"I told you not to take this one to the brig!"
Emily Turner keeps her eyes closed even as she hears the hushed voices just outside the cold, dark cell she'd fallen asleep in. She's learned very quickly that it is always best to play dumb, and this time that means pretending to be asleep.
"I-I'm sorry, Captain. The A-Admiral said…"
"I know what he said." The Captain snaps. There is a short pause before he answers in a calmer tone. "I know what he said. But she can't be more than eight years old, and I refuse to leave a little girl in the brig as though she were a common pirate. Take her to the guest quarters, next to mine."
The Captain wanted his men to be nice to her? That was odd, but could be useful. She surly wouldn't complain.
"Aye, Captain."
Emily imagines the officer giving his Captain a solute. The door to the cell opens on squeaky hinges and now she opens her eyes.
She looks up at the officer and isn't quite as frightened of him as she could be. He has often been sent to guard her, and he isn't as cold as the others.
"Come along, miss. Admiral's gone now. I've got somewhere much more comfortable for you to sleep."
Emily nods and gets to her feet. He pauses for a moment.
"My shackles would slide right of your hands." He grimaced. "You don't intend to run, do you?"
She wishes she could role her eyes. Of course she wouldn't run, there was nowhere to go but overboard. They are no where near land anymore. At least, she's pretty sure they aren't. If they were, the story might be different …
Instead she only shakes her head innocently.
He grabs her arm anyways. Emily winces as he grips a little too hard. He frowns and loosens his grip, probably having done it on accident. She hears him mumble as he starts heading towards what she assumes is to be her new room.
"She's so bloody small… Should've listened to mum when she told me to be a baker like father. Lot of good it's done me being out here arresting children..."
Emily tries to hold back the very innappropriate urge to giggle at the thought of the giant, well armed officer in a bakery, but the slightest of sounds still escapes her lips. The officer stops just before they reach a set of stares, looking down at her.
She freezes and looks down, bringing her free hand up to cover her mouth.
"Think that's funny, do you?" His voice holds a trace of amusement. "It's true, you know. I can see my mum now in the shop, finding out about who I've been working for. Bet she'll throw a pastrie at my head."
A full on grin spreads across Emily's face now. She keeps it covered with her hand but giggles just a bit louder.
"And to top it off the six year old I'm guarding thinks me to be funny. Oh, I don't know how I shall ever recover." He sighs dramatically.
"I-I'm seven." She corrects him, quietly but boldly. "Almost eight."
"Ah, I see. Well, that makes it a bit better I suppose." He straightens up as they hear footsteps coming down the hall. The laughter in his eyes disappears, and she follows his lead, turning her head downwards and trailing a little behind him as he leads her up the stairs.
Elizabeth is beginning to lose it, and she knows it too.
She is no closer to finding her daughter, and this worries her to no end. Bill has told her that no one he'd talked to while they were in Tortuga had heard or seen anything about the Company or a massive ship called the Revenge.
At least, no one that was willing to tell him about it. She'd been sorely tempted to tell him to bring any that he thought might know something to her, but her goddess's warnings continued to wiggle their way into her mind, and so she refrained.
Her goddess. Elizabeth can sense her presence quite easily now, but has not seen her in a good two weeks. She continues to get odd dreams now, showing her that her daughter is safe for the most part. This was soothing enough for the first few nights, but now it just makes her all the more restless. The only useful thing the dreams told her is that they are under the command of a man referred to only as the Admiral.
And then there is Will. She cannot seem to make him leave her thoughts, no matter how hard she tries. When she is not dreaming of her daughter, she is dreaming of her goddess…or Will, her Will, the respectable man she had married, not the no good pirate he'd turned into. Well, no good in her veiw anyways.
She hardly sleeps at all anymore, instead staying up and pacing the deck or playing that massive organ.
Bill comments on her strange behaviors once, and only once.
"Davy Jones allowed love to drive him into madness. I'd hope you'd be smart enough not to do the same."
"Captain?"
She hears Jaimee, 'Marie's Jaimee' she automatically thinks, call for her, pulling her out of her thoughts.
"What?" She replies, her tone perhaps a bit too harsh. He winces and she regrets it, but not enough to apologize as she might've just a few months earlier.
"Survivors. You were right. The wreck was a Company ship."
Her eyes widen a little. She brushes past him and makes her way quickly to where they have lined up the officers.
A few of them are shaking with fear, but all have the same determined look in there eyes. She may not get much out of them, but fear can be helpful when prying open locked lips.
She looks them all over and feels the same pity that she feels for all that are dead or dying, but things are different now and her face remains a coldly indifferent mask.
"My, you boys are good at making yourself scarce, aren't you? Almost hints at cowardice." She taunts them, but none of them even glances her way. She stops in front of the youngest of the group. He is trembling far more violently than the others. "I'm looking for a certain ship. Massive thing, hard to miss I'm told. It's been named the Revenge."
That gets her a reaction. His eyes move, only his eyes, but it is enough. None of the others move a muscle.
"So, you do know of it. Finally. Tell me, who is her captain?"
She gets nothing this time, so she continues.
"How about the Admiral?"
His eyes twitch again. She smirks and brandishes her sword, holding it up to his neck.
