Quibble: Siren Song
Feb. 7th, 2006 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
honoratBy Honorat
Rating: G
Pairing: Jack/Pearl
Disclaimer: If wishes were horses . . .
Summary: A series of musical notes from the sea for the “Lullaby” challenge at Black Pearl Sails. Quadruple Drabble.
* * * * *
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.
End
Rating: G
Pairing: Jack/Pearl
Disclaimer: If wishes were horses . . .
Summary: A series of musical notes from the sea for the “Lullaby” challenge at Black Pearl Sails. Quadruple Drabble.
* * * * *
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.
End
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 07:47 pm (UTC)The imagery in this is so haunting-- of the weeping sea, and her joy when Jack finds his Pearl; the mirrors to Jack's emotions. The way you have intertwined Jack, his Pearl and the sea together is an elaborate theme, but you deal with it so delicately.
You have managed to create such a scope of emotion here purely through sound, which is an achievement in itself. Indeed, the emotion and intimacy invoked here is at such odds with the emptiness that greed inflicted on Barbossa and his crew; even when he is lost and alone, Jack is alive, and for me that is where the true difference lies between the two captains.
I don't know how you do it, but even in something short you manage to make me think!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 11:35 pm (UTC)I've always seen Jack as being almost a marine mammal. He's so connected to the sea and ships that he can't really fit in on land. The music idea seemed to embody the poetry of that relationship.
Barbossa himself waxes almost poetic about the sea when he tells Elizabeth what he has lost--the wind in his face, the sea spray. It's as if his greed has swallowed his ability to appreciate the things he once loved. For Jack, greed is not his ruling passion so he never loses touch with what he loves.
I'm honoured that this little piece inspired such thoughts. Thank you so much for your comments.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-08 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-08 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-08 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-13 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-17 07:26 am (UTC)The sensory details of the sea are 'angst.' I don't know why but it seems I always end up creating imagery with Sea or some water body... must be the aquarian in me.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-20 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-26 01:17 am (UTC)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.
Stunning.
I love the other-worldly feel of this. It's lyrical and poetic but changing.... Oh. *smacks head*
no subject
Date: 2006-03-26 03:49 am (UTC)I hadn't thought of it quite like that, but that's a lovely metaphor. And like a selkie, when that skin is stolen he must get her back.
I'm glad you liked my image of the sea as self-mutilator for a reflection of what Jack is going through.
Thank you so much for your kind words.