BIRTHDAY FIC: "The Commodore's Sword"

[lobelia321]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, thejennabides!

This is all for you, and written with you in my thoughts. Who else for these crazy pairings?

*hugs and kisses on your birthday and many, many happy returns*



Birthday fic for Jenn

Title: The Commodore's Sword
Autor: Lobelia; lobelia40@yahoo.com
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean fps / Sleeping Dictionary rps
Pairing: James Norrington / Will Turner / Hugh Dancy.
Rating: G
Summary: The sun keeps rising out of the hot Caribbean. Words are spoken, hearts are broken.
Feedback: Yes, please, I love it!
Warning: Blood. Rps/fps crossover. Metaphors out of control.
Spoilers: PotC.
Archive Rights: My niche. Anyone else, please ask.
Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know Hugh Dancy. I am not making money. The events in this story did not happen. Norrington and Turner belong to Disney Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended.
Inspired by: AIM insta-fic, prompted by Cordelia.
A/N: * Happy birthday, dearest Jenn! * Remember last year? It seems your birthday always brings out the locks in my fics, *g*.

-----

The sun rose out of the hot Caribbean. The surf boiled against the breakwater, out beyond the jetties and quays.

"Sir," said the blacksmith and bowed his head.

Captain Norrington stood in the driveway of his mansion. His horse was behind him, saddled and restrained by Hugh, the stable boy with the luscious eyes. A bit further down towards the rhododendron-framed gateway, hovered the Captain's aides-de-camps.

"Very nice," the Captain said.

The Captain took the sword from the blacksmith's hands. He hefted its heft. He wielded its length. 'Swish', went the blade and cut through the air. 'Swish', went the blade a second time and sliced right along the blacksmith's bared head, right alongside his ear and right through the hair at the side of his scalp. A lock tumbled to the ground.

And 'swish', went the blade a third time. This time it cut through the air and cut through the blacksmith's skin, oh so smooth, a stripe along his cheek, and already it began to ooze red.

"Nice," repeated the Captain, "but not yet calibrated finely enough. As you can see."

"Yes," said the blacksmith and held out his hands to receive the sword back. "I beg your pardon. I will go and try again."

"Good," said the Captain, lifted his head and scanned the blue horizon. "Just be sure to have it ready by the day of my promotion."

The blacksmith bowed. He did not touch his cheek. He did not bend to pick up his lost curl. He stood on the verge and waited silently until the Captain had mounted his steed and cantered off towards the harbour, leaving a cloud of dust and lavender wig perfume behind him.

The only one remaining with the blacksmith was the stable boy. His eyes rested on the blacksmith like tired crows. Guavas dropped off nearby trees with dull thuds.

The stable boy looked at the blacksmith but the blacksmith did not look at the stable boy. The blacksmith held the sword and let the warmth of the Captain's right hand seep into his own palm through the metal of the heft.

Half an hour later, the Captain's front garden lay empty. A drop of blood evaporated on the gravel. There was no sign of the curl.

-----

The sun rose out of the purple Caribbean. Strange sails whipped wind into magic-dragon clouds. Pipe smoke wrote italicised poems on the saffron air.

"Sir," said the blacksmith and bowed his head.

Servants stood in the corners of the Captain's entrance hall. Underfoot, the marble writhed coolly along its pink veins.

"Very nice," the Captain said and weighed the sword in his hands. He jumped back into Newton's feint. He executed a volte of Hardy's footwork waltz. He let the sword eat the air in criss-cross sweeps. He stood still, took his left index finger and drew it slowly along the sharp edge of the blade.

A ruby freckle sprang from the Captain's finger. A smear of blood appeared along the sword's blade.

The Captain held the sword up to his face and inspected the metal. He frowned. He pursed his imperious lips. He said, "This sword wants cleaning."

"Very well," said the blacksmith and received the sword back into his hands.

As the blacksmith passed through the Captain's gate, a shadow moved behind the sassafras trees. It was the stable boy. His eyes followed the blacksmith's back but his lips were closed around a single human curl.

That night, in the oleander darkness of his chamber, the blacksmith turned the sword so that it caught the flicker of his candle's wick. The blacksmith's own reflection blinked back at him, multiplied, minified, stained gold and rust.

The blacksmith opened his mouth and cleaned the blade with his tongue. He licked the length of the sword's shaft, down one side, up the other side. He sucked on his own finger and cleaned the edge of the blade with his spittled skin.

He fell asleep on a pillow whose slip was lacerated with a web of red trickles. As he dreamed, his tongue swelled softly against his gum.

-----

The sun rose disconsolately from nebulous banks of tropical fog. Sluggish moths hung from the banana leaves. Down in the harbour, muffled cannon shots ambled across the bay.

"Good Lord," said the Captain and raised his eyebrows. "What happened to you?"

The blackmith said nothing, merely bowed his head and presented the sword, gleaming in the newborn light.

The Captain pulled off his gloves, finger by finger. He gestured at his coachman to stay the horses. Footmen and black slaves rushed to hold their halters.

"Let me see, then," the Captain said. He lifted the sword. He studied his reflection in its silver sides. He twirled its verticality towards the skies. He stabbed, he thrust, he parried and countervailed.

"Very nice," he said. "This will do. Here, package it up for tomorrow and bring it to the Governor's house. He will want to think that it was made according to his own orders."

"Very well," said the blackmith. "And sir?"

"Yes?" said the Captain impatiently, one foot on the step of his carriage.

"Will Miss Swann be at the Governor's house tomorrow?"

"Miss Swann? Well, she does live there. But what do you want with Miss Swann?"

"Nothing, sir," mumbled the blacksmith.

"What? Speak up, I can hardly understand what you are saying."

