Narnia ficbits: pirate AU
Oct. 3rd, 2008 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardTwo scenes from this AU, where Peter and Edmund used to be naval officers during the Golden Age of piracy, then Edmund got accused, arrested, and condemned for treason.
There are footsteps coming down the hall.
Edmund draws himself up, shivering in his shirtsleeves, because these steps are firm and hurried, not the slow, measured steps of the guards. It may be nothing, but it's a change, and at sea, a change always means something. Land shouldn't be any different.
The footsteps stop in front of his door, a key turns in the lock, and his brother comes in.
Peter's in uniform, blue jacket impeccable and sword gleaming on his hip, but his face is harried. The keys are in one hand, a pistol in the other. He crosses quickly to Edmund.
"What are you doing?" Edmund asks as Peter unlocks his manacles, tossing them aside to clatter on the floor.
"Breaking you out," Peter says shortly. "Come on," he adds, grabbing Edmund's wrist when he freezes. "What are you waiting for?"
"Are you out of your mind?" Edmund demands, yanking his hand free of Peter's grip.
"What, for not wanting my brother to be hung, drawn, and quartered for treason?" Peter snaps. In the dim light of the cell, Edmund can see that he's white around the eyes, face drawn tight by strain, grip on the pistol so tight he's white-knuckled.
This is treason. "What about your career?" Edmund asks, trying to be reasonable, even though the idea of being hung, drawn, and quartered makes him want to drink poison. Which is an infinitely preferable way to die, as far as he's concerned.
"My career," Peter says, with a bitter twist of his mouth, "is probably over one way or another. As of tomorrow morning, I'm officially relieved of duty. As it stands, I'm sure that as of tomorrow morning, I'll have earned a spot on the gallows next to you. Father will be so proud, I'm sure."
"Father --" Edmund begins, horrified, and then stops, because there's only so much familial dishonor he can face in a five minute span. "I'm not going to let you do this to yourself," he says instead.
Peter snorts and glances over his shoulder out into the hall before he looks back at Edmund. "It's a little late for that, don't you think? I'm sure the guards I bribed won't hesitate to tell the truth when His Majesty's torturers come calling, and the guard I knocked out certainly won't. Come with me, or I'll hit you over the head and carry you out."
"You can try," Edmund says.
"Are you so damn eager to die?" Peter spits. "Because I'm not leaving without you."
"God damn it, Peter --"
"Captain --"
Peter spins on his heel, pistol coming up before he lowers it. Edmund recognizes the man in the doorway as Peter's first lieutenant, Oreius, and doesn't bother swallowing back his curse. "You brought your crew into this?" he snarls.
Peter goes a shade paler, and looks a little like he's torn between crying and throwing up. He does neither, though, and says, voice shaking slightly, "Not all of them. Some of them are tied up and gagged in the hold of the Narnia until we set sail in an hour."
"Oh my God," Edmund says, sick to his stomach. Not just Peter, but all his officers, all his crew --
"Sir, we don't have much time," Oreius says to Peter, and Peter nods.
"Do I have to knock you out, Ed?" he asks.
"No," Edmund says. "No, I don't particularly want to die a traitor's death either."
"Good," Peter says, some of the strain on his face easing slightly, and shoves the pistol into his hand. "Use it if you have to."
-
-
(five years later; Susan and Lucy are in the Caribbean to bait a trap to capture Peter and Edmund, now infamous pirates)
"Mind if I cut in?" a dark-haired stranger asks, smiling disarmingly, and Caspian murmurs, "No, of course," and slips away, leaving Susan with the stranger.
She dips a slight curtsy, looking up through her lashes. Navy, she thinks, because hsi face is chapped from seagoing, but he's not wearing a uniform. An independent merchant, maybe? But he's young, maybe younger than her, and he's not wearing a wig.
"Don't you know me, sister?" he murmurs as they begin.
"Sister?" Susan hisses indignantly, then looks, really looks, at his face. "Edmund?"
"Try not to shout it out," Edmund says softly as they revolve sedately around the ballroom. "I'm not exactly the most popular person in Port Royal."
"And I wonder why that might be," she snaps. "What are you doing here? This is the governor's manor! You have a price on your head!"
"Not to come off as unhappy to see you, Su, but I do actually know that," Edmund says, looking around over the top of her head. "I'm sure you saw the broadsheets with my picture on them when you came into town."
