Release You
It would happen today. It could not be fought. It could not be revisited. Such was life. The day he spent with Calypso, the love they had shared, the things Ragetti had confessed were as distant as her island. This was the noon of their battle with the English naval fleet. And to better their odds, Calypso would have to be released. The goddess he knew would be no more.
Pintel, Ragetti, and the hardier sailors were tasked with the actual bondage. Barbossa and his conniving aura followed closely behind him, ensuring that they did their duty.
Ragetti's dread was a physical taxation, every step laborious—painful. He knew when they arrived to her cell, for her magic radiated within the dingy space like heat.
Calypso rose to her feet, enclosed in a cell far too small for such a regal woman. The duality of her imprisonment was not lost on Ragetti at all. Neither was her apprehension. He wanted to call out to her, but knew that she could not answer now.
"You understand that if you attempt to escape in any fashion, you will be left to rot in this cell for the rest of your non-mortal days, goddess," Barbossa spoke with a smile that his cold, blue eyes rejected.
Calypso clasped the bars, her gaze fierce and amber in the dimmed light.
"When I am free, the first who will meet my vehemence is you."
She spoke with such surety. Ragetti shuddered, hardly due to the chill of the brig. Barbossa's smile vanished as easily as it appeared. He unlocked the rusted door, and she gathered her skirts before sauntering into the middle of the room.
Ragetti wordlessly took the rope when Barbossa handed it over, knowing that this served as punishment for his violent rebuttal days before. The bruise spread angrily and purple across the bridge of Barbossa's nose. Ragetti hoped it was as painful as it was unsightly.
Calypso looked up with eyes clouded by impalpable emotion. Duty, and perhaps his own desire, coaxed Ragetti forward.
He began by binding her ankles, the sight of her svelte calves and velvet skin he knew so well like torture to him. As Pintel and the other men bound her by the waist, Ragetti circled her shoulders with the coarse, thickened rope. Her eyes tracked him as he worked. He flushed, unable to control her scrutiny's effect.
She looked away then, her dreads guarding her expression from view. To enforce the security of his handiwork, Ragetti gave a slight tug on his end.
Barbossa ruptured the thickening silence. "Job well-done." He handed Ragetti the keys to the quarters. "Steal anything, and answer to me."
"Get this over with," Ragetti hissed, leaving to fetch the Nine Pieces of Eight. He sensed eyes upon his back as he took to the stairs. Calypso's were the ones he felt most.
Within the doors of the captain's quarters lay a burnished bowl of pewter, full of the worthless items that every lord had kept for the ceremony.
One that shouldn't even be necessary. Why should they decide when she should be free, or release her powers?
Why do I feel as if I have any say in it?
Ragetti took a deep breath, staring gloomily at the Nine Pieces of Eight. The love of his life would have her freedom from this pile of rubbish. Remembering his role in this, he removed his wooden eye and added it with hollow finality. When he rejoined the crew, Pintel took them with a weighted stare.
Barbossa now had an incense burner poised in preparation, and all fell silent to hear the captain speak.
"Calypso…I release you from your human bonds."
Pintel held out the bowl for Barbossa. The sea swelled in anticipation then began to placate. They all looked baffled, yet Ragetti knew the problem.
'A king and his men stole a queen from her bed, and bound her in her bones...'
"I'll be the one to set her free."
A surprised murmur arose as Ragetti's words drifted in the tensing air, and Barbossa turned to stare him dead in the eye. The younger pirate placed a hand upon his shoulder.
"Master Ragetti?" He eyed his hand as if it were a demonic appendage.
"You aren't…sayin' it right." Ragetti gave the captain a determined scowl. "You have to say it right. Like a lover would."
Barbossa cracked his bony knuckles and stepped aside.
Ragetti came closer to Calypso, trailing his hand up the curve of her jaw and moving the hair from her cheeks. His fingers touched her darker skin, and those topaz orbs never broke away. He leaned in to whisper something that others would not hear.
"Stop time. You got to do it quickly."
Calypso's eyes began to glow, and flashed an ethereal red to leave the Pearl temporarily frozen.
