A/N Sorry it has taken me so long in updating this story. I blame Davy and Calypso for not cooperating with me. I'd like to thank those who have reviewed and I like to threaten those who are lurking to review or I'll sick Jack the Monkey or Jimmylegs on them if they dont! Reviews keep this story alive!
Oh yeah... forgot to add this in the prologue so I'll add it now;
Disclaimer: I only daydream that I own all things Disney...
Phantasmal Dreams
Sea urchins and barnacled creatures quickly retreated into their little homes with each passing step of a leg sounding not entirely alive and yet is very much so. A hermit crab scampered under a ladder leading to the top deck of the stern castle as a much larger and barnacle encrusted crab leg passed where it had momentarily stood. It's beady little eyes watched as the much larger crab, for it must be such with a leg like that, passed it by and disappeared into a part of the ship it always goes to, scrapping against the deck floor and dusting the air with mildew and water droplets with each landing and resounding thump.
The hallway that the owner of the crab leg found himself in appeared far different from the rest of the ghostly ship. Whereas the ship looked like it was rotting away and built with the bones and flesh of the lost souls it had taken over the centuries, the hallway here appeared to be in a better condition and it was also better lit by the few oil lanterns that hung near the cabin doors. It was at one of these doors that he stopped at and roughly opened before entering the cavernous cabin.
Cavernous was the understatement of the century when it came to describing the sheer magnitude of the chamber's size. The cabin was huge. So huge that it appeared to the eye to be much larger than there was room to be had on board the ship. But it was an optical illusion, one created by the Captain himself to both make it seem more spacious and more intimidating to those he let into his sanctuary. The large coral tubes protruding from either side of a gothic pipe organ did not help alleviate the sense of walking into an underwater cavern. But perhaps the only things aside from the musical instrument that made the chamber less like a cave and more like a ship's cabin were the few pieces of rotting and mutated furniture carefully placed on either side of the room.
To one side was an unused bed with no coverings, its mattress having rotted away. Near it was a stand with a few flickering candles casting an eerie orange glow on the small crab that carefully crossed the stand's surface. Lining the wall was short and thin bookcases that were filled with both books and scrolls in many languages and from different times. Here and there acting either as bookends or fillers were various trinkets collected from around the world and over the centuries. One such trinket hung loosely on a silver chain next to a fat, crimson and gold book labeled Grimorum Arcanorum. A book that dated back to the time of Augustus Caesar and lost to the world until the captain bargained for it from some foolish man who did not realize what he had thrown away for a day in a beautiful noblewoman's bed.
Opposite of the small sleeping space, across the massive room were a large, coral encrusted table with matching chairs. One of the glistening chairs has an unused long coat draped over its back. It was faded red with dull gold embroidery and trim around tarnished silver buttons. It looked like it had never been worn for years and time had failed to corrode and cover it with sea life just like everything else in the room. On top of the table were rolls of maps and an astrolabe and compass. A book weighed down the corner of one open map while pieces of coral held down two other corners. The last corner was held down by a tarnished silver locket of a crab shaped in the form of a heart, a woman's face etched into its surface. It was this that drew the creature to the table, briefly touching the worn long coat in memory before picking up the locket.
With the locket in his good hand, Davy Jones limped his way over to the ornate pipe organ. He set the treasure down on the ledge before softly running his fingers across the many keys, but did not press them down, and the intricate carving of a chained angel and etchings of fleeting fairies.
With the locket in his good hand, Davy Jones limped his way over to the ornate pipe organ. He set the treasure down on the ledge before softly running his fingers across the many keys, but did not press them down, and the intricate carving of a chained angel and etchings of fleeting fairies. Carefully and like a confident pianist getting ready to sit and compose, he sat at the bench with a flourish of his long coat's tails behind him. He did not play right away, instead both his mind and gaze wandered to the silver locket that lay closed on the ornate organ. He reached over and picked up the item, flipping it open and silently listening to the musical melody that echoed in his chambers. With a sadness born from a broken heart, he sighed desolately and closed his eyes, trying to remember what it had been like to be a normal man sailing the seven seas; to feel happy emotions without pain and to love and be loved in return. He conjured up a memory he knew had all those things and it took him back to a time when he had been well respected not out of fear of what fate he held over men but for his prowess as a sailor and as a privateer captain for King and Country.
