Walking arm in arm with Isaac, Alice Witter paused with him to watch as a trio of yawning pirates disappeared. They'd not been the first group that the two had noticed. Through the grove of trees the men had vanished group by yawning group. That they were tired seemed a stretch. Jack's crewmen were some of the rowdiest night owls Alice had ever known. Retiring at such an early hour was out of the ordinary to say the least.
Isaac frowned as her eyes narrowed.
Then again she had overheard that near all the men had been busy that day. No doubt she had that the captain had put them to work repairing what was left unfinished of their grand abode upon L'Ile de la Perle Noire. It was, afterall, one of the man's undying obsessions.
With a shrug, she nudged the frowning Faust forward.
--- --- --- ------- () ------- --- --- ---
The path through black rock and palm trees was dark with night but Will followed it quickly to its end. A hidden fissure of black rock he passed through. There in the courtyard where bubbled the golden pool he paused. It had been only moments since he'd parted company with Captain Jack Sparrow. It had been only moments since he'd agreed to the plan the pirate had lain before him. And, he knew, it would be only moments until that plan was set in motion.
"But it is a lost island."
"The thing about that, Will," Jack said with a smile, "is that things lost are able to be found."
"How?"
"What do you mean, how?" The pirate's brows rose and fell. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow! That's how."
"Jack..."
"Alright," conceded the pirate with a sigh, "there was a speck of light spoke to Neris. She told me what it told her. What it told her told me what I needed to know, and that's that. Savvy?"
Will scowled. "Fine," he said, eyes narrowing upon Jack, "but if anything goes wrong—"
"It won't!"
"If anything happens to my family—"
"Nothing will!"
"If anything bad—" he paused at the narrow look Jack gave him and sighed, "alright, since it's you, we'll say awfully bad—happens—" he stopped, fully expecting Jack to interrupt. When the pirate didn't, flashing at him only a charming little smile, Will's brows snapped together. "I—"
"Will not forgive the likes of me for the rest of your days?"
Will paused. Suddenly his father's words rang true and so he scoffed. "That's a bit dramatic, isn't it?"
Jack's eyes narrowed but he didn't say anything.
"I'd forgive you," said Will in what he knew the Governor would call a 'pragmatic air', "but I would not forget."
"Oh," said Jack with a shrug, "S'pose I can live with that!" A slow smile crept upon his face. "So," he said, dark eyes gleaming in the night, "are you going, or are you not?"
Will sighed. "I will go."
Apprehension shivered through Will, but he forced it away and instead strode purposefully toward the double doors. Slide them open he did. With a skip in his step, he crossed the threshold. Through the round crossway he went and down the narrow hall. Once in the shadows of his father's dwelling, Will stopped.
Take with you the flowers of fate, Neris had told him. Such had puzzled him. Though it seemed important to heed the consult of as wise-seeming a person as the Intuit priestess, he'd not known what it was she had told him to take. But Jack had had an inclination that Will had been willing to consider.
"I hope you're right, Jack."
Quite possibly Will agreed with that inclination as his fingers passed over the cool silver flowers of fate embellished upon Mack McGregor's blade. Hesitating not, he took the toiled leather sheath in one hand and brandished the sword in the other. Fine it truly was, but heavy. He took a moment to admire in the dark its intricate handle and then, with a small smile upon his lips, he sunk the blade to the hilt in its scabbard.
"And I hope your plan works right." Thinking of the maelstrom of his wife's fury that would rain down if the pirate did not step as easy as he'd planned, Will arched a brow. "For both our sakes."
--- --- --- ------- () ------- --- --- ---
"No," said Neris, "I will not."
Jack grit his teeth in frustration though he smiled sweetly at the woman. It was not often that he asked such favors of Neris and so he'd gone on the assumption that she would happily comply. But, apparently, the three sisters were not weaving his own moonbeams the right way.
"Do not," Neris boomed, "question the sisters!"
So forceful was the command that Captain Jack Sparrow was startled. Hand flying to his heart, he gaped at her. "Was that entirely necessary, Neris?"
The priestess regarded him through narrow black eyes but didn't answer.
Sensing his chance, Jack moved on to the tactic he'd hid deep in the confines of his mind. Such he'd done so as not to let Neris find it 'fore he'd a chance to employ it. "If you won't do it, I suppose I could." Pleased with the startled look on her face he was but he forced his own visage to remain impassive. "You taught me how, afterall." In her dark eyes he saw a flicker of fear and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she'd bought the bluff. "Just didn't want to do something wrong and end up sending your dear, sweet Queen off to Timbuctoo—which is actually a lovely place, by the way, friendly natives all named Tim... and Buck too, but I doubt she'd appreciate it—"
"Don't," Neris said weakly, "do it."
