#oooo lizzie enters the ring!

[greeenchrysanthemums]

Lizzie is the ruler of Coral Crest.

She took over as queen around the same time that Gem became Wintertide's royal commander, so she has not been in power for very long. She never wanted to be the queen. She had been dreading it for as long as she had lived. Unfortunately, she had no choice but to take over when the previous ruler met their end in the war, for there were no other heirs to take her place.

She was young, but she was by no means inexperienced. She had been watching and learning how to rule a kingdom since she was a small child; she had been more than prepared to take on the job. It was a very sudden and abrupt take over, but she handled it with tremendous grace and efficacy. She immediately put a pause on the fighting and negotiated (with Gem!) for a temporary truce.

She put a great amount of effort into rebuilding and securing her kingdom in the aftermath, as well. She is a cold and practical ruler, but she is not unkind. She does well to make sure all of the citizens in her massive kingdom are well taken care off. The kingdom is perhaps even more well off than before the war.

Lizzie hates Wintertide. Not only did it wage war on her kingdom and force her into a position she never wanted, but she believes Ren to be cruel, and there is something wrong with the land on a deeper level that she can't quite put her finger on. She doesn't want any more bloodshed than necessary, hence why she called an end to the fighting those years ago, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to see the king brought down to his knees and his people freed of his reign.

When word gets to her about a resistance brewing within Wintertide's borders, well, lets just say she is more than interested...

[apirateslifeforme123]

Ok, I just finished messaging you but I have a one shot in my head that I personally don't have time to write so maybe you could give it a go? They've just saved jack from the locker and they're on the pearl. Jack sees Elizabeth sitting on the deck by herself, its night time. He goes up to confront her finally and they get into a pretty heated argument. Then jack grabs her arm and sees scars on her wrists. Elizabeth tried to pull her arm away but Jack keeps hold and lightly rubs the scars.

Oooo this is a very interesting fic prompt hon! But Ican’t…the self-harm, babe. I just can’t. Not only because I don’tthink Lizzy would, but because I won’t glamorize it in any way. It’s not aromantic gesture. It’s not cool. It doesn’t solve anything and it’s NEVER a good idea!! My darlings, mybabies, NEVER hurt yourself!!! But, Iwon’t send you away empty handed. Whatif… ::twinkly music::

 It was not a mistakethat Elizabeth happened to be loitering in the passageway between the galleyand Jack’s cabin when Cotton appeared with the Captain’s supper upon a tray. “I’lltake it to him,” she offered, separating herself from the shadows against thebulkhead.

For a man who could not speak, Cotton had perfected the artof the poignant look. She knew he knew exactly what she was about, but herelinquished the ration anyway with a nod. Parrot made a wheezing noise fromthe old pirate’s shoulder that might have been a mocking laugh.

Elizabeth knocked, and expecting his dinner Jack barked“Come!” without a second thought. He’d been avoiding her since they snatchedhim from the locker, and she didn’t know how he would react to this smalldeception. A trill of…somethingscuttled down her spine, but before she could talk herself out of it Elizabethgrasped the door handle and pushed inside.

Jack was bent over his desk, the surface of the tablecompletely covered with that strange turning chart and all manners ofnavigational instruments and who knew what else. “Put it over there,” Jackgrumbled, wiggling be-ringed fingers in the direction of a side table that wasonly half covered by bric-a-brac.

“You’re looking a bit haggard, Captain Sparrow, perhaps youshould eat now,” Elizabeth dared,coming to stop at the edge of the desk with tray in hand. It wasn’t much—saltpork, dried fruit, and hardtack. By some inexplicable trick of the Locker thestores in the Pearl had not gone bad in all the time passed since the Krakentook her down.

Jack bolted upright in his chair as though the Devil Himselfhad whispered in his ear.

“You should not bein here,” he spat, pointing an accusing finger in her direction. The bigemerald on his finger glittered in the low light.

