Disclaimer: They could be mine! They should be mine! Give them to me!!
Borimir: Wrong bit of cinema. And that's my line, too!
Me: Meh. You're dead anyway. But, I own nothing but Mari, Sangre, and a cute lil puppy named Tito.
A loud boom confirmed Red's frantic warning, drawing the conspirators on deck. Maniacal little sparks rose from the water where the cannonball splashed down, sparking tiny fires all over the Pearl's deck. Jack pronounced a curse that made Gibbs cringe, and began stamping at the nearest flame.
"Out wi' the oars!" he screamed, "those who aren't rowing, man the guns and put out these bloody blasted fires!" Jack turned back to the crowd behind him, real rage showing even in the darkness.
"Off wi' you!" he said, and sprinted toward the wheel. Annamaria, Gibbs, and Mari sprinted below to gather muskets and shot, if it came to close combat. Not, Mari thought dryly, that mortal weapons will do us much good. Bloody pirates. A minor row in her wake, however, made her halt.
"I will not!" Elizabeth was saying. "I'm as safe on deck as I would be in that bloody stateroom, especially if the ship catches fire!"
"I need to know you're out of the immediate line of fire!" Will said strongly. Rarely did he argue with his wife; but this was her life they were discussing. Hers, and that of their child.
"He's right, Elizabeth," Norrington put in. The two glared at him and he back away.
"There's a cannon that needs manning, if ye please," Mari murmured in the commodore's ear.
"I never dreamed I'd be aiding the cause of a pirate," Norrington muttered back.
"Every day's a new adventure, ain't it, mate?" Mari quipped, and turned to the quarreling couple.
"Here," Mari said, and handed Elizabeth a pistol and extra shot. "I can get another, and make certain ye've got a musket if ye want one. Shoot out o' the porthole if it makes ye happy. But the stateroom's secure, and ye've not got just yourself to be thinking of."
Elizabeth looked from Will's pleading eyes to Mari's no-nonsense expression, accepted the proffered weaponry, and went into the stateroom. Will turned to Mari with wide eyes.
"How did you do that?"
"Sometimes the only person a woman will listen to is another woman. Red!" Mari turned away from Will abruptly and clasped the young man's arm, carefully so as to not spill his armload of muskets and cannon shot.
"Hole up in the stateroom with Mrs. Turner; we've got more than enough to manage out here." With downcast eyes and an embarrassed expression, the young man did as he was told, handing the bulk of the weapons to Mari and Will. Mari hefted a box of chain shot with a grim smile.
"Ready to face the undead?" she said cheerfully.
"Indeed; I should begin to expect this, I suppose, when your father comes calling."
"You'd better join him at the helm; watch his back and ensure that he doesn't do anything...stupid."
Will nodded, biting his tongue with laughter at how much she sounded like Jack. His jovial mood faded, however, with the next blast, followed by a Siren scream. "
Please God, let us live through the night," he muttered, and moved toward the helm.
Norrington fired off his cannon with gusto, curiously enjoying the sensation. Perhaps it was because he knew his enemy was wholly unredeemable...
"Down!" A female voice shouted, and shoved him to the deck. Grape shot skimmed over his head, nearly singeing his wig. He turned to find Mari's slight form crouched against his own, her face turned toward the sky.
"I thank you, madam," Norrington said formally. Mari only nodded.
"I don't like the look o' that sky," she said quietly. Norrington followed her gaze; storm clouds were forming over the scarlet, nascent dawn, roiling into an angry squall. They covered the sun, simulating an extended night.
"Couldn't we lose them in the storm?" the commodore asked. Mari grinned fiercely.
"Ye think like a pirate, mate. And we might, if this were an ordinary storm. Somehow, I don't think that it is."
The ship pitched, then, sending Mari rolling toward a bit of rail that was no longer there. Norrington dug his fingers into her belt, pulling her into him and out of danger.
"We're even, then," Mari muttered. The choppy sea was a prelude to the storm; a storm of which they were aiming for the very heart.
"We're going into that?" Will said incredulously. He stood his ground by Jack's side, musket clutched firmly in his hands. He eyed the squall with infinite dislike before turning the look on Jack.
"Aye, mate. If the sea confuses curses, what'll a storm do, savvy?"
"This is either brilliance or madness."
"Odd how often those two traits coincide. And if you've got any better ideas, I'd love to hear them." Jack paused. "Where's dear Mrs. Turner?"
"In your stateroom, with Red."
"And...Captain Cutlass?"
Will noted the hint of concern mingled with regret in his voice, and repressed a sigh. I hope my father-child relationships aren't this complicated. Perhaps I should pray for a boy.
"At the cannons. She's a capable woman, Jack."
Jack began to answer, but his voice was stolen away by the wind. They had entered the edge of the squall, with the Kraken in hot pursuit.
Mari loaded a bit of chain shot into a cannon, a burst of joy rushing through her as it found its mark in the Kraken's hull. She glanced at Norrington, who had a fiercely determined grin plastered onto his face. Remove the wig and the waistcoat, Mari thought, and he could easily be one of us. What are you hiding beneath that crimson veneer, Commodore?
At another blast from the opposing end, Mari fixed her attention on Sangre, cursing harshly. No matter how much damage they did to the Kraken, she still came on, following them like...
Like a vessel cursed.
The woman reloaded quickly, her mind turning for an idea. We outran him for nigh on seven years tossin' on the sea. He's never tracked us over open ocean before. What's different? She gritted her teeth, unused to being idealess. Everything's gone to the ruddy devil's armpit ever since that bloodspot and Tortuga...
Something clicked. The bloodspot! He was using it to track them! Mari lurched to her feet, surging away from the cannons. Norrington shouted after her, but his voice was carried away by the wind. Jack had the bloodspot. She had to get to him and claim that (literally and figuratively) bloody scrap of parchment.
Unsteadily, even with her sea- legs, the woman made her way to the wheel. Jack stood tall and proud, facing the wind, with a sodden, miserable Will standing next to him. The boy clearly knew nothing about muskets, or he would have dropped his by now. No gun would fire in this terrible wet.
"Jack!" Her voice, a sea-captain's voice, cut through the noise. Jack's head turned.
"What's happened?" Jack shouted back. Mari jerked to a halt in front of the wheel and gestured to his belt pouch.
"The spot!" she shouted.
"The sot?" Jack shouted back, confused. Mari scowled, and opened the pouch herself. She yanked out a soaked bit of paper.
"The spot!" she repeated, waving it in his face. Jack, coming to the same conclusions as his daughter, nodded emphatically.
"Give it back to him!" Jack suggested gaily. Mari grinned into the rain, and slithered back to the cannons. Yanking off her bandana, she tied the spot to a cannonball and stuffed it in the gun Norrington manned.
James watched her antics skeptically, wondering if she'd suddenly gone as daft as her father. She has, indeed, he told himself. Gone as mad as the best pirate in the ocean. He fired off the gun. A lead ball bearing a slightly singed blue covering sailed into the angry sky, and then fell out of it...
...Directly into the deck of Sangre's vessel. A tri-pitched scream sliced the howl of the wind to bits, sending everyone on the Pearl to the deck, clutching their ears in pain. But it worked.
The Kraken's form seemed to dwindle as the storm carried the Pearl away from her. The shrieks continued for a long while, but when they stopped, the skies were clear and the Pearl was alone.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed Mari's bit of mental prowess. No worries; more char. development and family rows in the future. I promise!