Chapter 19

"I understand why you hate me, but why must you hate me so much?" Jewel paced in front of Tia's cell once she appeared in the brig. listening to the music that came from Tia's locket. She hummed along with it and stayed in the shadows.

"I do not understand." Tia said. She didn't seem to be paying attention. She was sitting in her cell, looking down at her locket as it played a tune Jewel knew all too well.

"Calypso, why? Just- Why me?" Jewel yelled, grabbing onto the bars. "How deep does this curse go? Am I to live a life of anguish along with being hunted by Jones?"

"Yes." Tia said

"Take it off of me! I don't care how, just take it off!" Jewel yelled, thrusting her arm to Tia.

"I can not." Tia said, looking up at Jewel. "You are upset... For Norrington."

"Why do I have to live like this? It always seems like every man I've ever loved loves somebody else, mysteriously vanished, or, as it always seems to be, dead!" Jewel yelled, tears in her eyes once more.

"Such is life." Tia said

"No, such is MY life! Such things have never happened to anybody in a single lifetime. And I want it to stop!" Jewel yelled, "MAKE IT STOP!" Jewel had pulled out one of her pistols and aimed it at Tia. She looked at the girl calmly before standing up.

"It is not you that I hated, but de man who wooed me to be trapped like dis." Tia explained

"I am not that man!" Jewel said firmly, "And I swear I never will be if you remove this curse please! I'm begging you." Jewel was now crying.

"Your curse will be removed when I am free. All you will need is a drop of blood." Tia said

"W-what?" Jewel asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Your curse was mah last spell as Calypso. It is the final piece of eight needed for me to be free." Tia said. Jewel stopped crying As this news set in.

"That's why you wanted Barbossa to protect me." she said. She backed away and sat down on a barrel, Tia's song still echoing through the room.

"I'm the last piece of eight." Jewel said. She ran her hands through her hair, then down her face.

"An unintended one, yes." Tia said, looking down at her locket. "You must return to your family now, Sparrow." Jewel looked up at her and sighed.

"Would it be possible... To bring James back?" she asked

"Only if you had his body." Tia said softly. Jewel looked down at the floor and pictured the hall before the Brethren Court. She appeared there and walked up to where her father was standing, then stopped to lean on an archway.

She was just tired of everything. Tired of the fighting, of crying, of running, of being held back, of losing those that she loved. She was just so tired.

"Still fighting I see." She said softly, approaching the table.

"With no clear winner." Jack said. Barbossa groaned and climbed onto the table, holding onto the chain-ball and firing his pistol over everybody's heads. They all froze and looked at him.

"It was the first court what imprisoned Calypso," He yelled out, "and we will be the ones to set her free, and in her gratitude she will see fit to grant us boons." Jack looked at the chain balls in Barbossa's hands.

"Whose boons? Your boons?" he asked before Barbossa climbed down to the ground, "Utterly deceptive twaddlespeak, says I."

"If you have a better alternative, please, share." Barbossa said. Jack paused for a moment.

"Cuttlefish." Jack said. Barbossa looked at him. Jack walked behind him. He grabbed Jewel's arm and dragged him with her.

"Let us not, dear friends, forget our dear friends the cuttlefish." He said when he walked past Elizabeth to Mistress Ching, "Flippant glorious little sausages. Pen 'em up together," Jack continued, "and they'll devour each other without a second thought." He stood behind her and looked from one of her guards to the other, "Human nature, isn't it? ... Or... Or... Fish nature." He put his hands on Mistress Ching's shoulders, not noticing her two guards pulling a pistol and a knife, "So yes, we could hole up here well provisioned and well armed and half of us would be dead within the month," He walked on toward Gentleman Jocard, "which seems grim to me any way you slice it. Or," He edged past an extremely burly man of Jocard's, "as my learned colleague so naively suggests," He motioned to Barbossa, "we could release Calypso, and we can pray that she will be merciful." He looked down at Villanueva, "I rather doubt it." He walked past Chevalle, "Can we in fact pretend that she is anything other than a woman scorned, like which fury hell hath no? We cannot."

"Aye." Jewel muttered. Jack reached the end of the table where nobody sat.

"Res ipso loquitur tabula in naufragio, we are left with but one option. I agree with," Jack said, pointing across the table, Barbossa was smirking victoriously, "and I cannot believe the words are comin' out of me mouth... Captain Swann." Those at the end of the table were all surprised, "We must fight." The Court started to cheer in agreement.

"You've only ever run from a fight!" Barbossa yelled

"I have not!" Jack retorted

"You have so!" Barbossa replied. The lords looked from left to right at Barbossa and Jack as they exchanged words.

"Have not!" Jack said

"You have so!" Barbossa said

"Have not!" Jack replied

"You have so, and you know it!"Barbossa said

"Have not, slander and calumny!" Jack said, "I have only ever embraced that oldest and noblest of pirate traditions. I submit here and now, that is what we all must do, we must fight ... To run away."

"Aye!" Gibbs called out before the rest of the Court cheered in agreement.

"As per the code," Barbossa said, his arms crossed, a smirk plastered across his face, "an act of war, and this be exactly that, can only be declared by the pirate king."

"Who's that?" Jewel asked

"You made that up." Jack said, outraged at the rule.

"Did I now? I call on Captain Teague, keeper of the code." Barbossa called out. Jack looked nervous suddenly. Jewel looked up at him. It was rare to see him like this.

"Dad? Dad, what's wrong?" she asked. Sri Sumbhajee nudged one of his men.

"Well luv," he said, his eyes downcast, "That Captain Teague Barbossa called, He's..."

"Sri Sumbhajee proclaims this all to be folly!" The man yelled, slamming his hand on the table.

"Well luv, he's..." Jack started again.

"Hang the code! Who cares..." the man continued before a shot was fired into his chest.

"He's my dad." Jack finally spat the words out.

"WHAT?" Jewel whispered, looking back at the man at the top of the stairs behind them, smoking pistol in hand. The man had braids in his hair and wore a red coat with a hat with pheasant feathers on his head.

"Code is the law." he said before he started walking down the stairs.