A/N: Okay, here is chapter ten...finally! I'm so sorry for the confusion–my computer screwed up 'twitch' It's going to be the death of me...Okay, this next chapter is inspired by 'Cast Away' cause I just finished watching it and I liked it, even though it was a 3 hour movie with hardly any talking... So, here's the next chapter. I'm sorry for the extremely long wait as well. By the way, these are reviews for chapter nine, not reviews for my author note.Thanks to all my awesome reviewers!
WolvenRose08-Sorry you had a rough day, but I'm glad my story cheered you up. :) Thanks for reviewing!
TriGemini- I am so sorry for that last chapter. This one is different from that, because I had two ideas and I picked the one with Captain Pellings, but then I didn't like it, so now I rewrote it and chose the other idea. Sorry to confuse you, maybe I'll use that idea later. Thanks for reviewing!
Mouse10-Lol, I'll try not to use so many cliffhangers in the future. Thanks for reviewing!
Windvuur-Hey, you're one of Jinxeh's friends, aren't you? I'm glad you think Jack was in character, especially since I thought he was out of it...anyways, thanks for stopping by and reviewing!
Evil Duckie of the Black Lagoon-What are you are and why didn't you give me any? Lol-poor Adam, he has no one now. Oh well, Elli and Jack deserved to be togetherཀ XD Thanks for reviewing ye crazed pirate!
Jinxeh-Of course I used your idea-it was good. I would be busy with a summer job, but Hot Topic doesn't hire until people under 17. Lol. Yes, Ari and Will are the romantic couple, Elli and Jack are...well, Elli and Jack. Update soon! You're killing me! XD Thanks for reviewing!
Elli-You see, it's reviews like your's that make me feel special. I'm really sorry for messing up the whole...review thing. You know. I appreciate all your reviews. I'm loved! Yay! Yeah, sorry I kinda cut off at that part with Mr. Moineau and all, but it's not important. Thanks for reviewing!
The Future Mrs. Jack Sparrow-Thanks for throwing away your darts...they were scaring me...and they hurt...lol. Yay! I mean it to 100 reviews and thank you for reviewing cause you helped get me there!
Blossomlite-I know, it took them long enough, didn't it? But hey, at least they got there. Thanks for reviewing!
Incubus2074- Yep-good ol' Jack doesn't have to be angsty anymore! It took them long enough-huh? Well, better now than never! XDThanks for reviewing and update soon!
Siriusly Sirius Lily Black-Yeah, that's one of the advantages to being a hopeless romantic. XD Thanks!
Dead Poetic-Hey, welcome back! Yea, computers are tricky, but what can you do? Angst does keep things going, but it's just really hard to write sometimes. Plus, I think I'm better at humor/romance anyways. Yea, my birthday was a long time ago-but thank you anyways and thanks for coming back and reviewing!
katweenathesmiley- Thanks so much! They're quite a different couple, aren't they? XD
Chapter Ten-Unexpected
You know how once people fall in love they become kind and caring? Let's just say Elli and Jack disproved that...for one thing, they still argued, but I found that more of a relief, it would be odd to not hear them arguing anymore. True, they didn't argue as much, but neither of them had given up their stubbornness or their tempers.
But I noticed that they both seemed a lot more cheerful and Jack seemed to open up more to people instead of being closed off all the time. That was an improvement and if Elli was the cause of it, they should've fallen in love a long time ago. But he was still sarcastic and came up with schemes that would seem mad to everyone else, but not to Jack–or us...we were used to it by now.
I realized that after you have lived for about twenty-two years and visited about 30 different worlds, nothing surprises you, not even un-dead cursed pirates. And Elli and I had been to a lot of worlds over the short span of nine years. We started traveling to other worlds when we were thirteen. We realized our powers when we were eleven and received letters from Hogwarts to come and learn to control our powers. Since our parents were 'muggles' it's not like we could go up to them and ask to go to a magical boarding school in London, so basically we snuck into Hogwarts-Dumbledore took care of the minor details we forgot-such as our parents.
In our third year of Hogwarts, we snuck into the restricted area of the library and found a book labeled 'Crossing Worlds'-curious, we opened it and thus learned how to world hop through it. Since world hopping was strictly forbidden from anyone under the age of 21, we practiced in secret and only visited a few worlds.
