Emily shakes her head, unable to respond, unable to think past Riley and the words 'could barely walk'. Spinning around, hands shaking, she darts below decks and heads straight for her cabin as her heart sinks down to where her stomach should be.
The door to her cabin swings open while she's still several paces away. She stops short when she finally reaches the doorway, startled; she hadn't used her magic. Treading with a bit more caution now, she steps forward and peers into the room. The sun is shining, the bizarre squall from earlier having blown clear over. Her desk is what catches her attention first; it's set up with several unlit candles, Jo's spell book, a bowl of some sort of dried herbs that Emily never bothered to ask about, and the Chest. Beneath it all a sheet is spread out, painted with symbols and letters of some language now forgotten by all but those who can do what she and Jo can.
Riley. She curses herself for the way her focus keeps wavering.
Is that humming? She'd know that voice anywhere.
Turning slowly, her eyes finally fall on the most urgent of her many pressing problems. He's laid out in her bed, sleeping it looks like. Quite peaceful, which doesn't fit with Alex's earlier comment at all. Emily's not surprised, though, or so much worried anymore. Her eyes land on the source of the soft humming and narrow. No, now she's just really, very annoyed. So annoyed, it borders on outright anger, and she has to take several deep breaths to keep from saying whatever first comes to mind.
Calypso doesn't even glance in Emily's direction. She continues to hum softly, one hand running through Riley's ginger waves, gentle and soothing.
Forcing herself to relax, Emily takes a few more tentative steps forward. "My goddess." Nothing. The humming continues. "Is – is he…" Emily trails off. She can't get the word out.
"Dead?" Her goddess finishes for her, softly, still not looking at her. "It was a very close ting, indeed. But no. Him alive and well."
Emily lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Alive. He's alive, he's alive, he's alive. The rest is just trifles in comparison to that single revelation. "Alex said he could barely walk, was talking nonsense."
"Dere was dat risk, wakin him up before him was through wit his task."
The anger comes back, full force. "You…you 'woke him up', you…I thought I did something wrong, with the spell!"
Her goddess does look to her now, sharply. "Oh no, dat yeh did beautifully."
"But why? Why not just leave him then, he would've been fine that way!"
"Do yeh know dat?" Her goddess fires back, quick and sharp. "De boy might've been caught either way. Under de spell him would have walked right off to his death! Did yeh not know how de spell worked, hm?"
Walked right off to his death? No, Emily had not known that. But Ana had warned her this was darker magic than any of them were used to. She dips into a grudging curtsy. "Thank you, my goddess."
Calypso turns back to Riley. "De damage to de mind I can fix. Him will need rest."
"My goddess." The anger is still there. Fists clenching, Emily shoots forward a few more steps, near hovering over her goddess. A familiar pressure is trying to build in her gut, and it's all she can do to hold it back. "Giving me this terrible power and then keeping it from me, and the visions… I found a third option and you interfered again!"
Her goddess shoots her a warning look. "I saved de boy from your mistake!"
"I don't care!" Emily explodes back. "I mean…that's not the point! Is – is no decision mine alone to make anymore?"
"No." Her goddess replies, simple and calm. "Dat was always de way it would come to be, young one. De fates, dey can sometimes be persuaded to change de course of a life. But not yours. Born of an immortal. Yeh are too important for dat."
The power threatening to build inside Emily spills over, the pressure building at a pace far more rapid than she's used to. The world around her begins to shake. The windows begin to rattle, the ritual materials set up on her desk begin to hover just above it precariously. "Get. Out." She says, low and quiet, demanding.
Her goddess shoots to her feet, expression thunderous. For a moment, it almost seems as though she's ready to flick her wrist and send another bolt of lightning crashing down right into Emily's cabin to finish the job the first one didn't quite accomplish. Emily stands her ground, fists clenched, half daring the goddess to do her worst. She almost wants to see just what will happen.
Her goddess shakes her head though, and backs off slowly. "Der will be plenty of chances for yeh to test de waters with yehr power." She holds out a hand, palm up, and in it appears and large key. "I am not yehr enemy, young one."
Emily snatches it up to clutch it in a hand shaking with barely controlled rage. "I'm not sure of what you are any longer."
"Yeh'll come to me again." Her goddess replies, smooth and once again calm. "But until den yeh'll not hear another word from me."
