Title: darling, if you love me still, forever I will stray
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 208
Summary: A ship is freedom, yes, but a ship without the sea is an empty shell of wood.



This here, this where, is where Jack belongs. Mast afore him, beam below. Sun falling down to cross the world once more.

Shiprat, the crew call him, or monkey. He finds no great offense in it, none that is not already earned. His habit of scaling the rigging is no harm to the ship, with his small stature and sharp eyes. Better a monkey sometimes than all the times a rat, choking on the scent of months of men confined to the saltwater damp of life in the hold.

There is no end to the world, up here, no end to the waves and water and salt of the air. No end to the work he needs to do before scampering away, neither, but work is little cost for dancing above the uncounted fathoms of the deep and cold and always still waters beneath.

If he were a bird, he would perch on the foremast, and nest in the shelter of the goddess Neptune and feed on fish the sailors caught. He is a boy, though, and so work is little price enough for life free of the slow drag of hills past a cart, or being forced to church weekly, or schooling the rest of the days.