Megs(): The first of quite a few new readers - welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far, and I shall do my utmost best to ensure that you continue to do so. Thanks for the encouragement, m'dear :)
Dell-Doo: Eek! *nods vigorously* Yes! Ok - I'll update quickly! And uh...your smile really scares me...*O-O*
Savy: Hey! Third new reviewer! *huggles* I've heard alot about you from Ildera's thanks - what on earth do you keep doing to poor Will? Anywho, thanks for your support, and I'm glad you've joined us :)
bobo3: I know! Poor Kate indeed! I'll give her your condolences - I'm sure she'll appreciate them! Ah, the dreaded writer's block; there's no 100% successful cure as far as I know, having suffered from it time to time myself. The only thing I can recommend is a muse - they're usually quite happy to adopt you if you placate them with nice things, so give it a try *^-~* Nice to hear from you, m'hunni xxx
Dark Lady2: Even though you only reviewed chapter 4, it's a new review, so I think it counts - I'll be lenient with you ;) Thanks, babe!
lulu bell(): Hey there, chicken! *mwah* Yeah, Ioade's mean to Kate, but what can you do? She has her reasons, bless her. It's funny how Kate's getting so much sympathy, and everyone's putting Ioade in the doghouse...oh well, another plot revelation for another chapter. Thanks for reviewing, and I promise that I'll try and keep my updates more regular ('coz that rabble certainly will...*jerks thumb at Ildera and her mob*)
Ildera: And last but certainly not least, the criminal mastermind herself - well, I guess I should really be thanking you, because look at all the new reviewers I got *^-^* I'll grudgingly admit that that was very crafty of you, but I still don't have to like you for it...aw, what the hell - you know I love you anyway, so what's the point, right? Yes, Ioade is very niave, but I'm sure you'll agree that it's part of the charm of her character, and as for the thing you said about Kate's feelings on her circumstance...*smirk* well, he's Jack, isn't he? Thanks for the booster on the update front, and I'm expecting to see one from you now, missy! Luv ya loads, m'hunni *big huggles* and my love to lil' Matt, too xxxx
I would like to add in conclusion to these thank yous, a special thank you to all who reviewed as a result of Ildera's 'big announcement' - it really gave me an incentive to get this one up. I'm sorry it hasn't gone up as quickly as I would have liked it to, but any of you who read my responding review to the last set of Fair Wind or Foul author's thanks, I'm battling with chronic Mock GCSE syndrome, at the moment. I've also had a migraine for the last two days and been off school, so I couldn't even walk in a straight line, let alone touch the computer. Anyhow, I promise that chapter 9 will be up as soon as is courseworkly possible, and in the meantime, I leave you with chapter 8. Luv and muffins to you all, dudes ;) xxxx
Disclaimer: If you've been reading my previous chapters properly, like the devoted readers you are, you'll have gathered by now that I don't own POTC. Or Jack Sparrow. Wait - can't you just loan him to me?...
-~*~-
It was still dark.
A blue haze surrounded the Black Pearl as a thick fog of early morning swirled above the water.
It brushed against windowpanes and portholes, and drifted through rigging, through the tiny holes in the weave of the furled sails; it crept along the decks, it rolled down stairwells, it coiled around the handles of the ship's wheel and the capstan, and it rolled along the scuppers like water.
The bowsprit, like a cutlass blade, pierced the fog and ripped through its cobwebby shrouds as the Pearl glided slowly forward, and the few able seamen who weren't sleeping or eating their rations in the galley sat in high places on the deck, and gazed over the rails to watch the ghostly mist hovering over the waves.
Grapple was a young boy with thick, wavy black hair, and eyes of a blue so dark that they could be likened to the depths of the ocean. Despite the fact that his scrawny build, unruly hair and ragged, dirty clothing gave him the appearance of a scarecrow, Kate had always firmly believed that he would grow to possess great good looks one day, and Ioade that he would grow to be an excellent pirate.
No one - not even the Dark Horse's former captain - knew where, what or who he had been before he had gone on the account. He had, in fact, simply seemed to come with the ship when Ioade had aquired it.
The finest Irish pirate ship ever built, the Dark Horse had been deemed - constructed by the most skilled of the trade, her hull, her sides and her deck had been of finest quality Oak heartwood, her sails of brilliant white canvas, and her legendary figurehead of Yew.
