POTC fic: "On the Shores of Christmas Eve"
Dec. 1st, 2008 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richTitle: On the Shores of Christmas Eve
Pairing/Characters: W/E, their son, Jack
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters nor do I earn any profit from their depiction.
Warnings: Post-AWE, as canon-compliant as you want it to be.
Summary: Written for the holiday challenge at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
merrypirates. The request was: Jack comes to Port Royal only two years after Will and Elizabeth arrive (six years early). He meets the two children playing on the beach. How does this change the events of canon, assuming he leaves and then returns? AU or not, it's up to you. With a tinge of Christmas cheer!
A/N: Thanks to quick betas![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gryphons_lair, yoiebear, a_silver_rose, mamazano, and metalkatt. (It takes a village for me. *G*)
Oh, you know all about Father Christmas, is that it? Just because the fishmonger’s girl told you he’s not real? Well, perhaps he’s not real for her – maybe he brings her … just more perch, or tree branches, or something, on Christmas day.
But I promise you, Billy, Saint Nicholas is a real person … I’ve met him myself.
Oh, Liam, it is. Yes, I’d forgotten that’s the name you and Grandfather worked out. (Yes, I know he told you to call him Old Bill, but you really should use “Grandfather,” it’s more respectful.) All right – but yes, Liam, there is a Father Christmas. And yes, I did meet him! I was only a few years older than you at the time; your father and I were playing merfolk on the beach, not far behind your grandfather’s house-
No, Bil- er, Liam. Not Old Bill. Hmm, I’m seeing the value of not calling you Billy, after all … no, not Old Bill. Your other grandfather; my father, Governor Swann. The one you never had chance to meet. Yes, he had a great house, grand and filled with servants and treasures. Story for another night – may I continue this one?
Anyway, Will and I were playing at the beach that day. Hmm? Well, we were children, and … like you play near the water. Yes, we were children at one time, young man. Do you think we just sprang fully adult from our fathers’ heads, like Athena? (Yes, we got in trouble, too; usually for interrupting adults. I’ll thank you to let me finish my story before I end up having to finish it for your children, William.)
Where was I? Thank you – yes, your father and I were playing. I think we were about twelve, it was just a couple of years after my father and I had moved to Port Royale, and his efforts at turning me into a lady befitting our name were not very successful. In fact, I believe the blacksmith was having more luck making Will into a proper young gentleman, and he wasn’t even trying half so hard. It was about this time of year – in fact, it was the eve of Christmas, just like tonight. Exactly … let me think … fifteen years ago, to the day.
Well, we hadn’t been playing long when we caught sight of a figure out of the corners of our eyes. Flying up the beach, he was, greatcoat billowed out behind him, feet high-stepping almost like a fancy horse’s, waving his hands even from a distance. We were building a sand-ship, and we were afraid he’d come right through and not see it, and flatten it. So we jumped up and started waving at him, alerting him to its presence. We never expected him to stop.
He did stop, though, and he wasn’t even breathing that hard. He straightened his coat, tugged at his sash, and pushed his long black hair back behind his ears. And shoved his hat down harder on his head, where it had been about to blow off. And he was looking at us in our sand-dirty clothes, and our ship, and he asked, “What is this, then? Where’re your mums and dads?”
Of course they weren’t there. Our chaperone, my governess, had gone off to meet with her beau, one of the local officers – she knew she could trust us not to escape the island. (No, you may not play alone yet. I was twice your age; you’ll get older. Don’t wish so hard for it. Besides, she wasn’t supposed to leave us.) Anyway, we didn’t know this strange-looking man, and I didn’t want him to run off right away – and he did seem concerned about parents – so we fibbed and told him we were pirate foundlings waiting for our ship.
“Are you, then?” the stranger replied. “Well, then, I’m Saint Nick – pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Yes, he really was THE Saint Nicholas. Didn’t I promise you a story of how I met him as a girl?
