Pride

Pride brought him to Tortuga, James Norrington has no doubts about that.

Pride in his ability to hunt down any brigand he set his sights on led him to give that bloody pirate one day's head start.

When the chase turned far more difficult than Norrington had ever dreamed, injured pride made him aim his ship into a hurricane, determined to best Sparrow at his own game...

Pride took everything from him.

He has found there is no pride at the bottom of a bottle.


Sloth

He lets his beard grow, something he's never done before, and can't be bothered to keep it well-groomed.

Often he sleeps til the middle of the afternoon, waking with his head pounding and a mouth that tastes like the bilges.

He doesn't try to clean mud or spilled food and drink from his once-pristine coat.

He can't see the point in paying for a bath, when dunking his head in a trough or rain barrel works just as well.

He avoids mirrors.


Gluttony

There are nights when all he does is tuck himself into a quiet corner of a tavern with only a bottle for company.

Then there are the nights when he finds the rowdiest, ugliest pub in town—and there is more than one—and antagonizes the first person to cross his path until fists and chairs and bottles are swung.

These nights are growing more frequent.

Sometimes he makes it out of these brawls relatively unscathed; sometimes he's the one being thrown out into the streets by the tavern owner.

"Glutton for punishment, that one," he hears someone say one night as he's lying face down in the filth, and he can't bring himself to disagree.


Envy

As he scrubs the deck, Norrington sees Sparrow wander the deck of the Pearl. The pirate is completely in his element; he strolls as if he is king of not only all he surveys, but the entire Caribbean as well. There is an unmistakable air of self-confidence about him; he knows that here, he is the first and last word in authority.

Norrington watches Sparrow, chest twisting until he can hardly breathe. He remembers that feeling; he remembers standing on the quarterdeck of the Dauntless, knowing that with a single word of command, every man on board would leap to do his bidding. He never touched the wheel of the Dauntless in the shameless way Sparrow is now caressing that of the Pearl, but he remembers how smooth and comforting the wood of his ship was beneath his hand.

His ship. He has no ship.


Lust

Sparrow's voice awakes a fire within Norrington, a lust he didn't know existed.

He watches the pirate, wondering how difficult it would be to get the man alone.

It burns in him like a low-grade fever, heightening every sense, keeping him awake nights; he can think of nothing else. He feels like a man possessed, holds to that, lets it strengthen him.

The words echo in his mind: A full pardon.


Greed

Head spinning, vision swimming, stomach churning, Norrington still manages to realize that there is no-one guarding the longboat. Everyone else is desperately fighting Davy Jones' horrific crew.

He hears Turner stagger-splash toward the melee, and takes the opportunity given him.

Fierce triumph surges through him; the letters of marque are everything he needs to get his life back, if only he can live through this battle.

But as he looks at the ridiculous jar of dirt in the bottom of the longboat, he realizes that's it's not enough simply to get his own life back.

The heart is nauseatingly warm and alive against his chest; it beats out of time with his own.


Wrath

The man is armed, and dressed in the uniform of the East India Trading Company, and James Norrington is suddenly furious. The Company, in his harbour—is it now controlling his fleet, his men? Has this Beckett taken over his office, his house, his horses and servants and everything else that was once his to command? Is he that easily replaced?

Then the man has the utter gall to take him by the arm, and it takes everything Norrington has to keep from planting a fist in his smug, clean, well-fed face.