#cowede talks

[suggestionsofthecaribbean]

Tortuga: James and Elizabeth

Elizabeth puts on a plain dress in order to take James Norrington out dancing.  Her identity remains hidden; his does not.  Along the way, they reflect on the progression of their relationship.

CW: one hand injury and several references to threats of sexual violence.

Featuring @norringtonsuggestions and @lizzyswann-turnersuggestions.

Their ironic little bridal suite wasn’t particularly menacing at the moment, and neither was the Pirate King, who had been hungover in the morning and angry to the point of making sexual harassment an offence punishable by murder during the middle part of the day. By the evening she was wan but in a slightly better mood, no matter what sulkiness her blogging betrayed.  By the arrival of Captain James Norrington, she was waiting for him in a very plain, but considerably more feminine, white shirt and a tan pair of breeches, all of her hair down.  There was a meal, too, if he wanted one - but first he had to suffer the breathless and laughing embrace of a famously bad-tempered pirate, if he could manage it.

Tortuga had already begun to show on his face; he was an uneasy reddish-brown over the top of his nose and cheeks in a way that could turn into either a burn or a tan depending on how the dice rolled and had advanced from the five o’clock shadow that tended to come with such dark hair to begin with to fully developed stubble. James put his arms around her in return, and looked on her fondly, but there was an unavoidable weariness in his face.

“You know,” he said, “if I have learned anything since my arrival here, it is a decided preference to Elizabeth Swann over the Pirate King.”

Elizabeth’s fingertips hovered with tender affection over his face, avoiding directly touching him where he had burned, but stroked his cheek with such a teasingly light pressure it gave her behavior of kid sisterly sweetness towards him all the appearance of a deception.

“I’ve already told you I was sorry for yesterday,” she said, though since she was sincerely sorry, there was more embarrassment than irritation in her words.

“I know you have,” he said. “I also know that you made a point of inviting me into your lap in front of half the damned town this morning-“

“The damned town in question is Tortuga,” she said with a gesture of the hand that indicated how little she thought it mattered, “and you declined the offer, I may as well add, not that it matters to me.”

“I was not aware that I was signing up as a sort of human accessory,” James said dryly, “though I suppose I ought to have guessed when I agreed to be your dog.”

He didn’t push her off, precisely, or at least any more than he needed to to pull off the jacket he’d appropriated from the Gloriana.

“I have been here,” he said, as much to himself as to her, “for three days, and I’ve scarcely any crew, I’ve made scarcely any money, and I have yet to find even a more useful suit of clothes. I am truly making fantastic headway.”

“I can give you money,” she said without thinking that this might also bruise his dignity, her focus elsewhere; she was flustered by his continued poor mood at the tone of their allyship.  “As to the rest of it, I don’t know what to do to satisfy you and maintain my sovereignty at the same time.  If you have any ideas, you’d be good to share them.”

“Is my meekness, my cowedness so essential to your sovereignty?” he asked irritably as he sat and began pulling the decorations from his hat. The badge and cloth-of-gold had to be worth something around here, and if some enterprising pirate could successfully use the badge to impersonate an EITC officer, so much the better. “One would think there would be more use in an attack dog than a lapdog…”

From his grimace, it was clear that he still didn’t enjoy the comparison, but that was easier to stomach.

“Aside from that,” he said, “I would prefer to offload that which I have stolen, as I understand this piracy thing is supposed to work. One can only hope there’s at least one razor left aboard the Gloriana- it truly boggles the mind to try to understand how one town can have so many men with no hair to speak of whatsoever, and yet not a razor in sight-“

There was a loud ripping sound as the cloth of gold ribbon tore. James swore, unexpectedly loudly and with considerably more conviction than his usual vocabulary had ever suggested, and he quickly flung the hat aside, fingers curving angrily into the air for a moment before he clutched his knee with one hand. He wiped his mouth with the back of the other.

“My God, I hate this place.”

Elizabeth was at his side in a moment, visibly struggling to keep her distress off her face.

“I shot a man for criticizing my bosom today and you’re still scaring me,” she said, one hand on his shoulder, the other tentatively on his chest.

“How do you live like this?”

He pulled a knife from his boot and set about cutting the cloth of gold from his hat, his hands still twitching in agitation.

“That girl you sent- Giselle,” he said, without looking up at her. “She’s lived here her entire life, she said, and never once been to sea. How can anyone live here without going mad-“

“You’re going to cut yourself!”

“I don’t care,” he snapped back. “At least then I might die in here and not in the gutter-“

“Can you please not die at all!” shouted Elizabeth, now going into a real panic and trying to wrench the knife away from him.

There was a sudden, tiny arc of blood through the air, and James instinctively dropped the knife.

It wasn’t his blood. He regained his sensibilities immediately.

“Elizabeth-“

“It’s nothing-” she said impatiently, before realizing belatedly that perhaps him doting on her injury would distract him from his own, so she didn’t make any effort to pull her hand away or dress the wound herself.

He didn’t have much on himself, so he turned up his waistcoat and cut away a patch of silk lining to wind over her hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s this place- it gets to my head-“

“I want to be the only one who does that,” she murmured, in a just petulant enough tone of voice that she smiled at him in order to convey that she was teasing.  It was not without any pain of her own, though - not from the cut itself, but from the memory evoked by his tending to it.  In that moment she felt she understood some of his suffering, and squeezed his hand with her unwounded one.

James paused in his work to meet her eyes.

“I’m being monstrous,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”

She rubbed his cheek with her thumb.  “I doubt my preference is as significant as yours is for Miss Swann above her majesty, but I do really like this.”

“I never disliked it so dreadfully before the last two years of my life,” he said, looking away again. “I find it intolerable at present.”

“Even so?” she asked, leaning in to shut her eyes and nuzzle his neck, barely suppressing her giggles.

“I need not remind you of my last visit to Tortuga,” he said, despite tipping his head back in frank defiance of his own concerns at the moment.

“Nor do I need to remind you of how I feel about the look you acquired there…”

She pulled back from him, but entwined their fingers nonetheless.  Her smile faltered as she looked into his eyes, and she dropped her own first.

“...James, I know I’m being selfish, but I… I hate when you talk like this. Because when you leave Tortuga, I lose you.”  She chanced a look up at him, but since it brought tears smarting into her eyes, she blinked in frustration and looked away.

James watched her, not a little guiltily, and put a hand on her shoulder.

“We can FaceTime,” he said lamely.

“You think you’re sick of me as the Pirate King,” she went on unhappily, “I have to live with her.  And you’re the only person I don’t have to be her around-”

She realized she was putting pressure on him to do things he wasn’t willing to do and let up with a sigh.  

“Well, I shall endeavor to enjoy it while it lasts.”

James shifted over to get a better look at her.

“I wish I could be made of stronger stuff, then,” he said, hesitantly pushing her hair from her cheek. “This place- it gets under my skin, it makes it difficult to breathe at times-“

“It’s not always that bad, finding it difficult to breathe,” she said softly, locking her eyes on his, regardless of what he might see in them.

James stared at her, and then ahead.

“Er. Well.”

Elizabeth laughed so wretchedly that it could almost have been termed stammering at the same time.

“Thank you for last night, James,” she said, sincerely.  “Thank you for…. All of it, really.  For pulling me back when I was behaving like a tyrant, for holding me when I needed it - and for abstaining.  Not that it was very difficult, given the circumstances, but - well.”

She glanced downward quickly to compose herself, before peeking up at him again with an expression torn between a sincere smile and one of absolute horror with herself. She was flushed, and she wasn’t even the one with the sunburn.

“It was nothing,” he said, with an uneasy shrug. “I think, if I had proceeded, I might never have forgiven myself.”

“I would have forgiven you, but myself, never,” she laughed shakily. “Oh, it would have been a very poor idea, and as it was the hour was so late - and we were so angry with each other for most of it - I doubt we could have gotten any joy from the act.”

She did not doubt this.  She was transparently trying to convince herself, but she looked as though she did not really want to be convinced, yet would simultaneously run out of the room if he tried to change her mind.

“There will be… never mind,” he said, as he realized exactly where his treacherous mouth was about to go.

Other opportunities? Good God.

Her eyes lifted to his immediately, a little more desperately than she wanted them to be, but there it was.  Her body never ceased to betray her.  “Yes?” she prompted.

“...other… occasions… which may be more opportune,” he continued, feeling wretched as he tried to make it sound less salacious than he knew it was, more or less by default. “Not necessarily with me, mind you-”

Her eyes widened, even though she tried to dampen her own interest.  To crush it, rather.  Poor choice of words.

“Well, I am not likely to trust a man as much as I trust you-”

“Someone whose skin doesn’t crawl just being here,” he said, perhaps a little sadly, “and may give you the constancy of affection you deserve.”

Those words cut deeply.  Elizabeth suppressed an attack of grief and cupped his face.  

“More constant than you, James?  Doubt it.”

“Someone constant who creates a greater feeling from yourself than friendship, then,” he said. “And I know that you are about to protest, what of last night? And to that I say…”

James leaned into her touch, and then lifted his head away from it with the expression of a man waking from a dream.

“...you are quite young, and very alone in the world, with a great deal on your shoulders. You seek affection from its nearest source. That is, I believe, what happened last night.”

She met his gaze a long time, hurt but considering, until she glanced down again, as though her pain were an afterthought.

“If I loved you and I knew it, I would have told you.  I do not think it a fine thing to toy with a man’s heart.  I may be a pirate but I am not yet cruel.  I am not going to protest that I love you.”  

She knew she had to be hurting him to remind him of it, and wished she could say otherwise.

“But I could have, I think. I could have, if I had taken your hand.  All of the reasons I had against it, Will notwithstanding, were predicated on misconceptions I had about who you are.  I never questioned my own judgment,” she said with no shortage of bitterness in her laughter.  “I suppose now we will never have the opportunity to know if we could have pleased each other. But it used to be I could say we couldn’t have, with certainty.  The uncertainty now… James, I lost my marriage over it. It is not nothing.  

“And whatever else you may say, the love I do bear you, even if it is just love for a friend, and the history we have, and the….”  She chewed on her lip a moment, reluctant to say the word.  “...the desire I feel for you… I would sooner give you my maidenhead than any other man I am likely to meet.” Elizabeth attempted to deflect from the hopelessness and general dissatisfaction this topic produced in her, but the topic she settled on as a replacement was itself rather grave. “How long would I have to know a man, by the way, to know he is as constant as you?  Is it three years?  Four? I don’t want to be a maid for another four years.”

James stared straight ahead.

“...noted,” he said distantly.

She hesitated, then stepped up to him to embrace him again. “....the only thing that matters is you’re still here. I haven’t lost you too.  I’ll never…. Whatever the future brings for the both of us.  If Will comes back tomorrow-” He won’t, she thought, with a sudden flash of nausea and misery. “- if I fall in love again, or if you do - I’ll never know anyone who will replace you.  Someone I have known and loved as I know and love you… You can meet new people, but you cannot invent childhood friendships for them.”

