Ana-Maria slipped her plain men's shirt over her head and laid it on her bed. She replaced it quickly with a dress of African styles, and pulled her breeches off from underneath it. Quickly she tied her hair up in a scarf, and wrapped another around her slim waist to complete the outfit. Ana-Maria wasn't really African, but she had discovered that pretending to be so made a good disguise for when she wanted to escape from the ship.
She could wander the towns without worrying about being mistaken for a whore, though this had more to do with the unsettlingly independent aura that surrounded her than her clothing. But it felt good to be female for a while, without the troubles of corsets and other irksome lady's underwear. And best of all, no one from the Pearl would recognize her in African garb, so her dignity was safe.
This particular island was strange to her, and to the whole crew in fact. Even Jack admitted to having not seen it before, but as they'd come upon it after encountering a rather bad storm, and the ship badly needed repairs, her captain had steered into the harbour, and given his crew the night off after they'd fixed the ship. Ana-Maria rather expected that he himself would be spending his night in the pleasure district of town, with some over powdered and rouged whore.
The thought sickened the pirate woman, and unconsciously she clenched her fists, causing curious glances from passers by. Ana glared at them and stormed off down a dark alley to take her anger out on some inanimate that couldn't be hurt by it. Ideally, it would be Jack Sparrow who would feel the full force of her fury, but Ana couldn't bear the thought of finding him and dragging him away from whoever his current woman was. She kicked a pile of crates and watched in satisfaction as they collapsed to the ground with a crash. She stepped over the obstacle she had created and kept on walking down the alley until she reached its ending at a wide street shadowed over by crumbling old houses. She ignored the chills that were shooting up her spine and stepped onto the road to look more closely.
Standing in the shadow of one of the houses she noticed a young child. They urchin looked lost and unhappy, and reminded Ana-Maria of her younger brothers and sisters so that she crossed the road and knelt down by the hapless child. She put her hands one on each tiny shoulder and turned the little boy to face her.
"Are y' alright?" she asked.
"Mama," the boy muttered, and Ana-Maria felt another wave of pity sweep over her.
"I'm not y'r mother child," she whispered, and pulled the child into a tight embrace.
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The African woman was angry. She marched down the street at a fast pace, kicking a stack of boxes that happened to be in her way. As she came to a row of houses she stopped and looked around. A small child stood crying in front of one of the houses and the woman hurried over to it and knelt down. She placed one hand on each of its shoulders and spoke to it softly. Then the child's loud, whining voice floated out into the night, crying loudly about its mama, and sickness, and hunger.
The African woman glanced about her and then pulled from her dress a small purse, which she opened, and then retrieved three coins from it. Gently she placed them in the child's hands & then folded the tiny fingers over them. She whispered to the child once more, and pointed down the street. The child gave a small nod and ran off.
The woman rose to watch it go, and then glanced around again. She was nervous. Absently she reached up to retie her head scarf, and with that gesture turned her bare wrist to the air. A bright blue vein pressed against the skin. The vein made her wrist seem crystalline, and all the more fragile.
He stepped from the shadows, overwhelmed by hunger. The African woman turned around.
"Who...?" she began. He closed the distance between them in a rush and sank his teeth into her neck.
…watching me/ blood/ my blood/ stories/ vampire/ kill me/ death/ no, please/ cold/ help/ Jack/ JACK!
Her mind was crowded with images, of gold, and silver, of treasure, and of the ocean, a ship, and its crew, and one man in particular; the ship's captain, the woman's love. As the woman drifted out of consciousness this man began to dominate her thoughts more and more, confused images of love and hate.
When she was close to death, the vampire stepped back, carelessly dropping her body to the street. He had a great desire to see this woman's lover, and to such end, he sent out a call to the man. He felt the response almost immediately, saw the man jump to his feet and run from his ship, and then faded back into the shadows.
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Jack Sparrow sat calmly mending one of the sails, a half empty bottle of rum by his side, and another on the floor, when he heard a voice calling to him, telling him that Ana-Maria was in danger. Jack was quite used to hearing voices in his head, and he'd learnt a long time ago that just because they were in his head didn't mean he shouldn't listen to them.
