try_corsets | (no subject)

(no subject)

Things hadn't gone well with Will.

Elizabeth hurries up the stairs and over to the port rail, taking deep breaths of the hot air.

One of the crew walks by and catches her eye, but she quickly looks away again, unsure of her reception now that Jack has revealed the truth to all.

It's not unexpected. It's still unsettling, however.

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It is a wonder, how he can be so silent on those heavy boots when he wants to. He comes up behind her like an apparition, not unlike he used to do when he was a cursed undead.

"Ah, the brand of treason. Invisible, untouchable, but how it does sting, doesn't it, miss Swann...?"

For once, his tone is almost devoid of mockery. Almost. He can't help but find all this quite... Twistedly entertaining.

Elizabeth starts.

Oddly enough, once the surprise passes, she's almost glad to see Barbossa.

"Death carries a far greater sting," she says. "Perhaps, in time, some of them will remember that."

Her usual attitude is conspicuously absent. There's just a quiet regret and acceptance.

"No, they won't."

He speaks in the tone of someone who knows from experience.

"Jack is the only one of them who would know about the sting of death, and gratitude isn't one of the many qualities that adorn our good old Jack, is it...?"

The smirk is humourless as he glances aside towards the quarterdeck and Jack.

"You will have to learn to live with it, miss Swann"

And in time, if you're smart, you will even learn to use it. Men hate a traitor, but they fear him too. And fear is a most useful tool, miss Swann.

Her gaze follows his until it lands on Jack, and she watches him have a brief conversation with himself.

It's odd, but Elizabeth doesn't feel much of anything when she looks at Jack. The frustration is gone, the guilt has lessened significantly, and while there's a faint fondness that will always be present, mostly she just feels... relief. She'd done what she came to do, and they might still be stuck in the Locker, but something loosens in her chest. It feels like letting go.

The regret she suffers has everything to do with Will.

"I'd rather live with it than not be alive at all," she remarks. Then, "What would you have done?"

"What would I have done? You mean, aside from handing Jack to the Dutchman for him to pay his debt, and thus save my ship and its crew from the Locker...?"

His tone is flat, his lips curled into a scowl. Jack's cowardice has always seemed distasteful to him. Barbossa may be a devious, double-dealing, sneaky bastard, but he has never been found lacking when courage was required.

Point.

Elizabeth turns her head and gives a quick nod. He's already given her all the answer she needs, but curiosity remains.

"If that opportunity had passed. Our lots were thrown in together," she adds.

Not unlike now.

"He was using you all, miss Swann. That's what he does." His voice is low, now. Not exactly confidential, but loaded with heavy thoughts behind those yellow-rimmed eyes.

"You did what you had to do, what had to be done. And believe me, you will find people tend to brand you all varieties of unkind names for that."

You did what you had to do, what had to be done.

"It was the only way."

A satisfied gleam in her eye, Elizabeth pushes off the rail, stands tall, and fully faces Barbossa.

"Like... pirate?"

She almost smiles, at that.

"No, no. I don't think it was. But it was the one you saw at the moment. So in the end, it's the same."

He returns her gaze with an amused, sardonic little smirk.

"No, miss Swann. Like 'murderer', 'traitor', 'scum'..."

She wants to be a pirate, she better learn to live with the usually-attached stigmas.

To her own surprise, Elizabeth doesn't flinch away from the words. Perhaps it's because no one has called her thus yet, or perhaps they simply don't seem to fit how she feels, and it's with a curious detachment that she nods once to acknowledge the possibility.

"I prefer pirate," she replies, lowering her lashes, smirking and moving to his other side. Once there, she leans back on her elbows. "It's much more dashing than murderer, and scum is simply... crass."

"Dashing." He smirks and arches an eyebrow "You sure have some funny ideas about what a pirate's life is like, miss Swann."

He leans his fists on the board, looking over the expanse of the Locker's infinite seas.

"But then again, you seem to have some funny ideas about most anything."

Elizabeth, making a concerted effort not to be defensive, bites back any number of responses about which pirates she's learned from and the experiences she's had.

Instead, she hums a few bars under her breath.

"That," she counters, "depends on your perspective. For instance -- are we agreed that most matters pale to insignificance in the face of our current locational problem?"

She arches an eyebrow as if to say: See? It's not such a funny idea to think they should focus on finding a way out of the Locker.

The perspective of being trapped forever in the Locker doesn't seem to upset Barbossa too much. Either he's more patient than the rest of the crew or he actually doesn't care... Which doesn't seem all too probable, does it? After coming all this way.

"We've already crossed a border what doesn't exist into a place what can't be reached, miss Swann. We've done the impossible once already in his little enterprise of ours, and they pale before one little obstacle."

He looks back over his shoulder, briefly, at the milling crewmen.

"They don't realize that maybe the exit from a situation what makes no sense can be found easier by having a man whose mind doesn't make no sense most of the time close at hand."

He doesn't need to look back at Jack, now, does he?

No, he certainly doesn't. Elizabeth smiles slightly.

"You may have a point... Captain Barbossa. And his mind seems to make even less sense than it did before," she notes, a calculating look in her eye, and pats the rail once as she turns away, walking slowly toward -- but not near -- Jack.

Solitude is still preferable to questions and accusations, but she'll be keeping a closer watch on the man they just rescued, searching for some sign that might steer them in the right direction.

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