“...yes,” said James. “Of course- I. Forgive me, this is… new…”

She laughed, feeling brittle - the day had taken a lot out of her.  Knowing it would get more awkward if she stayed like this, she forced herself to give him up, and watched him move to heavily seat himself on the edge of the bed.  Their bed. Or, well, just the bed.

“...since you prefer the company of Elizabeth Swann so much, and I despair of losing you and thus the opportunity to be her, I thought…. perhaps…”

“Yes?”

James’s hands had fallen to his knees. He didn’t know where else to put them without his hat to fall back on.  Elizabeth laid her hand over his, hesitantly touching the back of his wrist and then one of his veins first before growing bolder.

“...we could go dancing,” she said, lighting up with a sincere smile.  “It’s bound to be better here than it ever was in Port Royal.  And I owe you an apology for not realizing you liked dancing with me in Port Royal in the first place.” Changing her tactic before waiting to see how it worked on him, she went on in a softer tone of voice, “If I am dressed differently and behave like myself, no one knows who I am.  We could just…. blend in.  I would like it, I think - just to have one memory with you that I don’t look back on and hate myself for.”

James was going through a bit of a face journey listening to this, though by the end he looked amused enough to suggest he wasn’t opposed.

“Are you so certain I’d know how to dance in a Tortuga dance hall?” he asked.

“Do you think I do?” she asked, leaning on him flirtatiously.

“I assumed by now you might have learned,” he said, turning to look at her again but mostly seeing the top of her sun-bleached hair.

“Learned when?  The last time I danced…. Well, you were there too.”  He had probably been her first partner of the evening.  He would remember better than she did, she suspected guiltily.

“I can’t imagine this place goes in much for the minuet,” James pointed out.

“Neither do I,” she laughed, leaning in again to touch him very gently on the chest. “James, will you allow me to take you out?”

There was a long pause, as though he were seriously weighing his options here, before he responded with a very brusque “All right. All right, if you insist. I could probably use the distraction.”

She kissed him affectionately on the cheek on her way up.  “Well, I’d better change then, if you can bear the wait.”

“One can only hope this plan of yours will work,” he observed as he returned to stripping his increasingly battered hat of its decorations. It seemed especially necessary now, but it also prevented him from dwelling too much on the kiss.

“We shall see. I dare say that, for someone as inexperienced I am, I have been a very good captain, and my plans at sea have generally worked.  As for the rest of my life… Well, now, come to think of it, my plan with Giselle didn’t go too horribly awry, did it? She’s going to be out of Tortuga and you’ve got another crew-mate.”

She had continued speaking while looking through the trunk and beginning to don a very plain dress, which she pulled on over her shirt, removing the pants only once it was on and she had started to work on lacing.  Women’s clothing, she realized, was designed to be difficult to put on alone, whereas men’s clothing was simpler business.  Why were women expected to be so dependant on somebody else to get anywhere, even dressed in the morning?

“James, can you help me with this?”

This, too, counted as a distraction, and he set the hat aside to stand and join her.

“What’s the trouble?”

She tried to gesture at herself, but kept turning around.

“It laces in the back, too, that’s the trouble-”

“Is it a matter of angles or what?” he asked as he set, rather efficiently, to work. “When we return I’ll have to teach you how to lace behind yourself-”

“Of course you shall,” she said, pulling a face.  As soon as there was a lull in the conversation, the gentle tugging as he pulled at the laces all there was to focus on, she realized what an intimate, even cozy activity this was for him to do, and felt relieved that he could not see her color suddenly.

“How much have you been spending on trousers, to not have to lace them?” he asked, frowning as he finished. “Or is that not the Chinese method?”

“I can lace trousers, but the bodice goes up too high-”  She was mortified by how petulant she sounded and the way she could still tell she was flushed when she turned around to look at him.  Not that there was anything new to see.  James Norrington of the perpetual frown.  It was just the angle at which she was seeing him that had changed.  “I suppose you’ll suffer a bit of a wait while I do something with my hair?” she asked, feeling unaccountably vulnerable.  Before it had not bothered her what she looked like, but now in a proper woman’s dress - even if it were a considerably poorer woman’s dress than she had been accustomed to wearing - she felt overly aware of what a contrast it would make to him to compare her now to his memories.

Why did she care so much about what he thought? It would solve a lot of problems if, seeing her in a grey striped dress with little ornamentation laced up over a men’s shirt that fit her poorly, with all her hair uncurled and hanging in her tanned face, he fell abruptly out of love with her.

“I’ve got to finish the hat regardless,” he said, “so you won’t catch me rushing out of here any time soon.”

He sat on the bed with an expression that, had it not been so stony, could have easily been called petulant, with one leg swung up onto the bed itself and the other still planted on the floor.

“You look lovely,” he added, returning to his work. “I suppose this is what was always waiting under that parasol.”

“Oh, now, what’s that supposed to mean,” asked Elizabeth, trying to read both him and herself at the same time, as she situated herself in front of a mirror that had possibly never been cleaned and had cracked around the edges, and attempted to braid a lock of her hair over the crown.

“In Port Royal,” he said, without looking up. “I remember how often your poor governess had to chide you to bring a parasol, lest you turn brown in the sun. You hated it.”

There was a ripping sound as he pried up another strip of cloth of gold with his knife.

“Your father asked me to pardon you when you were out of earshot. I assured him there was nothing to pardon.”

“Well, there’s nothing more important in a girl than her complexion, you know,” said Elizabeth with a powerful sourness.

“Your hair is the real surprise. I never imagined it might turn so blonde.”

His own hair had faded fairly impressively during his dark period, so perhaps it wasn’t too surprising that Elizabeth’s hair should have turned golden, but it was difficult to not watch her as she worked on putting it up.

“Oh, yes, that’s the one thing that isn’t such a drawback, I suppose.”

“It suits you.”

He gathered the sad-looking little pieces of ribbon and put them in his coat, stretched, and stood to join her by the mirror again.

“Good lord,” said James as he studied their joint reflection. “I don’t think either of us should be recognized were we ever to return.”

“Good,” said Elizabeth drily. “If we were, we’d both be arrested and hanged.”

Her mood was starting to take a turn for the worse - and lately, that had meant taking it out on other people.  When you are trying to cultivate a reputation for not being someone to cross, and the other people were jeering at you, that was not so terrible.  But she never wanted to take out her bad mood on James Norrington ever again.  She took his arm hesitantly, and debated the question she wanted to pose to him, looking at him with something obviously on her mind.  After a while of searching his face, she bit her lip, smiled wistfully, and said, “Are you ready?”

“It’s Tortuga,” he said dryly. “I don’t think I ever shall be.”

“Well, I am glad you are here,” she said crossly.  “God only knows what would have happened to me if you hadn’t shown up.”

“A few more men shot for looking at your bosom?” he guessed as he began walking her toward the door. It felt uncomfortably like a parody of having escorted her at one of her father’s parties, down to his automatic replacement of his hat as they stepped out of the room.

“I don’t know anything specific,” said Elizabeth uncomfortably, launching ahead of him on the stairs, but looking back up at him every few feet.  She had to lift her skirts a bit while walking, but it was clear the dress was not quite long enough for her, and the boots she wore underneath it were visible.  “But you are the only person left to remind me of who I really am - or want to be, at any rate.  After Will left…”

She bit her lip and disappeared down the stairs, rubbing at her face wearily.

“And speaking of Port Royal- many times must I say it?” James said tersely. “Post-captain. Firing squad. Not hanging, thank you- excuse me, ma’am, pardon my intrusion” he added, to the startled-looking landlord’s wife coming around the corner.

He had to catch up with Elizabeth at the door. In the brighter lighting of the common room, there were pulled stitches showing in his hat.

“All right, come along then, Firing Squad,” said Elizabeth agreeably, feeling better already. She hated to be cooped up anywhere, although she spent as much time in her room here as possible trying to avoid the responsibilities of her new role in life.  The bright candlelight made her hair look even more golden, though its unbrushed state made the braid over her head look rather messy.  She felt in the air for his hand and took it, pulling him out of the tavern and into the street.

If anyone in the crowd recognized them, nobody said anything. James took her arm, instinctively semi-shielding her from the rest of the town as much as he could, but Elizabeth had such a habit of running ahead of him that it was difficult to hold on without reaching for her hand, again and again.

It was also, if he were honest with himself, a good way of keeping his head on straight. He hadn’t walked through Tortuga like this in… well, about a year and a half now. James absently rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.

After doubling back twice, Elizabeth finally found the Dog’s Hair Inn Giselle had recommended for dancing and hurried him inside.  Indeed, it was a surprisingly light-hearted atmosphere inside, as though no one could be in a poor mood while making the floor quake and listening to live music.  There was a busy bar, and a seating area where many were drinking and quaffing and laughing uproariously; but by far the largest portion of space was taken up by dancers in a multitude of ages, colors, and levels of sobriety.

Elizabeth unconsciously lit up when she looked at James.

“We’re a long way from home,” she said, though even she didn’t know what she meant by it.

“Indeed,” he said, looking cautiously over the drinkers. His face had gone suspiciously still; he tried to pay more attention to the music, but it was thudding more or less in time with his head.

Unconsciously, he grabbed Elizabeth’s hand a little tighter.

“Is there nowhere here that doesn’t serve that kind of-”

He caught himself and exhaled. That was a stupid question. Tortuga was the last place on Earth to have a bloody Temperance Society.

“Thirsty?” asked Elizabeth in a low voice, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.  It would have been cruel to ask him that about drink; however, something in her tone made it clear she meant something else.

James grimaced, followed by a resigned sigh.

“One can’t hurt, can it?”

He was already digging in his coat for the cloth of gold.

Elizabeth put her hand on his wrist to stop him.  “Dance with me,” she commanded.

“In a moment,” he said. “I’m thirsty.”

“You’ll get drunk-”

“Not after one bottle, I won’t,” he said crossly.

“James,” she whispered, looking genuinely scared. It was too loud in here to hear her, but the word she formed had clearly been his name. She reached up to touch his face hesitantly.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“All right,” he said. “All right, all right. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket again and carefully brought it up to shoulder level, and when he opened his eyes again he pointedly did not look at the bar.

She took that hand and tugged him back with her to the dance floor. This seemed to break the spell; James laughed abruptly.

“Already-”

“I’m impatient!” she shouted over the music, though the closer they got to it the harder it was to hear.

If he had to drown out his recent dependence on a bottle, she had to drown out hers on Will - and it was harder to do than she wanted James to know, though she was certain he was better attuned to that than he let on.  He had to be hyperaware of the ending of a relationship that had dashed his chances at marrying her, if he had loved her as much as he said he had.  Still, she avoided talking to him about it, both because it hurt too much as well as to spare his feelings.

