Acheron's Brimming Waters

The path leads downward to the dead
where Acheron's brimming waters spread
there let me go.--Virgil, The Aeneid, Book VI.

Elizabeth stands on the deck, looking down as the moonlight makes the water below the ship look like a lie. The white cold light sparkles on the tips of the black waves, as if there are diamonds trapped within. As if there is some sort of light inside.

There is nothing below her but death.

In her mind she sees tentacles swarming beneath the ship, waiting. Death and a thousand screaming agonies. Elizabeth shivers. There is nothing good beneath the waves, but for reasons unknown, she cannot stop looking.

"Here now. Should ye not be asleep, Miss Turner?"

The voice is caustic enough that it makes her stiffen; though to be honest, it comes attached to a face she never thought she'd see again. Turning, see sees Captain Barbossa--is he still a captain? Is he still dead?--leaning nonchalantly against the rail. He's wearing a hat, and it cuts the light from the moon in half and shadows his face.

"Should you not be dead?" she snaps, annoyed. Elizabeth prefers to be left alone, her fingers curved tight around the weathered wood of the ship's rail, with death lurking dark and silent around her. Not standing with his demon's smile two feet away, with a look on his face like he knows something she does not.

"Aye, I suppose I should, at that. Fate's a funny thing, eh, Miss Turner?"

"It's Miss Swann," she responds in her best governor's daughter voice, the effect of which is somewhat lost amidst the men's clothing and tangled, dirty hair.

She looks no more like a proper young maiden than he does a respectable ship's captain. She wonders what happened to him, before Aztec gold and curses and strange magics took the man he used to be and buried him beneath treachery and greed. She wonders why she even cares. Maybe it is because she is beginning to see how easy it is to let darkness in, just a little, to do what must be done.

The feel of his mouth, hard and hot, the smell of the sea and rum and terror and the knowledge of betrayal clinging tight like seaweed--

Or maybe she just wants to think about something else.

"Is it, now." He doesn't sound like he really cares, and he probably doesn't. He walks towards her with that staggering gait that speaks of long experience navigating the decks of gently-heaving ships. Elizabeth tilts her chin up and doesn't move, though she wants to. He leans against the railing next to her, staring out at the sea.

"Yes," she answers testily, though she doesn't know why.

"Your fine young Mr. Turner hasn't taken you to wife yet? Or did Sparrow run off with ye and stain that fine honor o'yours?" He cuts his eyes down at her, a smile playing at his mouth. "Wouldn't surprise me. Sparrow always did have a way with the virtuous. A way of making them not."

"Why are you wearing that ridiculous hat?" she asks him in lieu of an answer. "Why aren't you dead?" Why am I out here talking to you instead of inside, with Will, where things should make sense?

"Because ye want to know something," he says, leaning down. His voice is low and carries on the wind like some kind of mournful wail. "About Jack. Somethin' I know."

"You do not know anything at all about Jack," Elizabeth sniffs, looking once more towards the sea that churns, tossing silver waves beneath the boat. In the moonlight, silver like the water, she can see the scar cutting across the soft skin of her palm.

"Oh, but I do know, lass. Why do you think I'm here? One dead man to find another." He chuckles. The sound is remarkably hollow, but there's a look on his face like maybe it's a joke, so maybe that's the only way he can laugh anymore. "Besides, girl, I know Sparrow. Sailed with him. Took a curse with him. Fought him to the death. Makes you know a man, that."

"You betrayed him," Elizabeth reminds him.

"Then I'm in good company," Barbossa says smoothly, his voice like the hiss of a serpent beside her, saying things she'd rather not hear.

Elizabeth bows her head and blinks rapidly, feeling for moment as if the sea is in her eyes. "Yes. For the good of a great many people. You left him on an island to die a slow and painful death for nothing."

Barbossa throws his head back and laughs. The sound cracks around her like a whip. "Lass, ye fed him to a monster, way I hear it told. Wouldn't be acting as if ye have some moral righteousness to be standin' on, now, were I you."

There are times she hears an echo of an accent long-lost in his voice; traces of a speech not peppered with slurs and shortened, hard syllables. A trace of education, learning. His name is Spanish but his accent is not. Something lost and gained though plunder, most likely. "There is a difference," Elizabeth says slowly, though she's not sure why she bothers, "In killing a man for gain and killing a man to save the lives of others. Besides, I'm going back to find him. You took his ship and ran."

