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Carina hissed as she leaned against the bars of the cage.  The whipping two days ago had been brutal, and the token protests that she was a ‘she’ and therefore should be exempt from physical punishment had gone on deaf ears, something she was strangely proud of.  The first mate had done a thorough job of reminding her of her station and the reason she was in the brig in the first place.Impersonating an officer.  Correcting the course without permission.  Being a woman on a ship. Being a woman wearing pants.  Being a woman. There were murmurs of ‘witch’, but she’d kept her mouth shut about astronomy and horology and the rumors had died after a disdainful look from the captain.All of the offers to help bandage her afterwards had come with leers and eyes far too intent on her breasts, so she’d done what she could with scavenged linens before she’d been thrown down here and locked away.  She was incredibly sure the long strips of off-white fabric hadn’t been washed since the last time the ship had docked at port, and even then she was suspicious. Her wounds felt hot, puffy, and tore open again far too easily.  They were constantly weeping, and it had soaked through the bandages she couldn’t replace and had turned her shirt into a disgusting mess that stuck to her skin. The certainty of an infection coupled with the mere idea of the pain from jumping into the salty sea during the escape she was planning was enough to make her squeeze her eyes shut against the tears that threatened to well up.  The absolute last thing she needed was any of the crew coming down to see her weeping.At least they hadn't ripped off her breeches and loose cotton shirt, ruined in the back as it was.  She’d been allowed to keep a little dignity. She longed for the extra layer of the heavy blue overcoat she’d worn, but they’d torn the sleeves and tossed it overboard.  She’d been deemed unfit to even wear the sign of a traitor. She thanked her stars they didn’t have any of those cursed dresses and corsets on hand. The heavy skirts would drown her the instant she leapt overboard.She let out a shaky breath, the old man in the cell next to her silent.  After a few minutes of the only sounds being the gentle slapping of waves on the hull, the elder called out to her, “You’re not the first in your position, lass, and you certainly won’t be the last.”  His voice was rough but kindly as he elaborated, “Woman to come on, dressed as a common deckhand.”She looked over and he nodded at her with rheumy eyes, “You’re lucky you’re down here, caged in.  Some of the things I’ve seen sailors do to women, especially those that clothe themselves as men…” he let his voice trail off meaningfully.  She didn’t look away and he continued, softly, “You’re safer down here. If anyone tries to come down, ol’ Westman’ll tell em off for you.” He gave her a wink that was probably supposed to be comforting, but Carina just felt cold.  The idea of rape had crossed her mind, but this old man would probably be little more protection than if the walls were made of paper. Maybe less.After all, someone had a key.“Thank you,” she said belatedly.  “I… I appreciate your kindness.” He beamed at her, and she couldn’t help the reflexive smile she sent his way in return.  He’d been in a drunken stupor since she’d been imprisoned, but apparently he was now sober enough to realize she was there.  The company could be a welcome distraction.She moaned as a wave of pain rolled through her, combined with the motion of the boat to make her feel ill.  She must have looked some combination of green and grey, because a pile of papers were shoved through the bars at her.  She grabbed them slowly, confused, and met Westman’s eyes. “It’s what we get to clean up, down here. After... business.  Old flyers, out of date. Right there, at the top, that’s Jack Sparrow. He’s long dead, buried in an unmarked grave on the isle of Saint Martin.”  He nodded knowledgeably and she didn’t look, setting the stack down and spreading them out. In case she was sick, that would at least make it easy to clean up and shove into a corner.The boat, which normally buzzed with ambient noise, fell completely silent, and the meager light that had filtered in grew dark.  Both Westman and Carina grew still, eyes turned upwards, barely breathing through the tension in the air. Carina’s nausea faded to the back of her mind.Then, there were startled yells and barked orders above deck as everything sprung into motion at once.  The thumping of boots across the wooden boards accompanied by short, sharp screams. Then there were other loud sounds, these heavier and larger than the kind made by feet alone.The old man muttered, “Are we being boarded?”  He stood carefully, his sea legs steady beneath him even at his own great age, and shuffled to the front of his own cell.  He grasped the iron bars and peered toward the stairwell.Carina’s bare feet slipped on the littering of wanted posters beneath her, and she cursed as she hit the ground with a thump.  The lacerations on her back sent a wave of pain through her entire body and she hissed out a long breath. Westman shuffled over to her and offered a surprisingly strong hand through the bars, wordlessly helping her stand.  “If it’s pirates,” he said, his voice serious, “hope to have your throat slit.” The old man’s face looked frightened for her, and Carina found her throat tightening.“I just need to get far enough to jump in the water, then I can swim.”  Her voice was high and hushed, she was ashamed to find.He shook his head, repeating, “Hope to have your throat slit.”  Looking at the stairwell, he swiveled his head back to her and made a fist, tucking the thumb over his fingers and exposing the fleshy part of the palm.  “Make a fist like this.” She complied, and as he studied it, his thick, stubby fingers reaching through the bars, adjusting her hand, and then he pointed at the end of his nose, “If they do open the door and get you, make a fist like that and hit them here, hard as you can.  Best bet, it shoves their nose back into their brain and kills them. Worst bet, it hurts like the dickens and they’ll either kill you right off or you’ll be able to push past and get away.” He threw a straight jab, angled up, and she copied his movement until he was satisfied.  She felt warm and unsteady, but she was either going to die from the infection or the people boarding the ship. She’d fight to her last breath.“Thank you,” she said, stronger than before.He nodded at her and smiled.By then, the first curls of smoke were starting to fill the top of the brig.  “The boat’s on fire,” Carina said faintly, and Westman nodded.“Might not get the chance to use that punch if we sink,” his offhand comment made a dose of adrenaline shoot down her spine, and she rushed to the front of her cell, grabbing the door and shaking it.  The bolts were rusted but sturdy, and she did little more than rattle in it’s frame. She hit the door, hard, and gave a small shout as the motion wrenched her back. She felt a trickle of blood down her spine and into the waistband of her breeches.“Quiet!”  Westman hissed at her, “Or they’ll hear, come looking.”She rattled the door again, keeping eye contact with him, and kicked it for good measure.  “Why not try? What’s the benefit, old man? We drown instead of getting our heads cut off?  One of those sounds like a much faster way to die, and if they come down here they’ll have to open the door to get us out.  I want a fighting chance.” She slammed her shoulder against the door, but it didn’t give.  All of the lashes, however, split open and she bared her teeth in a silent scream against the pain.Gasping, Carina leaned against the door and ground her teeth together.  There was a soft noise, like rain, and she opened her eyes and looked at the ground.  