Fic: The Fate of the Dead
Hello Hello!! I think I've become just a little addicted to writing Tia Dalma :) So, here's another fic staring our beautiful goddess. Pre Curse of the Black Pearl (I'm on a prequel kick, I don't know why)
Title: The Fate of the Dead
Author: Dragon_fall
Word Count: 1777
Pairing: Tia Dalma/Barbossa
Rating: A lowly PG. No porn... yet
Summary: Something was coming, something that quieted the living.
Something cursed.
A/N: Did anyone else wonder how Tia Dalma got Barbossa when the island was supposed to have sunk?
The swamp was still, unnaturally so. The loud buzz of insects through thick underbrush was muted, the fireflies that normally dotted the darkness absent. Tia Dalma stood outside her shack, staring downriver. The houses scattered close to the water were dark, lights doused and shutters closed, all but invisible in the night. Hers was the only patch of brightness in the swamp, perhaps the whole island. The very air was robbed of its heat, cold and icy though it was the middle of summer. All the signs pointed to one thing: something was coming. Something that quieted the living.
Something damned.
Tia Dalma inhaled sharply when she saw it. Two longboats crawling upon the muddy waters, a heavy fog rolling in beside them turned the night to pitch. The boats moved sure and silent, avoiding hidden sandbars and rocks alike as if they'd traveled the waters a hundred times. Shapes labored with the oars, shapes of men, or what had once been men. They rotted before her eyes, only to return to life once more and rot again. A strong curse, that. Something no mortal man or woman could have wrought.
One rough outline separated itself from the others, solidified into a tall man standing sure-footed at the prow. His eyes flickered among the trees, searching for others and no doubt expecting ambush. But unless his eyes were as sharp as a cat’s, she was the only person he could see. No doubt the person he’d come looking for.
“Ya can turn ‘round and head back ta da sea. I can’ help ya,” she said as the longboat touched her dock. This close the feeling of wrongness poured off them, made her wish to take a step back. The fog crept onto the warped wooden boards, curled around her ankles and obscured the swamp until it seemed her small home was the only thing in the surrounding grey. “Ya be cursed," she told them. "An’ I can’ lift it.”
The man standing stepped onto her dock. “Ya be Tia Dalma, then?”
“Aye, I be Tia Dalma.” She straightened, not liking the fact that he was taller than she. “An’ I said, I can’ help ya wit’ what ya done brung on ya head.”
Yellow-blotched eyes roved over her, desperation flashing in their depths. Worn hands clutched at the leather of his belt. He cocked his head quizically at her tone. “Can’t or wont?”
“Can’, won’ dey one an de same.”
Grey eyes clouded in anger. He wasn’t used to being denied what he wanted, that much was certain. The anger sharpened. “Then perhaps there’s something else you can help us with, then? Somethin’ of a more...personal nature.” A long-nailed hand traced roughly along her jaw as laughter drifted up from the boats, chuckles of male amusement. The threat was clear in his voice. Either she’d help him get what he wanted, or she would pay for it.
Tia Dalma lifted a hand and let it hover above the man’s chest. Her fingers closed swiftly and he shuddered, breath coming in raw gasps. She walked forward and he was pushed back, stumbling until he was standing on the edge of her dock. A cry went up from one of the men still in the longboat, but a single glance silenced them. They thought themselves invincible, impervious to pain and cold, for what could the dead feel? She would teach them that there were worse things than living death.
“Ya come here fa help, an’ den insult the one s’posed ta help ya.” Her hand closed into a fist, and his eyes bulged. She could feel his heart beneath her hand as if she held it, squeezing what little life there was. A pistol cocked and clicked, the powder dead. It was followed swiftly by others. No doubt they were staring at guns and checking for moisture, but her eyes were for the man in front of her alone. “Dere be no help fa ya here, Hector Barbossa. Dere be no help for ya nowhere.” She grinned. “’Less ya wan’ me ta ease ya pain. Give ya peace.” Her fingers closed tighter.
“Jack.”
The word was wheezed, near inaudible. She removed her hand, and he took several deep, steady breaths.