"But I have to," Jack said sadly, noting with an irritated flick of his brow that the Ice Queen herself was walking towards them arm in arm with the lad, "because you won't. Oh well, guess Queenie's fate rests in the hands of the sisters, aye? Let's see." With his hands, he weaved the very air as if it were as tangible as a web. "Lethei leth—"
"Stop!"
Jack turned an eye toward her, arching the other brow. "Did I forget something?"
"No," she said, shaking her head, "but I do not want to ponder what could happen if you do." She sighed, and with a glance at those making merry on the beach nodded slightly. "I will do it."
"You will?"
"I will," Neris agreed.
"Neris," Alice Witter said, looking from the priestess to Jack with narrow eyes, "will what?"
Brushing the woman aside, Neris opened her hands to the air much as Jack had done, fingers clutching invisible threads. "Lethei!"
Sleep well, Jack thought, smiling at the wide-eyed Miss Witter.
"Letheseis somnos, letheseis hypnos!"
To oblivion your dreams, to oblivion your sleep, Jack thought, nodding at those wide-eyed in the distance, a similarly dazed Elizabeth Turner included.
"Hypnos ah oro letheseis." The last bit of the incantation Neris all but breathed. "Kalinihta."
With that, all still present swayed gracefully to the cool black sand. Fallen into a deep sleep they had, Jack knew as well as he knew the words. Sleep in golden oblivion, Jack said to himself, catching Alice Witter in one arm and Isaac in the other, goodnight. He smiled at the Intuit woman who was the only one, aside from himself of course, who did not fall under the spell. That Neris did not smile back didn't surprise him. "Such a charmer you are, m'lady Neris." Gently he laid the woman and his lad, two of those to be left behind for a bit, on the sand. "You'll watch over them, will you not?"
"Do not worry," she said, "I give my word. Always will I watch over those who need it."
--- --- --- ------- () ------- --- --- ---
Will all but breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Jack, garbed now in his usual fare, striding up the wooden dock. The other men gathered on the Black Pearl gave a whoop of joy at the sight and their captain gave a low, satisfying bow as his bootheel struck the deck. Anxious to learn how all had happened, Will pushed past several pirates and arrived at Jack's side just as the pirate flourished into a stroll towards the helm.
"Jack," he said, hurrying to keep up, "how did it go?"
"Oh you know," he said, flicking a hand carelessly to the air, "hypnos here, somnos there. Nothing to it."
"So you convinced her to work her magic?"
"Oh, aye, nothing to that either," Jack said, nodding at Gibbs on his way up the stairs. Behind him the sailor shouted the orders and he smiled at Will. "I am their chief afterall. Not to mention daringly dashing. Or charmingly handsome. What woman wouldn't work magic for the likes of Captain Jack Sparrow?"
Will frowned. "She did do it, didn't she?"
Jack chuckled and fluttered fingers o'er the wheel as below the men—and a smirking Anamaria—scurried to ready the Black Pearl for a surprise romp on the seas. "Of course she did."
"Jack!"
"Will," said the pirate, adjusting the hat on his head, "if she hadn't, do you really think I'd be here in one piece?"
The man had a point, Will decided. He shook his head. "No."
"No," Jack agreed, laying a hand on the wheel, "certainly not, what with both harpies ashore. Rest easy, Mr. Turner. They're sweetly sleeping upon the sand, Neris watching over all, and we, as it happens, are off on what I call..." At Gibbs' nod, he inched the rudder's spokes, "The Great, Great Adventure. To Antolune!"
"To Antolune," the crew chorused.
Hoping the best for everyone, a tradition he'd come to practice almost without thinking whenever he was aboard the Pearl, Will sat heavily upon a crate beside Jack. His gaze fell upon the pirate's boots. They were worn around the edges. Soft hide had worn to a shine in some spots. Lighter they were than the boots he'd seen upon L'Ile de la Perle Noire—his father's boots—and of a design of less fine detail. But, he noted, they were about the same size. He was about to reach out and touch that closest when he felt a warm hand on the back of his head. Such drew his gaze up, up to Jack Sparrow's face.
"Unless, of course," Jack said, "you don't want to go."
"I agreed, didn't I?"
"Ah," said Jack with a fond smile, "agree you did. But I must say, Will." His fingers caught Will's face, and he brushed a thumb o'er his cheek. "Not always when one agrees to something does it mean that they want to do it."
