Cheating: one for two
Nov. 26th, 2005 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dwgmManaged to construct a short ficlet (a little over 400 words) to cover both last week's and this week's drabble challenges at Black Pearl Sails. Last week's was 'Bar', and this week's is 'Things To Come'.
“Get in there, young varmint!”
They gave him a shove, and Jack stumbled, falling to the floor of the cell, grazing his hands and knees. He hissed at the pain, the foulest dockside oath he could recall, but the clang of the door swinging home drowned it. Then the guards were leaving, their footsteps and banter fading down the dank passage. He rolled to his backside, sitting in the dust to gingerly inspect the damage. His skin would mend, but the hole in his best pair of breeches and the damage to his lace cuffs would not.
He looked up, finally, at the cell door: wide straps of metal in a strong criss-cross pattern, secured with a hefty lock, and only torchlit darkness beyond it. Behind him, though, was another source of light. He got up and turned to face it. A barred window, through which moonbeams shone in tantalizing array.
Oh, cruel! Almost against his will he was drawn toward it. Clean silvery light… a fresh scent of cold night air… the faint, steady sound, like the beating of a great heart.… and then the sight, the blessed sight of the sea. Panic assailed him as he stared through the bars at his lost freedom, and at what he now faced, instead. He took hold of the iron, cold as death under his hands.
“No!” he said, low but vehement, and he pulled, and then shook at the bars, hard. Harder.
And a small chunk of wall flaked off and fell. He froze, gaping.
Heart thudding for quite another reason now, he jerked at the bars again. It was the one on the right side: loose! He put both hands around it, and turned it with all his strength and, miracle of miracles, it twisted ‘round, grating against the stone in which it was seated. He tried lifting it, and it moved that way, too, and another small chunk of wall broke off and shattered.
The noise of it startled him, and he looked furtively around. But the guards were gone, and there seemed to be no other prisoners at present.
Three hours ‘til dawn, and maybe a bit more before he was brought before the magistrate. The echo of the guard’s words rang in his head, brutally cheerful: Ol’ Morestone’ll ‘ave the skin off your back, right enough, come the mornin’, just see if ‘e don’t!
Aye, well, they would just see about that, wouldn’t they?
~.~
~ Loose ~
“Get in there, young varmint!”
They gave him a shove, and Jack stumbled, falling to the floor of the cell, grazing his hands and knees. He hissed at the pain, the foulest dockside oath he could recall, but the clang of the door swinging home drowned it. Then the guards were leaving, their footsteps and banter fading down the dank passage. He rolled to his backside, sitting in the dust to gingerly inspect the damage. His skin would mend, but the hole in his best pair of breeches and the damage to his lace cuffs would not.
He looked up, finally, at the cell door: wide straps of metal in a strong criss-cross pattern, secured with a hefty lock, and only torchlit darkness beyond it. Behind him, though, was another source of light. He got up and turned to face it. A barred window, through which moonbeams shone in tantalizing array.
Oh, cruel! Almost against his will he was drawn toward it. Clean silvery light… a fresh scent of cold night air… the faint, steady sound, like the beating of a great heart.… and then the sight, the blessed sight of the sea. Panic assailed him as he stared through the bars at his lost freedom, and at what he now faced, instead. He took hold of the iron, cold as death under his hands.
“No!” he said, low but vehement, and he pulled, and then shook at the bars, hard. Harder.
And a small chunk of wall flaked off and fell. He froze, gaping.
Heart thudding for quite another reason now, he jerked at the bars again. It was the one on the right side: loose! He put both hands around it, and turned it with all his strength and, miracle of miracles, it twisted ‘round, grating against the stone in which it was seated. He tried lifting it, and it moved that way, too, and another small chunk of wall broke off and shattered.
The noise of it startled him, and he looked furtively around. But the guards were gone, and there seemed to be no other prisoners at present.
Three hours ‘til dawn, and maybe a bit more before he was brought before the magistrate. The echo of the guard’s words rang in his head, brutally cheerful: Ol’ Morestone’ll ‘ave the skin off your back, right enough, come the mornin’, just see if ‘e don’t!
Aye, well, they would just see about that, wouldn’t they?
~.~
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Date: 2005-11-27 03:09 pm (UTC)