"Come now. Tell me something and I might spare your life, at least," She hears Jaimee let out a shocked little gasp at this statement, but keeps going anyways, "tell me nothing and I'll promise nothing."
"H-he's the one running the C-Company now!" The terrified officer blurts out. The others finally move, glancing at him with looks of equal parts anger and pity. "The Revenge is headed for London. That's where he is."
Elizabeth's brows furrow.
"Why?"
He doesn't immediately respond, but she has a feeling he knows more. She moves her sword forward ever so slightly so that the tip is barely touching his neck.
He hisses in surprise when the blade leaves a shallow cut in his tanned skin.
"Th-they've got some kind of special prisoner! That's all I know!"
She lowers the sword. He relaxes a little.
"Welcome aboard." She says. "You're hardly dead nor are you dying, so you can leave when we reach London."
"What of the others?" Jaimee asks her as she turns to walk away.
She knows she could allow them to stay on just as she had the youngest officer, but she has no wish to have seven other pompous officers loose on her ship. One is quite enough, thank you very much.
"There are no 'others'." She replies simply. His eyes widen as some of the more ruthless crew members move forward without hesitation to carry out her implied orders.
"Belay that!" He yells just as they draw their swords, even though he has no right to. "C-Captain Turner, you can't just…"
She freezes.
So does he, his eys wide.
Marie, who is up at the helm, lets the wheel go and comes toward them, a look of horror on her face.
"Captain, please, don't!"
Elizabeth ignores her and turns to him, her eyes narrowed dangerously.
"How many lashes did I say it was? Three? And daring to go against my orders, why not make it five!"
He remains frozen to his spot and doesn't respond.
The Bo'sun comes up and even he looks worried. Elizabeth waves him off.
"I'll do it myself."
She grips Jaimee's arm with a shocking amount of strength, dragging him toward the main mast. She rips off his shirt and has someone bring her rope, tying him to the mast.
Marie looks to be on the verge of tears.
"Captain…please…i-it was a mistake…"
Elizabeth has the whip in her hands now, a spiky, nasty looking thing.
"Captain, no…" Marie tries again. "Please." She grabs Elizabeth's arm.
Elizabeth rounds on her.
"Stupid girl!" She snarls, but pauses when she sees Marie sending a look over her shoulder to Jaimee, who is sending one back to her. An eerie déjà vu like feeling grips her, but she ignores it. "Oh. I see." She turns back to Marie. "How sweet." She spits out the words. "Scurry back to your cabin, Marie. I'll find something to do with you later."
Marie stands tall and clenches her fists at her sides, not moving an inch and glaring as harshly as she is probably capable.
"Do you want to see your beloved Jaimee bear his punishment?"
"I WILL NOT leave him!"
Elizabeth spins around and raises the whip.
"As you wish, stupid girl." And with a crack she brings it down upon the bare skin of Jaimee's back.
He convulses and groans in pain.
"Cap'n!"
Bill's voice comes from somewhere to her left now.
She brings it down again, and watches with a perverse satisfaction as Jaimee convulses and groans louder this time.
Marie lets out a choked sob behind her.
"Captain!" Bill yells again. "You must stop this!"
Elizabeth looks up and around for a breif moment, taking in her crews shocked and terrified expressions. Bill looks twice as afraid as them all.
She raises the whip again.
"Elizabeth!" Bill calls to her again and he is closer now and beginning to sound defeated. "The curse…"
She brings the whip down again but stops abruptly just before it hits Jaimee's skin for the third time, her eyes going wide as she stares at her hand.
She no longer recognizes it as belonging to her body. Her hand no longer looks human.
Her fingers are webbed. Her nails are blackened. And her skin…it's not skin at all. She has scales. Like a fish or some manner of twisted mermaid! A-and sharply spiked protrusions that look fish-like as well, on her arms!
"…den yah will be on de outside as you are inside…"
"…as you are inside…"
Elizabeth's hand trembles violently as her goddess's words echoe in her mind.
"Cap'n?" Bill again. She looks up…and freezes when she sees him as he was under Davy Jones, his skin pail with all manner of sea creatures adorning his body.
"No!" She screams and the whip falls from here now limp hand.
And all at once the strange vision is gone. Bill is Bill again, and her skin is no longer scaley.
Her crew is staring at her, and the looks written on all of their faces say much the same things. They are all certain their captain has gone mad as a hatter.
Elizabeth takes a few deep breathes, a feeble attempt to compose herself. Her voice is quiet and holds none of her usual confidence when she speaks.
"Right. Uh, untie him, and set course f-for, uhm…" She stumbles over her words as though drunk.
"London?" Bill ventures cautiously.
"Yes, right, London." She pauses, opens her mouth to speak again. No sound comes out; she knows not what to say. She brushes past Bill and the rest of the crew scrambles to make way for her as she heads to her cabin.
She does not care what happens when she disappears behind her closed door. She stumbles over to her bed and sits on it and just stares for a moment as the reality of how she has just acted sinks in for her.
When her shock wears off and she finally, truly realizes what she has just done, she lays down on her bed and curls herself into a ball as though she were a little girl. She sobs and sobs.
I've had this last seen in my head for a while now.
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