The Raptors of Misdirection and Waxing Gibberish - Chapter 12
Title: The Raptors of Misdirection and Waxing Gibberish
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean; Sparrington
Rating: PG-13 for now
Disclaimer: I have no claim on POTC or the lovely characters who populate it, even if it seems that James Norrington is making himself quite at home in my head, the snarky British bastard.
Summary: Battle with Jones ensues, and James Norrington proves himself to be a clever little bastard, but, perhaps, not clever enough. This chapter is all action scenes and plot.
Chapter Twelve
When the remaining crew of the Black Pearl awoke, they were aware of something very eerie in the air--a slow-moving and hesitant unease--in spite of the way that the black ship was hurling itself across the waves as though chased by all the hounds of Hell, when in fact only the Gold Hawk followed close behind, keeping up with them surprisingly well--better, in fact, than it should be capable of.
The crew found the source of the strange mood permeating the whole ship: Jack Sparrow at the helm looking unusually deadpan stoic and as wrathful as a storm on the horizon.
It was Gibbs who spread the news: the heart had been stolen.
Jack had a series of very strongly worded conversations with Elizabeth, William, and especially Ragetti and Pintel, about keeping it to themselves that it had been Norrington keeping track of the heart. Most of his crew thought the damned thing had been hidden in Jack’s jar of dirt. The last thing they needed was for any of the remaining men on board the Black Pearl to try aiming any potential ‘friendly fire’ towards Norrington’s ship. He also put Will and Elizabeth on duty to monitor Pintel and Ragetti in order to prevent them causing any such mishaps.
And so the ship was mostly quiet, save for the occasional curtly shouted orders from the captain and the increasingly loud murmuring of wind and sea.
Until Will asked Jack why, exactly, he was trying to leave the Gold Hawk behind.
Jack looked over his shoulder at Norrington’s ship, which had not fallen any further behind, still following impressively close on their tail. Then he looked back at Will. “She’s not exactly lookin’ to be in any actual danger of being lost, now is she?” Family ties can do incredible things, he didn’t add.
Will looked at the sails and the rigging, noted the wind, and then looked back at the Gold Hawk. “That... shouldn’t be possible. That ship isn’t as fast as the Pearl. No ship is. Not with winds like this.”
“That ship, there, mate, is of the same origins. They pull on each other. Savvy?”
“Not in the slightest,” Will murmured. “Unless you’re saying that Norrington sold his soul to Jones as well.”
“No, mate. He got a less ambitious deal than I did, and from a kinder creature--relatively speaking--did James barter his bonnie little ship. She only wants him to perform a few hunts and exterminations for her, like a pet falcon.”
“Hunts and exterminations?” Will found this dubious.
“Of snakes and squid and corruption: his specialties, if you’ll recall,” Jack explained. “Except the squid, of course; I doubt very much that he’s had the chance to hunt any of their slimy little selves before.”
Will raised his eyebrows and smirked a bit. “Ah, yes, but even if we focus solely on the ‘snakes and corruption’ bit, it does not explain why he sails with you instead of hunting you.”
Jack snorted. “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow.” He gestured with his usual flourish. “Savvy?”
“Ah,” Will murmured. “Birds of a feather, then?”
Quietly, the captain gave a thoughtful, “Aye.” Then he glared sharply at Will and snapped, “You’d best keep to your duties to protect the Hawk wot’s planning on protectin’ us from the likes of Davy Jones.”
“He is?” Will squeaked.
“Aye. It’s a feather of nobility in him that might as well have been plucked from your own chivalrous bloody hat, mate; mind though that he’s got a more practical Naval approach to it than you do. Now go keep Ragetti from accidentally clipping his wings by tripping up over somebody’s damnable semantics.”
Feeling guilty and a bit chagrined, Will ran off.
The winds turned against them within an hour, and soon it began to storm, slowing their progress nearly to a halt.
Whose storm is it? Calypso or Jones? Norrington wondered, as he bellowed out orders to his men. His hat was below deck, abandoned for now until his wounds healed, and the rain stung his injuries with salt even as the relative coolness soothed him. His gaze was fixed upon the Black Pearl, and so intense was his focus on those black sails, even through the storm, that he could not tell where his own thoughts ended and those of his persistent ship began. He had a wordless and inexplicable feeling, bone-deep and sure, that this focus was the only reason that he was keeping up with the Black Pearl: the single-mindedness of his ship and captain forging a near-tangible hold on the larger black ship, pulling the Gold Hawk behind her.
When the storm finally passed, three hours later, the Flying Dutchman was waiting for them, emerging from the sea into the last of the rain: a mass of green and grey that seemed to form a hinge-point between the angry water and the cloud-darkened sky. Norrington watched it breach the surface of the water, too close to the Black Pearl, which was thus being turned about on the waves created by the other, larger ship, which moved to broadside her.
I’m sad to say that this still does not answer my question about the storm. One never knows with deities, especially ones whose names appear in Ulysses, and I have no doubt that she is fickle. Norrington once more bellowed out orders, his gaze now moving from the Pearl to the Dutchman, back and forth, as his ship picked up speed. Norrington’s men readied the canons. During the last part of their approach, all aboard his ship fell silent, waiting for the opportune moment.
As Jones shouted something about the Kraken, he was disturbed mid-sentence by a very British and very Naval voice bellowing out “FIRE ALL!” and the Flying Dutchman rocking under the sudden volley of cannon-fire from the small Gold Hawk’s extremely impressive guns as the smaller ship achieved a daring, abrupt, and unexpected broadside. By the time that the great grave-ship had guns at the ready, the Hawk was already on the move, circling the larger ship and firing at will, even as all the holes in the Dutchman regenerated, making the whole ship seem like a fast-healing, living and breathing thing, which, of course, it was.
