![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
fic: Pirates of the Carribbean, Use What You've Got, PG-13
disclaimer: not mine
fandoms: Pirates of the Carribbean, Stephen King's It
prompt: martial arts
character: Anamaria
rating: PG-13, violence, language
length: 2000+
notes: this was started because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lizardbeth_j posted a link to The Terrible Crossover Fic Generator, and it prompted these two fandoms with the plot device of 'martial arts'. Which made me think someone should punch the clown from the movie, and thus... this sort of was born. I should note that I've never read the novel and it's been a good two years since I've seen the movie of 'It'. I'm also not entirely certain of my grasp on Anamaria as, frustratingly enough, there isn't exactly a lot of her. The title took me an inordinate amount of time to come up with. Sheesh.
Use What You've Got
by ALC Punk!
The air was stale, full of sweat and the mud that clung to her boots. Anamaria moved carefully under one of the half-broken boards, worming her way inside the dilapidated building. She wasn't here for her health, though she was wondering if perhaps coming had been a bad idea. The swamp she'd carefully walked through had left its marks on her pants, and the leaches she'd removed earlier had left their teeth in her skin. But the rumors of treasure here were enough to make her want to investigate.
It was certainly a good place for a pirate stash. No one would want to come further than the edge of the swamp, save perhaps those who were insane.
A grin flashed across her lips as she pulled flint and lantern from her sash and pocket. Perhaps she was insane, after weeks spent discussing the movements of the stars with Jack Sparrow (her mind could hear the echo of his outraged Captain Jack Sparrow, if you please) and Tia Dalma. The former had always had that affect on people, the latter was something Anamaria wasn't entirely certain about.
The light was almost not enough to illuminate the area where she was. A parlor, by the furniture, the small card table still littered with cards and chips. Anamaria eyed them only a moment before leaving them. Should this prove to be nothing, she could at least return with the bone chips. They might fetch enough of a price for the trip to have been worth it.
A mold-covered mirror echoed the light back to her as she drew closer to the mantle it was set above. The slime had crept along the walls from the swamp outside, as though slowly reclaiming the building back into itself. There was little but dust and debris atop the narrow expanse, a brief poke at the frame around the mirror proved the gilding to be long-since destroyed by nature.
Something flashed in the mirror, bright color where there shouldn't have been and Anamaria turned, hand dropping to her pistol. There was nothing and no one there. Just the sound and weight of the house as it shifted and settled into the earth of the swamp.
It wasn't going to sink to the tops of the chimneys anytime soon, though the feeling made Anamaria's skin crawl just a little.
Then she realized she was spooking herself and smiled a little, hand relaxing from its grip.
After checking the two paintings for secret caches behind them, Anamaria moved to the door and opened it, listening as the air shifted and the building creaked above her. The hall was bare save the disintegrating runner down the center and she stepped upon that carefully, not willing to cause the fabric to send tiny dust motes into the air to choke her breath.
The air was becoming staler the further she went, and she paused to adjust the lantern a little brighter, wanting to see into the rooms to either side as she passed their doorways.
Grandeur faded with time littered the rooms with molding furniture and useless artifacts. Anamaria reached the end of the hall, filled with disgust at what was beginning to prove to be a wasted trip. Whispered words echoed from behind her and she turned, finding nothing except the bare length of the hall.
Tree branches. Swamp. There were vines out there which could cause noise, rubbing against the eaves of the house.
It occurred to her that there had been no animals, no birds calling racously to each other, no snakes slithering away at her approach, no bull-frogs to deeply intone the hours of the day and night. Perhaps they simply didn't like the house.
Anamaria couldn't exactly blame them. She poked around at the end of the hall and discovered it was a dead-end. Fine. Stalking the length to the other end, she was less than careful and a cloud of dust rose in her wake, the silt catching at the back of her throat and causing her to cough. A door in the wall opened on a stairwell and she leaned against the door jamb to finish clearing her lungs before stepping inside.
Two steps down and the door began to shut, the hinges creaking with a lack of oil they hadn't displayed before. She almost laughed as she stepped back up, catching the old wood and slamming it outwards to catch whomever was behind it.
The door flattened to the wall, revealing nothing.