"I think maybe yer wrong," Barbossa whispers, leaning towards her. "I think he's as like to go for yer throat first, missy, as he is for mine." He cackles again, like a madman singing to the moon.

Elizabeth wonders if he does that on purpose, tries to come across like a lunatic. "Why?" Having a discourse with the devil is likely stupid, but she can no longer stare at the depths of the sea and think of anything pleasant. There's evil disguised as beauty in the waves, so she may as well look at the evil plain and unadorned before her.

Barbossa's hand emerges from the confines of his ornate coat; she shifts backwards imperceptibly at the movement, suddenly afraid he's going to draw a pistol on her. He laughs again, and the sound plays over her skin and sends ice to dance up her spine. He's holding an apple, silver-green in the moonlight. "What I did was honest, Miss Swann." He takes a bite of the apple with strong, firm teeth. She cannot tell if he enjoys the taste, if he is still cursed, or if he's just now used to the craving. "Pirates respect greed. We have no use for love." He shakes his head and clucks, taking another bite of the apple. He holds it out, the faded lace falling over the swarthy skin of his wrist, the flesh of the fruit whitened and slick. "You betrayed a man's heart. Harder to take than his pocketbook. Leastaways, that always the tale I hear."

"No," she whispers, and she doesn't know if she's rejecting his offer of the fruit or his words. "You're wrong. It's far more noble to die for love than--" She stops herself, horrified. "Far more noble to die for the survival of others than it is to leave them marooned for gold," she finishes, though there is the slightest hint of doubt in her words.

"You can try to convince yerself of that if ye must," Barbossa says, shrugging. He devours the apple like a sinner devours sin, biting close to the core. Elizabeth is riveted to the sight, the way the man seems part of the shadows that seep onto the deck as the clouds shift and cover the moon. Jack hides his darkness in the shift of his eyes, but Barbossa wears his like a brand. "I daresay he'll go for mine second, so perhaps we can...help each other out. Watch each other's...back." His eyes drift down and he stares blatantly at her chest before meeting her gaze again. He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Elizabeth scowls, breath tightening in anger. "How dare you," she begins hotly, and stops as he rolls his eyes and leans back against the railing. The apple remains, half-eaten, in his palm.

"Oh, spare me the indignation. You've been around pirates long enough now, missy. Ye are one, now. There is no place here for maidenly protestations."

"If Jack kills you, I'm not going to be sorry," she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

He looks over at her and quirks a brow. "Wouldn't you know, I share a similar sentiment."

The ship chooses that moment to pitch her forward, as of course it would. Fate is indeed a twisted thing. He catches her easily, long fingers wrapping around her wrist. He cocks his head thoughtfully. For a moment, she sees a shadow on his face of a man long dead, but it's forgotten as his fingers drift carefully over the sliver of the scar on her palm. As if he knows that it's there, beneath her linen shirt.

"He'll be different when he comes back, lass. Death does something to a man. Makes him...hard." Barbossa smirks. Elizabeth struggles, wanting to smack him.

"How dare you--"

"Shh, now, and listen to me. Hell is in the blood, girl, and ye cannot just go to it and come back again with nary a stain on you. On your soul." He pulls her closer. She can feel his breath on her face, the scratch of lace and mottled velvet against her body. "Dead men know this. I know this. Sparrow will know, too. If he comes back."

Elizabeth looks into his eyes when she speaks. "He's not going to be you."

"No," Barbossa agrees, a smile sliding sinister and slick over his mouth. "He won't be." He pushes her away, suddenly, and stares at the apple in his hand. Elizabeth thinks she sees loathing cross his face, but she doesn't know what for and she doesn't want to, either. She turns to go, making her way across the deck, praying the ship doesn't roll again and cause her to lose her dignity and fall at his knees.

"He may be something worse, though."

She pauses and looks back. He is still standing next to the railing, shrouded by the sea and the shadows that seem to whisper and moan with the wind. "He may be," she says carefully. She eyes him thoughtfully. There may be truth in that, beneath his suggestive smiles and well-played cruelty. Maybe Barbossa knows something of what he's speaks, after all.

Barbossa nods back, the gesture strangely solemn, and turns his back on her. He throws the apple out into the sea, where it is presumably swallowed by the waves that wait like a starving man gasping for something to eat.

Elizabeth doesn't stay to watch. She thinks maybe she and Barbossa understand each other, a little. She thinks that might be dangerous.