“Jack Sparrow?” She searched the boats for a man she knew wasn’t there.
“He’s just as cursed as we are.” Barobssa tossed his head. “He’s on the Pearl, if ya’d like ta catch up.”
Tia Dalma frowned. She hadn’t seen Jack Sparrow in two years, not since he came to her with the mark of Davy Jones on his soul, begging her to help him get free of it. But there was no way to release him from his promise, not as she was. Her Jack, her wild, free boy, had trapped himself in a cage without bars. She'd tried to read the lines of his fate, but they were twisted, snarled in a tangle she had yet to straighten. “I’ve no wish ta see Jack Sparrow.”
“And no wish to help him fight free of a curse he doesn’t deserve?” Barbossa moved closer to her, wary now. “For gold coins we’ve been made into something worse than dead. For gold, madam. A bit a shine and flash. No man deserves that.”
Tia Dalma narrowed her eyes. The man was lying, she knew it, she could feel it, but couldn’t place it. The dead were harder to read than the living, and for one dead but not, it was near impossible. “I warned him o’ de treasure. Tol’ him find adventure elsewhere.” But he hadn’t listened. He never listened. And now he might share their fate.
She lifted her hand again and let it rest on his chest. The thread of his life was thin; a strand of spider’s silk, almost as twisted as Jack’s had been.
Jack.
The voudoon stepped away from Barbossa. She’d felt it, just as she had with her lost Sparrow. Barbossa was another key to her freedom, an even larger one. If Jack was a simple lock, this man was a dead bolt. If she wanted to be free again, there was nothing to do but to help him. “For what ya wan’ I demand payment.” She kept her voice cold, drained the excitement away until it was flat and dead. “Ya come inside, Barbossa. Just you. Ya men can stay here.”
She turned with a rustle of tattered skirts and climbed up the ladder to her shack.
“I suspect this won’t be nearly as pleasant as your words implied.” His footfalls echoed in the small room. He didn’t examine her pets the way most did. He ignored them entirely. “Jack didn’t tell me there’d be a price.”
“Dere be price to everyt’ing.” She lifted a knife carved from rough amber from her table. “Ya should know dat by now.”
The pirate smiled broadly, though his hand remained on his sword hilt. “It’s been years since a beautiful woman came at me with a knife." He laughes shortly. "I can only hope your intentions be more honorable than hers.” His words held an edge to them, unsure of her intentions. He’d underestimated her once, it was clear he had no plans of doing so again.
Tia Dalma ignored his teasing words. “Da payment be yer help, Hector Barbossa.” She fingered the knife. “Ya swear dat when I need ya, ya come. Even if dat mean pullin’ ya from de grave.”
His smile shrank as she spoke. “Perhaps you’ve mistaken me.” Some of the menace crept back into his tone. “I’m not a dog. I don’t run when I’m called. I might be inclined to sail elsewhere. ”
“Ya will come.” Her voice was hard and cold. “Ya will, or ya can sail on da waters ‘til time burns an’ da stars fail. Da choice be yours.”
He made a show of thinking it over. “Agreed,” he finally muttered.
Tia Dalma swayed towards him. “How long has it been, Barbossa?” She was standing in front of him now. “Since ya felt a woman?” the words were soft, purred. She held his eyes as she lifted one of his hands, ran delicate fingertips down the palm. “Even dis, ya can’ feel.”
His eyes were locked on hers, his breath shallow. “Too long,” he whispered. He wanted her, she knew that, but the curse would prevent him from satisfying that want. She gave him a slow, sweet smile.
And sliced through his palm.
“What-?” Barbossa tried to jerk his hand away, but she held him fast. She lifted one of the bottles hanging at her neck and held it to the wound, collecting the red fluid.
“If it was blood ya wanted, all ya needed do was ask.” The words were dangerously close to a grumble. “I’m not fond of people cutting into me when it suits them.”
When the bottle was half-filled she let his hand go and lifted her hands to his shoulder. Another flick of the knife, and she had a tuft of hair. She deposited the strands in the bottle and corked it.