Once we graduated Hogwarts, we were 17 and no longer under the keen eyes of Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall–those two would watch us like falcons, but we were out in the real world and continued world hopping, traveling to more worlds. Sometimes we went alone, but mostly we went in pairs, afraid of what would happen if we traveled to a world and were killed or couldn't get out.
So as you can see, world hopping is a very dangerous art, but we couldn't help the lust for adventure that we had and things certainly weren't exciting in our world.
The only thing I worried about was how Jack and Will would react to this if we ever had to tell them that we were witches. All they knew was that we traveled to other worlds through a portal–we never went into detail about how we did it, or told them all about our pasts, and we certainly tried to refrain from using our powers, but I couldn't help feeling that one day we would have to tell them. It's hard to keep secrets as big as ours hidden–even if we have been doing it for years...
"I'm so bored." Elli groaned, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up from scrubbing the deck and saw her massaging her sore wrists. We had both been assigned the task of scrubbing the deck–probably the worst job we could be given in this hot, summer weather.
"Well, find some way to entertain yourself." I muttered darkly, the heat making me angry and moody.
"I did, but Jack got mad at me when I poured that bucket of water on his head." She replied. I laughed and stood up, stretching out. My arms were stiff from scrubbing and my knees were sore as well. Elli stood up too and stretched, her back popping loudly as she did so.
"Ow..." She and I said at the same time. She looked at me, smiling.
"Why did you say that?" She asked me and I shrugged my shoulders.
"It looked like it hurt." I replied.
"It did." Elli agreed. We both laughed and took our buckets and scrub brushes back to the closet, finished with scrubbing the deck. Once we walked back up on deck again–I looked up at Jack who was standing at the helm.
"So, where are we headed?" I called up to him.
"Africa." Jack replied. "I want to trade with some of the natives."
"Let me guess, they have gold?" I muttered under my breath, but Jack heard me.
"Yes, but we have goods to give them." Jack answered, not looking down at me, but at the horizon. His eyes were full of worry and I looked over my shoulder to see what was bothering him.
Off in the distance a large group of black thunder clouds were gathering quickly. Also a strong wind was picking up, snapping the sails and tugging at my clothes and hair. The waves slapped the sides of the pearl with a vengeance, growing stronger with each passing minute. It was obvious that a storm was brewing and it looked pretty violent already.
"Don't tell me we're going to try and sail through it." Elli said to Jack, but didn't reply. "I'll take that as a 'yes'." She muttered darkly.
I sighed and walked off to tighten the riggings."One day Jack is going to kill us all." I murmured.
"How so?" Will asked me, already working at the riggings.
"There's a storm coming and Jack is going to sail through it instead of waiting it out." I replied.
"Well, we've done that once before and we came out fine." Will said.
"Yeah, but people don't get lucky like that twice." I noted. Will laid a hand on my shoulder and smiled.
"You worry too much. I'm sure we'll be fine." He assured me.
xXx
Famous last words.
We were fine though, at least so far. We were just wet, paranoid and a little upset with Jack. Well, Elli was more than a little upset with Jack, but that was to be expected.
"If we make it out of here alive...I'm gonna kill him." She kept muttering, holding onto the riggings so hard that her knuckles were turning white.
"Thank you for being so optimistic." I replied, before falling onto the deck from the force of a strong wave that slammed against the side of the pearl. Elli slipped and almost fell over, but managed to hold onto the riggings. Once she was steady, she reached down a hand and pulled me up out of the water. I was coughing horribly and the salt water was stinging my eyes. I clung to the riggings as well, taking deep breaths.
"See, you want to kill him too." She shouted over the wind.
"Yeah, in fact I'll help you with that as soon as we get out of this storm." I called back.
"Okay then, once he's asleep we'll..." Elli began, but was cut off by being slammed onto the deck by another violent wave. I went down again as well, my head hitting the deck. I winced and stood up, rubbing the back of my head.
"If we were back in our world, I would so sue him for harassment." I groaned, clinging to the riggings once again. Soon Elli managed to regain herself stood up, glaring at me.
