Scrum woke up that morning with a mermaid staring at him. He blinked several times before he remembered everything that happened in the last several days.

"You drool in your sleep." Tamara said. Her container had been left open as the zombies were now also watching her at night as well as carrying her.

Scrum stretched. "Do mermaids sleep?"

Tamara nodded.

"How?"

"Like dolphins."

"And how do dolphins sleep?"

"With half of their body and mind asleep and half awake." Tamara said as if it were the most obvious thing ever. "What? Did you think we'd be fully asleep underwater?"

"Yes." Scrum admitted.

"No, a sleeping mermaid is an easy target. There wouldn't be as many of us."

"Because we all need more mermaids in the world." Scrum said sarcastically, remembering White Cap Bay.

"I'm sorry." Scrum noticed the hurt look in Tamara's eyes.

She lowered herself back into her container and didn't look at him again.

Scrum mentally slapped himself. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. The mermaid would never warm up to him if he was going to keep insulting her.

"Jack." Scrum clapped Jack on the shoulder.

"Aye."

"I've got some, um...woman problems." Scrum whispered.

"Well you came to the right person." Jack sat down on a rock with his legs crossed. "Tell me all about her.

"What do you mean her?" Scrum asked. "Do you think I...that I'm..." He struggled for the word, flustered by what Jack was implying.

"The mermaid." Jack said dryly.

"Oh, that her, yes. She...I...keep saying the wrong things to her."

"Yes, I've noticed." Jack stared off into the distance for a moment. "You can play the guitar aye?"

Scrum nodded.

"Then play her a little tune, women love being serenaded. And ask her how she is. And pretend to listen to her. And flirt with her. Constantly. Do not take no for an answer. That's what I do."

"I think I'll start with the guitar fist." Scrum and Jack watched Angelica walk past. Jack stared at her longingly. "You never told me what went on between the two of you."

"Oh, you know, we shared a wonderfully passionate short period of time together, I left her broken hearted and distraught. She then decided after many years that it would be a good time to track me down, pretend to be me, take me aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge and then made me go around after a bloody mermaid."

"Don't talk about her like that." Scrum said defensively.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Looks like missionary-man is muscling in on your territory."

"What do you mean he's his son and he's the one god?" Tamara asked missionary man aka Philip.

"God had a son, who is part of him and-" Philip trailed off when he saw the look Tamara gave Scrum.

"Oy, Philip." Jack motioned to Philip. He got the hint and left Scrum and Tamara.

The mermaid raised an eyebrow at Scrum. "Come to insult my people some more?"

"No. I came to tell you that I wasn't thinking when I said that, and I'm sorry."

"Yet you still captured me."

"You can curse out pirates if you like." Scrum said hopefully.

"I think I shall." Tamara took a deep breath. "I think you pirates are horrible, nasty men and that they're only purpose in life is to be fish and mermaid food. You're rank and vile, you have no objection to killing your own, or mine, for personal gain, you drink too much, you're too loud, you have no honor, and..."

"And?"

"And you have no personal hygiene."

Scrum was very tempted to say "Well, what do mermaids know about personal hygiene?" But he thought better of it. Instead he smiled at her.

Tamara shrank back.

"What? Mermaids don't smile either?"

"Not unless we want a fight."

Scrum raised an eyebrow.

"Showing your teeth means you either want a fight with another mermaid or you're eating or your about to drag someone to their deaths." Tamara explained.

Scrum edged closer to her container. "Tell me more about mermaids."

"Only if you'll give me something in return." Tamara said, defiantly.

"And what does a mermaid want? Gold, jewelry, music?"

Tamara perked up when she heard the word music. "Yes, I want a song. With that stringed instrument you had with you earlier."

"A guitar?"

"Gui-tar. Yes. I've heard men play on their boats."

"Hang on, I'll be right back." Scrum jogged over to where the supplies were kept. He grabbed his guitar (hidden behind a sack of shot) and began to tune it.

Tamara waited patiently for Scrum to return.

"Any requests?"

"Something, I think, Spanish? Like the tune you played when that man was cast off and burned." The mermaid said it with absolutely no emotion whatsoever.

"What? You followed us all the way from England to White Cap Bay?"

"No." She said quickly, "Now play me something, pirate."