"Cap'n!" Jo's voice interrupts, footsteps echoing down the corridor.
Emily glances back at her doorway, and when she turns back, her goddess is gone.
Will grips the oars so tight his knuckles are white by the time he's halfway to his destination. He can just make out a lone figure pacing the beach of the tiny island, and nothing about all of this is sitting right with him. Emily had been having a reoccurring vision, for months she'd said, about this battle she was supposed to have with her mother. It wasn't supposed to turn out well. Emily seems to think she's fixed that, mainly by adding the Connelly boy into the mix, but even if she did… Alex hadn't been exaggerating. Connelly had been badly limping and babbling utter nonsense by the time he popped back into existence on deck of the Queen.
Pirate. It's his daughters voice he hears, only somehow with the same tone Jack had used when he and Will had fought in the shop at Port Royale, so long ago. Will understands. This is the way of things. He'd ruined things so totally that he'd ended up quite dead and without him Emily – she'd had no one. Except for Jade. But really, it wouldn't have been fair for anyone to expect Emily to listen to her. In fact, Will wouldn't be surprised if Emily ran off just to spite Jade, and after that it was just surviving until suddenly she was on top, with her own ship and everything, and what else would he have expected of her after that other than what she'd done? Take what you can, give nothing back. Pirate. It's in her blood.
Sure, he understands perfectly. He just doesn't have to like it.
He reaches land, gets out to settle the long boat half out of the water, although some cynical part of him wants to believe this is pointless. He can't possibly be lucky enough for any of this to work out the way his daughter is so hoping it will. A by now well-developed habit has him reaching for the flask usually tucked into his vest…but then he remembers. Sparrow had tossed all the rum before they'd left Shipwreck. Pirates in that boys blood too, but he isn't acting much like it of late, there's a remarkable irony in that…
Will's flask is quite empty by now, needless to say, but maybe that's for the best anyway.
A little ways off, the strange figure pacing the sandy shore turns in his direction and freezes. He can feel her glare all the way from where he's standing. Taking a steadying breath, he begins trudging towards her.
Jo glances uncertainly in Riley's direction, looking like she almost wants to dart to his side. "Is – is he…"
"Leave him." Emily says, tone clipped as she comes to stand before her desk, moving the chest so it sits on the chair next to her. She can feel the look Jo gives her, the hesitant scowl-grimace that silently asks 'what is the matter with you?', and locks eyes with the older woman. "He'll be fine, Jo." All business, none of the feigned over-confidence she's been keeping up. She looks back down at the chest. "Please."
She can feel the power inside her, still building slowly. She can't stop it once it starts. It has to have somewhere to go. The sheer will power she's expanding in holding it back is… beyond what she'd have known herself to be quite capable of, in honesty. She forces herself to keep it up, hold it back, let it build…she has a feeling she really will need it all here.
There's a brief moment of silence, and then Jo crosses the room to stand beside her, taking her spell book off the desk and sending a wary glance at the Chest. "Go on, then."
Emily brings up one hand, shaking now with the effort of holding back, and inserts the key.
He blinks and she's just before him. A nasty set of serpents atop her head – a new addition, and here he'd thought she couldn't possibly fall any farther – writhe and hiss, bearing long fangs and darting out to snap at him. He stumbles a step back, a little startled.
"If I'd known you'd be as difficult as Jack," she spits, stalking after him, "I would've kept you on the ship with me."
He nearly trips as he runs into the long boat, unable to move back any farther. "Nice to see you too, my love." He replies steadily, even manages to inject some sarcasm.
She only sneers.
It's really there. Not that Emily had doubted it, per se. But some things just can't quite be comprehended in full until they are seen with one's own eyes. Her mother's heart, tucked away in a chest and still beating strong…is one of those things.
Jo glances in her direction again, eyebrows raised. "We need it there." She points to a place in the middle of Emily's desk, a blank space on the sheet surrounded by the symbols.
Emily's sure she's pulling an awful face by now, but she can't help it, even though she is just as fascinated as repulsed. She reaches out, hesitates, her hand hovering just inches away from the slimy, beating organ. Think of papa, think of papa, there's no time to lose… She forces her hand to close the distance and clasp the thing gently. Head tilting in a morbid curiosity, she brings it up and watches, feels it as it beats in her hand.
Jo's eyes fix on it, and she goes a touch green about the gills, looking away again quickly. "Right then."
