Victoria had to admit; she had never felt this outraged. It seemed, she was feeling far more lately than she was used to--but then, she was used to a calm life where she only dreamed of such adventures she was embarking on now, though this was most definitely one she would've preferred to avoid, her sister being abducted. But, never the less, she acknowledged her anger and welcomed it, even if it disappointed her so, having had listened in on Jack's and Gibbs' conversation. It seemed that the pirate had, after all, decided to stick to his own plans, with no care of who was a part of it and who got hurt along the way.
"Give me one good reason," Victoria said, fuming, slender fingers still wrapped around the simple dining knife she had lodged into the table between the two men, "not to tell Will."
"Not to tell Will what?" Jack asked innocently as he slowly set his mug of ale down.
"Don't play that with me," she said, yanking the knife out and pointing at him with it, placing one hand flat on the table as she leaned over it somewhat, eyes blazing. Though intimidating, her fire seemed to light one of Jack's own as he eyed her--the man paying no heed to her simple weapon--giving her a look that made her falter before she shook her head and reminded herself of what she had overheard. Her head tilted to the side as she sneered at him. "You plan on handing Will over, don't you? For whatever reasons, I will not allow it."
Though Gibbs looked very uncomfortable and looked away from Victoria, Jack only smiled and leaned forward somewhat. "Do you want to save your sister, or don't you?"
"Not like this!" she hissed, throwing a glance at Will, who was still preoccupied with watching everyone in the bar, and when she looked back at Jack she was surprised to see that he had scooted his chair closer, and lifted the blade hesitantly at him again. "There has to be another way." She shook her head, moving to step back. "We need to discuss it with Will."
Before she could move a foot, Jack had lashed out and snatched her wrist, whirling her around and forcing her onto his lap, her back pressed--for what felt to be the millionth time--against his chest, and just as she began to yelp from surprise his other hand slid over her mouth, muffling the sound. Almost on instinct, she swung the blade the best she could towards him, but he quickly let go of her other wrist and grabbed that one instead, knocking her hand against the table a couple of times until she was forced to let go, the knife clattering across the table, where Gibbs watched the both of them with wide eyes. Victoria's nostrils flared, angered that she could be so easily maneuvered, sure that it would be the death of her one day, should she never prep herself for any form of counter attack.
"Now listen here, sweetheart," Jack said into her ear, voice low, breath fanning across her cheek. Even his lips brushed her ear, causing her to shiver somewhat, and as she did she felt something hard on his lap, making her eyes widen. Was that- "Relax, Victoria," he said with a chuckle. "That's just the hilt of my sword." She felt a wave of relief wash over her, though also mild disappointment, and he was polite enough to shift her so she was sitting on his thighs instead, and suddenly his face was beside hers, both of her wrists locked in one of his hands, her mouth still covered. "We could tell Will about what you overheard Gibbs and I discussing, which could result in a possibility of an endless mess that leads to not saving your sister, or we could keep quiet until the right time. Savvy?" He seemed to hesitate, then said, "Will you be quiet of I uncover your mouth?"
Victoria, watching him from the corners of her eyes, nodded the best she could, sucking in a breath when he released her mouth, though he didn't do the same with her wrists, keeping her pinned on his lap. Her cheeks flushed even more when she caught Gibbs himself blushing as he attempted to distract himself from watching the two--very much as if bashful he was letting Jack handle her in such a way--and she turned her face a little more so she could see Jack better.
"I swear to god," she said, voice low as well, though hers threatening, as she stared him straight in the eyes, "if I do not get my sister back, and if anything happens to Will-" She cast a nod down at his weapon. "-I'll use your sword to skewer you like a pig." Though determined, she wasn't actually sure she could bring herself to do such a thing.
If anything, his eyes lit with excitement, and his eyes flickered from her eyes, down, and back again as he grinned. "That, I'm sure you will." He paused, then lifted his free hand to her face, leaning forward a little so they were facing each other more, his hand splayed out on the side of her neck, a few of his fingers on her chin and cheek, the motion making her blush. Much to her surprise, the grip on her wrists had loosened. "Tell me, Victoria... Have you ever been kissed by a pirate?" Suddenly, his eyes were drooping and his lips were nearing hers.
