Florence raised her hands in mock defense, stepping back in place. One of the red suited guards held out Jack's pistol and belt to the officer. Florence blinked, frowning in confusion then turned to Jack. He noticed her expression and leaned towards her ear,
"I was going to dive in to help y-"
"I'm a goddamn siren, Captain." Florence whisper-screamed back.
He sucked in one side of his cheek, biting on it. If it weren't for the situation where they were both about to get shot by a dozen navy men, she would be laughing.
The officer took the pirate's pistol and belt, examining the former.
"Extra powder," he states, plucking the powder horn on Jack's belt, "but no additional shot."
The pirate captain shrugs while Florence keeps her frown still.
A shot to give silence to the overwhelming pain of hunger and thirst while your head goes bonkers from being alone on an island.
She couldn't imagine the betrayal he must've felt.
The British navy officer unhooks the compass from the belt he held and opens it. He frowns at it, scrunching his face just slightly as if to keep the sun out of his eyes despite the sun shone behind him. The officer then turns his wrist, adjusting the direction of the compass, yet it points in the direction behind him, where Elizabeth and her father stand.
"It doesn't bear true," he snaps the compass closed, a smug look on his face. Jack and Florence stole a glance at each other.
Again, the officer took another effect from the pirate's belt, his scabbard. The man pulls the sword from its sheath.
"I half-expected it to be made of wood." He scoffs while Florence rolls her eyes.
"Taking stock: you've got a pistol with only one shot, a compass that doesn't point north, a poor girl to do your bidding ... and no ship." The man nods to Florence to which she raises an eyebrow.
"You are, without a doubt, the worst pirate I have ever heard of."
"Ah, but you have heard of me."
Men.
A man comes from behind the speaking officer with some shackles, approaching Jack. Elizabeth steps forward, slipping the jacket off her shoulders.
"Commodore, I must protest! That woman saved my life and if that man is her companion, pirate of not, I will not let you do this."
Florence and Jack's eyes bounce between the two arguing, as if watching a game of some sort.
"One good deed is not enough to redeem a man or woman of a lifetime of wickedness. Miss," He turns to Florence, "you are under arrest for assisting a pirate."
Clink.
The shackles close on both of their wrists.
"It seems to be enough to condemn him." Jack sighs, jangling his wrists.
"Indeed," the man- commodore apparently, smiles.
Now that the two of them were safely chained, Norrington nods to his men. All but one stow their weapons, and two step forward.
"Finally," Jack grins.
Lightning-quick, he takes his chain and wraps it around Florence's throat. She gasps and immediately shoots her hands up to pry off his hands but to no avail.
"What the f-"
Jack closes his palm around her mouth, muffling her spouts of anger. The siren thrashes around, but his grip is tight.
The air is silent, guns are still drawn.
"Kill her, why should we care? The both of you would have died in the gallows tomorrow, this just makes it easier for us." The commodore laughs.
Jack slowly releases her jaw and pulls back her hair. Florence's eyes dart about the people around her, her chest quickly rising and falling.
This damned pirate was going to kill her as a scapegoat.
All eyes watch as Jack reveals three lines on each side of her neck as well as a few shimmering scales where the water in her hair had dripped down. Her nostrils flared like a wild animal, still squirming in the grip of the man who just wrote her death sentence.
"A siren..." the commodore breathes, waving his men to lower their weapons as he takes a step closer and pulls his sword. Florence swallows, the muscles in her neck adjusting to the pressure of the chain straining on it.
The man raises his sword, sliding it down the side of the siren's neck, seeing the gills shiver from the cold of the metal.
Jack takes a step back, bringing Florence with him.
"Sorry, luv." he whispers.
"Damn pirate." she seethes.
"They say a tear from a siren can make you immortal," Jack tempts the man, "Take her as my parting gift." He shrugs, teeth shining in the sunlight.
"Commodore Norrington ... my pistol and belt, please."
He hesitates, anger stemming through his veins.
"Commodore!" Jack's voice rings out in a sing-song tone.
One of the navy men holding Jack's effects hands them to Norrington. He holds them out to Jack.
"If you would be so kind, siren."
"I have half a mind to bite your head off."
"You'll have plenty of time to do that later."
Florence is nudged to take his stuff, so she does. Jack flips her around to face him and he is met with a scowl.
"Now, if you'd be very kind?"
Jack takes his gun from her hands and points it at her head.
Dramatic much?
Florence bites her cheek to keep her from saying something irrational. Yet she was talking with a pirate, so what's considered irrational now? The siren bends just slightly, taking the belt and yanking it around the captain's waist, buckling it in the front with another harsh tug.
"You're definitely a pirate." Florence whispers under her breath.
Jack pretends he doesn't hear and flips her again, backing them both up until he bumps against the cargo gantry.
"Gentlemen," he pauses and winks at Elizabeth, "m'lady, you will always remember this as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow."
He pulls his chain down, hands wrapped around Florence's waist and kicks a belaying pin to a nearby rope which he grabs with the little free movement allowed by his chains. A counterweight drops and the two of them are lifted up to the middle of the gantry, where he grabs a second rope. From the strain of the movement of his hands and the pressure on Florence's waist the old shackles snap, gifting a grin to Jack's face and a scared look to Florence's.
