A/N: I apologize for not mentioning before that if I couldn't get the chapter up when I thought I would, that there would be no updates during November due to Nanowrimo taking up my time and Pokemon Ultra Sun/Moon coming out as well. I'm happy to say now that I think I can get back into more regular updates.
Also, as to what the creature from the end of the previous chapter is, I still haven't entirely landed on it. For now, I'm going with a demon of sorts, because I'm sure there are myths around of demonic beings making people's lives miserable on the sea (I didn't come across any creatures/etc. that I wanted to use but did find some things for future chapters). In my mind this creature is kind of a mix of that demon from the first Insidious movie and a hellhound (but more hound than humanoid in shape) though maybe I will have to sketch it. Or you can imagine what you want with what I used to try and describe it.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Everything hurt.
The past being relieved in such vivid detail, none of which could be prevented from happening, was a loss of control no one would ever want to go through. The pain overtook any rational thought, despite the crew of the Silent Mary already being dead. The blasts that came from the Mary striking rock and igniting gun powder hit the crew as forcefully and as painfully as it had the first time. Not one man of the crew could do anything to prevent themselves from reliving the horror, as they were not in control of their own bodies as they relived the first time they had died.
The screams were the worst of it; screams of those who knew what was to come.
Salazar soon found himself in the dark waters, after having been struck in the head and thrown overboard from his own ship. The pain from the strike was as harsh as it had been the first time, and the water just as cold. The dejavu was unnerving, and the Spanish captain could do nothing but allow this travesty to happen, knowing in advance that another, stronger explosion would soon go off, and cause him even greater agony. An agony that would linger with him in death. Even now, he could feel a sharp burn in his hip, and knew that it was going to cause his limp, but still, he could do nothing.
As suddenly as the reliving of their past had begun, and with the last massive explosion, Salazar found that he was back in control of his own body once more. But the last blast had been excruciating as shrapnel and other manner of debris struck his already wounded head, and the Spanish captain couldn't prevent himself from sinking through the water as the curse took hold of him as it had in the past. The rage seemed more acute than before, but perhaps it was because it was fresher due to this unnatural phenomenon he and his crew had been forced in to. Disoriented underwater, Salazar held perfectly still, floating in the water as he tried his best to come to grips with what he had just experienced. It was maddening, to live through the past in such a vivid way, with the knowledge that they had been sailing toward their doom, and unable to change their course.
Something came toward him through the dark of the water, and Salazar almost half expected to see some horrendous creature, for all the unbelievable things he and his crew had come across since their first deaths. But the Spanish captain recognized his crew, no matter what the state of their clothes and bodies were, and recalled being helped back aboard the ship before. It appeared that only he could move under his own power, but for the time being, he allowed his men to help him back aboard the Silent Mary. The time it took allowed Salazar to ponder what had just occurred. It made no sense to the undead captain, and he had no explanation for the horrors that he and his crew had just gone through. There was no rational way to explain things being so real and the pain so sharp.
"Capitan?"
Salazar waved away some of the crew attempting to help him get to his feet, and instead drew his blade, his free hand going to the broken rail of the Silent Mary. With some difficulty, Salazar got to his feet, and leaned heavily against the blade he had drawn, and took in the fact that his crew had loosely gathered around him. Not one man spoke, and to Salazar, it felt as though all of them were still reeling from what had just happened, and struggling to make sense of it. Salazar himself wanted very much to know what manner of evil had forced them through this terrible event, and struck the deck with the tip of his sword irritably as he turned over possibilities.
"Are we to be trapped in this wretched place again?" One ghost minus an arm on one side and a floating hand on the other, ventured after a few moments of silence had elapsed.
"The curse that held us here was broken. The Devil's Triangle should be no more." Santos said to the officer who had spoken.
