A Storm for Lovers
Betrayed.
A million voices cried out the word, a million tones and facets of one roaring denial. Rage and sorrow coexisted calmly in that single repeated word, not fighting but strengthening each other, and she let the sea around her cry out her hurt. Tears fell from the sky, freezing and cutting, wetting and battering the hearts of those they touched.
Rage came from the sides and below, pushing the combatants towards their fate, each thinking themselves the better off… until they saw the maelstrom. Joy rose, manic and hateful and loving, and she darted between the waves, circled the cyclone of water that bent to her whim. Let them spill blood this day. Let them rend and tear and give her ghosts, of men and ship alike.
Let them worship her, calling her name in despair and penitence and plea as they once had.
The Pearl and the Dutchman closed first, and she danced between them, the water of the maelstrom and the rain from the air, favoring first one and then the other. One captained by Davy Jones, the traitorous author of her captivity, but she was free now, and her heart, fickle as the squalls it spawned, could respect him for his courage. Hate him, oh yes how she still hated him, and wanted him, hers to punish and love, but she could respect him all the same.
Oh, but it was good to be free of those bones of humanity.
Barbossa stood upon the Pearl still, binding her and witty Jack as surely as Jones had sought to bind the sea. She laughed, speeding the dark ship's passage, favoring her for just a moment. Her current commander had bowed in obeisance, even if it was fear that spawned the motion; her lover was always a joy to play with, never whining too strenuously when she broke his heart. Aye, the pretty thing had earned a hint of favor.
Leaving the two ships to spin within her mad creation, she hurled herself toward the rest of the armadas, examining them with wild glee. The pirates she was mostly familiar with, as they were familiar with her—by names, by trade, but not by heart. They all bore the touch of the sea upon them, though, lovers of her soul even when her mind was bound within bones. Feckless traitorous creatures they may have been, but so was she, and so with a laugh she threw them faster upon their enemy, favoring them with a wind half didn't want.
They wanted to run, the little lords who would have owned her, but she wasn't ready to let them go.
The British line she turned to next, howling in disappointment and overturning a vessel or two at what she saw. Most of the men she helped to the safety of their comrades' arms; some she claimed for herself, carrying them gasping to the depths. None knew her name, but most clung to her anyway, sensing her lordship and falling to her sensuality.
Drunk with freedom and power, she turned and embraced the flagship of the massive armada, wrapping it in her winds, catching it in a tide that shouldn't be there. Who was it that sent these beaten creatures to her, few of whom seemed capable of making a decision of their own? Who would send sheep where once they had sent sharks? Who would taunt her with tamed blood when what she yearned for was reckless lust?
He didn't notice as she brushed against him, embraced him as she had many a man in the past, the wind that did her bidding teasing about his flesh.
"Who are you, little lamb, that dares to try me now?"
The whispers were breaths upon the wind, tingles in the sea spray, and they should have struck his soul with terror and longing. Instead they did nothing, finding the hard thing that lived within this man unpalatable, hateful.
This man would never love a ship. He would never woo or bow before a woman.
And he would only ever wish to own the sea, one heel upon her neck, the other upon her belly, feeding her only on the blood of those who loved her.
Twisting away from him with a vicious cry, snapping the lines on several of his sails, she bid the winds leave his precious armada becalmed for a bit. Mayhap desperation would bring him closer to what she desired.
Quick as a thought she was back in the maelstrom, riding its wild sides, reaching through spray and rain and winds to caress the ones she wanted. So many, aboard these two vessels, so many she could use, would love to claim one day as her own.
Witty Jack and his love, of course, for they would certainly die within her grasp, and thank her for it.
Barbossa, even, for he could love the Pearl even if he'd never free her, and there was a deep fondness for ceremony and fine things within him, this killer and rapist and conqueror, that she found perversely amusing.
The lad William, who reeked of destiny and desire and other heady youthful things, their aroma little cut by his brushes with treachery and betrayal.
The girl Elizabeth, as fiery a woman as the sea could ever desire, fighting with words and swords and ships with equal glee.
And Davy Jones, her treasonous lover. He and the boy who reeked of destiny and the girl of fire and the half-mad pirate, dancing together amidst her rain, and she made it a drum-beat for them, turned the elements to a lash, touched their souls with fire when their thoughts turned to her.
She laughed in glee as it ended in blood, laughed and cried for the broken-hearted girl as precious Jack proved his heart true even in madness. Immortality for the boy, fear for Jack, sorrow for the girl…
And Davy Jones for her.
She embraced him with more force than she had the others, more fury, rending as well as mending. She was the sea, and the sea would not be ridden, would not be broken, would not be sold.
The sea would not give up its catch.
Her attention turned away, the maelstrom made to claim both vessels, and she snarled in frustration as a hundred voices cried her protection and pardon. Let the sea take them all. Let them all come to her and beg her mercy. Let them—
"Let them go. Please. Tia Dalma, let them go."
The boy's voice was weak, tired and lost as destiny claimed him, but still so full of love and devotion.
She could respect such. She could respect it and cherish it, for it was something she could never give.
The Pearl was already reaching for the open sea, Barbossa too proud to beg a boon of her again, but she helped the poor dark thing along anyway. It wasn't her fault her current captain didn't truly understand the meaning of goddess… nor her fault her true captain let her slip through his fingers time and time again. Taking a moment to brush sea-cold fingers against the boy's face, not in reassurance but in binding and love, she let him watch as she blew his pretty girl to safety, wrapped snug in the arms of the man they had helped both kill and birth.
Then the waters that were her heart and body coated the Dutchman, and she turned her full attention to its captains, both present and past.
Let the pirates live or die by their own wits and hands.
For now, she had better things to play with.