Author's Note: Again, I want to thank you all so very much for your patience and your encouraging reviews. I love the advice you all give me and your positive reinforcement. Many thanks, dudes and dudettes.
A Bit About the Charater Death...Yes, I realize I'm killing off characters left and right. It's for the mere fact that in this story Jack had a little line about Hell being just left with nothing. I may make his Hell become his sad reality. Oh, and by the way, for you worrying dears who thought I killed him: fooled you!
This Thing's Actually Wrapping Up! Unfortunately, the inevitable must happen: The Violinist must end at some point. That point is drawing ever-nearer. Either the next chapter or the one after that will be (most likely) the final segment in this story.
THE VIOLINIST
Chapter Ten - The Captain of the Ghost Ship
It took nearly a week for Jack Sparrow to recover from the deep knife wound in his back. The ship's closest thing to a doctor said it would take a miracle to live, needless to say come out of the injury not paralyzed. Yet Jack did come out of it, just fine and dandy, save for a deadly irritability he now harbored.
Everyone on board knew the Jack had killed Baby Fischer, the closest thing to a first mate aboard the Pearl. No one would speak of the tragedy--not even Venice Turner, who had virtually been there for the incident. The boy did, however, tend to keep rather to himself afterwards, muttering in low decibles the crewmen did not attempt to hear. The boy had lost his greatest friend, and they all knew it.
Jack had made sure that Spanish wench Mariana had been safely tucked away in the brig, out of his hair and out of his mind. If he did not have to deal with her, it seemed she was finally dead. For Jack, it seemed this thought would bring him happiness, if not at least the slightest trace of contentment.
But Mariana was not alone in the brig. Another woman stood chained in those bars, not often speaking but sending warning signals with her bright hazel eyes.
This woman was Lyset Andrews, former captain of the pirate ship Harlequin. She was a very young woman, in what many considered to be a stolen position of piracy. Only in her twenties, the red-headed thief had already been a captain, a position most pirates never held. Not only that, but she also carried a very large bounty on her head, the origin of which no one quite knew. Needless to say, Lyset would never speak of the whole thing. She felt it gave her the aura of mystery needed to remain captivating.
Being a woman who held in high regard an air of mystery, she was hypnotized by the mute Spanish woman who occupied the cell across from her in the bowels of the Pearl. The dirty, scarred girl had long, raggedy black hair and deep brown eyes that Lyset couldn't help but stare at every now and then.
The girl never uttered a sound, but it always seemed as though there were tears streaming down her face. Lyset couldn't figure it out for the life of her. She knew there had been some sort of commotion before she had arrived upon the Pearl, and suspected the origin of the tears was in the chaos beforehand.
It nearly drove her mad that she didn't know.
After what had seemed to be over a week locked in the dark, dank brig, Lyset poked her scarred face through the bars of her cell and whistled to get the Spanish woman's attention.
"Oi," she beckoned.
The girl looked up, her face once again streaked with the pathways tears had made.
"Your name's Mariana, right?" asked Lyset. "I mean, I've heard those grimy blokes who run this hunk of floating wood call you that. It's your name, I gather?"
The girl did nothing for a very long time, and then finally nodded in response.
"I'm Lyset Andrews," said the one of them who could speak in a very pleasant manner.
She paused and the woman called Mariana looked away.
"I know you can't speak," said Lyset for no real apparent reason.
No response came in reward, even in a simple movement.
Lyset did nothing for a while before she looked down at her dirty, burned hands and licked her dry lips. They screamed out for water with which to quench them, but Lysetcould not recall having beengiven drink."They did something to you, didn't they?" she said quietly.
Mariana closed her eyes tightly and hugged her scraped, dirty knees to her chest.
Lyset sighed and lay back, putting her arms over her eyes to block out any light that dared enter the ominous room. "Bloody pirates," she scoffed. "We're not the most pleasant bunch, if you haven't figured it out, dear."
Still Mariana made no attempt to react. Lyset paid it no mind, because she was not one to worry about what others do and say. It was the reason she had become a pirate in the first place--so she could worry about herself and herself only.
"Ruthless," continued Lyset conversationally. "Despicable in every way. We're the rats of society, eh?" She paused to chuckle at the thought. "I heard them say you were a violinist. Is that right, dear?"
Mariana slowly nodded before wringing her hands together to distract herself.
Lyset smiled for a bit, remembering the few times she'd heard a violin played. "Lovely instrument, the violin," she sighed contently. "Wish I could play it. Wish I could play something, at the very least. It's quite boring when you don't know a single note on a single instrument. Makes you not nearly as interesting a person."
Mariana sighed in reply; a deep sigh full of thought and consideration, but at the same time a very distant and preoccupied sigh.
Lyset chuckled and shook her head at the Spanish woman's strange antics. Then a very meaningful expression crossed her battered face from which bright hazel eyes shone seriously. "They killed someone important to you, didn't they, Miss Mariana?" she said softly, not looking across to see the reaction that followed.
Mariana quickly looked down and focused on the grimy floor to keep new tears from springing to her big, dark eyes that were already bloodshot from her internal spray of ocean water.
