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dwgmA longish, rather angsty drabble, 400 words, in reply to both last week's and this week's drabble challenge prompts at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
blackpearlsails
~ Post-consular Ghosts ~
He’d always been good at apologies. Pardon. Excuse Me. Sorry! They tripped with great, if frequently feigned, sincerity off his tongue, accompanied by the soulful expression, perhaps the contrite bow, hands pressed humbly together. A useful skill that had, in the past, inspired an unwarranted but extremely convenient hubris in adversaries, as well as smoothing relations with those persons less inclined to do him a mischief.
Never worked with Teague, of course.
The old man had always had his measure. The fact had been made painfully evident to his infant self more times than he cared to recall, until at last he’d made his permanent escape, both from the Cove and from his exacting and apparently omniscient progenitor.
“It’s… complicated,” he told Elizabeth in a tone meant to discourage further inquiry when she asked about the Keeper of the Code, having noted Jack’s unfortunate reaction to Teague’s entrance at the council.
But Hector, striding along beside them, showed his teeth in what was supposed to be a smile. “Teague’s Jack’s paterfamilias, as it were.”
Elizabeth, apparently astonished, turned to Jack. “He’s your father?”
Jack snorted. “S’pose you thought I’d sprung from the briny like Venus, fully formed and served on the half shell with a side of spume?”
“No, but—Jack, wait!”
But Jack was through waiting. He cut down a side passage and soon lost the two as he expertly navigated this mazelike mountain of maritime mayhem, taking the shortest route possible back to the docks.
Time to be shut of the Cove and its unsettling ghosts.
But there were always ghosts, he thought as he rowed out to the Pearl. The Locker had shown him that in spades.
He’d been young when he’d run away all those years ago, barely a stripling, and considering some of the misadventures he’d gotten himself into, before he’d become fly to the time of day, it was debatable whether the decision to leave had been the right one. Teague had certainly had strong objections, and had moved heaven and earth to retrieve him. Jack had thought it merely diabolical persecution at the time. Now, of course, he knew better.
But that was water under the bridge. When he’d met Teague again, years later, they’d almost seemed strangers. It was made abundantly clear that his father had long since washed his hands of his hopelessly unsatisfactory offspring. No apology necessary.
Or accepted, belike.
~.~
blackpearlsails~ Post-consular Ghosts ~
He’d always been good at apologies. Pardon. Excuse Me. Sorry! They tripped with great, if frequently feigned, sincerity off his tongue, accompanied by the soulful expression, perhaps the contrite bow, hands pressed humbly together. A useful skill that had, in the past, inspired an unwarranted but extremely convenient hubris in adversaries, as well as smoothing relations with those persons less inclined to do him a mischief.
Never worked with Teague, of course.
The old man had always had his measure. The fact had been made painfully evident to his infant self more times than he cared to recall, until at last he’d made his permanent escape, both from the Cove and from his exacting and apparently omniscient progenitor.
“It’s… complicated,” he told Elizabeth in a tone meant to discourage further inquiry when she asked about the Keeper of the Code, having noted Jack’s unfortunate reaction to Teague’s entrance at the council.
But Hector, striding along beside them, showed his teeth in what was supposed to be a smile. “Teague’s Jack’s paterfamilias, as it were.”
Elizabeth, apparently astonished, turned to Jack. “He’s your father?”
Jack snorted. “S’pose you thought I’d sprung from the briny like Venus, fully formed and served on the half shell with a side of spume?”
“No, but—Jack, wait!”
But Jack was through waiting. He cut down a side passage and soon lost the two as he expertly navigated this mazelike mountain of maritime mayhem, taking the shortest route possible back to the docks.
Time to be shut of the Cove and its unsettling ghosts.
But there were always ghosts, he thought as he rowed out to the Pearl. The Locker had shown him that in spades.
He’d been young when he’d run away all those years ago, barely a stripling, and considering some of the misadventures he’d gotten himself into, before he’d become fly to the time of day, it was debatable whether the decision to leave had been the right one. Teague had certainly had strong objections, and had moved heaven and earth to retrieve him. Jack had thought it merely diabolical persecution at the time. Now, of course, he knew better.
But that was water under the bridge. When he’d met Teague again, years later, they’d almost seemed strangers. It was made abundantly clear that his father had long since washed his hands of his hopelessly unsatisfactory offspring. No apology necessary.
Or accepted, belike.
~.~