"I'm going to kill you. I knew you'd get us both in trouble one of these times. Bloody…" Emily goes on, muttering a string of curses as she continues to scrub the deck in front of her.
"Tsk tsk tsk." Alex replies, dunking his brush back into the bucket between them and bringing it back down to the deck. "Such language. How utterly unlady like of ye." His voice is dripping with sarcasm.
She splashes some of the dirty water in his direction.
"Oi!" He yelps, now sounding idignant. "I was tryin to be a gentleman, or somethin like that. I didn't know she'd get angry over it."
"You picked a fight with a man twice your size, a drunk outside a tavern in Tortuga no less, and made him and his men so angry he chased us back to the ship. Of course the Captain would be angry! She's the one who had to chase them all off! I'm amazed even she was able to manage that with those men!"
"He realized you were a girl! 'e wanted to…well…ye know what 'e wanted! I 'ad to do something!"
"Defending my honor, how very noble of you!" Emily snorts. "As if I'm some fine lady! Next time, don't bother, save everyone the trouble!"
"Don't you worry, Love, I won't! Ye know, ye didn't have to tell the Captain it was your fault. You're the girl. You try to save me, bit backwards, innit?"
"Not when your the one that's always in trouble."
"Well then, Emily Turner, feel free to simply throw me to the wolves next time, I'll scrub the decks all by meself."
"Don't you worry, Alex Sparrow, I will."
Unbeknownst to the two of them their Capain watches them from her position on the quarterdeck. Anamaria can just make out what they are saying. A smile tugs at her lips as she focuses on Emily. The girl knows how to handle herself, Ana has to at least give her that. She'd only breifly known the girls mother, but still she can see so much of Elizabeth in the tall and rather fiesty girl that is Emily Turner.
If she is honest with herself, she doesn't like having to punish the girl for something that really wasn't her fault. Tortuga can be a dangerous place for anyone, but especially for women, and especially for women who are bold enough to go around dressed as men. She thinks about calling Emily away from her current task, giving her something else to do. It was nice of Emily to try and get Alex out of trouble for once. The girl needed to learn it from someone, though, that thinking like that didn't get you very far, not if you were going to call yourself a pirate.
So, Ana decides to just leave them both to it. She watches the pair for a moment longer as they continue to bicker with eachother, then silently she makes her way below and into her cabin, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips again.
Emily is thoroughly exhausted by the time she makes it down to the crews quarters along with Alex. As if scrubbing the deck wasn't enough, Emily and Alex had also been, for all intents and purposes, made cabin boys for the day, so any odd task that had needed doing had been theirs to do.
And, to top that off, they'd been given the task of repairing a sail, which was harder that it needed to be given the fact that Emily had had no clue what she was doing.
Next time they put in at Tortuga, she decides, she'll just stay on the ship. At least then there'd be no chance she'd end up being punished again. If Alex wanted to go get himself in trouble, he could be her guest.
She climbs into her hammock, so exhausted that she actually finds it to be ten times more comfortable than usual, and falls alseep almost instantly.
It's strangely cold. A storm is brewing. The moon just barely shines through the thick, dark clouds above them.
Emily looks around, confused. How did she get here? She doesn't know.
The crew seems on edge, jumpy. The Captain is in a foul mood, they can feel it, and when she's in a foul mood…well, it never bodes well for anyone.
Her sudden appearance goes unnoticed; the crewmen around her seem oblivious to her presence. Wait, no, not men. She can easily tell they had been men once, but not now. No, now…now they could easily pass for being half fish.
The ship itself seems restless; it creaks and groans as the sails seem to wilt. Bill Turner makes his way across the deck quickly, several of the ships roughest crewmen following close behind him. They slip bellow decks.
Wait, is that her grandfather? It certainly looks enough like him, but he appears to be half…half fish, just like the rest of the men around her. W-what is that on his face? She wants to reach out to him, to call out to him, but she knows somehow that it won't do any good, he won't hear or see her, so she doesn't bother.