That much was true, indeed, but Will did want to do what it was the pirate intended. It wasn't that finding a mythical sword enticed his interest more than it was that he felt, somehow, he owed Jack. All that he had revealed to him meant much more than his stubborn declination to join the man on a perilous journey to a lost and most likely perilous island. He frowned. "It is the least I can do. You've done much for me despite the trouble I caused. What man would not want to return the favor?"
"You owe me nothing," Jack told him gently, releasing his hold upon him and turning back to the helm. "Besides," he said, putting on the air of indifference with a flick of his hand, "I'm not doing this for meself, you know."
Will raised a brow.
"Well, not really," said Jack with a glance at him, "your father was the one obsessed with the idea. Few fantasies that he had in that steady head of his, that lost island and the sword upon it were something of a light in the dark."
That much he'd not expected. He hadn't read any such thing in his father's journal but then the man had been a pirate and the story seemed of great importance, a sword containing the knowledge of all things being at stake and all. In his mind's eye Will saw the green speck of light on the horizon. He nodded. "I saw it."
"Saw what," asked Jack as finally he set the Pearl in motion. Intent upon turning her in the right direction through the hidden channel, he only glanced at Will as it dawned on him. "The light."
When Jack had laid the plan before him, he'd mentioned that Neris had seen the light. Will had not asked what he'd meant, but deep in his heart he'd known it was the green beacon. Still, he was not sure what such really meant and so he only nodded. "Aye."
For a matter of moments they were quiet, Jack paying attention to the careful passage through the black rocks and Will gazing up through the rigging at the night sky above. As much as he wanted to tell the pirate of his encounter on the sand, Will did not know how to breach the subject without dissolving to tears—tears no doubt that would lead to the horror of running kohl. With a sigh he took from his pocket his father's pretty pipe and from the other the tobacco pouch. In the silence Will packed the pipe. It was not until he lit it, took a drag, and exhaled that he noticed Jack's gaze upon him.
In his eyes Will saw a hint of memory behind the dark wealth of curiosity and suspicion. Breathing in another puff, he offered the pipe up and watched as the pirate accepted and put the tip to his lips. Jack took a long, slow drag on the thing. His dark eyes honeyed so much that Will thought he had inhaled too deep a breath of smoke. But when those eyes fluttered shut and Jack only breathed out the smoke in a haze of white curling around them, Will knew he'd been wrong. He watched as the man looked down at the pipe, as Jack's thumb grazed the silver tip and passed over its shine before he handed it back to him. Will took it and as unable as he felt he was to look into those eyes again, he did.
Jack's gaze was steady, and his voice soft and without slur when he spoke. "What else did you see?"
The Pearl slipped out from its secret under the dark oblivion of night, and in the silence of such a reverie Will took a reticent drag upon the pipe. When he exhaled, and as the pirates' cheers faded away much as the swirling smoke, he poured out the story to Jack Sparrow who listened to it with one hand guiding the wheel of his ship and the other lending strength to Will's trembling shoulder.
--- --- --- ------- () ------- --- --- ---
Neris watched Captain Jack Sparrow's beautiful Black Pearl swell into view. She sat quietly on a craggy rock in the silence she'd laid upon the island with her spell. It was one she did not use much for those who succumbed its power were usually not so happy to learn of it later, but one that brought with it a peaceful serenity nonetheless. Without the thoughts of others swirling in her consciousness she was able to think clearly and without their influence. Without the weight of their burdens upon her shoulders she felt light as the feather of a ship she watched sail swiftly into the distance.
"A black swan," she said in the tongue of Jack's people sleeping around her, "soars toward the horizon waiting for it."
As her thoughts drifted, so did her gaze. It rested upon the fairer Swan. She smiled.
"And the fair swan will fly fast behind," she whispered, closing her eyes to enjoy the peace she would allow herself until it was time to rouse the others from their sleep. "So that I may keep my word to the sparrow."
--- --- --- ------- () ------- --- --- ---
"Well then," said Jack after a heartening pause, "it's much comfort to know that my own visit was not the by product of a night well spent in the arms of fiery bliss or some sort of hallucinatory effect from whatever wicked drug possibly worked into me system by the nasty wench known as the Ice Queen."
Will looked at him. "The two of you not getting on so well?"
"Don't be ridiculous," said Jack, "we get it on quite well if I might say so myself."
"I meant," said Will with a look of disgust at him, "your getting along—which has little to do with the sanctity of that which takes place in the boudoir."
"Who said anything about the boudoir," asked Jack with a frown. "Granted, we've had our fair share of rumpust rip-roaring rows in there, but I doubt the majority of the time in which we spend f—"
"Jack!"