Scrum smirked and began to strum out a few notes before playing a random Spanish tune. Tamara watched his fingers roam over the chords intently. She swayed slightly in rhythm with the music.

"I do believe the song is over." Scrum announced. "Now, will you tell me more about you?"

Tamara's face darkened. "Play me another song."

"After you've told me about mermaids."

"Fine." Tamara sighed. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything." Scrum said, putting his guitar to the side and feeling brave enough to edge closer to Tamara.

Scrum felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. "Enough talking for one day lover boy, we've got to get moving."

As always they cleared up their makeshift camp, hiding any evidence that they were there and went on their way. Scrum was glad that they had Jack and his compass, the jungle was bad enough with snakes, tarantulas and around somewhere Spaniards. That and Tamara made their progress slow to an almost crawl making them easier to be killed or something like that.

Scrum looked back to see Philip wandering behind slightly. The young man looked tired and ready about to drop from heat exhaustion. "Good," Scrum thought bitterly. All the missionary had done ever since being captured by Blackbeard was moan on about one's soul and convert people. And yet Scrum didn't completely hate the man. He was doing his life's calling just as Scrum was. Scrum double backed.

"How you holding up, bible thumper?" Scrum offered Philip a bottle of rum.

"Well enough." Philip said. "I'll be glad when this is over."

"Aye."

Philip took a swig of rum. "Did you just call me a bible thumper?"

"Me? No, I would never call you a religious fanatic." Scrum said sarcastically.

Philip raised an eyebrow at Scrum.

"Lighten up a bit." Scrum punched Philip's arm and ran ahead before Philip could punch him back.

The missionary pushed Scrum from behind.

"I didn't think you church goers believed in violence." Scrum said, sounding reminiscent of Jack.

"Perhaps I've been spending too much time around pirates."

Scrum elbowed Philip in the ribs. Philip elbowed Scrum back. And for the second time that day, Scrum pushed Philip; however Philip lost his footing and fell into Tamara's container. The zombies dropped Tamara.

Jack turned around. "That's interesting." He said, noting the now completely human Tamara surrounded by shards of glass.

Angelica raised an eyebrow. "Ok, who did it?" Everyone pointed to Philip.

Philip blanched. "I...I...didn't."

"I did." Scrum took off his jacket and draped it around Tamara before Philip the Samaritan could. "I pushed him."

"You'll walk." Blackbeard said, looking directly at the mermaid.

Tamara held the jacket closed with one hand and tried to pull herself up with a low hanging branch. She fell. "I can't walk."

Blackbeard shrugged. "Then you die."

Tamara opened her mouth to protest. Scrum picked her up quickly.

"Let go off me." Tamara squirmed.

"You heard 'im. He said you walk or die."

"I can't walk." Tamara growled.

"Exactly. But you can put your arms around me neck and make this a little easier on me." Scrum said, now fighting to keep hold of her.

Tamara squirmed again "Let go of me."

"Fine." Scrum said and promptly dropped her.

She glared up at Scrum; he followed Blackbeard as the man was wasting absolutely no time in getting to the fountain. The rest of the crew followed.

"Wait." Tamara said. "You can carry me Scrum. I'll let you."

"Ooh, you'll let me carry you. I'm so honoured." Scrum rolled his eyes and picked her up.

Tamara put her arms around Scrum's neck and lent her head against his chest. "This heat is unbearable. I don't know how you humans deal with it."

Scrum chuckled.

Tamara opened her eyes. She must have been asleep because she had had the most wonderful dream. She was back in the ocean with her sisters and a boat had just been sunk. It was an all you can eat buffet. She frowned. Mermaids didn't dream, in fact they never dreamed. They also were never completely asleep. Perhaps being on land she was now human in form. She shuddered, Tamara didn't like being human.

"How long was I asleep for?" Tamara whispered.

"About an hour or so." Scrum said and shifted Tamara in his arms. "You're quite cute when you're asleep."

"Cute? I'm cute?"

"Well yes, you were smiling. You must have had a nice dream."

"If I did, I can't remember." Tamara lied. "Thank you for the...the..." Tamara plucked at the coat, trying to find a word for it.

"Coat, you're welcome."

"It was very...nice of you."

"I couldn't let you go around naked could I?" Scrum asked.

"I think I can try to walk now."

Scrum let her down onto her feet and held onto her at the waist.