Like all pirate ships, she had been built for speed; to run down victim vessels, like a shark after its prey. Her keel could cut through waves like a knife, and when she was all in the wind, with the Jolly Roger writhing and snapping at the tip of her main mast, she was the finest sight in all the ocean.
Grapple sighed as he sat atop a thick coil of rope, a crude fife poised in his grubby fingers; he missed that ship a great deal. She had been his home, his life for nigh five years, and now she was suddenly gone, taken, and he would never have her back.
With another sigh, the boy lifted the fife to his lips, and beating time with one bare, tar-smeared foot on the side of the coil, began to play a jig.
The trilling notes leapt out from the end of the pipe and into the air, drifting off into the thick fog, and ringing up amid the ropes and the sails and the deadeyes overhead.
The young piper played on, swaying slightly in tempo with the music atop his coil, only pausing to snatch an occasional breath that saw him through the next few bars.
Out a little way from the helm, and just above the tip of the bowsprit, a tiny black flapping thing had appeared in the fog, and was growing steadily larger. At first, it only looked like an indistinct dark blob, bobbing ever so slightly. Next, it could have been mistaken for a spider, flopping up and down in mid air as though it were suspended from the sky on a string, and after that, more bat-like, with flapping wings.
Gradually, its outline became more distinct as it neared the ship, and Grapple, pausing in his tune, looked up at it curiously.
Then, in a suddenly swirl and rush of displaced fog, a glossy black bird with a long tail, fanned out in flight, and bright patches of white and bottle green swooped down, and alighted on the deck.
It looked up at the young boy with intelligent dark eyes, and ambled forward, its progress intermittently punctuated by hops, and flaps of its wings.
After a moment, it fluttered up onto Grapple's knees, and then settled there, cocking its head to one side in greeting.
The boy stared at it for a moment, and then laughed so suddenly that the bird started up, clipping the air with its wings, and setting little tendrils of fog furling.
Grapple ushered the magpie onto his shoulder, and then set off across the deck at a bound, leaping up the stairwell to the poop deck two steps a pace.
"Marlin! Amazu!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, and one hazy dark figure of a pair stood at the stern rail turned to look at him. "Look, Marlin! Harlequin's found his way back!"
The West Indian pirate frowned for a moment, and then grinned as broadly as the Cabin boy as he sprinted out of the fog, the magpie rocking and fluttering on his bony shoulder.
"Devil must've flown to Tortuga, and followed us on from there..." Marlin shook his head in disbelief, taking Harlequin from Grapple. "God knows how!"
"You'd better go tell de Captain, boy." Rumbled the black African man in a deep voice.
"Aye, sir!"
Grapple directed him a smart salute, and then scurried off into the fog again, his wavy black bangs swept back from his forehead.
"This should brighten her spirits." Marlin grinned.
-~*~-
Kate stirred, and gave a husky groan as the dim morning light struck her in the eyes.
Beneath her cheek, Jack's bare chest gently rose and fell, little whorls of sparse dark hair tickling around her nose as she stretched against him, and then relaxed, lifting her head to look around the cabin.
Through the open doorway into the main quarters, she could see nothing but smoky grey beyond the gallery windows, indicating that a thick fog had settled over the water, and the gentle rocking of the ship indicated that they were moving along at a slow drift.
'Easy going, just like her Captain.' Kate thought with a small smile, looking down to where Jack lay snoring quietly beneath her.
Rolling off his chest, Kate started to sit up and push away the covers, but an arm suddenly secured itself around her waist and pulled her back down again.
"And where d'you think you're going?" Jack grinned, drawing her close for a kiss.
"To get dressed."
"I haven't even said you can go, yet."
"Oh, so I have to wait to be given permission to leave your bed?"
"Now you've got the idea, luv." Jack said, placing his other hand on her hip as she settled back down beside him.
"Bleak morning." She commented, idly reaching up to fiddle with one of his dreadlocks.
"Aye - it'll lift though, and these waters aren't treacherous." Jack replied, stroking the smooth swell of Kate's hip with a calloused thumb.
"Have you settled your terms with Ioade?" Kate asked, moving her ministrations to the Captain's chest.
"It's called 'having an accord', luv." Jack told her, starting to kiss her neck.