"Yes, and they once again raise the question of what the hell are you doing here? My idea of a good 'Welcome to the Caribbean!' gift isn't my brother on the gallows. You are aware this is a trap?"
"And that's what I told Peter when he came up with this brilliant plan," Edmund mutters. "But no, he has to insist on --"
"Peter's here too?" Susan exclaims, voice made sharp by alarm. "Ed, the Crown wants Peter more than they want you! How could you let him --"
"Let him?" Edmund repeats, eyeing her askance. "You make it sound like I held him down and dragged him here. If anything, he held me down and dragged me here --"
"Where is he?" Susan demands, hands tightening on Edmund's. She looks around for him, but her miscreant brother is nowhere in sight.
Edmund glances around, brow wrinkling a little. "I'm sure he's fine," he says. "Probably pocketing the silver -- oh, don't look at me like that, he hasn't taken up petty thievery, despite his prodigious talent for it. It's all very noble; he gives about half his take away and he'd be a horrible pirate if he wasn't so damn good at it. But he should have shown up by --"
The doors of the hall crash open; a pair of red-coated Marines drag Peter forward across the dance floor, party-goers scattering to the side as whispers spread through the hall. Susan clutches suddenly at Edmund's arm, her heart in her throat.
"Peter!" Lucy screams, somewhere in the crowd, and then goes abruptly silent, as if someone has put a hand over her mouth.
From here, Susan can see that her brother's face is bruised and bloodied, hair pulled free of his tie and spilling down around his shoulders. His gaze flickers around the room quickly, pausing on Lucy, and then focuses on Susan and Edmund. Thank God you're all right, his expression seems to say. I'm going to kill you, Susan mouthes back, and sees Peter quirk his lips in amusement. Beside her, Edmund starts forward, but Peter shakes his head slightly and Edmund stills, tension threading his body.
They throw Peter down in front of Lord Miraz. "Why, Mr. Pevensie," Miraz he, "it has been a while, hasn't it?"
Peter pushes himself up to his knees, awkward and unwieldy with his hands manacled behind his back. "I hope you'll forgive my saying so, Miraz, but I'd rather hoped it would be longer until we saw each other again. And that's Captain Pevensie."
"I believe you were stripped of your commission when you when you were condemned for treason," Miraz says silkily.
"Forgive us pirates our little courtesies," Peter replies, calm. "They're such a balm to us in the midst of our other heinous crimes."
Someone in the crowd titters, and Susan's grip tightens further on Edmund's arm.
"Pray to whatever god will have you," Miraz says to Peter. "For your crimes, you face worse than the gallows."
"You'll have to try not to lose me again," Peter says genially, and spits a mouthful of blood at Miraz's feet.
Miraz backhands him across the face, sending Peter sprawling, and then barks at the Marines to take him out. He meets Edmund's eyes one more time before the doors close behind him.
"The seas are rid of a great menace!" Miraz cries, and Susan turns blindly away, shaking badly.
Edmund grabs her shoulder. "He'll be all right," he says. "He always is. But I'd better go --"
"No," Susan says. "No, you're not."
Edmund's eyebrows shoot up. "Let me rephrase," he says. "I have to go break Peter out of jail because he's an idiot and got himself caught --"
Susan digs her nails into his wrist. "You're not going anywhere without me," she hisses. "He's my brother too, little though he's acted it these past five years."
"Oh, for the love of -- come on, then."
They thread their way through the crowd, Edmund's head lowered slightly so no one can see their face, and out into a back hallway that will eventually lead to Susan and Lucy's rooms.
"Look, Su," Edmund begins before she can do more than catch her breath, "Miraz isn't going to let Peter make it to London alive; he's either going to kill him here or kill him on the way there. He --"
Susan slaps him.
"Ow!" Edmund exclaims, hand flying to his cheek. "What in blazes was that for?"
"Whatever you did," Susan says, "you got him into this. Damn you, Edmund. You're my brother and I -- you got him into this, you got Lu into this, you killed our father --"
"What --"
"-- and if Peter dies, it will be on your head. Do you understand that?"
Edmund meets her eyes. "I've understood that since the day he walked into my cell," he says. "Jesus, Su, I tried to talk him out of it, I stood there in my jail cell knowing I was going to die a traitor's death and tried to talk my brother out of throwing away his career, his honor, his life, for me. You think I don't know that?"
