The Grand Escape, && tag, miss elliot

[Taylor Elliot]

<sub>Taylor moved her hand to her hat, about to take it off, but she decided not to. Were she to take it off, somebody might actually see her and discover she wasn't all that manly as she claimed. She would ultimately die if that were to happen. Disguise was key to the way she lived.

"Last one who stole from me.." she said, putting a finger to her chin, thinking. " If I recall correctly, he got his brains blown straigh' ou'. The blood smea's are still on the wall," she said, remembering how the side of the cove looked last time she'd stepped in there. It wasn't too much of a pretty picture.

Taylor could feel the sting of the salt, and it caused her to blink numerous times, but it kept her eyes open. It was the only thing besides rum that seemed to keep her awake. She always wondered what there was in rum that woke her, but that was another thing that Taylor never bothered to ask anybody.

She snapped back, out of her thoughts when she heard Jack speak to her. " Well, I guess because I'm abou' ready to pass ou'.. The salt helps to keep me eyes open a li'l' bi'..."</sub>

[Jack Sparrow]

"If I recall correctly, he got his brains blown straigh' ou'. The blood smea's are still on the wall."

His nose wrinkled at the tip. "Would'n' wan' to be tha' sorry soul," he muttered faintly, turning his head straight again, trying to find a rowing pace that was both comfortable and quick enough.

Once he found his easy zone, he turned his head slightly to look behind him. Just vaguely some distance away, he could see the blur of black against the blue-gray of the ocean water. A grin, wide and uncontrolled, spread across his face.

With a jerk of his head, he attempted to catch Taylor's attention. Eyes still locked on the ship in the distance, he said, "'At, lass, is the Pearl."

"Well, I guess because I'm abou' ready to pass ou'.. The salt helps to keep me eyes open a li'l' bi'..."

His mouth formed an 'o' and he breathed out a soft, "Ah." Turning back around, Jack focused once more on the rowing, allowing the speed to pick up just slightly. The Black Pearl was so close, so near that he could almost hear the cries of the crew upon seeing that the captain had returned.

But they wouldn't go to the ship just yet; no, they had the pit-stop to attend to.

"So where is this cave o' yers?" he asked Taylor upon pulling the paddles in toward him, a moment later lifting the ends out of the water and slapping them down on the surface to repeat.

[Taylor Elliot]

<sub>Taylor grinned a little. " Tha's why people don' steal from me now," she said, laughing slightly. No, she wasn't making it up, but she could have been. People still might have beleived her too. Skepticism was always common with what she would tell people.

It was going to happen. She was a sixteen-year-old girl on all these escapes and daring adventures, hiding stolen food in a cove and shooting anybody who tried to get away with stealing it from her. Nobody ever would have beleived her.

Especially since she was Jamison Elliot's daughter.

Jamison was supposed to be a nice, proper man, but he was a pirate. Didn't anyone know that? He was a pirate who raised his daughter to be a pirate. Of course, he was going to do that. The family practically lived on that ship of his, which was now wrecked out in a place where it seemed to always storm and swell.

Taylor's head turned to look at the large ship, a slit opening in her lips, a breath of awe let out silently, her gaze not able to be averted until she forced herself to stop looking at it. " It's.. amazing.."

Her eyes scanned the rock walls around the shores, falling on a place that appeared not too far, but involved a small bit of a climbing, a foot or so, but nothing more than that. Taylor extended one of her pale, thin fingers towards it. " Righ' ove' there," she said with a nod.</sub>

[Jack Sparrow]

"Tha's why people don' steal from me now."

Jack could easily understand why someone had gone to her stash to try and nab something: it was for the same reasons that he had sought her out in the crowd.

She was, most obviously, a female, which automatically branded her as a prime target for pillaging. Not only that, but she was still quite young, and with 'less experience under her belt.' It wasn't like many would take a moment to consider what she really could be like, though perhaps if people did, there wouldn't have been need to 'blow the brains out' of anyone.

"It's... amazing...."

He swelled with pride upon hearing such about his ship. She really was the greatest of all pirate vessels, and anyone that said otherwise had an appointment with Jack's pistol.

"Use' to be a merchan' ship," he said with a fond look in his eyes. "Bu' then she sunk. I've gone through alo' with her, I 'ave."

"Righ' ove' there."

Jack turned his attention to the direction Taylor was looking. Just barely could he make out an entrance in the rocky wall of the cliff; he assumed automatically that it was her hide-away. There seemed to be a fair deal of climbing involved with reaching it, but that was nothing for the captain of the ship with black sails.

"'Ow big is the place?" he asked of the girl behind him, curiousity getting the better of him. He wasn't about to wait to get there to find out; he was too impatient for that.

[Taylor Elliot]

<sub>"That, I can beleive," Taylor said with a nod. " It amazes me that after all the tales I've heard about you, that she isn't falling apart like some other ships I've seen." Taylor pulled the black ribbon out of her hair as she still looked over at the ship, taking another moment to look away from it.