"I stand corrected." Kate raised her eyebrows. "Do you have an accord with Ioade?"
"I do. I'd heartily recommend not talking to her for a while, though."
Kate's fingers stopped tracing circles on his chest.
"Why? What did you say to her?"
Jack's eyes widened innocently.
"Nothing."
Kate blinked.
"You're lying. Tell me what you said."
"It's really not very nice to accuse someone of lying."
"Jack."
"I never lie."
"Jack."
"I'm just dishonest - I take the truth, and twist it a little bit. To my advantage, to be certain, but-"
"Jack!"
"What?"
He looked at her in confusion for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth hitched up.
"Oh."
-~*~-
The shadows beneath Ioade's grey eyes were a testimony to the horrors she had suffered in the night through lack of drink. She leant in the doorway of the galley, bitterly tearing chunks off a hunk of bread and putting them into her mouth as she glared at the opposite door post with narrowed eyes, as if daring it to make some comment about her state.
When Elizabeth came to the threshold, she regarded the young captain for moment, gauging whether the pirate would move for her or not, and when she got no response, she simply raised her eyebrows with a shrug, hitched up her skirts and stepped over Ioade's legs into the kitchen.
"Oh, pardon me if I happen to be in your way, your ladyship." Ioade sniped sarcastically.
"Yes - it is quite rude to deliberately stand in people's way." Elizabeth observed crisply, crossing the room with her back to the girl.
"Actually, you just happened to want to come through where I was standing - I did nothing wrong."
"You could have just moved aside."
"Oh, well." Ioade straightened up and gave a hugely exaggerated bow. "I apologise for not knowing that you wanted me to move - how incredibly stupid of me to not know when you didn't tell me!"
Elizabeth span round on her heel, her eyes blazing.
"I have absolutely no idea what on earth I've done to offend you, but-"
"You haven't offended her." Interrupted a quiet voice; Kate was just stepping past Ioade into the galley, followed closely by Jack. "My Captain has simply aquired the mannerism of an irate wasp because of a sanction I imposed upon her as of yesterday afternoon."
"Oh, good - support. Thanks for that one, Kate." Ioade sneered.
"Please don't get yourself involved for my sake." Elizabeth told the dark-haired woman.
"Actually, I feel it's rather my fault in the first place." Kate sighed apologetically.
"Aye, so it is!" Ioade snapped.
"Ioade-"
"I haven't slept a bloody wink all night, me head feels as though someone's split it across with an axe, and I'm about ready to empty the contents of my stomach onto the floor, savvy?"
Kate gave her a look of calm patience.
"Will you let me finish please? I was going to suggest you chew some clove and parsley, and follow that up with some camomile tea."
Ioade scuffed the floorboards angrily with the toe of her boot, and then clutched at her head. Kate sighed, and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Come on."
"Breakfast!" Jack exclaimed brightly as they left. "Sleep well, fair Elizabeth?"
"Yes, thank you; and you?"
Jack grinned.
"Not particularly."
Elizabeth directed him a revolted look.
"There are certain things, Mr Sparrow, that even a disreputable man should not reveal to a lady."
"Kate might disagree with you there, luv." Jack muttered. "Anyway, you asked."
Elizabeth pursed her lips, and gave him an arch little look.
"And in future, I'll think better of it. Now, where's that kettle?"
Within the first few days of them being aboard the Black Pearl, Kate had requested that the kettle from the Dark Horse's galley be brought up from the hold. Jack and his crew found the Blackbird's taste for tea in place of rum quite improper for a pirate - not to mention odd - but when Elizabeth had caught wind of the dispute, she had resolutely sided with Kate, and when two women are baying for something, Jack had thought, you'd be best put to go along with it unless you wanted chronic earache. Hence, the kettle had been salvaged from the swag, and was now an object of strong distaste for Captain Sparrow, in that it reminded him that he had been verbally beaten into submission by a pair of girls.
"It's by the hearth." He grumbled, watching sidelong as Elizabeth dipped to pick it up.
"Water?" She asked, straightening up.
Jack rolled his eyes to the ceiling in thought, and frowned, gesturing with his hands as he spoke.
"Go along the corridor, on deck, up to the rail, and look over the side."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at the pirate's back as he made his exit.
"You can use the kettle to boil out the salt." He added over his shoulder.