If you meet Father Christmas, you can hardly let him get away without asking some questions! We asked where his snowy beard and fur-trimmed cloak were, for we didn’t believe it, either – but he explained because the Caribbean is much warmer than our old homes in England, where we’d heard our stories about him, he had to dress more lightly. He said the white hair was a disguise, he wasn’t really that old, but he didn’t want children to recognize him the rest of the year.
So then he notices our ship and started asking us about it. I was the one who told him the most, since I’d read more about real ships – your father didn’t know nearly as much about them then as he does now. We had a stick for a mizzenmast, but no lines – well, Saint Nick, as he insisted we call him, fished in his pockets and then pulled some fray off his sash to serve as ropes for our little sand-ship.
“Are you here to leave presents for the children?” I finally asked. Before he can answer, Will’s arguing with me. “He’s not going to leave anything,” he insists. “Father Christmas isn’t real.”
See? He didn’t believe, either. I bet some fishmonger’s daughter told him the same thing you were told today. But Saint Nick, he set us both right.
“Aye, that’s precisely why I’m here,” he corrected us. “Just trying to find a place to … hide, until later tonight. Wouldn’t do to be seen by too many parents or their little ones.”
Just as I was going to tell him about a cave nearby, your father pipes up again. “Prove it,” he says to Saint Nick, bold as you please and surprising even me. “Surely you have something for us, that you could give to us now instead of later. We already know you’re here.”
Well, Saint Nick, he looks at Will pretty hard, then looks at me as if he’s thinking, and then sort of bows in our direction. “Very well,” he tells us. “But you have to stay right there, and not look.” Then, he turns his back to us and pulls open his coat on both sides, and stands there like that for a little while – he was conjuring from his magic, you see, and couldn’t have us observing him at work.
Finally, he turned around, one hand closed into a fist and the other wrapped around a fine new sword. To Will he handed the sword, and when I cupped my hands together as instructed, he dropped into them a fine amber jewel, half as big as a hen’s egg and imbued with tiny streaks of gold and black.
“A sword?” Will asks him. He’s looking at it from all angles and saying how it looks rather familiar on the pommel – that is, until Saint Nick interrupts his musings.
“Pirate lad like yourself knows how to use a sword, yes?” Well – no, Will didn’t. He was a blacksmith’s apprentice, and all he ever had chance to do was watch his master make swords, and perhaps someday learn to do it himself.
Without waiting for an answer, Saint Nick pulls his own sword from his baldric and holds it out as if in challenge, a bit playfully, toward your father. Without hesitation, Will brings his sword up to defend. You never saw a sight that would’ve made you laugh as much – this boy not much bigger than you, learning to fight against Father Christmas himself! Oh yes, he was very good even without training; your father’s the best swordsman in the Seven Seas, Liam, and I’ve no doubt when you’re old enough, you’ll be every bit as cunning and skilled. When you’re old enough to learn.
When he can come home to be with us …
Saint Nicholas? He couldn’t stay long; he had to leave and prepare his magic for that night, so he could deliver gifts and then go see other children in England and the colonies, and Singapore, and Africa. After a few minutes, he allowed your father to best him, then put his sword away, wished us Happy Christmas, and headed inland to the cave I told him about.
Then, I turned to Will. “Now do you believe in Father Christmas?” I asked him. And he answered, “If you say he is so, Miss Swann” – yes, that’s what he called me, it was polite, young man, don’t laugh so – “and he proves it himself, how can I contradict it?”
And now it’s your bedtime. Don’t question me, I saw you yawning. Besides, I assure you it was a rare occurrence and Saint Nicholas will not leave you anything if you’re up and watching. Good boy … say your prayers, don’t forget to include Grandfather and your father’s crew, for they surely need Father Christmas as much as the youngest child …
Sweet dreams, young William.
*****
It was an hour later when Elizabeth’s attentive ears picked up the sound of footsteps on the front stones near the door. She approached it with a pistol, waiting for the light, distinctive tap-signal they’d prearranged when they ran into each other at market earlier that day, when she’d been out getting the last of Billy’s – Liam’s – holiday gifts.
