Mary Sue Pirates Beware!
Chapter 6
A/N: For those who might have wondered where the hell I went: Basically, I got wrapped up in going to school, getting a little un-obsessed with PotC, and just forgetting about my ff.n account. However, ff.n didn't forget about me! Due to a few reviews that found their way to my inbox, I've renewed my interest in this story.
The best part about all of this is that I now have a plot, and I saved it on my computer so that just in case I don't write for a year (which has never happened in the past, so I don't know why it would cough), I'll eventually remember. So really, if you want me to write more, the reason I haven't is probably just everyday distraction, and if you review, I might be goaded into it.
And thanks to those people who still reviewed, despite this story being really old. Anne la Jordanie and VeroniqueClaire are two undeniably awesome people who deserve hugs and cookies.
Ok, enough rambling. Here is the latest chapter!
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Erica was lying in the wet, smelly sacking that was her bed. Two weeks ago, this would have seemed like a dream to her. After all, she was within close range of her Object of Lust, and she had a stunning body to boot. Her pale blond hair shimmered and curled beautifully, framing her downcast face. It was amazing how it never, ever got bilge water in it.
Her reality was somewhat different from what she had expected. Who knew that being a pirate was actually so cold and dirty? Of course, not all pirates were locked in the bilge, but there were some qualities of life that Erica just couldn't reconcile with her former daydream ideas.
That bucket in the corner, for instance. In Erica's mind, pirate ships had had elaborate systems of chutes that led to wastes being emptied unobtrusively into the sea. Her nose wrinkled. That wasn't quite the way it was. Add in the fact that there was no toilet paper, and you had a great big steaming pile of unpleasantness.
Erica took stock of the bilge. There was Rhianna over there in a corner, sharpening a dagger with her teeth. A mere moment's sloshing away from her, the mermaid was lounging, reading what looked suspiciously like a Cosmopolitan. How was that even possible?
Erica remembered that she was locked in Jack Sparrow's bilge and decided that it wasn't that farfetched.
The spunky porridge-eater was also present. She was braiding her hair, adding in little bits of garbage that she'd found floating in the ankle-deep bilge water. Disgusting.
Erica cleared her throat uncertainly. She was all for seducing Jack, even though she admitted to herself that it wasn't going to happen, but she craved some friendly company too.
None of the Sues looked up at her throat-clearing. Erica paused, wondering whether she was really going to say this. Oh well, what did she have to lose?
This epiphany struck Erica. What did she have to lose? She wasn't even in her dimension anymore. If she died, she'd probably just come back as the Ghost of Mary Sues Past and haunt the Pearl. She had absolutely nothing to be scared of. That thought fortified her and helped her overcome her shyness.
"Does anyone want to play 20 Questions?" she asked.
The spunky porridge-eater looked up with glee. "Ooh, yes! I do! That sounds like fun!" She sloshed over to Erica and stuck out her hand. "My name is Lark, by the way," she said cordially.
Erica shook it. "My name's Erica," she said out of habit, and winced when it came out as "Ericalotte." "What's your story?" she asked Lark.
"I'm a pirate, of course!" Lark exclaimed. She paused. "Couldn't you tell from my braids?" She sounded a little unsure of herself.
Erica put on a smile. "Of course! What was I thinking?" she said. Lark's face resumed its chipper demeanor.
"Yarr, I'm just an old scalawag, a dog of the sea," she continued. "I'm quite notorious in parts of Spain."
"Really," Erica commented.
"I'm a bold adventurer whose path has crossed with Captain Sparrow's," she explained. "You see, he's got this magical toe ring that will guide me to the Treasure of Odif. I'm just pretending to be trustworthy. I'm going to seduce him, steal his heart and his toe ring, and be off the Pearl and on my way to immeasurable wealth before you can say 'oh really'!"
"Oh, really?" Erica asked. There was something about Lark that just wasn't threatening or off-putting at all. She vaguely reminded Erica of a poodle that had had too much coffee. Erica smiled at her.
"Yep! It'll all work out to my slightly devious advantage, just you see," Lark said optimistically. "What about you? What's your deal?" Her voice sometimes took on the cadences of a stereotypical pirate, but she often lapsed out of it. Her accent sounded American.
"Oh, I have no idea," Erica sighed. "I guess you could say my history is a complicated one." Erica felt the urge to confide, but was still slightly wary. However, Lark looked friendly and supportive, and Erica couldn't resist.
"I remember everything. I was writing a story about all of this." Erica's hand waved towards the bilge, and she frowned. "Well, ok, not this specifically, but about the Black Pearl. About me and ...Jack." Erica blushed a little. "Now I'm here. I'm in my character's body. It's just weird."
