Drabble: 'O Fortuna' (Barbossa, Jack)

[dwgm]

The drabble challenge theme this week at blackpearlsails is 'Fortune'. Here's 150 words of pre-CotBP Barbossa and Jack, with thanks to hereswith for editing (twice!) and suggestions.



~ O Fortuna ~

“Stay a moment, lad. Here’s a parting gift for ye.”

Jack, who had barely resigned himself to the plank -- though it did seem to offer more hope than the thicket of swords behind him -- reluctantly turned to face his tormentor once more. “And what’s that?”

“Pistol.” Barbossa waved it about with a smirk. “And a single shot. Yer a good man, Jack, and that’s a hard death. Least I can do is ease yer suffering – provided the sharks don’t get ye on the way in.”

Barbossa’s expression was scornful enough, but there was something at the back of his eyes that looked too much like pity. Jack’s fear, intensified by the sight of the proffered weapon, drowned in a wave of fury. “Fortes Fortuna adiuvat,” he snapped. Fortune aids the brave.

But Barbossa chuckled. “Nay, lad. Fortuna caeca est!* Really thought ye’d learned that before, at Beckett’s hands.”

~.~


* Fortune is blind

Comments

[djarum99.livejournal.com]

Trying to play catch-up here, and I was delighted to find this. I love your Jack/Barbossa, and of course Jack would be afraid, and furious, and snarky with it. It's easy to overlook the brutal reality behind Jack-the-legend, what with the sea turtles and all.This fleshes out that pre-canon moment of truth beautifully.

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

of course Jack would be afraid, and furious, and snarky with it.

Yes, precisely -- he's not at all stupid and knows what kind of a death he's facing here -- not to mention the betrayal involved.

[djarum99.livejournal.com]

It would be the worst kind of death for him, I think. I've always thought that the Locker, his version of it, paralleled the marooning in a lot of ways. Betrayal, isolation, a ship with no ocean/an ocean with no ship, and all of it coming after he'd acted as a good man.

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

That's a very good observation!