She opened the door quietly, and shut it just as silently behind Jack while he dusted off his sleeves. “Startin’ to drizzle a bit out there,” he said, until Elizabeth shook her head and made cutting motions in his direction. “Th’ kid asleep?”
“Yes, but I’d rather not take the chance he’ll see you before morning,” she whispered. “I’d rather you to bed earlier than later.” When he leered good-naturedly, she fixed him with an amused stare. “I prefer men who bathe,” she reminded him. “With some manners.”
“Aye, well, the whelp curses, I’m sorry t’ inform you. Did last time I saw him, anyhow.” From a deep pocket of his greatcoat he pulled a wax-sealed packet. “From th’ mister to the missus.”
Like a child on Christmas, Elizabeth snatched the stiffened papers from Jack, grinning. “How long ago?”
“Less than a month. Few weeks at most. Sends his love to th’ miniature, as well.” He nodded toward the closed door in her small cottage. “I feel more than a mite like Father Christmas – would you have any candies or perhaps somethin’ sweet to drink, on th’ premises?”
“There’s rum in your room, Saint Nick,” she pointed out.
He put a hand to his chest. “Upon my word!” he hissed dramatically.
“Jack, it’s Christmas. Or near enough. Some cheer in moderation, I don’t object to.” She was already working to break the wax around her husband’s letter.
He gestured at her as if going to say something, then shook his head. “I’ll see myself to th’ rum – I mean, bed.” He was halfway down the corridor to the third bedroom when she called his name in a loud whisper, and he turned and came back a little.
“He’ll be happy to see you in the morning,” she smiled. “Just as I am now.”
“You’re happy to see Will’s messenger,” he corrected her, but his lips twitched in a bemused smirk. “I figured he would’ve been waiting up for a visitor.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t tell him you were in town. It’s part of his Christmas.” She sighed. “He’s already getting old enough he doesn’t believe the same things anymore. I had to tell him the ‘Saint Nick’ story to get around some older girl who told him such things don’t exist.”
“Who would’ve ever thought th’ son of the captain of the Flying Dutchman would question miracles, eh?” Jack observed, quietly. “All right, Mrs. Turner – I know my place. To bed until morning.”
“You just want the rum.”
“Compensation, darling.” He bowed, then took himself off to her extra bed.
Later, as Elizabeth read Will’s letter for the second time, she recalled their first meeting with Captain Jack Sparrow, Notorious Pirate, upon the beach. Of course, neither had believed him Father Christmas any more than he had believed himself a good man, long abandoned by a traitorous crew and best friend, even his ship out of reach. But she’d convinced Will to show some Christmas charity and not to go to her father or Lieutenant Norrington with the information.
“Did you ever think this day would finally get here?” Elizabeth asked on the eve of their first wedding, playing with her necklace.
“Not nearly soon enough, no.” Will flashed her a brilliant smile, then reached up to hold the amber pendant on the tips of his fingers. “If you don’t quit messing with this, it’ll break, I swear.”
“Nonsense.” She shook her head, gesturing toward the glow of the coals where she’d found her fiancé just a few minutes earlier when she sneaked out to the smithy and let herself in the back way through the alley. Neither had been able to sleep. “You made it, how could it break?”
“I’m hardly Hephaestus,” he snorted. He continued to finger the stone she’d received as a child from “Saint Nick,” which she’d relocated among her things a few months earlier. Will had immediately suggested she wear it, as it went well with her eyes and hair, and had worked it into a pendant setting which she wore on a simple tie around her neck.
“I would hope not, given the behavior of his wife,” she harrumphed, raising an eyebrow.
They talked for a while, occasionally stopping for other things. When she was about to leave an hour after her arrival, impulsively, she lifted the makeshift necklace over her head and placed it over Will’s. “What’s this, then?” he wondered.
“You wear it,” she said. “As a gift. Or a favor, if you like. To remind you of me when we can’t be together.”
