(Untitled)

[bringmethatnpc]

Night has fallen, and the Black Pearl cuts through the still and glass-like waters of world's end with hardly a sound. There must be a small wind, their forward progress is proof enough of that, but the air feels stagnant and oppressive, weighing them down with the knowledge that they don't belong in this weird and haunted place

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[touch_destiny]

The look in her eyes has frozen braver men than these two; could send fish flickering away in a panic, could chill the steady wind that pushes the Pearl along her mirrored waters.

When she speaks, her voice is unsteady and sharp, her words addressed not to the two pirates but to the fading figures below. She seems preoccupied, restless. Her fingers tighten on the rail.

"They should be in the care of Davy Jones!" Her face is etched in lines of frustration and misery. Behind her, the pirates take a few shuffling, cautious steps, curious to see what she sees but uncertain as to whether or not she'll lash out once more.

She does not. In fact, they have to move a little closer to clearly hear her next words, low and unhappy as her voice is.

"That was the duty him was charged with, by the goddess Calypso: to ferry those who die at sea to the other side."

They cannot see her expression, her back turned as it is, and both men startle when she turns to them, her eyes bright and fierce, her dark lips hovering at the edge of a smile, a sad, fond expression. A hand grasps at something hanging from her neck and hides it from their view, that same strange smile luminous even in the mist and the dark.

"And every ten years..." It's nearly a sigh, calming the harsh words of before, her eyes now not glittering but simply bright. "Him could come ashore. To be with she who love him truly."

The men are spellbound. She has never spoken in such a manner, never seemed more like a woman than a witch. For the first time, even as her face hardens and her hand drops from the locket it had caressed, she seems wild and beautiful and loving.

But her face does harden, her hand does drop, and when she continues her story, it is with an added edge of bitterness and malice, and she turns away from the pirates, sets them adrift from the spell she'd woven so gently.

"But the man has become a monster."

[bringmethatnpc]

Pintel is surprised into speechlessness. She's always scared him, but the emotion in her voice tugs at the heartstrings like nothing else, all of a sudden. Makes a lad wonder at the world, somehow.

He suppresses a quiet sniffle, and keeps quiet in case she wanted to say more. Get it off her chest, like.

[parley_pirate]

Ragetti, meanwhile, is frowning slightly at nothing and silently moving his lips. He's trying without much success to reconcile the two pictures of Davy Jones in love and Davy Jones the octopus-bearded, crab-clawed creature who'd taken Captain Jack.

"So... he wasn't always..."

An appropriate descriptor evades him; perhaps this needs illustration. Ragetti puts his hand on his chin and wriggles his fingers... in the most respectful manner, of course.

"...tentacle-ey?"

[touch_destiny]

"No."

The smile she turns on them is sweet and wild and sad, her eyes far away, and her voice flows by like the hush of the water against their hull. One hand lifts to her throat, caresses a little silver gleam there. Her fingertips run over crab claws delicately wrought, over the shape of a heart that lies cold so close to her own.

"Him was a man once."

[bringmethatnpc]

Pintel doesn't know what to say.

This isn't unusual, but the kind where scary ladies talk about old loves, and one of them being Davy Jones, he decides, is the special speechlessness. He endges closer to the rail again with Ragetti, when he judges it safe, staring at the dark water below.

[parley_pirate]

Really, Tia Dalma's story has made the pressing dark of night-time just that bit more spooky. The air feels warm to Ragetti, but it's the stifled warmth of some kind of underground tomb, only so because the heat can't escape to the living world.

He shudders slightly. This whole Davy Jones thing is, he reflects, making him unseasonably morbid.

Suspended in the dark and the fog, so that it was impossible to judge size or distance, he spots something. A lighthouse?

Then another. And another and another and another. And finally, the long low forms behind them, indistinct. "Now there's boats coming!"

[pirate_gibbs]

There are many boats. Each no bigger than the average rowboat. A single, lantern provides the only light in the gloom. And each carries someone.

Is it an attack? Something else trying to keep them from leaving? Gibbs rams a shot into place in a handy musket, ready for anything.

[turned_captain]

Will is quick behind Gibbs, and as soonas he sees what the old sailor is doing, he shoots a hand out to still the action.

"They’re not a threat to us," he says with certainty that turns to uncertainty as he realises he doesn't know where the knowledge came from.

He glances to Tia Dalma. "Am I right?"

[touch_destiny]

She nods, slow, watching the progression of ghostly faces and candles, and in the flickering light, her eyes are sad but peaceful.

"We are nothing but ghosts to them."

[bushel_o_apples]

Barbossa nods. He didn't make this one journey, because thanks to Jack's one shot he didn't die at sea, but all the same he knows a little bit more about this whole business than most others.

"It's best just to let 'em be."