She shoved herself off of his lap as her eyes widened from his question as well as his actions following, finding it surprising that he had allowed for her to do so so easily, and she spun around to face him. "Do not mock me."
He smiled cheerfully. "No mocking is being done, my darling."
"I'll be sure to believe that when your deal with Will goes accordingly," she snapped, and though she wanted to fan herself from how heated she had become she resisted, throwing a glance Will's way and blushing furthermore when she noticed him watching her with narrowed eyes. She quickly turned back, and jumped when she found Jack standing right in front of her, one arm crossed and the other lifted as he tapped his chin and eyed her thoughtfully. Nevertheless, she held her ground, thrusting her chin out haughtily.
"You ought to trust me, Victoria," he said, eyes flashing brightly, as he lowered his hand from his face, grinning. He reached out, grabbing a strand of her hair and twirling it absently. "Things will run...more smoothly that way."
She smacked his hand away. "It would be foolish to trust a pirate." Without another word, she turned and stormed away, ignoring whatever look Gibbs and Will were burning into her back.
Despite how loud it was, she was still able to catch Jack's quiet, "That it would."
* * *
On the Black Pearl, in the Captain's Cabin, Elizabeth paced, fuming and frightened, though mostly irritated. Pintel, the one-eyed pirate, and Cyrus walked in, drawing her to a stop. In Pintel's arms was a dark Victorian dress.
"You'll be dining with the Captain," Pintel said as Cyrus leaned against the wall, "and he requests you wear this."
Elizabeth, suddenly smug, said, "Well, you may tell the captain that I am disinclined to acquiesce to his request."
Pintel and the other pirate exchanged looks, though Cyrus was busy pretending to be interested in his nails, before turning to her, a sly grin on his face. "He said you'd say that. He also said if that be the case, you'll be dining with the crew, and you'll be naked." Him and the one-eyed pirate began sputtering up laughs. Cyrus, meanwhile, remained expressionless.
Elizabeth, disgusted, yanked the dress from Pintel's arms, and held it to her chest, her choice made.
Face falling, Pintel snapped, "Fine." Then, both him and the other pirate left the room.
Cyrus pushed from the wall, approaching Elizabeth, who nervously stepped back, though he stopped a couple paces away from her, seeming to study her face before saying, "Who are you, girl?"
She cleared her throat, shifting uncomfortably before saying, "I've already said. I'm-"
"Turner, yes, I know," he snapped, though he still wasn't sure if he believed that or not. He straightened after thinking for a moment. "I met a woman, on the grounds we found you on. The grounds you work on."
Her heart fluttered. Could he be talking about Victoria? "There are many-"
"This one was particularly memorable," he responded, and he began pacing, looking away from her, as if concentrating. "She's...very beautiful. Hair as dark as ravens, and yet too brown to be black. Eyes sharp enough to cut a diamond."
It had to be her. "That's my--Miss Swann." No point in lying about her since it was clear they hadn't been after the governor or his daughters to begin with. "She's the governor's daughter."
"Is she, now?" Cyrus asked, eyes seeming to spark excitedly, as he stopped pacing and turned towards her. "What is your relation to her?" Before she could respond, he added, "She shouted your name as if you were more to her than just some common maid."
A beat, and then she said, "We're...friends, sir." She bowed her head somewhat. "She is like that with those of us she sees consistently."
"Is she?" he asked, voice dripping, clearly unsure as to whether or not he should believe her. It did seem like she was telling the truth. But then, she was clearly still holding back information. At that moment, he was beginning to think that it was possible Miss Swann was Elizabeth's sister. But then, the both of them looked nothing alike.
Elizabeth was quiet for a moment, unsure when the right time to speak up again would be, the man making her more than nervous, and finally she said, "You met her." In a way, she was asking him to continue, wanting to know as to whether or not she was alright.
"Oh," he said, and he grinned. "I did more than just that."
Her breath caught, and she stared at him, wide-eyed. "What did you do?"
"We had ourselves a little conversation," he said, still grinning, slowly walking up to her. "A little struggle as well. After we obtained you--well, let's just say I noticed a little wound on her head. And now, I suppose there's no telling as to whether or not she'll be in an endless slumber."