She was certain if he were not here any other man’s body would do, for her to hold or use or dance with, simply to dull the pain and provide her momentary pleasure and distraction; but when he was gone, what would she be left with, but a little less of her dignity and a little more conviction that she could not be loved like this.  James Norrington was probably the only man alive who could provide her with real, lasting comfort.  She wanted him to dance with her and she did not want to be made to wait.

Fortunately for them both, it was easy to figure out the dance- Tortuga, for all its faults, was at least populated by people who had somehow escaped the onslaught of courtly dances that the outside world encouraged at its parties in favor of having fun. The music was fast and driven, and couples held each other far, far closer than a Port Royal minuet would have ever allowed as they stomped and whirled in circles across the dusty floor.

It took a few rounds before James was feeling quite brave enough to grab Elizabeth close enough to him to turn as fast as the others, to lift her while keeping time with his boot, to join in her happy laughter. By the end of the song, he was quite dizzy and breathless, and his hat had fallen to the floor and been kicked across the room.

He knew he should go fetch it, but instead, he stood there, looking at Elizabeth as he waited for his breathing to return to normal.

“That was…”

“It was, wasn’t it?” said Elizabeth, hopping up to hug him and touch his face affectionately.  She was starting to want to drink herself, and if he weren’t here, she would have, but she was starting to gather that James could not touch the stuff without getting immediately too drunk for his own health and safety.  

“It was,” he agreed, relieved that he didn’t have to put a word to it. “Do you want to go another round after I’ve had something to drink?”

A look of pain crossed her face, but she couldn’t stop him from doing what he wanted to do - and in spite of how she might have wanted to come across as the Pirate King, she wasn’t going to order him around.

“I do,” she said, nearly having to shout over the background noise - everyone else was shouting and laughing too, even during the lull in the music.  A fair number of the musicians were themselves reaching for tankards they kept under their chairs.  “James, this has been…”  She wasn’t sure if he could hear that one.

“Do you want one as well?” he asked, raising his voice. “Or to share, perhaps, if that gives you greater confidence-“

She tried to respond, but two men a short distance from them had begun to shout and laugh so loudly about something inarticulate that Elizabeth knew none of her shouting would make a difference to whether or not James could hear her; she looked affrontedly at them, then pulling a face looked back at James, gave a shrug of confusion and took his arm.  He seemed to pause a moment before taking her to the diner, and thankfully Elizabeth was treated too many new exciting discoveries to dwell on what that was.

Elizabeth hung behind him, starting to feel her heartbeat race in unpleasant ways watching him order, but when the man behind the bar, a comically shrunken old man, plunked down a tankard for him, Elizabeth scooted herself onto his lap and took the first drink, looking up at him, dead in the eyes, as she did so.

He laughed, but it was a little distracted.

“Sir,” he called out to the bartender. “Sir, I think you misunderstood- I meant an entire bottle-“

“What?” said the bartender.

“I meant a bottle, not a tankard, if you please-“

“What?”

Elizabeth was growing much tenser and set it down, touching him urgently on the arm.

“Let’s go slower than that-”

“Never mind. I don’t think the man even-“

The bartender started waving his hands over his head to catch James’s attention and hoisted up a large brown bottle as James looked over. James laughed and beckoned him over.

“Thank you, good sir…”

James was disquietingly happy as he received the bottle from the bartender. His whole posture seemed to have relaxed; he unstopped the bottle and gave Elizabeth a completely uncharacteristic- by the standards of their history, anyway- broad grin.

“Well, first of all, let me top you off…”

The rum made a glugging sound as he poured it into her tankard.

Equally uncharacteristic, Elizabeth’s expression had frozen on her face, and she looked like she might cry.  She had an unusual streak of intuition at the moment that if he started to drink, he was going to wind up dead.  And there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.

James finished pouring for her and was about to bring it to his own mouth when he noticed her face and stopped, with the bottle still in his hand.

“Elizabeth,” he sighed, “I know what you’re thinking-”

“Don’t,” she urged him. “Please don’t.  It’s too much.”

“What you saw last year was hardly characteristic,” he protested. “I’ve been drinking for years, and it never caused me any trouble before then.”

“But - “ She had no argument to that, because, to her increased consternation, she had never gotten to know this man until recently.  “But I’m having a lovely time with you.”

“And I as well,” he began, “but I should think a little-”

“So then,” another voice cut in as the door creaked open, “in she comes, guns blazing, and she takes ‘im away, just like that-”

James was distracted again by the sound of a group of men tromping in through the tavern door, and telling a very familiar story from the sound of it.

“Cor. You don’t think she’s killed ‘im ‘erself, ‘as she?”

“Oh, no. From the sound of it the old boy’s her new propity.”

“Cor,” the second man said again. “I should likes to be a lady and have that kind of grip on some ol’ ee-eye-tee-cee runnin’ dog. Might make everything easier round here, I should reckon, if that’s all it takes.”

“Oh, that’s more’n it takes for Norrington,” the first man said sagely. “Last year, you could’ve got him to do whatever you liked for a little grog money-”

“Whatever you liked?”

“Whatever it is the king likes an’ more-”

James smashed his bottle and stood up, brandishing the shattered, jagged bottleneck like a knife.

Elizabeth moved to stand up and get out one of the weapons she had tucked into her bodice and her boots, but immediately thereafter realized she was going to be recognized by them, and the thought of breaking character so spectacularly as to be discovered in a dance hall in a dress that wasn’t even tailored to fit her, let alone particularly pretty, so early in her career was enough for her.  She sat back down and turned her head, holding her hand up next to her face as though she were embarrassed to be seen by anyone - then immediately after splayed her fingers to watch James through them with apprehension, and not a little interest.

The musicians, who had been about ready to strike up again, froze, save the bandleader who was excitedly consulting his sheet music for something appropriate to a brawl. James climbed up over the table and approached the newcomers.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said, still holding out the bottleneck. “Glad you could join us.” “Evening, commodore,” the first man began, but he was promptly elbowed in the stomach by his considerably more frightened friend, who whispered “Admiral!” in an anguished sort of voice.

“Captain, to be precise,” James said coolly.

“Oh?” said the first man. “Did you have a cashiering, then?”

He looked James up and down, but failed to find anything rank-related to aggressively tear at or knock off of him. This clearly threw him for a loop; he had a visible moment of recollecting himself before finally sneering, “Right. Wasn’t sure how right that video was to begin with. Almost didn’t recognize you without your beard, captain. It’s all clear now, though-”

“And what is it?” James continued, pushing the bottleneck closer to the man’s face.

For a moment, it seemed obvious, even inevitable, that he would slash the man’s face open, or possibly even gouge him in the eye.

Then James started laughing.

“Carry on, gentlemen, carry on. I’m sure you mean no harm. Especially not with the king’s protection upon me.” “Remember Captain Baley,” the second man said anxiously as he started to pull on his friend’s arm.

“Right,” said the first man. “King’s protection. God’s wounds, Norrington, but you’ll get into bed with anyone, won’t you? Cups or no cups.” He batted the improvised shiv out of the way, his friend covered his face and backed away in full expectation of the worst, and James promptly dropped the shiv to pull his sword from under his coat.

“If anything starts,” the bandleader whispered as he turned his songbook to face his mates, “play this one.”

But the first man backed away, hands held up in surrender, though he was doing his damnedest to suggest that he was being perfectly reasonable.

“All right, I yields,” he said. “Not worth getting into a fight tonight. You’re right, Norrington. Next thing you know, the King’ll have me on her sword.” James smiled pleasantly and put his sword back in its sheath.

The second man audibly muttered “Crazy Navy sonofabitch…”

James made a little salute gesture and turned to collect his hat at last after remembering it had fallen off during the dance.

“An’ not the fun kind,” the first man said loudly, “like she does with you-”

This time, it was a gun.

‘King’s protection,” James repeated.

The bandleader looked ecstatic, but James merely put his hat back on and walked backward, holding his pistol at the ready until he had reached the long table at which he had been sitting earlier, at which point he calmly turned and climbed back over the table, tucking his pistol in his sash again.

Elizabeth, who had warred with herself as to whether or not to join in and had ultimately decided not to, met him with a smile peering out from the edge of the tankard - which still sloshed enough to suggest she had been using it more to hide her face than to actually drink from.  

She was in flutters of agony watching him, lest someone really run him through - she knew she could still charge in with the sword from underneath her skirts, but if she were a moment too late, it wouldn’t be any consolation.  But oh, to see them jump with fear when they looked at him was good.  And he needed to do it on his own, she decided, which she convinced herself had nothing to do with how little she wanted to be recognized in plainer clothes than most of the Tortuga dock girls had on.  He resented being alive due to her own protection, she knew; he wanted to be able to strike fear into their hearts again.

And watching him do so put a little something into her heart too.

Her general apprehension that someone would notice her was ultimately outweighed by that, so she set down her drink with a smile and got up to greet him by yanking him down into a kiss.

“Oh, no, the king won’t like that,” a querulous old voice said nearby them, tsking into her own ale.  

Elizabeth released James from the kiss, rubbing his cheek with her thumb and looking up at him with barely-contained pride and pleasure.

“It’s been authorized,” she answered them, incapable of looking away.

She looked so distressed that, ironically enough, he couldn’t possibly ask her if she was all right without endangering her reputation. He kissed her again, and as they parted he reached for the tankard after all and took a few short swallows.

That flustered Elizabeth in a less fun way and she touched his arm and fidgeted with one of the buttons on his sleeve.

“If I want more of it,” he said, “I suppose I can keep kissing you, then?”

Elizabeth’s mouth opened in something somewhat like shock, and she pulled at his coat like she was going to hit him. But when she found the ability to speak, she only laughed.  

“Dance with me, Captain.”

He took her by the hand, as though to lead her out onto the dancefloor again; but he hesitated, and lifted it to his lips instead.

“After you, Captain,” he responded, and Elizabeth, unable to stop herself now, laughed again, gripped his hand more tightly, and yanked him after her.

To say she’d done this to avoid recognition, if anyone were to look at her more closely, would have been partially true.  It would also have been a bald-faced lie.  Twenty minutes of dancing with him in a dimly lit, strongly-smelling tavern in Tortuga did more to kindle her affection than three straight years of minuets had ever done.  Port Royal society had left Elizabeth with one singular desire - to escape it.  For a long time, she’d thought that she only wanted to be with Will. She was no longer certain of that, no matter how much she longed to have him back: if she had been forced to choose between returning to the life they had longed for in Port Royal together, and staying here, on the high seas without him, she knew which she would choose.