"You could've helped, you know." She shouted.
"I forgot you were down there, sorry." I apologized lamely.
"Yeah, you better be sorry." She muttered.
"I said I was!" I called back. She just shot me a dark look and braced herself as the next wave hit us. Amazingly we managed to keep our hold of the riggings, but that still didn't put us in a good mood. We were both soaked, my eyes were burning from the salt water and Elli was coughing from all the salt water that got in her mouth–we were not having a good night.
Just then Will walked up to us, taking a hold of the riggings as well.
"Are you two alright?" He called.
"No, but since we're still alive I guess I can't complain." I replied, smiling despite the situation we were in.
"I heard Mr. Gibbs say that he saw some land ahead, we might be close to Africa." Will said, trying to cheer us up.
"Let's hope it's that instead of some god-forsaken island." Elli cried and I nodded in agreement.
But as I said earlier, no one get's that lucky twice–and as if to prove my theory, a particularly violent and tall wave slammed against the side of the pearl, causing it to tilt to the left sharply. I clenched my fists around the riggings, gripping them so hard that I could feel the rope cutting into my palms. I felt my feet sliding as the deck left them for a moment, but then the pearl righted itself. I took a deep breath of relief, but it wasn't over yet.
Another hard wave slammed into the pearl and I barely had time to brace myself before the pearl started titling sharply again. Barrels and crates were sliding, my feet were sliding and I held on with all that I could. Will and Elli were still beside me, but suddenly my hands unclenched and I found myself sliding down the deck of the pearl, which was now titled at a sharp angle, almost vertical. I looked down and saw the dark water below me and braced myself for the fall.
I hit the water with a hard splash and went under a couple feet, my body tingling with the cold. I kicked my feet and forced myself to surface. No sooner had I surfaced when I heard two more splashes. I looked all around me and saw Elli and Will had surfaced a couple feet away from me. I swam over to them and stopped to tread water.
"What happened?" I asked, shouting over the wind and the roar of the sea.
"We had to abandon ship." Elli shouted back. "Jack said to."
"Why?" I asked and Elli pointed over my shoulder. I turned around and saw that the pearl had capsized. "Oh..." I whispered.
"Yeah, the whole crew jumped ship–I just hope all of them can swim." Elli muttered.
"Elli, they're sailors and pirates, I'm sure they can...wait, speaking of which–where's Jack?" I cried, not seeing him anywhere. At this both Elli and Will began looking around, obviously panicked.
"Oh god..." Elli groaned. "Jack!" Instantly I thought of the movie, Titanic and started laughing to myself. Elli turned around and glared at me. "This isn't funny! He could be dead!"
"I'm not laughing at that." I assured her quickly before she had time to kill me as well.
"Hey, I see something up ahead, it looks like island." Will cut in all of a sudden.
"Well, let's go–maybe the crew and Jack are there?" I suggested. Elli looked doubtful, but she suddenly took off swimming towards the island. Will and I looked at one another and then followed her, swimming quickly to keep up–we didn't want to lose her, or get lost ourselves.
xXx
After swimming for what seemed like ages, we made it to the island–immediately flopping down on the sand and laying there to catch our breath.
"Hmmm...I just want to lay here and sleep." I muttered.
"We should explore the island though." Elli pointed out. I groaned. I was stiff, sore and tired--the last thing I wanted to do was going roaming around an island after dark.
"She's right, we don't know what's on this island." Will agreed.
"Like cannibals." I suggested, standing up and brushing the sand out of my hair and off my clothes.
"You never know." Elli replied. "Plus, we have to see if Jack and the crew are here."
"Fine, let's go." I muttered. Elli nodded and stalked off towards a grove of palm trees, leading towards the middle of the island. We unsheathed our swords and carefully made our way through the palms trees, trying to silent and alert. Elli looked around her and frowned, she hated palm trees. I stiffed a laugh, but then gripped my sword tightly when I heard something rustle in the leaves of the palm tree above us. Elli and Will stiffened, gripping their swords tighter as well.
"What do you think it is?" I whispered, hearing the leaves rustle again.
"A monkey?" Elli suggested. I saw a shadow flicker in the leaves and pulled out my pistol as well.