Though it didn't sound good, Elizabeth was relieved to know that he had at least given her a surviving chance. But, nevertheless, she said, "You're wretched." After all, such things did happen when one was hit hard enough on the head.
"Look at it this way," he said as he shrugged his shoulders, backing up towards the door, expression smug, "at least there's a chance her Prince charming will arrive, and kiss her awake. I imagine it'll be precisely the sort of adventure she dreams of." He turned and left the room.
Elizabeth, frightened and angry, looked down at the dress in her hands, wanting to tear it to shreds.
* * *
Barbossa entered his cabin, followed by pirates carrying trays of food, wine, and a table setting. Elizabeth, meanwhile, sat at the small table in the dress she had been given, teeth clenched and eyes somewhat wide as she regarded everyone, visibly shaking.
"Maid or not," Barbossa said to her as he sat and indicated the dress on her small body, "it suits you."
"Dare I ask the fate of its previous owner?" she asked haughtily, despite the position she was in.
"Now, none of that," he responded as the table was finished being set up, the plate in front of Elizabeth containing a bit of a meal, and the other pirates left the room. "Please, dig in."
Though Elizabeth didn't want to humor the captain or his men in any way, she was too hungry to rebel, cutting daintily into a piece of meat that was on her plate, and placing the tiny bite in her mouth, hardly aware that Barbossa was staring intently at her.
"There's no need to stand on ceremony," the captain said, amused, as he continued to watch her closely, "no call to impress anyone. You must be hungry."
After a moment of staring at him, she immediately dropped pretenses, realizing that he was right--she had no means to impress this man by eating in any ways deemed proper--and, so, she snagged at a piece of meat on the plate before her, tearing into it very much liked a starved animal.
Barbossa, still watching intently, said, "Try the wine." When Elizabeth does, taking a large gulp before tearing off a piece of bread and devouring that as well, he added, grabbing an apple and holding it out towards her, "And the apples--one of those next."
Suddenly aware of Barbossa's gaze, the piece of bread still in her hands, she slowly met her gaze, suspicious not only of the fact that he was eyeing her, but also the fact that he was not eating. Her eyes flickered to his monkey, which was watching her as well off to the side, before she glanced back at the captain, and she dropped the bread as she stared at the apple for a moment before him again, staring at him in disbelief. "It's poisoned."
He laughed. "There would be no sense to be killing you, Miss Turner."
Confused, she narrowed her eyes. "Then release me. You have your trinket. I'm of no further value to you."
Keeping his eyes on her, he pulled the medallion from the inside of his jacket, and held it up. "You don't know what this is, do you?"
"It's a pirate medallion," Elizabeth said, almost haughtily, as she stared at it to him, brows raised.
"This is Aztec gold," he told her. "One of eight hundred eighty-two identical pieces they delivered in a stone chest to Cortes himself. Blood money paid to stem the slaughter he wreaked upon them with his armies. But the greed of Cortes was insatiable. So the heathen gods placed upon the gold..." He trailed off for a moment, as if to be sure she was listening closely--which, of course, she was, very much fascinated. "...a terrible curse. Any mortal that removes but a single piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity."
Very sure that he was just trying to scare her, she regarded him with a distasteful expression. "I hardly believe in ghost stories anymore, Captain Barbossa."
"Aye," he said, eyes sparking up, and he pushed himself from his seat, walking around her. "That's exactly what I thought when we were first told the tale. Buried on an Island of the Dead what cannot be found except for those who know where it is." He had stopped at that point, behind her, one hand resting on the back of her chair, the other still clutching the gold piece, before he swooped down beside her. "Find it we did. There be the chest. Inside be the gold. We took 'em all! We spent 'em and traded 'em and frittered 'em away on drink and food-" he circled back around her as he spoke "-and pleasurable company." He swept down beside her again, eyes on her face, which was cast down in thought at the table. "The more we gave 'em away, the more we came to realize that the drink would not satisfy. Food turned to ash in our mouths, and all the pleasurable company in the world could not slake our lust. We are cursed men, Miss Turner." He backed away from her as she watched up, though didn't turn his back. "Compelled by greed we were, but now...we are consumed by it." When his monkey began screeching and jumping, he turned to it, walking up to it and lifting a hand.