So when he heard Ana-Maria in his head, shrieking in pain and fear, he wasted no time in jumping to his feet, albeit unsteadily, and running after it.
He followed the mental cries into the older, less populated, part of town, passing through without even bothering to glance round him, so he never saw the young child sitting by the roadside eating an apple, or noticed the tall pale man who brushed past close enough to touch him. His mind was focussed on Ana-Maria, and it had room for nothing else.
He found her lying in the gutter, pale and limp. Carefully he turned her over and lifter her into his arms.
"Ana," he whispered, shaking her gently. "Wake up Love,"
Her eyes opened slightly, and he saw that they were glazed and unfocussed. "Jack?" she whispered.
"Yes Love, it's me," the pirate captain replied, though his mind was no longer concentrating on Ana-Maria's words. Instead he was staring intently at the tiny bite marks that marred the skin of her neck.
Jack had heard of vampires, and never really disbelieved in them, but nor had he believed in them up until now, when he saw what had happened to Ana. There was really no other explanation for her injuries, save a rat, but a rat wouldn't be able to topple his Ana-Maria.
He reached out for her wrist and felt her pulse. Her heart was racing, trying to spread its diminished supply of blood to all the places it was needed. From the colour of Ana-Maria's skin, he severely doubted that she had enough blood left to fulfil all her body's demands.
Jack glanced at Ana's wrist, then at his own, and cringed. Crooning softly, he gathered her into his arms and lifted her away from the ground.
He walked cautiously through the town, carrying Ana-Maria's body close to him. He was watching for everything from dogs, to the town's officials, to petty criminals, and for his own crew. Most of all he watched for the creature who had harmed the woman he carried, afraid that it might return for her. But it did not, and Jack was able to get back to his ship without any unwanted encounters.
Once on board the Black Pearl he carried Ana-Maria to his cabin, and gently laid her down on his bed, pulling the blankets up over her. Calmly he gathered a great number of candles and set them to burn upon the table. That done, he glanced around quickly and ran outside. He jumped off the side of the ship and waded ashore. Scrabbling about in the shallows he collected some sticks, and a few rocks, and filled a bucket with sand. Then he clambered back onto the ship and hurried back to his cabin. Ana-Maria was stirring in his bed, caught in the grasp of some dream or delusion.
Jack spared only a second to watching her before he turned back to what he was doing. Using the twigs he'd collected from the beach, he set up a small tripod above the candles. Atop this he placed the bucket of sand, and threw the rocks in on top. Then he went in search of the other items he needed, cloth, a knife, and a thin glass tube which, for the life of him, Jack couldn't remember the true purpose of.
Returning to his fire, the pirate captain removed the bucket from over the candles and poured the sand out onto the cloth, which he then folded over to make a rudimentary heat pack. He carried this, along with his other tools, over to Ana-Maria, and sat down next to her, laying the sand filled cloth over her arm and weighing it down with stones. Then he reached out and clasped her hand, relieved when she squeezed back.
For the best part of an hour he waited while the heat from the sand opened up Ana-Maria's collapsing blood-vessels. When he judged it ready, he stood, disentangling his hand from Ana-Maria's, and wandered over to the table where the candles burned. He picked up the knife and ran it through the fire to purify it, and then repeated the process with the glass tube. Then he returned to Ana-Maria and resumed his position by her side. He removed the sand pack from her arm and laid the knife over the major vein in his wrist. He hissed with pain as blood rose to the surface of the wound, and then quickly replaced knife with tube, and placed the knife to Ana-Maria's wrist.
"Ana Love," he whispered. "I'm going to cut y' now. But don't worry, it'll make y' better, I promise,"
Ana-Maria made a tiny noise which Jack took as consent. Carefully he slid the knife into her vein, praying that the blood would still be flowing. After a minute or so his prayers were rewarded by the sight of brilliant red blood welled up below where he had made the cut. Gently he pushed the tube into Ana's wrist, and lifted his own arm so his blood would flow into her, rather than the other way around. He watched as the liquid slipped down the inside of the tube and vanished below Ana-Maria's skin, for the longest time, until he was dizzy from the blood loss, and some colour flushed Ana-Maria's pale cheeks. Then reluctantly he pulled the tube from his arm, and held it up to allow the last few drops of blood to dribble into Ana-Maria's injury. Then he slid the tube from her vein and immediately pressed a reasonably clean white cloth to her wound, to stop any of his blood from escaping her body. He tied the cloth around her arm and covered it once again.
Clambering unsteadily to his feet, Jack took a drink from a rum flask that lay by the table. He walked over to the candles and winced. Guiltily glancing at Ana-Maria, he carried one of the candles over to her bedside, and placed it on the floor next to him. Kneeling down, he drew once more his knife, and held the blade over the fire until the tip turned orange. He climbed onto the bunk above Ana, and braced her body with his. Then he leant over and pushed down on her collar bone with one arm.
"I'm sorry about this Love," he murmured as he pressed the red-hot blade down on the cut he'd made on her wrist.
The effect was instantaneous. Ana-Maria awoke with a shriek, and rose up and slapped him.
'What are you doing?" she yelled, and Jack swayed, for the combination of her voice, rum, and blood loss were tiring him fast.
"Y' got hurt," he muttered. "I had to sterilise the wound."
Ana glared at him for a moment, and then fell back onto the bed, unconscious. Jack smiled at her wearily, and managed to climb off her and put out the candle. Then he sat back down next to Ana-Maria, and once more took her hand in his. A strand of hair had fallen over her face, and he gently brushed it away, before collapsing, one hand still on her face, and the other entwined with hers.
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The sun was already climbing in the sky when the crew of the Black Pearl made their stumbling, drunken way up the gangplank onto their ship. Gibbs glanced around for the captain, but couldn't find hide nor hair of him. Assuming that he was in his cabin, sleeping off the previous night's festivities, Gibbs ordered the crew to begin preparations for departure.
Jack stumbled onto deck just as they were finishing. He was pale as death. Gibbs made his way over to him and grinned. "Have a good night Captain?" he asked.
Jack looked at him like he was mad. Then he looked around the ship. "Are all the crew aboard?" he asked.
"All but Ana-Maria," Gibbs replied.
"Ana-Maria will be staying in her cabin for the next few days," the captain told him. "She's feeling a bit under the weather."
"Ready to sail, Cap'n," one of the crew told him. Jack nodded.
"Mr Gibbs, take the wheel would y'," he asked.
Gibbs frowned. "Aye Jack," he agreed. "But where` would I be takin her?"
Jack looked puzzled. Then he made an expansive gesture with his arms. "Take her where she will," he replied, and, without another word, stumbled off back to his cabin.
"That lad's been drinkin awful heavy," Gibbs muttered. He looked around and saw Cotton standing behind him. The man was nodding.
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"Ana-Maria Love, Y' awake?" Jack asked. The woman opened her eyes and turned to look at him.
"What happened?" she whispered.
"Well, Love, I d'know entirely," Jack told her. "I was just sitting on deck, mendin the sails, when I heard y' screaming in me head. I followed the noise and found y' lyin in the gutter with bite marks on y'r neck," he paused for effect. "So I carried y' back here an' let y' sleep on my bed while I gotta bit o' blood in y',"
"Why is my arm sore?" Ana asked accusingly.
"Well how else was I sposed to get blood from me t' y'?" he asked. "An' then when I was tryin to fix it so it wouldn't get infected, y' went and slapped me, again," he added as an afterthought.
"Oh," Ana-Maria said tiredly.
"An' now if y'll excuse me," Jack continued. "I'm going to be getting some shut-eye," he dropped to the floor and closed his eyes. "Y can keep the bed if y' like," he muttered.
Ana-Maria lay quietly for a moment, and then opened her eyes.
"Jack?" she asked.
Jack opened his eyes and lifted his head.
"Aye?"
"Thank y'," she murmured, before drifting back to sleep. Jack lay back down and pushed his hat down over his eyes. A slow lazy smile crept onto his face as he fell asleep.