My interpretation of Philip and Syrena's final scene. Please tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I don't own PotC: On Stranger Tides.
"You need only ask."
The words, spoken at the bank of a murky pool, are a forbidden spell on her lips, almost clumsy but so utterly and unmistakably true, as they fall onto his ears. And for a moment, the pain in Philip's chest stops, replaced instead by a powerful and bitter yearning. For that one blissful moment, fleeting as the undeniable attraction they'd come to share, he is oblivious to the crimson flowers dripping, deadly and dark, from his inflicted mortal wounds, the suffocating darkness creeping down into his shaken vision, and the foul breath of fate on the sweaty nape of his neck.
The nod he gives is almost imperceptible, but she has been watching for it. Syrena's spindly fingers wind tenderly around his neck, tangle in the silver crucifix around his neck, though she pays it no heed as she pulls his face closer to hers. But who is he to object to this, when Philip has not paid attention to it either in these last days? These dangerous, desirable, days of adventure, magic, perhaps even love…
Then their lips collide, a confession they don't dare speak aloud, meeting in a way that could never be determined as accidental, and lingering hungrily, desperately, as if the other is the only living yet fragmented soul left in a deceptive world.
Philip feels the cold water slip over his head as Syrena pulls him into the pool, drags him under, but he does not fear for an instant, does not cry out. He does not dare even draw a breath, for he is unwilling to waste just a single precious second on the mermaid's lips. Not even when their bare feet hit the rocky, jagged bottom does he release his grip on her sleek, unblemished skin, which is slowly but steadily turning to scales beneath his palms, or when the wounds, stinging, stain the saltwater scarlet around their conjoining silhouettes.
Only when his dying breath forsakes him, this last hope and hint of saving oxygen, does he let her go. Drowning in the greed of a luckless lover, he knows this to be true. But he, a man of former faith, no longer cares, figuring it will beat bleeding to death, out of reach of this underwater haven, this creature's embrace.
It crosses his fading consciousness that, maybe, for choosing this creature of darkness, of supposed death, he has revoked his chance at heaven.
But just before he blacks out, Syrena kisses his forehead in bittersweet farewell, her hair swirling seductively above her head.
Or maybe, is his last thought, the most honest of them all, this was it.