"Then how are we back in it once more?" The officer from before demanded, waving his floating hand in the air around him, an edge of panic seeping in to his voice "It is too dark. I do not think I can bear the loss of the sun for so long again-"
"Enough." Salazar cut in as he struck the tip of his rapier harshly against the deck, garnering his crew's attention. With a harsh wheeze and a cough of black blood, Salazar turned to the side and spat out the vile stuff over the railing before he rounded on his men, "I will not stand by and allow this crew to become children frightened of the dark. Does any man here remember what happened before this all occurred?" In truth, Salazar was very much in agreement over the idea of losing the sunlight, but he wasn't going to show it. "Before or after the appearance of the fog?"
There were quiet murmurs amongst the crew, before Magda spoke, a frown on his face.
"I saw something in the sea, though I thought it a reflection." Seeing all eyes on him, and his captain looking impatient, Magda continued. "It looked like eyes, yet when I looked again, there was nothing. With the fog, I cannot be sure of what I saw."
Murmuring resumed, and Salazar leaned against his rapier in thoughtful silence, though with an occasional, unavoidable wheeze. It would no longer surprise the ghostly captain if this was the work of some supernatural horror. Mermaids had proven to be real, so why not some other creature of myth? Salazar half turned toward the dark waters, scouring the murky waters with narrowed eyes. If it was indeed some manner of creature, it was somewhere in the dark of this place with them. That blur of a shadow he had seen in the fog...the presence he had thought he felt, coupled with those unfamiliar words...was it responsible for putting the crew of the Silent Mary through this hell?
-x-x-x-
The shadowy creature's eyes gleamed as it swam silently toward the Silent Mary, leaving little to no ripples in its wake. A large maw opened in a horrid smile, revealing serrated teeth. The creature had realized before that its victims were already dead, therefore, it had no reason to wait for their ship to wreck on its island home to feast.
And feast it would on the souls of the dead, while they were still disoriented and unaware. Or so the creature thought, until a voice rang out in the darkness it had created in the minds of its victims.
"There, capitan! Those were the eyes I saw!"
The creature, knowing it had been spotted, did nothing to hide its approach now. The beast thrashed through the water, tossing up waves that it normally would have been bothered to hide, so that it might reach the ship more quickly. Time was of the essence. It could only hold its illusions in the minds of its prey for so long.
-x-x-x-
Salazar wasn't sure what to expect of a being able to make one relieve things in such a realistic fashion, but the thing that hoisted itself onto the deck of the Silent Mary was not at all what he had pictured. Neither Salazar nor his men could have anticipated such a creature on the deck of their ship, nor the way the contorted thing moved, limbs lashing out at and striking ghosts across the deck at random.
The creature's gleaming red eyes were its most prominent feature, overlarge and likely good for seeing in the dark, as it had no trouble avoiding the swords that some of the Mary's crew swung at it after the initial shock of its appearance had faded. What was most startling to the crew of the Silent Mary was that the creature's strikes actually hurt, despite all of them being dead. Being throw against the ruined railings normally would have done nothing, yet when the creature smacked a paw against a ghost, and threw them against something, it hurt as it would have had the officer been alive.
Serrated teeth barred in a mocking way, and the creature's spindly limbs stilled for a long enough moment for hooked claws on the end of its paws to be seen. A tail, thin and whip-like, thrashed back and forth in agitation as the creature lashed out at the ghosts around it. The creature's hound-shaped outline of a head turned to and fro as it reared up to stand on its back legs like a man, its body leaning over as it leered and whispered unfamiliar words in the same sinister tone that Salazar had heard earlier in the fog. But then the words morphed into a language the crew could understand, and its words became that much more ominous.
"Dead souls." The creature hissed out, the words unnatural-sounding and grating as they emitted from the gaping jaw. "Dead sailors who continue to ride the sea." The creature's paw shot out at an awkward angle, pinning one of the petty officers onto the deck as the creature's tail swept around and batted away several ghosts rushing to the other's aid. The creature lifted the captured officer level with its face as it bared its teeth. "Many souls here to feast on." With one frightened cry from the officer, the creature's jaw opened wide and crunched down on the ghost's head. When the creature opened its jaw again, it let go of the officer, who pieced away bit by bit as if he'd stepped on land. Soon, the officer was lost from sight.
