The Roberts Title & other Absurdities

The original Dread Pirate Roberts belongs, of course, to the wonderful book/movie The Princess Bride and whomever currently holds the rights to it. The PotC characters belonged to Disney before I got ahold of them, but I'm not sure they'd recognize them enough to want them back now.

These ficlets are in no real set order, just a general collection of nonsense set shortly after the end of AWE. I'll try and update frequently. Suggestions welcomed.

I. THE ROBERTS TITLE

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With a vivid flash of green, the land, the sea, the sunlight vanished into gloom. Will Turner was leaving the world behind again, Elizabeth's world, to walk nearly ten years in darkness and shadow. Despair welled up in him as it always did, the space where his heart ought to be ached fiercely and – the Flying Dutchman gave a terrible, groaning shudder and stopped dead in the water.

Will blinked, abruptly pulled from his angst, and glanced around at the stereotypical, monochromatic mist, then up at the sails. Despite the complete lack of any real wind, the sails were drawing full and they ought to be quartering on the starboard tack. Why they were not was a mystery to him. Of course, how the Dutchman could sail with no wind also was a mystery to him, but it was a mystery he'd given up on figuring out.

It had felt like they'd run upon a reef, but that couldn't be right. They were in the Underworld. Did the Underworld even have reefs? That couldn't be right. What was wrong with the stupid ship now?

He headed afore and peered over the bow, his bewilderment temporarily ousting his self-pity. An improperly stowed leadline trailed forlornly in the dark, oozing water. He didn't see any rocks or reefs or, well, anything really. Just...dark, oozing water.

He sighed. If this was the Kraken's idea of a practical joke...

That was when the ship started going backward.

"Alright," Will said aloud. "That is not right." Ships simply did not go backwards. It wasn't even supposed to be possible. Not that a ship that regularly sailed under water was supposed to be any more possible, but that wasn't the point.

He looked around him at the slimy corpses and dramatic fog slowly gliding past the wrong way and started to get seriously annoyed. "This isn't funny," he told the black water. A skinny old sailor in a passing boat shrugged at him, mystified.

"Everythin' a'right up there?" Bootstrap shouted up from belowdecks, where he was playing Go Fish with some of the other crewmen.

"Yes, Dad," Will called back, rolling his eyes. This was humiliating. His ship was sailing backwards and he didn't know why. He sighed. He didn't wanna have to go ask his dad for help. Again. That would be the second time this week, not even mentioning the disastrous jib boom incident...

"This thing should come with a handbook," he muttered.

There was a sudden flash of green light, a lot of smoke and then a dazzling brightness. Will threw his arm over his eyes, hearing the sound of someone coughing. He squinted into bright sunlight and realized that he was back in the world. He peered around him.

The sky was blue and strewn with clouds, the ocean slightly choppy. A strong wind struck his face and took the sails aback with a loud crack of straining canvas. The ship trembled and heeled to larboard, but stayed still. At least it wasn't going backwards.

"Youu..." a familiar, sultry voice breathed from close behind him, evoking a horrible sense of deja vu, "ah Weelyam Turnah." Oh no, Will thought. Not her. I thought I was rid of her when she dissolved into crabs.

"I did think we'd already established that," he replied slightly crossly, turning around.

"I am being t'orough," Calypso retorted just as crossly, jabbing at him with a black fingernail. Will recalled that she was now a Sea Goddess and could probably turn him into a sea urchin if she wanted to, which would be rather hard to explain to Elizabeth. He cast about for something polite to say.

"I like the new look," he ventured, referring to the fact that her skin was now bright blue and wave patterned, though, in all honesty, he found the crooked lines rather difficult to make sense of.

"Dis?" Calypso asked scornfully, gesturing at herself. "Hahdly. Dat SOB Poseidon owes me. Tattoo-artis', my arse."

"...Right."

"Anyway, I com' here wit' a reasoon."

"I figured." Will folded his arms, wondering vaguely if Calypso was aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing anything.

"You...ah Weelyam Turnah de Secoond," Calypso told him in overly mystical tones, drawing herself up. Will sighed.

"Yeah. That's me."

"An' you are d' sooccessoor o' Davy Joones."

"The what of Davy Jones?" Will repeated blankly.