James had not fully anticipated this, and grit his teeth as he faintly heard the creatures aboard the Dutchman laughing. Regardless, he ordered his men to reload the cannons as his ship coasted along the water in a slow-moving swoop. Cannon-fire from the Dutchman hit only water as the larger ship lumbered clumsily in an attempt to aim at the Hawk. Even its bough cannons were having trouble following the little gold-tinted ship.
With the next barrage from Norrington’s cannons, there came a few distinctly metallic crashes, and the laughter from the other ship abruptly halted.
“Well, we hit something of value,” James mused.
Will and Elizabeth gaped openly. So did many others aboard the Black Pearl watching Norrington run his brave and possibly foolish gamut.
“That has got to be one of the most lunatic things that I have ever seen,” said William.
“I would like very much to scold you, but I think I have to agree,” Elizabeth replied.
“That’s a damned agile little ship. Never seen the like of it, movin’ in circles--look how ‘er sails catch the wind to do it!” Gibbs was in awe.
Will’s face paled. “Oh Dear God. I think Norrington managed to hurt the pipe organ.”
At the helm, Jack was quiet, trying desperately to come up with a very clever plan, when something very large bumped against his ship, sending everyone on deck stumbling.
“Did we hit a reef?”
Will leapt up into the rigging, then abruptly leapt back, dragging Elizabeth with him. “That’s no reef!”
Jack glanced down at his hand, watching a large section of his palm turn black. “Oh, no.” He made a face: exasperation and horror combined with a bit of disgust. “Not again.”
William had already shouted something about the Kraken when a tentacle breached the surface of the water, moving whip-quick and seizing hold of a deckhand, who was promptly yanked overboard screaming.
Fighting ensued.
Norrington heard the screams and shouting aboard the Black Pearl and instinctively abandoned his increasingly useless (but still very annoying) attack on the Dutchman, entertaining as they had become for the Englishman now that the Dutchman’s captain had at last become oh-so-thoroughly enraged.
Jones considered chasing the bastard, since Norrington had put a few very unpleasant holes in his pipe organ with those damned cannons of his, but then he realized that the Navy-man was headed for the Kraken, and only laughed uproariously, settling back to watch the show.
Norrington bellowed out orders to his men, who obeyed with military precision: some of them constantly shifted bits of sail and rigging about, like the flight feathers of a diving sea-bird; others below deck moved significant amounts of weight--cargo, cannons and men--to the port side of the ship.
Soon, the whole boat was leaning quite severely, its cannons on the port side pointing not at the Pearl as Norrington swooped in alongside her, but at the water. Just as several large tentacles began to emerge from the water, Norrington ordered for his men to fire.
The shots rang out, and the unearthly, groaning wail of pain and rage from the kraken echoed over the waves.
Davy Jones raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. To himself, he muttered, “Well, how ‘bout that. Clever little bastard.” Then, under his orders, the Flying Dutchman began moving, slowly, in a wide, lazy circle of its own, around both of the infuriating ships and the Kraken. “But then, of course, that’s why She decided to give him that little ship.” The ‘p’ in ship was emphasized with a slight ‘pop’ sound, unique to Davy Jones. “Even when it was not hers to give, confined to the depths as it was.” A rumble of power rippled outward from his ship and into the water. The depths answered and Jones scowled (not from displeasure, but merely because he tended to scowl a lot in general; this was, in fact, one of his more satisfied scowls) waiting for the opportune moment to call the depths into opening a whirlpool that would lead straight down into the Locker, taking those two damnable ships and their captains down.
The Hawk’s cannon blasts were keeping the Kraken at bay as the Pearl’s crew devised an intriguing-looking idea involving barrels of black powder and barrels of rum bound up in a net and raised. James obligingly let up on his cannon-fire, falling back and allowing the Kraken to try and engulf the ship... only for the tentacles to be abruptly blasted back by Jack’s well-aimed musket-ball igniting one barrel, which promptly caused the others to combust in quick session.
Again the Kraken screeched, but even as its half-incinerated tentacles retreated, the lull in its wake was an ominous one. Cries came from the Pearl of abandoning ship, but the crew of the Hawk was still alive with militant action, defensive action, and had no intention of fleeing.
“James! Permission to come aboard?” Elizabeth shouted.
“If you would be safer here, Miss Swann,” he bellowed back, not working half so hard as she did to achieve a higher volume, “I would provide, but if you want to get away from the Kraken and Jones, my ship is not the place to do so.”
Elizabeth stared across the water, momentarily stunned. Her thoughts moved at a mile a minute, a tangle of emotions and subjects coalescing disconcertingly: life, love, honor, piracy, the Pearl, Jack Sparrow, James Norrington, black spots, and death. Then, within a few moments, it stopped, and she squared her shoulders. “I will not have come this far to be doomed now,” she whispered to herself, her heart aching with a mixture of determination and fear.
The rest of the crew, save she and Jack, were loading into the longboats.
Jack lingered near the main mast, running his hands over everything, as if communing with it silently. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard Elizabeth’s voice murmur his name.
“Yes?” he asked, warily.
“Is this... is he staying because of you?”
Jack took a deep breath. “Mayhap he is, but mayhap he’s not. The ship, too, but that’s not so much him; that’s the ship herself.” He turned to face her. “Really, darling, I have no idea.”
Elizabeth stalked towards Jack, invading his personal space in a manner that she had learned from him, but paired with a cold and cutting air that she had long ago learned from a Lieutenant James Norrington. She stared into his eyes searchingly. “You are a good man, Jack.” She looked down, the frosty manner fading away as she seemed suddenly unsure, worried, and then she looked up at him with something like...
Oh. Interesting.
Then Jack made a small, disconcerted but not altogether displeased noise as she kissed him, pushing him back against the mast. For a few moments, it was good--strange, but still rather nice and then...
click
Then it wasn’t. Jack was shackled in place.
