The king and his men stole the queen from her bed . . .

[nocorsetsplease]

Who: A nocorsetsplease and a seventeensir and anyone aboard the Britannia.
What: Elizabeth wakes up aboard a ship that isn't hers. (INTRO LOG~)
When: Backdated to November 8th
Where: Aboard the Britannia.
Summary: That the ship isn't hers seems to be the least of her worries. When wild assumptions regarding the ship's own gallant captain lead to misunderstandings, introductions get off to a less than desirable start.
Rating: PG-13, mostly due to the accusations Liz will throw at poor, unsuspecting Horatio.

Elizabeth woke to the very familiar feeling of the ocean beneath her, gently rocking the ship on which she slept. She stretched in the bedclothes, keeping her eyes closed, for the moment she opened them would begin the battle's day, and she was not ready just yet. A moment of pause before she faced the enemy whilst swimming amongst the sharks of the seas would not go amiss.

Yet her eyes were assaulted by far more than the garish light of morn. This cabin was not that of The Empress. Nor could she claim it was that of the Black Pearl. To her knowledge, her memory was without lapse, and yet she could not explain why it was this cabin's image that swarmed her sight.

She rose quickly, the effect this sudden change would have on the tides of this war. The strategy they had devised by candlelight just the eve prior could be lost if things were not in order. The pain in her back panged her conscience, and yet she pushed it aside for more pressing worries. How quickly she dismissed its oddness, and yet it was a foreshadowing missed to warn what had befallen the pirate king.

She took to the deck immediately, looking for a soul that would follow her. She bellowed as soon as the door swung open, giving the very impression she would need these men to have if they were to follow her against Lord Beckett's waiting armada.

"All men lay up to the quarterdeck! Tai Huang, advance our position! Man of the watch, I want report!"

Comments

[simplestgift]

"...You're not dead. It's what everyone thinks at first. But apparently everyone on this little world has them, the wings, so when you arrive you get a pair of your own. They'll stop hurting after a day or so, and eventually you'll sort of forget you have them. Between now and then, though, I'd be careful with them. They bang into absolutely everything they possibly can."

[captainhornblower]

"To say the least, Miss Swann," his voice is struggling for civility, something in him still burning and yet frozen from the accusations, "you are in a place far, far from what you know."

[nocorsetsplease]

Elizabeth took the moments the naval officers spoke to take in her situation. She turned through the logic in her mind, taking deep, shuddering breaths.

If there was a soul who could, it was she that understood that death was not so dull. It was a rather clever thing, dangerously so, that enjoyed dangling devilish things over men that saw them not alive but something else entirely.

If there was a woman who could accept the unnatural and know it to be predictably unpredictable as such, it was she who had come to know the barbaric and thornier veins of the world in her travels.

If there was a sailor who could know that entire worlds existed, it was she who saw the locker of Davy Jones, her transport a rare green flash of light on the horizon. Places were terribly odd, thin veils separating the nearly inaccessible, and she knew them to be.

One breath, then another, less quivering. She gripped her shoulders, feeling the chill and finally noting things she had purposely pushed from her mind previously. The pain in her back, the feel of the sheath over her form clearly not a slip she would have donned, the absence of deckhands and the furled sails. The quiet of the shore, far gentler than the lady ocean she knew.

A less accusing question, and more searching, her voice softer and gentler.

"Was I brought here by either of you...sirs?"

[simplestgift]

"This place brings us here, mad as it sounds. No one's been able to get back on their own." Archie breathed a little easier as the woman seemed to calm down. "Let me...get you something warm to wear. Beg pardon, I'm Mr. Kennedy. First lieutenant aboard this ship. If you'll excuse me for a moment." He salutes her without a lot of conviction, very much preoccupied, and heads into the captain's cabin at the first sign that he's given leave to do so.

[captainhornblower]

Horatio nodded as soon as Archie mentioned finding the woman something else to wear. He was struggling to keep his composure, constantly lecturing himself about the difficulties of arriving in this place, how poorly he'd handled it at first, and that the circumstances had seemed rather set against him. To hold a grudge for what she had suspected... would be an ungentlemanly reaction.

"While I cannot promise it for the rest of this place, I can assure you, Miss, that no harm will come to you while you are on board Britannia, least of all from Mister Kennedy or myself."

[nocorsetsplease]

Elizabeth nodded at the explanation, then again at the Lieutenant's offer. Once left alone to look at the Captain she had accused one deck higher, she could not find the strength to do so.

Everything was utterly wrong.

"Thank you."

She turned away, a sudden breath as though she had something far more winded to say, though wind was all that followed. An exhale of mild defeat. She had no challenge in this moment, nor did she wish to.

"Captain..." She clung to her shoulders tighter and willed herself to look toward him. "My deepest apologies for my accusations. It is a very harsh place, where I have been taken from."

[captainhornblower]

"The... The world is a very harsh place, Miss Swann." It's as gracious and understanding as he can be. He won't apologise himself. As far as he is concerned, he did nothing to give her the impression she got, and there is little, if any, cause to admit error. Particularly when he sees none made by him.

"Your reaction is understandable, and your apology accepted."