Two in one week? WHAAAAAAA? What's going on? What's happening? What does it mean? That's right guys, brings back memories of the old days of two months ago when school wasn't so mean to me. Please review, I'm almost begging. You don't want me to beg, it's just not pretty.
-Han
"My heart is pierced by Cupid...I disdain...all glittering gold...there is nothing that can console me…but my jolly sailor bold," Scrum sang lethargically, his upper body slumped over the side of the boat, his hand dangling just above the still water. His fingertips just brushed the smooth surface.
The boy had long reached shore, stumbling slowly towards the lighthouse and collapsing outside of it until the others reached shore. The longboat drifted lethargically in its pool of light, the sailors losing the wired anxiety slowly, draining them until finally, eyes closed and breathing evened and sleep overcame them. It was peaceful.
Anna jerked awake with her head buzzing with sea shanties and rippling water on the right side of the boat, her chest heaving in an attempt to calm herself. She turned, scanning the water with frantic, panicked eyes. Her jarring movements made heartbeats pound faster, fingers twitch, eyes bounce of still water to find the disturbance. Phillip leaned over the edge, following the delicate disruption of water only feet from the longboat.
He sighed as the water lay flat again, shifting back into his cramped seat and resigning himself to another long wait under the cloudless sky. The moon hung above them indifferently, its white glow ever continuous and changing, ready to move through the phases whether or not people moved below it. When he thought like that, something in his chest felt empty, and he remembered the call of the tides and the waves and the sea and the days he spent trying to prove his worth to beings that didn't care. His first Captain hadn't cared about a lowly Cabin Boy and neither did the moon. But God did.
The Church had been his constant since he screamed sanctuary until his lungs burned, since he threw himself before a shocked priest and begged forgiveness because a young girl told him too. He'd gotten a bible the same day, the one he still carries, and its leather is worn and soft with the work of his hands. He'd been little, the girl only two or three years older than him, her eyes frantic and her words hurried and she'd carried him to the steps and told him-
His thoughts cut off abruptly, his body seizing at the image of a blonde woman resting on the side of their boat, her arms folded to keep her anchored to the railing. Her hair was slicked back with water, long and soft, trailing down her neck to her chest. Her eyes were blue, impossibly blue and innocent. He leaned forward, wanting to be closer as she stared, unblinkingly at the sailors before her. A hand on his shoulder had him pulling back, glancing at Anna's stoic face, empty eyes.
"Lord save me!" Scrum muttered, smiling broadly at the sight of the woman. Water stirred around her, an elegant tail shimmered just below the waves, scales catching the concentrated light trained on them. Men turned, gazes hovering between interest and fear, heartbeats loud enough to hear in the empty silence of lapping water and stuttered breathing.
Ezekiel drew a knife, his weathered hand gripping the hilt with more strength than Anna had thought he had, and tried to move through the throng of sailors crowded in the small space. The mermaid gasped, her eyes suddenly wider, blown with fear and anxiety. She pushed from the boat, her tail flicking gracefully below the water until she was a safe distance away, already beginning to sink below the waves again.
"You're scaring her off, mate," Scrum said indignantly, aimlessly throwing an arm out behind him to stop the older crewman.
"Good riddance," Anna spat, her brow furrowed in discontent and her hands balling in fists at her side. Eyes turned to her, mixing appreciation with dislike until she felt like she could taste the conflict.
"Can you talk?" Scrum asked the mermaid, ignoring her completely and turning back to the graceful woman of the waves. She blinked, drifting back towards the boat with slow movements.
"Yes," she answered with a soft smile, white teeth shining in their pool of light. She rested her thin arms on the edge of the boat again, her tan skin reflecting beads of water until she seemed to shine, a speck of gold among rock, diamond amongst coal.
"You're beautiful," Scrum said adoringly, leaning closer to her as if he couldn't stop his own body. It had turned on him, every cell in him begging to be closer to the mystery, the myth, the perfection of this woman.
