I Dream of Disney (Volume II)

Commanding the Cannon Fire [Jack Sparrow x Reader x Cutler Beckett] Part IV

Part IV - In Which We Encounter A Sparrow

The situation at hand seemed dire, to say the least. They had been taken as kidnapped prisoners to be held for ransom, held in a dark and dingy brig surrounded by men who spoke a distant language and who seemed perfect strangers to kindness, basic human rights and dental hygiene. The ruthless Captain Bellamy had stuffed them all into one holding cell, where the English aristocrats were forced elbow-to-elbow to jostle with the creak and gurgle of the waves. The rations were poor, maggot-ridden and grimy. The reek of the body odour was even worse. Yet, everyone agreed, the most unbearable thing was the complaints of Lady Wayland.

"Oh, he should think we've taken her away!" Lady Wayland bemoaned. "He'll think we've run away with the poor girl, his soon-to-be-wife. He'll be so - so cross!"

"Cross?" Lord Wayland repeated, "Good Lord, hope against it."

This was muttered sarcastically, seeing as it was followed immediately by a belch and a thorough teeth-picking.

Lydia Wayland seemed not to notice. The possible forfeit of marriage to the prosperous English gentleman was the most scarring thing for the old woman. Though no one held enough fight to argue with her or mutter more than three or four 'all will be wells' or 'shut ups' before they realised she was as inconsolable as she was irritating.

Though some people had more on their mind than their current predicament.

(Y/n) Wayland, a bride without a wedding but not without a gown, sat in her own cell and contemplated what awaited her. The gown, which had been crafted of the purest dove white lace and arranged meticulously, had become a dun colour with the rankness of her surroundings and the mud stirred up by sandy boots and unkempt floors. Her hair, once restricted into a beautiful yet confining up-do of elegant curls and sophisticated arrangement of heliotrope, white jasmine and petite white roses, lay in a heap in her hands. She sat there silently, combing through her locks with her fingers and picking out the flowers. They were starting to wilt and brown now: the hours of her tragedy were no longer new, but they were long.

"He ought to figure out that we've been taken," Lady Wayland nodded, but with her mussed hairstyle and crumpled dress, she looked completely deranged, "Once he's - he's figured that out, he'll send for us. He'll search the seas high-and-low until he's found his true love again."

"True love? True love?" (Y/n) snapped. "Lydia, he hasn't even met me. How could the man love a woman he hasn't met? That's as ridiculous as me declaring that I'm passionately in love with the Earl of Westminster."

The young woman realised that none of them had expected her to speak so strongly - or so hotly. Lydia's normally wrinkled eyes were the widest she had ever seen them and there was an ugly quiver in her thin lips that bespoke hideous anger.

"I apologise," (Y/n) replied quickly, before the beast was unleashed.

"Now, he will send for us," Lydia corrected. "He'll have the entire navy searching."

That fresh roost of information pricked the young woman's ears. She stood from her position, allowing the flowers to drop and then came over to the bars. She rested her elbows on the rusting bars, allowing her fingers to curl around the latticework.

"Navy?" (Y/n) probed. "My future husband is in the Navy? What is his position?"

But the hateful old woman refused to say anything more, which the others couldn't help but be appeased by.

It was soon nightfall, after which she could not sleep. The rest of her party - Maggie, her grandparents and two or three relatives - were locked in the other cell while she was trapped in this one. She tried to put her mind on other things.