"Lift Anchor" by Lokei (POTC)
It’s time. Old Captain, lift anchor, sink!
The land rots; we shall sail into the night;
If now the sky and sea are black as ink
Our hearts, as you must know, are filled with light.
Only when we drink poison are we well-
We want, this fire so burns our brain tissue,
To drown in the abyss-heaven or hell,
Who cares? Through the unknown, we’ll find the new.
So this was dying, Will thought, dimly aware of Elizabeth calling his name beyond the circumference of his sight. From where he lay, skewered on the point of his own handiwork, death tasted an awful lot like irony.
This is a beautiful sword. The words swam to mind and somewhere behind his sternum Will ached with bitter laughter. No doubt Norrington, wherever the sardonic bastard was now, would appreciate the irony. …I expect the man who made it to show the same care and devotion in every aspect of his life. Norrington would appreciate that irony too-Will, finally married to Elizabeth on the deck of a pirate ship by a twice-undead captain, and dead himself before he had time to enjoy it.
Except, of course, he was not dead yet, and inexplicably it looked as if he might not make it to the relentless, relieving darkness after all, because there was Jack, not doing the decent thing as he promised and stabbing the heart of Davy Jones, but instead cradling Will’s hand in his own, lending his rum-soaked strength to Will’s departing determination. And with frighteningly little pressure exerted after all, the blade sank suddenly in to the beating muscle beneath Will’s fingers.
Muddily, Will wondered if he really could have felt that slice in his own chest, another layer of irony burning as agonizingly as the breath through his speared lung.
The world was tilting on its axis, spinning crazily, and the laws of the natural order seemed entirely dismissed. Through graying vision Will watched Jack and Elizabeth seem to float up into the sky at the same time Jones fell into it the other direction, and though everything else on the ship seemed to be sliding sideways, the empty chest clung stolidly to the deck of the Dutchman, waiting for its new heart, and the blade in his father’s hand kept falling, falling.
There was a roaring, and a long moment of darkness.
When Will discovered his senses were-essentially-working again, he was sitting in the captain’s cabin on the Dutchman, propped up against the somewhat gruesome organ. The ship was clearly submerged-the light had that storm-tinted green to it which made even the healthiest jack tar look dead.
Speaking of which…
“Shouldn’t I be drowning at the moment?” Will managed to raise his eyebrows in a semblance of calm inquiry which he thought rather well carried off, given that he was far more concerned about the fact that he wasn’t feeling any pain from the gaping curved gash in his chest. The detail that he was breathing and speaking underwater was a minor one compared to doing battle with animated skeletons or dueling a man with the head of a shark.
The figure in front of him gave a gurgle of laughter. It was Calypso, of course, in something resembling her Tia Dalma aspect-the long dreadlocks were exchanged for ropes of softly flowing seaweed, and the black inked markings down her cheeks which had always reminded Will of tears were replaced by tiny shining black conch shells, which glinted like diamonds in the turbulence-tossed light.
“The sea protect you when you were a small child,” Calypso said in a voice like the surf, “and you think she will hurt you now? She always knows the ones who are hers.”
She lifted a long finger and brought something out of the folds of her garment, which looked more like a tattered sail than ever. She ran her finger down one red and heaving side and up the other, and Will shivered.
“I believe that’s mine,” he said, and was rewarded with another burble of liquid laughter.
“A touch of destiny, William Turner.” She cradled his heart in her hands like a baby and smiled. “You want to know me. The way it has always been.”
“I want to go back to Elizabeth,” Will said solidly. “It’s all I ever wanted.”
Calypso tilted her head to look at him and then shook it slowly. “She promise to be yours, this is the truth. But you make many promises-how many you keep if you let go of life, hm? Serve the sea as she wants, save your father, see your wife on land once every ten years, you keep those promises.”
As they sat in silent face off, the light through the stern windows was growing steadily clearer and Will could almost feel the tempest slowing above them as if it beat through his own veins.
He cocked his head as though by straining he might hear cannon shot or cracking timbers from all the way under the waves.
