(EDIT: 01/03/07 - Ah, much more better. I've cleaned up this story a bit - nothing much, just fixing some geographical errors and changed around a few sentences - and now I think I'm completely done with it. Sorry for the mistakes - I was in a rush when I wrote it the first time around, but I'm pretty sure it's all good now. Let me know if you spot any errors I missed!)
Ahoy thar, mateys! (tips a hat in your direction) I know it's been forever (meaning at least a month or two) since I last came on (I can't even remember when that was), and I'm sorry sorry SORRY!!! Life's been... nah, I won't go cliche on you and say hectic. But I will say this: I've had some major writer's block, survived some high school drama, and suffered from a fatal disease commonly known as laziness. So, to remind you all that I haven't died and I'm NOT done with my fanfiction (hardly!), here's my much-anticipated (yeah, right) one-shot concerning Tia Dalma's reaction to Jack's... ehm... his... err... his last scene in Dead Man's Chest. ('Tis still too painful to put into words, apparently)
Disclaimer: I own nothing, blah blah blah, you know the drill. Just be greatful I've finally stopped interrupting myself with parentheses (like these) and you can get on to reading the actual story part of the post.
In a dark corner of a small, creepily decorated shack by the mouth of the Pantano river, there sat a woman draped in ragged, faded clothes like a covered piece of furniture, long forgotten but never lost. Jewelry of bone and semiprecious jewels graced her calloused brown fingers, ears, and throat. Her face, adorned with both paint and a unique natural beauty, retained a strange sense of agelessness, causing those who looked upon it to wonder just how many years had carved it into its present form. Her dark-chocolate eyes gleamed with wry cunning and the wisdom of a great Queen. On a chart in front of her, scattered in a seemingly random array, were a handful of crab claws. The claws, like the woman herself, were more than they appeared to be – they were not mere claws, but tools she used to catch glimpses of destiny. She would cast them on the table with a flourish, quickly decipher the message they conveyed, and translate for the lucky (or unlucky) soul that required the reading with an eerie smile.
But today, Tia Dalma was not smiling. Though no one had requested it, she'd had a vision – a terrible, horrifying vision – and she had gone to the claws to confirm her interpretation of it. She had asked, and they had answered, but she did not like what she saw.
The vision had occurred in her dreams (as most tend to), and when she'd woken, it had been in a sweat, with her heart pounding and her fingers clutching the dampened sheets. In front of others, she never lost her composure – certainly not like this. But here, alone in the safety of her quarters, she allowed herself (in dreams, at the very least) to acknowledge her personal attachments to certain acquaintances of hers. In her vision, she had seen one particular "acquaintance" of hers standing on the bow of a ship, sword in hand, and leaping into an endless void edged with teeth. The ship was as black as night; the man wore a tricorn hat and a crooked smile that gleamed white and gold in the moonlight. There was no mistaking the pair of them.
Tia Dalma did not like what she saw.
She had known, even then, what it all represented – the sword, the teeth, the void – but she had dared hope that she had been misled, that the vision was not true. Despite the small hint of hope – a small light shining in the corner of her vision like a candle in the night – her vision did not bode well, not for anyone.
And when she had cast the claws on the table, the claws had confirmed her worst fears. There was no room for error now. The claws never lied, and neither did her visions. Nor did her heart; in the deepest, most secret part of her inner heart, she knew beyond all doubt that he was, after all this time, gone. Captain Jack Sparrow and his beloved Pearl were gone. There was, as her vision had hinted, still a chance for his rescue; yet she feared, with good reason, that the rescue would be incomplete, that even the miracles that one so powerful as she was capable of would not be enough to bring all of him back.
Heavy-lidded eyes closed against tears, though none came. Tia Dalma no longer cried, but she grieved. She did not open her eyes again until, with the sweep of one bejeweled hand, she erased the message of the claws. For a few moments, the mystic said and did nothing, only sat in silence and in pain. This was the price she paid for her magic, and she had accepted it long ago. Knowledge of hard roads ahead was a heavy burden, and it only seemed to grow heavier with each passing year.
After a few moments (for that was all she would allow herself), the dark-lashed lids snapped open again to reveal onyx eyes gleaming not with tears, but with a certain dangerous determination. Jack Sparrow's tale was not done in this world, and moreover she would not leave him to face the fate of eternal, personal Hell in Davy Jones's Locker.
Being what she was, she had the power, the ability to bring a soul back from the clutches of death (or worse); the proof was only too real in the man lying on the cot only a room away. Tia Dalma knew what to do, but she would need the help of one who'd already seen the other side – Barbossa – as well as the good captain's closest friends: William Turner, Elizabeth Swann, Joshamee Gibbs, and the rest of the team. When she closed her eyes again briefly, she saw them against her eyelids making their way to her already.
It was written in legend that Davy Jones was lord of the sea, that he reigned over it like a tortured King, and collected souls like the Devil himself. But Tia Dalma was more than she appeared to be, and Davy Jones was not the only collector of souls. Where he was the King of the Sea, she was the Queen of Fate, and it was time for the Queen to come out of the shadows cast over forgotten legends. It was time for her to show the outside world, for better or for worse, her true powers.
Once she rescued the Captain of the Black Pearl, she would not fade into the background like she had done so many times before. There was a battle brewing, one that could determine the destinies of all, and Tia Dalma was not going to just sit back and watch. She had the power to change the course of destiny, and now was the time to use it.
Rising from her throne-like chair of bone and wood, Tia Dalma went into her makeshift kitchen to prepare tea for those whom she knew would arrive soon. They, more than anyone else, would be instrumental in her plans, and she counted on their loyalty to their Captain to make them brave enough to see it this through to the end. The fate of the world now swung on a hinge, and that hinge was now sitting in the darkest recesses of Davy Jones's Locker.
Without Jack, they were doomed.
She had seen it in the claws, and the claws never lied. But, more than even the claws, Tia Dalma listened to her heart, and in her heart she knew the world needed Jack. Although he had not been gone an hour yet, it already seemed a little less bright, and nothing, not the sun nor the moon nor the candles of the mourners gathering outside, seemed to be able to change that.