The crew of the Silent Mary fell back hastily from the creature at this, not having expected the thing to have some sort of power to remove their curse, though instead of being able to live, it had destroyed the ghostly officer instead.
"Ahh...cursed souls..." The creature hissed again, sounding almost surprised. The large eyes glowed brighter, the red deep as a ruby. "I will enjoy this feast even more. The cursed dead always taste better."
Santos and Moss take turns picking at the creature with their blades, careful to stay out of range of toothy maw and clawed paws, as they and the rest of the crew had already seen what happened to their fellow officer if one of them got too close.
The creature tired of the game rather quickly, and hissed something as it coiled its body and took a running leap that carried it over the two officers attacking it. The creature landed and took another leap through the air in order to get to Lesaro, who blocked a clawed paw before the creature knocked him over onto the deck of the Mary. Lesaro was unable to rise, due to the clawed paw across his neck as the creature brought its jaw close, clearly pleased it had finally caught another one of the ghosts so that it could continue its feast.
Lesaro tried in vain to angle his blade to stab the creature, but was unable to do so. Putrid breath emitted from the creature's mouth, and had Lesaro been alive, his skin would have crawled at the repulsive stench. Instead, he was forced to actually smell it, and be unable to do nothing but wait for the creature to bite him.
Salazar limped across the deck as quickly as he could at the sight, and thrust his rapier at the creature to stab it in the side. The blade sunk into the creature's flesh with little resistance, drawing the beast's attention from Lesaro to Salazar. The creature let out a furious hiss at the sting, and left Lesaro where he was in order to go after Salazar. The Spanish captain tugged his blade free and barely back-stepped out of the way of the creature's paw. Salazar went in for another strike, but the creature was ready for it this time, and the paw reached out and caught the blade with its claws. Salazar stumbled back a step at the force, though he had not anticipated that the creature would to drop its paw and try again. Salazar kept his rapier raised to block the paw once more, but the swipe of the large paw carried more momentum behind it than before. Salazar could not compensate for it due to his hip locking up on him when he tried to brace himself.
Salazar was bowled over by the creature, taken to the deck of the Mary with vicious ease. Salazar kept his hand wrapped around the hilt of his blade, not about to lose his weapon. Though what he could do from this angle when the creature's weight dropped on him, and a paw lightly dug into his left shoulder, the Spanish captain wasn't sure. But what Salazar did know was that he wasn't going to let this nightmarish creature get the better of him. Salazar tested his right arm, and found that he could move it, though he would not be ale to stab the creature from this angle. At most, he could strike its side, but it was unlikely to do anything but irritate the creature at best.
The creature gritted out some guttural sounding language this time around, but the laugh that sounded was recognizable in any language.
Salazar was incensed that this disgusting thing was laughing at him, and the moment he got some leverage he was going to do something about that mocking sound. Though the moment didn't seem to be forthcoming, as the creature brought its head closer, and Salazar got a good look at it. The shape was indeed hound-like, those overlarge, glowing eyes with slit-like pupils set in the skull. Dark horns could now be made out from where they curved out from the creatures head. Slitted nostrils seemed to sniff briefly before the maw opened and revealed the serrated teeth up close and personal.
"A prideful soul..."
"Capitan!"
Salazar felt the creature's rancid breath wash over him, though the Spanish captain felt a spark of annoyance over this thing drooling onto his already ruined clothes. He did not need some eldritch horror making his appearance even more disgusting, and being drooled and breathed on by some twisted being was not something that Salazar was pleased with. It only served as a bit of a reminder that Salazar himself coughed and wheezed out black blood that, on occasion, was not able to be prevented from dribbling onto his clothes.