Elizabeth pulled back. "It's after you, not the ship… It's not us. Some of us have to survive, but if you follow, none of us will, Jack. This is the only way, don't you see?” Somehow, not wholly convincing, but she looked very determined, hardened against her own emotions, her own doubts. “I'm not sorry."
Jack looked down at her with an acerbic smile that did not reach his eyes. He appraised her, piercingly and succinctly, and named what he saw: "Pirate."
Elizabeth’s façade crumbled for a brief moment, then hardened into something chill and ruthless again as she turned away and left him chained to the mast.
Jones let the longboats go, his focus fixed on the pair of ships from the depths, and the men aboard each of them. He hated the Navy, he hated Calypso’s meddling attempts to send men after him, and he hated Jack Sparrow. His anger towards the others, even young William Turner included, were all mere trifles in comparison. Thus, the whirlpool, which the Dutchman’s circling was beginning to inspire, let the longboats go, but held the two larger ships fast.
At first, Norrington didn’t notice because he was once more ordering the gunning down of the Kraken, but then the Kraken abruptly vanished, and Norrington realized that the currents beneath his ship were changing too quickly and too violently. After giving the sea around him a critical once-over and realizing that he and his ship and his crew were on top of a newborn maelstrom, the Hawk’s captain shouted, “Men, if you still pray to anyone worth praying to, now would be a good time to do it!”
James himself muttered no prayer, called to no deity. He merely ordered his men below deck and held onto the helm as the world around him grew darker, as his ship rode deeper into the cyclone. He looked up skyward, and felt a pang of longing and regret--just wanting more time to live, more time to fly; he had only just taken flight, it seemed like. A wry, bitter smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “So much for my own possible immortality, then. Good luck with yours, Jones, you daft Scottish bastard.” His words were lost as the roar of water grew louder. Calmly, James shut his eyes, feeling the icy, grating chill of his own helplessness and tasting bitter defiance on his tongue, but he stood unaffected, unswayed by his emotions, a dignified and fierce-looking figure. Then the cold depths engulfed him.
Jack was aware of James’ voice giving those last commands, but only distantly, because most of his focus was set on making use of a handy lantern and some of its oil to pull himself free of the bloody manacle Elizabeth had trapped him into. By the time he had gotten free, the world around him had grown increasingly dark. When he looked up, he saw only a circle of light at the end of a watery tunnel, around which his bonnie Black Pearl was slowly turning, spiraling down into the depths. So was the Gold Hawk, which was falling faster, unburdened by the Kraken, which seemed to be clinging to the Pearl as if for dear life, even if its hold was, due to being spun about by the maelstrom, limited to just a few tentacles.
The gigantic cephalopod was the only thing holding back the fall into the depths, but it was only slowing down the inevitable: that much was clear. And it seemed to be slowly opening its jaws in an attempt to consume parts of the ship, and Jack would have none of that.
Approaching the beast, Jack found himself looking into the gaping maw of the Kraken as it opened, spreading rows and rows of teeth with a sound like a roar. He winced slightly at the horrendous smell and tried, rather unsuccessfully, to dodge the flying chunks of slime. One chunk hit him squarely in the chest and Jack realized, somewhat dazedly, that it was his hat. After wiping a few stringy globules of slime from his face, he pried the hat away and shook the heavier blobs of goo off of it. “Thanks,” he muttered, and planted the leather tricorne squarely on his head. Then he withdrew his cutlass and sliced at the first tentacle, which let go. Then another; and it, too, let go. Only one more: the Pearl was swaying violently now, dangling from the beast’s now small hold as both Kraken and Pearl spun around in the water-spout.
Jack’s swagger adjusted to the rocking of his ship, as always, and his gaze went from the gaping jaws of the Kraken, to the darkness below them. Then he looked back up at the Kraken’s maw with a wicked grin. “G’bye, Beastie.” He sliced through the last tentacle, and it released both him and his ship. As he and his ship fell, Jack shouted to the kraken, “This is the day that you will always remember as the day that you almost caught-”
Then the light at the top of the whirlpool winked out and the world went black, the last words drowned out by the roar of surging water.
The longboats from the Black Pearl managed to reach land, and begin traveling upriver to Tia Dalma’s hut by the following evening. In the quiet and the fog surrounding them, lit by the increasingly frequent sightings of candles in the hands of the people of the river, the remains of Jack Sparrow’s crew kept their thoughts to themselves.
William the silent and tragic witness, and Elizabeth the determined but guilt-extinguished firebrand were among them. They could not look each other in the eye, even fortified (in Elizabeth’s case rather reluctantly) with Tia’s offered rum, “Against de cold... and de sorrow.”
When she gave William his pint, she offered her condolences. “It’s a shame.” She set the pint down. “You now t’inking dat wit’ de Pearl, or even de Hawk, dat you could ‘ave captured de devil an’ set free ya father’s soul.”
Will put his knife away and gripped the pint as Tia moved away. “It doesn’t matter now. The Pearl is gone. And so is her captain. And with both of them went the Hawk, and her captain, too.”
There came a soft susurrous of “Aye” from a number of crewmen.
“Already,” Gibbs added, “the world seems a little less bright.” He stepped into the hut. “Even I admit respect for Norrington; I don’t doubt that any more noble creature ever walked out on the Navy, especially after such a spectacular farewell. An’ ol’ Jack...” He cleared his throat, trying to get the waver out of his voice. “Ol’ Jack fooled us right until the end, but I guess that stubborn... honest streak finally won out.”
Elizabeth lowered her pint slightly. The taste of rum was not helping her maintain her steely, ruthless attitude. Not now. And yet... it was required. Then she raised her tankard and said, “To Captain James Norrington, and to his crew.” Her voice wavered only on his first name.
