The Flying Dutchman slunk through the choppy waves behind the Endeavor, its colors now a familiar sight to James Norrington's spyglass. Posted here, at the forecastle as smooth as coral to the touch, the faces that would appear out of it on occasion soon conditioned him to not recoil if he placed his fingers over their mouths by accident.
"He calls once more."
The slight brogue chilled James more than any pirate he had ever caught. The scaly tentacles of Davy Jones curled around the spyglass and brought it up to his eye.
"Yes. It would appear Lord Beckett has further use for you."
"This is why the sea should not belong to men to rule, Admiral Norrington. You can feel it, can't you? You can feel the seas, the rain, even the sky—all squashed together in a manmade cage," he sighed. "A grievous error."
James leaned over the railing, the brim of his hat blocking the setting sun's glare from his eyes.
"To err is human; to forgive, divine," he said with a dry laugh. He knew at least a few people that would never forgive him, if they were even alive.
"The divine cast me aside long ago," Jones said, choking on the sentence. James knew the stories, every sailor did, that an unfortunate captain by the name of Davy Jones loved the sea so much he could not leave it. Sometimes the sea in the story was a woman whom he could not possess, but it all meant the same thing. Shifting his weight to confront him on the subject, he saw Davy Jones was no longer at his side.
Will rolled down the sleeves of his shirt, the air now nipping at the hairs on his arms. With only the most subtle of winds, he had assumed the Locker's temperature was stagnant, forever sweltering from a blazing sun. A few of the men on the deck below burrowed into their coats. The group of men in the corner gutting fish paused in their work to put on gloves, Elizabeth next to them and accepting an extra pair.
He bit the insides of his cheeks at the sight of her smoothing down the fingers of the gloves to fit her small hands. Had they shared any words these last two months besides a "watch out" or an "over here," he would have been comfortable enough to tease her, to call down to her and mock the little girl wearing her father's clothes.
But according to her, she could no longer be trusted and so kept her distance from anyone who spoke enough English to understand just what Jack had accused her of…which had been proven by her confession.
"Why is the air getting colder?" he asked Barbossa, the charts rolled up and tucked under his arm.
"More worried about them white horses on the water I'd be if I were you, Mr. Turner," Barbossa said, pointing to the foaming sea.
"Why, look at that tempest forming up in the clouds ahead. Nasty weather approaching, mark my words." Will rolled his eyes at Jack's attempt at distraction, managing to catch a glimpse of him trying to sneak the charts out from Barbossa. Before he could even give them a tug, Barbossa turned back to both of them.
"Ever rain while you was here, Jack?"
"Mightn't be so parched all the time if it had." Jack held out a full bottle to the both of them.
"Take the helm, one of you. Someone has to figure out those charts." Will snatched the charts and unfolded them on the stairs. The grass-like paper swiveled in several circles, each one rotating a separate way, reminding him of gears in a clock. Each circle boasted vivid, autumnal colors, the names and symbols blending the geography of the world as Will knew it right into the mythical.
"Watch it there," Jack stood over him, draping his coat over his arms. The makeshift tent covered the charts, protecting them from the pitter-patter of spiky raindrops plopping down on them. "Tempest coming, should have listened to me."
Will shook his head at him and glanced back down at the charts.
"Ye want to hand that over and let an actual captain examine those?"
"Oh, you're captaining the ship now?" Will raised his eyebrows at his own remark, the harshness of it undeserved. "Here."
Jack knelt down next to him, his arms propping the coat up over both their heads, the charts splayed out between them. The raindrops drizzled off the edges of the coat and down underneath the collar of their shirts. Twitching at the icy drops, Will caught out of the corner of his eye a flash of white. He blinked several times, the image of wings coming to mind, along with an outline, an outline of a human, so pale and faint it was no stronger than the colors reflected off a pearl.
"Did you see that?" he breathed at the same time Jack blurted, "I've got it!"
Blinking the rain out of his eyelashes, Will snorted the image out of his mind.
"Sunset," Jack said. "We wait until sunset, we leave the Locker. Of course, all we have to do is capsize the ship…"
"Why does that not surprise me?" Barbossa called down to them from the helm. There was a pause, and Will swore he could hear Barbossa gnashing his teeth. "Good thinking, lad."
