her fight and fury's fiery, oh but she loves like sleep to the freezing
The Ark feels the tug of Jack's magic where it catches at the water still beading from her skin, and a sly smile presses against his shoulder at the sensation of it. She draws one deep, contented breath and lets it go slowly, shifting beneath him until the weight of him settles more comfortably across her, as natural as an anchor finding the sea-floor after a hard crossing.
His voice has her eyes opening, lashes brushing softly against the skin of his chest as she listens. Amusement reaches her expression almost as quickly as it has his, though hers carries a sharper edge when she tilts her face enough to look up at him. "That’s what they reckon, do they?" A quiet, scornful snort leaves her. The whole idea has the flavour of idle dockside talk, of people who have nothing worth tending in their own lives and so make a pastime of reducing other people’s choices to something small enough to understand. Worse, it betrays that they’ve never seen anything resembling true partnership. What exists between her and Jack isn’t a flimsy tether of sweetness and breathless looks, isn’t built from soft words that vanish as quickly as they’re spoken, isn't so fragile or short-lived as butterflies. It is older than that, stronger than that: made of storms survived, routes chosen, damage repaired, and every time one of them has trusted the other to keep going when the world gave them reason not to.
Her head tips back a fraction, inviting the low vibration of his words more fully against her throat. "It’s a pity none of them have the balls to say it to my face," she says, wolfish amusement peeling back her lips as brief, bright visions of corrective violence flash through her thoughts. Not enough to disturb the calm settling in her body, but enough for Jack to feel the teeth beneath it.
Then she shrugs. "You’d think it’d be clear enough that if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be." Her blue eyes hold his, dark and unwavering. "I don’t need a crew to sail anymore. I don’t need anyone to set my course or keep me moving." It made it easier, of course, but it was no longer necessary. The water at his spine curves lazily beneath the pressure of his magic, looping in impossible paths as her mouth softens into something quieter, though no less certain. The fact that the Ark remained under Jack's command should have been evidence enough of the fact that it was entirely her choice to remain that way.
His voice has her eyes opening, lashes brushing softly against the skin of his chest as she listens. Amusement reaches her expression almost as quickly as it has his, though hers carries a sharper edge when she tilts her face enough to look up at him. "That’s what they reckon, do they?" A quiet, scornful snort leaves her. The whole idea has the flavour of idle dockside talk, of people who have nothing worth tending in their own lives and so make a pastime of reducing other people’s choices to something small enough to understand. Worse, it betrays that they’ve never seen anything resembling true partnership. What exists between her and Jack isn’t a flimsy tether of sweetness and breathless looks, isn’t built from soft words that vanish as quickly as they’re spoken, isn't so fragile or short-lived as butterflies. It is older than that, stronger than that: made of storms survived, routes chosen, damage repaired, and every time one of them has trusted the other to keep going when the world gave them reason not to.
Her head tips back a fraction, inviting the low vibration of his words more fully against her throat. "It’s a pity none of them have the balls to say it to my face," she says, wolfish amusement peeling back her lips as brief, bright visions of corrective violence flash through her thoughts. Not enough to disturb the calm settling in her body, but enough for Jack to feel the teeth beneath it.
Then she shrugs. "You’d think it’d be clear enough that if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be." Her blue eyes hold his, dark and unwavering. "I don’t need a crew to sail anymore. I don’t need anyone to set my course or keep me moving." It made it easier, of course, but it was no longer necessary. The water at his spine curves lazily beneath the pressure of his magic, looping in impossible paths as her mouth softens into something quieter, though no less certain. The fact that the Ark remained under Jack's command should have been evidence enough of the fact that it was entirely her choice to remain that way.
sweet and right and merciful, all but washed in the tide of her breathing
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