Tamara took a shaky step forward. "You humans, how do you deal with this? You move slowly on land

and even slower in the water."

"We think we move pretty fast on land. But we're not fish; we spend more time on top of water than in it."

"On your boats." Tamara noted.

"Yes. On our boats."

Tamara took another step forward. She stumbled slightly and Scrum's arms tightened around her. "I'm fine." She said.

Jack glanced over his shoulder. "Looks like the mermaid is finally warming up to Scrum."

"I don't want him getting too comfortable with that creature." Blackbeard said.

"Don't be so indifferent father; it may come in handy later." Angelica strode past them. She leaned over the edge of a cliff. "Jack, this is the way, isn't it?"

Jack glanced down at his compass. "Of course it is, but we should go around to the east."

"There is no time." Angelica pointed out.

"You're the one who insisted on bringing a bloody mermaid."

"Well the mutiny didn't help." Angelica spat back.

Jack put his face inches away from Angelica, "You walk like a girl."

"You would know."

"Alright, enough." Blackbeard raised his hands. "Jack, you will jump."

"What?" Jack's draw dropped.

"You heard me. You will jump and we will go over to the east side. Once you get the chalices' I'm sure you won't have any problems finding us with that compass of yours."

"And what if I don't jump?"

Blackbeard put his gun to his daughter's head. "Then I shoot her."

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

Jack swaggered over to the quarter master. "Will I live this jump?"

The quarter master took out the voodoo doll of Jack. The pirate wondered why the zombie had the doll in his pocket, but thought better of it. Best not to ask, unless he didn't want to survive the fall.

The zombie threw the doll over the cliff. Jack yelled. Luckily the doll didn't hit the rocks.

"You will live." Quarter master announced.

"Are you done?" Blackbeard said to Jack.

Jack nodded and looked over the side of the cliff.

"Good." Blackbeard pushed him off.

"Father, you weren't really going to shoot me, were you?" Angelica asked.

"Of course not."

"Your accent." Tamara said, now being carried by Scrum again as her legs were still weak.

"Yes. What about it?"

"I can't place it. The woman sounds…Spanish," Tamara decided after thinking for a few seconds, "Philip is an English man, probably Southern-"

"How can you tell that?"

"He pronounces his words. But your accent, I can't place it. Where are you from?"

"Grimsby, England." Scrum straightened up slightly as he announced his home-town.

"Never heard of it," Tamara said, unimpressed.

"It's up North."

Tamara shook her head.

"Where are you from anyway?" Scrum asked.

"The sea, obviously."

"Whereabouts in the sea?"

"I don't remember where it was exactly. All I remember was the water was blue and there were people talking and I couldn't understand them."

"Love, you're starting to get heavy, mind if I pass you over to Philip for a few minutes?" Scrum didn't wait for an answer. He stopped to let Philip to catch up to them then promptly dropped Tamara in Philip's arms.

Jack stared up at the ship. His first thought was "An impressive vessel if I've ever seen one." His second was "How the hell did it get up there?" And thirdly. "All the riches in that boat." However Jack knew that if he took too many things he'd either be cursed or dead due to the ship being perched on a bloody cliff, or both. You know, because pirates like the dead to suffer just as much as the living.

Now comes the hard part; finding a way up. He could try finding a way up the cliff without having to climb up the side. But that might take too long. Or he could climb up using the vines. But some of those vines might be snakes, Jack realized. He sighed loudly.

Whichever option Jack chose, he got to the ship within nightfall. He walked carefully along the deck. Besides being on a bloody cliff the ship was about ready to fall to pieces. The captain's quarter's door had been left ajar. Jack pulled out his sword. Someone had been here before him.

Just like in the legends, the ship made Isla de Muerta look like a flea market. Gold, silver, jewels and other precious items were strewn everywhere. And in a king sized bed, lay Ponce de Leon's corpse.

"Be careful Jack." A voice rang out.

"Whose there?"

Barbossa was sitting on one leg in a chair in the corner of the room. "This boat's about to fall, lest we be careful about balance."

"Alright then, I'm just here to get them chalices, so if you'll be so kind Hector…" Jack began searching the room. The boat began to teeter to the right.

"Jack!" Barbossa yelled. "What did I just say to ye?"

"Be careful?" Jack said, still searching for the chalices.

Barbossa threw a floor candelabrum to the left side of the room, barely missing Jack's head.