James Norrington soothed the transition.  Because of their history, she did not want to tell him so, or speak to him of Will at all, but she longed to show her gratitude every moment they spent together.  It was easy to convey on the dance floor, as the little rum she’d had on an empty stomach emboldened her nearly as much as her burning new memories of him did to cling to him.  And though it hurt to be here with a man who was not Will, there was a comfort in it, too, that at least it was nothing she had ever done with Will.  She would never know what it was like to have Will Turner dip her in a dance, what expression he would have made if she threw her hair flirtatiously over her shoulder and then laughed into his shoulder, to feel his laughter in response because she was pressed against his diaphragm - but that only meant there was less and less to compare him to.  And there were comparisons to be had with James enough as it was.  She would never have dreamed of any of this at one of those Port Royal balls, their faces equally composed and serious, dancing - she thought - equally as much because of the dictates of politeness, as opposed to any real inclination to do so, only so far as they had to before scurrying back to their own social circles to play cards and gossip.

This time when the dance ended, instead of pulling apart and laughing gaily, Elizabeth held onto him more tightly, shutting her eyes with her cheek pressed against his heart.

“Don’t let me go, James,” she said, inaudible to any man but him.  “Hold me-”

His hand found her shoulder in alarm, while the other touched her face.

“What is it?  Something wrong?  You must be hungry,” he said, wincing as he remembered that she had drunk most of the rum he’d bought, no doubt to prevent him from drinking it himself, and had not eaten since the middle of the afternoon.  “I can get you something-”

But she shook her head.  “No, nothing is wrong. Well, everything is wrong- and nothing is. Will is gone, and he’s not going to come back-”

Her eyes filled with tears, which was not how she meant this response to go.  He touched her face again, trying to brush the tears away with his thumb, guilt visibly changing his features.

“- and I wish I were doing something to win him back, but I’m not.  All I want to do is dance with you.  You’re all I want to think about. James, I….”

She wanted to say she was sorry; she wanted to say a lot of things, each of them more foolish than the last one.  It was not the rum, though, she was certain of that much. She had not had that much of it.  It was how she felt in his presence - safe, but safe for other reasons than her own reputation.  She did not have to adopt the confident posture and brazen tones and deadly, jealous attitudes of her Pirate King mask, she simply had to lean on him and know no harm was going to come to her.  And likewise, simply by being with him, she knew that she was keeping him safe, too.  

Before she could say any of what she felt, though, whatever she felt, the band began to strike up their next song.  Elizabeth swallowed her smile and said, wistfully, “Another?” And he nodded.

This time, however, owing perhaps to the lateness of the hour or the rum, both of which eventually breed sentimentality in even the most hardened of criminals, the song they began to play was slow and gentle.  Both of them hesitated, almost at once, before choosing to stay on the floor.  James seemed to be waiting for her lead, his hands on her back hopelessly angled so that only the sides of them even touched her, as though he could not bring himself to touch her with his palms or fingers.  

Elizabeth looked up at him to be sure that, if she did make this decision, he would want to do it, rather than merely tolerate it.  Perhaps it was wishful thinking that convinced her he did.  She wrapped her arm around him and laid her hand on his chest, beside her own cheek, and swayed with him in time to the music, seeing as that was all the dancing anyone else seemed to be doing.  It did not matter how athletic or beautiful it was to be more or less awkwardly shuffling in each other’s arms; it required them to hold each other very close, and that was more than enough.  

She could have danced with him all night, and would have said so, but he touched her shoulders with tender concern, and said, “You’re not going to frighten anyone if you pass out from hunger,” with a gentle laugh, gesturing, in a manner both gentlemanly and mocking thereof, towards the seating space where exhausted dancers ate meals.  Elizabeth doubted that a place best known for dancing was going to serve the most delicious roast chicken, but she could not deny that she was trembling a little by the finish of their dance.  

“I’ll go anywhere with you tonight,” she said to him, wrapping her arms around his waist again, and for a moment words failed him.  Then he guided her there, carefully avoiding her eyes, and soon enough a little food seemed to fix her mood.

Although it was not her mood that needed fixing.

“So then I looked at Will - and I really looked at him,” she was saying, gesturing with a drumstick and picking at her teeth with the other hand, very much unlike the pretty girl who used to delicately prod her meals in Port Royal, “and I knew exactly what he was planning.  To get all of the explosives we had left into that net, and to shoot it, and injure the Kraken - scare it into hiding.  Jack came back and shot it himself, even.  Well, it retreated - for a while.  It was Jack’s idea to row to shore, let the Kraken take down the Pearl.  But it wasn’t the Pearl Jones sent the Kraken after, was it? It was him.  As Will was helping the others into the row boat, I cornered Jack.  Expressed my gratitude for his return,” she said, so delicately that in spite of her attempts to conceal it, it was obvious how she had done so.  “I chained him to the mast while he was distracted.  It was the only way.  We stood no chance, not in the boat nor in the ship, as long as Jack was around.”  She sipped her ale. It did not taste wonderful, nor did it set her body pleasantly aflame, but it was safer for James to drink, she was certain, and herself too, probably.  “So when I say I persuaded him, it is a little bit of a deception.  He’s back now, ‘f’course.  I still dream about that day.  I can’t say I regret it, though.  What do you think?” she asked of him, her casual squinting underselling the real insecurity she felt.  She still wanted to be someone her father could be proud of, even now.

“I think,” James said slowly. “I think that quite probably the moment this was going on, I was hailing down the EITC clipper that had been sent in your pursuit from the beachhead on Isla Cruces.”

It was impossible to be too delicate while eating roasted chicken, but he was still making a better job of it than she was- he had acquired a fork, which he was using to strip small pieces of meat from the bone and then eat from.

“I’m not sure I have much high ground from which to judge your duplicity,” he admitted. “The years have been merciless to us all.”

“I forgive you, and that’s what matters,” said Elizabeth, the tiniest bit smug.  “I don’t know if Jack forgives me - but his vote crowned me, so perhaps he does.  Did you know that?”

“Are you certain he was not angling for a position of favor?” James asked, with a skeptical eyebrow lift. “Because I can’t imagine he’ll enjoy being beaten to that particular punch.”

He was much smugger than she was.

She loved it.

“To be perfectly serious for a moment, I think he might have been setting me up to fail.  It’s just like Jack to make a choice by which, from every angle, he benefits.  If I am King, presumably I take up his points, because by and large, he, Barbossa and I were of one mind about how to proceed; if I draw ire for pushing the point, well, I am a greater target than he is.  If I am King and I fail, he gets to rub it in my face, and if I am King and I succeed, then he gets to rub it in my face that he made it all happen.”

She downed her watered-down drink and pulled a face, but she didn’t say anything, wising up to the fact that even talking about rum was like doing a stomp-dance around the lip of a volcano.

“You know, everything good that’s ever happened to me I owe somebody else,” she said after a lull, looking reluctant to own to it, unconsciously rubbing her thumb over a dent carved into their wooden table.  “Barbossa only abducted me because he thought I was the living child of Bootstrap Bill Turner.  Jack’s who made me King.  Sao Feng only made me captain because he died before he could finish making me his concubine.”

This caught James’ attention like a nail catching a thread; he paused eating with his fork in midair.

“He didn’t succeed, I hope-“

Elizabeth smiled a twisted smile without looking up to meet his eyes, though she shook her head.  “Congratulate yourself on that, anyway.  Your attack on the Empress saved my virtue and promoted me all in one convenient swoop.”

“Elizabeth,” he said, reaching for her hand.

He held it for a moment, with a tender expression of concern, before leaning back with an unhappy scoffing noise.

“Fate has a funny way of doling out promotions around here in general,” he said darkly.

“Do you know what Lord Beckett said to me about interrupting my wedding, the night I got the letters of marque from him?” said Elizabeth, leaning over the table.  “He said ‘fate intervenes’.  I can’t stop thinking about it.  I’m sure it’s just to distract myself, but - I can’t stop thinking that that measly little worm was right, and I wasn’t.  Amidst everything else, he’s got that to console himself with.”

She looked dangerously close to frustrated tears.

“If I ever come to blows with that man,” James said, and then, realizing he was saying so around a mouthful of food, stopped to swallow in embarrassment. “If I ever come to blows with that man, you may have my oath that there will be no coup de grace from me. I will bring him to you to have your way with him as you please, if I have to truss him like a pig to do so-“

She smiled through the wave of despair that threatened to overtake the night.  “I thank you for that, James. But I don’t even know if he was wrong.  I think it should have always come down to this sooner or later. I don’t know if I could have been happy in Port Royal with any man, not even Will.”

“Inevitability,” James said distantly.

He squeezed her hand and then continued eating.

“By that token, I might have always ended up in this state myself,” he said, after another moment of chewing and swallowing.

“You look better for it,” she joked. “That’s more than I can say.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you look terribly charming,” he protested. “More than I can say at this juncture.”

“‘Charming’ is what you say to be polite,” said Elizabeth knowingly, though she did not seem too broken up by it. “I’m sunburnt and wind-chapped and my hair is all split ends, and it hasn’t been styled in a year.  I think, apart from that get-up you saw me in when you took the Empress, that this is the handsomest I’ve dressed since what was to be my wedding day.”

“If it bothers you, I hardly think being Pirate King is preventing you from doing up your hair or wearing fine clothes,” he pointed out. “Being fearsome never stopped the men I encountered from attempting to keep fashion.”

“People think differently about a woman in the height of fashion,” Elizabeth pointed out.  “Besides, I wear very fine clothes when I’m trying to be kingly, they just aren’t dresses.”

He shrugged.

“I would be the last to know,” he admitted. “This is the longest I’ve spent without any attempt at uniform since I was taken out of skirts.”

She held his hand reassuringly, but said nothing.

“Unless you count the hat, I suppose,” he added, taking it off and looking it over before he set it on the table. “You know, for not having any faith in my future prospects, the admiral spared very little expense in having them driven into me as a boy.”

“You’ve never spoken to me about him.”  It was strange to consider how little she knew about him, how much she had merely assumed.  She supposed she had imagined his family to be more like her own - little, perhaps, but normal enough.  Though looking among her acquaintances and friends, her positive relationship with her father did not seem normal anymore.  She had never considered a reason for his closeness with her own father when his own was a household name in his own right.

“We aren’t close,” he said dismissively. “It’s for the best. We speak but rarely.”

“I wish I had known you better,” she said, not for the first time.  “Being here with you…. It’s a peculiar feeling.  It’s almost as though you are an old friend and a stranger at the same time.”

“There’s very little to know,” he said, “save the violence you apparently wished to know better.”

She made another face at him. “Don’t be so unkind about it. I was interested in you-” Once, she realized she was about to say.  She colored and looked out at the laughing, jeering, jostling crowd.  The room was so densely packed that it swung back around to giving them an enormous amount of privacy at their own little table.  It was probably better to have a conversation like this here, surrounded by other people who weren’t listening to them, than it would be to have one in their room, alone, with nothing but the heavy weight of their cumulative regrets to keep them company.

“I don’t know when we became so distant,” she said, voicing a thought that had been on her mind for months, moreso here in Tortuga.  “I suppose it bothered me when you started to treat me like a proper lady.  I thought we were friends when I was younger.”