The former pirate captain sighed deeply and folded her arms, which hid in a peasant shirt far too big for one her size, across her chest. She reclined back and got as comfortable as she could before clearing her throat and breaking the silence.
"When I was younger," she said dreamily, "I fell in love with this bloke. He was a right lovely man, and one of the few gentlemen you'll ever find. A real sweetheart, that one." A sad smile crossed her sharp, but attractive features as she went on. "But…it turned out he was a Navy man. He'd been using me so he could arrest me later on."
Mariana pretended to pay no attention to the whole thing, but at this change in Lyset's story, her ears perked up slightly.
"It was horrible, really horrible," Lyset said light-heartedly, as though it meant nothing at all. "I never saw it coming, really. I thought he truly loved me, naïve as it is, It's the only time I've dared let me heart be broken."
Mariana allowed herself to look up slightly and found that Lyset was staring at her through the bars. She did not act surprised, even though she had not seen nor heard any movement from across the way. All she did was blink and return the stare.
"People do some terrible things, Miss Mariana," she said quietly. "That's why you can't ever give your heart up, love. It'll just get torn to pieces."
With that she rolled over and closed her eyes to sleep.
For a very, very long time, Mariana did nothing. And after what seemed an eternity of waiting, she closed her bloodshot eyes as well and drifted off into a turbulent sleep.
As she was dragged, once again kicking and screaming like bloody murder, down the hall from the brig to the captain's quarters, Lyset Andrews swore to herself that she'd not tell this infamous Jack Sparrow whatever it was he felt he needed to know.
He had summoned for her in the midst of the night, for no apparent reason to speak of. Of course, his fellow crewmen had the common sense not to bother him in his present state of fragile mind. Ever since the murder of Baby Fischer, who the crew all though was the captain's favorite, everyone had been on their toes and ready to run for the hills if Jack Sparrow was in a foul mood.
Lyset's hands were chained together behind her back to prevent any further injury amongst the crew, though it did little good. She thrashed like a mad thing as she was pulled with great effort and tossed into Jack's room.
He sat at his mahogany desk, his hands folded atop it. His feet were bare and dirty, and a yellowing bandage wrapped itself around his tanned, injured torso. The knife wound from Mariana broke out and bled uncontrollably every now and again, and so Jack had been sure to take special care. He sure as hell had no desire to die.
Lyset scrambled to her feet as the door was locked behind her and looked frantically about, as if trying to find some escape route which did not exist for her to use. When no escape plan came to her she whirled furiously about, her long red hair in a thick braid whipping about and catching her on the cheek. Her hazel eyes flared and met with Jack's surprisingly cold brown ones.
"Miss Andrews," Jack said in a very serious manner. "How wonderful of you to grace our presence in our humble abode."
If one had known Jack before this point, however, one would have said to himself, "This man is not Jack Sparrow." Indeed, the Jack Sparrow once known and adored was long dead and gone, along with a broken heart. And now he was replaced by a man who looked like him, talked like him, moved like him--but it was by all means not the same Captain Jack Sparrow.
Lyset took special care to spit at his feet in response. "If it's bounty you're after, Sparrow, it'll do you no good," she snarled menacingly. "I'd hang myself before I gave you a sweet glance at what I'm worth in gold."
Jack raised an eyebrow cautiously. "Whatever you're worth doesn't interest me, Miss Andrews," he said calmly. "I'm more concerned with the fact that you wanted to take my ship."
Lyset kept her glare steady and as mean as she could make it. "At the time it seemed to be a good idea," she said levelly.
"Apparently it wasn't," Jack said, rocking back slightly in his wooden, dusty chair. Lyset took note that it appeared to have blood caked upon its frame and held back a shudder. "I don't really like to dwell on what can't be changed, Miss Andrews," Jack continued lazily, drawing a small knife from a pocket in his pants. He casually began to dig the dirt out from under his fingernails with it as he spoke. "What the real question now is this: whatever am I to do with you?"
Lyset snorted in distaste. "You or any of your men touch me and I'll kill you all when you're sleeping," she threatened and Jack blinked as if it were nothing at all.
"I don't believe you're in the position to make demands, Miss Andrews," he said icily, rising from his seat and making his way over to her. He stopped about two feet in front of his opposition and looked her in the eyes coldly. "If I may be so bold, I'd say I actually had the upper hand in this matter."
The red-headed woman's brow furled. "I wouldn't underestimate a pirate, if I was you, Captain," she sneered in disgust.
"Then it's a good thing you aren't me, m'lady," said Jack coldly.
Lyset said nothing for a while, because she was unable to make up an intelligent remark in response that would cut him like a blade. She finally tilted up her chin, exposing several scars and burns about her slender throat. No one really knew the origins of the marks, but many suspected quite a few escapes from an angry noose.
"She hates you, you know," said the female pirate coolly.
Jack cocked his head. "I beg your pardon?" he said in monotone.
"The Spanish woman," Lyset explained impatiently. "The violinist. She hates you more than I thought a person could hate another human being…if you dare to call yourself part of the human race."