Elizabeth quashed down the impulse to run, and lifted herchin to the surly sea captain. “I rather thought we should talk,” she said, andJack feigned choking on a swig of rum.

“We should talk, eh?And I thought we’d said all that needed sayin’, Miss I’m Not Sorry.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes, but rather than enter into astaring contest with Jack she turned her attention to his desk, looking for aplace to set the tray. “You really should eat,” she urged in a quieter voice,picking up an astrolabe to relocate. Jack grabbed her wrist, wresting thevaluable if not antiquated navigational instrument from her grasp.

“Don’t touch my things. Pushy wench…”

Elizabeth was unable to suppress an emphatic eye roll, andplunked the tray down hard on the desk. “For some reason I thought you were agrown man, not a petulant child.”

He did not answer her jibe, his attention fixed elsewhere. Amoment later she realized he was staring at the scars upon her wrists, longslashes still the fresh pink of a newly healed wound. Instinctually she tuggedat her arm, but Jack was stronger and would not let go. “What the fuck arethese?” he demanded, catching her other wrist to see more of the same.

“Let go,” she growled, pulling, but he simply brought herwrists together before him, perusing the old wounds at his leisure.

“Didn’t think you were the type,” he ground out, a note ofsomething Elizabeth couldn’t quite identify in his tone. It wasn’t quite anger,but not exactly sympathy.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Well? Ye didn’t have ‘em before.”

“Tia needed blood for a spell to find you, you oaf, you’rehurting me.” She couldn’t help but think he meant to; she knew Jack could toucha lady gentle as a butterfly’s wing, if he wanted to.

“A lot of scars just for a spell,” said the captain with narrowed kohl-lined eyes.

“She needed a lot ofblood.” And so she’d given it, even though she’d hovered on the brink of deathfor days afterwards, sick as a dog. To find Jack…it had been the least shewould have given.

“Why you?” Elizabeth blanched, pulling at her wrists again,no matter how fruitlessly. She’d thought she wanted to talk, but she changedher mind. She wanted to hide. Butthen he caressed her wrists with the blades of his thumbs, and she froze,unprepared for such tender contact. “Lizzy.”

He had not called her that in all the time since his rescue,and the fight seemed to drain out of her at hearing it. His hold loosened inresponse. “Because I was the last one to touch you,” she admitted, and thoseseemed to be the magic words to win her freedom. Jack released her so quicklyshe stumbled.

Though she surely had no right, the thought that he found herso distasteful hit her like a dagger to the heart. What was she thinking,coming here like this? He would never forgive her. She had killed him. Elizabeth toyed with self-pity, but in the end it didnot stick. Rather than feel sorry for herself, anger surged like an eruption,lava roiling in her core. She stepped into Jack, poking him hard in the chest.He recoiled, sitting as far back in his chair as he could from her, but shegave him no quarter, leaning on the carved arms of the chair.

“And what the fuck wasI supposed to do that day, Jack? When the Kraken came and was killing us leftand right? I did what I had to do to save your crew. Gibbs, Cotton, Marty,Pintel, Ragetti…me. Tell me. Tell me that there was anotherway to save us all besides chaining you to that mast? What did I miss?”

Jack’s nostril’s flared as he breathed, his chest rising andfalling. She tried not to stare, and failed a little. When at last his voicecame there was no fire, just…exhaustion. “You missed…that I came back for you, Elizabeth. You missed that theshackles were wholly unnecessary.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

“And I suppose I can’t blame you, really.” A bitter smiletugged at the corner of his mouth. “Except…you might recall that I have alwaysprotected you, in the end, when my conscience finally wins over my sense ofself-preservation. Takes a while, sometimes.”

At first she wanted to argue that it wasn’t true, but shethought on the cave on the Isle de Muerte—the moment Barbossa pointed hispistol at her Jack shot him without hesitation. Or even upon the Dauntless,when Jack suggested she might be put away for safe keeping, knowing all alongthat he intended to send undead pirates over to finish Norrington’s men off. Andthen there was that little time when he sacrificed his own freedom to save herfrom drowning.