***

She recalled a time when she was fifteen and he had arrived at the governor’s mansion slightly ahead of schedule, meeting her in the foyer right as she was about to sneak out in a riding habit.  The surprised look and suppressed smirk that had come into his face stuck out strongly in memory, given how often he had endeavored to look like a marble statue the rest of the time, and she had been so startled to see him that she had gasped his name - or his rank, rather - and clutched her chest.  ‘Don’t tell Papa I’ve done this, but I want to see the fireworks tonight,’ she whispered at him, creeping by as silently as possible while he turned his head to look at her go.

‘Well, if you come back before you are missed, I’m sure I shall be allowed to take you,’ he had congenially replied.  She had made quite a face at that, a more animated one than she would have allowed herself in mixed company.

‘Ugh! And bring my parasol even if it’s dark out, or some ugly thing. I should think not. And you stop laughing; you never have to bring one anywhere.  It’s dreadfully boring, growing up.’

‘On the contrary, I think growing up is a great deal of fun,’ he said, and she hit him in the arm, to his evident shock; his grinning faltered and he rubbed his arm in consternation.  

‘Miss Swann!’

‘You have some nerve!  When I grow up I’m not going to get to go around chasing pirates.  I’ll have to get married and go wherever my husband wants me to be.  Well, I am not married yet, and I want to go out and see the fireworks,’ she argued with him, before recollecting herself and lowering her eyes.  “...I’m sorry I hit you, sir, it was most poorly done of me.’

‘It’s quite all right, Miss Swann,’ he had said conspiratorially, visibly trying his best not to laugh.  ‘I am as likely to tell as you are, for it cannot be good for my reputation at this juncture to complain I have been physically bested by a little girl.’

She had looked up at him peevishly from beneath her hat.  ‘I am not a little girl anymore, Lieutenant-Commander.’

‘Yes, you are; fast on your way to becoming a woman and breaking a multitude of hearts, starting with your father’s, if he finds you sneaking out unchaperoned, but a girl still, for the time being.  You look very well, by the way, Miss Elizabeth,’ he had followed up smoothly, to deflect some of the temper she had building up.  He need not have worried; she was trying her best to compose herself, no matter how she was provoked.  She was becoming aware of growing up, no matter what he said, and it requiring a good deal more anger management than she wanted it to.

‘So do you, sir,’ she said elegantly, correcting her posture as well, to disprove his statements about her maturity and to make up for hitting him, which she already deeply regretted in case he did think it a good story to tell others, namely her father. ‘If looking well were a manly virtue, I am sure you would make Commander within a few months.’

‘To tell you the truth, I do have my eyes on that title,’ he had confessed to her with a barely-hidden, very smug smile. ‘I have a number of personal achievements under my belt. I do not see why I should not be considered for another promotion within the next few years.’  He appeared to realize this was not the right thing to say in company with his host’s unchaperoned little girl, however, and the smugness faded from his face, while he lifted his eyes from hers uncomfortably.  

‘Since you have been so gentlemanly about my hitting you,’ Elizabeth piped up quickly, to manoeuver an accord between them, ‘I feel it my honest duty to inform you, sir, that your many personal achievements get much positive press here in Port Royal society.’

This lifted his spirits.  ‘Oh?’

‘Yes. And all of the women of my acquaintance,’ said Elizabeth sweetly, having, for once, to barely exaggerate, ‘ask after you very often.’

A frown started to creep into his features.  ‘...Oh?’ he repeated.  Elizabeth deferred her gaze in a very graceful manner.

‘I am of course bound to tell them the Governor thinks very well of you, and….’

‘And?’

‘And that I do too…. James.”

And she had looked up at him very pleasantly and fixed him with her full attention and a very perfect smile, sure that he could only be so dazzled as to let her slip past him in the next few seconds.

‘There you are,’ her father called from the entrance to the room; Elizabeth had frozen in fear and looked up at James helplessly; she’d gotten very tall by then, but James was, after all, always going to be the tall one.  ‘Sneaking around again, were you?  Oh, Elizabeth.’

‘It’s nothing like that, sir,’ James had spoken up for her then, as she’d turned around abruptly, trying to think of her own excuses. ‘She’d merely planned to meet me on the driveway, but I beat her to it.’

‘Is that all?  Thank goodness,’ said Governor Swann in good temper, and not a little relief, as his daughter ran up to embrace him and give him a peck on the cheek.

‘Well I guess I changed into my habit for no-thing,” said Elizabeth, cheeks very red, pausing in the doorway to curtsy her good-byes.  James and her father bid her farewell, but she hung around just a few moments longer to mouth words to James: ‘T h a n k y o u,’ before fleeing up the staircase, unbecomingly, as fast as she could.

***

“We were,” he objected, “but I could hardly seek your hand acting some kind of rakehell every time I returned to Port Royal. And I had ascended so quickly, and by your father’s sponsorship no less- I could not play carelessly with that which I had been granted by the grace of God.”

That part had come later.

“So you admit that you got boring,” said Elizabeth evenly.  “On purpose, though?”

James stared.

“That’s an uncharitable way to state it-“

“I never came to dislike you, but your visits…. Somewhat lost their charm,” she said delicately. In truth, she had gone from being excited to see him to somewhat dreading it, not because of his company so much as because his company no longer outweighed the frustrations of propriety, which she could hardly hope to escape whenever she was expected to meet with him.  Although his company did not always help.  She no longer remembered him as the older-brother figure who liked to show off for her while her father chuckled and pretended not to notice, but as someone who could occupy her time so much that she could not meet with anyone else, nor do any other thing, while having no greater conversation to provide than endless commentary on the weather - which in Port Royal was only ever humid at best.  To soften her words, she added, “You would have had better luck with any other woman. I am infamously difficult to please.”

“I did notice my favors appeared to be falling flat,” he said darkly, “though I feared perhaps that I had been too forward, and caused you anxiety.”

“I didn’t want to marry you, James,” she said apologetically. “I wanted to be you.”

“And if you were,” he said, punctuating this with a sip of ale, “you would be seated at this selfsame table at the very same moment, except merely on the other side, with far less to your name.”

“With the full attention of a Pirate King,” she said softly. Beneath the table she crossed her ankle over his.

“Exceeding even the Admiral’s direst predictions,” he laughed.

“One of our fathers would be pleased,” she said defiantly.

“The only one that matters, I should think,” James agreed. He raised his tankard. “To Weatherby Swann?”

She smiled at him, lifting her own.

They drank in unison.  They made faces in unison.  

Elizabeth caught sight of this fact and buried her face in her ale to hide her laughter. James put his tankard down, gasping.

“This might not get a man drunk, but it might kill him regardless. Good God-“

“Pretty bad stuff,” she laughed in agreement, her hand on the table falling on the back of his arm with so little fanfare that it might have been an accident, with her caressing him as though she barely noticed she were doing so.  “I… don’t suppose…. You’d like to…”

“Hmm?”

Then, catching her meaning, he held a hand up in protest.

“Elizabeth, please. You had most of that portion of rum-“

She opened her mouth in scandalized shock.  “- To dance again, thank you!”

She could not prevent herself from bursting into laughter again, rubbing at her face in pleasant sheepishness. “Not that I can blame you for your assumption, I have certainly been at you for that often enough-”

James looked mortified. “I… yes, dancing would be fine. We may dance.”

He looked away, honest to God flushing.

She twined their fingers together, unable to stop herself.  She would have her way with him, within reason, and moments later James Norrington was holding her close through a thoughtful but rousing rendition of Scarborough Fair, most probably trying to think as little on its relevance as Elizabeth was.  Her hair fell over his coat and her hand slipped inside of it, her eyes were damp when she looked up at him; and neither of them had to speak to know it was time to depart for their own inn.

They were halfway there when a group of men burst out of the shadows to catch the two of them off guard.  Rather inconveniently, Elizabeth dove for her hem while the gentlemen guffawed at her, telling her they could be having that and her money if they pleased, thank you; but Elizabeth yanked her sword from her thigh and charged them to dare.

It was the first she had had to do of this all day, and having had a break from it, she was better in the mood for it; as a matter of fact, as she glanced back at James, she thought she might welcome the engagement.  

He nodded to her.

They had only the time to know precisely who they had crossed and to cravenly attempt to back out before meeting their own unpleasant end in an alley James Norrington may well have passed dead out in only a year previously.

The Pirate King was dressed differently than usual, but no one dared to comment, for she seemed to be in high spirits; she sauntered into the Faithful Bride in bare feet with James Norrington’s shirt gripped in her hand as she pulled him along behind her.  James Norrington, several coin purses heavier and with her boots slung over his shoulder, made his smugly obsequious gestures of acknowledgement to all and sundry as the King pulled him up the stairs to the room they shared, to do God only knew what to him.

Though the room did not attain silence when they arrived, the hush that had descended did let up when they disappeared up the stairs.

“Poor fellow,” said one man sympathetically, watching them vanish and then shaking his head as he returned his gaze to his companions.  “Never liked Norrington mesel’. But some things is too cruel for any man t’bear.”

His companion, who saw it differently, wisely kept his mouth shut, because if she shot men for commentaries about her bosom, she might not take too well to even hearing gossip about her ankles.

Upstairs a door shut.  Elizabeth Swann twirled in a circle, reaching her hands out to her darling dog in girlish eagerness.  “Come dance with me, James-”

“I’ve got about a stone of ill-gotten gains on, give me a moment,” James protested, though he gave one of her hands a quick kiss in passing as he began reaching into various folds and pockets to pull out the money the King had confiscated in tribute. “They’ll be all right in the morning, I imagine…”

“Not bloody likely,” said Elizabeth cheerfully, helping him divest himself of his outer layers of clothing with likely ulterior motives.  Her hands lingering on his waist and her breath quickening made them all too transparent.

James looked up at the ceiling.

“Elizabeth,” he sighed. “You’ve been drinking.”

He stopped her by the time she got to his shirt with a firm but gentle grasp on her wrists.

“This isn’t the best of moments, and I fear that you should hate me in the morning.”

“Why is that always what you say?” she asked, admittedly disappointed, but trying to frame it as respectfully as possible.  “Forgive me for flattering myself, but - I thought you had made it clear you still wanted me.”

“I adore you,” he said, putting a hand on her cheek. “But I do not think it is too much to want you… knowingly.”

“I would know ever so much more,” said Elizabeth, lowering her glance down the whole of his body, “... if you would take me.”

“When you’re sober, Elizabeth,” said James. His resolve flickered as he watched her look him over, and then he gathered it up again to add, in an insistent tone of voice, “Please.”

He released her wrists and drew away toward the bed.

Elizabeth snorted. “You can’t blame me for trying,” she called after him.

“And that’s to say nothing of the better account I might make for myself after having washed,” he added.

“I don’t mind you like this.”

