a

Human
For the 'Discovery' Drabble Challenge

by EstelWolfe
December 11, 2003

Good. He was finally out. Now if only she could stand up straight, she could commence with her brilliant plan.

It had seemed a good idea at the time, getting the pirate drunk and then acting as she saw fit. She just hadn't counted on quite how much she herself would have to drink to keep him from getting suspicious. It might only have been a fraction of what he consumed, but it was more than enough to make the world do very strange things.

Elizabeth attempted to lurch upright again, staggering back towards the cache.

A whisper from behind caused her to whirl around, nearly falling again. God, if he wasn't out by now . . .

"Jack?" He didn't seem to have moved from his sprawl in the sand. Elizabeth moved closer, standing over him and studying his face.

There it was again, just the briefest plaintive whisper, spoken in rhythm to the waves on the shore.

"Pearl . . ."

She stood frozen for a moment, wondering if it was simply another ruse, another trick, if the pirate captain was going to suddenly spring up and lunge at her for daring to consider doing what she was considering doing.

The circular thought made her already pounding head throb faster and she settled with less than usual grace into the sand by the pirate's side . . .or at least she wanted to believe it was merely the pounding in her head that made her settle down there again.

Again the whisper rose in time to the sea, an unconscious prayer to the elemental gods. Elizabeth leaned forward and slowly pulled his shirt away from his chest, wary of movement on his part.

She gently traced the scars. How in God's name had he survived something like that? What was the incident that spawned them? Surely that story should be worthy of tales, a place in the books.

All the tales she had read as a child, the dashing men who could be tied by no law, no rules . . .none of them were true. This was no romantic hero lying before her, drunk out of his mind and calling out in his dreams for his ship.

Calling for his ship . . .

That hardly fit the other tales she had been told, of cutthroats and rapists, the tales she heard from Norrington, that Barbossa's men had made incredibly, bitterly plausible.

This man didn't fit the tales, at least not at the moment. He was far too . . .human. Dangerous, predatory, unpredictable, untrustworthy . . .and scarred, injured, dreaming of what he once had.

Elizabeth stood abruptly, allowing the pirate's . . .Jack's . . .shirt to again hide the scars. She was far too tired and head-sore to think anymore on the enigma known as Jack Sparrow.

Time to go play with fire of a different sort.

~.~

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