Lark patted her shoulder comfortingly. Erica sighed.
"It's just really fucking weird!" Erica said again, forcefully.
Lark nodded, and continued patting her shoulder. Erica lost herself in her musings for a brief moment, but then brought herself back to the present.
"It'll be ok. I mean, the Pearl isn't that bad." Erica surveyed the sloshing, brown water, smelled the overwhelming stench of rot that pervaded the bilge, and heard a pirate passing overhead yell "GO BACK TO THE HELL YOU CAME FROM!" down at the bilge.
The two sat in silence for a moment.
"Not to mention the delicious food we get here," Lark commented. Erica eyed her askance. She seemed sincere, which scared Erica even more.
"Anyway, let's play 20 Questions!" Erica said with forced cheerfulness. "We have to do something to break the monotony!"
"Alright! Ooh, ooh, me first!" Lark said, excited. Then she paused, and looked at Erica. "How do you actually play 20 Questions?" she asked.
Erica smiled. "I guess scalawag dogs of the sea don't play a lot of 20 Questions. Well, basically, you pick something that you can see, but you don't tell me what it is. Then, I get to ask you yes or no questions about it. I try to guess what it is, and you tell me if I'm right or wrong. If I don't guess it in 20 questions, you win. And I usually play with objects that are in the room. Got it?"
"Yarrgh. Alright, I've got it," Lark said immediately.
Erica looked around the bilge. There was not much to be seen. There were the smelly, wet sacks that most of the Sues used for bedding, a few old, crusty barrels that had barnacles covering half of them, Rhianna and the mermaid, and the trap door above them. There was also, of course, the sloshing water and the remains of last night's porridge floating around in it.
"Is it wet?" Erica asked, then immediately realized what a stupid question that was. Everything was wet in the bilge.
"Yes," Lark answered.
"Does it smell bad?" Erica asked, then cursed herself again. As if that would rule anything out.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Jack Sparrow, meanwhile, was holding a conference with his most trusted crewmates. He, Ana Maria, and Gibbs were cloistered in his quarters, poring over a map. The room was dim and lit only with candlelight. Jack had learned long ago not to leave his shutters open.
Jack shuddered to himself. Never, ever leave the shutters open.
He shook unpleasant memories out of his mind and pointed to the map with a flourish. "Do you know what this is, mates?" he asked, adding grandeur and weight to his words. Gibbs and Ana looked down at the map.
"That's Mexico, Cap'n," Gibbs grunted. Jack glanced down at where his finger lay, twitched an eyebrow, and hastily moved it to the right.
Ana sighed, and looked where Jack's finger was. She knew what lay there.
"The Straits of Magnavox," she said, allowing her disapproval of Jack's ideas to show in her voice. "The path to the World's Eye." Ana reflected that if she didn't hold Jack in such high regard and so value his companionship, she would have left this crazy captain long ago. She was all for adventuring, but the Pearl wasn't even properly outfitted to deal with the Straits of Magnavox.
Ana remembered back to the tales that she used to listen to when she was just a little girl, back when she would dress as a boy and hang around Tortugan bars just to get a taste of adventure. Pirates told the tallest tales imaginable. They spun stories about monsters and sea demons, uncountable treasures, and murderous madmen. However, the most harrowing tales of all were the ones about the Straits of Magnavox.
The Straits of Magnavox were the straits that led to the World's Eye. They were filled with monsters of all types, according to many drunken sailors. The farther in you got, the stronger they became, until finally you reached the mouth of hell itself, the World's Eye.
The World's Eye was the place where ships went but never returned from. It was where not even a rumor of what was there could escape. Ana shivered.
The Straits of Magnavox. Was Jack going to get them all killed?
"Right you are, me lovely lass. The Straits of Magnavox. The way I see it, the World's Eye is the only answer I can find to our little problem," Jack said, leaning on the table. "We're at least two weeks away from 'em, but we should start gettin' ready now. Ana, you take inventory of our weapons. And Gibbs, you check our food supplies." Jack quirked his lips and gave them a calm little smile. "Any questions?"
"I still don't see why we're goin' to the World's Eye," Ana Maria said. She studied Jack, who just gazed steadily back at her. "I've never heard tell of anything good coming from that place."
"Ah, but what have you heard?" Jack asked coolly. Ana Maria stared at him, nonplussed. Jack explained.
"The World's Eye. What is it, besides bloody inconvenient to get to?" Jack's eyes were intense. "It's where souls go to know their fate."