“I know you don’t,” he said patiently, “but I mind a great deal.”

She hesitated to say what was on her mind, but they had discussed enough else, so… “James, we’re not going to be together for very long.  I want to make the most of it.  Is that so unwise?  I have regrets enough about all I’ve failed to do in the past.”  Some of that was her unconsummated marriage, but some of it was him.

“You’ve been drinking,” he repeated. “You’ve gone out of your way to prevent me from doing anything foolish in my cups. I should be a very poor man indeed to not return the favor.”

Elizabeth slid to a reclining position, lying across the foot of the bed and watching him.  “I’m not drunk.  I just had a little.”

“Elizabeth-”

James looked up at the ceiling again.

“Elizabeth,” he said, “if we were to… now, I mean- I would never forgive myself. Pirate or not, I do not wish to make a habit of deflowering tipsy virgins.”

“I want you when I’m sober, too,” she said crossly, rolling onto her back and absent-mindedly touching herself on the throat.  She was resigned to his way of thinking, although she didn’t feel drunk at all.  And part of her was perhaps a tiny bit relieved that he was refusing her - she wanted him, but not enough to be apprehensive about where it would leave them when it was over.

“Then bring it up when you’re sober!” he retorted, voice rising in pitch from sheer incredulity.

She cast a hurt, surprised look over at him, and then rolled over onto her side, putting her back to him. James groaned and leaned down beside her.

“Elizabeth,” he said wearily. “Turn around so I may kiss you.”

“No,” she said, though not petulantly.  “I don’t want to trifle with you; you deserve better than this.  And my whims should not overrule what you deserve.”

“Elizabeth,” he sighed again. “Elizabeth, please try to understand-”

“I do, and you’re right,” she said, looking down at her hands, and pushing herself up to sitting without looking at him; that took a moment of composing herself, and even then her smile was sad.  “It’s just been so much at once, seeing you here like this.  For a long time I was merely fond of you, but as I did not want to encourage your suit I kept a distance between us; then when we met again, here, in fact, it was so briefly that I had little time to think about it - and then I learned what you had done, and I hated you.  But then you saved my life… again,” she admitted.  “And I grew to remember I had loved you once - and how you had loved me,” she said, lowering her eyes, before peeking up at him through her eyelashes, praying he took her meaning, and forgave her for it.  “But I did not have to reckon with my feelings until I saw Will again, only a few nights ago, and I’ve paid the price for my honesty.  I’m glad I did,” she said, feebly. “Because Will deserves better too.  But now you are here, and he is not here, and all of it is hitting me at once.  All of my regrets and my sorrows and my fears.  That Beckett and Jones are out there, wanting all of us dead, and even here among pirates I feel my future is very uncertain.  And you are my only certainty now.  And I want you.  Before one or the other of us falls in battle or is taken away in chains or enslaved to a ghost ship - I don’t want to have any regrets.  Or to die a maid.”  She laughed wretchedly, acknowledging the absurdity of it.  “I’m sure it was well and good for Joan of Arc; she cut her hair off and fought for God.  I’m fighting for myself.  And I want my hair long, and I want to know a man.  But not any man, or I would not be here now.”

She timidly laid a hand on his cheek and petted him.  “A good man,” she said hesitantly.  “Someone who loves me.  Someone I love.”

“Elizabeth,” James began, “I- I haven’t even assembled a crew yet. I’ll be here a little while longer. I think I shall, anyway. If you…” He laughed. It sounded absurd to say it out loud like this, but he pressed on.

“If you still… want me… tomorrow evening…”

He tried to make a “well, there you go” hand gesture, but then, feeling it was too vulgar, somehow, quickly crossed his arms again and leaned on them.

“I know a schedule is perhaps not the most… erotic approach, but-”

She leaned forward so that her forehead rested on his shoulder and laughed softly.  

“Should I have expected any differently from you?” she asked fondly.

“One has to play to one’s strengths,” James said, a little uncomfortably, as he lay back to allow her to cuddle onto him. “God knows I haven’t much else to fall back on.”

She touched his face as she looked down at him. She did not seem to tire of that; she knew what he looked like so well she had begun, it seemed, to take it for granted.  Now every time she studied him she discovered something new and previously unnoticed to cherish.

“Why on earth did someone like you court a woman like me?” she asked him in some amazement.  

“What do you mean?” He adjusted himself to put his hand in her hair; it felt soft and worn as a favorite greatcoat. He knew that by most standards, Elizabeth’s hair was hopelessly ravaged by the elements, but as it still grew in thickly, he didn’t mind, and the bright yellow-blonde color it had turned by the same token was startlingly beautiful.

“I never had any claim to grace, propriety or charm,” she said with a gentle smile.  “Given my station, my manners were always shockingly bad.”  Trying not to startle him out of touching her, but still wanting to convey how she felt, she let her eyes drift closed, and tilted her head back, relaxing into it and heaving a sigh.

“I rather enjoyed that,” he admitted. “What, did you think my assessment that you had become a fine woman was purely physical?”

She gave a small shrug of concession and opened her eyes with a sheepish laugh.

“I did not desire a wife to leave in port every few months and return to when convenient,” James continued. “I wanted a companion who might join me on long voyages without fear, who might thrive on open waters.” He paused.

“Who might demand a pair of trousers now and then,” he added knowingly, with a small laugh.

Elizabeth turned her head and kissed his palm, more to hide her own sharp pain than out of playfulness.

“You never saw my life beyond the ceremony and the uniforms. The Navy is a rough business, and I… I might not have become a rough man were it not for its influence. I felt that you might be better-suited to a life by my side than many of the other eligible young women of Port Royal.”

Elizabeth had a very terrible pain in her chest, that much might have been averted, that two men’s hearts may not have been broken, and hers, perhaps, too, if she had been less blind as to this man’s character and designs.

“It sounds….”

Wistfulness and anguish wove together in her voice, even though she tried to be playful.  She shook her head gently, unwilling to finish voicing the thought.

“Of course, I carry a measure of blame there,” James conceded, looking up at the ceiling again. “Perhaps if I had told you of some of the less germane details of my life, we might have reached a greater rapport.”

Elizabeth turned her head, kissing his fingertips one by one.  She peeped back at him through a lock of blonde hair, waiting to see if he would look at her.

James met her eyes and pushed the hair out of her face, leaning in to give her a kiss at her hairline.

“I’m sorry- I’m making a tremendous deal of nothing-”

“It’s not nothing,” she said, leaning down to kiss him on his forehead and then look at him again.  “We would have been…. A very good match, beyond all of the reasons I assumed.”

“That was years ago,” he said, smoothing her hair back from her face. “I could have given you the world then, instead of…” He feebly gestured at the room around them.

“I wasn’t smart enough to be ambitious,” said Elizabeth, her nervousness prompting her to laugh sincerely; it seemed about true enough.  “I wanted… love and freedom.  Getting married…. I wasn’t ready for it.  But,” she said, willing her voice not to break, “I can’t help but see, now, that…”

“And what if we had married,” he cut in, “and you found yourself shackled to a drunken  laughingstock with no commission and no future?”

“If I loved him before, I would love him after,” said Elizabeth, quietly but firmly, daring him to insult her constancy.  “I love you better having chosen a life of piracy over lying down and letting Beckett do what he wanted to innocent people on your watch; I would have felt the same then.  If your eligibility is reduced, sir, what do you think has become of mine?  My father is dead, my home and dowry beyond recovery, and who would believe I still had my virtue after all of this?  Annulment with Will aside, I was Sao Feng’s captive after I was Barbossa’s.  After the first, your public faith in me was some protection; after this there is no turning back.  What if you were still a Commodore, under Beckett’s thumb, no mark to your record - and I were the Pirate King?  Oh, even if I weren’t, do you think I wouldn’t have commandeered a ship to join up with Jack and Barbossa at once, regardless? I know what is right, and working with Beckett is not right.  James, your life was headed for calamity regardless.  The world we live in is changing.  That all makes it a greater miracle that you are here with me, now.  That makes you a greater comfort to me than it seems I am able to make you understand.”

James had turned on his side to better look at her as she spoke, and by the end of it he looked positively abashed.

“...forgive me,” he said softly. “Elizabeth…”

He embraced her now, too tightly for comfort under most circumstances but excusable now, he hoped.

“I’m sorry. I spoke too rashly.”

She buried her face against his throat, unable to fault him for holding her, not when she wanted to be held.

“And I would speak rashly if I were to tell you I should have married you,” she said, her own regrets pouring out.  “So allow it to remain unspoken, but implied.  God’s wounds, James,” she said, laughter muffled against him, and her tears hidden, too.

He kissed her on the crown of her head once more for good measure and closed his eyes.

“I had only my salary to fall back on,” he reminded her, “and the promise of a pension after Captain. Had we married, you would have lost that as well. The Admiral had nothing to offer me even if he wanted to, nothing beyond investments in my career. The money had dried up.”

He paused, and then admitted, “I never went to a true school, you know. I never had a tutor. I was taught to read and do sums and I figured the rest out as I needed to learn it.”

Elizabeth propped herself up so she could look back down at him again, for a long while - as long as it would take before she could say what needed to be said, before she could find the right words.

She could do no better than, “James, you’re an idiot.  I think your love would have made me happy, if I had taken it soon enough.  I never wanted anything else.  We would have made our own way.  And,” she said, hesitantly, “we still shall. Whatever we are to each other.”

“King and dog,” he said, with an exhausted-sounding laugh.

“James and Elizabeth,” she said firmly.

“Fine,” he said, making a gesture of surrender.

“And king and dog,” she said with a brilliant laugh.

“I’ve always been someone’s dog,” he said, “so I shall take this as a sterling accomplishment.”

She cupped his face and she kissed him again. “I’ll treat you better,” she whispered, “than any of the rest of them, I promise.”

“That’s not a tall order,” he laughed, but he kissed her too, and this time with enough energy to sit up and put his arms around her.

Elizabeth kissed him back, leaning her arms on his shoulders enough to slide a leg over his waist.

“You still taste of rum,” he teased. “I think I’ll have another.”

He took another kiss from her, and another, until he had pulled her down with him, with Elizabeth balanced on his chest.

“There’s some relief, I suppose, in behaving in as dissolute manner as one looks,” he conceded.

“Do you feel relieved?” asked Elizabeth, unable to prevent a whine creeping into her voice. “I’d like very much for to share your relief with me...”

“You still taste of rum, Lizzy,” James retorted. “I am not so dissolute as that.”

“You’re still kissing me,” she pointed out, settling into his lap, and kissing him back.

“Kissing, I can forgive. Kissing, I can trust you to not regret in the morning…”

She moaned helpfully into his mouth, trying to guide his hands over her body - if kissing were permitted, she would see how far she could take it.

“Lizzy,” James said warningly.

She groaned instead, kissing him back a little while longer before rolling off him and lying beside him on the bed to catch her breath.  If she didn’t stop, she knew she would beg to continue.