Emily sets the heart on her desk, just where Jo said, and wipes her hand on the sheet, just managing to hold back a shiver of disgust. "Alright. What's next?"
"I wonder, how does it feel? Sold so easily by your own daughter." Captain Swan mocks him as he inches to the side, attempting to skirt around the long boat.
"I suppose that depends. What is it you think she sold me for?" There's a pause at this. "Or didn't she tell you?"
"I didn't care." The captain hisses. "No price would have been too high."
"Oh?" Will just manages to skirt around the boat now, darts over to stand behind it just so as to have room to breathe. "Not even if the price was your heart, all locked up tight in that chest? That was the price, wasn't it?"
He can't gauge her mood; she looks impatient, annoyed, but also wary and perhaps curious. It's strange how those eyes can still convey such emotion. "Yes. But it will only do her so much good, being that it is locked up tight. What are you getting at?"
"Is it, though? Locked up tight?"
Jo shuts the window and lets the drapes down over it, plunging the room into relative darkness. Emily lights the candles, one by one, and pours what's left in the pouch Ana gave her into the bowl – the herbs she hadn't asked about. She almost does now, but figures it's probably not that important.
Jo lays the book out on the last bit of empty space on the desk and takes one of the candles, holding it out to light what's in the bowl on fire. "Remember, we can't do this in a rush. If it's to work, we must get the words just right. Ready?"
Emily nods once. Jo sets the bowls contents to burning.
"Of course it is, I've got the key!" Captain Swan's had enough, it seems, because she's moving forward again, using her strange gifts to walk right through the boat , and that's just – dramatic and unnecessary, annoyingly so. His own thoughts are beginning to mimic his daughters sass. Except her sass often, lately, seems to mimic Jack's for some reason, so really, Will can't even tell what's what any more.
He doesn't bother trying to get away this time. There's nothing for it now. Either Emily comes through within the next brief moments, or – well, he finds the 'or' a little too much to contemplate just at the moment. Emily will come through.
Won't she?
"Σπασμένο σε δύο, ένα πνεύμα σε ερείπια. Ομορφιά τόσο αλλοιωμένο, μια καρδιά σκληρή σαν πέτρα. Ειλικρινής αγάπη για να καθορίσει ποια τίποτα άλλο δοχείο. Φέρτε το φως στην επιφάνεια και να κάνει πάλι το δύο ολόκληρες."
Over and over the words leave their lips as the bowl of whatever-it-is burns and the smoke fills the room. Eyes closed, Emily can feel her power building further inside her, but a small voice whispers for her to hold on just a little longer. She doesn't know why she listens, but she does.
Something strange is happening. Although, that's kind of pointless to think, strange is the norm for her. But this is even more unusual than her usual bounds of what's unusual. She feels as though she's floating. Not bodily, floating – outside her body? This is not a feeling she's ever come close to experiencing before, she couldn't describe it if she tried. She just feels somehow far removed from everything. She can see herself now, and Jo, lips still moving so precisely. Her body seems to be doing what it needs to without her actually inside it. What?
She isn't left with too long to contemplate it all. It's like she's having a vision – a very hazy vision whilst three sheets to the wind. She just catches little glimpses, hears bits and pieces of conversations, but past ones. She remembers what she's seeing. It's all out of order. She sees herself as a little girl, giving Alex a kiss on the cheek after he presents her with a birthday present. A little older, with her baby brother in her lap, really a baby, cooing happily as she bounces him gently like papa showed her. Younger again, the first time she came face to face with her goddess while imprisoned on the Revenge. Older still this time, having a last fight with her papa as he makes to leave her for the last time.
She starts to see darker moments after this. The moment she stepped out of the place she once called home, leaving her brother behind. Talking to Adrienne. Fighting with Adrienne, Emily's hand inching towards the pistol at her waist. Aiming that same pistol at Adrienne, giving her the choice to be shot or be fish food, and meaning it more than she admitted to herself at the time. Then there are several glimpses leading up to her very much betraying Anamaria, although it was an ultimately forgiven betrayal. It's all her worst moments, leading up to…
Shooting Peter Montgomery.
And Riley. Poor, naïve, trusting Riley. Good Riley. This is the longest moment she's shown. She watches herself charm him, all sweet smiles and smooth talk, and the kiss.