“Satisfied?” The man wrapped a piece of cloth around his hand, though there was really no need. The wound had already stopped bleeding. Within the hour it would be closed entirely. There wouldn’t even be a scar to remind him of what happened.
“Dere be only one way ta lift de curse on ya heads,” Tia Dalma started as she walked further into her shack. “Blood was de price Cortez demanded of de Aztecs, and blood’s de price de gods’ demand a you.” She pulled at the strings of a hanging black pouch covered in red stitching. “Blood fer blood until de debt be repaid, and de coins returned.” She handed him the knife. “Fer each man took coin from de chest, him blood must be spilt. Each a ya crew had a hand disturbin’ its rest must do dis, or ya be cursed fa all time.”
Barbossa looked uncomfortable. “And what if somethin’s happened to one of my crew? Lost to the depths. Anything to be done then?”
“Him blood still be needed, but not from him veins.” She flicked a hand. “Any of him people will do. A child blood be best.” She opened the pouch and upturned it.
Heavy gold fell into her palm.
It had appeared on her doorstep one morning; a single piece of gold flashing in the sun. Jonas spoke of a wizened man wadding upriver before sunrise and tossing it there before wadding back, muttering to himself. The skull embossed coin vibrated with power, made her hand run hot and cold by turns. Barbossa’s eyes were riveted to it. “Ya been searchin’ fa months, no rest, tryin’ to find what dogged ya heels, made ya run.” She lifted her hand higher. “De coin, it call to ya. Listen, and ya can follow de trails to de ends of de earth.”
Barbossa plucked up the coin and turned it before his eyes several times.
“Dat be one. Ya have 881 pieces ta go for ya be free.”
His eyes returned to hers. "Those coins be scattered to hell and gone by now."
"Then ta hell you will search, or neva' be free."
He gripped the coin hard and turned, stomping towards her door.
“Don’t be forgettin’ our bargain,” Tia Dalma called after him. “Ya can be sure I won’.”
_______________________________________________________
Thank you for reading! As always, if you see mistakes, please let me know (I have no beta :|) I love hearing from people, so let me know what you thought, even if it's just to say hi. Unrepentant review whore, here :)
Title: The Fate of the Dead
Author: Dragon_fall
Word Count: 1777
Pairing: Tia Dalma/Barbossa
Rating: A lowly PG. No porn... yet
Summary: Something was coming, something that quieted the living.
Something cursed.
A/N: Did anyone else wonder how Tia Dalma got Barbossa when the island was supposed to have sunk?
The swamp was still, unnaturally so. The loud buzz of insects through thick underbrush was muted, the fireflies that normally dotted the darkness absent. Tia Dalma stood outside her shack, staring downriver. The houses scattered close to the water were dark, lights doused and shutters closed, all but invisible in the night. Hers was the only patch of brightness in the swamp, perhaps the whole island. The very air was robbed of its heat, cold and icy though it was the middle of summer. All the signs pointed to one thing: something was coming. Something that quieted the living.
Something damned.
Tia Dalma inhaled sharply when she saw it. Two longboats crawling upon the muddy waters, a heavy fog rolling in beside them turned the night to pitch. The boats moved sure and silent, avoiding hidden sandbars and rocks alike as if they'd traveled the waters a hundred times. Shapes labored with the oars, shapes of men, or what had once been men. They rotted before her eyes, only to return to life once more and rot again. A strong curse, that. Something no mortal man or woman could have wrought.
One rough outline separated itself from the others, solidified into a tall man standing sure-footed at the prow. His eyes flickered among the trees, searching for others and no doubt expecting ambush. But unless his eyes were as sharp as a cat’s, she was the only person he could see. No doubt the person he’d come looking for.
“Ya can turn ‘round and head back ta da sea. I can’ help ya,” she said as the longboat touched her dock. This close the feeling of wrongness poured off them, made her wish to take a step back. The fog crept onto the warped wooden boards, curled around her ankles and obscured the swamp until it seemed her small home was the only thing in the surrounding grey. “Ya be cursed," she told them. "An’ I can’ lift it.”