A few inches outside of the door was a puddle. It was dark in the poor light, but Carina had a terrible suspicion that she knew what it was.Just to be sure, she held out her hand, collecting a shallow handful of the warm liquid that had soaked through the floorboards.Drawing her hand back to her, she studied the viscosity of it, the sharp, tangy copper scent mixing with the thick smoke that was starting to fill her lungs.  “Blood.” She pronounced it surely, and ol’ Westman didn’t say a word, just joined her at the junction of their cells to look at the way the blood coated her hand.“Fresh,” he uttered, and she nodded.“The crew-” she bit off whatever she was about to say as a black boot appeared on the first step of the stairwell.What followed was a man that, faintly, she recognized she would have found handsome if he hadn’t looked like a drowned corpse that had been fished out of a river two weeks after being tossed there.  His long face had sharp features, dark, intense eyes that flickered like fire, a straight, finely shaped nose and a mouth drawn back in a snarl. From between his teeth, his breath sounded labored and pained, like his lungs were struggling to draw in air.  There was something black streaming down his chin. The skin on his face was cracked, peeling, and though he was hunched over, leaning on both his scabbard and sword, she knew he would be tall when unfurled. His uniform was striated black and a grey that must have been white at one time, charred and floating strangely around him, as if he were walking underwater.  She blinked rapidly, trying to see if the apparition would vanish. How bad was her fever, exactly?He floated down the stairs, his hair streaming around him like a cloud, and his eyes flared a deep, burnished gold when he saw the feminine figure behind the iron bars, "¿Que es esto? ¿Una pequeña mariposa?"  He laughed, low and mocking, "Little Butterfly, how are you so far out to sea?" She shivered at his voice, raspy and deep with strong currents of cruelty shooting through it. The whistles and gasps were less pronounced when he talked, she noted instantly.  Distantly, she wondered if the rumble of his voice disguised them or if it was easier for him to talk than it was for him to breathe.She tried to tell herself the shiver wasn’t from fear, but it was very, very clear that this man was dead.  This man and the crew around him, all the same pallid grey, most with missing limbs, or parts of limbs hanging at odd angles, and one appeared to be nothing but a head and a hand, hovering at the height it must have remembered being.  All of them were charred around the edges, uniforms decrepit and weapons rusting and corroding. ‘A weapon doesn’t have to be well maintained to cut you down, Carina Smyth,’ slithered through her brain. No matter how much she blinked, no matter how badly her back throbbed, the apparitions weren’t vanishing.Carina Smyth was a woman of science, she told herself fiercely, and this must have just been a trick of the light, or the infection from her back had spread to her blood and then to her brain, or maybe the smoke was full of hallucinogens.  There was no such things as ghosts, or spirits, or zombies. Once a body was dead, that was it. It stayed dead, and then it went in a box or on a fire, and the people left behind would remember. Or not. But either way, the body didn’t stand up and walk around again.  It didn’t breathe, it didn’t laugh, it didn’t look at her like she was going to be eaten alive.

Carine knew her eyes were wide, and she was standing completely still, not shivering in fear or shaking the bars of her cell, like Westman had started doing.  She whispered, "I...I don't believe in ghosts. This isn’t real." Ol’ Westman, however, had started making terrible, frightened noises, his mouth gaping and eyes bulging out of his head.  She felt a little bit of pity for him, watching his mind flee and the expression on his face something primal and full of terror.Stalking forward, the man gave a quiet “Shh,” in the direction of the old man, and the floating face and hand wielding a sword cut ol’ Westman right through the center mass and he fell without another sound.Carina felt wildly, intensely sad for a moment, and remembered the promise he’d made to protect her not an hour ago, and how she’d failed to even protest his execution.  She curled her hand into the fist that he’d taught her, and swore to his memory that she’d get away.

The dead man walked through the bars of the cage as easily as she might through an open doorway.  "Ah, Mariposa, you wound me.  I'm here before you now, and you don't believe in me.  What can I do," he said slyly, “to prove how real I am?”  He clucked his tongue, thick, black blood welling out of his mouth.  His eyes travelled down her body, far more exposed in the tight breeches and loose cotton shirt than she might like, but paused by her feet.  His head cocked to the side, hair echoing his movements. She found herself fascinated despite herself, and had to hold her hand back from reaching out to run her fingers through the floating ends.  The large, imposing figure slid closer to her, his fine leather boots barely making a sound. His sword flashed out and she flinched, half expecting him to gut her, but all he did was spear an old flyer.  His breathing turned harsher, more excited, and the whistles became much more pronounced as his lungs tried to suck in more air.

"Sparrow," he breathed, his eyes brightening to a hellish yellow.  His gaze held hers, "Do you know this pirate? Do you seek the Sparrow?"She didn’t answer, her eyes glued to the cracked skin of his face where it broke away into the burned remains of his skull.  This close, she could see so many little details, tiny burned out capillaries, slightly crispy layers of subcutaneous fat and skin, and the blown out remains of what looked to be a very fine cheekbone.  Without even thinking about it, she reached out to touch the edge. Ever the scientist, ever curious. The delirium from the fever was becoming more pronounced, she told herself wildly, and that was the only reason she’d allow herself one last indulgence before she died.  She wondered if she could get away with feeling to see if his hair felt as soft as it looked.The manic light in his eyes replaced by suspicion, he held himself still with a powerful sort of tenseness.  Even his breathing quieted, barely audible. Carina had read in a book, one time when she was small, about large cats in the jungle that would wait, motionless, for hours in the large trees and thick bush.  Muscles constantly on alert, ready to pounce and kill their prey from one powerful swipe of their claws or the bite of their sharp fangs. She got the sense that one false move on her part would leave her dead before she knew it.  Unfortunately for her good sense, Carina had a habit of standing in the way of danger for the sake of knowledge.She touched the ragged edge of his wound with her fingertips, blinking rapidly.  She hadn’t thought him to be so solid, like a real man. She’d expected him to feel more viscous, or maybe for her hands to just glide right through him, as easily as he’d slipped between the bars a moment ago.  The skin was rough, like the old, peeling paint from her childhood orphanage, and she felt the sharp edges of burned bone beneath. She traced the edge for a moment, starting to be slightly less certain in her delirium, and fingered the broken tip of his...zygomatic arch?  It was a little hard to tell, so many lovely swoops and whorls on the human skull, and his were all mangled.“What happened to you?” she breathed, exerting a very slight amount of pressure to turn his head to the left.  She wanted to see the rest of the space that used to be him, but was now just empty air and charcoal.“You must be very foolish, señorita, to not be afraid.”  He let her feel the side of his face, a place where a live person had not touched for over forty years.  The sensation was beyond words, heady, intoxicating, and he didn’t want to think about why he didn’t push her away or stab her through the sternum.  Surreptitiously, he folded the flyer and tucked it into his pocket.