“What’s happening up there?”
Calypso shrugged, a ripple that started at her shoulders and traveled all the way through into the ship itself. “More souls getting ready to take the journey beyond the world’s end. Jack Sparrow has his ship, he wait on a promise. The man he wait for though, he not fond of keeping promises.”
That would be Cutler Beckett to whom she referred, presumably, not Will. He hoped so, anyway.
You forget your place, Turner.
It’s right here. Between you and Jack.
Will shook his head to clear it, annoyed that of all the voices he should hear on the edge of oblivion or eternal servitude, it should be Norrington’s which would tip the balance. Care and devotion in every aspect of his life…
He fixed his eyes on hers.
“If I say I will serve you, and guide the dead to the other side-I can help them?” He jerked his head towards the surface without breaking eye contact.
She nodded slowly, grin widening like the opening of a clam shell.
Will shut his eyes to hold tight the memory of another mouth pressed to his own what felt like eons before, but which was probably no more than a few heart-breaking minutes ago. Eyes still closed, he agreed grimly.
The next thing he felt was her cool hand, cooler than the water around him, pressing on his chest and warming it as the blood which had felt so sluggish pulsed and moved again in all his extremities. He still felt the chill of the water but found it did not cut at his lungs so much as before, and now breathed it easily as air. He opened his eyes and stood, and met her eyes once more in challenge.
She nodded, the kelp leaves of her hair waving in what seemed like approval, and Will nodded back gravely.
The authority of the gesture was somewhat marred, he thought, by the fact that his hair got stuck across his face-something would have to be done about that, and the kerchief Jack had pressed into his hand at the last moment would do.
By the time Will reached the quarterdeck he felt he looked the part, by the time he put his hand to the wheel he knew he could act the part, and by the time his ship shivered and shook and cleared itself of the refuse of years of heartache, he knew he was meant for the part.
Blood mixed with seawater underneath his skin, now, and his heart beat at the mercy of others’ keeping, while his life extended into the limitless hours beyond the world’s measure.
The Flying Dutchman came willingly to the wind, and her captain came to the sea.
The land rots; we shall sail into the night;
If now the sky and sea are black as ink
Our hearts, as you must know, are filled with light.
Only when we drink poison are we well-
We want, this fire so burns our brain tissue,
To drown in the abyss-heaven or hell,
Who cares? Through the unknown, we’ll find the new.
So this was dying, Will thought, dimly aware of Elizabeth calling his name beyond the circumference of his sight. From where he lay, skewered on the point of his own handiwork, death tasted an awful lot like irony.
This is a beautiful sword. The words swam to mind and somewhere behind his sternum Will ached with bitter laughter. No doubt Norrington, wherever the sardonic bastard was now, would appreciate the irony. …I expect the man who made it to show the same care and devotion in every aspect of his life. Norrington would appreciate that irony too-Will, finally married to Elizabeth on the deck of a pirate ship by a twice-undead captain, and dead himself before he had time to enjoy it.
Except, of course, he was not dead yet, and inexplicably it looked as if he might not make it to the relentless, relieving darkness after all, because there was Jack, not doing the decent thing as he promised and stabbing the heart of Davy Jones, but instead cradling Will’s hand in his own, lending his rum-soaked strength to Will’s departing determination. And with frighteningly little pressure exerted after all, the blade sank suddenly in to the beating muscle beneath Will’s fingers.
Muddily, Will wondered if he really could have felt that slice in his own chest, another layer of irony burning as agonizingly as the breath through his speared lung.
The world was tilting on its axis, spinning crazily, and the laws of the natural order seemed entirely dismissed. Through graying vision Will watched Jack and Elizabeth seem to float up into the sky at the same time Jones fell into it the other direction, and though everything else on the ship seemed to be sliding sideways, the empty chest clung stolidly to the deck of the Dutchman, waiting for its new heart, and the blade in his father’s hand kept falling, falling.
There was a roaring, and a long moment of darkness.