"Cursed sailor..." The creature gurgled, its head lifting a little in order to tilt to the side to regard the trapped ghost beneath it. "Your soul is mine."
Salazar was not one to be speechless, but he had not at all expected this...thing...to be able to actually converse in an intelligent way. Talk of souls, however, would have made the Spanish captain wonder how the creature would go about consuming someone already dead, as they wasn't really any flesh to eat, per say. They were ghosts, after all, and able to will themselves into a corporeal form. But this creature biting one of his crew earlier had given Salazar the answer, and he did his best not to think about that thing putting his head in its mouth. The saliva dripping onto Salazar was disgusting enough as it was...but to have that drool over his whole head was...
"I only feast on the flesh of the living, sailor. With the dead, I need not eat their flesh to be able to consume souls. I need only do what I did to the other sailor before." The creature intoned with a gurgling laugh, as if it had read Salazar's mind, or, more likely, his expression. "It is a game I play...catching those who dare to sail into my territory." The creature's jaw dropped in a grin as the clawed paw curled and dug further into the Spanish captain's left arm. "Dead or alive, it matters not to me. It all ends the same."
Salazar spat a harsh string of Spanish at the creature as he fought to free his left arm from the paw on it. The damning pain from the hole in his head struck at the most inconvenient time, and the agony left him momentarily immobile, the pain greater this time around with memories of the past still so fresh in his mind.
"So weak, when memories overtake humans. Even the dead are not immune, it seems. Good to know that my powers transcend the lives of mortals." The creature crooned, clearly pleased by the display of pain. "Would it be that I could survive on the suffering of men. But no, souls are what I need." The creature's head lowered again, bringing it closer to Salazar as it bared its teeth. "Souls of the dead do have a taste of agony to them that I enjoy. Stronger than the freshly dead."
The breath was off-putting, to say the least, as Salazar felt, as a dead man, he shouldn't have been able to smell anything, let alone this dark creature's breath as it salivated the closer it drew over him. A thudding heart in the creature's chest beat fast, as if it were excited at the prospect of eating someone who was already dead, despite it stating it didn't eat the flesh of the dead. Before Salazar could renew attempts to free his left arm, a new sharp pain raced through the Spanish captain as the creature bit down on his left shoulder, and not his head. But the fact that it hurt disturbed Salazar greatly, and the pain only grew the longer the creature's teeth were latched on to him.
"Let go of our captitan, el diablo!"
Lesaro and Magda stabbed the creature in its side from either direction, and the force and unexpectedness of the strikes caused the creature to let go of Salazar's shoulder as it reared up with a furious snarl.
"Cursed sailors. You will not prevent my feast. It has been so very long since I tasted the soul of the cursed dead." The creature's head turned in an unnatural way, jaw snapping at the nearest ghost, though the man just moved out of range of the serrated maw.
Though being pinned from the waist down, Salazar was now able to use his left arm, even with his shoulder awash with unnatural pain. The way the creature phrased its words brought an idea to mind, but to go through with it, the creature needed to be neutralized so that it was no longer a threat. Setting his jaw, Salazar brought his blade before him and gripped it with both hands. As the creature came down from its startled position, Salazar thrust the rapier up and into the creature's exposed throat, the beast's momentum carrying it down onto the blade. The creature let out a shriek of fury, rearing up and to one side, taking Salazar's blade with it as claws flashed down to rake him.
"I will have your soul first, el Matador del Mar. Many sailors I have feasted on because of you, so your soul will taste exquisite."
Salazar made as if to roll out of the way, but only managed a half turn, as his hip locked up on him once more, leaving him in the path of the wounded creature. It didn't even register in his mind that the creature had figured out who he was.
"Lieutenant!"
Lesaro had lost his blade, still in the creature's side, but he moved quickly to put himself between his captain and the creature flailing wildly. With a sound of barely concealed pain, Lesaro took raking claws to his already tattered right arm. But it worked in the end, as the creature shook the blades loose from its flesh with a wordless snarl. The ghostly lieutenant dropped to the deck, but instead of retreating, reached out and seized the nearest blade, and turned over, holding the weapon aloft.