"Are you the one who sings?" She asked, eyes only for him. Anna watched the encounter with mounting concern, soft splashes playing the background, they could have been mistake for water lapping against the rocks on shore. She didn't think so.
"Aye," Scrum whispered.
"Are you my jolly sailor bold?" the mermaid asked with her soft, alluring voice. Her accent was proper, the kind you hear confined to stuffy rooms drenched in rich colors and porcelain and silk and beauty.
"That I be." He was unable to pull himself back from her eyes and he was drowning, losing the only pieces of his sanity he had left, slipping from his grasp and into the dark water. He was almost hanging off the boat now, his face level with hers, breathing rum into her fascinated gaze.
"Scrum, comport yourself!" Ezekiel shouted, urging the still-sane men to grab him, fingers digging into his soft flesh and pulling, yanking him from fantasy come true and vaulting him back into his sad, lonely life where the waves were his only companion. He fought, jerking his arms clumsily in an attempt to break free, to feel the water against his skin and the mermaid's hand on his cheek and her lips on his.
"Boys! There ain't much been given to me in my brief, miserable life, there's the truth of it," Scrum intoned, breathing heavily with his head hung. His voice was strained, like he was keeping emotion, years of disappointments mounting on top of each other until he was just a man, someone easily looked over, left behind. He was no one. "But, by God, I'll have it said that Scrum had himself a kiss from a proper mermaid!" he screamed and gave a final lurch from their lax hands and tasted freedom.
"My heart is pierced by Cupid, I disdain all glittering gold," she sang softly, her voice pulling him back towards her. He mouthed along to the words, the shanty bouncing off the walls of his heart, entrancing him, fascinating him. Anna watched helplessly, scanning the water around her for the safest route. The splashing was growing closer. "There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold."
Predators glided through the water as if they were angels of water, Aphrodite of the sea-foam, they moved like music. The dark water was murky, but their quick eyes saw everything, the way the light pooled around their prey was perfection, a beacon, a miracle. Elegant tails pushed their bodies forward, not bothering to rush as they moved lethargically to reach their sibling.
"Come all, ye pretty fair maids, whoever you may be," The blonde mermaid sang sweetly, her blue eyes burning into Scrum until his blood was alive, his soul awakened. He was leaning closer, always closer.
Anna gripped Phillip's shoulder, nodding to the rippling water ahead of them, the slow moving mermaids beginning to corner them. They surfaced slowly, blinking open to the world of above with a keenness that set his nerves on edge. His eyes widened, his fingers reaching for his Bible as if it could prove the protection of his God.
"We wait until the opportune moment," Anna whispered lowly. He could barely hear her voice over the sound of the mermaid's song. "And then you jump towards the shore and you swim for your life. And you don't look back," she pled earnestly, her eyes huge and blue and suffocating.
"I want you to turn around and run up those steps and into that church. Run for your life. And you don't look back."
Years disappeared, moments spent ridding himself of his past and his secrets melting away until he was that dirty boy again, kicked to the side by everyone but her. The stand-in mother, frantic sibling, Angel sent to protect. He nodded dumbly, his mouth opening as if to speak, say something important. But just like years before, he had nothing to say. He nodded again, firmer this time, his eyes shifting to map out the safest way towards land.
Phillip didn't ask where she would be, hadn't before, when she took off into the streets of smoke and soldiers to find her way back home. This time her body was tense, shoulders set and jaw clenched. She looked like a pirate.
"Who love a jolly sailor bold, that ploughs the raging sea." The mermaid's voice seemed to reverberate through Scrum's very being, drawing him towards her face with a hope in his heart that hadn't been matched since he was little and dreamed of the sea, of fame, fortune. "My heart is pierced by Cupid, I disdain all glittering gold. There is nothing can console me, but my jolly sailor bold." Mermaids were everywhere, tails swishing gracefully through the water, but Scrum had eyes for only one. The blonde reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling her body up and his down. "My heart is pierced by Cupid, I disdain all glittering gold. Nothing can console me…"
Anna watched Scrum sink lower, lips puckered and eyes beginning to slip closed. She tapped Phillip again, willing him to rise amidst the eerie singing that seemed to seep into their very cores. They turned their backs on the rest of the enraptured crew, facing the shore. Phillip bent to dive, she stood straight.
