EDIT: Double-post fixed.
In honor of St. Patrick's Day have a story I wrote mostly last year, but
never got around to editing and posting until now. It's very appropriate
for the season, and, oddly enough given my history,
not Good Omens,
but Pirates of the Caribbean.
( To spare my flist )"...a pirate's life for me, yo ho!" Elizabeth sank, breathless, down onto the
damp sand. Across from her Jack Sparrow ambled to a stop, swaying slightly,
and for a moment, the only sounds were their panting breaths, the lapping of
the tide, and the occasional far-off squawk of a bird.
Elizabeth opened her eyes and stared into the multicolored flames of the
driftwood fire. "I still don't understand how you can have an island that
can only be found by someone who has been there before. I mean, how would
anyone ever find it in the first place? And then how would
you find
it?"
Jack leered at her as he walked closer. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. I know
these kinds of things. I'm legendary for it. The Sea talks to me, and she
tells me things, and one night, when I'd been sweet talking her, she told me
the secret of the island."
"Hmph. Not likely," she snorted. "You probably stole a map off some other
pirate one night. An island that can't be found except by those who have
been there before, ha!" A triumphant finger pointed his way.
"Oh yes, I have to admit, it certainly isn't a
logical sounding
thing, is it?" Captain Jack stood almost behind her, the beads and bones
and feathers braided into his hair swaying slightly in the sea wind. "Of
course, I could tell you the
real story of how I discovered the
island, but I doubt you'd be believing me, you being the sort of
logical person who doesn't believe in ghosts and curses and assorted
illogical things like that."
Elizabeth glared at him as best she could, given the way he was starting to
fuzz out around the edges in her vision. Perhaps she might have had just a
bit too much rum? No, she decided, it was merely the result of the
flickering firelight and Jack's inability to keep still--constantly flinging
an arm out or cocking his head at her or fluttering his fingers wildly like
the birds of his namesake. "Tell me then," she said.
Jack paused for another swallow of rum. "Well, I would tell you," he
smiled, "but then I'd have to kill you."
Elizabeth snorted. "You said yourself that we'll most likely die on this
island within a fortnight. I hardly think now is the time for secrets."
"There's
always time for secrets," Jack reprimanded her. "But I
suppose it couldn't hurt to while away the time with this one. You see, it
all began in a bar."
"A bar," Elizabeth repeated, for clarity, struggling to sit upright.
"A bar," Jack agreed. He gazed off into the blue and yellow flames of the
fire. "It was called...
"It was called the Mucky Duck or the Greasy Goose or some such filthy fowl.
I can hardly be expected to remember the name of every pub or tavern I have
frequented over the course of my life, now can I? I was sitting there,
several years ago, drinking..."
"Rum," Elizabeth interjected.
"Yes, rum. As I said, I was sitting there, drinking rum, when I noticed a
very short man sitting in the corner. Now, when I say very short, you are
probably thinking of the eunuch-- sorry, sorry--Will, and that is not at all
what I am trying to get across. I mean
short. Very short. Very
very very very very short. 'Bout...this big." He gestured unsteadily towards
the ground.
"I can't tell how big that is, your arms keep moving," Elizabeth complained,
trying hard to focus her eyes.
Jack peered down at his arms as they stuck out the salt stiffened sleeves of
his shirt. "Do they? Ah, good, thought per'aps it was just me. Anyway,
there, in the corner sat this very very very... very short man. And I
thought,
hello, Jack, you should go over there and see what he's
doing here. 'Cause I recognized him, savvy?"
"What...what was his name? Because then, if I meet him, I can ask him how
short he is."
He scowled. "I don't know his name. Why would I know his name? Or wait...
maybe I do know his name...maybe he told me...I don't remember. Anyway, 's
not important." He waved the question aside impatiently. "I mean, I
recognized
what he was. One of the sidhe."
Elizabeth blinked owlishly. "What?"
"Sidhe. The Fay. The Old Folk. Piskies and goblins and brownies and
boggarts and such."
She snorted. "Are you trying to tell me you believe in fairy tales?"
"Are
you trying to tell me you don't believe in ghosts?"
"Fair enough." She raised the bottle in acquiescence. "So tell me about
your sidhe."
"My sidhe, as you so picturesquely put it, and I wouldn't ever
mention that phrase in front of one of them if you'd like for your pretty
little head to remain attached to your body, was, as I said, very very
short, and very very wrinkled and very very ugly. Uglier even than your
honorable Commander Norrington, and that's saying something."
"I happen to think Commodore Norrington is a very attractive man."
Jack smiled, flashing white teeth against sun-darkened skin as he sank onto
a log next to the bonfire. "No, your
father thinks that, which ought
to prove my point to you. But. I digress. The sidhe was dressed in grimy,
ragged clothes that looked as though they might have been a dark green at
one point early in their life, and that, combined with the line of emptied
glasses in front of him, told me what I had here. I was looking, you
realize, at a real, live leprechaun."
"Wasn't he rather far from home?"
"
That was what I asked. You would be surprised, he said, about the
number of places in the world leprechauns may be found. They have to move
about, you see, with their treasures."
