A/N: Hey everyone! Just thought I'd share a couple notes: firstly, I know the mermaids are "perfect" little Mary-Sue type things. They aren't all that important in the story, just appear a couple of times. I know we'd all like to kill 'em. I do too. The mermaids are supposed to be perfect, at least, the ones we see in the story, I mean, come on: they're the ones in a goddesses' court. They have minimal importance, except for when they pass on information, which isn't that often since they usually keep to themselves. Secondly: Thank you all so much for the reviews! I do need more, I'll keep stressing on that, but every review saves Jack's life one more time and makes Jack more notorious as well, even if the review is to tell me that my story sucks. Which I'm totally okay with, considering I want all aspects on my story and what you think I can improve on :) Read, review, enjoy!
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Chapter FourteenNovel Competences… Crummy Recollections
Jack was running around on the Devil's Slave trying to find something to pay Tia Dalma. He knew she wouldn't accept their love-fests as payment – but she should, he thought, because I'm spending me time with a… nasty-smelling…lady. Oh, wait, she's probably listening. Sorry, Tia, love, I didn't mean it! I didn't – but you did, Jackie! Oh shut up, Jack, of course I didn't. Yeah, he didn't, Jack. Hey, Cap'n, let's shoot him! No, I say we throw him overboard. Shut up, the three of you! I'm a figment of your stupid imagination! Aye, let's throw him overb –
"Cap'n? We found summat down below," said Gibbs. "It seems we have a few things that might work out." Jack obligingly followed Gibbs to the decks below. He hadn't ever been down there – only ever ordered his crew to get him drinks from the cellars – but he never went below on the Devil's Slave.
The decks were musty – mold grew on the ceilings and Jack could smell the mildew and sweat, without any reprieve whatsoever. He was quite fixated on the unfortunately odiferous charms of the place, resolving that he would immediately order people to scrub the ceilings, floors, and walls until they simply sparkled. "Does it always smell this…erm…haplessly unpalatable, eh?"
"I can't push smell and taste together," Gibbs said, trying to push the correct definition of "unpalatable" in Jack's face, "but yes, it's quite disgusting."
"Mm," Jack said. "Well, it's more smell than I can handle, much more than the smell of cack –" At this, Gibbs raised his eyebrows and creased his forehead.
"Aye, Cap'n," he said. "Ah, here we're to be," he said, pointing at a door dead ahead of them.
"Well, aren't you goin' to open it?" Jack asked with a puzzled look.
"Uh, oh, yes," said Gibbs, his hands trying desperately – and unsuccessfully – to open the door. "It appears to be jammed."
"Move," Jack said, pulling out his pistol. Gibbs gulped. Jack changed his aim to the door's lock, and right in the center – BANG! The door swung open. "It appears there was an unfortunate lock."
"Aye, Cap'n," said Gibbs. "'Course."
Jack walked in to see various rare valuables – gold statues, silver trinkets, fountains made of jewels – and immediately, his jaw dropped open. "You think I should give one o' these to Tia Dalma…?"
"Well, Cap'n, considering the amount o' loot we got 'ere," said Gibbs, "Wouldn't it be all right to give maybe… a statue up? And then, o' course… maybe I can have one…"
"One statue for Tia Dalma, then," said Jack, walking about and touching his new possessions greedily. "Make it this one," he said, pulling out a rather small one. "It's small, it's portable, an' besides, Tia don' have much room in that ol', mephitic shack of hers, does she? Yup, it's this one."
Jack walked out and stopped. "Mister Gibbs, do we have another lock?"
"Er –" Gibbs thought. "One to the rum cellar."
Jack gave a pained expression. "Rum and gold… two of me most prized possessions… ah, well, I suppose, considering the amount of monetary value in that there room, we should shift the lock from the rum cellar and put it 'ere, savvy?"
"Aye, Cap'n," said Gibbs, nodding. He then hurried off to go further below to fetch the lock as Jack swaggered on deck with the small gold idol that resembled a statue from the Easter Islands.