"What are you-" She cut him off with an imposing look.
"Just don't look back."
"But my jolly sailor bold." The blonde pulled Scrums face down with her, water engulfing her eyes, face, lips, so he followed. His eyes opened beneath the water, watched her beautiful face smile at him. He froze, a hiss he could hear beneath the waves infiltrating his very being. She grinned at him again, vicious fangs glinting in the murky half-light. He screamed, the sound was lost in the blanket of water.
"Now!" Anna screamed, turning away from the shore to grab an oar and jab down into the mermaid holding Scrum in one fluid movement. The wood connected, the mer-creature jerking back violently, a scream vibrating through the sea with the force to scatter ripples along the surface.
The other mermaids circled like sharks, predators intent on their weak prey, watching the little boat. Phillip swam towards the shore, pausing long enough to breathe heavily, coughing water from his lungs as he attempted to stay afloat. He glanced back, his eyes widening in horror as the sailors bunched together in the center of the boat, standing in a small huddle while the mermaids glided through the water at impossible speeds, baring teeth he could see from his position only a few yards from the rocky beach.
A thin mermaid launched herself from the water, talons reaching out for human flesh. It caught, the sailor was wrenched overboard screaming, terror frozen on his face, his hand outstretched towards Anna. She couldn't reach him in time.
Phillip started swimming back towards the boat, the horrified screams of the crewmen filling his mind and he couldn't just let this happen. Not as a servant of God. His body felt heavy, his limbs moving too slowly through the water as he pushed himself further and further, swearing to himself that he would make it.
The boat flipped, Anna only had enough time to brace her legs on the railing and angle her body into a dive, cutting the water with her body. She opened her eyes beneath the water, watching blood swirl slowly with the rest of the sea, pulling it into exotic patterns and it was so dark. A dead body floated past her face, and she lurched back to avoid it, her face crumpling into terror and disgust and fear.
She forced herself to move, her lungs burning, her heart pumping faster until it was deafening. Anna broke the surface a moment later, sucking in air like it was precious and blinking the salt from her eyes. She was sucked down again, a scream frozen in her throat as water invaded her body, choking her, pulling her down.
She kicked, her boot connecting violently with the mermaid's chin, sending her careening backwards in an elegant flip that could only be accomplished in water. Anna fumbled for the dagger she kept in her boots, the silver glinting softly in the darkness. She was pushed back, talons digging into her shoulders, pushing her last reserves of air from her lungs. She slashed up with her remaining strength, the blade connecting with the creature's abdomen, spilling blood into the water until she couldn't see which way was up. She kicked the body away from her, her arms thrusting her upwards and she prayed it was really upwards.
When she broke the surface she thanked the Gods, coughed, spat, and breathed like air was the gift of eternal life and she wanted to live forever and ever. The stars were calm, ever twinkling, the moon a constant light. The ocean was a sea of white water, bodies thrashing and kicking and striving for life, air, land, anything to save them from their reality.
Anna took a breath and dove towards the thick of the slaughter, her knife ready, slashing at anything with a tail and pulling still-moving sailors away, towards land. The flurry of movement was shifting towards the shore, the dock in sight. She made a break for it, the water making her feel heavy, exhaustion seeping into her bones as she tried to move faster. She was pulled back again, a hoarse shout ripping from her throat before it was drowned out.
The weight was gone. She glanced back to see Phillip struggling to stay up with his body sinking into the water and weary ache settling into every fiber of his being. She glared, swimming towards him until her arm could wrap around his shoulders, heaving him up until he could breathe easily.