She didn't want to look like she was infatuated with the ship or anything. She was just a bit more startled than she'd thought she would be upon seeing it. She always thought it was just a ship, but as soon as she saw it in real life, she was amazed beyond all reason.

"It's pre'y big. Not huge, but bigger than I'd assumed when I first saw the outsi'e of it. I guess maybe 20 feet tall, 50 feet back with passage ways on either si'e in the back," she said with a nod.

Both passageways led to where Taylor kept her things. It took a while to find your way out unless you could think like Taylor, which most people found far too complicated for them to do. Trying to think the way Taylor thought was like trying to put together a 5,000 piece puzzle that only she could figure out.

Simply put: it just wasn't possible.

To most people it wasn't possible, but Taylor had met one or two people able to think in Tayor's state of mind. She was always thinking, always on her feet. In other words: clever and quick-thinking. She could think on her feet, like when she'd jumped off the side of the ship and clung to the underside of a life boat.</sub>

[Jack Sparrow]

"It amazes me that after all the tales I've heard about you, that she isn't falling apart like some other ships I've seen."

A slightly shocked look came across his face. He could never imagine allowing the Pearl to suffer any sort of damage, and so after every sea battle she was engaged in, there would be hours of reparations afterward to ensure that she would sail smoothly.

"Wha' - exac'ly - 'ave you 'eard of the Pearl?" he asked of her in curiousity. It was something to hear of what others thought they knew of one's adventures in comparison to what really happened, and Jack was more than eager to hear.

He listened as he was given the guestimated size and dimensions of the cavern, and for a moment, he wondered where it was that the goods were kept. More than that, he wondered where it was that the passages on either side led to, but he wasn't about to ask her that.

They continued to near the cliffs where the entrance was, until finally they pulled up right beneath it. Looking up at the hole in the wall of stone several hundred feet up, he quickly shot his gaze back down to Taylor. "Are we t' dock it here and climb, or shou' we go an' get the Pearl firs' fer easy loadin'?" he asked of her.

It would probably be easier the latter way. However, once again, there was far too many risks involved in doing such. Just barely could Jack make out above them a flap of a guard's tailcoat in the wind: a sure sign that the place was guarded. If they didn't retrieve the Pearl first, though, there would be far more to try and cram into the little boat in which they sat.

[Taylor Elliot]

<sub>"I 'eard about well.. the Aztec Gold, the Kraken, the chases with Jones.." she said, trying not to get quiet when she said the last part of her statement. Anything concerning Jones, she tended to get a little timid, mainly because she was hiding her horrible situation from everyone she knew.

She desperately wanted to tell somebody, but if she told Jack, there was no way she was getting on that ship, and there would most likely never be a meeting between the two again. The obvious conclusion was: Nobody was to know of Jones.

Jones was actually the person, err thing, she'd heard this from, when he spouted off angrily to the rest of the crew. It wasn't all that fun, listening to him yell and walking around with a headache all day. No, this was not what she thought the life of a pirate should be like. Someday, she was going to get away from Jones for good, and she would never go back.

Taylor looked at the cave, then Jack, catching a glimpse of the guard in the corner of her eye. " I say.. we get the Pearl first, unload, come back.. That way, we won't have to worry about the crates getting damaged."</sub>

[Jack Sparrow]

"I 'eard about well.. the Aztec Gold, the Kraken, the chases with Jones...."

His mouth opening, a slight, "Ah," escaped his lips as he turned slightly in his seat so as to face Taylor whilst they remained sitting where they were. For a moment, he thought that perhaps she might have learned where it was that the Pearl had come from, but it appeared that she hadn't.

Swinging his legs over the board that was used as a seat, moving himself so that he had a clear view of the young girl that sat behind him. "It 'at all you know?" he asked her with a mischievious glint in his eyes, a grin playing on his features so that his golden colored teeth shone in the slight light at an angle that wouldn't bother her - hopefully. Jack had never been good with angles and the likes, so he wasn't certain.

"I say.. we get the Pearl first, unload, come back...."

"Ai," he said in agreement, and spun back around in his seat, arms working once again to row their way along the surface of the water. The waves pressed aside in their path, washing up against the side of the boat and closing at the tip, the waves settling down as the rowboat made its way past.

It was lovely that she would be getting an early look at the Pearl, venturing from the main decks right away, coming down to see the crew's cabins, where she would be staying whilst on board the ship, then to the cellars. The only thing that would be left for her to tour would be the crow's nest and the captain's quarters, which weren't really necessary to be seen,

[Taylor Elliot]

<sub>Taylor just nodded a little to his 'ah'. She now realized she probably shoul dhave never brought up Jones because now, images and sounds were echoing through her head, just flashes of horrible memories.