"De sooccessooor," she drawled.

"Uh...maybe?"

"You captain the bloody Dutchman, doncha?" Calypso snapped, her voice losing all mystic traces.

"Um, right."

"Goooood," she replied. Will gave her a look and she dropped a couple of Os. "But why do you no' take de title upon you'self?"

"If you can talk normally," Will interrupted, "why don't you? And what title are you talking about?"

"De Roberts title," Calypso told him grandly. "He did no' tell you?"

"Look," Will explained slightly impatiently, "You may have been a crab at the time or possibly even a giant whirlpool, which would explain why you missed some things, because it's probably not very easy to hear in there, but to sum up, my dead body was manhandled into stabbing Jones' heart with Jack's broken sword and then I had my chest hacked open by my dad. I didn't zactly fill out a form and inherit this."

"Da is no' 'mportant," Calypso said indifferently, invading his personal bubble by poking at his face again. Will took a step back. "Youuu mus' take de title!" She gestured wildly and one of the foremast backstays fell apart into a cluster of electric eels.

"Alright, alright, I take the title!" Will placated hurriedly. "Now what happens?"

"You are no' Weelyam Turnah."

"But," protested The-apparently-not-Will, "You just said..."

"I said? I said what?" Calypso lifted a dangerous eyebrow.

"You just said I was William Turner."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"Didn't."

"Did."

"Didn't."

"Did!" Calypso invaded his bubble again. Geez, didn't this woman have any concept of personal space?!

"Argue wit' me, Weelyam Turnah, an' I weel give you gills an' keep you in a cage, like my ot'er boy-toy."

"Wait. What? You have a...? No, never mind, I'm not asking. But...gills? You can do that?"

"What does I say 'bout arguing wit' Calypso?!" she yelled, stabbing a dramatic finger into heaven, triggering a timely flash of lighting as well as transforming most of the tackle blocks into octopi. Will dodged the raining cephalopods, choosing not to point out that they had already been arguing.

"But, but..." he protested, wincing at the soft splat of fleshy octopi bodies striking the deck. "Alright," he sighed, giving in. "I'm not Will Turner II. Who am I?"

"De Dread Pirate Roberts," Calypso stated promptly and matter-of-factly, smugly surveying the creatures suckering around the ship.

"The...Dread Pirate...Roberts?" The-newly-christened-Dread-Pirate-Roberts echoed blankly, shaking an octopus off his boot and trying to prevent another from oozing up his leg. "But...I'm not a pirate. And what kind of name is that anyway? Who thought that up?"

"De Dread Pirate Roberts was a great sailor, a terroor oov de sea." She appeared to be warming up her Sea Goddess voice. Used-to-be-Will braced himself to dodge more octopi. "When he died, de title, it was passed on to him sooccessoor, who called himself Roberts een him stead. An' since dat day, de title be passed on to a sooccessoor. Dere ha' been many men before you an' dere will be many aftah, but dere must a'ways be a Dread Pirate Roberts."

The Dread Pirate Roberts sighed heavily. He had learned by now that 'why' was not an acceptable question. 'Just because Jones was an angsty idiot, why do I have to put my heart in a stupid box? How come tentacle-face could come ashore in a damn bucket but I can't? Why must there always be a Dread Pirate Roberts?' It had gotten to the point where he had just stopped asking.

"So...what?" he asked unenthusiastically. "I'm just...supposed to call myself the Dread Pirate Roberts now?" Calypso nodded. "That's ridiculous!" No-longer-Will exclaimed. "Why can't I be the Dread Pirate Will? And really, a 'dread' pirate? How dreadful can you be if you have to keep telling people that you are? 'Hello, are you the pirate Roberts?' 'No, my man, I am the Dread Pirate Roberts. The capitals are important.' Like, really?"

"Youu...have a toouch oov madness aboout youuu, Dread Pirate Roberts," Calypso observed.

"Who're you talkin' to?" Bootstrap hollered unexpectedly from belowdecks. "Are you up there wi' a girl?"

"What?!" The Dread Pirate Roberts didn't believe this. "Da-ad! No." He cradled his forehead in his hand for a moment. "I'm talking to the all-powerful crab goddess of the ocean, Dad, d'you mind?" He turned back to Calypso with a sigh. "Sorry." He took a second to gather his thoughts. "I still want to know why I can't be the Dread Pirate Will, though."