"If it's a monkey then it's not a cute little chimpanzee." I muttered, laying a finger on the trigger and aiming the pistol up in the leaves.
"What, you saw it?" Elli whispered.
"I saw something bigger than a monkey." I replied.
"Maybe it's a big, ugly monkey? Like a gorilla or something?" She suggested and I would've laughed if it was day instead of night and the situation wasn't this serious.
"Well, we're gonna find out." I replied and fired two shots into the leaves. Suddenly something jumped out of the trees and we all took three steps back. I looked down and that it was Jack.
"Hey Elli, you're right–it is a gorilla." I said. Jack glared at me and stood up, brushing the sand off his coat.
"If you had aimed just a little lower, you would've killed me." He pointed out.
"Well that's what you get for hiding in the trees–what were you doing up there anyways?" I asked.
"Trying to give you a scare–I guess it didn't work though." He replied. Elli pushed past me and stood in front of Jack.
"A scare? I thought you were dead!" She cried and slapped him hard before hugging him.
"Aww, that's so sweet, but don't you think we should find our crew?" I asked, interrupting Jack and Elli's 'moment.'
"They're here, well...most of them are." Jack replied.
"Where?" Elli asked, pulling away from him.
"Follow me." He said and sauntered off through the grove of palm trees. We looked at one another and followed him, once again finding ourselves out on the beach. Jack started walking off towards the left and still we followed him until at last we saw a bonfire flickering in the near distance.
"There they are." He said, gesturing to the bonfire. "We lost some though we the pearl capsized, they couldn't swim out from underneath it in time." Jack murmured, looking out at the dark shape in the water, which was the remnants of the Pearl that hadn't sunk yet.
"Jack, I'm really sorry about losing the pearl." I said and laid a hand on his shoulder, also looking out at the remains of the once grand and powerful ship. Jack sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, it was an old ship. I had it many years before Barbossa took it over and then I had it for another three years while you two were gone...so I expected something like this to happen sooner or later." He muttered.
"Once we get off this island, we'll buy a new ship, somehow." Elli assured him, putting an arm around Jack and laying her head on one of his shoulders.
I couldn't help feeling a slight twinge of doubt in my heart–after all, who knew we were here? And who would notice if we disappeared? We were just pirates after all. They go missing all the time and no one notices or cares.
As I stared out at the dark waters of the ocean, I never realized how large and wide the ocean was until you're standing on the shore, hoping someone will find you.
xXx
"Ari...wake up." Some one said, while gently shaking me. I groaned and rolled over, turning my back to whoever it was.
"Here, like this..." Someone else cut in, talking louder than the first person who spoke. "Ari! Get up!" The same person called, shaking me roughly. I opened my eyes and sat up, shielding my eyes from the glare of the sun. Once my eyes became adjusted to the bright light, I saw Elli and Will looking down at me. I glared at Elli as she reached out a hand to help me up.
"I hate you." I muttered, taking her hand and using my other to push off the ground.
"Yeah, yeah." She replied, waving her hand. "Come on, we're going to explore the island."
"I wonder how big this island is, we never got a good view of it last night." I said, stretching and looking around.
"Well, that's what we're going to find out." Elli replied cheerfully. "Now come on!" She pulled me over to where Jack was talking to our crew, who were clustered around him, listening carefully. Jack dismissed them as soon as we walked up to him.
"What are they doing?" I asked, watching a small group walk off down the beach.
"They're going to explore the beach while the rest of us are going to explore the woods." Jack explained, gesturing to the crew members that remained with us.
"I wonder what we'll find." Elli said as we walked off towards the woods.
"If we're lucky, gold or other people." I replied.
"How is finding other people lucky? They could be cannibals." She said. I stopped and stared at her, an eyebrow raised.
"You've seen 'Silence of the Lambs' too many times."I muttered and continued walking, unsheathing my sword.
xXx
Under the canopy of the large palm tree leaves, everything was green and cool. It was darker too, only thin rays of sunlight streamed through the leaves onto the ground. I thought it was beautiful. Brightly colored parrots flitted among the trees, calling to one another. Large, sweet smelling flowers grew off of the ivy green vines, or from large bushes. Black and white monkeys scampered and played on the trees branches, stopping to stare at us with curious wide eyes. I smiled up at them and realized that if there was animal life on this island, then possibly there were other people here as well.
