I DO however own the character Kolton Merrick, as well as all of her attributes, grotesque or not. She's a character of my creation, so get used to it.Also. You may have noticed "Merrick". We all know who that is in honour of, don't we? --If you do, then reply it and you'll get brownie points in my eyes; savvy? I'm not posting the universal disclaimer again. It's universal. I STILL don't own Pirates of the Caribbean, and I don't ever plan on it.

Well, well, well, Captain:::

"Wha--what?--Kraken!" Captain Jack Sparrow at first swam, and then jolted awake, hissing at the sudden blinding pain that seared through him, and he collapsed back on... pillows?! "Now, mate, let's see here... The last thing ye remember is... swimming to the surface, savvy?" Jack thought, and then bit his lip. Oh bugger. On the plus side, he'd evaded death again. On the downside... well, he could hardly move. And his face felt a bit funny. --At least he could sort of see out of both eyes, they were kinda blurry still, though.

The room was immediately recognisable as some room in some nameless tavern. It was a nice tavern, though. It didn't smell quite so much like sex up here as it did of paper. Though the difference made Jack feel out of place. The furniture was nicer, the food smelled better. Ye gods... food! Jack Sparrow struggled against himself to at least try to sit up, even with the thunderbolts of pain ravaging his torn body. He was surpressing cries of pain, and only managed to stop one by biting his tongue when he heard the door open and he slumped back against the pillows just in case.

He didn't want to be killed lying in a bed. He didn't want to die lying in a bed. What a boring way to go. He'd have rather died in the Kraken. These thoughts were swarming through his uncomfortably clear head.

"Sit up." A prudish male voice ordered. Jack Sparrow opened his eyes again. Bugger. He recognised that voice... --James Norrington. That bloody bastard! "You!" Jack snarled, enraged, trying to sit up, to stand, to fight, to beat the living daylights out of him. All he managed to do was tangle himself hopelessly in his sheets, and from what he could feel, tore up a good deal of stitches.

Norrington only chuckled. He certainly looked a great deal neater than he last had in Tortuga, but he was still on the way to becoming the same old Norrington as before. "That's not the kind of reaction I'd expect towards a man who saved your life, Captain."

"...What?!" A horrified Jack Sparrow. Why, this was almost as bad as... as if Barbossa was trying to help him!

"If I hadn't found you when I did, Captain... The sharks would have gotten a hold of you. --If I hadn't recognised you, I would have left you to die." Norrington explained.

Wait...what? Well, at least there was a little glimmer of hope, there. "So you recognised me, mate... Good." Jack remarked. 'Heh, I must not be so terribly savaged as I thought... or as I feel.' An added thought.

"Well, at first, no." Norrington remained cold and stately as ever. Jack Sparrow felt his heart sink. "I recognised your hair and the trinkets braided in it." The last part almost sounded like a taunt to Jack, and it struck him like a slap across the face. Jack Sparrow, the handsome devil, was no longer handsome? Bugger, it's not true. Jack Sparrow is the very DEFINITION of sexy. You look up "desirable"(and any equivalents thereof) in a dictionary, his picture's right there, a little caption "Captain Jack Sparrow, the sexiest man ever."

"We're in Santiago, by the way... A port on an island, if you're not familiar with it... A short ways away from Port Royale." Another taunt. Norrington seemed to notice that deep look of self-pity and panic in the Captain's eyes, and held out a mirror. The first thing Jack noticed was that it wasn't broken like in most bars. Some tavern this was. He noticed in the mirror that there was that fang sitting on the table by his bed. He felt its ache still in his shoulder. He felt pain everywhere, really. And then he wondered absentmindedly whose face that was, with all the healing wounds, scars, stitches running up and down it like broken glass, or a severely cracked eggshell. He watched the face's eyes grow wide with his own. No. No, that wasn't him. No...

Openmouthed terror, the face had the same gold teeth as Captain Jack Sparrow... the same dreadlocks, the same trinkets scattered within it. He didn't trust himself to speak. Just mouthed it. No... No. In anguish he reached a hand to his face. He felt the stitches, the scars, and the cannibal enjoyment of his tormentor and rescuer, James Norrington. At this point, Jack wasn't sure if he wanted to throw up or faint again. Either sounded like perfect options to him.

"So now that you're in stunned silence... pay attention, because I will not repeat this again." Norrington took the mirror away and slid it into a desk drawer. His hands were clasped behind him in military fasion, and his head was held high as always. "It seems the pirate's life has... grown on me, Captain Sparrow, and I wish to amend my wrongs, mainly the injustice that was giving Beckett Davy Jones's heart. I had been blinded by desperation, I am afraid... and this will be my first true step towards redemption." Norrington's cold fierce eyes bored into the Captain's now listless gaze. Captain Jack Sparrow's eyes had once rivaled, nay, surpassed his own, Norrington remembered. And as much as he hated to admit it, Jack Sparrow was more brilliant a Captain than Norrington himself ever would be.

"And though I have not heard from Beckett in quite some time..." Norrington seemed intent on talking, even though Jack was drifting in and out of consciousness. "Assuredly he is up to no good. No man should control the sea, that in itself is an unforgivable act. The Sea belongs to everyone..." Norrington went right on talking. "The East India Trading Company is far, far out of line, and no one can do anything about it... As long as the heart is in their posession, no one-- not even the King will be able to stop them... There will be no surviviours of their war on pirates."

Speaking of no survivours...
No wonder the news of Beckett's death hadn't spread.
The HMS Interceptor was there, just floating lazily in the middle of the Caribbean, waiting to be found, waiting for the news of Death to spread... before being dragged down into the abyss by the mighty Kraken.

Captain Jack Sparrow sunk into a different sort of abyss, and it was laden with fear and misery. The teeth of the kraken jutted out after every corner, and women merely ran away in revulsion rather than even daring slap him on the face. Maybe if the whole of him hadn't been so messed up, he could just wear a mask and be like that... that... Phantom guy. In that musical theatre. --The opera? Yeah, that'd be it. --Too bad he couldn't sing. Damn, William, and his eunuch-singing-warriors... leave my waffles alone... stupid monkey-- ohmigod the Kraken. save me. I have Krakenphobia. Don't eat me... again.