The storm is upon them now. Rain begins coming down in torrents, lightning flashes bright, thunder cracks sharp and loud as though the sky above them is being split right open. The ship itselfs seems no more or less restless than it was before, however.
A cold shiver runs up Emily's back, and a dark sense of foreboding has her turning around with the rest of the crew. What she sees puts a chill in her bones the likes of which she's never come close to feeling in her short sixteen years of life.
The Captain is coming down the stairs from her cabin, glaring at all those looking in her direction. She is a most frightening sight, looking much worse than her crew, the curse progressing twice as fast for her. Her skin is a bluish green, scaled, looking almost slimy. Her hair looks more like seaweed, being dark green in color and also looking slimy.
Emily begins shaking uncontrollably as she backs away instinctively. She knows this woman, this creature, would recognize her anywhere, even looking as she is.
Goddess, what had happened, what could her mother have done, to deserve this.
The Captain fixes her cold gaze on a man being half dragged up from the brig. Unlike the others aboard this cursed vessel, this man is not dead. He looks like he could be close to it, though. He is too thin, too pale, and looks ten years older than he actually is as a result. He's been kept in that brig for far too long a time.
Emily tears her eyes away from the frightening visage of her mother, turning around to see what everyone is staring at now.
"Papa…oh Papa…" She whispers as she sees her papa being half dragged up the stairs from below decks. He looks awful. She sees her grandfather again, following behind her father.
Her grandfather looks so sad, so helpless.
The Captain makes her way over to the man. He stares down at the deck, not even glancing up at her.
"Will." She says quietly, and to spite her appearance, her voice seems the same as it always was. "Will, look at me."
He doesn't respond, at all.
"I said look at me!" Her voice grows so harsh so suddenly that everyone who can hear is startled.
Will finally looks up, and the look in his eyes is one of pain and resignation, but not fear, giving one the strange impression that he wants her to just kill him already.
Emily is startled by the look in her father's eyes. She's seen him look sad before, but never like this. And her mother…she'd never seen her mother look so cold.
What was wrong with her mother's teeth? They appeared to be sharpened to a point.
"What more do you want from me, Elizabeth? What can I do? P-please, just…" He trails off.
The Captain's eyes narrow dangerously. She brings one webbed hand up and backhands him, hard.
"You do not get to call me that, not anymore!"
"Captain Lizzie, then." He says, staring down at the deck again, his voice holding the slightest hint of a mocking tone.
"You know," The Captain begins, and her tone is blatantly mocking, "I suppose, now that I've had my fun with you, I could just drop you back on land some where." She grabs his arm, pulling up the sleeve of his shirt, apparently inspecting some mark on it.
Emily moves closer, carefully, slowly, only just coming to the realization that this must be some manner of strange dream. She looks down at her fathers arm, trying to see what her mother is looking at.
Her eyes widen just a little, though she shouldn't really be surprised by the P burned onto his skin. Why should it be a surprise that her father had been branded a pirate? As if the world hadn't already known he was one.
The question going through Emily's mind is when did this happen. Sometime after he'd left her behind, obviously, but then she had to yet again ask: just what had happened after he'd left?
Why is she just assuming this is real, anyways? She is just dreaming. She has to be.
"Let them find and kill you. I rather like the idea of them stringing you up, pirate." The Captain puts a special emphasis on 'pirate', as though the word holds a deeper meaning in her mind.
"You won't do that. You want me to be within your reach when I die so that you can take me to the Locker." It wasn't a question of some kind, he seems to know this is what she wants.
"You still know me too well. I'll do it myself then. Better that way anyways. I'll get to watch."
Emily watches, horrified, as a rope is brought out at her mothers command. Her mother shoves it into her papa's hands.
She's going to make him tie his own noose.