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He remembered this day, that wormed its way up from the bleak abyssal of memories, as the day he learned that the woman he had come to admire and love had been a goddess in disguise. When he had first met her, she had been an unkempt and wild stowaway hiding in the bilge with the rats and other creatures that found their way into that dank, smelly and wet hold. His cabin boy had discovered her when she had ventured from her hiding place for food, or so he and the crew had first been led to believe. The young lad had enough sense about him to not alert the entire ship of their unexpected and unwanted female passenger and instead had gone straight to his captain.
At first he had not known what to do with her, this dark skinned woman who appeared frightened and uncertain of her surroundings and fate. He had thought she had been a runaway slave who knew nothing outside of her plantation. It helped explain her timidity and fear and it became the reason for her existence aboard his ship. She had asked him to let her stay and so he had agreed, how could he have turned this frail creature away? Not long after he soon began to reassess his conclusions about her. She appeared to be even more ignorant of the world than he had first thought and there was no way she could have been a slave and not know the table. His men joked that she had been a washed up mermaid but he had countered with how she ended up on the ship and in all of the places aboard, the bilge. But their joke had stroked a cord of curiosity in him. He wanted to know where this young woman came from and figured he could learn about her by teaching her his world.
In the five years she had been with them, he finally learned who she was but not until after she had been taught to sail and fight with a sword; to read and write and above all else table manners, at least now she no longer used a fork as a hairbrush. It had been an interesting and quite frustrating five years. Although she was a grown woman in her late twenties, she could act like a child in one moment and then in the next be as serious as any adult. There were times when she laughed and giggled at the most absurd things and then there were times when she was as calm as the sea or as furious as a squall. Like the sea goddess herself, she was just as fickle and hard to control. Some of his crew had come to believe she was crazy, especially after she had jumped overboard just so she could swim alongside a pod of dolphins, which surprisingly had not scattered from her, that had joined them. It was then that he had first noticed something peculiar about her.
When they had first found her, the only things she had known were her name and how to swim. She had called herself Tia and she had a love for the sea that matched his own. Seeing her swimming alongside the fearless dolphins made him wonder if what his men had joked about all those years ago were true. She seemed to have come from the sea; how easily she swam alongside the creatures and how they let her hold on and swim with them, her love for that endless beauty and the fact that she was just as unpredictable as the sea itself. None of them could have guessed that she is The Sea.
It was that same day he learned who she was that he had also admitted his love to her.
He had been teaching her how to navigate by starlight for the last two nights as well as showing her how to steer the ship to the stars. It was during these lessons that they had gotten closer to each other and he had felt the electrical fire ignite between them when his body was pressed firmly against her back and his hands overlapped hers, carefully guiding them as they guided the wheel, in turn guiding his ship towards Leo. He could tell that she felt at ease with the task and with him helping her. Slowly he had pulled his hands away and let her guide his vessel across the horizon-less expanse.
"Yew doin' good, lassie," he praised as he watched her and the prow of the ship. "Keep her chasin' the lion until he's leapin' over the bowsprits-ah."
"Aye, aye, Capt'n Jones-ah," she replied, mocking his own accent. He had never heard her use an accent that was not being mimicked from the others and had always wondered why she did that. There were times he had thought he heard her own accent but quickly learned that she had been mixing accents that she had picked up from one or more crewmembers. Why she did that he did not understand either. He knew she occasionally mimicked him when she was being playful or angry; the latter he was rarely on the receiving end much to his relief. He had no doubt that it was not because of him being the captain or that was what he had always told himself anyway.
He took the moment of letting her guide his ship on her own so that he could take a step back and observe her. He had never noticed before how the lantern light of his ship or the star and moonlight played across her features. He had never before noticed a shimmer in her skin or that mischievous sparkle in her eyes when she glanced over her shoulder at him, catching him starring. "Like what you see?" a voice had whispered in his head and he had unknowingly nodded in reply. She smiled at him in that way that was both tempting and intoxicating to any man who fell under her spell.