Jack shrugged, twirling his braids in his beard as he considered. "She's got a right to hate me," he reasoned--a rather odd thing for Jack to do. "Do you expect me to apologize or something of the sort? Because if you do, my dear, you are far more thick than I anticipated."
Lyset growled lowly in the back of her throat as a wild animal does when it is thrown into a cage. "What the hell did you do to that poor girl?" she asked, truly interested. This was a topic that seemed to actually phase her rival captain, and it gave her a sense of pride to know that it was bothering him so.
Jack paid her question no mind. "Miss Andrews, you still have not offered any suggestions as to what you will do in consequence to trying to take the Pearl--"
"My god," whispered Lyset harshly, as though she had discovered the way in which the world was going to end. "You killed her lover, didn't you?"
Jack's eyes flared and his hand shot to his pistol. In a mere second it was aimed between her identical twin hazel eyes and his voice made the room seem to tremble. "And what if I did?" he roared angrily. "Is it really any of your business what I do with me own well-earned time?"
Lyset's upper lip curled up into a sneer. "You thoroughly disgust me, Sparrow," she declared, her voice dripping with loathing. "How dare you? How dare you break some poor woman's heart?"
"And how dare she break mine!" screamed Jack, his gaze never leaving hers as it ignited with fury and blazed on like an inferno. She almost wanted to look away, but resisted the urge to do so.
"How can one break something that's not even there, Sparrow?" hissed Lyset angrily. "You say that woman broke your heart…but you really don't have one, do you?"
Jack's hand trembled with rage uncontrollably, and yet once again he found he could not bring himself to pull that goddamned bloody trigger.
For god's sakes, Jack, his Shadow Man shouted somewhere in the depths of his mind. She means bloody nothing! Will you just kill this stupid wench and we can move on!
And yet the pirate did not pull the trigger.
"Why don't you do it?" asked Lyset, rather calmly and coolly. She had dodged and faced Death many times before, and thus being held at gunpoint didn't really bother her anymore. "Why can't you just shoot me? Right between the eyes, too--a bloody good chance you've got."
Jack tried desperately to steady his thrashing hand while his Shadow Man still screamed in the chasm of his deep, troubled mind.
Shoot her.
"Why should a human life matter to you?" scoffed Lyset Andrews.
Shoot her.
"It never has before, has it?"
SHOOT HER!
"Shut UP!" Jack screamed and threw his pistol to the ground.
Lyset was taken rather by surprise and jumped back, losing her balance and falling hard on her scarred back where whip-marks danced evilly. Jack, meanwhile, whirled around so that he was staring out his window into the deep black ofthe earliestmorning.
"Why do I suddenly care?" he hissed softly. "Is that your question, Miss Andrews?"
Lyset blinked and hoisted herself to her feet carefully, her hands still chained behind her back. She suspected several of the bones in one hand were broken and had been for months, but the stubborn pirate had never taken the time to have it treated.
"Aye," she whispered finally. "That was my question, Sparrow."
Jack's eyes glazed over and he took in a deep breath. "I do not," he said simply.
For a moment, nothing moved, and nothing happened. The entire universe seemed to stand still, expectant and hopeful.
"Then…" Lyset began.
"I don't care for you at all, Miss Andrews," said Jack, suddenly sharp and loud once more. He turned about to face her, his figure suddenly seeming to loom over hers. "But…I have cared for human life at some point."
A smile flickered momentarily at his lips at the thought of his lovely Anamaria. He regained his cold composure extremely quickly, though, and glared at the red-headed woman who stood before him. She seemed now very small and meek, and he no longer felt intimidated in the slightest.
"The next time you cross me, my dear," he threatened, stooping down to pick up his pistol, "I may not be so humane in my actions."
Lyset sneered at him in distaste. "I would expect nothing less," she growled mockingly before several men burst through the doors and grabbed her, hauling her now less rebellious form back into the dank depths of the musty brig. Her hazel eyes shone with deep thought as she was tossed back into the cell, once again under Mariana's merciless gaze.
Inside his cabin, Jack pondered his actions.
He had not done it.
He hadn't killed her.
"Perhaps…I am still human," he reasoned with himself in a musing tone.
The Shadow Man barked a laugh somewhere in the infinite chasm of his troubled mind. You? it chortled evilly. Human? Humans have hearts, Jack, my dear…something you have never possessed.
Jack frowned deeply and glanced down at his chest, as if to find a black hole to be occupying the space his heart should have. Instead he was greeted with dirty skin and old bandages, neither of which comforted him in the slightest. Still, his frown deepened into one of serious consideration.
"If that is so," he mused softly, "then what is this aching in my chest?"
The Shadow Man immediately fell silent and the laughter in Jack's head faded to nothingness. Go to sleep, Jack, the Shadow Man urged.
Jack obediently nodded and trudged over to his sunken-in bed. "Sleep," he repeated mindlessly before dropping into the sheets and curling up into a ball.
That's a good lad, my Jack.
Closing Notes: What's this? I might make it a happy ending! OMFG! When did this happen!
Any hopeful thoughts this chapter may have given you were completely unintentional, but may be taken into consideration.