“How are you talking?  I can see part of your jaw, you’re missing bits of brain, and oh, but here’s the start of your spine.”  She didn’t pay any more attention to him than she might have a corpse lying in a field.  The fever, her mind whispered to her, was going to get her arm lopped right off.Carina’s first love was astronomy, studying the bright lights that lay in inky darkness, intertwined with horology, time and the measurement of it against the horizon, but her second was the human form.  She’d started sneaking away books on anatomy when she was twelve, more to study why all of adults were saying that what lay between her legs controlled whether or not she could educate her mind, but had soon grown incredibly fond of the wealth of information hidden inside of her own skin.And, as it turned out, there was no difference between the female brain and the male one.  Bitterly, she remembered how angry she had been at the realization that the only thing wrong with her wanting to study was the fact that stuffy old men in charge of such things thought her only use to be on the arm of a man to be pretty, and on her back to provide him with children.Noticing that the dead man’s eyes, now banked to a flickering reddish-orange, were trained quietly on her face, drinking in her fascination, she blushed and withdrew her hand, suddenly certain that this was really happening and she has just violated something that could come with very real consequences.  “My apologies if that was too forward, sir… or should it be Captain?” Her tone was softly respectful and inquisitive, and her eyes flicked to the blackened medals pinned to his overcoat, clinking together quietly with his ambient movement. Be kind to the creature come to kill you, Carina, her mind admonished.  Always have manners, and maybe they will have mercy. She bit back the urge to laugh hysterically.He tilted his head back and looked at her from beneath his thick eyelashes.  “You are the first person to not scream, or even whimper, at the sight of me.”  He gave her a courtly quarter bow, his hair whipping up and floating around his head, sword tucked under one arm, the other across his chest, “Captain Armando Salazar, also known as El Matador Del Mar.  My ship,” he gestured behind and up, “is the Silent Mary. My crew.” He tilted his head back, and the apparitions behind him gave her variations of nods and faint bows.She gave him a false curtsy, dipping her head and holding out pretend skirts, “I must confess that I was tempted to do so, but, well, if I screamed at everyone with a… different sort of visage, I might never stop.  Carina Smyth, pleased to make your acquaintance.” Manners, manners, manners. Never be rude to a gentleman, something that sounded vaguely matronly said in the back of her skull. That whole area was starting to throb, and she felt too warm.  That might be the fire, but she was betting that this was the hardest her blood had pumped in days and the poison from her wound was racing through her system.She winced when she came back up, holding her back straight and willing her wounds not to reopen even more than they already had.  Unfortunately, they didn’t obey. When she felt her scabs loosen yet again, her vision blurred with tears but she blinked them back.  If she didn’t sit soon, she was going to faint.The Captain’s eyes caught her expression and he raised his brow, “Ah, you were flogged before you were imprisoned in the brig?”  Carina didn’t move, even as he made a crooning sort of noise that sent another line of black blood down his chin. “Such a sin, to do such a thing to such a beautiful-”“I earned it,” she snapped suddenly. “I earned my punishment and I took it.  I’m just as capable of being beaten as a man and still stand here despite it.”  Her brows turned down, covered in sweat and she glared at him, a small part of her mind screaming at her for trying to provoke a dead man that was walking around with part of his body missing, when she could have simpered and sighed and used her feminine charms to get out of the cage and then… and then…And then what?  Jump in the black water and swim away?  If there were still any lifeboats, were they seaworthy?  The ship was burning, she could smell it, and her window of escaping alive was growing smaller.  With her back, though, she doubted she’d be able to swim more than five feet before the blood in the water attracted sharks or she simply gave up and drowned.  The pain was so much worse now, and she acknowledged to herself that even if she got past the crew of ghosts, she might not even make it up the stairs.Captain Salazar was looking at her, his crew standing still behind him.  His eyebrows were drawn down, and when he looked at her there was a quiet curiosity behind his ember-like gaze.  “How long ago,” he said softly, “were you punished?”“T-” the word stumbled on her tongue, which suddenly seemed thick in her mouth, “two days.  Almost three.” She was swaying, or maybe the boat was sinking? Was that why her back was suddenly so wet, or was she bleeding that badly?He sighed and turned around, snapping his fingers at one of the crew who still had most of his body intact.  He bit off, in rapid Spanish, “Get Officer Magda.  Take all of the medical supplies off this ship and ready my quarters.”  The man nodded sharply and ran up the stairs.“What are you saying?” she slurred, reaching out to lean on the bars.  She’d felt fine not even an hour ago, how had this happened so quickly?  Blinking suddenly, her eyes stinging, she realized there was more smoke than air, and that would kill her quicker than anything else.“You,” he tilted his head and quirked his mouth, another trail of black blood seeping out, “need to come with me.”   She threw one arm to where ol’ Westman was laying on the ground, staring unseeing at the smoking ceiling, “He told me I’d be better off dead than with pirates.”  She curled her lip up into a sneer, almost daring him to just stab her straight through the heart and out the spine.Moving so quickly her eyes almost couldn’t process it, absolutely too fast for her to use the punch she’d been taught, his strong, cracked hand was on her throat, his face inches from hers, and when he roared his eyes were so yellow they were glowing, “You DARE call El Matador Del Mar a PIRATE?”   Black blood flowed down his chin in great rivulets, some spraying out at every pained, wheezing, angry breath he took.  He walked her backwards so fast, her feet couldn’t find purchase on the floor, her hands scrabbling at his forearm, she didn’t even have time to brace herself for impact.Carina didn’t hear half of what he said, because as soon as he’d slammed her back against the wooden wall of the hull, she fainted from the agony.As her eyes rolled back into her head and her body slackened, Captain Salazar immediately gentled his hold and pressed his own body against hers to keep her from falling.  “Temper, temper,” he said to himself, suddenly annoyed. This close, she reeked of blood and infection. His sensitive nose twitched, he couldn’t help himself from leaning in and smelling her hair.  Under the sweat and blood, there was a rather sweet musk that he found himself savoring.He pulled his head back and breathed in the smoke to cleanse his palette.  He was a captain, and his men were watching.Silently, he lowered himself a fraction and hefted her over his shoulder.  She was small, her weight barely more than a heavy sack of grain. He slashed the lock open with his sword in a sharp, annoyed movement. His crew parted before him like a tide, and he quietly walked up the steps, ready to let this ship sink.He jerked his head at two of his most able-bodied crew, and they immediately went to liberate the fresh water, liquor and food from the stores.  He doubted she’d be able to fend for herself if she starved first.As his men followed him, the corpse of ol’ Westman lay sprawled, undignified and waiting for his watery grave.  