"Capitan!"
Salazar righted himself during the time Lesaro had given him, and caught the blade that his lieutenant tossed his way. With the creature's attention still on Lesaro, Salazar limped forward, stumbling a little, but determined to get to his target. The Spanish captain had heard a beating heart in this creature, which meant that it could be killed, and with little resistance when stabbing its flesh before, he would have no trouble with his aim. With a shout in Spanish, Salazar drove the blade into the creatures chest, hoping that he had judged correctly where the beating heart had been when it had him pinned down earlier.
The creature collapsed onto its side with a hissing snarl but before it could attempt to rise, the rest of the crew of the Silent Mary got to it, fear gone now that they had seen both their captain and lieutenant attack the beast. The crew struck in intervals, avoiding the claws and whipping tail, until, with one final, furious shriek that reverberated in the darkness, the creature's head hit the deck, and its body went still after its limbs and tail struck a heavy tattoo against the deck for several seconds.
Silence reigned.
Salazar's hand went to his left shoulder, and while there was no evidence of blood, he could tell that the arm had been torn into by those teeth, and much to his chagrin, his outfit had been further tattered because of it. Not to mention the drool lingered, and Salazar was going to see to getting rid of it the first chance he had. Salazar has his crew sound off, and they all answered their captain's call but for the one unfortunate officer to fall victim to the creature. It was blatantly clear that the remainder of the crew were still shaken about what had just happened.
Lesaro winced from where he seated on the deck of the Mary, but he shook his head at a questioning stare Salazar leveled on him. The cursed Spanish captain briefly touched his left shoulder again, before he spoke to his lieutenant. "Gracias."
"De nada." Lesaro returned, a brief grimace crossing his features. "I believe I will stay down here for the moment, sir."
Salazar merely inclined his head, knowing that his lieutenant had placed himself in danger to protect him, and merely waved Madga over to remain with Lesaro. Satisfied that the danger had passed, Salazar turned his attention to the rest of his crew.
"Officer Moss."
"Sir?" Moss looked to be the most shaken of the crew, but he diligently answered his captain.
"Dismember that creature. We don't want to risk it coming back as we have."
Moss made a face at the thought of getting anywhere near the now still creature but at a dark look from his captain, he waved a few of the nearest crew to join him in the grisly task.
The moment the creature was decapitated, a wheeze issued from its mouth, its jaw dropping into a terrible smile. The crew nearest the head backed away, the idea of something moving after being decapitated of all things too much.
"Cutting me to pieces...finally, some smart humans after all of the fools."
"You know we are cursed." Salazar moved closer to the head, even as his crew gave it more wary distance as the head turned in Salazar's direction to meet his eyes with large, now dim ones. The Spanish captain had had the thought before, when the creature had him pinned. "And if you have seen other cursed men, then you may know how to lift curses."
"None left my territory with bodies or souls in tact. My way of lifting curses ends with a final death, as with the sailor I feasted on earlier." The creature's jaw snapped shut as its teeth bared in a ghastly grin. "Though you did defeat me, of which has not happened before. I will give you a hint, el Matador del Mar, though whether you last long enough to follow it remains to be seen."
"State it, then." Salazar said, keeping his blade at the ready even if it gave him a bit of a hunched over appearance.
"On and on, the pendulum swings, a divide is needed to break you free. Though all has been lost, not all is gone forever. Find the one who first bested you and with a collection of others replay the past. Time will then begin to tick and cannot be reclaimed if what has been found is lost again." There was an unnerving silence, before the creature wheezed out a final laugh, "And I now curse you to suffer further yet." The words became searing and harsh as the creature's dulled eyes bored into Salazar's dead ones. "In the distant future you will find this curse come to be and remain with you forevermore until it destroys you, or is broken by your original curse being lifted." The head let out one last breath, before it went still and the red light of the eyes blinked out.