"I don't know if you do," Susan says. She means to say more, but there are footsteps in the hall now, coming towards them. She gives Edmund a frantic look, because he's a wanted pirate, a condemned traitor --
Caspian and Lucy come around the corner, Caspian examining his hand ruefully. He glances up as he sees them, and says, "Oh, Miss Pevensie, I didn't mean --" His eyes go wide as he sees and recognizes Edmund, and he manages to get out, "You --" before Edmund has him up against the wall with one arm across Caspian's throat and a knife against his crotch.
"Don't shout," Edmund says, "or you're going to be one surprised eunuch."
Caspian goes very still. "You --" he begins in a strangled whisper, "you're --"
"I don't believe we've met," Edmund says, as polite as he might have been six years ago, before Newgate. "Su, would you care to do the honors?"
Susan draws herself up, glancing at Lucy, who's staring at Edmund in surprise and delight. "Lieutenant Caspian," she says, "I'd like you to meet my brother Edmund. I believe you've heard of him?"
Note: I believe the "you're going to be one surprised eunuch" line is from Scott Lynch, but I'm not certain. I know it's not mine, at least, but it seemed appropriate.
There are footsteps coming down the hall.
Edmund draws himself up, shivering in his shirtsleeves, because these steps are firm and hurried, not the slow, measured steps of the guards. It may be nothing, but it's a change, and at sea, a change always means something. Land shouldn't be any different.
The footsteps stop in front of his door, a key turns in the lock, and his brother comes in.
Peter's in uniform, blue jacket impeccable and sword gleaming on his hip, but his face is harried. The keys are in one hand, a pistol in the other. He crosses quickly to Edmund.
"What are you doing?" Edmund asks as Peter unlocks his manacles, tossing them aside to clatter on the floor.
"Breaking you out," Peter says shortly. "Come on," he adds, grabbing Edmund's wrist when he freezes. "What are you waiting for?"
"Are you out of your mind?" Edmund demands, yanking his hand free of Peter's grip.
"What, for not wanting my brother to be hung, drawn, and quartered for treason?" Peter snaps. In the dim light of the cell, Edmund can see that he's white around the eyes, face drawn tight by strain, grip on the pistol so tight he's white-knuckled.
This is treason. "What about your career?" Edmund asks, trying to be reasonable, even though the idea of being hung, drawn, and quartered makes him want to drink poison. Which is an infinitely preferable way to die, as far as he's concerned.
"My career," Peter says, with a bitter twist of his mouth, "is probably over one way or another. As of tomorrow morning, I'm officially relieved of duty. As it stands, I'm sure that as of tomorrow morning, I'll have earned a spot on the gallows next to you. Father will be so proud, I'm sure."
"Father --" Edmund begins, horrified, and then stops, because there's only so much familial dishonor he can face in a five minute span. "I'm not going to let you do this to yourself," he says instead.
Peter snorts and glances over his shoulder out into the hall before he looks back at Edmund. "It's a little late for that, don't you think? I'm sure the guards I bribed won't hesitate to tell the truth when His Majesty's torturers come calling, and the guard I knocked out certainly won't. Come with me, or I'll hit you over the head and carry you out."
"You can try," Edmund says.
"Are you so damn eager to die?" Peter spits. "Because I'm not leaving without you."
"God damn it, Peter --"
"Captain --"
Peter spins on his heel, pistol coming up before he lowers it. Edmund recognizes the man in the doorway as Peter's first lieutenant, Oreius, and doesn't bother swallowing back his curse. "You brought your crew into this?" he snarls.
Peter goes a shade paler, and looks a little like he's torn between crying and throwing up. He does neither, though, and says, voice shaking slightly, "Not all of them. Some of them are tied up and gagged in the hold of the Narnia until we set sail in an hour."
"Oh my God," Edmund says, sick to his stomach. Not just Peter, but all his officers, all his crew --
"Sir, we don't have much time," Oreius says to Peter, and Peter nods.
"Do I have to knock you out, Ed?" he asks.
"No," Edmund says. "No, I don't particularly want to die a traitor's death either."
"Good," Peter says, some of the strain on his face easing slightly, and shoves the pistol into his hand. "Use it if you have to."
-
-
(five years later; Susan and Lucy are in the Caribbean to bait a trap to capture Peter and Edmund, now infamous pirates)
"Mind if I cut in?" a dark-haired stranger asks, smiling disarmingly, and Caspian murmurs, "No, of course," and slips away, leaving Susan with the stranger.
She dips a slight curtsy, looking up through her lashes. Navy, she thinks, because hsi face is chapped from seagoing, but he's not wearing a uniform. An independent merchant, maybe? But he's young, maybe younger than her, and he's not wearing a wig.