Silence. Gibbs was still poring over the map. Ana stood up from the chair she had been sitting in, and stood with her arms crossed, facing Jack. He shifted his weight so that he was leaning on the table with only one arm. He perched the other on his hip.
"That still sounds an awful lot like the mouth of hell," Ana Maria said. Jack smiled and quirked an eyebrow. Ana Maria sighed.
"Oh, what the hell. I've always wondered what it looked like. I'll work on that inventory, Captain." Ana nodded to Jack and walked out onto the deck.
"Thanks, love," Jack called after her. He turned back to Gibbs. "Questions, mate?" he asked.
Gibbs thoughtfully scratched his muttonchops. "I'll be honest with ya, Jack, I still don't like it." Gibbs took his eyes off the map and looked up to Jack. "But if yer leadin', I'll follow."
Jack smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "Splendid! Great! Fantastico!" Gibbs rose and left too, without another word, still looking pensive. Jack's optimistic smile stayed pasted on his face for a few seconds after Gibbs's departure, then was replaced with a tired expression. Jack sighed and threw himself into his chair. He reached for his favorite bottle of rum. Maybe a little alcoholism would help relax him.
"Splendid," he repeated to himself quietly, then took a long swig of rum.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
It was forty-five minutes later, and Erica had still not guessed what Lark had in mind.
"You said it was bigger than a breadbox, right?" she asked tiredly.
"Yes, but I'm still not sure what that is, exactly," Lark replied. She looked puzzled. "It's bigger than a loaf of bread, though."
Erica sighed. She'd named every single thing she could see. Lark looked triumphant. "Do you give up?" she asked.
Erica pursed her lips in a thoughtful frown. It would be pointless to name everything in the bilge again. Besides, some things she just didn't want to think about. (She was glad that Lark hadn't chosen the floating chunks of porridge as her object)
"Yes, ok, I give up. What was it?" Erica asked, finally giving in.
Lark smiled victoriously. "Jack Sparrow!"
Erica's eyes bugged. She goggled at Lark for a second.
"It was supposed to be something that was inside the room!" she finally squeaked out, overcome with frustration.
Lark looked at her, confused. "But Jack is in the room," she said.
Erica goggled at her some more. "What?!" she yelped.
Lark smiled patiently. "Jack is always with me, because Jack is always in my heart. I'm in the room, and if Jack is always with me, he must be in here too."
Erica stared for another good five seconds. Then, she sighed and went over to the mermaid. Maybe she would let her read her Cosmo.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Ana Maria hummed to herself tunelessly as she rifled through the ship's armory. It wasn't too bad; they had lots of meat cleavers, cutlasses, and fearsome-looking spears. Basically, they had every weapon a pirate could ever want or need. There were plenty of weapons to go around; even those infernal women would be able to arm themselves.
Ana sniggered at the thought of an eternally beautiful woman playing a harp while gripping a rusty cutlass in her perfectly straight, pearly-white teeth. That would be something to relieve the tedium.
Then, Ana thought of an eternally beautiful woman sneaking up behind her stabbing her with a rusty cutlass while muttering angrily about "stealing Jack's affections." Ana shuddered.
She should really find a lock for the armory.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Olivia Swann was tossed unceremoniously into the bilge, and landed with a splash. Erica and the mermaid looked up from the Cosmo they were sharing.
Olivia took a moment to shake out her gorgeous head of hair and to straighten her low-cut gown, which displayed her heaving bosom to perfection.
When she had preened to her satisfaction, she ahem'd importantly.
"Girls, I have a most excellent plan," she said, her ethereally beautiful voice tinkling like silver bells. "Tonight, I-" she glanced around at the other girls, who were looking on in interest, "-I mean, we, will execute the perfect plan. Tonight, I-we will capture the heart of Jack Sparrow!" Her eyes flashed with fire. Erica reflected that this made her look even less sane than usual.
She waited for questions to come. They finally did, from the mermaid. "What's your plan?" she asked, in flute-like dulcet tones. Olivia smiled.
"I'm glad you asked. See, we've been going about Captain Jack all wrong." She pursed her ruby-red lips. "We've been divided. If we're going to get him, we'll have to work together." She took a moment to survey how the others were taking this statement. There was a little muttering, but no major discontent.
"If we're going to get Jack, we have to have a comprehensive plan. We have to come at him in full force. We have to show no mercy." Olivia's eyes were like sparks.
Erica shivered, but listened to her plan with interest. If anything else, what she was outlining would at least be more fun than playing 20 Questions with Lark.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
AN: Ooh, what's Crazy Olivia's plan? I guess we'll find out in the next exciting chapter. Leave a review if you liked it!