A twin to the poster in Captain Salazar’s pocket was trapped under his head, slowly turning red with blood.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Carina woke in waves, the first being when she’d been laid, face down, on a soft surface.  A scream had ripped out of her throat before she even thought about where she was, the pain too much, too sharp, overwhelming all of her senses.A rush of Spanish, none of which she could follow, except when a cold hand had slammed a foul-smelling rag over her face and as the screaming had stopped and she slipped away again, she thought she heard a familiar voice chanting, “Bien, bien, bien.”  She could have sworn she felt a hand on her hair, but the pressure might have been only in her head.The second time she woke, she was still face down, head turned to the side, some sort of damp cloth on her forehead, and the first thing she noticed was that she was on a bed.  It was less than clean but somehow not filthy, the mattress a little lumpy and musty-smelling, but the sheets were crisp and tightly tucked. The second thing she noticed was that her shirt was gone.  Her back was sore and overwarm, but bandaged with clean cloth, and her bare breasts were pressed into the mattress. She was still wearing her pants, but some of the bandages dipped below the waistline.  Had they… touched her? Done something worse? She felt a spike of fear and quietly rubbed her thighs together, searching for any signs of pain that would indicate a violation of her person.A tall, looming figure melted out of the shadows at the sudden shift in her breathing, adrenaline making her heart race and breaths short and shallow.  “Calma, señorita. Be calm. No one here is going to hurt you.” The captain. What had been his name?“Captain…” she paused and licked her lips, her throat incredibly dry, “...Salazar.”  She remembered, if only just. He had a nickname, too, and a first name, but she wasn’t even going to try and think of either one.  Her head felt like it was full of cotton.Her face was half buried in a thin pillow, her open eye crusty, her mouth feeling dry and slightly wooly.  She licked her lips again, brow furrowing from the effort, “How… how bad…”“If I had not already killed them,” he interrupted softly, and she blearily took in the fierce look on his face, “I would have done so once I saw the condition you were in.”  She closed her eye and relaxed. Somehow, those words made her feel safe. “The doctor, Officer Magda, he said there will be scarring.” The large, imposing man somehow sounded regretful, and that bothered her.Sharply, she said, “Scars tell our stories, sir, and I will not be ashamed of mine.”  Her back still throbbed, ached, and it was making her cranky, “If there is a person who would flinch when seeing me without my clothes, then they do not deserve the honor.”  She blushed immediately, mortified at her forward language. She opened her mouth to apologize and backtrack, but then he chuckled.“No, I suppose they would not.”  He leaned over her, his face still frightening, even softened in amusement.  “For the record, the scars would not bother me.”From his quiet spot in the corner, Officer Magda looked up sharply from the shallow bucket of water that he was using to cleanse the tools from the Monarch, flicking his eyes between the two of them.  Captain Salazar, however, ignored him.Suddenly feeling exhausted, she tossed his own words back at him, gently, “No, I suppose they would not.”  She yawned, rather loudly, and murmured, “I don’t mind you seeing them now, honestly.”He was very still, “Officer Magda said that the medication might have some… side effects.  I assume this sort of talk is one of them.”Closing her eyes slowly, she smiled and said, “Then I don’t feel bad about saying that you must have been very, very handsome when you were alive, which you must still be, a little, since you are talking and that is something the dead does not do, and you do not frighten me, sir.”  Her eyes fluttered a little, “I don’t believe in ghosts.”There was silence, then a slow shuffle as he backed away, “I leave you to your rest, Mariposa.”She was already asleep, so she couldn’t respond.  She also didn’t get the opportunity to see the heavy, commanding gaze Captain Salazar as he harshly whispered, “Tell no one of this.”  Officer Magda, after giving one final look between them, nodded exactly once before gathering the tools and exiting the cabin.Captain Salazar closed the door softly behind him.  Miguel sighed, leaning his head against the rotted wood of the hull, closing his eyes.  The stakes were high with their captain's newest acquisition. The girl required him to be constantly on hand, but the Capitán often ordered him out of the cabin to be alone with her.  He wasn't sure why, but it made him nervous. Since the curse, Capitán Salazar had kept his iron control over his men, but his self control had wavered wildly depending on his desires.Here, at least, he knew he could get a moment's peace and clear his mind before being solely responsible for the life of the badly beaten woman, mysterious and headstrong, tucked into bed upstairs.He was blissfully feeling his mind settle as the slapslapslap of the waves on the hull lured him into a kind of meditation.  Then, there was an out of place hiss. Low, quiet, and completely at odds with the tranquil in-out of the waves.Miguel groaned inwardly, but outward, he did little more than let out a long breath."Pssst!"No. Miguel kept his eyes closed, willing it to be the sound of the sea, skimming the sides of the Mary."Miguel!"With a quiet curse, Miguel opened his eyes and cast them sideways, to the shadows where two eager faces were peeping out at him.  "Antonio and Nico." He said dryly. The youngest members of the crew, barely old enough to be called men, and they got themselves into so much trouble.  What a special hell, he thought idly, to allow a man to remain half a teenager for eternity. An even deep level for the full grown men stuck on a boat alongside them."Miguel!" Officer Antonio Moss looked hesitantly behind them, before sidling in towards where he had tried to remain hidden in the hold."What is it?" Miguel looked blankly at them. "Seen another mermaid? Or was it a sea monster this time?"  Their flights of fancy had no end, and while it had been endearing for the first five years, now it just grated on him unendingly.“El Capitán is on the ship, the one we took La Mariposa from, for salvage.  So we thought we might...ask you…” Antonio was the more romantic of the two, but Nico…“You have seen her twice now, Miguel!  You must have seen her…” he gestured at his chest, raising his eyebrows and giving a rakish grin that had gotten him in so much trouble at every single port they’d stopped at when alive.Miguel almost snapped at them, then had a rare moment of pity.  This was the most exciting thing to happen to them in decades, having a living woman aboard the ship.  And such a lovely young specimen as well. He bit back whatever scathing comment he was going to say and leaned his head back against the hull.  “Yes. The Lady. I have, indeed, tended to her twice now. I am at the Capitán’s beck and call, should she need anything. He is fond of her, and would like her to remain alive.”There was a heartbeat of silence while they waited for him to give them more information, searching his expression eagerly."She's very beautiful, isn't she?" Antonio asked shyly, trying to prompt Miguel. "I saw her - in the brig on the Monarch - ""I saw her legs!" Nico grinned.Miguel's lips pressed into a thin line.  "I will not gossip about a patient, Officers."  He pointedly turned his head back to the sea, crossing his arms.  He’d been willing to answer some questions about her demeanor, the nature of her wounds, but just talking about her physical assets?  How crude."Por favor," Antonio squished in the tight space where he was sitting, Miguel looking at him with surprised dismay as he was pressed tightly against the hull. "Miguel, we just want to know-""If the Capitán is really-" Nico interrupted."As possessive of her- " Antonio cut over Nico."As Gui says he is!"Miguel’s eyebrows nearly soared off his face.   