Save at the end of the corridor, where a balloon bobbed in a breeze she didn't feel. It was a bright red, almost shining with its brilliance, and dancing as though pulled by a small child.
It raised no dust as it came down the hall towards her. Anamaria was frozen in shock for a moment and then her hand was on her pistol, lifting, pulling back the flints and firing.
The balloon burst into pieces, splattering the walls of the hall. There was far more than there should have been, and she stepped back out of the door, putting her back to the wall, and scanning for something, anything, that would explain the slowly dribbling stickiness sliding down the walls.
She could smell it now, a rank stench of the rot of corpses and the salt of the sea. Here, in a place where the sea was but a passing thought, the swamp as fresh as the water from a bubbling spring could be.
But she hadn't been learning at the feet of Captain Jack Sparrow for naught.
Straightening her spine, Anamaria tilted her head. "Show yourself."
A whisper brushed along her skin, the breath of a death-rattle, that last exhalation as a man died. Are you sure you want me to?
Fingers shifting on the pistol, Anamaria tucked it back in its holster and drew the second. There was no time to reload, not with one hand full of lantern. And she'd prefer the light to utter darkness.
Almost as though whatever it was heard the thought, the wind ghosted past her again and the yellow pool of light flickered as the wick struggled to stay lit. Voice firm, she snapped, "Stop that."
Laughter was the answer, floating on no breeze that she could feel.
"Do you want to play with me?" It was a small voice, childish and simplistic, an edge of whine to it. A spoiled child who'd never learned to grow up.
"No," Anamaria told it, stepping out into the hall and slamming the door the stairway closed. Treasure or not, it wasn't worth risking her soul. Perhaps Jack (Captain Sparrow, love) would have risked it. Perhaps he didn't actually have one anymore, who was she to say?
Common sense told her to leave.
"Do you always listen to common sense, girl?" An older voice, taunting. "Or is that the rigid strictures of your society, telling you what you're supposed to be, not what you can be."
Anamaria started towards the doorway to the parlor, "Perhaps. Perhaps I listen to others too much. Do you listen to anyone at all, yourself?" Somewhere, she could taste the brine of the sea, as though it were only a memory that was beginning to fade. And perhaps that was all it was. Someplace she had been, once upon a day.
"Are you sure you want to go?"
She could feel the heat of its breath on the back of her neck and so she turned, faster than it was expecting. Her elbow connected with its throat, and it staggered back, coughing, hacking for a moment, its features twisted in surprise.
"I can see you now," she smiled slightly and raised the pistol again, lantern swinging wildly in her other hand.
"How dare--"
She fired, stopping its words.
The bullet tore through its chest--his, possibly, a man in the tattered remains of a costume from a dance hall. Brilliant sequins and stained white gauze, his face streaked in white paint with garish red slashed across his mouth.
For a moment, she could see the spreading stain of blood, the hole.
And then it was gone, and he smiled, a parody of pleasure and joy. "Perhaps you would try again?"
The fear which had been skating up her spine gave her the impetus to move, backing. She hit the wall and slid to the left, ignoring the stick residue that coated the back of her skull as she passed the spot where the balloon had been.
It--he moved, laughing as he slipped past her, blocking the path back to the parlor. "Oh, but you can't want to leave now. You haven't found the treasure."
Treasure was the furthest thing from her mind, though this venture would prove to be fruitless. Anamaria had Jack Sparrow and his crew as a sterling example of why not to dabble with the arcane and supernatural. There might not be a curse, but badly-dressed men, with fetid breath and an ability to ignore gunshot wounds wasn't exactly normal.
And yet, he was between her and the way out.
She continued towards him, reversing the pistol to use as a bludgeon.
"You wouldn't dare hit me," he said in surprise, the taunt gone for a moment.
"Why not?" She swung.
He ducked and the hand holding the lantern smashed into his jaw, knocking him sideways enough for her to shove past.
The lantern swung wildly, the wick nearly going out before she slammed into the parlor and closed the door. A pause to catch the cage of the lamp and settle it took too long.
"You can't leave, you know." He was taunting again, though behind rather than in front.
"So you say. I say different." Anamaria ran for the window she'd entered by, breath catching in her throat with the stench of death and slime. Halfway to her destination, the lantern went out.