"Up is down." Jack pointed at the blotchy letters formed when two of the circles matched up exactly. "Don't look so distressed, William. Leaving the Locker means, well, leaving the Locker. I'm at a loss as of right now to make it any clearer to you, although rest assured…"
"Did you see a flash of white just now, through the rain?" Will leaned backward to catch a glimpse of the sky past the ebony sails of the Pearl. Enormous gray clouds loomed over them, the rain exploding out of them.
"White flash?" Gibbs squatted down between them, holding up a blanket over his own head. "I heard of the green flash. Wasn't green was it?"
"This was…" Will started, his lips drying at how stupid he must have sounded to Gibbs and Jack. Barbossa was probably leaning over the helm, one hand up to his ear, to hear the latest insipient thing Will Turner would say. And all of a sudden he cared what pirates thought of him? Like it or not, you're one of them and have been for some time, he said to himself, catching the biting words he might have barked out at them at his own frustration. "This was a feathery white, like wings."
"Holy Virgin!" Gibbs crossed himself. "An albatross!"
"An albatross in the Locker?" Barbossa called down to them. Will clucked at his prediction coming true. He'd been at sea too long with the man not to know him.
"Mustn't kill it! T'is bad luck!" Gibbs sprang up and clamored down the stairs. "Albatross, men! Keep your hungry eyes on the fish below!"
"That's not what it was," Will whispered to himself. Standing, he looked out at the horizon. The waves rolled under the Pearl in time with the bellowing thunder. Thunder? The sails flapping behind him seemed to tremble at the sound. A howling wind accompanied.
"Brace the foreyard!" Barbossa shouted, throwing his voice over the storm. The crew scampered every which way on the deck, the climbing waves wiping their legs out from under them. Will scanned the deck for Elizabeth, exhaling only when he saw her flailing arms hoist her to her feet, water up to her knees. Half stomping, half swimming her way to the stairs, he clung to the railing to make his way down to her, but at the last second, she turned and threw her arms over the railing.
One of the crewmen's legs dangled over the side of the ship. Elizabeth had his arms, two other men joining her in fighting the rapid current to pull him back. Behind him, he could hear sloshing footsteps.
"Hard to starboard!" he could hear Jack's voice crack. Absolutely wonderful, Will thought, perfect time for the two of them to argue over captaincy. He turned his neck with slow jerks to accommodate the wind. To his right, the murky shadow of a land mass peeked through the curtain of icy rain. The silhouettes of craggy hills in the distance told him it was not the desert wasteland where they had found Jack.
"Hard to starboard!" Will repeated, plunging down to the soaking deck. The Pearl jerked towards the island. He looked back long enough to see Jack's steady hands now on the helm, guiding his ship through the lurching waters. The current seemed on their side, at least.
"William! Keep the crew away from the anchor! No one is to drop that down. Lizzie, shoot anyone what tries to get to the longboats!"
A looming wave crashed down onto the Black Pearl, almost capsizing her. Batting the salt out of his eyes, Will opened his eyes underwater, paddling back up to the surface, still on the ship. The deck seemed emptier now, probably more than a few members of the crew thrown from the ship. He batted his eyelashes to keep out the salt water, paddling back up to the surface. That one had been even higher.
Will raced the panicking men to the anchor, knowing full well Jack meant to beach the ship to keep her out of the water. Prying their hands off it, he unsheathed his sword, clutching the railing with his free hand. The hull of the ship scraped against the sea floor, land ever closer to them. Something tugged at him, though, something more nerve-wrenching than preparing to make a haven out of uncharted land.
He'd called her Lizzie.
"Charts? They came to see you for charts?"
He had watched Mr. Mercer do this so many times. Sao Feng, famed pirate, Lord, even, only flinched at the riding crop whipping the sensitive scars on the back of his head.
"Mr. Mercer, Mr. Feng refuses to answer my question. Perhaps we need a stronger method of persuasion?"
Beckett held the fire poker out to Mercer, each line and crater on the brute's face turning upward into a sadistic smile.
"He promised me my revenge! Enough!" Sao Feng launched out his hand, his waist tied to the chair. "You do not need that."
"Doesn't mean I don't want it," Mercer said, sneering at him.
"Hold on, Mr. Mercer. Let's hear him tell us why we don't need to provide him an incentive?"
It was only one more scene Governor Swann had witnessed in the last few days, Beckett's idea of a reprieve after signing, approving, endorsing every last one of his constricting policies.