"Youu wan' to knoow-" Calypso began, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. The Dread Pirate Will held up his hand.

"Please. Really? Try that crap on Glaucus or Poseidon." Calypso harrumphed, folding her arms and muttering something about the way Glaucus snored and Poseidon's terrible puns.

"Wait a minute..." Might-still-be-Will mused as something suddenly occurred to him. "Doesn't that mean the last Roberts was Jones?" Calypso nodded, still annoyed. "Then why didn't he have to be called the Dread Pirate Roberts?!" Back-to-being-Will shouted triumphantly. A shower of alarmed octopi greeted his outburst. He made a face as one of the small creatures fell from the foreyard and bounced off the top of his head. Calypso gave him a withering 'you're not supposed to think of things like that' look.

"Legal loophole. Him sued Caaptain Shufflebottom, claiming that-"

"Did you just say 'Shufflebottom'?" Will interrupted, sure he had misunderstood.

"I did," Calypso replied coolly.

"Sorry, I just...I...Go on. Jones sued Captain Shufflebottom..." He fought back a snicker.

"...claiming dat him bestowal oov de title damaged him reputaation as de undead ruuler oov de sea."

"Well, what about my reputation?"

"Dat woould depend. Are any men frightened oov Weelyam Turnah's Lockah?" She paused doubtfully. "You does have a lockah?"

"Um..." Will fidgeted slightly. "Well...kinda? Sure, technically, it's still Jones', you know, but... I mean, it still works and everything and he doesn't need it, so, with a little paint...Not that it's permanent or anything, just until I can get my own, but for now, it works and all, so..."

"Youu is sending men's souls to Davy Joones' lockah?" Calypso asked with a lifted eyebrow.

"I'm renting it, alright?" Will muttered defensively, feeling his cheeks burn.

"Keep it dat way," Calypso advised. "Be de Dread Pirate Roberts."

"But hang on," argued the Dread-Pirate-Roberts-once-again, grasping at straws. "Doesn't the name Dread Pirate carry a certain amount of implication in it? Shouldn't he be out pirating something? And anyway, aren't people going to notice that the Dread Pirate Roberts ought to be really, really old by now?"

Calypso gave him the look people usually did when he started using his brain. He'd come to the conclusion that they thought he'd be better off without it. Maybe he ought to have put that in the chest instead...

"Youu will be de Dread Pirate Roberts until you die or you pass on de title," Calypso insisted sternly in a tone that did not welcome argument. "Dere must a'ways be a Dread Pirate Roberts."

"Yeah, yeah, alright," the Dread Pirate Roberts agreed reluctantly, "I'm the Dread Pirate Roberts, I got it." Calypso seemed to be preparing to leave. "Was there anything else?"

"Oh, yes, one t'ing. I was to tell you dat Hefring an' Halie invited you to Ryugu to play Pope Joan wit' dem dis Saturday while Gymir is away." The Dread Pirate Roberts made a face.

"I hate that game. And Halie always cheats. But...tell them I'll see if I can make it. And you wanna take these octopi when you go?" Calypso shrugged noncommittally, already concentrating and mumbling to herself. "You know something?" He timed it just right; Calypso looked at him, but her figure was already blurring. "The 'Nethuns' tattoo is a nice touch." He grinned evilly. Calypso opened her mouth angrily, but all that came out was one very small octopus.

The Dread Pirate Roberts neatly sidestepped the hordes of be-suctioned creatures as Calypso dissolved into a sea of orange tentacles, chuckling to himself. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad after all.

His laughter died as he looked around him, though. He needed to get back to the Underworld. Now, how was he going to do that? He scratched his head and glanced first at the shivering sails and then at the placid sky. He was going to need some help.

"Uhm...hey, uh, hey Dad? Dad?"

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A/N: The first person to find me a genuinely existing, more ridiculous surname than 'Shufflebottom' gets a chapter written for them.

I welcome all ideas/suggestions for future chapters, particularly in regards to sea deities, which I know next to nothing about. More posted soon.

Reviews = love!