It was inevitable, and she kept her body moving in the direction of the window, sure in her direction. Her instincts warned her and she jerked to one side, sliding past him again, the tatters of his costume cold and strange against her hands as she shoved him away.
Heart pounding, she slammed into the wall and felt for the window opening. It was where it was supposed to be. She didn't breathe a sigh of relief, she slithered out between the boards first, ignoring her distaste as her boots landed in the mud of the swamp again. There was no sound of wildlife, no frogs or birds and she wondered how she'd mistaken the silence for something natural--a reaction to her presence, she'd thought--when it seemed obvious now that it wasn't.
The house breathed behind her, the air hot on the back of her neck and she ran again, remembering the path through the swamp, feet slipping only twice, tripping on branches that hadn't been there before.
Anamaria felt certain the return trip through the swamp took more time than it should have, but she told herself not to worry about it. She had escaped after all--escaped from what, she had no clue. Breaking free of the muck and mud, she stumbled through the trees at the edge and then lost her balance at the top of the rise that led down to the beach.
Tumbling, she couldn't stop until she'd reached the bottom and lay there a moment to catch her breath. She could taste sand in her mouth and turned to spit it out before shoving herself upright and continuing to head for the small dinghy she'd landed on earlier in the day.
As she reached it, she glanced back at the tree-line. The sun was beginning to set, blood-red staining the clouds and gilding the sand in pink.
Though there was no wind, she could see the limbs of the trees shifting a moment before a red balloon, bright against the backdrop of dark-emerald-green, appeared. It simply hovered there, almost watching her as pulled her pistol out, fingers shaking only a little as she reloaded. Powder, bullet, wadding, rod--
Anamaria doubted she could hit anything at this distance, but that didn't stop her from raising the gun. She sighted down the barrel, picking out the red against the green, and fired.
The balloon disappeared.
With a satisfied nod, she turned and shoved the dinghy out into the rising tide, glad that the ocean continued to work under its own sort of clockwork. She climbed in, once her boots were slightly cleaner, and took a deep breath of the salty air.
A slight smile crossed her lips as she took up the oars, and began to stroke for the open sea. With the night clear, she would make good time.
She might have smiled a little less if she'd seen the little red balloon painted on the prow of the dinghy.
-f-
fandoms: Pirates of the Carribbean, Stephen King's It
prompt: martial arts
character: Anamaria
rating: PG-13, violence, language
length: 2000+
notes: this was started because
lizardbeth_j posted a link to The Terrible Crossover Fic Generator, and it prompted these two fandoms with the plot device of 'martial arts'. Which made me think someone should punch the clown from the movie, and thus... this sort of was born. I should note that I've never read the novel and it's been a good two years since I've seen the movie of 'It'. I'm also not entirely certain of my grasp on Anamaria as, frustratingly enough, there isn't exactly a lot of her. The title took me an inordinate amount of time to come up with. Sheesh. Use What You've Got
by ALC Punk!
The air was stale, full of sweat and the mud that clung to her boots. Anamaria moved carefully under one of the half-broken boards, worming her way inside the dilapidated building. She wasn't here for her health, though she was wondering if perhaps coming had been a bad idea. The swamp she'd carefully walked through had left its marks on her pants, and the leaches she'd removed earlier had left their teeth in her skin. But the rumors of treasure here were enough to make her want to investigate.
It was certainly a good place for a pirate stash. No one would want to come further than the edge of the swamp, save perhaps those who were insane.
A grin flashed across her lips as she pulled flint and lantern from her sash and pocket. Perhaps she was insane, after weeks spent discussing the movements of the stars with Jack Sparrow (her mind could hear the echo of his outraged Captain Jack Sparrow, if you please) and Tia Dalma. The former had always had that affect on people, the latter was something Anamaria wasn't entirely certain about.
The light was almost not enough to illuminate the area where she was. A parlor, by the furniture, the small card table still littered with cards and chips. Anamaria eyed them only a moment before leaving them. Should this prove to be nothing, she could at least return with the bone chips. They might fetch enough of a price for the trip to have been worth it.
A mold-covered mirror echoed the light back to her as she drew closer to the mantle it was set above. The slime had crept along the walls from the swamp outside, as though slowly reclaiming the building back into itself. There was little but dust and debris atop the narrow expanse, a brief poke at the frame around the mirror proved the gilding to be long-since destroyed by nature.