Lieutenant Lesaro had been gossiping about the Lady, and the Capitán, behind his back?  That was…“What,” he said softly, “else did our esteemed Lieutenant say?”Both of them got rather quiet, before Antonio muttered, “We just heard him, talking to one of the other officers, about how he isn’t happy with how possessive el Capitán is over her.  Won’t let anyone else take watch. We just thought… there might be more to it.”He sighed, the soft, flirty banter between the Lady and the Capitán jumping to the front of his mind.  No, he thought, Lieutenant Lesaro would not be happy about that.  “Capitán Salazar is a cautious man,” he said gently, “He takes her safety very seriously.”There was a spot of quietness, where Miguel pointedly turned his face back to the sea and elbowed Antonio in some ribs that no longer sat right in his frame.“Who is she?” demanded Nico suddenly.  At their confused faces, he gestured impatiently."You heard her name, didn't you?" Miguel snapped, trying to elbow Antonio off his seat, to no avail.  "You were in the brig, you 'saw her legs!'" he raised the pitch of his voice in a mocking way."What he means is, is she a Lady?" Antonio insisted. "She wasn't dressed like a Lady, but she spoke - ""She spoke like a man." It was Officer Diego Santos, standing some feet away, watching them curiously.  He had boxes with English lettering on them in his arms, clearly having just come back from the ship with supplies.  He raised one eyebrow and looked between the three of them. “La Mariposa, yes? El Capitán is still at the Monarch, the British ship, so you are safe for now.  He found the whip they used on her and the body of the first mate, along with the Capitán of the ship, so he’ll be occupied with his revenge for some time.” He set the boxes down and then pointedly took a seat, clearly intent on listening in.Oh, Miguel was glad those men were dead.  His level of care for the Lady was enough that if alive, they’d be kept in agony for at least a week before being allowed sweet death.  Their Capitán had gotten… inventive, in the time since the curse took hold. It was one thing that had driven a wedge between him and Lieutenant Lesaro.  “She’s educated,” he corrected, frowning thoughtfully."Educated," Nico huffed. "What use does a Lady have for education?" His face turned sly. "All the Ladies I knew were only interested in one thing-"Miguel groaned, "The only Lady you've ever known is a Lady of the Night, cabron!  Which," he hastily interjected, "She is absolutely not.  She is pure. Untouched. I... examined her at el Capitán's insistence."All three men became very interested at that admission, with three very different reactions."Bella Virgin," Antonio breathed, eyes softening romantically."Hmmmm, untouched, no?" Nico looked like he was calculating the odds on the winner of a game of cards, a terrible sort of grin sliding over his face."How unusual," Diego remarked, crossing his legs. "You would think a woman of her age would be married with at least three children..."Miguel looked distinctly uncomfortable, "He- Ah, he was worried that she may have been- Brutalized.  By the British. We know what they are capable of, almost as bad as pirates." The three of them looked serious and nodded.  They’d seen terrible things, since their time in the Triangle. He started to look nervous, as if Captain Salazar was going to pop around the corner at any moment, despite Diego’s assurances to the contrary.  "She is a remarkable woman. El Capitán thinks that she is... that she has not... met a man worthy of her. That is why she wears no ring."Nico let out a bark of laughter at that, undeterred by Antonio and Diego trying to shush him, "She hasn't met me, hombre! Perhaps I could  slip in to her cabin, while the Capitán is busy on that shipwreck-" he gestured to the smoking remains of the Monarch, "And have a little, as the French say, 'tête-à-tête', or if any of you want to join, a ‘ménage-à-trois’."  He winked rakishly at Antonio, who looked caught between horrified and aroused.Miguel frowned deeply.  Manners, and proper behavior for a member of the Spanish armada aside, Carina was a young woman with a sweet nature.  He disapproved of anyone talking about her in such a manner. He opened his mouth to retort, when Diego beat him to it."Always so crass, Nico," Diego cast him a disapproving look, “It must be terrible to be so… unrefined for all your  days.” Nico glared at him and Diego sniffed, “Just because your body does not age, hombre, does not mean you cannot expand your mind.”“I agree,” came a cold voice from the darkness, a very passive looking Lieutenant Lesaro materializing. “But continue, Nico, with your plans for the woman currently in the Capitán’s protection,” his good eye narrowed, “and bed.”Nico swallowed, and straightened instantly in Gui's presence; Antonio was on his feet, giving Miguel, to his relief, most of his seat back; and Diego turned and nodded at the Lieutenant solemnly."Well?" Gui turned his head, pinning Nico with his good eye. "I'm waiting."Miguel rolled his eyes and shook his head.  “All talk, Nico, as usual.”A scowl flashed momentarily across Nico's face, before he returned the Lieutenant's cool glare with a look of his own, that had just the slightest hint of rebellion. "We were just speculating about the… nature of the Lady."  He added, in as falsely a respectful tone as he could risk, "Especially since Capitán Salazar's honor is always paramount in all our minds, and it would be a black mark on any of our records, should she be proven to be a liar and a - lady of ill repute."  Nico's eyes hardened with significance as he continued matching his Lieutenant's gaze. “She was dressed as a man on a ship full of men, with lashes on her back for some reason, Sir.”Miguel, who recognized a woman far too intelligent for this time, drawn to whatever methods possible to scrape by, took immediate offense.  "Nico-!""Shh, shh," Gui admonished. "No need, Miguel."  Miguel himself still crossed his arms and glared, hard, at Nico.  He knew the youngest member of the crew hated the ‘stuffy’ Lieutenant, and loved to be as disrespectful as possible, but now he was embellishing and making the entire group look bad.Lesaro himself did not move, though he seemed amused at Nico's insinuations.  "It is above a nobleman's notice, to be offended by the opinions of the simple." He pretended to frown in concern at Nico. "Though I am disappointed, that one of our own officers seems to have forgotten his upbringing, and offended his saintly mother, if he is tarnishing the character of a Lady with that of -  memories of his brothel acquaintances."If his skin wasn’t gray, Nico would have turned purple as he tried to sputter out a response.  “Miguel said-”"Are you suggesting Miguel is unable to identify a virgin?" Gui pretended genuine interest, one hand on the pommel of his rapier. "With all his years of practicing medical arts, are you suggesting he is now incapable of ascertaining a woman's condition?"  His fingers drummed the rotting metal impatiently.“It’s not like he’s had a lot of practice,” Nico groused, refusing to look anyone in the eye.  “And besides, it’s not like I’d want someone so-”Lesaro’s rapier was out in a flash, the point millimeters from Nico’s eye, and he harshly whispered, “You want to choose your next words very carefully, Officer, and remember that some of us take respecting Ladies seriously.”All of them froze.Nico was terrified, staring at him with wide eyes, blinking rapidly. "I - lo siento, Gui - Lieutenant - I didn't mean to imply-!"“And yet you did.”  He stared, hard, at Nico for another set of heartbeats before sheathing his sword.  “You know,” he said softly, “how I feel about disrespecting women. And after what happened with my own sister, you know never to comment on any… perceived flaws of a Lady’s appearance.  