Her soft voice broke his gazing with a curious question; "Why did-ah yew become ah sailor?" she had asked him using his accent again and he had looked up to see that their course had deviated a bit. Before he answered he had stepped forward and covered her hands with his, returning them back on course. The close proximity between them allowed him to notice for the first time the sweet scent he had not noticed moments before. He took in a breath, smelling and tasting her scent that was like the sweet salty sea air and before he realized what he was doing he had already done it. She had not pulled away or tensed when he lowered his chin to rest on her shoulder, instead she had leaned in to him much to his surprise but he did not dare move or ruin the moment.
"Why?" he repeated the question at last.
Why had he become a sailor? If she had asked him that question a long time ago, he would have told her that he had done it to escape the poverty and dreg of the lower-class life in Glasgow. Now he was not so sure as to why he became a sailor. He knew it was not to escape the world he had been born into, there were many other opportunities out there that were a whole lot better than life on a ship. Something about sailing had appealed to him far more than say joining His Majesty's Army. He suspected it had been the sea since now that is all he loved and cared about these days.
"The sea, I suppose-ah," he had answered her and she glanced at him, waiting for him to tell her more. And he did; "She offers every soul-ah freedom an' adventure but-ah fer ah price. Yew have tae prove tae her that-ah yer worthy tae sail her waters an' that-ah only comes about through her trials."
"She?" she asked skeptically but he heard the underlying tone of amusement.
"Aye," he nodded and turned her around so now she faced him with her back to the wheel and his hands on either side of her, holding onto the spokes. "Calypso, the sea goddess."
"Yew believe in ah heathen god-ah?"
"Every superstitious sailor does," he answered, a little perturbed by her questioning his beliefs.
"I never took yew tae be ah superstitious man."
"I'm-ah not-ah," he replied, offended that she would think him to be daft enough to believe in every old fisherman's tale. She smiled coyly at him and wrapped a strand of his braided beard around her fingers.
"An' yet-ah yew believe in ah sea goddess."
"Should-ah I not-ah?" he gave her a questioning look before letting out a quiet sigh a moment later. "It is not-ah likely that she exists-ah anyway so why would-ah it matter whether I believe or not-ah?" She looked hurt and he puzzled over that reaction to his statement.
"What-ah would yew do if she were real-ah, standin' right her in front-ah of yew?" This question perplexed him even more and slowly everything started to make sense as each piece of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place.
"I would-ah tell her that she is the most beautiful thing I have-ah seen since the sea itself-ah." She smiled at his, obviously very pleased with his sincere answer.
"Yew have ah very flatterin' tongue Davy Jones-ah."
"Tew bad-ah she is not-ah here an' I only have yew tae flatter."
"Oh?" She smirked in that teasing and tempting way that said she accepted your challenge and was going to enjoy every moment in defeating it. He did not know what to expect from that reply until he heard the wind pick up and the sails flap noisily. He looked up to see the night sky churning and the sea starting to become choppy before he looked back down and saw a knowing smile on her face. He gasped and mouthed words that failed to make sound as he understood what she had meant and looked at her disbelieving while a gentle storm formed overhead and rain drops began to drizzle down onto them both and the crew that responded to the sudden change in weather.
"Aye, Davy Jones-ah. She be here before yew."
He took a sure step back and gazed at her in amazement. To reconfirm what his mind was processing to believe, he looked up at the sky and at the gray clouds, droplets gently pelting his whiskered and weathered face before he looked down at her again. She was beautiful, even more so now that he knew who she really was and for a split second he wondered if it were just a trick of the light on the glistening streams of water gliding down her dark skins. He shook his head and knew better.
She was beautiful even before he knew she was a goddess.
"Well then, that-ah explains everythin', " he finally said and placed his hands on his hips as he watched her. The small storm did not go away nor grew in size as she took a step closer to him until they were only inches apart. He relaxed his arms as he looked into her and returned her smile with his own. She gave him a questioning look to explain how revealing herself to him had explained everything to him, although she already knew that answer already. She wanted to hear him say it.