"Please, Lord Beckett, even a horrid pirate shouldn't have to endure this." He locked eyes with Sao Feng, sprawled out on the floor of Beckett's cabin. The long crisscrossed scars surrounding his head like a crown of thorns captured Swann's gaze. Lord only knew how many Elizabeth now had. Of course the poor girl lived for that sort of thing, he thought with a smile. She would consider each one a trophy. Thoughts of Elizabeth puffed up his chest and straightened his back. "The ways of England would demand he face a jury."
"A jury, Governor Swann?" Beckett's eyes hardened to ice. "Mr. Mercer, we know now Mr. Turner and company are either on their way to Singapore or are already there. Shall we now try Sao Feng in court?"
For once, Mercer cocked his head in bewilderment to Beckett. Taking the ruddy, slippery heart out of the satchel he now always kept on his person, he held it in his palm, the crevices and ventricles hanging between his fingers. Before Swann's eyes, nine of Davy Jones' coral men appeared lined up in the cabin. Sao Feng crawled backwards on his elbows.
"That's nine, and Mr. Mercer, you and the Governor and I make twelve and we're all agreed the filth crawling on my ship is a pirate. We haven't any gallows to hang him from. Ah. I have it!"
It was the first time Swann witnessed Lord Beckett produce his own pistol and fire it right into someone's face.
Elizabeth woke from something gritty hitting her eyelids. Between each fluttering of her eyelashes, she could make out nothing but white in front of her. Squinting, she tried lifting her head. Every muscle from the base of her neck to the top of her head tensed. She could feel every grain of sand on her lips, on her eyes, in her hair. She slithered in the surf to bring her legs out of the water. Staggering to her feet, she cradled her head. Shivering, she gathered her arms into her chest, teeth chattering. The last thing she remembered, a blinding green wave scathed up over the Pearl's railing.
Washed overboard onto a spit of land. Her legs wobbled underneath her, still quaking from the current even though she now stood on land. Bringing her hand to her eyes, she looked out into the sea for any signs of the Pearl.
Of course not. Not one soul on that ship would think she was worth rescuing. A distressing damsel, Jack had called her. Devoid of everyone's trust and affection, she would be left here, left to die.
And who did that sound like?
Just beginning to revel in her own purgatory, she spotted two silhouettes approaching her from the far side of the beach, a sharp contrast to the white sand.
"Why, it's poppet!"
"Hello?" Ragetti waved his limber, willowy arms at her. "Weather's let up a bit, hasn't it?"
Those two. She cringed at the nickname, but grinned at them. They ran over to her like enthusiastic children, probably expecting her to know what to do.
"It's still cold," she said, answering Ragetti's question first.
"Where's the Pearl?" he asked, nothing but innocence and confusion in his eye.
"Probably where she was when we fell out of her and washed up here." She gazed once more out into the ocean, praying to see the black sails out on the horizon coming for her. Maybe the captain would begrudgingly allow her passage. She could just see Jack's eyes rolling before grunting how she was nothing but trouble and if he had any sense at all, he would have left her here. For some reason, the thoughts made her smile in spite of the desperate situation.
"Oh, no, Miss Elizabeth, not the Pearl," Ragetti said, shaking his head in a violent passion. "Cap'n wouldn't leave us."
"Might leave you, but not us," Pintel added. "No offense."
"Why should I take offense?" she growled.
"Maybe the ship's washed up. That's how she was the last time we found her, Ragetti and me. We was just sittin' away in our little rowboat when all of a sudden we got this feeling that Jack needed us and then there was the Black Pearl in all her glory waitin' for us, ya see, and we just had to release the lines and give her an old shove back out to sea."
"You had a feeling Jack needed us then?" Ragetti asked.
"Hush, you." Pintel resumed his regular volume. "So there we was, miss, and not only did we rescue Captain Jack, but Mr. Turner as well! Captain owes us one, he does."
Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth limped further up the beach. Her left leg pounded every time she stepped down on it.
"Miss Elizabeth, what do you think about at least searching the island?"
"Mr. Pintel, you sound like you're a natural at this sort of thing," she said, bracing her leg and following them into the brush, shaking her head at how familiar this all was now, being washed up on a deserted island with no one but pirates for company.
A/N: The idea of an albatross being a bad omen is officially from Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge in 1798, but according to several former English teachers, the symbolism is much older than that. But then since when does the POTC series have an actual year attached to it? Lol. The chapter title is also from Coleridge. Fun things are ahead, lots of fun, dark, sexy, action-packed things. Please leave a review! I do not own POTC, but if I had to describe this fic in a way that implied I did, I would say it's The Tempest meets The Odyssey meets Three's Company. Do with that what you will.