And the word I know you were about to use, you know there are consequences to using it around me.  ¿Entiendes?”“Yes, Lieutenant,” Nico said softly, “I understand.”He sighed and tilted his head, “I will tell you now, so you do not learn the painful way later, when el Capitán catches your stupidity first hand.  You should not consider her a prize to be won, or an eligible conquest. She is here until she is well, and then she will go. Consider her a ward of Capitán Salazar, and do not speak of her in his presence.”  He gave a final, curt nod, as if dismissing them.Except none of them moved.  It was Antonio, the romantic fool, who blurted out, “Miguel said el Capitán is fond of her, Gui!  No mere ward.”Lieutenant Lesaro, who had been trying so hard to ignore the signs of another obsession building, closed his eyes and sighed.  “Officer Magda is wrong , Officer Moss.  There is only a strict sense of duty to help the weak and innocent, as befits any Capitán worthy of the title.”  He knew he was being willfully ignorant, but if he could hide it from the men for longer than a day, he’d be pleased.“Actually, Gui,” started Miguel hesitantly, “Capitán Salazar, he… they had a conversation,” he said helplessly, and spread his hands, “I should not say more, but I think it is safe to say that they are both past regarding each other… impersonally.  You know him best, you’re his childhood friend. What is she to him, truly?”Lieutenant Lesaro stared at him, his stomach sinking into his boots.  He couldn’t hide it. Not if the men already knew this much. And the two of them had talked?  Without him there? That couldn’t bode well. He sighed and removed his hat, rubbing the spot above his ruined eye.  At length, he simply said, “She’s his.” He waved his hat and elaborated, “His emotions were never… he was always a passionate boy, and then a passionate man.  The curse has made him even more volatile. She touched him without hesitation, without fear, in the brig.  That is the beginning,” he murmured, looking at the ground and missing the way Antonio’s eyes went big and soft, “She is as brave as she is beautiful, and with every hour, I see the infatuation growing.”  He shook his head sadly, “I have seen Armando in love, in lust, and this is already going beyond both of those things. I can only pray she recovers in enough time to prevent this from becoming an obsession rivaling that of Sparrow.  For both of their sakes, she needs to go and never return.”Antonio breathed out, softly, “They’ve barely spoken, and yet, the passion… El amor a primera vista.”  His eyes were dreamy, full of stars and romance.Nico couldn't help turning away to roll his eyes."Highly doubtful," Diego frowned. "Love at first sight is not something I have ever observed in real life, Antonio."  He raised one eyebrow, “And didn’t you hear any of what he said? El Capitán’s feelings for Sparrow are widely known and not something I would wish on La Mariposa.”“But,” he cried, “that is a bond of hatred, and rightfully so!  A bond of the same intensity, but made of love?” He sighed, resting his chin on one hand."Dios mío," Nico scoffed. "He'll be sighing all night now.""Will not!" Antonio quickly covered, and shot Nico a scowl. "I just  - I'm just interested!""Come," Diego rested a friendly hand on Antonio’s shoulder, "We do have work to do."  He nodded at Gui, who inclined his head, and lead both of the younger men out of the hold.Still holding his hat, Gui sat next to the silent Miguel.  They exchanged a look, and Gui said softly, “They talked, Miguel?  What did they say?”He licked his lips and sighed, “He told me not to speak of it, but I think it is important you should know.  They were… flirting is the best way I know how to put it.  He told her about her scars, and she said she didn’t mind, Gui.  That they were stories, like how he called yours a badge of honor.”  Gui had to fight to stop his hand from going to his eyepatch. Miguel continued, “He said the scars would not bother him,” they shared a significant glance, “and she said she didn’t mind him seeing them.”  Gui started to look very worried, and Miguel swallowed heavily and leaned in, as if they would be overheard, “She called him handsome, Gui. To his face. She was high on morphine, but that only makes you more truthful!  Gets rid of the filter. The look on his face…”“I can imagine,” Gui said faintly.  “Miguel, keep a close eye on her. If this is going the way I suspect, we need to be extremely careful to make sure this hell doesn’t become her home.”Miguel nodded his assent, and together the men made their way to the deck.Above where they’d been sitting were the blown out remains of a porthole, perfectly framing Carina’s face.She lay in the bed, eyes wide, staring at the black chair at her bedside.  She swallowed slowly, mind whirring with this new insight into her... captors?  Saviors? She wasn't entirely sure, but she knew that until she could leave, she'd be seeing a lot more of this mysterious Captain Salazar.A very large part of her didn’t mind at all, and a small, distant hum in the back of her head was screaming at her to run.  It took much less effort than she would have liked to admit to shove that hum down to where she couldn’t hear it, and imagine the strong hands of the Captain dancing down her scarred spine.  Lieutenant Lesaro knocked lightly on the door to Captain Salazar's quarters, pushing it open slightly."Sí?"  Captain's Salazar's voice was low and contemplative.  He’d returned from the Monarch with more blood on him and less anger in his face.  Lieutenant Lesaro had given him an hour to decompress before steeling himself to go talk to him.  Lieutenant Lesaro stepped inside cautiously, and he bit the inside of his cheek at what he saw. The girl was laying on her front, asleep, and Salazar was stretched out, long and lean, in a chair far too close to the bed for his personal comfort.  The look on his face... he was completely absorbed in her. His posture was as relaxed as Lesaro had ever seen it, since they'd died. He had one curl of her hair around his finger, twining it around and around, rubbing the silkiness with between his thumb and forefinger from time to time.  He didn't look at the door at all.He'd lit one fat candle, which guttered in the tallow, despite the fact that they could see perfectly at night.  He wanted to see her in the dull yellow light, shadows playing across her bare shoulders and the fine features of her face.  Lieutenant Lesaro felt his stomach sink. Miguel had been right. This wasn't just a passing interest, a simple fascination that would go once the girl was well enough to leave the Mary.It was already much too serious.  The curse had roused his nature, and Lieutenant Lesaro could practically see him building an obsession with every passing minute."Perdón, Capitán, but I thought I would come... express the well wishes of the crew, for the Lady's speedy recovery."  He watched his Captain closely, seeing the slight pull of an affectionate smile cross his face."Isn't she just so..." his voice, hushed and deep, trailed off, and he reached down to ghost the back of his knuckles over one of her cheeks, and she moaned, leaning into his coldness.  Even from here, Lieutenant Lesaro could see the faint glitter of sweat on her brow.At length, Lieutenant Lesaro cautiously said, "Yes, Capitán, she is a vision of loveliness.  She is young, and strong. A very good chance she will heal quickly."At the mention of her recovery, he watched Captain Salazar's hands tense, clench into fists before smoothing down his legs in a telltale nervous gesture he had rarely seen since Lieutenant Salazar had become Captain Salazar, and never since the curse had taken them all so thoroughly.  "Yes," he said absently, "she will recover rapidly, I think." Shit.  Barely thinking about it, he stepped closer and lowered his voice, "Forgive me, Capitán, but..." he swallowed, almost sure he didn't want the answer to his question.  "What is your intention with the Lady?"He watched Captain Salazar's eyes slide between gold and crimson, settling on some sparkling shade between, and tensed as those eyes slide from her face to his one good eye.  "Are you," he said, his voice a dangerous shade of soft, "questioning me, Lieutenant Lesaro?""Only making sure my oldest friend is in the proper state of mind," he said, testing the waters to see if he could tease Armando into coming to the surface.  Armando and Gui had a better chance of coming to term with this newest interruption to their routine than Captain Salazar and Lieutenant Lesaro.He watched as a Captain Salazar's face dropped into one of naked longing, a moment of vulnerability, and his hopes rose that Armando was going to come out.  "It has been a long time..." His Captain's voice was hoarse and raw, so unlike the purring, dulcet tones of command. He felt a teasing smile twitch on his lips, then Salazar's eyes shuttered shut and the mask of Captain was firmly back in place.  "Since your ranking officer has-"  He stopped, biting his own tongue, and stood.  Leaning heavily on his sword, he turned to face Lieutenant Lesaro, the mask of Captain firmly in place.  "Was there any other business, Lieutenant, than the well wishes of my men?"Lieutenant let the silence sit a heartbeat too long to be respectful, before murmuring, "She's not for you, Armando."  He would speak as Guillermo, the man who had risen through the ranks with the man before him, even if he could not be the man he used to be.  Now, a sullen, angry look came over his Captain’s face. "We are no longer men, and she is an exceptional woman. Even from the brig, those of us with the eye could tell.  You cannot turn her into another Sparrow, and the Mary into her cage."He didn't wait for a response before turning sharply on his heel and exiting, closing the door behind him.He winced at the sharp sound of the sword raking along the wood behind him, a testament to his Captain's wild temper.   Carina had been awake and lucid for about a quarter of an hour before Captain Salazar strode in, a man with an eyepatch beside him.She turned her head from the small port window, where she’d been watching the dark sky and skeletal birds, to look at them silently with sharp blue eyes from over the pillow.  Eyepatch. Hadn’t there been a man with a damaged eye talking under the cabin the other day? She swallowed, and didn’t comment.Captain Salazar pulled up a spindly, burnt looking chair to the edge of the bed, setting himself down with little fanfare.  The man with the eyepatch stood directly behind him, his eye staring at her bare back as if he’d never seen one before. He didn’t look aroused, if anything he looked… nervous.  His eyes kept flicking between the edge of the blanket and the top of her shoulders, like he wanted to cover her up. Did her wounds disgust him that badly?She glared at him and the captain, noticing her fierce gaze, turned his head ever so slightly, one eye peering at the man through the cloud of hair, “Do you need that eye, Lieutenant Lesaro?”Immediately, his gaze went to the port window.  He blinked twice and put his hands behind his back, automatically assuming a straight, balanced posture.The captain turned his head back to Carina slowly, and he inclined his chin, “Miss Smyth.”She lowered her eyes and dipped her chin, “Captain Salazar.”He waved his hand, “Please, call me Armando.  It has been a long time since I have heard my name on the lips of a woman.”She gave him an uncomfortable looking smile, remembering the conversation drifting in from the hold very clearly, and said quietly, “Armando, then.”  He savored the sound of it. Carina looked down for a moment before looking up again and catching his eyes with hers. “Thank you,” she said firmly, his eyes flaring a bit orange in surprise. “For healing me, I mean.  Thank you for not leaving me to die on that ship.”“Ah.  You are most welcome, but I confess I had a more selfish, ulterior motive.”  He leaned in, smiling widely with all of his blackened teeth visible, “I always leave one man alive to tell the tale.  You are not a man, but you are alive, and eventually when you are well, you must go.” If his hands clenched when he said it, she pretended not to notice.  He pulled a paper out of his pocket, unfolding it neatly, “Have you seen this pirate?”The poster proclaiming a reward for Captain Jack Sparrow held an illustration of a thin man in calf-high boots, baggy clothing, facial hair and a lot of beads woven into what might have been braids and might have been dreadlocks, she couldn’t quite tell.  She studied the poster for another minute before shaking her head, “No. I’ve never even heard of him.” She made the instant decision to not tell him about Westman’s proclamation that Jack Sparrow was in an unmarked grave on the isle of Saint Martin. She got the feeling that news would not be… well received, and would lower her chances of getting out of here alive by quite a bit.“A shame,” the captain’s voice was beyond disappointed, “but hardly surprising.  This pirate,” he spat the word, a stream of old blood running out from between his teeth, “is the cause for my condition.  Since dead men tell no tales, I need you to find this man and tell him death is coming for him.”  Another wide grin, more black blood running down his chin, and there were flecks of yellow and bright red in his eyes, like sparks.  His voice had gotten deeper, rougher.Carina Smyth was long past being afraid of this man, and far more intrigued by his ghostly form than his deep hatred for a pirate that may or may not already be dead.  She didn’t react to the show or his command, choosing instead to study his expression, “Will killing him undo whatever condition this is?” Internally, she fought the urge to tell that he had, in fact, just told a tale and he appeared to be a dead man, thus negating his statement in its entirety.  She figured she was pushing her boundaries enough as it was.Clearly not expecting the question, Captain Salazar simply tilted his head, eyes studying her face.  Lesaro’s eye got very wide, and he was looking at Carina like he wanted her to stop talking right now.  Subtly, he shook his head at her.  Carina, however, didn’t care to pay attention to him.She plowed on, the medicine in her system still dampening her social filter and common sense, “If not, then why bother?  I am a woman of science, I must admit to you, and I do not see the need for revenge. It does nothing to correct past wrongs.  Why not dedicate your time, energy and mind to finding a way to reverse whatever this is?” She moved to wave one hand, but winced as her back warned her to stop.  Lieutenant Lesaro made a pained noise deep in his throat, and moved to step forward, one hand on his sword. Captain Salazar held up one hand lazily, stopping him in his tracks.“You do not,” he said softly, but his voice held all the force of a shout, “get to question such a thing, Mariposa.  I will have Jack Sparrow, and I will kill him. Beyond that, nothing is for you to think about.” His eyes were fairly glowing, and the line of his body had tensed with anger.  Lesaro, behind him, had raised his eyebrow and seemed to be waiting for a command. To kill her? She had been quite rude, she realized suddenly.She did flinch at that, muttering an apology.He ignored it, instead pulling a familiar looking book from his second jacket pocket.  He held it up, the ruby glittering faintly in the light, and at her suddenly enormous eyes and look of panic on her face, he gave her an evil, triumphant grin, “What, pray tell, is this?”She swallowed carefully, and said, “My… my father.  It was the only thing he ever gave me. That book is very precious to me.”He tilted his head, and she couldn’t keep her eyes from following the trail of his hair.  He smirked at her, then waved the book, “Over here, Mariposa. The book.” When she blinked and looked back at him, he gave her a knowing look, “I know you think me handsome,” Lesaro’s remaining eye got very wide and he couldn’t help the disbelieving look he threw at Captain Salazar, before throwing his head around to look at Carina, who was blushing madly, “but I need you to focus on the task at hand.”