He stared at the map on the wall, watching while his latest cartographer sketched out new notations and locations. The blank edges were indeed being filled in, as he'd told young Turner, and only the most powerful would survive the knowledge. Such as himself. Beckett sipped his brandy with something close to satisfaction, turning slowly when he heard footsteps approach. With a slightly disdainful look, he glanced over the former Governor Swann.
"So good of you to join me, Mr. Swann."
"I don't see as how I had a choice. As usual." The little man in front of him had always set Weatherby Swann's teeth on edge. He had power, liked it, and used it unmercifully to whichever whims suited his purpose, all in the name of progress and loyalty.
"One would think you are not grateful, Mr. Swann."
"Grateful?" he spat. "For what? For the loss of my title and my home, for my missing freedom? For my daughter, who is heavens only know where right now, who you swore to find and bring to safety, my only family that I've heard no word of since agreeing to your bargain? For which of these should I be grateful? Inform me so that I may correct my apparent errors."
Beckett only smiled to himself. He enjoyed this, the ability to push people to their breaking point, and have them helpless to do anything but rant and rail against their circumstances. He took special pride in breaking those who were once powerful themselves. Time to twist the invisible knife a bit further.
"Oh yes, your daughter. The beautiful Elizabeth. I've received word of her." The abject relief on the older man's features was almost comical. "Last heard, the young lady was traveling in the company of pirates, bound for the central swamp and the home of the notable Tia Dalma, prophetess, seer, charlatan, what have you."
"Why on earth would she go there?" Swann's confusion was visible.
"Why, indeed, Mr. Swann. Why indeed."
xXxXxXxXx
The wood planks creaked under their feet as the six of them walked from the ship to the dock. A subdued silence rested on the group, begun and enforced by the two that brought up the rear. Neither Will nor Elizabeth took much notice of their surroundings; for all that they were in a land far and different from their own, they may as well have been walking circles inside little boxes for all the attention they paid to anything outside of their own minds. With Barbossa in the lead, the small group wound its way though the bustling beginnings of the port of Singapore. Deftly he maneuvered his little entourage around peddlers and thieves, past bars and whorehouses, no one saying a word to one another. Shadows and people slipped around, through, and past the crew, yet the only person who might have noticed one of their number missing was walking through his own furious, betrayed haze, and failed to see the object of his discomfort as she was whisked down a side alley and out of sight.
Without pause, the remaining five, unaware they were a man…er, woman…short, continued their trek through the crowds, until Barbossa stopped at the wooden door to a dingy little hovel, back beyond the view of the general passersby. Knocking twice, he opened the door and entered, with a gesture to signal that they all were to follow, and a whispered admonition to close the door behind them. Each passed that whisper over their shoulder to the one behind them, from Gibbs to Pintel, to Ragetti, to Will, who whispered the same over his shoulder without once checking to see that the direction was followed.
The hallway was dark and winding, and it seemed to Will, in his distraction, that they must have been walking into the bowels of the earth for hours when Barbossa turned a corner into a dimly lighted area. And there in the center of the room, wrapped in delicate silk and flower-patterned gauze, was a woman. Following Barbossa's unspoken lead, one by one the party knelt before this curiously beautiful woman. For a long time, not a word was spoken. And then, just when Will was starting to wonder if any purpose was served by their being in that room, she spoke.
/William Turner. You've a long way come, and a longer voyage yet to be weathered.
With some shock, he realized the mystery female had never moved her lips. Completely baffled, he told himself he was simply imagining things.
/Such an easy self-deception. But that is what it is, is it not? You know you feel my words within your soul.
Who are you? What do you want? Can the others hear you as well? He felt quite strange, asking questions of his own mind, but it somehow felt appropriate not to break the silence.
/I am Zatelle. I am speaking to the others, of their own matters, much as I am speaking to you, dear William. And it is not what I want, but what you need that has brought you all to me.
What I need? What we need?
/They seek Jack Sparrow's life and salvation. You seek peace from your own thoughts.
Who are you, to speak so boldly of my wants? You know nothing about me.
/I know much, William. I know you love. I know you hurt. I know you wish for things to be as they once were. And that you know nothing will ever happen to make that so. You feel your pain too keenly to let go of what you see as betrayal.
What I see…now, wait a moment here. How could it be anything else? I loved her with all my being, and she chose him! Why am I talking to you about this anyway?
/Before you leave in anger, young William, keep in mind that not all acts are performed for the reasons others would attach to them. And while we are on that subject, where is the light of your life now?
She's right behind…he stood and spun around, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"She's gone!!!" he yelled, before bolting up the hallway and out the door into the Singapore sunlight.