I soon found out that I was right, because no more than five minutes later, a spear came hurtling from somewhere in the bushes and struck a large, thick tree. Instantly all of us drew our weapons, preparing for an ambush or an attack of some sort.
"Who's there?" Jack asked in a rather calm voice. For an instant I saw two deep brown eyes staring out at us before a figure emerged from the bush. It was a tall, Africa man who wore nothing, but a pair of scarlet trousers, strings of green and blue glass beads around his neck and wrists and a golden ring in his left earlobe.
"Hello." Jack said, smiling brightly. The man began speaking in a language that sounded close to Swahili, but I couldn't be sure. And even if it was Swahili, it's not like I could understand him, my languages were limited to English, French and Italian. Jack looked around at his crew to see if any of them understood what the man was trying to say to us, but they all shook their heads or gave him blank stares.
We looked back to the man who stood before us. He now seemed to understand that we didn't know what he was saying, so he motioned for us to follow him. We hesitated, wondering if it was a smart idea to follow him. After all, he did throw a spear at us. But he was motioning rapidly, a look of impatience on his face and so in the end, we decided to follow him–hoping he was friendly.
After following him through winding mazes of trees and rocks, we finally came to a clearing–it was a huge space in the heart of the island with large groups of huts built all through it. Children were laughing and running around–shrieking happily while their mothers sat on mats outside of the huts, weaving more mats and baskets of out something that looked like straw. There were groups of men sitting and talking with one another while other men made spears and other weapons.
"Home." Our guide said to us, gesturing to the village. We nodded and he motioned for us to follow him once more. We obliged and walked through the village, attracting the attention of almost anyone we passed. Women looked up from their work to stare at us as we passed, their eyes full of curiosity. Children ran beside us, smiling and saying things in their native language. Since we didn't know how to respond, we just smiled back at them or waved.
Our guide reached a group of men, who looked up at us when we approached. They began talking to our guide rapidly, while he tried to explain, gesturing to us multiple times. Then a man dressed in the same manner as our guide, with the exception of a bright blue tunic and a gold band placed on his head stood up. I assumed he was the leader of this tribe.
He looked fierce and intimidating as he stood before us, looking all of us up and down. He then said something and another man stood up, also dressed the same way as the leader was, except he wore a bright green tunic.
"He says, 'what brings you to our island.'" The man replied in perfect English. We stared at him amazed, wondering where he learned English from, when it seemed that all the rest of the tribe spoke their own language. Then I saw a brand on his wrist, and I knew he must've been someone's slave before he came to this island.
"There was a bad storm and our ship capsized, so we came here." Jack replied simply. The man nodded and turned back to the leader, explaining what Jack just said to him. After a few moments the leader spoke again and the man turned to us once more.
"He wants to know if you are here to take us away." He said quietly, not looking us in the eyes.
"No, of course not." Jack replied earnestly–knowing what the man meant. Like the rest of us, he didn't believe in slavery of any kind. The man told this to the leader, who after looking at us carefully once more–smiled brightly.
"Then he welcomes you to our island." The man said, smiling at us as well. "I am Kenan and our leader is Abasi."
"Thank you. I'm Jack, this is Elli, Will and Ari and our crew." Jack replied, gesturing to us. We all waved and offered some kind of greeting, unsure of how to act. I had never met people like this before, people who barely knew any English, any of our backgrounds and yet they still welcomed us to our island. The only thing they were worried about was being sold into slavery. I felt a pang of guilt–wondering if they lived everyday in fear of being taken away from their home and their families.
But those thoughts were push aside as Abasi came forward to greet us all. He shook hands with Jack and Will and the rest of our crew and embraced Elli and I.
"Come, we will show where you can live." Kenan said, motioning for us to follow him. The man who lead us here came forward and greeted us all as well. He looked relieved as if he was unsure that bringing us to their village was a wise choice, but once he saw Abasi greet us, he was at ease.