When Will discovered his senses were-essentially-working again, he was sitting in the captain’s cabin on the Dutchman, propped up against the somewhat gruesome organ. The ship was clearly submerged-the light had that storm-tinted green to it which made even the healthiest jack tar look dead.
Speaking of which…
“Shouldn’t I be drowning at the moment?” Will managed to raise his eyebrows in a semblance of calm inquiry which he thought rather well carried off, given that he was far more concerned about the fact that he wasn’t feeling any pain from the gaping curved gash in his chest. The detail that he was breathing and speaking underwater was a minor one compared to doing battle with animated skeletons or dueling a man with the head of a shark.
The figure in front of him gave a gurgle of laughter. It was Calypso, of course, in something resembling her Tia Dalma aspect-the long dreadlocks were exchanged for ropes of softly flowing seaweed, and the black inked markings down her cheeks which had always reminded Will of tears were replaced by tiny shining black conch shells, which glinted like diamonds in the turbulence-tossed light.
“The sea protect you when you were a small child,” Calypso said in a voice like the surf, “and you think she will hurt you now? She always knows the ones who are hers.”
She lifted a long finger and brought something out of the folds of her garment, which looked more like a tattered sail than ever. She ran her finger down one red and heaving side and up the other, and Will shivered.
“I believe that’s mine,” he said, and was rewarded with another burble of liquid laughter.
“A touch of destiny, William Turner.” She cradled his heart in her hands like a baby and smiled. “You want to know me. The way it has always been.”
“I want to go back to Elizabeth,” Will said solidly. “It’s all I ever wanted.”
Calypso tilted her head to look at him and then shook it slowly. “She promise to be yours, this is the truth. But you make many promises-how many you keep if you let go of life, hm? Serve the sea as she wants, save your father, see your wife on land once every ten years, you keep those promises.”
As they sat in silent face off, the light through the stern windows was growing steadily clearer and Will could almost feel the tempest slowing above them as if it beat through his own veins.
He cocked his head as though by straining he might hear cannon shot or cracking timbers from all the way under the waves.
“What’s happening up there?”
Calypso shrugged, a ripple that started at her shoulders and traveled all the way through into the ship itself. “More souls getting ready to take the journey beyond the world’s end. Jack Sparrow has his ship, he wait on a promise. The man he wait for though, he not fond of keeping promises.”
That would be Cutler Beckett to whom she referred, presumably, not Will. He hoped so, anyway.
You forget your place, Turner.
It’s right here. Between you and Jack.
Will shook his head to clear it, annoyed that of all the voices he should hear on the edge of oblivion or eternal servitude, it should be Norrington’s which would tip the balance. Care and devotion in every aspect of his life…
He fixed his eyes on hers.
“If I say I will serve you, and guide the dead to the other side-I can help them?” He jerked his head towards the surface without breaking eye contact.
She nodded slowly, grin widening like the opening of a clam shell.
Will shut his eyes to hold tight the memory of another mouth pressed to his own what felt like eons before, but which was probably no more than a few heart-breaking minutes ago. Eyes still closed, he agreed grimly.
The next thing he felt was her cool hand, cooler than the water around him, pressing on his chest and warming it as the blood which had felt so sluggish pulsed and moved again in all his extremities. He still felt the chill of the water but found it did not cut at his lungs so much as before, and now breathed it easily as air. He opened his eyes and stood, and met her eyes once more in challenge.
She nodded, the kelp leaves of her hair waving in what seemed like approval, and Will nodded back gravely.
The authority of the gesture was somewhat marred, he thought, by the fact that his hair got stuck across his face-something would have to be done about that, and the kerchief Jack had pressed into his hand at the last moment would do.
By the time Will reached the quarterdeck he felt he looked the part, by the time he put his hand to the wheel he knew he could act the part, and by the time his ship shivered and shook and cleared itself of the refuse of years of heartache, he knew he was meant for the part.
Blood mixed with seawater underneath his skin, now, and his heart beat at the mercy of others’ keeping, while his life extended into the limitless hours beyond the world’s measure.
The Flying Dutchman came willingly to the wind, and her captain came to the sea.