Something flashed in the mirror, bright color where there shouldn't have been and Anamaria turned, hand dropping to her pistol. There was nothing and no one there. Just the sound and weight of the house as it shifted and settled into the earth of the swamp.
It wasn't going to sink to the tops of the chimneys anytime soon, though the feeling made Anamaria's skin crawl just a little.
Then she realized she was spooking herself and smiled a little, hand relaxing from its grip.
After checking the two paintings for secret caches behind them, Anamaria moved to the door and opened it, listening as the air shifted and the building creaked above her. The hall was bare save the disintegrating runner down the center and she stepped upon that carefully, not willing to cause the fabric to send tiny dust motes into the air to choke her breath.
The air was becoming staler the further she went, and she paused to adjust the lantern a little brighter, wanting to see into the rooms to either side as she passed their doorways.
Grandeur faded with time littered the rooms with molding furniture and useless artifacts. Anamaria reached the end of the hall, filled with disgust at what was beginning to prove to be a wasted trip. Whispered words echoed from behind her and she turned, finding nothing except the bare length of the hall.
Tree branches. Swamp. There were vines out there which could cause noise, rubbing against the eaves of the house.
It occurred to her that there had been no animals, no birds calling racously to each other, no snakes slithering away at her approach, no bull-frogs to deeply intone the hours of the day and night. Perhaps they simply didn't like the house.
Anamaria couldn't exactly blame them. She poked around at the end of the hall and discovered it was a dead-end. Fine. Stalking the length to the other end, she was less than careful and a cloud of dust rose in her wake, the silt catching at the back of her throat and causing her to cough. A door in the wall opened on a stairwell and she leaned against the door jamb to finish clearing her lungs before stepping inside.
Two steps down and the door began to shut, the hinges creaking with a lack of oil they hadn't displayed before. She almost laughed as she stepped back up, catching the old wood and slamming it outwards to catch whomever was behind it.
The door flattened to the wall, revealing nothing.
Save at the end of the corridor, where a balloon bobbed in a breeze she didn't feel. It was a bright red, almost shining with its brilliance, and dancing as though pulled by a small child.
It raised no dust as it came down the hall towards her. Anamaria was frozen in shock for a moment and then her hand was on her pistol, lifting, pulling back the flints and firing.
The balloon burst into pieces, splattering the walls of the hall. There was far more than there should have been, and she stepped back out of the door, putting her back to the wall, and scanning for something, anything, that would explain the slowly dribbling stickiness sliding down the walls.
She could smell it now, a rank stench of the rot of corpses and the salt of the sea. Here, in a place where the sea was but a passing thought, the swamp as fresh as the water from a bubbling spring could be.
But she hadn't been learning at the feet of Captain Jack Sparrow for naught.
Straightening her spine, Anamaria tilted her head. "Show yourself."
A whisper brushed along her skin, the breath of a death-rattle, that last exhalation as a man died. Are you sure you want me to?
Fingers shifting on the pistol, Anamaria tucked it back in its holster and drew the second. There was no time to reload, not with one hand full of lantern. And she'd prefer the light to utter darkness.
Almost as though whatever it was heard the thought, the wind ghosted past her again and the yellow pool of light flickered as the wick struggled to stay lit. Voice firm, she snapped, "Stop that."
Laughter was the answer, floating on no breeze that she could feel.
"Do you want to play with me?" It was a small voice, childish and simplistic, an edge of whine to it. A spoiled child who'd never learned to grow up.
"No," Anamaria told it, stepping out into the hall and slamming the door the stairway closed. Treasure or not, it wasn't worth risking her soul. Perhaps Jack (Captain Sparrow, love) would have risked it. Perhaps he didn't actually have one anymore, who was she to say?
Common sense told her to leave.
"Do you always listen to common sense, girl?" An older voice, taunting. "Or is that the rigid strictures of your society, telling you what you're supposed to be, not what you can be."
Anamaria started towards the doorway to the parlor, "Perhaps. Perhaps I listen to others too much. Do you listen to anyone at all, yourself?" Somewhere, she could taste the brine of the sea, as though it were only a memory that was beginning to fade. And perhaps that was all it was. Someplace she had been, once upon a day.