He laughed. “Elizabeth, I don’t believe I’ll be going further than the other side of the island without you after tomorrow.”
“Humor a sentimental girl,” she teased. For some reason, the idea had struck her – she didn’t know why at the time, but she’d felt uneasy as she’d risen to leave, as though she might not see her wedding day after all. “Surely you’d not refuse your future wife?”
He’d nodded, taking her hands and kissing each. “All right. But I’m telling you, you’re worried for nothing. You’ll see.”
Unable to sleep again, Elizabeth carried the letter to her secretary and pulled an unmarked piece of parchment from her locked store, then prepared the quill. She thought for a moment, chuckled, then began to write.
Dear Will she began, Guess who showed up on my beach for another Christmas Eve?
Pairing/Characters: W/E, their son, Jack
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters nor do I earn any profit from their depiction.
Warnings: Post-AWE, as canon-compliant as you want it to be.
Summary: Written for the holiday challenge at
merrypirates. The request was: Jack comes to Port Royal only two years after Will and Elizabeth arrive (six years early). He meets the two children playing on the beach. How does this change the events of canon, assuming he leaves and then returns? AU or not, it's up to you. With a tinge of Christmas cheer!A/N: Thanks to quick betas
gryphons_lair, yoiebear, a_silver_rose, mamazano, and metalkatt. (It takes a village for me. *G*)Oh, you know all about Father Christmas, is that it? Just because the fishmonger’s girl told you he’s not real? Well, perhaps he’s not real for her – maybe he brings her … just more perch, or tree branches, or something, on Christmas day.
But I promise you, Billy, Saint Nicholas is a real person … I’ve met him myself.
Oh, Liam, it is. Yes, I’d forgotten that’s the name you and Grandfather worked out. (Yes, I know he told you to call him Old Bill, but you really should use “Grandfather,” it’s more respectful.) All right – but yes, Liam, there is a Father Christmas. And yes, I did meet him! I was only a few years older than you at the time; your father and I were playing merfolk on the beach, not far behind your grandfather’s house-
No, Bil- er, Liam. Not Old Bill. Hmm, I’m seeing the value of not calling you Billy, after all … no, not Old Bill. Your other grandfather; my father, Governor Swann. The one you never had chance to meet. Yes, he had a great house, grand and filled with servants and treasures. Story for another night – may I continue this one?
Anyway, Will and I were playing at the beach that day. Hmm? Well, we were children, and … like you play near the water. Yes, we were children at one time, young man. Do you think we just sprang fully adult from our fathers’ heads, like Athena? (Yes, we got in trouble, too; usually for interrupting adults. I’ll thank you to let me finish my story before I end up having to finish it for your children, William.)
Where was I? Thank you – yes, your father and I were playing. I think we were about twelve, it was just a couple of years after my father and I had moved to Port Royale, and his efforts at turning me into a lady befitting our name were not very successful. In fact, I believe the blacksmith was having more luck making Will into a proper young gentleman, and he wasn’t even trying half so hard. It was about this time of year – in fact, it was the eve of Christmas, just like tonight. Exactly … let me think … fifteen years ago, to the day.
Well, we hadn’t been playing long when we caught sight of a figure out of the corners of our eyes. Flying up the beach, he was, greatcoat billowed out behind him, feet high-stepping almost like a fancy horse’s, waving his hands even from a distance. We were building a sand-ship, and we were afraid he’d come right through and not see it, and flatten it. So we jumped up and started waving at him, alerting him to its presence. We never expected him to stop.
He did stop, though, and he wasn’t even breathing that hard. He straightened his coat, tugged at his sash, and pushed his long black hair back behind his ears. And shoved his hat down harder on his head, where it had been about to blow off. And he was looking at us in our sand-dirty clothes, and our ship, and he asked, “What is this, then? Where’re your mums and dads?”
