Song of the Sea: Sunsets and Black Sails

Chapter 14: Of Longing and Loneliness

Jack

Jack didn't know why, but there was an unspoken tension between Aria and himself, seemingly out of nowhere. She'd had a brief brush with the East India Trading Company, he knew. Cutler Beckett himself had got ahold of her and marked her, but she had showed him the brand as soon as she escaped, and that didn't seem to be the thing that was bothering her. In fact, she seemed rather proud of it... So why was she being distant with him? He'd thought about just asking her outright, but he had a feeling that wouldn't do any good. If anything, it would likely only serve to push her further away. She didn't seem angry with him. In fact, when he would catch her looking at him, she seemed almost... sad. What on earth could it be?

He was pulled from his thoughts by the feeling of the coffin he was borrowing splashing down into the water. Perhaps he could get Aria to speak with him now that he had the drawing of the key... Surely she would still want to help him try to escape his fate in the Locker.

As Gibbs helped him aboard, Jack's first instinct was to search for her. She hung back from the rest of the crew, leaning against the railing on the opposite side of the Pearl, and she wasn't looking at him. Jack made his way towards her, hoping to catch her alone.

"You got what you went in for, then?" Gibbs asked, chasing after him.

Jack made an absent noise of confirmation, pulling the cloth from inside his shirt. He was far more focused on the woman he loved, and how he might convince her to talk with him again. When he rounded the corner to find Aria, one of his newer crew members was standing there in front of him. When Anamaria left to captain her own ship, it had taken about a dozen lazy scoundrels from Tortuga to replace her. Funny how that works.

"Captain," Gibbs said, "I think the crew... meaning me as well... were expecting something a bit more... shiny. What with the Isla de Muerta going all pear-shaped, reclaimed by the sea, and the treasure with it."

"And the Royal Navy," that new crewman chimed in, "Chasing us all around the Atlantic."

"And the hurricane!" Marty added. The whole crew murmured in agreement at that one.

"Not to mention, making us sail with a woman on board," that crew member added again, jerking his chin at Aria, who merely regarded him coolly. The smarter crew members kept silent at that one.

"All in all," Gibbs continued, attempting to hurry things along, "it seems some time since we did a speck of honest piratin'..."

Jack stayed silent for a moment, pretending to think it over, whilst he stared down the unruly crew member, thinking of how to make him pay for his sleight against his beloved.

"Shiny?" he asked.

"Aye, shiny," Gibbs said.

Jack looked around at the crew.

"Is that how you're all feeling, then?" he asked them. "That perhaps dear old Jack is not serving your best interests as Captain?"

The hired hands from Tortuga all exchanged glances. Just then, Cotton's parrot squawked and screeched, "Walk the plank!" Its owner quickly covered its beak, but Jack drew his pistol on it like lightning.

"What did the bird say?" he demanded.

"Do not blame the bird," the irritating one said. "Show us, what is on that piece of cloth there."

Jack gave him a funny look. This man was not in his good books at the moment, but just as he was about to tell him so, a gangly, skeletal figure leapt out in front of him. The whole crew jumped and exclaimed, and Jack yelped. He tried to fire his pistol, but the confounded thing had jammed. While he was distracted looking at it, the weird monkey-thing snatched the cloth from him and scurried off. Quickly, Jack snatched a pistol from the nearest crewman's belt, but before he could fire, another shot rang out, sending the creature tumbling with deadly accuracy.