And in spite of her desire for him, she could still not regret the loss of Will Turner any less.  It was as though she were conscious of another future she might have had at some point in her past, one where James Norrington were the only man she had ever loved, but could not, try as she might, live in that future now.

She turned her head and looked at him now, her sadness and her contentment cancelling each other out, so that she only looked sleepy and wistful.  

“I can’t unlove another man,” she apologized.  “And it may bring you no comfort to say that I know now you could have made me a happy woman.  Whatever our future holds, I can’t turn back time and be yours alone.  But if you still want me… if you’re patient…. I think…. I believe… I can still be yours, James.”

James fell into a stunned silence. He watched Elizabeth for a moment, waiting for further elaboration and finding none, and then, overcome, was forced to look away.

“Oh,” he said.

He looked down at his somewhat grimy hands, mostly to have somewhere to look, and felt outright dizzy with shame. He blinked rapidly.

“Surely-” He looked back at Elizabeth now.

“Surely you are… your own, and I am yours,” he said slowly.

Elizabeth could not decide if this were an encouragement or not.  She did not want to believe he did not want her anymore, but it was hard to get any other impression.  She took his hand in hers and kissed his knuckles instead.

“If you wish it,” she said simply. It was her turn to wait, she realized.  She had to be the patient one now, the one who had to earn his love.  If it took that, she could do it.  If he never loved her again - she supposed she would have to accept that too.  The real struggle would be not pushing him, when she knew he still desired her, and when every inch of her wanted him.  

“Your dog,” he said distantly.

James stood up enough to lean over and kiss her on the forehead. Her dog.

It was not such a bad title to have earned, he considered. If he was still to be anyone’s dog from now on, he could do far worse than Elizabeth.

[anotherehetalia1p2pblog]

Can I get a scenario where Germany comforts his female s/o who's dealing with repressed emotions from watching an ex best friend go through something terrible from a long time ago?

WARNING! TRIGGERING CONTENT AHEAD! HINTINGS OF RAPE! INSPIRED BY THE OUTLAST 2 GAME!!!

S/o was just staring down at their phone. They haven’t moved in what seemed like hours.

“….s/o?”

“Oh! Luddy, I’m sorry! I didn’t notice you there. How was your day?”

S/o quickly put their phone away stood up and went to greet their lover/

“…..s/o, are you ok?”

“Eh? W-why would you ask that?”

“You get like these sometimes, always looking at some picture on your phone. Why? Tell me please, I want to help.”

“…..”

He walked up to his s/o and brought their face into his chest.

“It’s ok, s/o. Whatever it is, it will all be ok.”

“….it’s just something stupid,….from a long time ago. it doesn’t matter now.”

“If it making you upset, then yes, it does matter.”

“It’s my friend, or rather my ex friend….my ex best friend.”

“Ja?”

Ludwig gently edged his lover on, to try to get the full story of what happened, and why his s/o is still suffering.

“We were hanging out late at school one day. It was our junior year, middle of the school year. Winter break was only a couple of days later. We were doing silly stuff, playing hangman, drawling, just meaningless games. Then our teacher showed up. He was saying how if I left, and he stays with my friend to talk to them about a grade of theirs, we wouldn’t get in trouble. So I left. I left them with that man…..”

“Ja? And?…..oh, was he a bad man? Did he do…bad things to them?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh, that is horrible.”

“The next day when school was about to start, the janitor found them, they were all bruised,…a-and bleeding. There was a trial against the teacher, but he got away with hurting them. They moved schools, and I haven’t contacted them. I’m scared. I let them be hurt. It was all my fault!”

S/o broke down sobbing. Ludwig hugged them and whispered sweet nothings in their ear.

“Shush, it’s ok. It wasn’t your fault. You had no idea that would happen. You were trying to protect them so they wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“Y-yeah, and look w-what happened!”

“S/o….I think the best method would be to contact them. Since you feel so guilty, apologize. Get it off your chest. That will make you feel better.”

“B-but they will hate me!”

“Do you miss them?”

“Of course! They were my best friend!”

“I’m sure that is what they think too. Call them.”

“…..ok”

S/o shakily dialed the numbers to reach their friend in the phone.

Ring Ring

“ Hello? S/o?…Is that you? It’s your number….”

“Yeah…it’s me. I’ve just wanted to tell you something.”

“…Me too…let’s do what we did in the old days, say our thoughts at the exact same time. ok?”

“Yeah, 1,2,3″

“I’M SO SORRY!”

“Eh? Friend? Why are you apologizing? I’m the one that left you that night? I let that awful thing happen to you!”

“You didn’t know it would happen. I thought I disgusted you. You didn’t talk to me after that, and I was scared you came to hate me…I wasn’t pure anymore. I thought I would taint you.”

“No! Never! I was just a cowedered too scared to tlk to you! Hehehe, it seems like we were both fools, huh?”

“hehe yeah. Let’s meet up one of these days.”

“Let’s. Bye friend”

“Bye s/o.”

S/o ended the call, buried their head in Ludwig’s chest, and started crying.

“I’m s-sooo glad t-they d-d-don’t hate me!!! W-we can be fr-riends again!”

“See, they missed you too.”

“Luddy, thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[cowedeakamatsu]

Seeing that you have already completed a few endings of HL, what did you think of the characters in general?

alriiiiiiiiight! it is time to put on a tierlist! (also would love to see your own tierlist friend @plaindangan ) As you can see in a glampse, I think its the most solid cast kodaka ever produced, uchikoshi too, most insane too, (managing to topple even akudama drive in batshit insanity XD) For the rest of the post a bit of clarity : so far i played (in order) the coming of age route. the takumi cult route. the 2nd scenario / "001" route. the v'ehxness route. from now on spoilers.

so if you played the game, for the VAST majority of my play time, like, 70% i think (everything outside of route 0 / the introduction.) darumi has been deadrumi, I just started a route in which she actually lives! but it cost us a lot, the route wasted no time putting her more into focus too, making her a surprisingly good emotional support for takumi and tackling stuff like her fearing "true death" when it was about to happen to her, no matter how insane and manic and darumi our darumi is, at the end of the day, she dont trully want to die. And i really like that. I will give a quick resoning for all the characters. Takumi

I didnt think it was possible, but while very different, he managed to reach the shuichi saihara quality of protag to me. The different routes allow us to see different side of him and his evolution, and struggle, and he is so will driven to protect those he loves, I just love the guy. he is the character you can feel the most influence from uchikoshi too, hes really a blend of how those 2 create protags. Nozomi

Due to route 001, i see her as just as a protagonist, if not even more than takumi, at the start of the game shes just a nice character but shrouded in mystery, that then evolves to become takumi's "goal' of sorts. But the really good thing about her character is that she is much, much more than that. "I dont care about humanity, I just want to protect my friends" in route 001 post the origins reveal go insanely hard, she LOVES the team so much, and dont get me started on the tragique of her relation to takumi, she loves him, romantically (in every route i played so far) but the one he trully chases after is karua, and its both beautiful and tragic and im tearing up just thinking about ending 001 again AAAAAAA. I think she might just be my favorite female character in all of kodaka

Shion / FB / whatever they name our good boi in other routes

My very first route was coming of age, so of course i feel very attached to our boy. he is just the purest kid I think I ever saw, and (along with the two above) I just, really want to see him be happy. I Really like his parallel and relation to takumi, his own philosophy. And also i ship him with tsubasa. (real quick, gonna tackle the aspect that is gonna become controversial, the few negative critics i read of people who clealry played the game (because a lot of others feels like they didnt, or wanted to hate this game from the get go). Regarding the incest / clone situation I simply doesnt consider it to be incesto to ship any member of the team with somebody else of the team (appart from nozomi cos shes human and eva cos she aint related to them) Yes, the characters are clones based of shion, and on a pure "genetic" standpoint, that makes them a familly, and shion their dad, and the gang in 001 accept that fact, treating themselves as both friends, and a familly. But no i dont think its incest. Did you look at them ? It's obviously clear there was a lot of genetic modification done to them, they grew into very different beings, they arent humans either, but modified clone futurans, so no idea how the genetics even works here. so You dont have to feel bad shipping them together, nor any of them with shion if thats your thing, (just not the foetus body of him cos that would be a bit weird ? then again that foatus is shion, what i mean is, dont fuck the foetus and we're good) -----

As for the rest, i fear not having the place, but if you want me to detail more for the rest i'll do it later! Quicky for the top placement : kyoshika is HILLARIOUS and so cool and i love her, takemaru is mondo but alive and somehow even more of a BRO, the twins have excellent comedic timing, especially detective kako moments, and ima is a piece of shit, but hes not ill intend (once he joins the group for realsies) and ima-sirei is still the most hillarious thing that happened in this game. Tsubasa is just such a good girl, moko herslef is alone to make me wanna go back into wrestling and shes just so cool, hiruko is surprisingly more deep than route 0 led me to believe (and shes a Q U E E N in every sense) and nigou is the nozomi of this game, but his whole thing is that theyre a goofier more naive and friendly sirei. Which i really like. just know that the worst placements are solely here because they either lack that one moment that makes me go "yeah no ok youre just a 5 star meal" or just screentime (darumi, non brainwashed eva (i got spoiled theres a way to see non brainwashed eva, but i really hope its not a thing that happens only in one route, but multiples, Cos I want to learn so much about eva (and the other commanders and their culture)). Usually when any character is the focus in an arc, theyre great. the worst i think is shouma ? he is hillarious or very emotionnaly interesting when the arc is about him, but when he plays a side role his whole character revolve around the joke of him finding synonymes of "im a shit who hates myself" and that really hinders his quality, i love his relation to eva or takemaru or the group in general tho. kinda same goes for gaku, but gaku has the strong positive of being realllly good at boosting the moods of others. as for kurara and yugamu, theyre ALMOST goats. Oh and the eito tier is more "technically youre an antagonistic force, at least partially / from a moral standpoint, your character kinda deserves its own tier, i really like your presence here but i cant quite call you the goat" ----- LITTLE UPDATE, DARUMI IS NOW GOAT, i dont know if i just so happen to hit the one route where the girl just decides to become the best fucking girl in the game, but she is! there's a chance its gonna lead to romance route, but honestly i see it more as a strong friendship from a girl who just realized stuff about herself and does the best to make the first real friend she made feel better. Since i Re-watched bluelock (cool manga, that i follow semi regularly but the Neo egoist league is so godamn LONG for nothing, and also I dont entirely vibe with the author writing regarding completing arcs and side characters being used for more than just an arc, JAGAAAAN had the same problem (same author if i remember correctly) (yes even season 2, and yes its still horrendous (especially the preparation to the U 20 VS blue lock match, the rest was a bit better, but man, whats the story behind... that ? did they really thought "ok, they like aura, put EVERYTHING in the auras, and no money elsewhere) Think bacchira isagi from early arcs / season 1.