Of course they weren’t there. Our chaperone, my governess, had gone off to meet with her beau, one of the local officers – she knew she could trust us not to escape the island. (No, you may not play alone yet. I was twice your age; you’ll get older. Don’t wish so hard for it. Besides, she wasn’t supposed to leave us.) Anyway, we didn’t know this strange-looking man, and I didn’t want him to run off right away – and he did seem concerned about parents – so we fibbed and told him we were pirate foundlings waiting for our ship.
“Are you, then?” the stranger replied. “Well, then, I’m Saint Nick – pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Yes, he really was THE Saint Nicholas. Didn’t I promise you a story of how I met him as a girl?
If you meet Father Christmas, you can hardly let him get away without asking some questions! We asked where his snowy beard and fur-trimmed cloak were, for we didn’t believe it, either – but he explained because the Caribbean is much warmer than our old homes in England, where we’d heard our stories about him, he had to dress more lightly. He said the white hair was a disguise, he wasn’t really that old, but he didn’t want children to recognize him the rest of the year.
So then he notices our ship and started asking us about it. I was the one who told him the most, since I’d read more about real ships – your father didn’t know nearly as much about them then as he does now. We had a stick for a mizzenmast, but no lines – well, Saint Nick, as he insisted we call him, fished in his pockets and then pulled some fray off his sash to serve as ropes for our little sand-ship.
“Are you here to leave presents for the children?” I finally asked. Before he can answer, Will’s arguing with me. “He’s not going to leave anything,” he insists. “Father Christmas isn’t real.”
See? He didn’t believe, either. I bet some fishmonger’s daughter told him the same thing you were told today. But Saint Nick, he set us both right.
“Aye, that’s precisely why I’m here,” he corrected us. “Just trying to find a place to … hide, until later tonight. Wouldn’t do to be seen by too many parents or their little ones.”
Just as I was going to tell him about a cave nearby, your father pipes up again. “Prove it,” he says to Saint Nick, bold as you please and surprising even me. “Surely you have something for us, that you could give to us now instead of later. We already know you’re here.”
Well, Saint Nick, he looks at Will pretty hard, then looks at me as if he’s thinking, and then sort of bows in our direction. “Very well,” he tells us. “But you have to stay right there, and not look.” Then, he turns his back to us and pulls open his coat on both sides, and stands there like that for a little while – he was conjuring from his magic, you see, and couldn’t have us observing him at work.
Finally, he turned around, one hand closed into a fist and the other wrapped around a fine new sword. To Will he handed the sword, and when I cupped my hands together as instructed, he dropped into them a fine amber jewel, half as big as a hen’s egg and imbued with tiny streaks of gold and black.
“A sword?” Will asks him. He’s looking at it from all angles and saying how it looks rather familiar on the pommel – that is, until Saint Nick interrupts his musings.
“Pirate lad like yourself knows how to use a sword, yes?” Well – no, Will didn’t. He was a blacksmith’s apprentice, and all he ever had chance to do was watch his master make swords, and perhaps someday learn to do it himself.
Without waiting for an answer, Saint Nick pulls his own sword from his baldric and holds it out as if in challenge, a bit playfully, toward your father. Without hesitation, Will brings his sword up to defend. You never saw a sight that would’ve made you laugh as much – this boy not much bigger than you, learning to fight against Father Christmas himself! Oh yes, he was very good even without training; your father’s the best swordsman in the Seven Seas, Liam, and I’ve no doubt when you’re old enough, you’ll be every bit as cunning and skilled. When you’re old enough to learn.
When he can come home to be with us …
Saint Nicholas? He couldn’t stay long; he had to leave and prepare his magic for that night, so he could deliver gifts and then go see other children in England and the colonies, and Singapore, and Africa. After a few minutes, he allowed your father to best him, then put his sword away, wished us Happy Christmas, and headed inland to the cave I told him about.
Then, I turned to Will. “Now do you believe in Father Christmas?” I asked him. And he answered, “If you say he is so, Miss Swann” – yes, that’s what he called me, it was polite, young man, don’t laugh so – “and he proves it himself, how can I contradict it?”