“Damned fine sailing, they did, there at the last,” said Gibbs.
Pintel raised his tankard. “Norrington might’ve been a navy devil, but he was damned fine one.”
“And even finer when he cast the navy off,” Gibbs added.
“Aye!” Ragetti and Pintel both agreed.
“Awk. Bloody hawk!” concurred Cotton’s parrot.
“A more honorable hunter than any alive,” Will added, lifting his own.
All raised their tankards, and drank.
The second toast went up, this time from Gibbs, “And to Cap’n Jack Sparrow.”
“Never another like Captain Jack,” Ragetti said, with an audible quiver in his voice.
“He was a gentleman of fortune he was,” Pintel added.
Elizabeth nodded, and said firmly, proud when her voice sounded stronger than she felt, “He was a good man.” But as the others drank, she could not bring herself to sip, hiding it behind a hand for a moment before lowering her tankard. Her mask cracked, and she felt the first stab of true remorse.
Will saw it, and felt his heart breaking. “If there was anything to be done to bring them back... Elizabeth-”
Tia appeared before him as if she had materialized out of the mist. “Would you do it? Mm? What would you do?” She looked around at all of them. “What would any of you do?”
A lingering pause followed as she stepped into the middle of the room to address them.
Tia’s voice was low, like the creeping shadows at the edge of the candle-lit bayou. "Would you sail to the ends of the eart', and beyond, to fetch back witty Jack and 'im precious Pearl?" she asked. “An’ also bring me back de Hunter Norr-ing-ton and him pretty Gold Hawk?”
"Aye." Gibbs first.
"Aye." Pintel.
"Aye." Ragetti.
Cotton raised his tankard and his parrot squawked, "Awk! Aye."
Slowly, Elizabeth nodded and all but whispered, "Yes."
"Aye," Will said, equally quiet.
The dark-eyed Voodoo-lady nodded. "Alright. But if you're goin' brave de weird and haunted shores at world's end--den you will need a captain who knows dose waters." She turned expectantly to peer up the stairs.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, from a pair of fine black boots, barely a scuff on them to tell of the places they had tread. Captain Hector Barbossa stopped a few steps from the bottom, his undead monkey perched on his shoulder, and studied the gathered crew with narrowed eyes and an air supremely wicked amusement. "So. Tell me," he said, "what's become of my ship?" Barbossa grinned then, admiring the shock, awe, disgust, and other interesting emotions on the faces of his new crew, as he bit sharply into a sweet green apple.
“Lord Beckett, sir, there’s a young Captain Gillette here to see you.”
Eyeing Mr. Mercer with an unimpressed look, Beckett raised his eyebrows a little, with a prompting inquiry: “And?”
“He claims to have escaped from the Gold Hawk, and also to have most vital information about Captains Jack Sparrow and James Norrington. He had this.” Mercer placed a fine pistol on Beckett’s desk: a practical London-made gun, elegant silver decoration that made it look elegant, and only a shadow of decadence in the mother-of-pearl inlay along the grip.
Beckett’s lip twitched and he rubbed a small burn-scar on his wrist, from when that same pistol, held in the hand of one James Norrington, had shot his lantern: a warning shot. Picking up the gun to examine it, he shot Mercer a look full of mixed rage and curiosity; only the latter was expressed in his voice as he said, “Send him in.”
Captain Andrew Gillette approached his desk.
Beckett looked up at him appraisingly. “Captain Gillette. Your ship has been reported missing, and yet here you are.” He tilted his head slightly. “You were one of the former Commodore Norrington’s lieutenants, were you not?”
“I did serve under him, Lord Beckett, but that was before he betrayed the crown, and not only allowed pirates to take over my ship, and the majority of my men to be slaughtered, but himself orchestrated the attack.” Gillette took a breath. “My apologies if I speak too frankly.”
“No apologies needed, Captain; I appreciate military frankness.” Between two fingers, Beckett rubbed a piece of eight in a seemingly absent-minded fashion. “So you were taken prisoner, then. And the rest of your crew who survived...”
“Kept aboard my... now stolen ship, under the auspices of their delivery to a respectable port under cover of dark, no ransoms required.”
“Interesting. What, exactly, inspired this mercy?”
Gillette’s lips thinned. “Norrington, sir. Apparently he commands much respect over not only his own men, but those aboard the Black Pearl as well.”
Beckett’s fingers stilled. “Really?” His words were cold, flat.
“Yes, Lord Beckett. He and Jack Sparrow now sail in apparent partnership. It was a group from Sparrow’s crew, along with former-lieutenant Theodore Groves and a number of his men, who took over my ship whilst most of the marines stormed the Island that our spy had led us to. All men ashore in uniform were cut down by... most unnatural things.” Gillette cringed. “They were, as I understand it, the crewman of the captain whose chest we were sent to fetch, Lord Beckett: one, Davy Jones.”
Beckett’s eyebrows raised. “I see. And so you were unable to recover the chest, then. How... unfortunate.”
Then, to Beckett’s surprise, Gillette stood up straighter, his eyes cool and calm. “We never glimpsed the chest, Lord Beckett, but I would hardly waste your time by coming to you empty-handed.”
Beckett stared at the young captain before him with renewed interest. “What, exactly, are you offering, Captain Gillette?”
“My own knowledge of the mind and habits of one James Norrington, should you require the information, but also, more importantly...” He reached into the interior pocket of his coat and pulled out a small, unimpressive bag. The heart within it was still visibly, audibly beating, when he placed it on the desk directly before Lord Beckett. “The heart of Davy Jones.”
Inhaling slowly, his eyes flickering with greed, Beckett stared at the heart. Then he looked up at Gillette. “Well done, Captain.” Reaching out to pick up the humble-looking container, he added, “I can see such a loyal, intelligent man as yourself going very far indeed.”