[cowedeakamatsu]

Ok so guys. 6 years ago I wrote a VERY BAD saimatsu smutt fanfic on wattpad. I just found my login again, and I realize it has over 50 K views. I 'm so dead inside XD it’s like the worst thing ever btw.

If any of you want a link to some prime cringe Cowede writting from 6 years ago don’t hesitate~!

Also might as well show this since why the fuck not.

[cowedeakamatsu]

daily update for Project Lust Idol maker!

alas, twas a day In which the meaty cowede was quite busy, basically "spending day with friends i havent seen in a while type day" HOWEVER before i go to sleep i will tackle a few backgrounds~ also technically progressed a bit through the writting this morning. Send your strength, energy, and SOUL to the meaty cowede ! wryyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

[cowedeakamatsu]

[ THIS IS A POLL POST, PLEASE READ] My cowede size brain have been thinking about what to do with nai / my works. I mean, obviously I love generating. but I think I could make... more ? Back in the old days, when My gen absolutely SUCKED I had the idea of making fitting audios using eleven labs. And I did for a while and it was fun, But it kinda went too hard on my morales. I know its gonna sound hypocritical from someone who legit does ai art, which is "stealing" But as to where gening's lack of morale can be somewhat lowered by the argument of how exactly the tech behind works, and that, in my opinion at least, unless you target a specific artist (which I always make sure to credit when I do) while yes its stealing from a gigantic amount of pictures on the internet, my focus is on the "gigantic". Like yes If I gen a pic of akamatsu kaede, theres a good chance, actually 100% the artwork of a random artist is taken amongst the bagillion other arts of akamatsu kaede, so I steal from this artist... but at the same time, i'm stealing 0.001% of this due to the amount of art being stolen. (which by definition is all of them). I'm not trying to make it morally acceptable or say I shouldnt be hated btw. (Just please stay civil when you do). But copying the audio of a specific person to make a ai record of it ? thats where I draw the line. But at the same time I want to do more than just pictures. SOOOOOOoooo... I had a bit of a Plan, but it might need a bit of sponsoring ? Not really ? Like, i'll definitely release it for free and hope some people like it enough to donate on my ko-fi (that I should really fill, and treat more seriously, I never updated it from the moment I made it) (@pen-pow-por thank you again for the small sponsoring back then) so I dont just loose a shit ton of money but it wont be a obligated thing. basically. Cowede wants to make a ren'py NSFW (eroge) VN

(probably ren'py, I'm not great at rpg maker and it takes a WHILE, where as ren'py is rather easy to make and I already know how to do it) Obviously it would be in the form of a regularly updated game that comes with more content, starting pretty smoll, but getting bigger). Probably centered around different IPs, but dangan at first. Tell me, would you be interested in such a project ? the biggest challenge will def be the writing.

[cowedeakamatsu]

I have to come to term with the facts I'm really, REALLY not made for manwhas. its insane, no matter how many I try, no matter the genre, I either like it but end up loosing interest (happened twice, girls of the wild's (not half bad but ultra slow)) and GoH (which i liked for some time ? but after a while I got bored, and i disliked how everything felt filler because they put on way too many characters only for them to be defeated ultra quickly and replace by others. but hey the 3 main characters (well more like 4) were nice to follow. and the power system based around summoning / borrowing powers from god was cool, but felt kinda vague after some time.) Outside of that I legit disliked all those I tried and theres like, a dozen. from wholesome to serious to comedy, the writing NEVER works on me. I also tried the most famous ones, like tower of god (which there is undeniable qualities but its not for me), solo leveling, which i disliked and troll about on a daily basis, glad the fans are eating good with the anime they seem to like tho, albeit I wish they stop saying bs like "its deeper than one piece". Also tried lookism and viral hit cos they had animes so I was like "i can start the manwha, and if I dont like the format move to anime if thats the issue", but the issue was the writing for both. And gave bastard a chance some time ago but honestly forgot all about it. also tried the boxer and couldnt get bothered at all, like legit I remember reading it a bit, and then stop, and then read star strike it rich. (if you havent, check star strike it rich, its DOPE @plaindangan validates for real) And about the "its deeper than one piece", havent tried yet the most glazed manwha ever, omniscient reader's viewpoint, I know its great, heard it like, a billion time (or so it seems) and it feels to me like its treated like the berserk of manwha in terms of cult. but the synopsis, look, and some stuff people showed me really dont make it for me. i'll give it a shot when the anime drops, just to see if maybe. it's insane to me How i'm such a fan of a lot of genre, and shonen demographic series especially, but I cant seem to get into the writing of ALL a media. is it the format that tickles my brain the wrong way ? honestly I have no idea.

feel free to give me your opinion on stuff you read you liked (manwhas, mangas, @plaindangan , personnaly i like @plaindangan a lot ;p )

no but like, really try star strike it rich, same author AND artist as the kengan (kengan asura, kengan omega) but with girls, and they build a free fight business from the get go all the while having to find regularly good fighters for their own champion to fight cos say champion was the daughter of a cult leader and has tons of bombs she'll make explode if she doesnt get good thrilling fights (because she LOOOOOOOOOVES fights). If you know the author you know its absolutely bonkers and very passionate and knowledgeable about fighting and muscles, and the artist SLAPS.

[cowedeakamatsu]

Ok so! I did get some "no" response because of course. But some of you guys where suportive (a majority choosing eh, which i get and expected) sooooo... kofi : https://ko-fi.com/cowedetheaigennsfwenthusiast here it is.

I also added it to the pinned post.

[cowedeakamatsu]

tumblr was pretty uneventfull today, but it doesnt mean you all dont deserve love~

@filthypen @plaindangan @pervyvicky @carnyreborn @makoto-naegi-stud-and-friends

[cowedeakamatsu]

100 girlfriend is a very stupid but also hillarious series i should have watched earlier.

definitely having fun with it, I just hope a vast majority of the gfs arent loli coded, cos youll be surprise at how certain harem love to do that, even with the 1 girl => 1 trope idea.

[cowedeakamatsu]

[VOTE] What would you guys be more interested in as an event ? a part of me wants to wait v4 full release to drop it, but since i dont know when its happening, i kinda wanted to try and do it before.

Cowede's RPG Part 2!(only opened to dangan chars) : a large portion probably werent here for it, as its one of my first concept ever back when i was working using nai V2 (it was shiiiiiit) but basically, a rpg epic fantasy setting (and SMEXY of course) featuring our favorite dangan boys and gals! with maybe added mythology like monsters, godesses, and whatnot! it will also include a bit (or a lot) of writing~ each character will have a specific power, alignement, class, even races and whatnot. Ocs are also accepted if theyre interesting~ (no shitty dangan oc, i meant more like npcs). dont hesitate to go wild on those! (to be clear if it happens dont just tell me "can u do x character please ?" propose to me a rpg sheet of a character and i'll try to rework it + make a good (or multiple good, images out of it!) I dont promise to write as much tho. here's a link to the old event https://www.tumblr.com/cowedeacumootsu/tagged/isekai%20fantasy%20rpg%20event!

The return of Cosplay event! (open to any character!) : at the start of the event i choose 25 costume / cosplay ideas. you ask me for a character with a number and i'll do it~ you wont know what number means what cosplay!

Matchup OF THE DOOOOOM (open to any character BUT not 2 character from the same universe) : quite simple! mashup / crossover asks, but for the ENTIRETY of the month! not a single (outside of the ones already in my askbox) solo character ask

HEROES VS VILAINS (open to any character) : you know what rules ? tits. this category isnt really related to that though, Like the rpg thing this one involve writing! and will face off the brigade of good guys and gals and halaras VS the mc big evil bad guys and gals and halaras! Choose a character - choose an alignement (eviiiiil or guuuud) and an intensity out of 10 and i'll redo the character as said evil or good, a character CANT be asked twice, but feel free to make otherwordly relations! AND YES monster designs, monster gals, monster bois, and aaaaaaaaaaaaaall type of "hero" or "evil" can be asked! (yes we can have nice sexy milfy eldritch abomination if you want) actually monster gals are still open, while the lab is still close (so no intensity stuff, no fusion of monster and character pic using vibes) you can still ask for theeeeeeeem. also a reminder that pixel art, figures, chibi, or any style you can think of is still open!

[cowedeakamatsu]

Do you guys think I should make a sort of ko-fi or a patreon or something ? (Vote post, please don’t be lazy and read, it’s important to me)

Here’s the thing, you guys know it at that point, I’m actually quite serious about this whole ai art thing. Not saying I’m the best nor even good, but I try my best to make stuff interesting, I don’t use free low quality models, my biggest issue is, shit cost money. (And of course there’s also the moral issue of generating money with ai art, by definition none of the people here should do that to much, but I got (for more or less valid reason (because some people who hate ai art on a basis just see it as steal where it’s more complicated) lot of hate in the past just for using it.)

I also don’t want to have a paywall on my work, I do my gens for people, to make them get art they like and would want but they can’t make or don’t have the budget to ask artist to do, that’s the whole point of my stuff.

But at some point, considering how much money I wasted with it, it may be time to find a way to monetize it. To make it so I don’t loose a shit ton of money with it.

So I’m pondering creating a kofi, or a patreon, a way for people to tip me so I can get some money back, all the while still posting everything free here, or maybe I could ko-fi for commission ?

Objectively I’ll make 0 money with it, since I don’t offer any ups by tipping me. But I dunno.

[cowedeakamatsu]

NIIIIIIIIIICE, congrats and thanks anlatan, cant wait! Basically will be more free to do more insane (and nsfw-ier) asks!

[cowedeakamatsu]

I’m glad to see y’all guys reacting to the comeback, it warms the heart!

Now fill my askboxxxxx

Also just realized there’s someone who spam reports my posts on r34 :/ annoying

[cowedeakamatsu]

aaaaaaand after retsnom, one more route (if we can call it a route) done, "002 : Reset"

Its quite high concept, i like it, actually low key love it, I feel like the whole point is we cant really judge them for their decision regarding the guilt.

spoilers underneath

Considering i expected this choice to just end up in a very judgemental "we are monsters" I liked the fact that it turned the mission around, to be one about life, not war, of course its not "morally just", but it happened. and thats how it is. There's of course also a bit of dread regarding the characters, "are they really the ones we know" but I think the most important thing is they lived, their future, themselves, what will become, its THEIR story now. not for us to see. I also particularly like how it takes the form of a post credit scene, giving it importance beyond just being "an alternate ending to the more budget focus with more cg and cinematics 001 ending" and how its not labeled (when you get it) as an "ending" or "route" just 002: Reset : Welcome To Last Defense Academy. as its just the begining of a new story. Also considering this is an nsfw blog, I dont feel ashame saying it, yassss everyone fucks ending. And then they had seggs.

[cowedeakamatsu]

kodaka officially reads peak people

dandadangan when ????