"Don't you know me, sister?" he murmurs as they begin.
"Sister?" Susan hisses indignantly, then looks, really looks, at his face. "Edmund?"
"Try not to shout it out," Edmund says softly as they revolve sedately around the ballroom. "I'm not exactly the most popular person in Port Royal."
"And I wonder why that might be," she snaps. "What are you doing here? This is the governor's manor! You have a price on your head!"
"Not to come off as unhappy to see you, Su, but I do actually know that," Edmund says, looking around over the top of her head. "I'm sure you saw the broadsheets with my picture on them when you came into town."
"Yes, and they once again raise the question of what the hell are you doing here? My idea of a good 'Welcome to the Caribbean!' gift isn't my brother on the gallows. You are aware this is a trap?"
"And that's what I told Peter when he came up with this brilliant plan," Edmund mutters. "But no, he has to insist on --"
"Peter's here too?" Susan exclaims, voice made sharp by alarm. "Ed, the Crown wants Peter more than they want you! How could you let him --"
"Let him?" Edmund repeats, eyeing her askance. "You make it sound like I held him down and dragged him here. If anything, he held me down and dragged me here --"
"Where is he?" Susan demands, hands tightening on Edmund's. She looks around for him, but her miscreant brother is nowhere in sight.
Edmund glances around, brow wrinkling a little. "I'm sure he's fine," he says. "Probably pocketing the silver -- oh, don't look at me like that, he hasn't taken up petty thievery, despite his prodigious talent for it. It's all very noble; he gives about half his take away and he'd be a horrible pirate if he wasn't so damn good at it. But he should have shown up by --"
The doors of the hall crash open; a pair of red-coated Marines drag Peter forward across the dance floor, party-goers scattering to the side as whispers spread through the hall. Susan clutches suddenly at Edmund's arm, her heart in her throat.
"Peter!" Lucy screams, somewhere in the crowd, and then goes abruptly silent, as if someone has put a hand over her mouth.
From here, Susan can see that her brother's face is bruised and bloodied, hair pulled free of his tie and spilling down around his shoulders. His gaze flickers around the room quickly, pausing on Lucy, and then focuses on Susan and Edmund. Thank God you're all right, his expression seems to say. I'm going to kill you, Susan mouthes back, and sees Peter quirk his lips in amusement. Beside her, Edmund starts forward, but Peter shakes his head slightly and Edmund stills, tension threading his body.
They throw Peter down in front of Lord Miraz. "Why, Mr. Pevensie," Miraz he, "it has been a while, hasn't it?"
Peter pushes himself up to his knees, awkward and unwieldy with his hands manacled behind his back. "I hope you'll forgive my saying so, Miraz, but I'd rather hoped it would be longer until we saw each other again. And that's Captain Pevensie."
"I believe you were stripped of your commission when you when you were condemned for treason," Miraz says silkily.
"Forgive us pirates our little courtesies," Peter replies, calm. "They're such a balm to us in the midst of our other heinous crimes."
Someone in the crowd titters, and Susan's grip tightens further on Edmund's arm.
"Pray to whatever god will have you," Miraz says to Peter. "For your crimes, you face worse than the gallows."
"You'll have to try not to lose me again," Peter says genially, and spits a mouthful of blood at Miraz's feet.
Miraz backhands him across the face, sending Peter sprawling, and then barks at the Marines to take him out. He meets Edmund's eyes one more time before the doors close behind him.
"The seas are rid of a great menace!" Miraz cries, and Susan turns blindly away, shaking badly.
Edmund grabs her shoulder. "He'll be all right," he says. "He always is. But I'd better go --"
"No," Susan says. "No, you're not."
Edmund's eyebrows shoot up. "Let me rephrase," he says. "I have to go break Peter out of jail because he's an idiot and got himself caught --"
Susan digs her nails into his wrist. "You're not going anywhere without me," she hisses. "He's my brother too, little though he's acted it these past five years."
"Oh, for the love of -- come on, then."
They thread their way through the crowd, Edmund's head lowered slightly so no one can see their face, and out into a back hallway that will eventually lead to Susan and Lucy's rooms.
"Look, Su," Edmund begins before she can do more than catch her breath, "Miraz isn't going to let Peter make it to London alive; he's either going to kill him here or kill him on the way there. He --"
Susan slaps him.
"Ow!" Edmund exclaims, hand flying to his cheek. "What in blazes was that for?"