Previous || Story Index || Next
Fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean; Sparrington
Rating: PG-13 for now
Disclaimer: I have no claim on POTC or the lovely characters who populate it, even if it seems that James Norrington is making himself quite at home in my head, the snarky British bastard.
Summary: Battle with Jones ensues, and James Norrington proves himself to be a clever little bastard, but, perhaps, not clever enough. This chapter is all action scenes and plot.
Chapter Twelve
When the remaining crew of the Black Pearl awoke, they were aware of something very eerie in the air--a slow-moving and hesitant unease--in spite of the way that the black ship was hurling itself across the waves as though chased by all the hounds of Hell, when in fact only the Gold Hawk followed close behind, keeping up with them surprisingly well--better, in fact, than it should be capable of.
The crew found the source of the strange mood permeating the whole ship: Jack Sparrow at the helm looking unusually deadpan stoic and as wrathful as a storm on the horizon.
It was Gibbs who spread the news: the heart had been stolen.
Jack had a series of very strongly worded conversations with Elizabeth, William, and especially Ragetti and Pintel, about keeping it to themselves that it had been Norrington keeping track of the heart. Most of his crew thought the damned thing had been hidden in Jack’s jar of dirt. The last thing they needed was for any of the remaining men on board the Black Pearl to try aiming any potential ‘friendly fire’ towards Norrington’s ship. He also put Will and Elizabeth on duty to monitor Pintel and Ragetti in order to prevent them causing any such mishaps.
And so the ship was mostly quiet, save for the occasional curtly shouted orders from the captain and the increasingly loud murmuring of wind and sea.
Until Will asked Jack why, exactly, he was trying to leave the Gold Hawk behind.
Jack looked over his shoulder at Norrington’s ship, which had not fallen any further behind, still following impressively close on their tail. Then he looked back at Will. “She’s not exactly lookin’ to be in any actual danger of being lost, now is she?” Family ties can do incredible things, he didn’t add.
Will looked at the sails and the rigging, noted the wind, and then looked back at the Gold Hawk. “That... shouldn’t be possible. That ship isn’t as fast as the Pearl. No ship is. Not with winds like this.”
“That ship, there, mate, is of the same origins. They pull on each other. Savvy?”
“Not in the slightest,” Will murmured. “Unless you’re saying that Norrington sold his soul to Jones as well.”
“No, mate. He got a less ambitious deal than I did, and from a kinder creature--relatively speaking--did James barter his bonnie little ship. She only wants him to perform a few hunts and exterminations for her, like a pet falcon.”
“Hunts and exterminations?” Will found this dubious.
“Of snakes and squid and corruption: his specialties, if you’ll recall,” Jack explained. “Except the squid, of course; I doubt very much that he’s had the chance to hunt any of their slimy little selves before.”
Will raised his eyebrows and smirked a bit. “Ah, yes, but even if we focus solely on the ‘snakes and corruption’ bit, it does not explain why he sails with you instead of hunting you.”
Jack snorted. “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow.” He gestured with his usual flourish. “Savvy?”
“Ah,” Will murmured. “Birds of a feather, then?”
Quietly, the captain gave a thoughtful, “Aye.” Then he glared sharply at Will and snapped, “You’d best keep to your duties to protect the Hawk wot’s planning on protectin’ us from the likes of Davy Jones.”
“He is?” Will squeaked.
“Aye. It’s a feather of nobility in him that might as well have been plucked from your own chivalrous bloody hat, mate; mind though that he’s got a more practical Naval approach to it than you do. Now go keep Ragetti from accidentally clipping his wings by tripping up over somebody’s damnable semantics.”
Feeling guilty and a bit chagrined, Will ran off.
The winds turned against them within an hour, and soon it began to storm, slowing their progress nearly to a halt.
Whose storm is it? Calypso or Jones? Norrington wondered, as he bellowed out orders to his men. His hat was below deck, abandoned for now until his wounds healed, and the rain stung his injuries with salt even as the relative coolness soothed him. His gaze was fixed upon the Black Pearl, and so intense was his focus on those black sails, even through the storm, that he could not tell where his own thoughts ended and those of his persistent ship began. He had a wordless and inexplicable feeling, bone-deep and sure, that this focus was the only reason that he was keeping up with the Black Pearl: the single-mindedness of his ship and captain forging a near-tangible hold on the larger black ship, pulling the Gold Hawk behind her.
When the storm finally passed, three hours later, the Flying Dutchman was waiting for them, emerging from the sea into the last of the rain: a mass of green and grey that seemed to form a hinge-point between the angry water and the cloud-darkened sky. Norrington watched it breach the surface of the water, too close to the Black Pearl, which was thus being turned about on the waves created by the other, larger ship, which moved to broadside her.
I’m sad to say that this still does not answer my question about the storm. One never knows with deities, especially ones whose names appear in Ulysses, and I have no doubt that she is fickle. Norrington once more bellowed out orders, his gaze now moving from the Pearl to the Dutchman, back and forth, as his ship picked up speed. Norrington’s men readied the canons. During the last part of their approach, all aboard his ship fell silent, waiting for the opportune moment.
As Jones shouted something about the Kraken, he was disturbed mid-sentence by a very British and very Naval voice bellowing out “FIRE ALL!” and the Flying Dutchman rocking under the sudden volley of cannon-fire from the small Gold Hawk’s extremely impressive guns as the smaller ship achieved a daring, abrupt, and unexpected broadside. By the time that the great grave-ship had guns at the ready, the Hawk was already on the move, circling the larger ship and firing at will, even as all the holes in the Dutchman regenerated, making the whole ship seem like a fast-healing, living and breathing thing, which, of course, it was.