Pirate, the whispering voice from earlier is back, but it's a little harsher, accusing. Selfish. Manipulative.
She's sent swimming through several more memories. Good ones. Singing to Joshy for the first time. Joshy catching her and Alex together; kicking Alex out and having Joshy stay, even singing to him. Saving her father, traipsing through the desolate wasteland that was the Locker at the End of the world, determined even though it looked like all hope was lost. And then it's forgiving her brother even after he told their papa things that were Emily's business to tell.
Pirate. The voice decides again. There's a sliver of ice in this one's heart. But I can still work with these two. I see what needs doing. Brace yourselves, tiny ones. This may not be pleasant.
Emily tries to, but isn't given much time to even think on it. Just like that, she is thrown back into her own body. Quite literally, it feels like. It's so jarring to suddenly be back in perfect control of herself that she, well, loses control. The power spills out in a blinding flash of bluish light, forceful enough that Emily and Jo are thrown back towards the window, and all goes dark…
The serpents are hissing again, darting out too quick to be avoided. One catches Will's arm as he brings it up to shield his face, and he cries out in pain. Captain Swan cackles, a truly terrifying sound where once her laughter made his heart soar. He hears a sword being drawn and thinks about drawing his own, but she can't be hurt, so he can't beat her. All he can do is…is…
But wait, she's stopped. She's stopped?
He's still got his arms up to shield his face, but he thinks, maybe, he hears a sword land in the sand with a muffled 'thump'. He lowers his arms, slowly, wary. She's backed up, is several paces away now. The sword is indeed lying forgotten in the sand. She's staring down at her hands, eyes wide with something like horror.
"Elizabeth?" He asks, soft and tentative.
She looks startled. Her eyes dart up to gaze at him, growing wider if that's possible. "Wi-Will." She breathes. She steps forward, her movements sudden, arms twitching in such a way it almost looks as if she means to embrace him. He flinches involuntarily, and she restrains herself, beginning to wring her hands instead. "Will." She repeats. "Something's changed, I don't…"
He approaches her, his movements slow and cautious. He meets her eyes, searching. They are wide and frightened and confused, but there's no hostility there. In fact, he thinks he sees… "It worked." He murmurs, incredulous.
"Worked? What worked?" She asks, shaky.
"This spell." He tries to find a way to explain. He should've thought this through beforehand. "Emily has this strange sort of power she can use, and there was a spell in a book…" She looks, physically, like the monster that made him tie his own noose, but her movements, the look in her eyes, everything else screams his Elizabeth. He reaches out on impulse and takes her hands in his own. "Elizabeth. There isn't time to…I don't know how long this will last."
She looks down at his hands clasping her own, and then back up to him as her eyes harden a bit and he catches a glimpse of the hissing gorgon in them, telling him he's right to worry. "I have her."
He doesn't have to ask to know who she's talking about. "I know."
"She introduced herself as Missus Jade Turner."
Will has no idea what would have possessed Jade to do that. It can't have done much to improve Captain Swan's mood at the time. Then again, Jade could be just as feisty and defiant as the rest of the women in his life when she wanted to be, so perhaps there was no solid logic behind it. "That was a lie. Not that that changes much, I expect."
A pause. Elizabeth regards him with uncertainty. "You didn't marry her?"
"No. She asked me to." Maybe if he can get just the right words out here… "But I couldn't."
Elizabeth's confused now, it's written all over her face. Quite a feat considering the only thing human about her is the fact she's walking on two legs. "Couldn't?"
"You asked me once, if I loved her." He goes on, softer.
"You said you didn't know."
"I didn't, at the time, but I had it figured the moment I laid eyes on her again. I cared for her. She gave me a son."
He doesn't realize he's still holding her hands until she pulls them away and he's catching another glimpse of the monster pacing within her. "I know. I met the boy, too. I pitied him. Left all alone." She softens again, quick and abrupt. "He was ready to die in his mother's stead."
"She's a remarkable woman, in her way." He meets Elizabeth's eyes again, catching her gaze deliberately. "But I didn't love her."
Elizabeth looks away, a hand coming up to clutch at her head. "That changes nothing." She spits, harsh, but softens again in an instant. "That was so long ago."
"Nothing's changed since then."
"Then why?" She looks back up to him again, seeming desperate. "Can you tell me why you… why you took to her as you did?"