Elizabeth, while he was distracted, kept her eyes on him as she slowly pulled a knife from the table and onto her lap, hidden beneath a napkin.
Barbossa, his back still to her, said, "There is one way we can end our curse." He handed the monkey the medallion, and turned back around, his monkey jumping onto his shoulder as he walked around the table a ways. "All the scattered pieces of the Aztec gold must be restored and the blood repaid." He held out his arm, and the monkey jumped from it before racing off, though he remained at his spot before Elizabeth, who was watching him with a growing sense of dread. "Thanks to ye, we have the final piece."
She stared at him for a moment, then said, "And the blood to be repaid?"
"That's why there's no sense to be killing you," he said as he stared down at her. Then, giving her a smile, he said, "Yet." When her eyes widened as she regarded him, debating as to whether or not his story was actually true, he held out the apple from before. "Apple?"
After a moment of hesitating, she stood, smacking the apple out of his hand, unsure as to where she would run off to, and when he remained in her way she wielded the knife she had grabbed before, holding it up threateningly, though Barbossa didn't look worried--if anything, he looked amused and somewhat annoyed. After another moment, she ran across the room, only to be cut off with the Captain stepping in her way, and just as she went to run around him, he grabbed her arm.
Whirling around, she cried out as she stabbed the knife deep into his chest, gasping in terror as she did, her eyes wide, and she watched in ever-growing horror as he simply looked down at it and pulled it out with nothing short of an irritated expression.
"I'm curious," he said as he looked from the blood-covered knife to Elizabeth. "After killing me, what is it you're planning on doing next?"
She gasped as she backed away. Why was he not dying? Or, at least, behaving like he had actually just been stabbed? When she made it to the doors of the room, she raced through and turned around, letting out a shriek at the scene before her. Where there should have been a crew working on the top deck, there were rotting bodies, all of which eye-balled her while they continued to work. She stumbled around, and screamed again as she lost her footing and fell through an opening, only to be caught by a thick piece of fabric several of the skeletons were holding, and she screamed as she was tossed into the air, arms flailing, and fell back down, only to be tossed into the air. This time, she was caught as one of the undead crew swung on a rope.
"Boo," he said just as she acknowledged him, and he cackled as she shrieked before they both landed next to the wheel of the ship.
She tried to run from him, the both of them on either side of the wheel as she dodged back and forth before grabbing the wheel and spinning it just as he reached towards her, causing it to knock against his chin repeatedly until his head snapped back. Much to her horror, he only reacted with snapping it back in place and growling at her, and she turned, racing down the steps, where she hid under the stairs as she watched everyone.
Suddenly, there was a noise behind her, and she screamed when she spotted the Captains monkey--undead as well--hanging behind her, which screeched back at her in return, holding up the medallion. Elizabeth shoved herself from under the stairs, racing through the doors of the captain's room and crashing straight into his chest.
He grabbed her shoulders, and whirled her around. "Look!" Up ahead, the full moon cast its light down on them, clouds moving around it. "The moonlight shows us for what we really are. We are not among the living, and so we cannot die. But neither are we dead." He spun her around to face him. "For too long I've been parched of thirst and unable to quench it." He hardly paid heed as she slowly began to back away from him with horrified and curious eyes, simply following after her. "Too long I've been starvin' to death and haven't died. I feel nothin'. Not the wind on my face, nor the spray of the sea-" he lifted his hand towards Elizabeth as he spoke, which put it under the moonlight, and she watched as his sking suddenly decayed "-nor the warmth of a woman's flesh." As she leapt away from his hand, he stepped completely into the moonlight, now completely skeletal. "You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!" As she regarded him with wide and disbelieving eyes, he whipped out a bottle and popped the cork before downing the contents, which drained right out of him, and as Elizabeth raced into his room, he threw the bottle at the door, causing it to shatter, and slammed both doors shut. Then, turning, he laughed, and when the others joined in, he stopped. "What are you looking at? Back to work!"
Elizabeth, now entirely frightened, was curled up in the corner of the room, arms wrapped around her knees, wide eyes bouncing around the room as she jumped at every noise the ship had to offer. She only prayed that her sister didn't come across such horrors.