James had not fully anticipated this, and grit his teeth as he faintly heard the creatures aboard the Dutchman laughing. Regardless, he ordered his men to reload the cannons as his ship coasted along the water in a slow-moving swoop. Cannon-fire from the Dutchman hit only water as the larger ship lumbered clumsily in an attempt to aim at the Hawk. Even its bough cannons were having trouble following the little gold-tinted ship.
With the next barrage from Norrington’s cannons, there came a few distinctly metallic crashes, and the laughter from the other ship abruptly halted.
“Well, we hit something of value,” James mused.
Will and Elizabeth gaped openly. So did many others aboard the Black Pearl watching Norrington run his brave and possibly foolish gamut.
“That has got to be one of the most lunatic things that I have ever seen,” said William.
“I would like very much to scold you, but I think I have to agree,” Elizabeth replied.
“That’s a damned agile little ship. Never seen the like of it, movin’ in circles--look how ‘er sails catch the wind to do it!” Gibbs was in awe.
Will’s face paled. “Oh Dear God. I think Norrington managed to hurt the pipe organ.”
At the helm, Jack was quiet, trying desperately to come up with a very clever plan, when something very large bumped against his ship, sending everyone on deck stumbling.
“Did we hit a reef?”
Will leapt up into the rigging, then abruptly leapt back, dragging Elizabeth with him. “That’s no reef!”
Jack glanced down at his hand, watching a large section of his palm turn black. “Oh, no.” He made a face: exasperation and horror combined with a bit of disgust. “Not again.”
William had already shouted something about the Kraken when a tentacle breached the surface of the water, moving whip-quick and seizing hold of a deckhand, who was promptly yanked overboard screaming.
Fighting ensued.
Norrington heard the screams and shouting aboard the Black Pearl and instinctively abandoned his increasingly useless (but still very annoying) attack on the Dutchman, entertaining as they had become for the Englishman now that the Dutchman’s captain had at last become oh-so-thoroughly enraged.
Jones considered chasing the bastard, since Norrington had put a few very unpleasant holes in his pipe organ with those damned cannons of his, but then he realized that the Navy-man was headed for the Kraken, and only laughed uproariously, settling back to watch the show.
Norrington bellowed out orders to his men, who obeyed with military precision: some of them constantly shifted bits of sail and rigging about, like the flight feathers of a diving sea-bird; others below deck moved significant amounts of weight--cargo, cannons and men--to the port side of the ship.
Soon, the whole boat was leaning quite severely, its cannons on the port side pointing not at the Pearl as Norrington swooped in alongside her, but at the water. Just as several large tentacles began to emerge from the water, Norrington ordered for his men to fire.
The shots rang out, and the unearthly, groaning wail of pain and rage from the kraken echoed over the waves.
Davy Jones raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. To himself, he muttered, “Well, how ‘bout that. Clever little bastard.” Then, under his orders, the Flying Dutchman began moving, slowly, in a wide, lazy circle of its own, around both of the infuriating ships and the Kraken. “But then, of course, that’s why She decided to give him that little ship.” The ‘p’ in ship was emphasized with a slight ‘pop’ sound, unique to Davy Jones. “Even when it was not hers to give, confined to the depths as it was.” A rumble of power rippled outward from his ship and into the water. The depths answered and Jones scowled (not from displeasure, but merely because he tended to scowl a lot in general; this was, in fact, one of his more satisfied scowls) waiting for the opportune moment to call the depths into opening a whirlpool that would lead straight down into the Locker, taking those two damnable ships and their captains down.
The Hawk’s cannon blasts were keeping the Kraken at bay as the Pearl’s crew devised an intriguing-looking idea involving barrels of black powder and barrels of rum bound up in a net and raised. James obligingly let up on his cannon-fire, falling back and allowing the Kraken to try and engulf the ship... only for the tentacles to be abruptly blasted back by Jack’s well-aimed musket-ball igniting one barrel, which promptly caused the others to combust in quick session.
Again the Kraken screeched, but even as its half-incinerated tentacles retreated, the lull in its wake was an ominous one. Cries came from the Pearl of abandoning ship, but the crew of the Hawk was still alive with militant action, defensive action, and had no intention of fleeing.
“James! Permission to come aboard?” Elizabeth shouted.
“If you would be safer here, Miss Swann,” he bellowed back, not working half so hard as she did to achieve a higher volume, “I would provide, but if you want to get away from the Kraken and Jones, my ship is not the place to do so.”
Elizabeth stared across the water, momentarily stunned. Her thoughts moved at a mile a minute, a tangle of emotions and subjects coalescing disconcertingly: life, love, honor, piracy, the Pearl, Jack Sparrow, James Norrington, black spots, and death. Then, within a few moments, it stopped, and she squared her shoulders. “I will not have come this far to be doomed now,” she whispered to herself, her heart aching with a mixture of determination and fear.
The rest of the crew, save she and Jack, were loading into the longboats.
Jack lingered near the main mast, running his hands over everything, as if communing with it silently. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard Elizabeth’s voice murmur his name.
“Yes?” he asked, warily.
“Is this... is he staying because of you?”
Jack took a deep breath. “Mayhap he is, but mayhap he’s not. The ship, too, but that’s not so much him; that’s the ship herself.” He turned to face her. “Really, darling, I have no idea.”
Elizabeth stalked towards Jack, invading his personal space in a manner that she had learned from him, but paired with a cold and cutting air that she had long ago learned from a Lieutenant James Norrington. She stared into his eyes searchingly. “You are a good man, Jack.” She looked down, the frosty manner fading away as she seemed suddenly unsure, worried, and then she looked up at him with something like...
Oh. Interesting.
Then Jack made a small, disconcerted but not altogether displeased noise as she kissed him, pushing him back against the mast. For a few moments, it was good--strange, but still rather nice and then...
click
Then it wasn’t. Jack was shackled in place.