The man standing stepped onto her dock. “Ya be Tia Dalma, then?”
“Aye, I be Tia Dalma.” She straightened, not liking the fact that he was taller than she. “An’ I said, I can’ help ya wit’ what ya done brung on ya head.”
Yellow-blotched eyes roved over her, desperation flashing in their depths. Worn hands clutched at the leather of his belt. He cocked his head quizically at her tone. “Can’t or wont?”
“Can’, won’ dey one an de same.”
Grey eyes clouded in anger. He wasn’t used to being denied what he wanted, that much was certain. The anger sharpened. “Then perhaps there’s something else you can help us with, then? Somethin’ of a more...personal nature.” A long-nailed hand traced roughly along her jaw as laughter drifted up from the boats, chuckles of male amusement. The threat was clear in his voice. Either she’d help him get what he wanted, or she would pay for it.
Tia Dalma lifted a hand and let it hover above the man’s chest. Her fingers closed swiftly and he shuddered, breath coming in raw gasps. She walked forward and he was pushed back, stumbling until he was standing on the edge of her dock. A cry went up from one of the men still in the longboat, but a single glance silenced them. They thought themselves invincible, impervious to pain and cold, for what could the dead feel? She would teach them that there were worse things than living death.
“Ya come here fa help, an’ den insult the one s’posed ta help ya.” Her hand closed into a fist, and his eyes bulged. She could feel his heart beneath her hand as if she held it, squeezing what little life there was. A pistol cocked and clicked, the powder dead. It was followed swiftly by others. No doubt they were staring at guns and checking for moisture, but her eyes were for the man in front of her alone. “Dere be no help fa ya here, Hector Barbossa. Dere be no help for ya nowhere.” She grinned. “’Less ya wan’ me ta ease ya pain. Give ya peace.” Her fingers closed tighter.
“Jack.”
The word was wheezed, near inaudible. She removed her hand, and he took several deep, steady breaths.
“Jack Sparrow?” She searched the boats for a man she knew wasn’t there.
“He’s just as cursed as we are.” Barobssa tossed his head. “He’s on the Pearl, if ya’d like ta catch up.”
Tia Dalma frowned. She hadn’t seen Jack Sparrow in two years, not since he came to her with the mark of Davy Jones on his soul, begging her to help him get free of it. But there was no way to release him from his promise, not as she was. Her Jack, her wild, free boy, had trapped himself in a cage without bars. She'd tried to read the lines of his fate, but they were twisted, snarled in a tangle she had yet to straighten. “I’ve no wish ta see Jack Sparrow.”
“And no wish to help him fight free of a curse he doesn’t deserve?” Barbossa moved closer to her, wary now. “For gold coins we’ve been made into something worse than dead. For gold, madam. A bit a shine and flash. No man deserves that.”
Tia Dalma narrowed her eyes. The man was lying, she knew it, she could feel it, but couldn’t place it. The dead were harder to read than the living, and for one dead but not, it was near impossible. “I warned him o’ de treasure. Tol’ him find adventure elsewhere.” But he hadn’t listened. He never listened. And now he might share their fate.
She lifted her hand again and let it rest on his chest. The thread of his life was thin; a strand of spider’s silk, almost as twisted as Jack’s had been.
Jack.
The voudoon stepped away from Barbossa. She’d felt it, just as she had with her lost Sparrow. Barbossa was another key to her freedom, an even larger one. If Jack was a simple lock, this man was a dead bolt. If she wanted to be free again, there was nothing to do but to help him. “For what ya wan’ I demand payment.” She kept her voice cold, drained the excitement away until it was flat and dead. “Ya come inside, Barbossa. Just you. Ya men can stay here.”
She turned with a rustle of tattered skirts and climbed up the ladder to her shack.
“I suspect this won’t be nearly as pleasant as your words implied.” His footfalls echoed in the small room. He didn’t examine her pets the way most did. He ignored them entirely. “Jack didn’t tell me there’d be a price.”
“Dere be price to everyt’ing.” She lifted a knife carved from rough amber from her table. “Ya should know dat by now.”