"—ighting each other has much to do with me bedchamber, mate."
Will glowered at him. Jack couldn't hide the glint of his satisfied smile if he wanted to, and ordinarily Will would have sported with him on sight of that which meant he'd been played with, but he seemed to remember suddenly what Jack had said. "Your own visit?"
"Mmhm," murmured Jack as he handed over the helm to Roth. Much to his surprise he felt familiar warmth at his back and so turned around. There he faced Anamaria's smirk—and a self-satisfied smirk it was. His eyes narrowed at her, but he was much amused and so he smiled at her before leading Will Turner in a stroll along the ship. "Think I've lost a helmsman," he said as he leaned elbows on the rail. He glanced up at the two pirates at the helm just as Roth snuck a smooch and was reprimanded accordingly by a hand Jack knew was formidable in its own right. He winced, slaps of the past coming back to haunt him, but was surprised—and a bit perturbed, really—to see the woman's arms twine around the younger man's waist. "Twitterpated on me ship. What's next? Cotton's parrot finds a mate? This is the Black Pearl, you know," he told Will with a crinkle in his brow, "not the bloody Love Boat." His gaze swept out to the black of sea and he sighed. "Which is why I'm sending the both of them off in Tortuga, incidentally."
"Jack," said Will, "if you didn't send Ana off in Tortuga, she would have your head by the blade of your own sword."
"Most likely," said Jack, "but the lad's another story. Won't leave for fear of offending his illustrious captain. So I've to give him the proverbial boot." Catching Will's approving gaze, he frowned, fluttering a hand in the cool, night air. "For the sake of the Pearl of course. She's a reputation to uphold and all."
"Of course," said Will, turning so as not to let Jack see the smile on his face. "So you were saying..."
"Aye, and I was saying it because it is true."
"Jack..."
With a sidelong glance at Will, Captain Jack Sparrow sighed. Leaning heavily on the rail he told the tale, dark eyes fixed upon the unending black horizon. When he'd finished he fell silent as Will. Grateful he was when the lad wrapped an arm around his shoulders and gathered him close, even though such only seemed to seep more tears—terrible things those for the mess they made of him—into his eyes. Desperate not to let the blasted droplets fall Jack was and so was glad to remember he'd something to complain about. A scowl he put on his face.
"That's not even the worst of it." He grimaced, doffed his hat, and dragged back the red scarf from his head. "Your dissolute Da rooted no less than three grey hairs in me head!"
Will leaned over, eyes narrowing upon the top of Jack's head. His brows rose. "I count five."
"Five?!" Jack's eyes widened as Turner touched each. "They're multiplying, Will. Multiplying!"
Will gave a short laugh. "It's a part of life, Jack."
"Unfortunately the part that reminds you of the inevitable end."
"What?" Will smiled. "An inevitable end? To Captain Jack Sparrow? Somehow I doubt that."
"How's that?"
"Surely you jest, Jack," said Will, brown eyes warm upon him. "It's impossible to lay expectation upon you. Inevitability has no meaning to a man who refuses to let the inevitable catch hold of him."
"Well," said Jack with a bit of a grin, "there is that."
Together they looked out over the rail of the ship towards the horizon where green flashed back at them. At first it was beautiful, that solitary green luminary against the black void that was the night. But as they gazed at it, it glowed brighter as if on fire with emerald envy and Captain Jack Sparrow, for all his refusal to shiver his timbers to anything, could not help but feel wary of it. Eyes switching to Will, who was much entranced, he noted that they were lit silver by the light of the moonbeams and hoped that wherever they be, the sisters three were weaving blessings and not their inevitable ends.
"Jack?" Will seemed not to notice the suspicious look on his face—but then Jack had quickly masked it 'fore he could notice of course—and treated the pirate to a smirk. "How far have we to get to Antolune?"
Jack shrugged. He glanced over his shoulder where surely Neris, wise woman that she was, was watching over those needing it. But the Pearl had made quick as a whip out to sea and so the flickering fires upon L'Ile de la Perle Noire were beacons smaller even than the foreign green. "Far enough."
--- --- --- ------- () ------- --- --- ---
Author's Babble: Neris' Spell… It's all taken from Greek and perverted quite a bit because when it comes to grammar and foreign languages... Blacklabel gets confused. Less of course she makes it up. Lethe is oblivion I do believe (so 'lethei' would be something like 'to oblivion with you all' and 'letheseis' sort of 'to oblivion all your') and somnos is dreamstate sleep. Hypnos is deep sleep. Oro is gold, here 'golden'. Kalinihta is 'goodnight'.