Elizabeth pulled back. "It's after you, not the ship… It's not us. Some of us have to survive, but if you follow, none of us will, Jack. This is the only way, don't you see?” Somehow, not wholly convincing, but she looked very determined, hardened against her own emotions, her own doubts. “I'm not sorry."
Jack looked down at her with an acerbic smile that did not reach his eyes. He appraised her, piercingly and succinctly, and named what he saw: "Pirate."
Elizabeth’s façade crumbled for a brief moment, then hardened into something chill and ruthless again as she turned away and left him chained to the mast.
Jones let the longboats go, his focus fixed on the pair of ships from the depths, and the men aboard each of them. He hated the Navy, he hated Calypso’s meddling attempts to send men after him, and he hated Jack Sparrow. His anger towards the others, even young William Turner included, were all mere trifles in comparison. Thus, the whirlpool, which the Dutchman’s circling was beginning to inspire, let the longboats go, but held the two larger ships fast.
At first, Norrington didn’t notice because he was once more ordering the gunning down of the Kraken, but then the Kraken abruptly vanished, and Norrington realized that the currents beneath his ship were changing too quickly and too violently. After giving the sea around him a critical once-over and realizing that he and his ship and his crew were on top of a newborn maelstrom, the Hawk’s captain shouted, “Men, if you still pray to anyone worth praying to, now would be a good time to do it!”
James himself muttered no prayer, called to no deity. He merely ordered his men below deck and held onto the helm as the world around him grew darker, as his ship rode deeper into the cyclone. He looked up skyward, and felt a pang of longing and regret--just wanting more time to live, more time to fly; he had only just taken flight, it seemed like. A wry, bitter smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “So much for my own possible immortality, then. Good luck with yours, Jones, you daft Scottish bastard.” His words were lost as the roar of water grew louder. Calmly, James shut his eyes, feeling the icy, grating chill of his own helplessness and tasting bitter defiance on his tongue, but he stood unaffected, unswayed by his emotions, a dignified and fierce-looking figure. Then the cold depths engulfed him.
Jack was aware of James’ voice giving those last commands, but only distantly, because most of his focus was set on making use of a handy lantern and some of its oil to pull himself free of the bloody manacle Elizabeth had trapped him into. By the time he had gotten free, the world around him had grown increasingly dark. When he looked up, he saw only a circle of light at the end of a watery tunnel, around which his bonnie Black Pearl was slowly turning, spiraling down into the depths. So was the Gold Hawk, which was falling faster, unburdened by the Kraken, which seemed to be clinging to the Pearl as if for dear life, even if its hold was, due to being spun about by the maelstrom, limited to just a few tentacles.
The gigantic cephalopod was the only thing holding back the fall into the depths, but it was only slowing down the inevitable: that much was clear. And it seemed to be slowly opening its jaws in an attempt to consume parts of the ship, and Jack would have none of that.
Approaching the beast, Jack found himself looking into the gaping maw of the Kraken as it opened, spreading rows and rows of teeth with a sound like a roar. He winced slightly at the horrendous smell and tried, rather unsuccessfully, to dodge the flying chunks of slime. One chunk hit him squarely in the chest and Jack realized, somewhat dazedly, that it was his hat. After wiping a few stringy globules of slime from his face, he pried the hat away and shook the heavier blobs of goo off of it. “Thanks,” he muttered, and planted the leather tricorne squarely on his head. Then he withdrew his cutlass and sliced at the first tentacle, which let go. Then another; and it, too, let go. Only one more: the Pearl was swaying violently now, dangling from the beast’s now small hold as both Kraken and Pearl spun around in the water-spout.
Jack’s swagger adjusted to the rocking of his ship, as always, and his gaze went from the gaping jaws of the Kraken, to the darkness below them. Then he looked back up at the Kraken’s maw with a wicked grin. “G’bye, Beastie.” He sliced through the last tentacle, and it released both him and his ship. As he and his ship fell, Jack shouted to the kraken, “This is the day that you will always remember as the day that you almost caught-”
Then the light at the top of the whirlpool winked out and the world went black, the last words drowned out by the roar of surging water.
The longboats from the Black Pearl managed to reach land, and begin traveling upriver to Tia Dalma’s hut by the following evening. In the quiet and the fog surrounding them, lit by the increasingly frequent sightings of candles in the hands of the people of the river, the remains of Jack Sparrow’s crew kept their thoughts to themselves.
William the silent and tragic witness, and Elizabeth the determined but guilt-extinguished firebrand were among them. They could not look each other in the eye, even fortified (in Elizabeth’s case rather reluctantly) with Tia’s offered rum, “Against de cold... and de sorrow.”
When she gave William his pint, she offered her condolences. “It’s a shame.” She set the pint down. “You now t’inking dat wit’ de Pearl, or even de Hawk, dat you could ‘ave captured de devil an’ set free ya father’s soul.”
Will put his knife away and gripped the pint as Tia moved away. “It doesn’t matter now. The Pearl is gone. And so is her captain. And with both of them went the Hawk, and her captain, too.”
There came a soft susurrous of “Aye” from a number of crewmen.
“Already,” Gibbs added, “the world seems a little less bright.” He stepped into the hut. “Even I admit respect for Norrington; I don’t doubt that any more noble creature ever walked out on the Navy, especially after such a spectacular farewell. An’ ol’ Jack...” He cleared his throat, trying to get the waver out of his voice. “Ol’ Jack fooled us right until the end, but I guess that stubborn... honest streak finally won out.”
Elizabeth lowered her pint slightly. The taste of rum was not helping her maintain her steely, ruthless attitude. Not now. And yet... it was required. Then she raised her tankard and said, “To Captain James Norrington, and to his crew.” Her voice wavered only on his first name.