-~*~-
They were not far from their cabin, when Grapple suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and ran straight into Ioade and Kate, who were coming down the corridor like contestants in a three-legged race, Kate supporting Ioade with her captain's arm round her shoulders.
"Use yer eyes, whelp!" Ioade growled, clutching at her stomach as Grapple jumped backwards.
"Sorry, Cap'n." He grinned breathlessly. "I got some good news to tell yeh."
"Get it out quick then, boy - I'm about to run up the white flag." Ioade said; she was looking considerably greener than she had been before Grapple had accidentally headbutted her in the gut.
"Harlequin's back." Grapple announced, and Kate beamed. "Don't knoi hoi on eart he did et..."
"Smart bird." Ioade said in a slightly strangled voice, though she too was smiling. "Good work, lad - go and get yourself an extra ration of fish from the galley."
Grapple grinned, and tugging his forelock in gratitude, bolted off towards the kitchen.
Ioade groaned and put a nursing hand to her temple.
"Come on." Kate smiled, tugging the blonde girl's arm a little further across her shoulders. "Let's get you back in bed before you give someone some extra swabbing to do."
-~*~-
When Jack stepped into his quarters, he found Kate already back there, seated in the alcove of the gallery window and carefully polishing the barrel of a flintlock pistol with a rag.
"Ioade's going to rest in bed for an hour or so; I'll be in occasionally to give her honey." She said quietly without looking up.
"Thought she was acting a bit out of sorts, yesterday." Jack remarked as he sat down and put his boots up on the table.
Kate looked at him.
"How so?"
"Well..." Jack shrugged, taking a bite out of the apple in his hand, and then twirling it gesticulatively. "She turned down the rum I offered her, for a start..."
Kate smiled slightly, and then went back to polishing her pistol.
"That thing's incredibly uncomfortable to sleep on, you know." Jack said, frowning.
The dark-haired woman looked up sharply.
"What?"
Jack raised his eyebrows, and after a moment, Kate laughed.
"That inebriated facade of yours is really quite clever at hiding your shrewdness, dear Captain; a pirate can never be too careful, you know."
When the pointed glitter flashed across Kate's eyes, it was Jack's turn to laugh: there was a flintlock beneath his pillow, too.
"Precautions, luv." He smiled slyly. "A pirate can never be too careful."
Kate smiled.
Although she wasn't particularly reluctant to admit it, she'd certainly never have said it aloud, but she had quickly grown accustomed to Jack's company. It was something akin to having a good friend, if you disregarded the fact that they slept together with guns under their pillows, and that technically, they were enemies, yet she wouldn't have done without him if she had had the choice. Apart from the occasions when the public formality of her and Ioade's relationship was dropped, she'd not been in possession of a friend for a long while.
"This fog ought to have lifted by now." Jack observed, his brows knit together as he munched on his apple.
Kate looked out of the window.
"'Tis hanging late, isn't it?" She agreed.
Jack moved his lower jaw to one side in thought as he narrowed his eyes at the thick pearly grey beyond the warped panes.
"No need to fret, luv." He mused. "It's not a problem."
"Of course not." Kate smiled beautifully. "What's a bit of fog to the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow?"
Jack looked at her for a moment.
"I think you'll work out just fine, luv." He concluded brightly.
-~*~-
"Mr Cotton!" Jack barked, his hand on the Pearl's wheel. "Take a sounding!"
A barely audible plop followed a few seconds later, and Cotton's parrot called out the reading, its voice bouncing raucously off into the thick fog.
At least three hours had passed, and still it hadn't lifted; it hadn't even shown a sign of thinning. All the crew were out on deck now, sitting, standing, hunkering wherever Jack looked, all silently observing the eerie stillness.
"I don't like this." Marlin muttered to Kate. "It should have lifted long ago..."
Jack peered determinedly ahead, absentmindedly fingering the hilt of his cutlass.
They had not long been at sea - for all counts, almost a week, with fine luck in weather and conditions, but nothing had heralded the coming of this fog, and that was what was bothering the Captain. If it had simply been a fine mist that had dispersed after dawn, he'd have thought nothing more of it, but these impenetrable wreathes, near as thick as smoke, had lasted long past sunrise. No wind - not even a gentle sea breeze - was there to blow them away, and the grey hours were interspersed, from time to time, with bouts of fine drizzle.
