Master Of Sails

Fanfiction: Pirates of the Caribbean: CotBP

Rating: K

Characters: Jack and Will

Disclaimer: Don't own them, aren't making any money (I wish!)

Will doesn't know a foreyard from a mains'l stay, and Jack's vocabulary takes an interesting turn.

A/N: Written for the Broken Compass Forum's weekly drabble prompt, 'master'. At 320 words, still not a drabble but I'll keep working at it. R&R?

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"Haul on those bunt lines and make fast the jeers!"

Will Turner stared at him blankly. He had no idea what Jack was talking about.

"Come on, William, step to!"

Will followed Jack across the ship as the pirate alternately hauled, loosened and tied off various lines. "Er...come again?"

Jack spun around with an exasperated sigh. "Tell me, William, do you know anything about ships?"

"Not really."

Jack paused for the barest of seconds, thinking. "Then pull on that thing there and tighten down those thingys over there on the double, savvy?"

He said this all very fast and Will did his best to follow Jack's wild pointing and hoped he had gotten the right lines. The instant he'd tightened down 'those thingys over there' Jack issued a new set of jargonified commands.

"What?"

"That line!" Jack shouted in frustration, "Up! Move the thingy there up!" He made great flapping motions with his arms that Will tried to interpret, then ducked as a bullet whined past his head.

"This thing?"

"No! That thingumgujer there! Move that over with the other thingamwhatsit! Now, Will!" Will wasn't sure exactly which was the thingamwhatsit or what he was supposed to do with the thingumgujer, but he went at it with a will and evidently didn't do too bad of a job, because Jack stopped shouting at him and dashed off across the boat, crouched low to avoid the continual shots.

After a moment, Will followed him. "Here they come."

Jack glanced over his shoulder with a sly smile. "And here we go."

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Later, when the muted thud of bullets on wood and the shouts from the Dauntless had faded into the distance and they sat at the bow of the Interceptor, grinning faintly, Jack turned to Will.

"You're really going to have to master some sailing terminology, boy."

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