet radiate heat, and the black sails fairly shimmer with it, like a mirage in the desert.

Jack doesn't like winter, so it only stands to reason he doesn't care for autumn either. Even spring is too mild for his temperament. What Jack likes are the long sunny days of midsummer, which are available nearly year round in the Caribbean. Gibbs says it's daft to sail a ship with black sails under the tropical sun, but Jack and the Pearl revel in the heat -- they've known quite enough of death's chill.

By Jenthegypsy
October 8, 2005

~ First Day or Last ~

He is sixty years, if he is a day, and he has crewed a dozen ships or more in the time since he hied off to sea. He dozes in the smoky-rose light of predawn, recalling, in flashes of rich sound and brilliant color, ports of call where, of a time, the ladies had tussled over his affections. The faces of the men he has counted as friend, along with those he did not count at all, swirl just beneath the surface of true waking.

Beside him, the great bird sleeps, balanced on one leg, head tucked behind a wing that is as varied in blues as the sea itself.

First day or six-thousand-five-hundred-and-seventy-first-day, they all blur together, and they all begin the same. Dozing in the pre-dawn, side by side.

~.~

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