***

"ELIZABETH!"

          Sophie jerked awake from her doze under Norrington's hat, the day was warm and the quintet's music had been soothing. Now she was confronted with the vertigo of the fort's wall soaring down into the jagged edge of the sea where that chit had just splashed. Looking down, atop the wall edge, shrugging out of his great coat; Norrington was about to jump in after her.

          Sophie tightened herself around his head, trembling and hissing, "I am not going down there! I am not getting wet! Do you hear me Commodore James Norrington?!" She tightened her grip on him, like a cat sinking claws, making him a trifle lightheaded. Until finally, finally, Jenny Fair's level-headed Lieutenant pointed out the rocks and pulled the Commodore back. "My goodness, Sophie, are you quite all right? There, there..." Jenny Fair consoled, rustling her twin curls soothingly.

          As Norrington was running along the docks, Gillette, Groves, and Marines in tow, his wig continued to berate him, "You were really going to jump in! How dare you even THINK of getting that disgusting saltwater all over me! Mind you, I do not mind the occasional light spray, but I shall not tolerate a dunking! Not for that little chit! I say let her drown! She does not love you like I love you, James, although I am thinking of reconsidering!" Sophie retreated further under his hat and coiled her curls tightly, still grumbling.

           Esme, with an utterly unaffected air, perched atop Grove's prematurely receding hairline, had the audacity to laugh at her scoldings. "Bitch," Sophie thought pressing herself against James' scalp during the excitement of the runaway pirate, "see if I shall let her touch me again. Jenny Fair is my cuttlefish from this moment forward. Purrrrrr." 'Twould be several days before she released her grudge against James and several more days after that before she would forgive Esme.

The End.