"Oy." Jack threw a small box filled with jewels in it at Barbossa.

The older pirate glared at him. The boat began to groan and teetered dangerously to the right. Jack jumped onto the left side of Ponce's bed and Barbossa to the right. The boat was balanced for now.

"Oh, a map." Jack began to work on prying said map from Ponce's phalanges.

Ponce turned his head in Jack's direction. Jack let go off the map.

"Jack," Barossa whispered, "Don't touch anything."

"Right, er, shall we just have a look then?" Jack looked closer at the map Ponce was holding.

"The chalices are in this room." Barbossa said quietly.

"How do you know that?"

"Because, the boxes are on the floor." Barbossa pointed.

Jack jumped off the bed. He got down onto his hands and knees. "Aha." He said, holding the box aloft. "Got 'em."

Barbossa pulled out his pistol. "Give them to me Jack."

"No." Jack hugged the box to his chest.

They argued like this for several minutes before they settled on opening the box together.

"Stones." Jack said.

"Aye, the Spanish must have been here before us."

'Well that's just bloody fantastic." Jack sighed. "Any idea where the Spanish are?"

"I've got a feeling I do."

"Does it hurt to know that you're sisters were hunted for their tears?" Blackbeard gestured to the mermaid skeleton with its arms tied to a tree in one of the pools.

Tamara remained silent.

"Tie her up."

Philip let go of Tamara. "You can't do this, you'll kill her."

"The queen of the mermaids? I think I can kill her, perhaps if she dies her kind will shed a tear. Tie. Her. Up."

The zombies grabbed Tamara (who was screaming) by the arms and forced her into a pool of water. They grabbed her arms and tied her to the tree, same as her sister.

"She really is a feisty one. We'll have to work hard to get her to cry." Blackbeard walked away.

Scrum knelt by Tamara. "I'm so sorry about this."

"Then release me."

"I can't."

Tamara stopped struggling for a second to look him in the eye. "I am the queen of the mermaids, and you will let me go."

"A queen." Scrum said out loud. "How do you become a mermaid queen?"

"This is not the place to ask me that!"

"Sorry."

Tamara struggled again before giving up completely. "The least you could do is remove yourself from my sight."

Scrum backed off quickly.

Jack peered over a fern at the Spanish Camp. He glanced at Barbossa. "What are you doing?"

"Planning an exit, that's what you do, isn't it?"

"Er. Yes. That's exactly what I do."

The two pirates crept forward. Jack had unofficially elected himself to grab the chalices as Barbossa had a wooden leg and well, Barbossa had a wooden leg. The Spaniard was rubbing grim of one of the chalices, he bent down to grab a clean cloth when Jack grabbed the other and hid under the table. The Spaniard looked around. "Could have sworn it was right there." He muttered to himself. While he wasn't looking, Jack grabbed the other chalice and stuffed it down his shirt.

And the Spaniard was none the wiser, that is until a whole Spanish army is waiting for you with loaded guns.

Barbossa pulled off his wooden leg. Inside there was a bottle of rum.

"I have got to get me one of them." Jack said. Barbosa passed him the leg, Jack accepted with difficulty since he was tied to a bloody palm tree. "So, how did you lose that fine leg of yours?"

"Back when you had left on your first journey to the fountain and I had the Pearl, everything was smooth sailing, no pun intended. But one day Queen Anne's revenge came upon us. We fought violently, but it was like the ship turned against us. The rigging came alive, it grabbed my leg but I could still reach my sword-"

Jack flinched and handed the leg back to Barbossa.

"I've got an idea," Jack said and scooted up the palm tree.

For the many people who don't know what/where Grimsby is: it is a town located on the east side of England in a crevice. It's sort of like a fishing village, because they have docks and the some of the most dangerous tides in the world. If you've ever lived there you know that under no circumstances do you ever go into the sea by yourself or even on the beach for that matter.

And whenever there's a steroetype of Brits, they're usually Southern English and annunciate their words a bit too much. They also all play polo, drink tea, and hang out with queenie. Not all Brits are like that. They'd rather have a pint of beer than tea!

Mermaids baring their teeth: inspiration came from monkeys. They bare their teeth whenever they're threatened or about to have a brawl. Normally people are told not to smile with their mouths open around monkeys.

More reviews please? K?