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[called_lioness]

The thing about a compass is if it points two ways, it's utter rubbish.

Or so Lucy's inclined to think, and she'd be the first to admit that she's glaring at the silver object in her hands as she sits in the sand.

(The sand is rougher here, she thinks, distantly, without wanting to, and not so fine under her feet.)

Lucy is generally inclined to watch her language, but she's muttering curses off and on that would make the knights she once rode with and the sailors on the Dawn Treader and the schoolmates of her brothers good and proud.

It's cathartic.

At least, it's keeping her from throwing the stupid thing in the lake.

Comments

[pirate_jack]

It takes a while for the two sounds to blend, but eventually the sound of the shanty that echoes from the depths of the Pearl is clear enough to be heard.

"... devils and black sheep and really bad eggs--"

It's surprising how well it fits in time with Lucy's cursing.

"--a pirate's life for me!"

[called_lioness]

The song catches her ear and she looks up after a moment, tilting her head a little.

The ship's a bit out and a bit down the shore, and she stands after a moment and walks towards it, compass in hand.

(North north north north, it says, if she was looking, before flicking to east for a few moments, and then back to north.)

[pirate_jack]

There's a wooden sort of sound from the Pearl, and then Jack comes striding up the stairs from the lower decks.

He catches sight of the woman on the lakeshore and grins, waving.

"Ahoy the land!"

[called_lioness]

She grins, a bit, and raises her empty hand in greeting.

"Ahoy, Captain Sparrow! How are you this day?"

[pirate_jack]

"Not bad, luv, not bad." He leans on the rail, grinning at her.

"And yourself?"

[called_lioness]

"As well as may be expected," she says cheerfully. "Trying to get the last warmth of the summer, if any's left to get. How's your Pearl?"

[pirate_jack]

She's too far away to easily see the flicker in his glance as she mentions summer's ending, but Jack's grin remains steady enough.

"Well now, luv, why don't you come see that for yourself?"

[called_lioness]

She considers, and then shrugs and grins back at him. "If he was willing to wed me, I should think Caspian would let me borrow his Hope long enough to do so."

Her fingers are nimble as she unties the boat--there's not much longer, she knows, that Caspian is likely to take it out, but it's not so very cold yet--and makes her way back to the Pearl, this time on the water.

"Toss a line, then?" she calls up with a grin when she's alongside the ship.

[pirate_jack]

There's one coiled and ready, and it's the work of a moment to send it down to her.

"She's a trim little thing," Jack says approvingly, looking at the Hope.

[called_lioness]

"Aye," she answers, tying the boat, and it's a minute or so before she's hauled herself up. "He does good work."

[pirate_jack]

"Good man," Jack agrees, lounging back against the railing. "Good sailor, good captain. He'd make a fine pirate."

[called_lioness]

She can't help making a small face at that as she settles on the rail herself, legs dangling. (Not quite lady-like, admittedly, but very Lucy-like.) "I suppose if it'd please him. Though I've had rotten experience with pirates and should prefer him not to. Present company excluded, of course," and it's added with a grin.

[pirate_jack]

"Come to that, so have I," he points out.

(pirate - good man)

"Depends on the person."

[called_lioness]

"Which is the very reason I've come out to your ship," she points out with a small smile.

"But we all have our biases. It's seeing past them that matters, isn't it? For all that, I'd much prefer to be the friend of a pirate than the wife of one, though if it pleased him," and it's ended with a shrug.

If it pleased Caspian, there's little Lucy couldn't accept.

[pirate_jack]

"Clearly it would never have worked between us," he says solemnly enough, even as mischief flashes in the black eyes.

[called_lioness]

"Who knows? If only I'd met you before he proposed," she says with a reasonable deadpan and the only thing keeping her from laughing is every lesson she ever had on diplomacy.

[pirate_jack]

"A shame it wasn't meant to be," he drawls, gesturing grandly out over the water.

"We'd have sailed off to..."

A thoughtful beat, and he's looking absently out across the lake now, and not at her.

"... somewhere..."

[called_lioness]

He's a pirate, and she's a queen, and you might think there's not a lot of common ground there.

And maybe you'd be right and maybe you wouldn't, but there's something sad in Lucy's eyes when she looks out at the lake.

She grew up at least once with salt water outside her door, and there's something about fresh that never will suffice.

"Oh, to Barbados and Japan and China, I'm certain," she says vaguely. "Perhaps if we sailed far enough we'd have reached Galma and the Seven Isles and maybe even the end of the world again."

[pirate_jack]

"Absolutely," Jack says, and now he tips his head back to look up at the mast instead of out at the water, where the shore's all too visible.

"Only need a heading, then it's go where you will."

[called_lioness]

"Only the trick is," and there's something different in her tone as her hand reaches into her pocket and clenches around the metal circle, "first you have to know where that is."

[pirate_jack]

"There's ways to figure that out, luv," he drawls, looking speculatively at her.

[called_lioness]

She laughs, a little, and pulls the compass out.

She's only had it for a week or so, but her fingers dance over it in a way that says she's done this a lot, that it's familiar to feel the ridges and smooth surface under her fingertips.

"Some of them aren't very good."

[pirate_jack]

He cocks his head sideways, looking at the bright steel compass with sudden interest.

Jack glances up at her.

"Something wrong with it?"

[called_lioness]

"You might say that," she says and runs her thumbnail along the edge til she finds the catch.

The needle twirls, sometimes in a full circle, often just back and forth between the only two letters it stops on, N and E, and she shrugs a little and looks over at him.

"It's broken."

It's not, and she knows it, and her eyes says she knows she's lying.

Lucy rarely bothers to lie very well, though her voice and the rest of her face are schooled enough.

[pirate_jack]

He looks sharply at her, then offers an oddly commiserating wry smile.

With one deft movement, Jack's lifted the compass that dangles from a cord at his belt and snapped it open, turning it so she can see it easily.

The needle spins around, one way and then the other, never stopping, while Jack says quietly,

"Same's been said about mine, luv."