"Whatever you did," Susan says, "you got him into this. Damn you, Edmund. You're my brother and I -- you got him into this, you got Lu into this, you killed our father --"
"What --"
"-- and if Peter dies, it will be on your head. Do you understand that?"
Edmund meets her eyes. "I've understood that since the day he walked into my cell," he says. "Jesus, Su, I tried to talk him out of it, I stood there in my jail cell knowing I was going to die a traitor's death and tried to talk my brother out of throwing away his career, his honor, his life, for me. You think I don't know that?"
"I don't know if you do," Susan says. She means to say more, but there are footsteps in the hall now, coming towards them. She gives Edmund a frantic look, because he's a wanted pirate, a condemned traitor --
Caspian and Lucy come around the corner, Caspian examining his hand ruefully. He glances up as he sees them, and says, "Oh, Miss Pevensie, I didn't mean --" His eyes go wide as he sees and recognizes Edmund, and he manages to get out, "You --" before Edmund has him up against the wall with one arm across Caspian's throat and a knife against his crotch.
"Don't shout," Edmund says, "or you're going to be one surprised eunuch."
Caspian goes very still. "You --" he begins in a strangled whisper, "you're --"
"I don't believe we've met," Edmund says, as polite as he might have been six years ago, before Newgate. "Su, would you care to do the honors?"
Susan draws herself up, glancing at Lucy, who's staring at Edmund in surprise and delight. "Lieutenant Caspian," she says, "I'd like you to meet my brother Edmund. I believe you've heard of him?"
Note: I believe the "you're going to be one surprised eunuch" line is from Scott Lynch, but I'm not certain. I know it's not mine, at least, but it seemed appropriate.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 07:42 am (UTC)The pirate AU! How I love that! And oh! Peter and Edmund! *shakes head* Words fail me. I have no idea what I should say now. But really, I adore their devotion to each other. Really. Even if it doesn't always come to the best of results. Or maybe this is the best of results. Let them live happily ever after as pirates, will you? *pleading eyes*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 01:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 08:12 am (UTC)Ooh, I love Edmund in this. As always.
*happy dance*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 02:10 pm (UTC)I love this AU! It's wonderful. (Peter seems like a cross between Jack Sparrown and euhm... himself... or maybe I'm just illusioned).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 04:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 05:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 05:49 pm (UTC)Personally, I'd say that Peter's more of a Will Turner character, because Will is a hardass. Seriously. FIRST PERSON IN THE MOVIES TO KILL SOMEONE. And yes, he's in over his head, but he thinks fast, he's quick, he's smart, he's not as honorable as everyone thinks. If we're going by PotC standards, I'd say Peter is Will, Edmund is Barbossa, Caspian is either Norrington or Elizabeth, Lucy doesn't really have an equivalent, Susan may be an Elizabeth character, sort of...I don't know, they don't really match up. (PotC! Also a fandom I wrote in, very briefly.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 09:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-04 12:39 pm (UTC)And in the movies there is some allusion to Tia Dalma having done something to Jack that he 'liked at the time' but seems to be nearly unable to "forgive" her for afterwards.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 07:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 09:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 02:15 pm (UTC)This is so fabulous! Peter snarking at Miraz and Edmund's horror at being rescued and Susan's indignation and just, everything
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 04:21 pm (UTC)I kind of love them all here. *beams* Peter has never snarked this much.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 03:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 04:23 pm (UTC)They're all so competent. *enamoured*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 06:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-03 07:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-05 05:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-05 05:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-10 03:55 am (UTC)she is the man
except, you know, not a man
she rocks my world
i first listened to her when i was a wee kid 'cos my dad is all about her. back when i used to write original fantasy (i use the term 'original' loosely!) she was the background music when i wrote. so perfect for it.
also WORD UP PIRAAAATE AUUUUUUUs
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-10 04:00 am (UTC)i have not actually heard the enya version of this! i have the celtic woman version.
my original high fantasy "novel", starring a sea elf and a dark elf forced to travel together across a hostile continent, was written to...shania twain.
i am inordinately fond of the pirate au.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-10 05:40 am (UTC)mine had a mary sue called Aire who was a Wanderer, creatures who bring omens. people think Wanderers are bad luck, but they're not really, they just often brings bad news. and then she falls for a mortal man, or a mortal man falls for her, i can't remember. never finished, of course. it's maybe on a floppy disk somewhere. ya the 3.5" ones!