"I said not to look back!" she hissed, kicking awkwardly amidst the violence and the pain and the fear. Phillip smiled tiredly, trying to help her move.
"It was…my turn," He said tiredly, between huge gasps for air. Small cuts littered his upper arms, his attempts to help the others had left him bleeding and nearly dead. Anna didn't think about his words, what they meant. She just pushed him on, trying to force him to the shore. Their gazes flicked back to the docks, where the sailors waiting on the beach with long nets were being taken under, the dock ripping apart from beneath itself.
"Jack," she whispered, a new surge of energy consuming her body and everything was on fire and everything hurt and she didn't care. She had to go and save Phillip and save everyone else.
"I'm fine from…here," he insisted pulling his arm away from her and shifted on his back to take the last few strokes to the shore. She nodded reluctantly, and turned back, forcing herself onward until the world around her was nothing more than the splash of water around her body and the darkness that consumed her. The dock lay in her sight, beyond that the screaming masses of sailors trying to keep their grip on the lengths of nets She couldn't save them, she had to get to Jack.
That killed her.
Anna was close to giving up by the time she reached the quickly collapsing docks and the pirate at the end of it who refused to move, his eyes scanning the water as if waiting for something. Wood splintered around him, the haunting screams of the mermaids reverberating through the air and the sea of flaying limbs and choked breathes before him. Angelica was behind him on the beach, screaming for him to come in, to run.
"Jack! Move, please, Jack!" Anna shouted, fighting the call of water on her limbs, the seductive darkness that promised her peace. He locked eyes with her as she dragged herself onto the barely-there dock.
"Anna," his voice was a whisper, not quiet there, consumed with nothingness and resignation. "Are you dead?" he asked, standing carefully still as planks of wood were torn from the dock around him by the last vicious mermaids.
"No!" she screamed, fighting to stay above water as another venomous creature grabbed her ankle, digging into the leather of her boots. In an instant he was alive again, a sudden jolt of electricity shooting through his body as the reality sunk in.
Waiting above had been torturous, watching her slip into complacency when death was lurking, the way she pushed the boy and the missionary to safety and stayed behind. She always stayed behind. And then there had been the screams and he was running and he couldn't stop and Angelica had to grab him to keep Jack from diving in to save Anna. Because someone needed to save her. So he waited and the world was coming apart around him but she had to dead in that. She had to have died.
Nothing mattered, his heart had stopped, the world frozen. He couldn't move.
But now he could. Now she was alive.
He dove to his stomach, splintering wood slamming into his abdomen as he grabbed onto her forearms. Her frantic blue eyes were shining, alive, real. Wet hair hung in her face, her clothes were soaked, her body cold to the touch and she was shaking. He managed to stand and pulled with all the strength he had, every muscle tensing, every nerve screaming to accomplish a single goal.
She kicked violently, sending the shark-ish creature away with a deafening scream of pain. Jack pulled harder, numb fingers digging into her skin in an attempt to hold on, sea water poured form her clothes as she ascended from the grip of the ocean. He helped her stand, helped her run as the last of the dock disintegrated beneath their boots. His hand rested in hers, and it was real.
Xx
Phillip gasped for breath when his body hit the sand, his chest rising and falling violently as he begged for air like it was the Divine. He choked, spitting out salt water until the block in his lungs was removed and the sweet touch of oxygen flooded his body. He blinked his eyes open, staring into a small tidal pool with mounting anxiety, fear pulsing through his body at the sight of the mermaid, her eyes resting just above the water.
His God wasn't going to save him.
Xx
Jack made her run because he had to reach the lighthouse, but her body was tiring quickly, her legs only moving because of his tight hold on her hand. They stuck to the beach, white sand kicking up around them and sticking to her soaking clothes, weighing them down even more. The lighthouse was before them, an endless spiral of stairs she didn't want to see, didn't want to climb.
