Song of the Sea: Sunsets and Black Sails

Chapter 25: The Black Swan

Fearful stares followed her, wherever she went. Any pirate with sense shied away from the cutting gaze, the glares that glinted from out beneath the wide brimmed hat. Silence fell wherever her boots thudded against the floor.

They thought she couldn't hear them whispering... but she knew what they called her.

The Black Swan.

An omen of death, a bride widowed before her wedding, bringing ruin to any who might stand in her way.

Aria was a proper pirate now, having made a name for herself. At first she hated the play on her name. Her darkness came from deep within her soul, from the hollow void that repeated loss brought. The first time she'd lost Jack, she'd been a much more delicate thing, in a different stage of life. It had broken her, closed her off from any concept but duty.

But not this time. No, now the space which Jack's loss left behind had filled with resolution, and nothing more.

She had no room for anything more. If she were to try to carve out a little place to put her grief and her pain, she would slip beneath the waves and never be seen again. And so, she shut everything out but this one goal: Retrieve Jack at any cost, by any means.

So she embraced her reputation, accepted the title she'd been given. She braided black feathers into her hair and dressed in the darkest of colors, and did what she had to.

And that was why they'd come here, to Singapore.

The plan was in place, everyone knew their role. Barbossa would be waiting for her at the dock.

Perhaps she ought to hate him - he had committed terrible deeds against her and Jack, and had threatened to do worse, after all. But there would be no retrieving Jack without him, and so, Aria was left to trust him, unfalteringly. At least, she trusted that he would fulfill the task charged to him by Tia Dalma.

She suspected that his return to life was conditional, though upon what, she knew not. No matter the case, Barbossa would not betray them.

"Some have died, and some are alive

Others sail on the sea,

With the keys to the cage, and the devil to pay,

We lay to Fiddler's Green..."

Aria sang lowly to herself as she slowly steered the one-person boat along the waterways. Carefully, she navigated along, her tune a signal of her location to the others of their crew.

"The bell has been raised from its watery grave

Hear its sepulchral tone...

A call to all, pay heed the squall,

Turn your sails toward home..."

Some commotion resounded overhead and she calmly tilted her head down further, hiding her easily-recognizable eyes beneath the brim of the wide hat. There seemed to be no port left free of Beckett's men. Mercer was among those men on the bridge...

She ignored the soldiers, ignored the sparks alight on the bridge, and continued on her way to the dock.

"Yo ho, haul together

Hoist the colors high..."

Aria continued singing, hoping Barbossa knew to listen for the signal of her arrival, and began to tie the boat to the stone dock.