Silent Sparrow
Chapter 20 1/2!
Sprry it's taken so long to update. I've been busy getting used to High School. Geometry, Writing, Art, Phisical Science, Chorus, and English Honors. I've got to walk back and forth across the school for each class.
Once more, I don't own PotC. I had a dream that I did though...I do own Jaquline and Heiriko.
"Sao Feng is dead"
Everyone turned toward the door to see who had spoken.
It was Elizabeth, flanked by Sao Feng's crew.
"He fell to the Flying Dutchman." She said, stabbing her sword into the globe. What she had said caused major commotion.
"He fell to the plague ship?!" Mistress Ching yelled.
"He made you Captain?! Well, they're just giving the bloody title away now." Jack exclaimed.
"That's exactly what Jaquline said when she found out."
"Where is she?" Jack asked, looking around Sao Feng's crew.
"She wouldn't come off the ship. She's fine, but she won't talk to me." She explained, seeing the look on Jack's face.
The Brethren Court was still shouting.
"Listen. Listen! Our location has been betrayed. Jones is under the command of Lord Beckett. They're on their way here." Elizabeth told the cort. Gentleman Jocard stood up.
"Who is this traitor?" He yelled angrily.
"Not likely anyone among us." Barbossa told him.
"Where's Will?" Elizabeth asked.
"Not among us." Jack answered.
"And it doesn't matter how they found us, what matters is: What we are going to do now that they have?" Barbossa asked the Court.
"We fight!" Elizabeth said, pounding a fist on the table. There was silence for a few seconds, then everyone in the room burst out laughing. Jack joined in, and Heiriko just rolled her eyes and yawned.
"Shipwreck Cove is a fortress. A well supplied fortress! There is no need to fight if they cannot get to us!" Mistress Ching said, standing up. The court murmered in agreement.
"There be a third option," Barbossa started.
"In another age and another time, the First Brethren Court captured the goddess Calypso and bound her in her bones." He said, walking halfway around the table. The Court nodded their agreement with the his statement. Barbossa shook his head.
"That was a mistake."
The Court stared at him, wondering what he was getting at. Heiriko's ears perked up and she raised an eyebrow.
"Oh we tamed the seas for ourselves, that be true. But that opened the door for Beckett and his ilk! Better were the days when mastery of the seas came not from bargains struck with eldrige creatures, but from the sweat of a man's brow and the strength of his back alone. You all know this to be true!" Barbossa said, walking back around to the front of the table.
"Gentlemen, ladies, we must free Calypso."
The Court was silent, thinking over Barbossa's words.
Barbossa looked around, wondering why the Court was being so quiet.
Then, the court bursted into very loud conversation, concerning Barbossa's sanity.
"Shoot him!" Mistress Ching yelled.
"Cut out his tounge!" Jocard shouted.
"Shoot him, cut out his tounge, then shoot his tounge! And trim that scraggily beard." Jack suggested helpfully.
"Sao Feng would've agreed with Barbossa." Tai Huang stepped forward from Elizabeth's side.
"Aye." Barbossa agreed.
"Calypso was our enemy then. She will be our enemy now!" Jocard argued.
"And it's unlikely her mood's improved." Capitaine Chevalle spoke up.
"I sail away with Sao Feng, we release Calypso!" The spanish Captain Eduardo Villanueva said, pulling out a pistol.
"You threaten me?" Chevalle asked coldly.
"I silence you!" Villanueva said, cocking his pistol. Chevalle punched him in the face, and Villanueva's finger slipped, shooting off a bullet. A huge fight commenced between the pirates sat around the table. Barbossa, Elizabeth, Jack and their associates stayed still. Heiriko sighed and started to inspect her claw-like fingernails, clearly bored.
Elizabeth looked upon the scene with slight disgust. "This is madness" she exclaimed.
"This is politics" Jack retorted.
"And meanwhile our enemies are bearing down upon us" Elizabeth said to the two men.
"If they not be here already" Barbossa replied, rolling his eyes.
He looked to Heiriko.
"Don't you have anything to say Fox?" He asked. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Not much to say that hasn't already been said." She simply replied before going back to her nails.
"Cuttlefish!" Jack shouted. The fighting Lords paused, confused by his seemingly random outburst.
"Let us not, dear friends, forget our friends the cuttlefish..." He started, making his way around the table. "Pin them up together and they will devour each other without a second thought... Human nature, isn't?" He walked carfully through Mistress Ching's guards, who reached for their swords. "Ooor... fish nature. So yes, we could hold up here well-provisioned and well-armed and half of us would be dead within the month! Which seems grim to me any way you slice it!" He inched his way past Jocard's guards, who almost blocked his progress entirely. "Or, as my learned colleague so naively suggests, we can release Calypso, and we can pray that she will be merciful... I rather doubt it. Can we in fact pretend that she is anything other than a woman scorned, like which fury Hell hath no? We cannot. Res ipsa loquitur, tabula in naufragio, we are left with but one option. I agree with, and I cannot believe the words are coming out of me mouth... Captain Swann. We must fight." He finally made his way to the other side of the table.