"Oh," Jack said upon reaching the poop deck. A large, brawny, tan-skinned member of his crew stood before him. "Erm… can I help you?"
"Cap'n," he said in a surprisingly mellow tone, "it seems we've run out of food, sir."
"Well, then, in that case…" Jack said, looking at the time. "It's noon." His stomach grumbled loudly. "Let's stop at that island, there… see if we can't get any food." Jack sashayed to his Captain's Quarters and stuffed the gold idol inside a drawer under several papers and maps that he drew himself when he worked under Beckett – maps he had found when he snuck into Beckett's London mansion when sailing with Barbossa.
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What with the ship completely tied down onto the beach, Jack sauntered out along the beach. "There's smoke comin' from those cliffs up there, Cap'n," said Gibbs.
"Wha'? Oh, yeah, I knew tha'," said Jack. "I know everything! Let's… go through the jungle. We'll get there, eventually."
"Suppose the people that live here are savages, Cap'n –"
"Relax, mate," said Jack. "Ol' Teague taugh' me 'bout 'ow to speak a savage language. Not sure if it'll work 'ere, but it'll buy us some time, I 'fink."
Jack walked through the jungle until, eventually he found some peculiar looking wood. The rest of his crew was near him, all looking at the different and strange trees and animals that moved around.
Jack's face moved very close to the strange wood, then – "Hey, it looks like this 'ere's got eyes! And… a nose… and… a mouth – OH, CR–"
Something shot Jack's back and Jack rolled lazily to sleep.
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When Jack woke up, he was hanging from a long stick, his hands tied together and his feet tied together. A large man walked to him, his body painted back, wearing nothing but a loincloth and strange white markings all over his body shaped like bones. His nose had white bone-like spears sticking out of it. Jack shuddered. Savages. Gibbs was right.
"Erm…lum say-say…me chief?" Jack struggled to remember the words his father had taught him. The savages stopped jumping around the fire and looked at him with wide eyes. Ah, so we're on to something, Jackie. Best put your best face forward…
"Lum say-say, lum yar-ruler, savvy?" The tribe looked among each other, nodding. They untied Jack and dragged him to a large, covered throne.
"Yar-ruler, eeseepi!" The big black-painted man bowed his head.
"Eeseepi," the rest of them said, bowing.
Jack looked at his fellow mates. "They speak something called Umshoko, I think. You know, they think I'm their king," said Jack.
"Yar-ruler, lum say big-big!"
"Bugger," Jack said. "They think I'm their God."
"Then tell 'em to let us out!" said Gibbs, his face twisted with fear.
"Erm, all right. Lum say –"
"Boom-boom tila-tila," said a creepy-looking older woman, "yar-ruler-big-big ummmm."
"Oh," said Jack. "When the drums stop, they'll eat me."
"Yettara-ouina ummmm," said another voice.
"And when they eat me, they'll eat you," said Jack. NOT GOOD!
Gibbs gulped, and the big, muscular, dim-witted crewmember dropped into a light faint.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it," said Jack. "I always do."
"Big-big say-say lit?"
"Erm," Jack said… What are they asking me to do? Cap'n, they're asking you to tell them what to do with your crew, innit? Of course they are, Jack, you're their bloody chief, Jack thought. Yeah, I'm their bloody thief! Erm, chief, I mean.
"Lay them on the ground… erm… lum say-say you lay-lay? Yeah, tha's it." The cannibals shrugged and put the men on the ground. "Mates, don't do anything stupid… I'm doing all I can. Wait 'till they have somethin' better to do, then we can see about getting us off o' the island."
"See if we can do that with our damn ship tied to the ground," said Gibbs. "See if you can make a distraction when we escape, and we'll –"
"Release the Devil's Slave," said Jack, thinking aloud.
"Big-big say-say voh ouina," said another.
"All righ', maybe it ain't a good idea to converse with you lot," said Jack. "Lum say-say…" Jack didn't remember anything his father taught him – only the little bits he had already spoken and heard. "Lum say-say go… leave this place?"
The people looked at each other, confused.
"All right, try this. Lum say-say leave-leave."