"Can you make it?" Jack asked breathlessly, his chest already heaving from exertion as she wheezed and nodded numbly, if only to prove herself. Shore was littered with dead bodies, Blackbeard standing just inland and ready to shoot any trying to flee, the others succumbing to the fury of the creatures they hunted.
"Don't have much of a choice," she answered haltingly, her shallow breathing a constant noise to counteract the screams, the blaring sounds of death. He grinned, gold caps shining in the moonlight.
"Glad to have you back," he said lightly, as if the world around them was not falling apart, as if men were not dying and being torn apart for the sake of a cruel Captain with dark eyes. He turned, reaching quickly for a large wooden stick and banging it against a compartment of oil with powerful swings that left Anna's mind racing along lines of plans and the ends of them. She would end where she began, she reasoned, in water. "Though I was expecting to get you here a bit sooner."
"So you could hit me with a stick?" she asked jokingly, watching oil coat the length of the wood and seep into the grain. Jack chuckled, holding it in front of his body like a broadsword meant to lead men into battle.
"No darling, to watch a fireshow."
They took the stairs three at a time, fingers gripping the stone walls for leverage, throwing themselves up and up and up. Anna rolled her eyes, the blue shining and rimmed with red from the salt water. Her right shoulder was bleeding shallowly, her shirt torn in more than one place but she was alive.
At the top she was barely breathing, trying to reach for air and Phillip's God all at once and they were dragging her in opposite directions, the veil closing on half of her while fire burned warmth she could still feel on the other. Jack caught her when she swayed, held her close for a moment not long enough to appreciate and whispered sweet nothings in her ear until she could stand on her own.
"They need us, Annie," he reminded softly, gesturing towards the window where darkness screamed with agony. She nodded and watched Jack step forward, her body beginning to sag with exhaustion, every little piece of her begging for sleep and for safety. The flames powering the lighthouse danced before her eyes, moved and licked and threatened to escape their iron prison. Jack stepped forward, oil drenched stick ready to charge the flames and set off an explosion guaranteed to save the remaining sailors.
They had to do something right, prove to themselves that they weren't as selfish as they felt during stolen moments under the stars and adventures for their sakes. Other beating hearts depended on them.
Jack tossed the wood into the basin of flame, joining Anna quickly at the window, pausing long enough to slip his hand into hers, calluses and scars on scars and calluses. They jumped, the lighthouse exploded behind them.
Xx
A torrent of flame engulfed the sky and Phillip stumbled backwards, sloshing through shallow tidal pools in a frenzied attempt to avoid the falling debris and flames that licked the sky like the breath of dragons from myth. The mermaid attacked, pushing him down into the water and covering his body with hers, her wet hair falling in his eyes, her skin sticking to his.
Warmth spread around them and he didn't know if it was flame or her. It didn't seem to matter. Two loud splashes behind him and the dark-haired mermaid pushed herself off of his firm body, flipping herself around in an attempt to swim in the thin layer of water. Her tail shown in the light, more colors than Phillip had ever seen, blues and greens and pinks dancing before his eyes in a swirl of delicate scales. Her face was pale, nearly white skin that made her seem insubstantial, like she would fade if he tried to touch her.
Full, pouty lips painted a dusky pink were drawn into a thin line of anxiety, worried dark blue eyes scanning the world around her as she tried to pull herself through the shallow water by delicate arms and nimble fingers. Her dark hair lay in long tangled curls around her face, snaking down her body until they provided her decency.
He moved before he knew what he was doing, releasing his sword and plunging it down through the thin flesh of her tail, his body hunching over the weapon and his breathing harsh. Phillip felt the sword in his grasp, heavy and familiar and he hadn't even remembered picking it up but someone must have shoved it at him. Now it was clean through this silent mermaid, a young woman breathing too hard, her eyes blown wide with fear and pain.
He swallowed, their eyes met. His mouth opened, trying to find the words, trying to say anything. Her chest moved violently, like air was hard to come by, like the moments between them were suffocating and slow. He slid the sword from her tail, retracting steel from the wound until it fell limply in the sand. Neither of them moved.