She sagged into the mast with a faint moan of weakness, one that she despised him for hearing. She wanted none of his pity.
"It's drainin' you to use your magic." Ragetti's eye studied her gaunt visage and widened before he looked down in shame. "Ever since you healed me…"
She tenderly reassured him that it was no large price to pay.
"And before. It's the price to be paid for testing mortality. Darlin', if I stay any longer I could be mortal for…"
Ragetti knew she could see directly through him, could sense his petty conscience at war with each half butting heads.
"I know. And even still I have to fight the urge to steal you away."
"Please let me go?" she asked. "I don't want anyone ta have that satisfaction but you."
The pirate looked up from his dejected stare. "I will."
"I'm sorry, Fabrizio."
In that moment Ragetti realized that Calypso cared for him, to apologize to a man as low in status.
"You deserve to do as you wish. BE what you are. It was never right to chain you."
"You the closest to perfect mortal could ever be," the goddess said softly, her accented voice beautiful and soothing.
He stared at her sadly. "Don't lie. Look at me. I'm horrid. Missin' an eye, practically fallin' apart, ain't I? I don't ask you to feel the same way I do. I just…just wanted you to know."
She reached for the hand hanging at his side.
Ragetti cherished her petite touch as her fingers curled over his—as if it were the only way to ensure himself that this, whatever name it was given, were ever real.
"I do know. How much this means, how much it kill you." Calypso's tone was strong yet gentle.
His head hung down, but the goddess made it lift again as she stroked his hand with concern.
"I wouldn't have you no other way than what you are. I love you for being untamed. And that's how it'll stay," Ragetti whispered.
Her eyes sparkled beautifully like the ocean she both reigned over and embodied.
"How I have longed for one like you."
He leaned flush against her.
She granted a kiss that tasted of tropical fruit, rum and above all things: bitterness. Ragetti returned it as proficiently as possible, but sorrow robbed him of his composure. He did not count the moments that they shared each other's embrace. Such would only deepen the rift in his heart.
Calypso's cheek pressed to his and her dreads tickled. "Fabrizio..."
No.
"Let me go now, darlin'."
The pirate caressed the goddess' skin; the world was beginning to return to its normal pace. This was it.
Oh, God.
"You must."
"Calypso," he whispered, pressing a minute kiss to her cheekbone. "I release you from your human bonds."
Their surroundings resumed as Barbossa held the now-incinerated Pieces of Eight to her nose. Calypso inhaled deeply, the enchanted smoke filling her lungs with a power foreign in its nearly two-hundred-year absence. Suddenly memories dashed across her mind: Paradise, debauchery and control and treachery...treachery.
"Tia Dalma!" a voice broke through her reverie, and as a handsome youth shoved his way to the front, she recognized it to be Will Turner's. But she no longer answered to the name spoken.
"...Calypso!"
That she did not ignore, and a spark lit in those blazing brown eyes. Ragetti swore as the realization of Will's plan struck him.
"Will, no, just let her be," he hissed. His advice went unheeded.
"When the Brethren Court first imprisoned you, who was it that told them how?"
The goddess seethed with rage.
Ragetti lunged for Will, but by the time he could get a good grip, the words were already emitted: "Who was it that betrayed you?"
"NAME HIM," Calypso commanded in a booming voice. The crew backed away quickly.
"...Davy Jones."
Her anger was mounting, pain slicing through her sanity like the ropes that she snapped in twain. Soon the giantess Calypso stood before them, as tall as the masthead.
"This is it! This is it!" yelled Pintel over the churning sea.
She screamed as one in agony, and the sound tore Ragetti in half.
He tried to approach her but found himself wheeled to face Barbossa.
"If provoked, she will not help us. Just let m—"
He swung his fist in Ragetti's face and sent him sprawling onto the slippery deck.
"I should've had you thrown overboard the minute you fell for her. We need her power to win and I will end you soon I see you interferin' again!" he whispered venomously.
He bowed in a false show of humility to Calypso, and the others hurriedly followed suit. Will glanced at him curiously.
"Calypso, I come before you as a servant, humble and contrite. I have fulfilled me vow, and now ask your favor. Spare meself, me ship, me crew, and unleash your fury upon those who dare pretend themselves your masters... or mine."
