Chancing Fate - Jack Sparrow x OC

Part 3 - Chapter 2

A/N: Updated 

Lena's Journal – July 15, 1729

This chart we've spent months chasing is complete nonsense. I have never seen such a thing and I can't understand a bit of it. Every time I think I have found a pattern, I look away for a moment and swear it has changed again. I am beginning to suspect the map enjoys making fools of people. There are symbols drawn across it and words that mean absolutely nothing to me. I am starting to have my doubts about this map. How can we make it to the Locker if we can't understand the map?

Regardless of understanding the map, Barbossa has kept us on course since leaving Singapore. He studies the thing as though it makes perfect sense and announces course changes with enough confidence that even Gibbs stops asking questions. I can't say I have much of an idea as to where we are headed, but I have noticed a shift in temperature. Perhaps I should have packed more than one proper coat. It is certainly not the warm Caribbean I am used to.

The worst part of this trip is sharing a ship with Sao Feng's men. Every conversation seems to stop when one of us walks by, and every time I look up I find someone watching. I don't trust them. At all. When asked, Will never gives a real answer as to how he came to his agreement with Sao Feng. There must be a reason they are here, and I worry what that reason is after knowing how much he hates Jack. There is something going on here. I wish I knew what.

***

Enormous mountains of ice were scattered across the water, towering over the ship as it moved past them. The only sounds were the water being cut by the ship and the occasional whispers of the crew, too cold to speak loudly.

Lena sat in silence beside Elizabeth, sharing the lone blanket that had been found onboard. They had little need for it while closer to Singapore, but their travels had taken them into the bitter cold. Muscles tense from shaking, Lena dreaded the next time she moved, knowing how stiff she would be. While she was better off than the crew, her cheeks were tender from the cold and her fingers had gone numb. Her usual blue shirt did nothing to block it out, even with the assistance of her jacket overtop.

She let out a shaky breath as she blew a loose strand of hair out of her face, the ends frozen like the rest of the braid she had pulled back to keep the ice away from her skin. The cold had crept into the voyage days earlier before finally settling into something relentless. More than a week had passed and they still had yet to find a sure path into World's End, each day wearing away a little more of the hope she had carried from Singapore.

The map was cryptic at best, filled with shifting courses and nonsense words, and she had left it to the others to decipher after giving up herself. Part of it was due to the cold. She could hardly think straight, let alone focus on reading a map, when her entire body was trying simply to keep warm, a difficult enough task when she had no desire to move.

Lena shifted beneath the blanket, trying to work feeling back into her numb fingers as another gust of wind swept across the deck. She watched a sheet of ice drift silently past the hull before glancing toward Elizabeth, who hadn't looked away from the horizon in several minutes.

"It wasn't this cold in Port Royal," she said quietly.

"No," Elizabeth agreed, the corner of her mouth lifting into a smile that disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and pulled the blanket higher around her shoulders before her attention settled back on the endless stretch of white ahead.

For a few moments they sat in silence again, listening to the steady groan of the ship pushing through the frozen water. Lena searched for something else to say, settling on the first ordinary thought that came to mind. "I miss sunlight."