The moment of peace shattered as a net was slung over her, the jerking movements of a trapped mermaid made him sick. She hissed, her back arching and tail flipping violently in an attempt to be free, to feel the soothing touch of water against her skin and the protection of darkness. But the bonds set on her were too strong. Her eyes met the man again, tan skin and sun-bleached hair and the eyes of someone pure.
He was frozen, didn't try to move, didn't try to save her.
Xx
Anna was done saving people.
Her head broke the surface for the infinite time that night, that horrible choking sound of a first breath and the last of her strength draining from her body when she hit the hard water. It felt like stone, like she'd been beaten a thousand times by a thousand different people. Jack had to drag her back to shore.
She hated that.
"I…I'm okay," she spat out around the engulfing water and need to prove herself. Jack didn't even turn his head, the grip on her arm like iron, dragging her towards the shore. The moon and the stars hung overhead, and Anna decided that if Phillip's God was real, he didn't care. Just like the sky didn't care.
They were either alone or rejected. It didn't matter.
They reached the shore together as the remaining sailors picked themselves out of the water and the sand and tried to walk. Blackbeard stood unharmed with a glass coffin and his undead henchmen by his side, his beard still smoking faintly. Anna would kill for that kind of dry warmth. The Cabin Boy stood dutifully beside his cruel Captain, casting Anna a thankful look that she wouldn't forget.
She shivered without meaning to and nearly cried from relief when Jack slung an arm around her shoulder, tucking her into his chest. She could hear his heartbeats.
"Don't leave without me next time," Jack muttered almost bitterly, his brow crumpled in concern and his eyes trained on her pale form. She looked more than half dead, barely moving with the strength it had taken for her to keep coming back, keep saving. Sailors waved to her, smiled, tipped imaginary hats at the both of them and she wished she could summon the strength to smile.
"Don't leave me, please," she whispered, and Jack wondered if she meant now or ever. His grip tightened, wet clothes sticking sloppily to each other, their boots squishing in the sand. They reached Angelica and her father after several moments spent in mourning silence, water lapping suddenly peaceful again. Anna could never hate the ocean.
"Did everyone see what we did there? Because we will not be doin' it again," Jack announced loudly, pointing back to the ruins of the lighthouse behind him. The mermaids had fled immediately, turning tail and screaming with their hollow voices, needing to be away from the heat and the sound of crashing rocks, explosions and falling stones.
"He got one!" a sailor shouted joyfully, pointing to a small group of crewmen carting a delicate looking mermaid wrapped and caged and bound in webs of rope. Phillip stumbled in behind them, his sword dragging limply in the sand, his eyes misted over.
"Come, give 'im a hand. Good sailor," Blackbeard praised, gesturing to his zombies to take the load. The dark-haired mermaid was dropped unceremoniously into the glass cage, a coffin to her, a small layer of water blanketing the bottom. She scrambled for escape, her hands pressed against the glass and pushing.
Anna swallowed, turning away with sad eyes.
"No one should have to bear that," she whispered so only Jack could hear her, her voice lost in the sound of wind and the ocean. Jack nodded.
"Freedom is in their veins, as in ours." He paused, watching the silent sailors around them, tired eyes and exhausted limbs and heads tilted down in grief. "She will suffer more now than ever in her life, for the sake of this man's lust."
"Are you suggesting what I think you are?" Anna asked softly, blue eyes reflecting the stars again, red on the edges from the salt but that spark was back. Jack smiled, for a moment forgetting Angelica and Blackbeard and The English and all the people who wanted their services, wanted their lives, wanted them for a piece in the game. His dark eyes left warm imprints on her skin, bringing color back to her cheeks, life to her hesitant smile. She seemed awake again, strung out but pulled back in, barely there but enough. Jack pressed a hand to her neck, if only to be sure she was really there. Her skin was soft, she leaned into it. She always leaned into it.
"No one can win if there isn't a Fountain."