Elizabeth felt her knees go weak beneath her, and she didnot faint, per se, so much as she melted into a puddle onto the deck.

She’d lost her faith in him that day.

All that song and dance about how she thought he was a goodman, but given the chance she didn’t give him the chance to prove it. Didn’t trust him to prove it.

He rowed away from thePearl! hissed a voice inside, reminding her that her actions had not beenunfounded. He left you to die!

There was a pain in her chest like her heart was caving inon itself.

“Your conscience, isit?” she asked, hardly recognizing her own voice.

“What word would you rather I use, Lizzy?”

Love.

She didn’t dare say it now. Didn’t dare ask for it. Even ifmaybe now more than ever, she was certain it was true.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said, her voice suddenly hoarse asthough she’d screamed her soul to the heavens.

In that moment, Gods help him, he believed her. Though hedidn’t say so, just stared at her long-limbed form folded up on the floor athis feet. It seemed wrong somehow, and he forced himself out of his chair,crouching before her. “Come on, Lizzy,” he said, holding out his hands. “No needto sit on the floor.”

She took his hands, and yet made no move to let him pull herup. “Does the fact that I came for you mean nothing?” she whispered. “Is therenothing left for us?”

Jack looked at the scars upon her wrists again, and one byone, pressed his lips to the sensitive skin of her inner arms. He knew a thingor two about scars, and knew those cuts had been deep. Tia had gotten herblood, no doubt, and then some. Lizzy may have almost died. The thought didinexplicably dark things to his insides. He’d thought of killing her more thanonce in his days of madness in the Locker, but here, with her before him…no. She was too precious a thing to havebeen risked for his sorry old hide.

“I don’t know, Lizzy,” he answered truthfully. “There’s nogoing back, you know.” They would never be innocentagain, if such a word could ever be applied to two rogues like them. Butperhaps they could be…could be what, exactly?“If there is nothing left…will you regret it? Will you wish…you’d left methere?”

Without a moment’s hesitation Elizabeth shook her head. “No,Jack.” She held up her wrists, displaying the scars she’d fought so tenaciouslyto hide just moments before. “I would do it all over again, for you.”

The pirate closed his eyes, savoring those words, feelingthem settle upon him like a balm for his soul. What had he ever done, really,to deserve her regard? And the others too. Gibbs, Cotton, Marty…even Pintel andRagetti, weird as they were.

His crew.

His family?

It tied his heart up in knots, and he didn’t even begin toknow where to start untying them. “Well, don’t,”he said gruffly, and his hand seemed to find its way of its own accord to hercheek, caressing her sun-browned skin. No longer the blushing English rose, wasLizzy, but life at sea suited her. “I ain’t worth that.”

“Pssh,” shehissed, her own hand covering his upon her cheek. It felt so good to be touched by him. Toogood, perhaps, and she told herself not to mistake it for forgiveness. “I’llbe the judge of that.”

Jack muttered something under his breath that might havebeen obstinate woman. Lizzy didn’tknow, didn’t get the chance to ask, because suddenly Jack’s mouth was on hers,those soft lips that said such infuriatingthings plying her with a gentle kiss. It was nothing like their kiss of death, and yet when Jack drewback Elizabeth still found herself gasping for breath. “Jack?”

“Just an experiment, love.”

Love.

She could not help it. Her lips curled in a smile, and her heart felt like it was made of fireworks.

“And your conclusion?”

“Not sure. Have to try it again.”

Once more his mouth found hers, a much deeper kiss thatcurled her toes and had her grasping for purchase upon his shoulders and in thatmass of ropey hair. The kiss did not stop. Not when Elizabeth accidentallyknocked over the chair with an outstretched leg, and not when Jack’s solid weightpushed her down into the hard oaken planks of the floor. She bore it gladly.