"Treasure," she breathed, eyes wide and lips parted in anticipation.
Jack's answering grin was sharp as a dirk. "You
are a pirate! I
knew it in me bones." He took another swig. "But, aye, treasure. It's the
leprechaun's job to guard hidden treasure, you know. They're tricky sods,
alright, but you can get around 'em if you know how to handle them." He
leant back against the driftwood.
"And how
do you handle them?" Elizabeth asked, curious despite
herself.
"I'll tell you then, Elizabeth, me lass, in case you ever meet up with a
leprechaun of your own. First, you join him for a drink or two. Or three.
Or four. Now, mind you, this is not strictly necessary, but it does tend to
make the ensuing procedure a bit more amusing for all concerned. Then, you
wait until you can catch his eye, and you lock your stare on him so he can't
look away. That's when you tell him to lead you to his treasure. Oh, he'll
try to wiggle out of doing it, but you just keep your eyes fixed on his and
he'll give in and lead the way. Now, this is the tricky part--you can't take
your eyes off him for a second while's he leading you, or he'll vanish,
poof, just like that."
"Poof. Poof, poof, poof," she repeated like an echo, trailing off into the
night and the lapping of the waves.
"Yes, yes. Poof. Here one minute, gone the next."
"I know what that feels like."
"Are you crying?" Jack sat up and crawled over to where Elizabeth sprawled
on the sand. "Look, here, have some more rum, it'll make you feel better.
And let me finish my story; it's bad luck to leave a story unfinished."
She brushed her eyes and took the bottle he offered her. "It is?"
"Well, of course. Don't be daft; even you must know that. So where was I?
Oh, yes. I'd found me a leprechaun. And I was making him lead me to his
treasure. It was a big treasure, he promised. More gold than beyond my
wildest imaginations. You haven't seen the size of my imagination, I
assured him. But it was on a island, he explained, and he had no boat.
What luck, I cried, clapping him on the shoulder, that you should have
happened to stumble across Jack Sparrow, the finest sailor and pirate in the
whole East Indies, and owner of my very own sloop.
"I'm sure he thought that sometime during that sail I would have to take my
eyes off him, to tend the boat or sleep or rest my eyes, but I knew he was
counting on that, and I outsmarted him. We sailed, in that little sloop,
for seven days and seven nights, and that whole time I never slept, nor
rested, nor even blinked. When my eyes would get tired I would close first
one eye, then the other, always making sure I kept him in sight.
"And so, that way, we came to the island. Isla de Muerta, he said it was.
The Island of Death. Well, I'd heard the stories. You couldn't be a pirate
and
not hear the stories. The island that nobody can find except
those who've been there before. And here I was standing foot on it, and
knowing it was chock-full of treasure and knowing I
could come back
to it, but not
how.
"See, the leprechaun had steered us there in the first place, and me with no
sort of compass or map to track his wild course couldn't find my way back.
And I saw his plan then--if I left, I wouldn't be able to come back, and if I
didn't leave, I'd starve to death.
"But they don't call me Captain Jack Sparrow for nothing, so I thought up a
plan even cleverer than his. I crept out a good silver pin from the hem of
my coat, and when he wasn't looking, I pricked him with it, hard, so that
the blood flowed out like cheap ale. And then I let that blood dry on the
pin, and put it in my hat for safekeeping, because I knew his blood would
always point the way back to his treasure. And when I got back to Port
Ascencion, I got a tinker fix my silver pin into a compass for me, and set
off to look for a crew to go back and fill up all that gold that hadn't fit
into me sloop."
"So you got off the island then," she murmured rubbing a hand over her face.
He slung an arm round her shoulders. "'Course, luv, or I wouldn't be here
spending this fine night with you, now would I?"
"But if you were there, on the island, I mean, why didn't you take the
cursed gold then? I mean, well, were you just lucky?"
He leaned back and gave her a roguish grin. "Oh, well, I've always been a
lucky sort. Except with women. And mutinies. And money. And the British
Navy. And that one time in Singapore..."
"Ha!" Elizabeth pointed a wavering finger at him. "You"re not lucky at
all."
Jack's smile grew grimmer. "Considering that our lives are depending upon
us being lucky enough to spot a ship passing through, I wouldn't cast such
aspersions upon me luck, now would I?" He took a long pull from the bottle.
"And I was lucky enough to find a leprechaun, and to find Isla de Muerta and
to not get turned into the undead, so I'd say I'm pretty bloody lucky," he
pointed out. "Besides, it wasn't luck that got me onto my sloop with
nothing more cursed than a hangover. It was skill. After all," Jack closed
his eyes and puffed out his chest, "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."
A growling snore broke the quietness, and Jack opened his eyes to find
Elizabeth tilted against him, her mouth gaping open as she slept. "Aye,
well, lass, I'll find us someway out of this one too." He patted her
shoulder and settled down more comfortably. "You can bet on it." He yawned
and closed his eyes. "First thing in the morning... or possibly the late
afternoon."
Against the crackle of the fire and the lapping of the waves, two loud
snores competed for attention.
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xenokattz 
sleepy
tired