In the Hands of Fate I: Curse of the Black Pearl

Chapter four

Chapter four

“Oh, Jackie?” I called sweetly in a singsong voice not long after the incident with Will. He turned around just in time to see me saunter over to him.

“Who the bloody hell are you?”

I smirked slightly and slapped him across the face hard enough to make my hand sting. “That’s for not coming back to me,” I snapped.

He rubbed his jaw where there was already a bright red mark. “Ah. Ow. Who are you?” Jack growled.

“You know very well who I am. Gandeste-te draga mea,” I told him, the last part spoken in Romanian.

He locked eyes with mine and soon became the size of saucers. “Luna?”

I chuckled. “See, it wasn’t so hard now was it?”

He smiled brightly if only for a second, then a scowl appeared. “Not coming back to you? Last I recalled, it was I who was marooned and forced to watch as you and the rest of me mutinous crew sailed away with my ship!” he sneered.

I scoffed. “Like I had a choice!” I snapped back. “They all but locked me in the brig. Don’t ya think that if I could ‘ave stopped Barbossa, I would’ve? Bootstrap wasn’t the only one that felt marooning you was a bad idea.”

He growled at me. “You coulda at least warned me.”

“I did, dragoste. That first night in Tortuga,” I mumbled.

I barely had enough time to register that Jack had pulled his sword on me and swung. I dodged but he still hit my hat, knocking it off my head. My braid cascaded down my back.

I pulled my cutlass out just in time to parry his next advance.

“Jack, stop!” I screamed.

“You ungrateful little wench!”

He attacked full force and I faltered slightly.

“Ya know as well as I, that if I had said anything, my father would have killed you! Don’t-” I parried yet another swing “-tell me-”

“Tell you what? That I’d rather him kill me than watch him sail away with not only me ship, but my best friend as well, knowing full well that I’d never see you again?” he quizzed.

A few things happened simultaneously in the next moment. Jack lunged at me and managed to disarm me. I stumbled back, falling over the stairs leading to the helm. Will joined us above deck just as Jack pressed the tip of his blade into the hollow of my neck.

“You left me. Not the other way around.”

I breathed heavily, my head spinning. “But I’m… I’m here now,” I offered.

“’Tsnot good enough,” he sighed, breathing hardly himself.

I glared at him. “Do it then. Run me through. But we both know you’ll hate yourself. It’s not me yer angry at. It’s my father.”

A murderous look passed over his face but he put the blade in his scabbard and walked away.

I let a breath go and squeezed my eyes shut.

So much for giving it time.

“What was that about, Estrella?” Will asked as I passed by him.

I stopped and turned around. “Unfinished business. And my name isn’t really Estrella. It’s Luna. Luna Barbossa.”

“Barbossa?” He was shocked to say the least. I think I would have been, too.

“Aye, Barbossa.”

()Pirates of the Caribbean ()

Tortuga has to be my least favorite place in the world.

It was literally my Hell on Earth. Unless of course, you count being stuck with both your father and wanna-be lover at one time, especially if neither one can stand each other. But that’s a story for another day.

I stuck close to Jack, praying that he’d still keep me from harm’s way, even with the rift between us.

“More importantly it is indeed a sad life that has never breathed deep this sweet bouquet that is Tortuga,” Jack continued. He and Mister Turner were having a conversation and I wasn’t paying much attention.

Jack paused at the main square. “What do ye think?”

I drew in a deep breath. “I hate it.”

Jack glared murderously at me and I sighed.

“It’ll linger,” Will said finally.

“I’ll tell ya, mate,” Jack continued, Looking at Will, “if every town in the world were like this one, no man would ever feel unwanted.” He twisted to look back at the square just as a redheaded woman came staking towards us. She did not look happy. “Scarlett!” he called walking to her and opening his arms to greet her.

She slapped him, quite hard by to look of it.

“Not sure I deserved that,” he mumbled as she stormed off.

He turned back just in time to see yet another woman, this time a blonde.

“Giselle!”

“Who was she?” the woman asked smugly then looked at me. “Who is she?”

“What?”

Giselle slapped him hard as well and left.

“I may have deserved that.”

I rolled my eyes and continued walking.

Jack led us to a pig sty that may have been the better smelling part of the island. There’s just something about the stench rotten food, rancid rum, vomit and dirty people, along with some other unmentionable things, that made the ode de pig just slightly more preferable.

Jack tossed water from a nearby pail on the man resting with the pigs.

“Curse you for breathing you slack-jawed idiot!” He paused for a moment and looked up at us, letting his eyes adjust, “Mother’s love! Jack! You should know better than to wake a man when he’s sleeping. It’s bad luck.”

“Ah, fortunately, I know how to counter it,” Jack stated as he began to kneel, “The man who did the waking buys the man who was sleeping a drink. The man who was sleeping drinks it while listening to a proposition from the man who did the waking.”

I was a bit confused. Jack Sparrow always had a way with words.

The man looked confused as well. Something must have clicked, because he smiled and said; “That’ll about do it.”

I still don’t know how it reversed the bad luck.

Will threw another bucket of water on him and he freaked.

“Blast! I’m already awake!”

“That was for the smell.”

I exchanged a glance with him and shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt.”

...

Romanian translations:

Gandeste-te draga mea - Think my dear.

dragoste - love (as in I love you, not pet)