Emily begins to shake with fear as her eyes burn with oncoming tears. She still tries to convince herself that this must be a dream of some kind, it can't be real.
"Marie!" The Captain snaps and a young girl comes forward obediently. Her long hair looks much like the Captain's, and she appears to have spikes growing out of her back.
"Y-yes, Captain."
"Tie this to the mast." The Captain hands her the noose.
She hesitates, glances at Will, opens her mouth as if to speak.
"What is it?" The Captain snaps again.
Marie flinches.
"N-nothing, Captain." She finally says before turning to go about the task she'd just been given.
Emily keeps watching as the noose is attatched to the towering main mast, as her father is forced to climb up there too, as the noose is hung around his neck by the Captain herself.
"One last thing, Will." The Captain grabs his chin with her webbed hand, forcing him to look at her. "I want to make sure you don't forget me." She leans in closer. "I want to be all you can think about when you're there." And suddenly her slimy lips are covering his and she is kissing him as though she was still his wife, as though she was still capable of feeling love towards him.
Emily looks away, now, knowing what will come next and knowing she can't bear to watch her father die, though this must be a dream.
Her mother's cold laughter echoes in her ears. Emily is sobbing by now, unable to help it, wondering why she has dreamt up something so awful, so twisted.
"Emily…Emily, wake up…Emily, please love, you're only dreamin…Emily!" Alex's worried – and perhaps a bit frightened – voice finally startles her awake.
It takes her a moment to realize that she is still in her hammock, still on the Sea's Queen, and not on her mother's cursed ship. She is still shaking with fear and hot tears stream down her face and Alex is not the only one she has woken.
She feels embarrassed upon realizing that several other men are watching her, but they, too, look more worried than anything else.
"Are ye alright? Ye're pale as a ghost." Alex asks her softly. He pauses for a moment when she just looks at him, then slowly reaches out a hand to brush away a strand of hair that is sticking to her damp cheek. "Ye're alright, t'was only a dream."
"I-I know, but..." Emily stutters, then trails off and closes her eyes, trying to force herself to stop shaking.
Someone is pressing something into her hands now, a bottle, urging her to take a sip or two so as to put some color back in her cheeks. She does as she's told, wincing slightly as the spicy rum burns it's way down her throat. The other men surrounding her make their way back to their own hammocks once her breathing turns to normal and she appears to calm some.
Alex, however, continues to hover close to her side.
"Ye were muttering… What were ye dreamin about, Emily?"
Emily grimaces.
"I dreamt about my father…"
"What?"
"He was branded a pirate and sh-she was…"
Alex stares at her blankly.
"Would ye be surprised if 'e was branded? 'E is a pirate. Or, erm, was. Sorry…"
"I wouldn't be surprised, but that's not the point, the point is that he wasn't before he left…" Emily trails off yet again and all is silent for a moment.
"Who is she?" Alex asks after a moment.
"What?"
"Ye said 'she was…'"
"Why do you want to know so badly?" Emily asks, sounding harsher than she really means to.
"I-I don't know, it's just that I know you, yer not easily shaken, not like this. Must 'ave been some dream."
"Yes, well…it's none of your business."
Emily slides out of her hammock abruptly, shoving her boots on before stalking past Alex. She doesn't know why she's being so mean to him; it's not as though he's done anything wrong. She still feels shaky, though, and can't quite decide whether what she just saw was real or not, and she simply doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't even want to think about it.
Because the dream felt real, too real, and that could mean that her papa really is dead, and at her mother's hand no less.
It would mean it's official. She has no chance of ever seeing him again.
She needs to get some air. She begins heading out of the crews quarters. Alex starts to follow her.
"Where are ye goin, ye're not on watch tonight."
"I am now. I'll relieve Jesse, I'm sure he won't mind, he'll get extra sleep out of it."
"Emily, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset ye more."
"Alex. Please, just, shut it and go back to sleep or something."
She doesn't turn to look at him. He stops following her.