Jack had ordered for the crew to take in sail and run out the sweeps a while ago, and yet they were still making inexplicably slow progress; and meanwhile, the fog seemed to be getting thicker.
"Have I not told ye a thousand times before, Jack? S'bad luck to have women aboard." Gibbs hissed hoarsely in his right ear.
"It's nothing to do with the women, mate." Jack assured him, keeping his eyes on the hazy silhouette of the bowsprit.
"This ain't no natural fog." Gibbs commented in a low voice, casting around suspiciously. "You mark my words - there's nought good behind it."
Jack sniffed, and bent his brows.
On deck, Elizabeth shivered, and Will held her closer to his chest.
"I don't like this." The young woman muttered quietly. "I don't like this at all: it should have lifted by now."
"Jack knows what he's doing." Will said softly. "He wouldn't risk any hurt to the ship, nor her crew."
Elizabeth smiled up at him and nodded, though her hand clasped his ever more firmly.
Overhead, tendrils and drapes of fog passed through the rigging like ghosts, and the Pearl's creaking was the only thing that rose above the hushed whispers of her passengers, sometimes groaning as she rocked gently through the dead water.
Jack checked his compass, but sure as ever, the needle resolutely hovered somewhere in the vague direction of West West somewhere, and he snapped the lid shut again, frustrated.
"There'll be no navigatin' in this fog, sir." Gibbs advised. "We'd best heave to, and wait it out."
"I don't think that'd do us much good." Jack replied quietly. "This all came out of nowhere, and bloody quickly, too."
"An unnatural fog..." Gibbs repeated under his breath.
"Aye, if you believe in that sort of thing." Jack gave his first mate a sidelong look.
The stocky, iron-haired man grunted, and then stomped off to relieve Jacoby of the telescope.
"Pirates are even more superstitious than common townsfolk, it would seem." Kate said quietly, stepping up to join Jack as she watched the crew with glowing russet eyes.
"You're one yourself, luv." Jack pointed out. "Doesn't do for a man to be hypocritical. Wo-man. Wo-man." He added quickly.
"You're not superstitious." Kate quipped.
"I reserve it for weekends and bank holidays." Jack told her sagely.
Down on deck, a huddle of crew had gathered at the starboard rail, and they were bustling and jostling nervously about Gibbs, who was squinting through the telescope into the damp grey wreathes; his countenance told of nothing but fear.
"Mary, mother of God." He murmured. "Cap'n!"
Jack turned on his heel.
"Aye."
"Think you might want to have a look at this, sir."
Jack left the wheel to Kate, and started to make his way down the stairwell, but by that time, there was no need for a spyglass.
The figures on deck stood like statues in a misty garden, dark and still, and above them, the rigging disappeared into grey, as though the ship herself were insubstantial.
Something large and black - roughly the size of a man - was flapping clumsily through the air towards the ship. Its head moved up and down with the effort of each wingbeat, its great leathery span sending huge wafts of fog rolling each time they fell with a loud 'woomp'. It strayed this way and that in its path, as though it were blind or concussed, with an air of disorientation that sparked odd, chilling shivers trickling down the spines of everyone on deck.
It wasn't a bird, nor a human. And it was coming closer.
"Kate!" Jack commanded in an urgent voice.
She didn't need telling twice. The pistol was swept from the holster in one fluid movement, the aim already trained before it was still. There was a searing flash of fire and smoke, the reek of gunpowder and an unearthly shriek that splintered the air as the creature jerked up in flight, floudered for a moment, and then reeled back through the fog.
Silence.
Mens' brows bent, and they looked at one another in confusion: Kate hadn't missed; why was there no splash?
Elizabeth shuddered violently, and turned her face to hide it in Will's shirt, and halfway down the wooden steps, Jack's hand had found a firm grip on his cutlass.
They almost didn't notice it at first, it began so subtly; but then someone suddenly realised, and crying a startled oath, flung a pointing finger into the air: the fog was disappearing.
Within heartbeats, the impermeable drapes had become delicate sheets, and then fine veils, and then the Sun, shining brightly overhead and glittering on the waves, burnt away the remnants, so that the air was perfectly clear.
Everyone stared.
"That's interesting..." Jack remarked.
-~*~-