As Salazar felt hit with some invisible force, the Devil's Triangle was suddenly no more. The Silent Mary was back on the open sea, the fog nowhere to be seen. Time has passed from day to night, but even with the loss of time, one of the crew spotted the danger they were sailing straight for.
"Land!" A man called out in a panicked voice.
Salazar ground his teeth and limped to the helm as quickly as his body allowed him to, and steered the Mary skillfully away from land. He wasn't going to allow some hellish creature to be their downfall. He wouldn't allow it. A pirate may have ruined him, but he wasn't defeated yet, and Salazar intended to be living once more. How long it took, he didn't care. Once the danger had passed, Salazar had another officer take the wheel, and went to join his crew, most of whom were staring down at the mangled, butchered body of the creature that had forced them to relive the past so vividly. See the worst possible memory that all of them shared. Not one of the men said a word about Salazar removing the horns on the creature's head, and stowing them away in his cabin.
"Scatter the remains over the course of the day." Salazar didn't want to risk this creature being brought back somehow, now that he knew that there were such beings in the world with such power. It would not do to have something like that spawn again and nearly destroy them all, while they'd been reeling from the past. Had they dallied too long in the scenery of the Devil's Triangle, there was no doubt in Salazar's mind that they would have run aground and been destroyed, vanishing from this world without knowing why.
As night became day, it soon became apparent that Salazar and Lesaro had come off worse from the encounter with the creature. Lesaro was, in fact, still seated on the deck of the Silent Mary, his left arm cradling his tattered right, as if in pain. Despite being dead, it seemed that the creature's claws had actually harmed Lesaro, as he still could not rise from where he had fallen, apart from getting himself into a seated position.
Salazar wasn't as impeded as his lieutenant, as he could stand and move around, until he tried to lean on his cane with his left hand, and felt a powerful agony rip through his arm, along with the pain he was already constantly in. Salazar stubbornly fought through the new wash of pain with a wheezed hiss of anger. It was through sheer willpower that he remained upright, as the Spanish captain felt that he otherwise would have been brought to his knees, and in a similar position as is lieutenant.
"Can you make anything of the wounds?" Salzar asked at length, directing the question to Magda, once the pain had passed and he could speak again.
"No, capitan. It is as if there is no injury even there." Magda nonetheless continued to inspect the limb, as another crew member joined him.
Salazar took the helm once more to guide the Silent Mary along, but it soon became clear that he was not as well as he had first thought. Salazar din't even realize that Magda had taken the helm until he noticed with a start that he was suddenly resting against the nearby railing. Salazar frowned. How could he have blacked out while dead? That was the only explanation for the sudden lapse in memory.
It did not bode well, and the creature's ominous words of cursing him had Salazar wonder if he should take the warning seriously. The clue the creature had offered beforehand would be kept in mind, but Salazar wasn't willing to place the continued existence of his crew on the words of a beast that would just as easily have destroyed them all had they not gotten the upper hand in the end.
-x-x-x-
It took some hours before Lesaro felt well enough to get to his feet, but he only managed to get to one side of the ship before the pain overtook him again, and he was forced to grip the railing to remain upright. Lesaro didn't react when someone joined him some minutes later, for he could hear the wheezing of his captain. Lesaro grimaced when the unfamiliar pain washed over him, before he turned his head toward his captain.
"Do you know what manner of creature that was?"
"It is dead now, so it does not matter as much now." Salazar's right hand absently touched his left. "It seems we need only have to figure out how to deal with wounds that no one can see." And it was true, because, despite several of the crew checking for themselves, damage had been done to both their captain and lieutenant, despite there being no sign of an injury, nor bleeding, as they were already dead. The only thing out of place was clothing that had been further torn, much to Salazar's displeasure.
