"Oh… Mariella."
"Oh… Ragetti."
"Yer eyebrows look gorgeous, darlin'. Yer look like a finely plucked angel."
"And it's all down to you, my wonderful tweezers-wielding knight in armour."
"Heh. Knight en amour."
"Ah! You speak such divine French!"
"Merci. Me mother was French. She was une dame loose on Tortuga."
"She must have been a very beautiful lady."
"Well, she had a lot of customers…"
"Yes, but her son is the most handsome man I've ever seen!"
"Oh Mariella!"
"Oh Ragetti!"
"LOVEHASTE!" bawled another voice in the distance. With great difficulty, Mariella tore her woozily adoring eyes away from Ragetti's mismatched ones. She wasn't surprised to be surrounded by pink mist (which was twinkling faintly and made little ting-a-ling-a-ling noises when the sunlight hit it). Indeed, it was thickest around her and Ragetti.
"LOVEHASTE!" It was definitely Barbossa. Mariella recognised the inflection. Every time she spoke to the captain, she noticed he had a certain hysterical accent in his sentences. She put it down to high blood pressure.
True to form, the pirate captain strode into their section of the mist like some sort of horrible subterranean demon clambering out of a smoking hole. Mariella detangled herself from Ragetti's encircling arms and gave Barbossa a brave little smile. Oh dear, she thought, feeling the tragedy in the air start to blow away the pink mist, revealing a lot of confused pirates. He has just found his true love in the arms of another. How can I tell him that we were never fated to be?
Barbossa appeared to have been robbed of speech. He just stood, staring at the couple, breathing heavily in and out through his nostrils, and shading a deeper and deeper red. One trembling hand seemed to be toying with the idea of drawing his sword. Mariella had read the phrase 'apoplectic with fury' a few times, but had never seen such a first class example.
He loves me so, thought Mariella, and her heart twisted with tenderness. He can barely control his passion. How I pity him! How I wish it could be some other way!
Pintel appeared behind Barbossa and gaped, quite openly stunned. "R-Ragetti!" he exclaimed, in a rather high-pitched voice. "What are you doin'?"
"I 'ave found the woman what I love," Ragetti announced decisively.
Pintel was having none of that. "Don't be daft! She looks like a flat-chested mop having a bad hair day!" He seized Ragetti by the arm and dragged him away, to a litany of, "No! I don't wanna! She is the woman what I love! Gerroff, meanie!"
Mariella had faith in Ragetti to escape his cruel friend's influence and return to her. In the meantime, she had to make the lovelorn Captain understand.
She opened her mouth and was very, very surprised when her voice came out male and piratical. It took her a few moments to get over this and realise Barbossa was speaking.
"Lovehaste," he was saying, in a cold, flat voice that betrayed the stormy, tragic battle raging in his chest far better than fervent, furious declamations, "I need to have a word with ye."
Mariella held her head up high, and followed him. She would try to let him down easy, but she had a feeling there was going to have to be drama.