Barbossa rolled his eyes.
"As per the code an act of war, and this be exactly that, can only be issued by the Pirate King."
"You made that up!" Jack accused, pointing a finger at him.
"Did I now? I call upon Captain Teague, Keeper of the Code!"
Jack frowned.
Sri Sumbhajee nudged one of his assistants.
"Sri Sumbhajee proclaims this all to be useless! Hang the Code! Nobod-"
A shot rang out, and the aide fell down dead. The shooter was an older man leaning casually against the upper doorway.
"The Code is law." Captain Teague said, almost inaudibly. The Lords who were previously fighting sat down.
He slowly made his way down the steps. His black hair was dreadlocked and braided with golden crosses.
He stopped behind Jack.
"You're in my way boy." Teague said, his voice low. Jack sidestepped out of his father's way.
Teague stepped up to the table, and then took a step to the side himself in order to make way for two elderly pirates carrying a large locked book.
"The Pirate Code…" Pintel whispered in awe.
"Set forth by Morgan and Bartholomew." Ragetti finished, equally in awe.
Teague then whistled, and a mangy brown dog trotted in with a set of keys in it's mouth.
"What…How did…???" Pintel and Ragetti stammered as the dog put the keys in Teague's hand.
"Sea turtles mate." Teague answered them with a smile and a shrug.
"Sea turtles…of course…"
Teague unlocked the large book and opened it, dust flying everywhere. He ran his finger down the open pages, then tapped a sentence.
"Ah. Barbossa is right." Teague said to the Court. Barbossa smiled smugly.
"Hang on a minute." Jack said, gently pushing his father to the side.
" 'It shall be the duty of the Pirate King to declare war…during said war only the King can invoke the right of Parley with the enemy'…Fancy that." Jack said to himself, looking up.
"There has not been a King since the First Court. And that's not likely to change." Chevalle said, shaking his head.
"Not likely." Teague agreed, sitting himself down.
"Why not?" Elizabeth asked Gibbs.
"The Pirate King is elected by popular vote…" Gibbs explained.
"…And each Lord only ever votes for himself." Barbossa finished.
"I call for a vote!" Jack piped up. The entire Court groaned, and Teague started playing a period guitar, seeming almost as bored as Heiriko (who had dozed off).
"I vote for Ammand, the Corsair!"
"Capitaine Chevalle, the Penniless Frenchman."
" Captain Villanueva."
" Sri Sumbhajee votes for Sri Sumbhajee."
" Mistress Ching!"
" Gentleman Jocard."
" Elizabeth Swann."
" Barbossa."
" Fox Heiriko." Heiriko yawned.
Teague paused, fingers resting on the strings.
" Elizabeth Swann." Jack said with a smile. Teague raised an eyebrow, and then resumed playing.
" What?" Elizabeth asked.
" I know. Curious, in'nit?" Jack replied, still grinning. The other Lords started yelling at him, telling him to take back his vote. Jack stopped grinning.
" Am I to understand that you lot will not be keeping to the Code?" He asked.
TWANG! A string on Teague's guitar snapped, and Teague glared at the Court as if to say, I dare you.
The Lords sat back down after seeing Teague's glare.
"Very well," Mistress Ching turned toward Elizabeth.
"What say you, Captain Swann : King of the Brethren Court?"
Elizabeth smiled.
"Prepare every vessal that floats. At dawn, we're at war."
Jack nodded ever so slightly, to show his approval.
Sri Sumbhajee stood up.
"And so, we shall go to war!" He spoke in a comical falsetto. Jack tilted his head and looked at him strangly.
The room erupted in cheers. Heiriko frowned and covered her ears, the noise too loud for her taste.
Jack turned to Teague, who was staring at him.
"What?" Jack asked, spreading his arms wide.
"You've seen it all, done it all, and survived," He said, walking over to his father.
"That's the trick in'nit? To survive?"
Teague shook his head.
"It's not about just about living forever Jackie," Teague said, setting his guitar aside and standing so he was face to face with his son.
"The trick is living with yerself forever."
"How's mum?" Jack asked, to change the subject. The last time he had seen her, she was ill with a fever.
Teague said nothing, but held up a withered shunken head.
Jack's mother's head.
A quick look of horror and revoltion crossed over Jack's face.
"She looks great!" Jack replied nervously.
Teague sat back down with a sigh, and picked up his guitar. Jack felt a hand on his shoulder. He knew who it was.
"Yes Yoko darling?" He asked, turning around to face her. She glared at him.
"I talked to Elizabeth. We are going to see Jaquline."
Heiriko narrowed her eyes. Jack shuddered. She was searching his eyes, and now he couldn't look away.
"You didn't tell her about me, did you?"
Jack opened his mouth to answer, but Heiriko grabbed his wrist and dragged him out the door.