the dance we dance
Elizabeth Swann falls from a cliff into the sea. It is only proper that her fiancée sees to her health, until it isn't.
✦ potc, 1.5k words, one-shot au
Knuckles rap softly against the open library door. Elizabeth looks up from a well-thumbed novel to see Commodore Norrington, framed gold by the candles lit in the hall.
“Elizabeth,” he says lightly, “I did not mean to interrupt you.”
He stands halfway into the room, inclining his head politely. There is no chaperone present — Elizabeth imagines Cooper, the steward, is tending her father somewhere else, making both suitable candidates in the manor absent — and it is not exactly correct for a strapping young man to be alone with his fiancée so late at night.
Elizabeth closes her book and leaves it in her lap. She shifts so she is sitting straight in her plush chair and greets, “Good evening, James. Or do you prefer Commodore now? Which is proper, do you think?”
The invitation is implicit. He steps into the room and though he does not quite smile, he approximates it. (He was never much of a smiler; tonight, he is even more drawn, his brow more knit.) “I am at your mercy; you are better versed in such manners. I came to make sure you are recovered.”