"This is Lutalo." Kenan said, gesturing to him. Lutalo nodded and smiled brightly. "He is sometimes a fool–and yet we still love him." Kenan said to us in a hushed voice, smiling. We smiled back and continued to follow Kenan as he lead us through the village. At last we came to a group of huts, which Kenan explained were not used by anyone, so we were free to have them. I couldn't believe their generosity and we thanked him earnestly, but he held up his hands and smiled, saying it was nothing. He walked off to tell the other villagers about us and we explored the huts, which were actually a lot larger than they appeared on the outside. Soon we were called to dinner and decided that we would work out the sleeping/living arrangements after we ate.
xXx
Dinner consisted mostly of seafood and fruit, the only edible things on the island, but there were a great variety of both. Elli wasn't fond of seafood, so she ate mostly fruit. And there were many different kinds of fruit, small ones, large ones--all of different shapes and colors. Some were sweet and some were sour and others you used to flavor the seafood with, but none were fruits that I recognized, such as grapes and oranges. Elli picked up a red, pear shaped one from the bowl and I laughed at the expression on her face when she bit into it. Obviously it was very sour. She glared at me and set it down, no longer hungry I assumed.
Then, once dinner was over–Abasi told the tribe about us and that we were going to be living with them for awhile. Kenan, who was sitting next to us–translated. We were then welcomed by the whole village, Elli and I received many hugs and by the time it was over, my ribs were sore. After everyone had greeted us, we made our way back to our new huts–but Elli and I were stopped by two young girls who ran up to us, each holding a flower in their hands.
"They would like to give you a gift." Kenan, who was standing behind them, explained.
"Oh, alright." Elli said and we both knelt down in front of the girls, so we were eye-level. They looked at us, their faces full of curiosity and I knew they had probably never seen anyone with white skin before. Sure enough, one of the little girls reached up and laid a hand on my face, looking at me with wide eyes. I smiled at her, until she pinched my face, hard.
"Ow!"I cried, rubbing my cheek. Kenan laughed and so did the little girl.
"She was seeing if it was real." He replied. "I'm sorry–she was just wondering."
"No, it's alright." I assured him, patting the girl on the head, so she wouldn't worry. She smiled up at me though and handed me a deep red flower that looked like an orchid. "Thank you." I said to her. She smiled again and ran off to her mother, so did the other little girl who had given Elli and deep blue flower.
"Goodnight." Kenan said to us.
"Goodnight." We chorused and he walked off. Elli looked at me and smiled, twirling the blue flower with her thumb.
"It's nice here, isn't it?" She said, looking back at the village. I nodded in agreement.
"I still can't believe how generous they are." I noted. Elli laughed a little.
"Yeah...too bad everyone in the world can't be like them." She said.
"Nothing is ever that convenient."I murmured, looking up at the stars. Elli nodded and sighed, looking up at the stars as well. After awhile she looked back at me.
"Well, I'm looking forward to sleeping in a real bed tonight, I'm tired." She said.
"Alright. I'm going to stay out here. Goodnight." I replied.
"Goodnight. Happy dreams." She said and walked off to a hut. I smiled to myself and sat down on the ground, looking up at the stars and out at the village.
"It's beautiful." I said to myself.
"It is." Will agreed. I looked up and saw him standing next to me.
"Hey." I said, smiling up at him. He sat down next to me and I moved closer to him, laying my head against his shoulder and he put an arm around my waist.
"Where'd you get this from?" He asked, taking the red flower out of my hands.
"One of the little girls from the village gave it to me. She also pinched my face to see it my skin was real or not." I replied and he laughed.
"Well, they've never seen anyone as pale as you. I don't think I've ever seen anyone as pale as you." He noted.
"Yes you have, you lived in England. Besides, it's not my fault I don't tan." I said. He laughed again and brushed part of my hair back, tucking the flower behind my ear.
"It suits you." He replied, smiling at me.
"What? The flower or my pale skin?" I asked.
"You're impossible." He said.
"I love you too." I replied, laying my head against his shoulder again.
A/n: Yes, you know they're adorable. Finally! I finished chapter ten! Woot! And I have over 100 reviews! I'm so happy! I should throw myself a party...I am so sorry for all the complications, but at least I got it up quickly...now let's see how I do with the next chapter...heh... now review! I worked hard on this chapter!