And now it’s your bedtime. Don’t question me, I saw you yawning. Besides, I assure you it was a rare occurrence and Saint Nicholas will not leave you anything if you’re up and watching. Good boy … say your prayers, don’t forget to include Grandfather and your father’s crew, for they surely need Father Christmas as much as the youngest child …
Sweet dreams, young William.
*****
It was an hour later when Elizabeth’s attentive ears picked up the sound of footsteps on the front stones near the door. She approached it with a pistol, waiting for the light, distinctive tap-signal they’d prearranged when they ran into each other at market earlier that day, when she’d been out getting the last of Billy’s – Liam’s – holiday gifts.
She opened the door quietly, and shut it just as silently behind Jack while he dusted off his sleeves. “Startin’ to drizzle a bit out there,” he said, until Elizabeth shook her head and made cutting motions in his direction. “Th’ kid asleep?”
“Yes, but I’d rather not take the chance he’ll see you before morning,” she whispered. “I’d rather you to bed earlier than later.” When he leered good-naturedly, she fixed him with an amused stare. “I prefer men who bathe,” she reminded him. “With some manners.”
“Aye, well, the whelp curses, I’m sorry t’ inform you. Did last time I saw him, anyhow.” From a deep pocket of his greatcoat he pulled a wax-sealed packet. “From th’ mister to the missus.”
Like a child on Christmas, Elizabeth snatched the stiffened papers from Jack, grinning. “How long ago?”
“Less than a month. Few weeks at most. Sends his love to th’ miniature, as well.” He nodded toward the closed door in her small cottage. “I feel more than a mite like Father Christmas – would you have any candies or perhaps somethin’ sweet to drink, on th’ premises?”
“There’s rum in your room, Saint Nick,” she pointed out.
He put a hand to his chest. “Upon my word!” he hissed dramatically.
“Jack, it’s Christmas. Or near enough. Some cheer in moderation, I don’t object to.” She was already working to break the wax around her husband’s letter.
He gestured at her as if going to say something, then shook his head. “I’ll see myself to th’ rum – I mean, bed.” He was halfway down the corridor to the third bedroom when she called his name in a loud whisper, and he turned and came back a little.
“He’ll be happy to see you in the morning,” she smiled. “Just as I am now.”
“You’re happy to see Will’s messenger,” he corrected her, but his lips twitched in a bemused smirk. “I figured he would’ve been waiting up for a visitor.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t tell him you were in town. It’s part of his Christmas.” She sighed. “He’s already getting old enough he doesn’t believe the same things anymore. I had to tell him the ‘Saint Nick’ story to get around some older girl who told him such things don’t exist.”
“Who would’ve ever thought th’ son of the captain of the Flying Dutchman would question miracles, eh?” Jack observed, quietly. “All right, Mrs. Turner – I know my place. To bed until morning.”
“You just want the rum.”
“Compensation, darling.” He bowed, then took himself off to her extra bed.
Later, as Elizabeth read Will’s letter for the second time, she recalled their first meeting with Captain Jack Sparrow, Notorious Pirate, upon the beach. Of course, neither had believed him Father Christmas any more than he had believed himself a good man, long abandoned by a traitorous crew and best friend, even his ship out of reach. But she’d convinced Will to show some Christmas charity and not to go to her father or Lieutenant Norrington with the information.
“Did you ever think this day would finally get here?” Elizabeth asked on the eve of their first wedding, playing with her necklace.
“Not nearly soon enough, no.” Will flashed her a brilliant smile, then reached up to hold the amber pendant on the tips of his fingers. “If you don’t quit messing with this, it’ll break, I swear.”
“Nonsense.” She shook her head, gesturing toward the glow of the coals where she’d found her fiancé just a few minutes earlier when she sneaked out to the smithy and let herself in the back way through the alley. Neither had been able to sleep. “You made it, how could it break?”