Again, strange looks.
"Run off, go-go, sayonara, au revoir, SOMETHING!"
At this point, the people were giving each other strange looks. They ain't believin' me no more, thought Jack, horrified.
"Tu, hatt-oingina telmar," said the black man to a skinny little boy with a wig that looked to Jack like the long ones the Governors in England used to wear. Ick, he thought.
The little boy ran off. Wait, thought Jack. Wha' did 'e say? Hatt-oingina…telmar? Yeah, tha's it.
"Lum say-say, hatt-oingina. Telmar. All o' you, yes, tha's it," he said. The men began leaving, but the women stayed. "Wha'? I wasn't bein' sexist, now was I?"
"Erm…" Jack heard a woman's stomach grumble. They all looked at her – then at the crew. "No," Jack said, as they dragged the big, brawny one off, screaming and yelling.
"Wa-say kohn?" says one of the women (who Jack hadn't spotted before), pointing at him.
"Een big-big," said another one of them.
"Ahh, big-big," said the first. "Eeseepi."
Jack nodded his head several times. "Yeah, that." Wa-say kohn…prolly means 'whozzat?'
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It had been hours since the women had left the area. The drums were still playing on the other side of a cliff. Jack had been practicing his cannibal language with his two attendants – and apart from these two attendants, there was not a cannibalistic soul in sight.
"Ah," said Jack to one of them. He looked at his crew. "It's time."
"Aye, Jack, we've got to go!"
"I'll make a little… diversion, savvy?"
"Right," said Gibbs.
"Say-say lam shoop-shoop sha smalay-lama shoo-koo, savvy?"
The two attendants shrugged and walked off.
"What did you tell them?"
"I told them to build cages out of bones to stick you in," said Jack. Gibbs's jaw dropped open. "Well, it'll buy you time, mate, innit? You…go let the Slave free. GO!"
They ran off one bridge. Jack took another bridge – several, in fact, in a certain order as he ran over cliffs – until eventually, he stopped in front of the little boy with the wig. "Erm… Lum say-say, hatt-oingina, telmar!"
"Wa-mein telmar!"
"You're on telmar? What's telmar?" Jack looked behind him – and saw all of the Pelegostos standing there. And, what was more, they were all standing on a volcano. "Just… thought I'd get fit, eh?"
"BALL LICKY-LICKY!" They yelled. Jack began yelling and running for his life through the forests, bridges, and whatever else came his way until finally, he was on level ground.
Eventually he – followed by the mad, paint-covered anthropophagi – reached the beach. Jack saw the Devil's Slave's sails up in full, and Gibbs motioning for him to get on board. Jack caught a hold of the rigging and climbed up to the poop deck. He walked to the bow to address his devotees as the ship pulled away. "Alas, my children, I have no doubt we will meet once again, in a very, very bad place that we like to call Hell, but until that moment, rest on this godforsaken spit of land what we call Isla De Pelegosto, and always remember this day as the day that you almost caught your infamous God – and chief, Captain Jack Sparrow!"
The ship sailed into the bay, with the man-eaters crying out from the shore. "Remind me never to come to any off-marked island looking for food," Jack said to Gibbs.
"How's about we put some distance between us and Pelegostos, eh, Cap'n?"
"Aye," said Jack. "But we'll 'ave to stay close to the shallows. Cuba's righ' round the corner." A story worth telling, thought Jack. Good. Them wenches won't be put out. "I have decided to rename the ship… the… erm… The –"
"The Wandering Compass," said Anna-Maria. "I've seen it, Jack. It does nothing but wander. You sure it works?"
"My compass works perfectly well," said Jack. "And yes, The Wandering Compass. I come up with good ship names, don't I?"
Jack walked into his cabin, away from a disbelieving Anna-Maria as Gibbs sent another crewmember to paint over the Devil's Slave's name.
Little did the crew know that behind them followed a gigantic crocodile that was so big it could have been genetically modified – its mouth was big enough to hold two sailors, and it was roughly the length of half of the war-ship that the Wandering Compass was.