Pistols fire and miss while the fleeing pirate and siren swing out away from and around the gantry. The two of them drop from the rope, plummeting past one of the gantry's guy lines, dropping to the deck of a ship, they run, leaping to another ship, and then out of sight of the navy.
"Why did you do that? They're going to be hunting me now!" Florence yells at him, out of breath.
Jack just grins, slowing to a light jog and slipping inside a shop with barn doors and above it a sign with a black anvil.
"Seems you can walk now, fear will make a perso- creature do crazy things." He says, correcting himself after looking the siren up and down.
Florence gasps, ignoring the smugness in his voice and looking down at her legs which were shaking from exhaustion.
She collapsed on an upright barrel, catching her breath but the captain snapped his fingers, "up you go, we need to get those chains off ya." It's only then that Florence notices her surroundings.
No windows. The forge is dark, lit by lanterns. Work-in-progress is scattered about: wagon wheels, wrought iron gates, pipes, even a cannon with a crack in it. But every tool is in place. A blacksmith's workshop.
Florence realizes she's lost the pirate so she hopps up, finding him leaning over the body of a horrid-smelling man.
"Is he alive?" the siren whispers, stalking quietly over to them.
"M'think..." Jack turns around then quickly spins on his feet.
"AHH!"
Florence jumps, falling onto her back and then breaks into a fit of laughter. Jack's mouth twitches and holds out a hand to help her up. She took his hand, pulled up so they met, belly to belly. Jack dips his hat, enclosing them in their little bubble. He smiles, pink blossoming on both of their cheeks.
A snore breaks them away from each other.
Jack clears his throat and nods to the glowing coke furnace in the middle of the room. Walking to it while Florence follows, adjusting her long white dress. Where the dress came from originally, she didn't want to know. All she knows is that the bootleggers had an odd assortment of women's clothes but no pants, or at least she wasn't given any. The only thing that seemed comfortable and her size was this white dress.
Slowly, Jack holds his right hand over the furnace, the clasps around his wrist begin to glow. He starts to sweat and grimace at the pain. Florence makes the same face he does, bunching her clothing in her fists, scared he was going to get seriously hurt. She had seen his scars, all along his arms and on his neck and face. All sharp, A to B lines. Swords. Albeit, there were a few scratches where the skin came up like wet paper, bullet wounds. Too many. And she hadn't even seen his torso or legs.
The pirate now moved, setting his wrist on the nose of an anvil, bringing the sledge down with a fast hard stroke on the glowing metal. It cracks open. He grins, flexing his hand then wincing at the blisters forming beneath the manacle. But his hands are free.
"C'mere," he motions to Florence who shakes her head. He smiles, she backs up as he moves towards her. Her back bumps into an object. She turns her head, finding a mechanism attached to a donkey, she follows the movement of where the gears would turn then pumps air into the fireplace to keep it going. In her distraction, the pirate moved closer, cornering her to the mechanism. Florence lowered her eyelids in an attempt to glare at him but he just smiled, taking her chained hands and raising them above her head. She caught her breath in her chest, taking in his eyes. A beautiful cocoa color like the coconuts that sometimes rolled into the ocean. He in turn was mentally scolding himself for getting distracted in her porcelain skin and emerald green eyes. Her hair flowed down her back in ropes of golden red. The freckles that were scattered like stars in constellations across her body.
He leaned closer, their noses inches away from touching but he hooked her chained wrists on the beam above her and stepped back, leaving her trapped. She clenched her jaw, he swore he caught sight of her eyes glistening and her brows bunching together.
Fragile.
Don't break her. He promised himself.
Then don't play with her. The other half of him argued while he plastered a smug looking smile on his face.
He turned his back to her, immediately dropping the facade, working quickly to shove a fire poker into the flames. Florence sighed, freezing her face for a moment before she realized the pirate was about to burn the donkey.
"Hey!"
Jack lifted a brow, moments away from burning the ass's ass.
"Just gently lead the donkey along, don't you dare burn that precious animal." The siren glared at him. He looked unconvinced and rolled his eyes, continuing his motions.
"I'll sing!" she threatened, narrowing her eyes.
Jack paused in his tracks. The song of a siren can leave deadly symptoms on a man. Letting out a puff of breath, immediately putting the fire poker back and muttering to himself madly. He wandered back to the animal and took its halter, tugging a little roughly, but at least the animal wasn't burned.
Florence softened her gaze, seeing people being nice to animals was a soft part in her heart. She could never bring herself to eat an animal. Humans were just as bad, worse even because they could talk to her. She could never bring herself to eat one, instead converting to kale and sea cucumbers. The glorious greens of the sea.
As the gears reached her chains, under the pressure, they snapped free. She let her arms fall to her sides, shaking them a bit to let the blood rush back to them and stop prickling. The sound of the latch on the door made Jack dive towards her, tumbling them both to the ground while he held her quiet to his chest with a hand over her mouth and the other tight to her waist. The thudding of mixed heartbeats flooded their ears as they hid behind a wooden pillar.
A man, young according to his smooth face and rich black hair covering his chin and tied back on the back of his head, walked in. Spotting the drunken man slumped in the corner, the young man says something intelligible.
He talks to himself.
We're stuck in a musty ass room with a crazy blacksmith.
Wonderful.
Florence rolls her eyes, breathing in the sweet scent of leather. It wasn't a good sweet, it was more like smelling a dessert but you know you're going to be sick if you eat it type of sweet.
You can't have him.