He found his feet taking him to the shipyards, watching crews flit to and from ships, patching and repairing the ones in the water, bending wood and binding with sticky tar to form others. Just one of their flagships was enormous, easily rivaling what the Endeavour was, and while loaded with guns to boot, had ample room for cargo and crew.

"Aye, she's the heart of luxury." Norrington murmured, folding his hands and leaning on the fence post to watch the dock-workers repair her hull.

"You've heard the news?" Beckett asked quietly.

"About Jonathan?" Norrington queried. "Yes. One of the lords keeps me abreast of the news."

"Elizabeth Swan?" Beckett asked. "I assume they've stationed themselves in Port Royal."

"You would be correct." Norrington murmured. "On both counts. They've managed to shut down all exports into Port Royal that are coming from free-traders. Everything comes in from the Royal Navy or from company ships and they are extorting the hell out of the common people. Things have degraded very quickly." Beckett frowned.

"This is not how I imagined the rest of my life going." Beckett murmured. "Nor did I ever imagine that I would be standing on the docks of Spain, standing next to former Company and just not... envy you. Your life is everything I could have ever wanted, everything I ever did want, yet that is no longer what I want. I am lost." Beckett murmured, watching crew load the flagship.

"Not everybody who gets lost is lost, my lord." Norrington replied. "You have a great opportunity here in Spain."

"You mean with Jadis?"

"You know I am not here to ever take a place at her side. I am only here because my Queen has commanded me to stay near her side, and even then, that is not always a feasible task. Above the throne that she will eventually inherit and above her people, her country and otherwise, she has always valued her freedom. I think sometimes that is why being Queen over the Brethren Court and being a pirate has always appealed to her. Not to mention that being raised by three very influential male pirates has incredibly molded the way she is." Norrington said softly. "She is certainly her own, despite her mother's want to have her settle."

"Will she?" Beckett asked. Norrington shrugged.

"I doubt it truly. She has too much of her father's blood in her."

"What's the story there?"

"He was the siren. Not Alessandra. She fell in love with him crossing the seas as a young woman, on her way to royal training to become the next Queen. But their love was forbidden. He was harpooned and tied to the ship's bow to rot until nothing but bones remained."

Beckett was surprised. "But Alessandra doesn't seem like the kind of person to carry that kind of trauma."

"I imagine not. She had a daughter to raise after all. One that simply could not stay away from the sea. It called to her. It still does." Norrington murmured. "After all, it's in her blood. And now it is in yours." Beckett was quiet.

"I never imagined that it wasn't passed through a bloodline. They're creatures of myth! Or so I thought. I keep telling myself that the blank edges of the map are fleshing out and filling in, but I am beginning to think that my map simply can't encompass the vastness of this world." Beckett murmured. "I am a very creature that I probably would have hunted to the brink of extinction. However can I rectify my normal life now? I've been thrown from my position as director of the East India Trading Company; I'm most certainly a wanted man, and a good percentage of the populus wouldn't even believe me if I told them the truth!" Beckett was frustrated, closing his eyes and rubbing at his temples. "I cannot combat Jonathan alone."

"I don't suspect you will have to." Norrington replied. "Jadis is right. He speaks in violence and greed. She will unearth hell on him. I do not suspect that he will be as curious as you were."

"He was my father's prodigy child. He excelled in everything that Father placed before him- military, sword-fighting, gunplay, you name it, Jonathan could master it. He was slated to take over Father's business and last I heard, he had. It does not surprise me that he would try to master the East India Trading Company."

"Can the company be mastered?" Norrington asked. "There are still a few good men left, yes?"

"Of course it can't be mastered. I can only command of my men. They are still creatures of free will. But Jonathan's words and sweet charms could certainly corrupt them into his doing. It is why Ian Mercer sailing back to England to stand with the company does not surprise me. You're right; I'm sure there are a few good men left... but how could I ever persuade them to leave and how on Earth could I ever smuggle them out? How on Earth did you get out?"

"I chased Jack Sparrow around the edge of South America, if you'd care to remember. My fleet crashed on the shoals in the midst of raging hurricane and I nearly drowned. I woke to the care of women aboard a small ship, Crown of Thorns." Norrington murmured. "I didn't understand then that they were giving me a second chance at life, that they had given me a second chance at life."

"Are you... as well?" Beckett asked.

"No." Norrington replied. "Though Lorelai has offered it to me more than once. If I didn't know any better, I'd suppose she'd taken a fancy to me."

"Aye, that she has. I doubt she would have offered it otherwise." Jadis murmured, startling the both of them.

"Where did you come from?" Beckett asked.

"It's a free country." Jadis replied.

"I am more curious as to know how you got past your mother's guards." Norrington asked.

Jadis snorted. "They are pushovers. A well-placed pressure point can send a grown man to his knees. Besides, you can't keep this Princess locked up in a tower for so long before she figures out a way out." She replied. "Is that Lux?" She asked, looking at the flagship. "Why does Mother prepare her?"

"I believe she and the Royal Council are considering going to negotiate with the King of England."

"Daft move. No negotiating with England now, with the Company in enemy hands."

"If there is but a chance..." Alessandra murmured. Jadis whirled on her heel.

"A fool's chance! How can you stand to barter our country away on a hope that a man might re-open the seas to free-traders on his own whims!? Men like him do not respond to a woman's wiles or feminine charm! They must be dealt with!"

"Jadis!" Alessandra reprimanded. "We must have hope!"

"Hope?! Why should I? I have never lived on hopes and dreams! My worlds demand action! And so I shall give it to them!" Jadis snarled, storming off.

"Damn that child." Alessandra murmured, watching Jadis' retreating form.

"She's not wrong. Jonathan won't let the King hear a word edgewise about bartering. If they want the edges of the maps to belong to them, do not expect that they will listen to a peace treaty. You cannot offer it right out of the gate. You must best them to prove that you're worthy of it." Beckett murmured.

"You know them?"

"I know Jonathan. He's the spitting image of my Father, and my Father was not a nice man." Beckett replied.