"Are you sure you want to go?"
She could feel the heat of its breath on the back of her neck and so she turned, faster than it was expecting. Her elbow connected with its throat, and it staggered back, coughing, hacking for a moment, its features twisted in surprise.
"I can see you now," she smiled slightly and raised the pistol again, lantern swinging wildly in her other hand.
"How dare--"
She fired, stopping its words.
The bullet tore through its chest--his, possibly, a man in the tattered remains of a costume from a dance hall. Brilliant sequins and stained white gauze, his face streaked in white paint with garish red slashed across his mouth.
For a moment, she could see the spreading stain of blood, the hole.
And then it was gone, and he smiled, a parody of pleasure and joy. "Perhaps you would try again?"
The fear which had been skating up her spine gave her the impetus to move, backing. She hit the wall and slid to the left, ignoring the stick residue that coated the back of her skull as she passed the spot where the balloon had been.
It--he moved, laughing as he slipped past her, blocking the path back to the parlor. "Oh, but you can't want to leave now. You haven't found the treasure."
Treasure was the furthest thing from her mind, though this venture would prove to be fruitless. Anamaria had Jack Sparrow and his crew as a sterling example of why not to dabble with the arcane and supernatural. There might not be a curse, but badly-dressed men, with fetid breath and an ability to ignore gunshot wounds wasn't exactly normal.
And yet, he was between her and the way out.
She continued towards him, reversing the pistol to use as a bludgeon.
"You wouldn't dare hit me," he said in surprise, the taunt gone for a moment.
"Why not?" She swung.
He ducked and the hand holding the lantern smashed into his jaw, knocking him sideways enough for her to shove past.
The lantern swung wildly, the wick nearly going out before she slammed into the parlor and closed the door. A pause to catch the cage of the lamp and settle it took too long.
"You can't leave, you know." He was taunting again, though behind rather than in front.
"So you say. I say different." Anamaria ran for the window she'd entered by, breath catching in her throat with the stench of death and slime. Halfway to her destination, the lantern went out.
It was inevitable, and she kept her body moving in the direction of the window, sure in her direction. Her instincts warned her and she jerked to one side, sliding past him again, the tatters of his costume cold and strange against her hands as she shoved him away.
Heart pounding, she slammed into the wall and felt for the window opening. It was where it was supposed to be. She didn't breathe a sigh of relief, she slithered out between the boards first, ignoring her distaste as her boots landed in the mud of the swamp again. There was no sound of wildlife, no frogs or birds and she wondered how she'd mistaken the silence for something natural--a reaction to her presence, she'd thought--when it seemed obvious now that it wasn't.
The house breathed behind her, the air hot on the back of her neck and she ran again, remembering the path through the swamp, feet slipping only twice, tripping on branches that hadn't been there before.
Anamaria felt certain the return trip through the swamp took more time than it should have, but she told herself not to worry about it. She had escaped after all--escaped from what, she had no clue. Breaking free of the muck and mud, she stumbled through the trees at the edge and then lost her balance at the top of the rise that led down to the beach.
Tumbling, she couldn't stop until she'd reached the bottom and lay there a moment to catch her breath. She could taste sand in her mouth and turned to spit it out before shoving herself upright and continuing to head for the small dinghy she'd landed on earlier in the day.
As she reached it, she glanced back at the tree-line. The sun was beginning to set, blood-red staining the clouds and gilding the sand in pink.
Though there was no wind, she could see the limbs of the trees shifting a moment before a red balloon, bright against the backdrop of dark-emerald-green, appeared. It simply hovered there, almost watching her as pulled her pistol out, fingers shaking only a little as she reloaded. Powder, bullet, wadding, rod--
Anamaria doubted she could hit anything at this distance, but that didn't stop her from raising the gun. She sighted down the barrel, picking out the red against the green, and fired.
The balloon disappeared.
With a satisfied nod, she turned and shoved the dinghy out into the rising tide, glad that the ocean continued to work under its own sort of clockwork. She climbed in, once her boots were slightly cleaner, and took a deep breath of the salty air.
A slight smile crossed her lips as she took up the oars, and began to stroke for the open sea. With the night clear, she would make good time.
She might have smiled a little less if she'd seen the little red balloon painted on the prow of the dinghy.
-f-
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject