I'm back.....!?
Well, ladies (and perhaps the occasional gentleman) I have returned to writing. I am now at school (yay!) and I have my computer back! Took a while to get the internet onto it, that's why this chapter took longer, but it is written, and here it is!
Ditto on previous disclaimers. If you honestly think that I a) own Pirates of the Caribbean or b) am making any money off of this : I suggest that you seek professional help.
Go read Lyssa2's amazing fanfiction, Pirates of the Caribbean : The Curse With a Twist found at since she was sooo nice to direct people from there to here!
And, again, to my reviewers, I love you guys.
Brem Nakada: Cheers! Thanks so much for your lovely review....I am incredibly flattered that you are jealous. Thankies.
Lyssa2: Ooh....one of the most amazingly funny authors ever thinks I write well?! *gasp* Never fear - updating is guaranteed with reviews like that!
Aiyh-Sa: Thanks again, for everything. And I got Jack right?! *happiness* :)
highonyou: Thanks....I blush. Jack's in jail right now, but let's see how long that lasts!
JenJen: I've even managed to capture Christine and I right?! Whoo hoo! And Jack and Orlando together.....that may be dangerous.
Christé: *ducks frying pan* Ack! I swear I'll work on some original fiction....eventually! But in the meantime, just enjoy your b-day pressie, alright?! *huggles* glad you like it, though.
jehsahka: Thanks, here it comes!
The afternoon was...different. After making our slow way up the hill, we arrived back at the 'mansion'. Not surprisingly, the "luncheon for Commodore Norrington" (still to quote the Governor) had been cancelled, so we sat in the drawing room, Christine and Elizabeth wrapped in blankets, and eating cucumber sandwiches and tea.
It's surprising how odd things can suddenly seem commonplace, or at least get-used-to-able, like tea and cucumber sandwiches, as disgusting as I had once thought they were. Okay, either that, or I was really hungry.
We were sitting there in the sitting room when an urgent messenger arrived to speak with the Governor, and all three of us jumped up from our seats as Elizabeth's father went to speak with the man. We were rather unsuccessful in our attempts to hear what was being said, though we got the general drift, and, in the end, it wasn't really needed anyway - the moment the messenger left, Governor Swann practically danced into the sitting room.
"They caught him!" he trilled, almost singing. "They caught that abominable pirate!"
Both Elizabeth and Christine clapped eagerly, happy at this little tidbit of news.
Me?
I excused myself for a moment, darted into the "powder room" as Elizabeth had so delicately put it, and nearly had a breakdown. I mean, c'mon, I knew that Jack was going to be captured - I mean, really, this was my favorite movie - but poor Jack! I mean, really, the poor man, what did he ever do to deserve prison?
(I mean, besides pillaging, plundering, looting, razing, murdering, kidnaping, exhortation, filching, sacking, ravaging, random destruction, and probably a few other things not maintainable in polite company. Other than that, nothing!)
So after I wiped the angry snarl off my face and managed to look somewhat more like I wasn't going to kill anyone, I took a deep breath, and headed back to the drawing room.
By now, the seamstress that Governor Swann had ordered to come had arrived, almost as though the arrival of a pirate and the almost drowning of his only child would not change the set sequence of events he had decided on. I was informed that she and Christine were already in the spare bedroom, getting measurements. I suppressed a groan, and went to join them.
I hate getting measured. At least when there is no definite on things like measurements, I can pretend that they don't matter to me, and that it is quite possible that my hips/chest/stomach/whatever-it-is-that-I'm-hating-that-day is smaller than I know that it really is. And that was why, for the first time (with the possible exception that it made me run slower), I was actually grateful for that stupid corset. Oh yeah, I can handle tiny waists!
After we were sufficiently measured and humiliated by the measuring, we were led back into the drawing room, where Elizabeth, Christine, I and the dressmaker conferred on what kinds of dresses we were to have made, while the Governor kept trying to throw his own two cents in. (I swear, that man has no fashion sense)
After finally deciding that we were getting some kind of "flowery thing" (I do enjoy quoting father Swann, don't I?) and something more practical, besides a plain back dress (the Guv apparently thinks we'll need to go into proper mourning over Christine's non-existent grandfather) we headed upstairs. The color was fading from the evening sky as we were led back into the spare bedrooms. A maid was scurrying around, sliding bed-warmers in between the sheets, and I couldn't help but grin. If they only knew how useful those things were!
The maids helped us with the dresses and corsets, and left us in dressing gown and shifts. Christine crawled into bed, wrapping blankets around her to ward off the swiftly cooling evening, her blue eyes peering at me over her blankets. "Aren't you going to bed?" she asked, glancing over at the other bed, that was softly calling to my tired body.
"In a minute," I assured her, and smiled. "Be right back."
I darted out of the room, wrapping the dressing gown around myself tightly. Sarah was just leaving Elizabeth's room, so I knew that Elizabeth was now lying in bed, thinking about Will. Yeah, you keep thinking that, we'll see if someone doesn't tip you off your high horse. I almost started laughing. Oh, come on, Heather! You know how things work out.....they're destined to be together! However, I might add, Jack ends up with noone.....except of course, the Pearl, but then he's wide open, right......
Had I been home at that moment, if I had, say, been on MSN with Christine, that would have been the cue for maniacal laughter. Steal the hot guy and all that. I couldn't help the little grin that crept onto my face as I paused before the window, watching the city below. In the darkness, the sputtering gas lamps were the only light, until, from behind a cloud, emerged the full moon. I shivered, and found my eyes searching for the jail. They found a tall, cold looking stone building, and I frowned. That had to be it. Poor Jack, sitting all alone in that dirty prison, and soon the Black Pearl would arrive, and -
That particular train of thought was cut off by the echoing crash of a discharged cannon.
"Oh....no...." I whispered, spinning to look at the harbor. I recognized that black ship in the water, my breath caught in my throat, as I watched it fire off the cannons at an unnatural rate. Pirates were swarming onto the docks, streaming into the town. For a very long moment, I simply stared down at the ensuing scene, until I noticed that pirates were getting dangerously close to the house.
"Elizabeth!?" I screamed, knowing full well that it was she the pirates were after. But as I spun away towards her room, a heavy medallion around my neck slapped against my skin, and my breath caught again. The medallion....was mine a target too? Oh, no, please, no....
"Heather!" the voice of Elizabeth Swann jerked me from my terrified thoughts, and I spun to see her dashing madly down the hall. "Pirates!" she cried, her hair swirling around her head as she ran. "Where is Christine?!"
"Right here." Christine tumbled out of the spare room, a robe half-pulled on, her sunbeam hair a blazing sunglow around her pale face. "What's going on?"
"Pirates," I hissed, watching a terrified expression cross my best friend's face for only a moment, then replaced with fierce determination.
"Here to rescue their Captain Sparrow, no doubt," Christine growled, then jumped as a loud, thudding knock rang at the front door. I don't know how that old man could not have heard the pandemonium outside, but still the butler moved to open the door for the guests knocking outside, which was, of course, only proper.
"Don't!?!" Elizabeth cried, but it was far too late, as he opened the door, to see a pair of grinning pirates. (Pintel and Ragetti, if I recall correctly)
"Hello, chump." Pintel fired once, and the poor old man fell stiffly to the floor. "Up there!"
"Girl!" another bellowed, then paused. "Girls!"
"Move!" Elizabeth yelped, and the three of us wasted no time in obeying. We were as desperate to get away as she was! Sarah, and that other maid - Estrella, was it? - pulled us into Elizabeth's room, and while I should have been trying desperately to get away, the only thing I could think of was why the heck there were two maids there when there was only one in the movie? We were changing things!
"Miss Swann, they've come to kidnap you!" Estrella gasped, frantic.
"What?!" the true meaning of pirates attacking her own home hadn't seemed to sunk in quite yet.
"You're the Governor's daughter!" Sarah hissed, urgently, and realization dawned on Elizabeth's face.
"They haven't seen you," she whispered, turning to the two maids. "Hide, and first chance you get, run to the fort." She glanced once at us, and I knew a personal battle was going on behind her eyes. "You'll need to hide too. Maybe....maybe they'll leave you alone."
"They're pirates?!" Christine gaped, the true gravity of the situation hitting her far harder. "If they don't intend to, well, you know, then I'm a monkey's uncle!"
There was a crash at the door, and before we could ascertain Christine's family's odd marrying habits, Pintel and Ragetti slammed the door open. Elizabeth, in a dramatic display of bravery, smashed poor Pintel in the face with her bed warmer. (Wait a minute, did I saw "poor Pintel"? I mean, nasty, vile, horribly evil Pintel!)
"Gotcha!" Ragetti crowed gleefully, snatching hold of our companion. Terrified that she might not get it quite right now that we were here too (after all, the two maids confirmed it - we were changing things!), I leapt forward and slammed my hand down on the catch, showing a rain of glowing embers and coals onto poor - horrible - Ragetti's head. "It's hot! It's on me!" he wailed as Elizabeth, Christine and I hightailed a fast exit out of there.
We attempted to dart down the stairs, but pirates, everywhere the swarming pirates, blocked our way. Now, normally, I don't think I would've noticed something like this, but a sudden flash ran through my mind, and I wailed, "Run!"
Not questioning, the other two followed me up the stairs, and just in time, too, as a cannon ball screamed through the front of the house, splinters flying everywhere as the projectile took out one of its own men. Elizabeth led us into another room, slamming the lock shut. She looked around frantically, looking for a weapon, her eyes alighting on the sword display on the wall over the fireplace. Christine ran to help her as I darted for the window - but I should have known, there was no way I was getting out there.
There was a slam on the door, and we all froze. "The closets!" I hissed, and we darted for those precious, life-saving doors across the room - but in the rush, Christine and Elizabeth ended up in one closet, and I in the other. There came another crack and the splintering of wood, then another, and then came Pintel's voice calling, "We know you're here, Poppet."
"Poppets," Ragetti corrected him, and I winced. Maybe, maybe....they'd open my closet, instead of theirs, and Elizabeth and Christine would be fine, and I'd just call for Parley, and convince them that my medallion was the real thing, or, maybe....
"Come out, and we promise we won't hurt you," Pintel called, and when there was a momentary pause, I heard the stiffled snickers of Ragetti. "We will find you, poppet. You've got something of ours, and it calls to us. The gold calls to us."
"Gold calls..." Ragetti echoed.
And then came the crash of a closet door being violently ripped open, and the strangled gasps of two young women being startled by pirates. Elizabeth, being the reliably quick thinker she is, acted first. "Parley!"
"What?" Ragetti's voice floated into the closet, and I sighed with relief. Okay, Elizabeth will be fine, now, hopefully Christine will have been smart enough to stuff herself in a corner, and now the pirates will have left, and she'll be fine, and we -
"Didn't you hear her?" my best friend's voice reached my ears, and I suppressed a groan, leaning back against the wall. No, Christine, no.... "She said Parley. So Parely."
Elizabeth's voice cut across the stunned silence, effectively muffling the slight sound of me dully thudding my head against the inside of the closet wall.
"Parley. I invoke the right of parley. According to the code of the brethren, set down by the pirates Morgan and Bartholomew , you have to take me to your Captain."
"I know the code," Pintel snarled back.
"If an adversary demands parley you can do them no harm until the parley is completed," Elizabeth insisted, breathlessly trying to convince them.
"To blazes with the code!" Ragetti responded, obviously eager to snatch the gold from around her neck.
"She wants to be taken to the Captain." Pintel's voice stopped the other pirate. I strained my ears, still leaning in the closet, trying hard not to breathe. "And she'll go without a fuss. We must honor the code."
There was a slight scuffle, the sound of moving girls, two young ladies being dragged along by two pirates, when there was a slight pause, and Ragetti's voice said softly, "Wait."
"Wot's the holdup?!" Pintel snapped irritably, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.
"Do you feel it?" Ragetti asked in his almost child-like, slightly breathless voice. "It's...a pull, like. Like maybe there's another piece of gold..."
"Idiot!" Pintel snarled. "This is the last one!"
"But I feel it..." Ragetti whined, his voice coming closer and closer to my hiding place, as I pushed myself back, as though I thought I could melt back into the wall. "It's right here..."
"C'mon!" There was the decisive sound of a hand on human flesh, and the yelp of a man hit by one he'd thought he could trust. "Can't keep the Captain waiting! Let's go!"
It took a couple moments, the sounds of a whimpering pirate that really was quite like a child, the pushing of a pirate, the struggles of a woman trying to keep her steps, the hissed curses of a fair haired prisoner. Then their voices faded, and I breathed again. "No," I whispered, my fingers impulsively clawing their way up to my throat - and the string hanging around it. It couldn't be....maybe he sensed the other medallion? The medallion....the medallion that was getting away!
I threw the closet doors open, it not even occurring to me to check for pirates first, and plunged put of the room and into the insanity of the Governor's house.
Looking back on it now, I don't know how I survived that craziness. Pirates were everywhere, looting the treasures, burning, sacking, taking whatever caught their fancy. And through this mess stumbled a teenaged girl, robe open, hair curling and blazing around my face like golden fire. I barely avoided dozens of pirates, my foot caught in a thousand places that could have stopped me, and yet I kept going. I heard once that there is some angel that looks over madmen, pirates and drunks. My only explanation is that this angel decided that night to show mercy on me, for I soon found myself on the street, running after the hurried group of pirates and girls. But that angel's eyes seemed, for a moment, to turn itself away from me, as the edge of my robe caught on a half-burned and twisted metal fence, and I stumbled, falling forward onto the cobblestones. The robe would not become entangled, and though I pulled, it had wrapped itself around me in an awkward way that I couldn't pull it off. I could only watch, helpless, as Elizabeth and the one person her who actually understood what was happening to me were pushed into a boat, a boat that headed out into the harbor.
I was alone.
Oh God, I was alone.