Siren Song: Dead Man's Chest

Chapter 9

"Alas, my children," Jack said, gesturing with his hand to the lamenting cannibals. "This is the day you shall always remember as the day that you almost–" He was cut off with a wave smacking his face, and absolutely drenching him front head to toe.

"– Captain Jack Sparrow..."

~- Day, Deck, The Black Pearl -~

"Let's put some distance between us and this island, and head out to open sea." Gibbs said as Jack boarded his ship. Victoria started moving towards him, a scowl on her face.

"Victoria-" She ignored James, who trailed after her.

"Yes to the first, yes to the second, but only insofar as we keep to the shallows as much as possible." Jack said as Pintel and Ragetti draped his coat on his shoulders, and Gibbs made a face at the response.

"Now that seems a bit contradictory, Captain..."

"I have every faith in your reconciliatory navigational skills, Master Gibbs, now where is that monkey? I want to shoot something." Jack seethed. Above them, the monkey let out a screech, and dropped Ragetti's eye. Jack pulled out his pistol, ignoring Ragetti who grabbed his eye and cleaned it off before pushing it back in his eye socket.

"Jack." The mentioned caption snapped his head to look at Victoria in all her fury.

"Ah... Did you do something different with your hair?" Victoria growled, and was ready to punch him when James stepped in front of her.

"Elizabeth and Roxanne are in danger." He said, and Jack forced down a frown.

"Have you considered keeping a more watchful eye on 'em?" Jack said, moving up the deck while keeping an eye on the monkey as it climbed along the rigging. "Maybe just lock them up somewhere. Though considering Roxy love's a fish demon she'll be just fine." He said muttering the last part, and Victoria glared as she followed him.

"They are locked up, in a prison, bound to hang for helping you!" Jack spun around to face her, amused.

"There comes a time when one must take responsibility for one's mistakes. Me and Roxy had a lovely discussion about it once, so she must understand." Victoria growled, and drew a sword from the waistband of a pirate who was fussing with the rigging, and James held back a groan as she held it to Jack's throat.

"We need that compass of yours, Jack. We must trade it for their freedom." Jack narrowed his eyes at her, weighing his options. With a short sigh, he pushed the sword aside.

"Mister Gibbs?" 

"Cap'n." Gibbs responded from the wheel.

"We have a need to travel upriver." Jack said, moving towards him.

"By need, d'you mean a trifling need, fleeting, as in, say, a passing fancy?"

"No, a... resolute and unyielding need." At the response, Gibbs grimaced.

"What we need to do is make sail for Port Royal with all haste." Victoria snapped.

"Victoria, Commodore..." He said, moving to the rail. "I shall trade you the Compass, if you will help me... to find this." He pulled out the drawing of a key, and Victoria and James frowned.

"You want us to find this?" James said, taking the drawing.

"No. You want you to find this. Because the finding of this, finds you incapacitorially finding and/or locating in your discovering the detecting of a way to save your dolly belle ol' what's her face and the darling fish demon Roxy. Savvy?"

"This... is going to save Elizabeth and Roxanne?" Victoria frowned, studying the key.

"How much do you know about Davy Jones?" Victoria and James, who shrugged, looked at each other.

"Not much."

"Yeah, it's gonna save Elizabeth Roxanne."

-- Day, Deck, Edinburgh Trader --

Elizabeth held a face of concentration, ignoring the bickering sailors who were arguing over Roxanne's wedding dress, as she lacquered the ship's railing.

It had really been Roxanne's idea, how she knew it would work, Elizabeth would never know. But apparently, it was supposed to help Elizabeth get to Tortuga, where Victoria and James had begun the search for Jack.

Roxanne herself had decided to swim it, taking only her slip with her, saying she would stay close but not close enough to be noticed. Elizabeth had nodded and gone along with the plan, considering it would get them away from port royal as fast as possible.

The Captain, Bellamy, Elizabeth had learned, pushed his way through the crowd and stopped in front of the bickering pair.

"What's all this? If you both fancy the dress, you'll just have to share, and wear it one after the other." Elizabeth fought back laughter while the crew made no such attempt.

"It's not like that, Sir. This ship is haunted." Bursur, one of the few friendly crewmen she'd met so far, said. Captain Bellamy raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Is it now?" He looked towards the ship's Quartermaster, whose name Elizabeth didn't know yet. "N' you?"

"There is a female presence amongst us here, sir. All the men, they can feel it." The crew let out a murmur of agreement, and Elizabeth paused, waiting with baited breath.

"The ghost of a lady, widowed before her marriage, I figure it. Searching for her husband, lost at sea."

"Virgin, too, likely as not." Another crewman butted in, and Elizabeth quirked an almost smile. While she doubted many would pass up the chance to... You know, with a mermaid. Elizabeth had the off putting thought that Roxanne would sooner eat someone than sleep with them.

"And that bodes ill by all accounts." Another murmur of agreement.

"I say that we throw the dress overboard and we hope the spirit follows it." Bursur said tugging the dress free from the Quartermaster's hands, and Elizabeth frowned as she continued her work.

"No! That- that will just anger the spirit, Sir. What we need to do is find out what the spirit needs, and then just get it back!" The Quartermaster argued, taking back the dress, and they delved back into bickering and arguing over the dress and what to do with it.

"Enough! Enough! You're a pair of superstitious goats and it's got the best of you." Captain Bellamy scowled. "Now this appears to be no more as we have a stowaway aboard." Elizabeth tensed, there was the logical reasoning she'd dreaded.

"A young woman, by the look of it. I want you to search the ship and find 'er. Oh, and uh... she's probably naked..." Elizabeth held back a snort as the crew enthusiastically rushed off in search of the stowaway. Elizabeth herself joined the search feeling a bit awkward as she did so.