Ten years. One hundred and... um? Three thousand and... something?
It's hard to count years when you don't feel the cold. Hard to count months when you sail on the moonless waters of the world Between. Days are irrelevant when you see the sun so rarely, and even seconds are meaningless when you don't have a heartbeat against which to measure them.
For Will, even with a crew and a duty and the bar to escape to, it has been an infinite, immeasurable eternity.
Nevertheless, with that same creaking yearning of the sea that rolls around the ship and tells him where and wherever there are souls to take on board, so he feels the call to this port. He feels it like he has felt nothing for ten years. Not the gentle, kind pushing towards a soul that needs him, but a deep, urgent hunger that refuses to be ignored.
The ocean surrounds the Dutchman from all directions and thrusts ship and captain with the unrelenting momentum of the angriest rolling wave. For the first time in ten years, Will feels pain - a physical ache from his left breast, contracting and spasming over an empty hole that drags him up. Pull from within, push from without. Still, he smiles, speaking softly from the helm in the knowledge She'll hear him despite the roaring water.
"I'll miss you too."
(But Norrington will be a truer, more dedicated Captain. James will fulfill his Duty with an obedience a pirate never really could, and would put his dead heart into it, rather than leaving it with another woman.)
For the last time under Captain Turner, the Dutchman breaks surface into the rising Caribbean Sun, and Will turns his face East to bathe in its still cool light. He turns about with barely a thought; no need for magic compasses here: he knows exactly where he's to go.
In a wooden chest, in a cabin on land, a heart stops beating.
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It's hard to count years when you don't feel the cold. Hard to count months when you sail on the moonless waters of the world Between. Days are irrelevant when you see the sun so rarely, and even seconds are meaningless when you don't have a heartbeat against which to measure them.
For Will, even with a crew and a duty and the bar to escape to, it has been an infinite, immeasurable eternity.
Nevertheless, with that same creaking yearning of the sea that rolls around the ship and tells him where and wherever there are souls to take on board, so he feels the call to this port. He feels it like he has felt nothing for ten years. Not the gentle, kind pushing towards a soul that needs him, but a deep, urgent hunger that refuses to be ignored.
The ocean surrounds the Dutchman from all directions and thrusts ship and captain with the unrelenting momentum of the angriest rolling wave. For the first time in ten years, Will feels pain - a physical ache from his left breast, contracting and spasming over an empty hole that drags him up. Pull from within, push from without. Still, he smiles, speaking softly from the helm in the knowledge She'll hear him despite the roaring water.
"I'll miss you too."
(But Norrington will be a truer, more dedicated Captain. James will fulfill his Duty with an obedience a pirate never really could, and would put his dead heart into it, rather than leaving it with another woman.)
For the last time under Captain Turner, the Dutchman breaks surface into the rising Caribbean Sun, and Will turns his face East to bathe in its still cool light. He turns about with barely a thought; no need for magic compasses here: he knows exactly where he's to go.
In a wooden chest, in a cabin on land, a heart stops beating.