He shakes his head. He's asked himself that too many times to count. "I would, if I knew myself. I could give you excuses, Elizabeth, but none of them would be good enough."
"Then why are we here? You must have thought you could repair, repair me, repair us, just…fix it."
"Emily, she's smart that girl. Cleverer than me, more often the not. She gets these visions. I think it's something she saw in them, I don't know. But she believed you weren't lost in full. She's also the one who believed that this - that we – could be fixed." He takes her hands again. "I said no, at first. But then I got to thinking. About you, remembering when things were – do you remember, when we were children, that game you'd have us playing down by the beach when you'd sneak away?"
A smile spreads her lips, revealing horridly jagged teeth in reality, but he can just imagine seeing that smile on a pretty, tanned, human face again. "Pirates." She laughs. "With sticks for swords."
"If I recall correctly, you were the pirate. I was always meant to be the Navy."
"Father let me read too much. All those books full of adventures, I wanted nothing more than to have one myself."
He chuckles himself now. "You'd get tripped up by your skirts in the sand and end up all wet. I was always terrified someone would come after me for it, that was adventure enough at the time!"
"Oh, you had fun too, otherwise why on Earth would you have come with me?"
He grows serious again, brings a hand up slowly to cup her cheek. "Because it was worth it to see your smile, hear you laugh. You were always worth any risk. Just like finding you again was worth the risk this time. I'm not saying it will be easy. I'm sorry if I'm too late now, but I had to try. I had to know if this could work, even knowing what would happen if it didn't."
He thinks, maybe, there's a tear sliding down her scaled cheek now. She opens her mouth, but no words come out, and she pulls away, stumbles back. The serpents atop her head begin hissing, writhing in what could be pain. She clutches at her head, fingers threaded between them. "No! Go away, go away!" She cries, but Will doesn't get the impression she's talking to him. His heart wrenches as she cries out, and he shoots forward – to do what, he's not certain – but she lashes out as he gets close, throwing him back with the same unnerving amount of strength that their daughter is known to possess. He stumbles, falls back into the sand, and just watches in wide eyed wonder and something not unlike horror as Elizabeth begins to…well, there's two of her. The monstrous snake woman, and his Elizabeth with her beautiful golden locks and sun kissed skin. Both are posed as she had been a moment ago, clutching their heads, doubled over in pain. A painful bright flash of bluish light assaults his senses, and he turns away so as not to be blinded.
The light recedes, and then – nothing. Silence.
Will turns back to Elizabeth. The separate figures have become one again; her slight figure is laid out in the sand. The snakes are gone. Long, golden brown waves replace them, draped over her shoulder and across the sand like a shimmering waterfall. She's a rather strange sight otherwise. The scales have begun to fall away of their own accord, but there are still patches remaining on her skin. The strange fins on her arms are gone. The webs on her hands are tattered, look ready to fall away as well. But the barnacles and other assorted creatures adorning her clothes have also fallen away, and she looks much less a fright than she had.
He climbs to his feet, makes his way over to her slowly, crouches next to her. Gently brushes her soft waves away from her face. "Elizabeth." He murmurs.
Her eyes flutter open and trail up to meet his. He helps her sit, and the remaining scales adorning her skin are shed as she moves. Before he can say or do anything else, her arms are around him, and she's sobbing into his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her hair and tries to grasp onto the fact that this is real. Not a dream. He's had those, dreams of how his would go. He really hopes this isn't one. "What did I say?" He murmurs softly into her ear. "I'm not sure I know."
She laughs, half hysterical, pulling back to look at him. "You just…you sound like my husband again. My Will."
He cups her cheek again – her skin is pale, but soft – and before he can think about what he's doing his lips are covering hers, and for the first time in what feels a lifetime…the world feels right again.
The chant is in Greek (thank you, Google), because it looks different enough to me. I'm thinking their probably speaking the most ancient form of that, or any language from that-ridiculously-long-ago in ancient history. The point is, their using a language that should be dead or thoroughly unknown to them.
The translation: I'm not a poet, by any stretch of the imagination, but I did try.
Broken in two, a spirit in ruins. Beauty so tainted, a heart hard like stone. Honest love to fix what nothing else can. Bring light to the surface and make the two whole again.
And with that, we have Elizabeth back! I just hope I didn't disappoint with the finale to this arch. Reviews? Thanks for reading. :)