“Damned fine sailing, they did, there at the last,” said Gibbs.
Pintel raised his tankard. “Norrington might’ve been a navy devil, but he was damned fine one.”
“And even finer when he cast the navy off,” Gibbs added.
“Aye!” Ragetti and Pintel both agreed.
“Awk. Bloody hawk!” concurred Cotton’s parrot.
“A more honorable hunter than any alive,” Will added, lifting his own.
All raised their tankards, and drank.
The second toast went up, this time from Gibbs, “And to Cap’n Jack Sparrow.”
“Never another like Captain Jack,” Ragetti said, with an audible quiver in his voice.
“He was a gentleman of fortune he was,” Pintel added.
Elizabeth nodded, and said firmly, proud when her voice sounded stronger than she felt, “He was a good man.” But as the others drank, she could not bring herself to sip, hiding it behind a hand for a moment before lowering her tankard. Her mask cracked, and she felt the first stab of true remorse.
Will saw it, and felt his heart breaking. “If there was anything to be done to bring them back... Elizabeth-”
Tia appeared before him as if she had materialized out of the mist. “Would you do it? Mm? What would you do?” She looked around at all of them. “What would any of you do?”
A lingering pause followed as she stepped into the middle of the room to address them.
Tia’s voice was low, like the creeping shadows at the edge of the candle-lit bayou. "Would you sail to the ends of the eart', and beyond, to fetch back witty Jack and 'im precious Pearl?" she asked. “An’ also bring me back de Hunter Norr-ing-ton and him pretty Gold Hawk?”
"Aye." Gibbs first.
"Aye." Pintel.
"Aye." Ragetti.
Cotton raised his tankard and his parrot squawked, "Awk! Aye."
Slowly, Elizabeth nodded and all but whispered, "Yes."
"Aye," Will said, equally quiet.
The dark-eyed Voodoo-lady nodded. "Alright. But if you're goin' brave de weird and haunted shores at world's end--den you will need a captain who knows dose waters." She turned expectantly to peer up the stairs.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, from a pair of fine black boots, barely a scuff on them to tell of the places they had tread. Captain Hector Barbossa stopped a few steps from the bottom, his undead monkey perched on his shoulder, and studied the gathered crew with narrowed eyes and an air supremely wicked amusement. "So. Tell me," he said, "what's become of my ship?" Barbossa grinned then, admiring the shock, awe, disgust, and other interesting emotions on the faces of his new crew, as he bit sharply into a sweet green apple.
“Lord Beckett, sir, there’s a young Captain Gillette here to see you.”
Eyeing Mr. Mercer with an unimpressed look, Beckett raised his eyebrows a little, with a prompting inquiry: “And?”
“He claims to have escaped from the Gold Hawk, and also to have most vital information about Captains Jack Sparrow and James Norrington. He had this.” Mercer placed a fine pistol on Beckett’s desk: a practical London-made gun, elegant silver decoration that made it look elegant, and only a shadow of decadence in the mother-of-pearl inlay along the grip.
Beckett’s lip twitched and he rubbed a small burn-scar on his wrist, from when that same pistol, held in the hand of one James Norrington, had shot his lantern: a warning shot. Picking up the gun to examine it, he shot Mercer a look full of mixed rage and curiosity; only the latter was expressed in his voice as he said, “Send him in.”
Captain Andrew Gillette approached his desk.
Beckett looked up at him appraisingly. “Captain Gillette. Your ship has been reported missing, and yet here you are.” He tilted his head slightly. “You were one of the former Commodore Norrington’s lieutenants, were you not?”
“I did serve under him, Lord Beckett, but that was before he betrayed the crown, and not only allowed pirates to take over my ship, and the majority of my men to be slaughtered, but himself orchestrated the attack.” Gillette took a breath. “My apologies if I speak too frankly.”
“No apologies needed, Captain; I appreciate military frankness.” Between two fingers, Beckett rubbed a piece of eight in a seemingly absent-minded fashion. “So you were taken prisoner, then. And the rest of your crew who survived...”
“Kept aboard my... now stolen ship, under the auspices of their delivery to a respectable port under cover of dark, no ransoms required.”
“Interesting. What, exactly, inspired this mercy?”
Gillette’s lips thinned. “Norrington, sir. Apparently he commands much respect over not only his own men, but those aboard the Black Pearl as well.”
Beckett’s fingers stilled. “Really?” His words were cold, flat.
“Yes, Lord Beckett. He and Jack Sparrow now sail in apparent partnership. It was a group from Sparrow’s crew, along with former-lieutenant Theodore Groves and a number of his men, who took over my ship whilst most of the marines stormed the Island that our spy had led us to. All men ashore in uniform were cut down by... most unnatural things.” Gillette cringed. “They were, as I understand it, the crewman of the captain whose chest we were sent to fetch, Lord Beckett: one, Davy Jones.”
Beckett’s eyebrows raised. “I see. And so you were unable to recover the chest, then. How... unfortunate.”
Then, to Beckett’s surprise, Gillette stood up straighter, his eyes cool and calm. “We never glimpsed the chest, Lord Beckett, but I would hardly waste your time by coming to you empty-handed.”
Beckett stared at the young captain before him with renewed interest. “What, exactly, are you offering, Captain Gillette?”
“My own knowledge of the mind and habits of one James Norrington, should you require the information, but also, more importantly...” He reached into the interior pocket of his coat and pulled out a small, unimpressive bag. The heart within it was still visibly, audibly beating, when he placed it on the desk directly before Lord Beckett. “The heart of Davy Jones.”
Inhaling slowly, his eyes flickering with greed, Beckett stared at the heart. Then he looked up at Gillette. “Well done, Captain.” Reaching out to pick up the humble-looking container, he added, “I can see such a loyal, intelligent man as yourself going very far indeed.”
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