Choose a path

One of stone

And give a hand

To those alone

--

Pegs of the Instrument

--

It is a round-up of souls.

William Turner sorts through them like corpses, most the wispy beings resigned, forgotten of their identities. It's like that, you know, when one's death comes as a shock. He reflects that it would be easier if everyone would have their names carved into their backs or tattooed to their wrists. Some have no chance of identification whatsoever and so he just points them towards a boat with a lantern to sail to the Other World.

"You realize it's useless, right?"

The man (spirit, Will dutifully reminds himself) blows a puff of tobacco smoke into the air, the rolled cylinder in his fingers smoking a fine, wispy line. Part of Will—the part still routed in notions that there are such certainties as "death" and "life"—wonders exactly where the tobacco came from and how a dead man can smoke it. But that part is small, growing smaller with each day, and the rest of Will is simply slightly irritated.

"It's part of my job description to identify souls to send to the right places," he says out the side of his mouth as he judges a rather ratty-looking woman in a black green dress. "And would you stop that infernal tapping? It's rather annoying."

James Norrington smiles his half-smile and stills his foot against the barrel, bringing his tobacco back up to his lips to inhale. "Then why have you not…" he motioned towards the boats materializing faithfully by the ship for the souls.

"Sent you on your way?" Will gives up on the woman and turns his full attention to the loitering ghost. "Do you fear death?"

Norrington makes an amused sound. "I do not fear death."

Will sighs and nods. "But you didn't say that outright to Davy Jones. It's a technicality. You've been press-ganged into the Dutchman's crew."

Surprisingly, the former admiral snorted, smoke shooting out of his nostrils like a dragon. "For how long?"

"As long as I, Captain of the Flying Dutchman, decide to have you."

The ornate coat has been exchanged for some lower-ranking thing of the Royal Navy, the stiff boots swapped for something probably pulled off a lesser dead body. Norrington stands up and walks (glides) about the milling spirits on board the Dutchman for a couple minutes before coming back, hands clasped behind his back as he'd always stood in his naval days. He gazes at Will with an inspecting look, head tilting slowly to one side to show that his stance is at ease even with the formal bearing.

"Everyone dies, Captain Turner," Norrington said in a quiet tone that Will has not heard from anyone in a very long time, not really since he was a boy, "and one day you will as well. And what then if you refuse to send those from your formal life to the beyond? We will pass as well. There is no such thing as absolute eternity."

Will watches the smoke curling up from Norrington's tobacco, watches the looks at the bronzed skin of the man that somehow replaced the renewed parlor to Norrington's complexion during his service under Beckett. He supposes that the soul's appearance reflects how the person truly saw himself in the end, and Norrington chose to follow his own rules, the hybridized version of right and wrong that made him a good man and also killed him.

"I know. I'm just not ready to face that yet."

Norrington shrugs. "I'm ready to die at any time," he offers with his crooked smile. "But I do suppose service here would be interesting."

And Will smiles back.