"It is difficult for me to speak, sir," managed the blacksmith. "I have an ailment of the tongue."

"Yes, yes. Coachman? Giddy up!"

The coach door fell shut. The whip cracked. Four pair of hooves scattered stones and dirt as the carriage wended its way away and down towards the town.

The servants dispersed. Only one was left upon the emerald sward. It was the stable boy. One strange curl hung into his eyes, braided into the hair of his head.

"Are you all right?" the stable boy ventured.

The blacksmith turned, and the stable boy blushed a deep pink.

"You... you have been wounded," murmured the stable boy.

"Yes," the blacksmith said, and seagulls careered across the port holes of his eyes. "I have been wounded. And I will be wounded more."

-----

The sun rose with a shiver and a shake. Dew drops sparkled on hummingbirds' wings.

"Sir," said the blacksmith and bowed his head.

The Governor took the sword from his hands and flapped it through the air.

Words were spoken. Hearts were broken.

"It will be their engagement day," whispered a voice at the end of a long corridor.

"He will ask her today," whispered another, in the scullery, among the soaps and suds. "Today, today, today."

Today he will be lost to me forever. But he will still have my sword. My sword will always hang by his side. It will suck the warmth from his thighs. It will draw the blood that sustains him. It will sing in his fist and dance to the tune of his cries -- "En garde! En garde!"

"I know what you feel," whispered a voice at his elbow. Or was it inside his head? "But she is out of your league. She is too much above your station."

Not she, fools. Not she.

Down the hill, towards the harbour, at the end of a dog-flecked lane, between two kegs of Jamaican rum and a hawser coiled up into a cobra, stood a slim figure with a straw-brimmed hat upon his head.

"I brought you something," said the stable boy.

"What is it?" said the blacksmith. Ten score dragonflies shook in his voice.

The stable boy pressed a small, soft thing into the blacksmith's hand. It was a single curl, twisted and pinched into the shape of a heart, the point secured with the broken-off tips of a pin, the loops and the dip stiffened with pomade, the ends tied together in a hair-fine knot.

"It's yours," said the stable boy. He blushed and bowed his head. "But it's also mine. I stole it from you, and now I give it back to you."

The blacksmith turned the heart between his fingers. It rolled across his palms like tumbleweed. He lifted it high and blew upon it, and the heart took wing and danced, and twirled, and countervailed into the pawpaw air.

The stable boy looked up and dipped his soul into the orchid lagoons of the blacksmith's eyes.

From far away, from far above, from the sunny courtyards of other realms came the hoorahs and huzzahs hailing a Commodore newly forged.

Ah, burnished is the sword of the Commodore, supple and fickle and sharp. Deep is its cut, as deep as the cut in a blacksmith's heart.

But no blacksmith bleeds forever.

-----

The End
9 September 2003
lobelia40@yahoo.com
lobelia40@yahoo.com


..
Does anyone know what list or LJ-community I could send this to??

Comments

[bunniewabbit.livejournal.com]

That was wonderful! Some of your descriptions are so unusual, and it just brings it to life.

Some communities to check into (I don't post or read there much myself, so you'll have to check the rules regarding your crossover):

_norrington
potc_fic
pirategasm

Go nuts!

thanks for fb

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed this, despite the lunatic pairing. But what to do if it's the abiding one's birthday? *g* Also, I've had a yen to write some Hugh since I saw Sleeping Dictionary. Actually, I lie -- for a while, I was too het to hugh but I got over that.

And thank you for the community recs -- will check them out! :-)

[thejennabides.livejournal.com]

oh Lobelia, how lovely! of course you must know how I adore the heart-shaped curl (the heartcurl). not just its metaphor but its reality - oh, most especially its reality. its shaping and its dance. and its liberation. and yes, I love the metaphor too; of course I do.

I love the Commodore's willful ignorance; I don't know how much he knows, but I feel certain that he has chosen not to know all he could. he could pursue the blacksmith's injuries. but he does not. he could question the blacksmith's interest in Miss Swann. but he does not. he knows enough to know that any pursuit or answers are, in this, irrelevant for him.

I love the stableboy's compassion. his care and carefulness, with the curl, with the blacksmith. I love his rescue and claiming of the curl, I love the awkwardness of the curl braided into himself; I love that he understands enough to return the curl.

I love that the blacksmith relinquishes the curl; relinquishes his blood: bleeds freely, and lets himself also not bleed. this, I love most of all.

thankyou so very much!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this extraordinary feedback.

You know that I don't like writing to order and rarely do it, but writing for your birthday (second time round already!) is always a pleasure and even a privilege and spurs me on into territory previously untrod. And if I've hit any sort of note with you, then that is happiness. *g*

I worried about the ending for a bit. I even got out of bed last night to change it for the fourth time. So I feel relief that it meant something to you.

*hugs and looks forward to another year of crampand joys*

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Gorgeously crampand!
[beams with prode over expanded vocab]

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

It is always good to use recently-learned vocab immediately to embed in brain. Well done. And thanks for fb, *g*.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Lovely. Has all my favourite Lobelia things in it, like the repetition; the general gorgeousness; the, um, words. The words were good. I liked them. I read some of them more than once, they were so good.

*brain grinds to halt*

Yeah. Good.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you, you mad person. It's always quite a rollercoaster ride writing for Jenn, but I also feel I can let rip on the old metaphors a bit... *g* These days I actually worry about fetishising words too much at the expense of plot. (See? There is always *something* to angst over?) But it's okay here, I figured, because it's all about the exotic tropics.

Thanks for reading! :-)

[cherry-glitter.livejournal.com]

Is it bad if I say that my favorite character development here belongs to the sun? ;)

curls!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

No. Heh.

Thank you for reading.