-x-x-x-
Days later, and still in pain from a phantom wound he could do nothing for, Salazar stared out to sea from the bow of the ship, lost in the memories of what could have been had he not sailed into the Devil's Triangle. It was fresh in his mind after having had a horrific creature trap himself and his crew in a lifelike Devil's Triangle, and forced them to vividly feel their deaths. And be forced to carry even more pain, due to the creature's teeth and claws.
Yet it made Salazar wonder what life would have been like had there been no more pirates defiling the sea? What would they all be doing now, had they not been cursed? Salazar wasn't focusing on anything in particular, as he could see nothing but an endless sea at present. What might have been was now a moot point, cursed as they were now, with no end in sight. Salazar gripped his cane tight, expression darkening. Even after killing Jack Sparrow, he was still not feeling content. He wasn't yet satisfied. He needed something…more…something to keep him going, apart from the hope that he and his men would live again, or at the very least, be allowed rest, or to feel land beneath their feet, even for a little while. It would not do to run into any more creatures like the one that had nearly run their ship aground. Lesaro's voice broke through Salazar's quiet contemplation, as his lieutenant was apt to do lately.
"There is a woman in the sea, sir."
Frowning, Salazar peered over the railing of the Mary and saw that there was indeed a woman in a tiny boat. A brunette in a ragged dress, lending to the idea that she had been at sea for some time. At Salazar's silent orders, the Silent Mary slowed alongside the tiny boat. Salazar limped down the stairs to the lower deck, and stood in the hole near the hull of the ship, to get a better look at the woman.
"Senorita, have you need for assistance?" Frustrated by their horrible appearance, Salazar fully expected a scream, but instead, the woman's voice was calm, a little wavering, yes, but not in fear.
"I would be most grateful, sir. My home was struck by a storm, and it washed me out to sea." The woman gestured to the tiny boat she was seated in. "I was most lucky to be swept near this boat, yet yours is the first ship I've seen in days."
"We cannot step foot on land, but if you would like, senorita, you may come aboard my ship, and we can deliver you close to your home." Salazar was quietly impressed that the woman carefully climbed aboard his ship with no hesitation whatsoever. The cursed captain stepped back to allow the woman some space as he turned to his men that were gathered about, "Bring her boat aboard."
Despite their ghastly appearance, Salazar was not about to let a woman perish at sea because he was concerned over their attire and broken, piecing apart bodies. Salazar's honor outweighed his feelings on his appearance, and the Spanish captain could only hope that the woman would not scream at the sight of some of his men with missing body parts when she saw them all up close.
Much to the Spanish Captain's surprise, the woman merely smiled at him and curtsied, unperturbed by her own ragged appearance and acting as if she could not see all of Salazar and his crew's horrible injuries.
"Thank you for this generosity, captain. My name is Felicia, and my home lies to the east."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
A/N: Again, I apologize for the delay in updating this fic, and want to thank those who have read/reviewed the story. I'm glad that this fic is going well thus far, and I hope that I can keep it up. I am just getting over a cold, so if there are any glaring issues in this chapter, please point them out to me and I will go fix it. The creature's curse will come into play in a later chapter, and cause Salazar more trouble, as it will act as a kind of a countdown clock for him with side effects. Also, the creature's hint is the first of a few other ones, though its hint/clue is the most straightforward, but seeing as it killed one of his crew, Salazar isn't going to take it as seriously until the creature's curse hits him later on (I think I made the hint fairly obvious, but then again, maybe not-it does hint to what will eventually happen in chapters in the future).
I am still rather obsessed with these characters and want to keep writing about them, so for updates, let's just say it will still be on the weekends, though perhaps not every week (I have to see how I do with typing/editing-sometimes it's easy, sometimes it is hard, especially depending on how much time I'm on the computer at work).
Note: Felicia is just an OC I've had floating around and found she would be appropriate for an appearance in this fic. She is the only OC who might show up a few times, but only to offer hints/clues/help for plot purposes. The focus of this story is the Silent Mary crew, after all.