"Ah woman-ah," he began softly, his Scottish brogue quite pronounced from nervousness stemmed by being in the presence of every sailors' patron goddess, "born of slavery would not-ah have been so ignorant-ah of the world of men like yew had us believe-ah." She laughed musically at his words.
"Yew assumed-ah that I was," she replied and their faces were only centimeters apart, his whiskers lightly brushing against her lips. "I let-ah yew believe I knew nothin'."
"So then yew knew perfectly well that-ah fork was meant tae be used as an eatin' utensil rather than as ah hairbrush-ah?" he teased and her smile grew wider. He wanted to know more about her and why she was here but he was not given the chance that night. She had closed the remaining distance between them and her mouth was closed around his own.
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A soft melody invaded his daydreaming, at first he thought the familiar tune was coming from the silver locket but when he cast his cerulean gaze to it he found that it's inner gears were still. Then he realized as he felt movement in front of him that it was coming from the organ, his tentacle beard had started laying on their own when the locket had stopped. Abruptly he stopped the beard from continuing and silently cursing how they sometimes had a mind of their own. He leaned back to keep his tentacles from continuing while he thought upon the memory and realized how much he missed those days when he had been but a simple sailor doing privateer work fro Britain. Thinking back he preferred it when he had been ignorant of whom Calypso really was and had immensely enjoyed trying to figure out the young spitfire stowaway-runaway slave.
He knew that if he had not learned who she was, she probably would have lost interest in him before she stole his heart and he probably would have still been a simple privateer by the name of David Jones and nothing more. He certainly would not have become the terror of the Seven Seas or the sole person dying men both feared and hoped for. He would have been just another pirate trying to survive in a world that both feared and hated the uncivilized outlaws. Thinking about that road not taken left him with a feeling of want and wishing he could step back in time and stop himself from kissing the sea goddess, that kiss that doomed him to an eternity at sea. But then another part of him chastised such thinking, knowing that if he had never met her, never kissed her that night or came to know her he would never have come to know true companionship and the feeling of being in love and loved in return.
He snorted in disgust at the last thought. Certainly he had learned what it felt like to be in love but he never truly experienced what it was like to be loved in return. She had never loved him. The day she stowed away aboard his ship, she had been planning all along to make him her pawn in whatever grand scheme she had devised for those who sailed on her waters. She pretended to love him so that he would agree to her request without a seconds thought. She pretended to understand him as she showed him her existence and when that dreadful day came for them to meet after ten years of keeping the dead...
She... was... not... there!
A deep and angry chord resonated from the organ, enunciating his feelings of her betrayal of him as he struck the keys angrily. She had betrayed him to a fate worse than death. She had left him locked away on a floating prison and was given only one day out of ten years to stretch his legs and try to enjoy a life he could never have again. She even had gone as far as to disfigure him, his crew and his ship because he would not play her twisted game, he would not carry out the task entrusted to him. And for that betrayal, he betrayed her by returning the favor and imprisoning her. She took him away from land and made him in to a monster, so he took her away from the sea and made her into a human. He wanted her to know what it felt like to be trapped from all that you loved and cared about and from everything that made you who you are.
The circle was now complete; he had his revenge and took everything from her like she had done to him. He became The Sea and the Devil's equal while she became nothing more than a mere human female. But... despite all of the powers given to him he could not undo the one thing she had done to him, he was still a monster by appearance. If he ever wanted to feel the warmth of a woman again or make port anywhere in the world again and enjoy life's luxuries, he needed to be human; not some squid-faced, crab-clawed monstrosity even though the site gave him some advantages over the living and dying. He wondered how far he would go to become at least a human again?
He leaned forward and started playing the organ once more but this time rather than play the melodious lullaby the locket played he chose instead to create with his beard a dark and angry piece full of grief and hatred; and although it sounded frightening and unsettling to his ears he felt none of those emotions as he continued to think about his fate and what could have been.
How far would he go to become human again?