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Pearl Tales
is the official archive of
Black Pearl Sails
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a Drabble
Challenge: Lullaby
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By Geek Mama ~ Oh,
Can Ye Sew Cushions ~ Oh, can ye sew cushions and can ye sew sheets? * They'd stayed a few restful days in Barbados, but the island was now fading behind them as the Black Pearl made her way across the sunlit sea toward Jamaica. Elizabeth, sewing by the stern windows of the Great Cabin, smiled to see Jack sprawled upon the bed beside her aunt who was enthroned there, nursing her little son. "Sing that one with the `cushions' again, love," murmured Jack to his wife. Harry obliged in a soft, sweet voice, most soothing to the ear. Her aunt's skill upon the harpsichord might be questionable, but her singing could not be faulted, at least in Elizabeth's estimation. Apparently both Jack and Tom agreed, for when the song eventually drew to a quiet end, Harry glanced up and whispered, "Elizabeth, look: I've put them both to sleep." Elizabeth smiled again. "I believe that's counted a great compliment when the song is a lullaby, Aunt." * Ye're rockin fu' sweetly upon my warm knee By Honorat Selonnet ~ Perchance To Dream ~ Every night after his rescue he had fought sleep with a desperate fury, but eventually his exhausted young body would vanquish his battered spirit and drag him down into fiery nightmares. Then he would come violently awake, his throat a raw echo of screams, the thin sheet twisted damp, the acrid scent of his own fear stinging his nostrils, unable to flee from the images branded on the backs of his eyelids. He would not return to sleep. This night, however, he found himself rocking in his mother's arms again, hearing the soothing melody of the old lullaby she used to sing over him. The gentle notes held power over the terror, driving it from him, surrounding him with safety. A cool hand brushed the damp strands of hair from his forehead as his mother used to do, but it was not the familiar, work-worn palm. He opened his eyes, startled, to see the face of the young girl with the freckles and ringlets and large, dark eyes. Again he heard her soft voice: "I'm watching over you, Will." Her hand slipped into his. That night Will Turner finally slept until dawn.
By Felaine ~ Sweet Music ~ With every toy wealth and skill could provide him, W.W. Turner's favorite at the Governor's mansion was his grandfather's discarded wig. He wore it now, curls trailing on the floor. Carrying a document festooned with ribbons and official seals, he strutted through the doorway. Weatherby accepted the rolled parchment gravely and bowed, his most elegant leg. "Your servant, milord," he intoned solemnly. A muffled giggle erupted from between curtains of gray curls and the game was over; the child hurtling into his grandfather's arms. As Weatherby lifted him and their laughter mingled, it seemed to him the purest, most soothing melody he had ever heard.
By Trinity Day ~ Lullaby ~ Penny's coughs drowned out her lullaby, but Nancy Turner persisted anyway. She couldn't have repeated the words if asked, but still she sang them to her young daughter. "Momma?" Her son looked in from the doorway, his face still pale though his own fever had passed. "Go back to sleep, Will, darling," she said in vain, knowing he hadn't yet slept and would likely lie in bed all night, awake and listening, but not to her song. She sang until dawn although her voice had turned hoarse and her daughter had stilled hours earlier. It was all she could do.
By Virgo79 ~ Hush ~
By Honorat Selonnet ~ Siren Song ~ His first lullaby was the music of the sea, beating to the time of his mother’s heart. That song, melded from the sough of the wind and the long salt-tang slide of breakers over shoals, and the far off cries of the mews, lulled him to sleep the first time he found himself all alone in the vast darkness of a cold world. It spoke to him of faraway places and horizons that never ended, of a life so free it was like taking flight into the sun, making despair bearable. When he had at last given himself to that unceasing, fathomless, dark musician, her deep voice sighing in the slip of waves along a wooden hull, piping in the standing and running rigging, humming against spread canvas, almost carried his mind away from the fire of the stripes on his back. She sang paeans of exultation when he first stood at the helm of his ship—His Ship—the home towards which all his wandering steps had led, the love all his desires had sought, the life so intertwined with his own that he felt her pulse in the marrow of his bones. The Black Pearl embodied all the music of the endless sea and enveloped him within it like one pure and eternal note. The sea sobbed with him the night he found himself alone again, bereft of all that had made his life meaningful. She roared with his rage, crashing against sharp coral, slashing her turquoise waters into ribbons that bled white froth. She groaned against the sand and growled in her seething breakers. The sound of her, the touch of her on his heated flesh were the only things that held him to a sanity more unbearable than any madness. And the day he finally stood again with his hands on his dark lady and his heart already thrown off the edge of the earth, the sea caught golden sunlight and tossed it about him, trilling bright arpeggios of joy amidst the shrouds and lines of the Black Pearl, clapping white foam hands before the bright, gem-encrusted wave of her bow, That night he was again rocked to sleep in her arms, listening
to her whispered lullaby caress along his own heartbeats.
~.~
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