The pirate smiled broadly, though his hand remained on his sword hilt. “It’s been years since a beautiful woman came at me with a knife." He laughes shortly. "I can only hope your intentions be more honorable than hers.” His words held an edge to them, unsure of her intentions. He’d underestimated her once, it was clear he had no plans of doing so again.
Tia Dalma ignored his teasing words. “Da payment be yer help, Hector Barbossa.” She fingered the knife. “Ya swear dat when I need ya, ya come. Even if dat mean pullin’ ya from de grave.”
His smile shrank as she spoke. “Perhaps you’ve mistaken me.” Some of the menace crept back into his tone. “I’m not a dog. I don’t run when I’m called. I might be inclined to sail elsewhere. ”
“Ya will come.” Her voice was hard and cold. “Ya will, or ya can sail on da waters ‘til time burns an’ da stars fail. Da choice be yours.”
He made a show of thinking it over. “Agreed,” he finally muttered.
Tia Dalma swayed towards him. “How long has it been, Barbossa?” She was standing in front of him now. “Since ya felt a woman?” the words were soft, purred. She held his eyes as she lifted one of his hands, ran delicate fingertips down the palm. “Even dis, ya can’ feel.”
His eyes were locked on hers, his breath shallow. “Too long,” he whispered. He wanted her, she knew that, but the curse would prevent him from satisfying that want. She gave him a slow, sweet smile.
And sliced through his palm.
“What-?” Barbossa tried to jerk his hand away, but she held him fast. She lifted one of the bottles hanging at her neck and held it to the wound, collecting the red fluid.
“If it was blood ya wanted, all ya needed do was ask.” The words were dangerously close to a grumble. “I’m not fond of people cutting into me when it suits them.”
When the bottle was half-filled she let his hand go and lifted her hands to his shoulder. Another flick of the knife, and she had a tuft of hair. She deposited the strands in the bottle and corked it.
“Satisfied?” The man wrapped a piece of cloth around his hand, though there was really no need. The wound had already stopped bleeding. Within the hour it would be closed entirely. There wouldn’t even be a scar to remind him of what happened.
“Dere be only one way ta lift de curse on ya heads,” Tia Dalma started as she walked further into her shack. “Blood was de price Cortez demanded of de Aztecs, and blood’s de price de gods’ demand a you.” She pulled at the strings of a hanging black pouch covered in red stitching. “Blood fer blood until de debt be repaid, and de coins returned.” She handed him the knife. “Fer each man took coin from de chest, him blood must be spilt. Each a ya crew had a hand disturbin’ its rest must do dis, or ya be cursed fa all time.”
Barbossa looked uncomfortable. “And what if somethin’s happened to one of my crew? Lost to the depths. Anything to be done then?”
“Him blood still be needed, but not from him veins.” She flicked a hand. “Any of him people will do. A child blood be best.” She opened the pouch and upturned it.
Heavy gold fell into her palm.
It had appeared on her doorstep one morning; a single piece of gold flashing in the sun. Jonas spoke of a wizened man wadding upriver before sunrise and tossing it there before wadding back, muttering to himself. The skull embossed coin vibrated with power, made her hand run hot and cold by turns. Barbossa’s eyes were riveted to it. “Ya been searchin’ fa months, no rest, tryin’ to find what dogged ya heels, made ya run.” She lifted her hand higher. “De coin, it call to ya. Listen, and ya can follow de trails to de ends of de earth.”
Barbossa plucked up the coin and turned it before his eyes several times.
“Dat be one. Ya have 881 pieces ta go for ya be free.”
His eyes returned to hers. "Those coins be scattered to hell and gone by now."
"Then ta hell you will search, or neva' be free."
He gripped the coin hard and turned, stomping towards her door.
“Don’t be forgettin’ our bargain,” Tia Dalma called after him. “Ya can be sure I won’.”
_______________________________________________________
Thank you for reading! As always, if you see mistakes, please let me know (I have no beta :|) I love hearing from people, so let me know what you thought, even if it's just to say hi. Unrepentant review whore, here :)