“I’m hardly Hephaestus,” he snorted. He continued to finger the stone she’d received as a child from “Saint Nick,” which she’d relocated among her things a few months earlier. Will had immediately suggested she wear it, as it went well with her eyes and hair, and had worked it into a pendant setting which she wore on a simple tie around her neck.
“I would hope not, given the behavior of his wife,” she harrumphed, raising an eyebrow.
They talked for a while, occasionally stopping for other things. When she was about to leave an hour after her arrival, impulsively, she lifted the makeshift necklace over her head and placed it over Will’s. “What’s this, then?” he wondered.
“You wear it,” she said. “As a gift. Or a favor, if you like. To remind you of me when we can’t be together.”
He laughed. “Elizabeth, I don’t believe I’ll be going further than the other side of the island without you after tomorrow.”
“Humor a sentimental girl,” she teased. For some reason, the idea had struck her – she didn’t know why at the time, but she’d felt uneasy as she’d risen to leave, as though she might not see her wedding day after all. “Surely you’d not refuse your future wife?”
He’d nodded, taking her hands and kissing each. “All right. But I’m telling you, you’re worried for nothing. You’ll see.”
Unable to sleep again, Elizabeth carried the letter to her secretary and pulled an unmarked piece of parchment from her locked store, then prepared the quill. She thought for a moment, chuckled, then began to write.
Dear Will she began, Guess who showed up on my beach for another Christmas Eve?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 03:32 am (UTC)> No, you may not play alone yet. I was twice your age; you’ll get older... Besides, she wasn’t supposed to leave us. <
Liam has been warned. >:)
> “Aye, well, the whelp curses, I’m sorry t’ inform you. Did last time I saw him, anyhow.” <
I guess life at sea does that to a guy.
> “I’m hardly Hephaestus.” “I would hope not, given the behavior of his wife.” <
Ah, how I love Greek Myth refs!
This fic is both feasible and delightful- I particularly enjoyed Jack's explaining why he didn't look like a conventional Father Christmas.
And of course he can fill that role when it matters most.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 03:38 am (UTC)I sort of feel like I cheated by resorting to Elizabeth's narrative instead of writing everything outright - show, don't tell - but I was trying to keep the story short, so ... I cheated. LOL. I'm glad you liked it, though.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 03:44 am (UTC)It's fine like that! Telling stories to children is a thing people do at Christmas. And it provided opportunity to slip in those afore-referenced funny comments.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 03:52 am (UTC)What a great present: Santa Jack... Nickl-Jack...Father Christ-Jack.... well, what ever! "...guess who showed up on my beach..." indeed!
Touching that Will would be sending those little gifts and missives, trying desperately to maintain a connection with his family. Christmas is a heartbreaker, isn't it?
A great response to a formidable challenge. My compliments to the village!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:25 am (UTC)Mom finally shut me up with: "We'll leave a door unlocked for him, okay?"
I'm glad I was able to get an idea that uses all three of the main characters with some humor. And that you enjoyed it. *G*
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:11 am (UTC)I think this happening is rather like blind pigs hunting for truffles - they actually manage to hit one once in a while. *G*
Thanks!
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Date: 2008-12-02 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 05:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 06:45 am (UTC)What a great description of Jack! I'm not usually into the domestic scene, but this was sweet. Christmas just calls for that and even Jack can settle on land for at least one night, eh?
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Date: 2008-12-02 02:41 pm (UTC)Glad you liked it.
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Date: 2008-12-02 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-12-02 10:56 am (UTC)I don't imagine too many in the fandom really acknowledge the age difference between Will, Elizabeth and Jack. The same goes for Norrington. This little piece really brings that home, and makes sense how the friendship would have lasted.
Additionally, I do love Elizabeth referring to Liam's grandparents, we also lose track of this kid's lineage, pretty impressive if you ask me.
A wonderful Christmas moment, without the saccharine sweet sticky gooey fluff that usually accompanies stories like this. Well done!
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Date: 2008-12-02 02:36 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading!
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Date: 2008-12-23 10:09 pm (UTC)