Any empathy in her eyes vanished once Calypso set them on her terrified liberators. Then she spoke. And though her words were indistinguishable, they were punctuated with wrath. Ragetti bowed to the deck in pain.
A cacophonous clatter made him look about as she completed her transformation. And to Ragetti's horror, her beloved crabs began crashing to the deck. Pintel yanked him from the thick of it and forced him to run away.
Ragetti clung to the bulwark as the Pearl teetered under the unexpected weight. Men toppled over the edge past his reach, and he was dangerously close to falling over.
He heard his goddess' voice, saccharine and tempting.
Let go, and you may come with me. Fabrizio, I promise you.
Ragetti glanced fearfully over his shoulder at the ensuing chaos. The wind began to pick up speed, the tumultuous waters roiling in fervor.
"Calypso—"
If you stay here, you can die, sweet.
Now he began to feel the prickling of tears at the back of his eye, but his grip remained strong.
"I…"
Fabrizio!
"Calypso, you promised you would come back. I can't go with you. I cannot. I've fought so hard to live."
You COULD!
The gale whipped Ragetti's hair about his face and pulled him in ever closer. It took the strength of heart he had never possessed, not even when releasing her, to refuse.
"Calypso, no."
The storm raged on, but the tempest was subsiding. Ragetti began to panic.
She's leaving. She's…LEAVING!
"Calypso, please…come back."
Her voice was no longer. Ragetti gaped at the maelstrom in their path ahead. Then he turned his sights to the sky.
"CALYPSO, SEND ME SOME SORT OF SIGN."
He looked about as the remaining crew made it to their feet like infants who had yet to master walking.
Some yelled that Barbossa had disappeared. A sick satisfaction rose within him. She had gotten her revenge.
"Speak to me," Ragetti moaned feverishly.
"It's the devil to pay now," he heard Pintel shouting. Ragetti blindly began to climb the rigging for a better look at the hellish whirlpool they now were on the edge of.
It began to rain, light and niggling droplets at first—the caress of her fingers, soft and warm. Ragetti laughed madly as he took her in.
"Does this mean maybe?" he murmured, eye closed against the moisture cascading upon the Pearl.
"Would it have been better to die with you, than to die alone? Tell me, my love, would I have been like the one before me? Or would it be as it was on your island? Free, and alive? The only time I truly felt either."
Silence. He wept in despair.
If you will not come with me, I will come for you.
He choked on his sob, dumbfounded by her answer.
"Goddess..."
Fool. You have not asked when.
He wiped at his eye and clutched the knotted cord. I know better than that. You have so much time to make up for. It doesn't matter. However long it takes, I'll wait. Just don't you leave forever.
A tatter of her gown fluttered by, and he caught it in his hand.
I wouldn't have you languish away on this forsaken boat.
As she spoke, Ragetti fastened the brocade over his empty eye. His heart dropped as the ship lurched, then jerk roughly to the left. They were entering the whirlpool.
"Will we live?" he asked, partly to himself as much as her.
You shall. I will not claim you this battle.
"I'll miss you. Every moment you aren't here."
Ah, but that is how soon men forget. You are surrounded by me. You knew me, in this form, before I ever appeared to you as a mortal. You loved me before. Love me, the same. And when I return, it will be as the woman you set free.
There was nothing, once again. A wild, whimsical hope burgeoned within Ragetti at the prospect of her promise. He mustered his courage, and made to return to deck.
Pintel was ascending the rigging with purpose on Ragetti's way down.
"We…we have a chance! The whirlpool's given us the chance to best Davy Jones—"
He paused to look at Ragetti's covered eye, the remnant of Calypso's dress.
"Is that from her…were you—"
"If we both survive this, then I'll explain."
Author's Note: So this is actually the third in a series of stories I wrote for Calypso and Ragetti, hence the allusions to their prior intimacy. I sincerely hope you found it enjoyable.
Some Sailing Terms
brig - area belowdecks for detaining prisoners
bulwark - extension of ship's side; railing
masthead - very top of mast
rigging - the system of masts and lines around the masts