She nodded once again. " Tha's all I know," she said, her fingers drumming against the wood of the tiny boat as they sort of just sat there. Taylor looked as he grinned, this time the light not bouncing back to her eyes, thank the lord. Taylor would like to keep her eyesight, thank you.

Taylor was quiet, idle as he'd began to row again. She made no noise except for her breathing, but the only thing heard was the thoughts running through her head. There were options just buzzing on through, so fast she could barely understand them.

All of this made her think: I'm Sixteen. Why am I doing this?</sub>

[Jack Sparrow]

"Tha's all I know."

He continued to row, breathing deeply as he pulled the oars in and letting out a long exhale every time he stroked them in the salty sea water. He knew that the Pearl was slowly finding definition as it grew closer to him, and he could almost hear the faint rustle of the sails in the wind.

He knew that, had he turned his head, the manacing form of his ship would slowly be looming all the closer and larger, beautiful in every way imaginable. The bow of the ship would stand threatening, coming to a flat peak at its highest point; the foremost mast would poise as a defensive line, the crow's nest ejecting from its hard, smooth wood. The heavy black sails would billow in and out with the wind, inviting and worrisome at the same time. He would just barely be able to make out the sight of the middle mast and the rear one, equally as thick and dark sails hanging from them, puffed out with the air around them.

Jack smiled at the thought, taking in every detail in his mind and freezing it there so that, as he closed his eyes, it became all the more evident in shape and craft.

"'S a shame," he said quietly, perhaps so that Taylor, sitting behind him, would not be able to hear him say it. Instead of repeating himself, he settled into an uncertain silence in which the only noise was to be the lapping of the water against the side of their boat and it being pushed against the oars.

Slowly they drew near to the ship so that, with a little more distance being covered, they would be able to reach out and touch it. "What say you we stay aboar' till nigh'fall, an' then we come ou' an' get the goods?"

[Taylor Elliot]

<sub>Taylor looked at the water as Jack appeared to be staring at his ship. The water was like her home. Once she was in it, she didn't ever want to leave it. The waters were the only places she felt free enough to do what she wanted. There wer eno restrictions there, no boundaries or regulations to follow.

Out on the sea, Taylor didn't need to look like other women, she could dress comfortably without squishing her organs and lungs with those corsets. She didn't have to wear any large, frilly dresses. Her hair could be as tangled and knotted as she'd like it to be.

Taylor could pretend that things were the same, that she still had a family, and she hadn't been "drafted" into Jones' crew at the age of ten, becoming a little run away at the age of sixteen. She was wrecking her life, and her father would frown upon what she was doing.

Even worse, he'd frown upon the fact that she was with Jones.

She hated this, to upset her father. Alive or dead, she still held her head high in his honor, to protect his pride as the last living Elliot because er great Aunt who was more than off her rocker.

Taylor snapped back, turning her attention to Jack when he spoke. " Nigh'fall? Oh, uh, yes, tha' sounds very, very goo'.."</sub>

[Jack Sparrow]

"Nigh'fall? Oh, uh, yes, tha' sounds very, very goo'.."

Something in Taylor's voice was slightly off, perhaps a little airy, even. That was never something that Jack liked in the quality of a pirate, for it led eventually down a path of being caught off guard, and that, in turn, could very well lead to death. However, as Taylor was, at the moment, only a stow-away that was to be dropped off at the next port, as she had said, there was no point in even trying to bring the topic up with her.

In a way, he was slightly curious as to what it was that brought the tone to her voice, but he knew that if he found it, he could very easily be ensnared in some sort of emotional tangle with the girl, and he wouldn't allow that to happen. It would be like falling into an all too obvious trap laid out before him that he watched be set: plain out stupid.

With a final effort, the rowboat was pulled up to the side of the Pearl. With a carressing smile on his face, Jack held out his hand and ran it along the darkly painted side of the ship before his fingers took hold of the ropes that lined the side of it.

Holding on to one of them, he looked at Taylor and said, "I'll go on up an' get meself in a position to haul yer boat up. You wait 'ere with the goods for a moment."

And with that, he began to climb up the side of the ship with only the support of the ropes around him. It was something that he had learned to do a long while ago, and had gotten fairly skilled in the art of doing. He clambered up the side of the Black Pearl, finally lifting his leg over the edge and hopping aboard.

A few members of the crew stopped to look at him as though he was crazy. "Well 'en?" he asked of them, brows raised as he pressed the hem of his hat lower onto his head. "Lower the 'ooks - we 'ave a boa' an' a shipma'e to ge' up 'ere!"

He watched as the men - and perhaps a woman also - began bustling about to lower the hooks to Taylor's boat. Leaning against the mast, he smiled in satisfaction; it was a good thing his crew was willing to take the orders without a second thought or word of complaint.

[OOC: Next post, could you make it on the Pearl so we continue to flow with this and whatnot?]