Truth isn't Always Appearance

Truth isn't always appearance.

I know that now.

My little hidden window provided me with a perfect view of the Port
Royal harbor and when I saw those gray sails and familiar hull, it
didn't seem like the truth. It couldn't be. Why was he here?

I have been sitting here in the sweltering heat of my forge,
surrounded by swords that I had half-hearted made, whose standard was
no where near my earlier creations, just thinking. Thinking about how
my life didn't seem like my own. Wondering why I was still here,
while he was out there with his ship and his crew. Why?

Then the wind had blown open the shutters of my private window
drawing me away from my current project. It was strange; I usually
ignored it when that happened.

But not today.

It was like the wind knew something. Like it carried some sort of
truth in it and it wanted me to know. So it drew me to the window and
then I saw it. The Black Pearl.

It was like magic.

You know, as a child, I was taught to not believe in magic. I was
told that God was the only higher authority that our world had to
offer. But the truth was, in a way, God was magical. I don't think I
bought the God is God and magic done by people is heresy. No, I don't
believe I bought it even then.

Or maybe it was just because I frankly didn't care. Losing both
parents then almost myself to the sea, then shuttled off to be
tutored by a drunk, God didn't exactly make himself known to me. But
magic didn't either. I was apathetic to both sides. I went with what
was true to me.

If I saw it, it was truth.

Back then, I saw Elizabeth, her every action was perfect. Therefore
my logic deemed that she was the perfect being. That was the truth.
That was a fact.

But along came Barbossa and his skeleton crew of the damned. Curses
and coins certainly shook up my thoughts and beliefs then.
Elizabeth's porcelain skin became red, bruised, and dirty. Her
clothing wore away and became riddled with grime. Her very presence
destroyed what I believed to be true of her. Seeing her on the
Interceptor after rescuing her from the cave was the first time I
began questioning my reason. My truth.

Magic was proven to exist then. Skeletons walking and talking and
don't forget fighting was not something that they taught while
preaching about God and his ways.

It was all true. Everything. The superstitions of the old grizzled
harbor rats. Even the ones that Jack taught me when we were on the
Interceptor must have had some sense of truth to them. Jack never
struck me as one to believe in the unseen and untested.

So when I saw those sails on the horizon, it had to be true. But that
was the logic of the past. Seeing is believing and so on. After the
loss of ideals with Elizabeth, I wasn't sure that I could take
another loss of Jack.

But the ship was there nonetheless.

It didn't fully make berth in the Port Royal controlled harbor. But
as I watched from that special window, I could see a small speck
detaching itself from the Pearl. It was a rowboat. And I was sure
that Jack was on it.

I don't believe I had ever ran so fast down to the docks. I knew that
even had I walked at the slowest gait possible, I would have beaten
that small rowboat. But I just had to get there and watched him draw
nearer.

Yes, it was Jack. I could see it now.

But truth isn't always appearance.

It was Jack, and when he stepped out of the boat and on to the dock,
he walked like Jack. The ground not suitable for the legs honed on
the seas. But in a way it wasn't.

Plus, he felt like Jack. I knew that because before that pirate could
even open his mouth to greet, I was on him, hugging him as tight as I
could.

"Air, boy, I needs air." He managed to squeeze out. I only laughed a
bit and just hugged tighter before letting him go.

"How have you been, Jack?" I had to know.

"Great. I found that ol' Barbossa kept me lady in as good condition
as possible and I been finding lots of treasure along the way." He
was waving his hands around in my face and it was both annoying and
endearing at the same time. Only Jack could take a sentence and turn
it into theatre.

"What brings you here though?"

"The wind." The answer was quick and said with an air that seemed to
hint that it was an obvious answer.

"The wind?" I was confused. The wind was the only reason why he was
back? That was the truth of the matter? I had just come to realize
that he may be the only reason to keep drawing my next breath and his
reason is the bloody wind?

"Aye, I trust her, that I do. I wasn't sure when you'd be ready for
me again, so I had to wait for her call. And then she came, aye she
came. And well," he displayed himself with a extravagant whirl of his
hands, "here I am. It's been awhile."

I stared at him, drinking him in. It had been awhile. That was true.
But Jack never seemed to age. I knew that I had grown older looking
in his absence, my hair had been trimmed after our adventure, so now
it came into tame tie at my neck, and my face was kept shaven so that
it would be easier to clean whilst in the sooty forge. Not to mention
I had a couple more inches over the shorter pirate now.

But he, he looked no older. Still the same miss-matched hair mixed
with trinkets form earlier voyages, and his large dark eyes were
still rimmed with the smudged kohl. Still the same Jack.

I think.

After that we spent many hours just enjoying each other's company. He
spoke of adventures that just added fuel to the fire steadily growing
within. I wanted to be the one at his side during those times. I
wanted to obtain the treasure and fight with the sword instead of
making them.

As we spoke, Jack grew drunker by the minute. Words became slurred
and gestures became wild and almost striking me at moments. But it
was during these wild tales that I realized something.

I felt /something/.

Nothing as cliché as those romantic novels that I know Elizabeth
reads. Nor like the feelings that I had for her while I believed her
to be perfect. Nay, this was different. I felt alive. Like I could
live again, as long as this dirty, smelly, drunk, rash, crude, brash,
loud, loyal, helpful, beautiful pirate was at my side.

Strange, I would think that I would have shied away from that
attraction. I thought I would deny it longer than I was doing.

But I cannot deny what is true, right?

If it is true then why deny or lie about it?

Jack gave me a look when I was thinking about my epiphany. He just
smiled that smile that belied the alcohol that sloshed through his
blood, the smile that showed his sharp intelligence. "I know that
look, luv, I know it well."

I was surprised.

"Aye, I feel the same way when Gaubencex blesses me with Brisote,
Boreas," he paused at my confused look. "ye know, Veinto del Norte."

I can clearly remember the thought of `what the bloody hell….?'
Running through my mind.

"The North wind." He finished with a flourish. He then leaned in and
gestured for me to do the same. He was very close to me, as we leaned
our heads together. Our foreheads were almost touching and I could
feel his breath upon my lips. "You feel something, right whelp?" he
whispered. "You feel alive."

It had to be magic, he could read my mind. I was right about Jack
being true but not keeping with appearances. When I last saw him, he
was filled his desire for revenge, for his Pearl, and some rum. But
now, the lithe body in front of me was yet again filled with desire,
but now it was for me.

"The north wind brought you to me."

"Aye, that's what I've been telling ye."

"I tell you what," I leaned closer so that our forehead came into
contact with each other. "I am alive because of that north wind then."

Eyes rimmed in black widened in confusion. "What?"

"I lost my reason to live when you went over that wall. People, they
say that there are reasons for everything. I was hoping to one day
find mine." My voice had dropped to barely a whisper. "And I did…I
found you."

Jack switched the point of our contact after those words. Firm lips
met wind-chapped lips. So different than the one I shared with
Elizabeth. And it was better. Of course at the time, I wasn't making
a list of comparisons, no, I was just focused on the feeling. It was
different than I expected from Jack. He was a pirate after all,
shouldn't he be ravishing my lips by now, taking what was his?
Instead I got a chaste, hesitating kiss. It was soft and long.

Unfortunately we did both need to breathe.

It was magic, yet it yielded a strain of truth in it.

And truth wasn't always appearance.

***

                            
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