“It’s nothing special,” she lied, tearing her eyes away to count the individual threads in the pillowcase and willing the heat in her face to die down.  “Just a reminder, for me, from him.”“That,” he said softly, “is that last time you get to lie to me without consequences.”  The smile had died on his face, and when Carina looked up, it was into the flat gaze of El Matador Del Mar.  “You will tell me, now.” He could go from playful to murderous in seconds, and Carina found herself unsure of what to say.  It was best, she decided, to see what sort of consequences he would dish out for another non-answer.“What if I don’t want to?” She hunched her shoulders despite the pain, a wave of dark hair falling into her face, her brows furrowed down and her muscles tensing as much as they could.Almost absently, his sword started to tap a beat into the floor.  Lesaro’s grip on his sword tightened, and he loosened it from the scabbard ever so slightly.  The tapping was a code? If she was going to be run through, she comforted herself, at least this man looked like he might make it quick. “Your life here has been comfortable, no?”  He gestured around him, “These are the captain’s quarters, after all. And that,” he brought his sword up to point it directly at her, “is my bed.”Carina felt a shiver of fear run up her spine, her mind bouncing between ‘Is he going to force me?’ and ‘Is he going to throw me in the brig?’ before she drew the thin, grey blanket around her front and sat up.  Something in her back protested, but the pain was fainter now and felt far away. “Then perhaps,” she said firmly, more confident than she felt, “I should leave it. I do not want to impose any further.” She tucked the blanket around her tighter, shaking out her dark curls to cover her neck and shoulders.Lieutenant Lesaro pointedly looked no lower than her face, but he did seem relieved that her flesh was finally covered, and Captain Salazar tilted his head and leaned back, rotating his corroded blade slowly in his hand.  Lesaro’s gaze flicked pointedly to the Captain, who steadfastly ignored him. He watched her stagger to the door, her legs stiff and slightly atrophic. She turned, one hand on the handle, and inclined her chin. “My book, if you would.  Please.”His answering smile was patient, almost mocking, and he shrugged as he quipped, “No.  I do not think so.”Her grip on the iron handle tightened and then she released it.  She walked over to him, slowly, her steps measured and her bare feet sliding along the gritty floorboards.  Lesaro, ever cautious, gripped the handle of his sword and shifted his stance. Carina held the blanket tighter against her chest, winding the closed edges of the fabric in her fist.  Her free hand darted out and grabbed the book, attempting to snatch it out of his grasp. Before she could comprehend it, Lesaro had drawn his sword and held it at her neck.Captain Salazar did nothing but chuckle.  He used one hand to move the blade, gently chiding, “There is no need for that, Lieutenant.”  The other man hesitated before slowly sheathing his sword, but not removing his hand from the grip.  Captain Salazar turned the full force of his attention on her, and experimentally tugged on the book, just to see what she would do.  She tugged back.His supernatural strength was no match for her, not when she was still so unwell, and he let her struggle for half a minute before he slowly started pulling her closer.  She hissed as the tension pulled at the barely-healed skin on her back, feeling some of the tender wounds tear open again as she strained her arms against him. The pain was very small to her, little more than a bee sting, and she pushed on.Carina snarled as he drew her in, using their tension and leaning his weight on his sword as he pulled himself up from the chair.  She bore her teeth at him, practically growling, as he extended his arm behind him. Her stubborn grip drew her against his chest, and she looked up at him fiercely.  The pain, she noted, should have been much greater than it was. She still had something in her system, maybe morphine, and the lack of agony was making her brave. Or stupid.  Most likely, a little bit of both. Lesaro was doing something at the corner of her vision, but she couldn’t concentrate past the large man in front of her.Staring into his eyes, which were flicking between goldenrod and copper, Carina pressed her chest against his and dropped the blanket.  There was a muttered, “Dios mio!” from the edge of her hearing, and Lesaro broke his stance to step forward, starting to bend down to grab the corner of the blanket.A look of genuine surprise crossed his face as her bare breasts pressed against him, and a wicked smile started to form.  “Out,” he said softly, and Lieutenant Lesaro dropped the blanket and hesitated for just a moment, flicking his eyes between them, before practically sprinted to the door, slamming it behind him.“What,” he said to her gently, “do you think you are doing?”  The hand holding his sword went behind her, lifting up slightly and slamming the tip into the wood, just enough to stay vertical, and then he moved his hand to her lower back, the cold tips of his fingers pressing into her too-warm skin.“I want my book,” she said stubbornly, “and I needed two hands for it.”  She reached her free hand around his other side in a parody of a hug and grabbed for the book, barely catching the edge with her fingertips, holding it tightly between her index finger and thumb.He pulled the book back a little farther and smiled when it pressed her naked torso into him even more, her arms squeezing his sides.  This close, she could hear the water sloshing in his lungs and dismissed the urge to rip open his shirt and lay her ear against his chest.  Leaning his head down and closing his eyes, Captain Salazar pressed his nose into her hair, trailing it down to her temple and whispering into the delicate shell of her ear, “How badly, Mariposa, do you want it?”  His hair floated down around them like a curtain, cutting them off from the rest of the world. He was starting to bleed from the mouth again, and he resisted to urge to leave a black kiss on her cheekbone.Their pose, she realized, was incredibly intimate.  Anyone who came in now would have to assume… Carina felt herself blushing and willed it to go away, “I’m not… I wouldn’t… I don’t open my legs as payment, Sir.”He tsk’d and moved his nose down to her cheek, savoring the feel of her soft skin.  “No,” he said, his voice low and raspy, “I did not think you would.” He tilted his head slightly, his lips centimeters from hers, and he flickered his eyes open to see hers closed, her lips trembling, lashes fanned against her cheekbones and he ran his hand up her back.Carina was going to die, she was sure of it.  This tension was exquisite, all of her nerve endings were on fire, and she felt the air around her lips shift as he came within a hair of pressing his own lips to hers.  Surprising herself, Carina didn’t think that would be such a bad thing if he did.When he didn’t, just spread his fingers wide enough to almost cover her entire back, she opened her own intensely blue eyes to look at his, which were rapidly turning gold.  His hair hovered, a motionless curtain that narrowed her world to the space between the two of them.“A bright summer day, Mariposa,” he murmured, and she pressed herself further to him of her own accord, his voice making something low in her belly awaken and throb, “That is what you remind me of.”She swallowed and almost regretted what she was about to do, strengthening her grip on the book, preparing herself to lean up and kiss him while simultaneously ripping the book from his grasp, when he sighed and twisted his wrist, forcing her to drop her hold.  He put the book into his waistband momentarily, shrugging off his jacket in one smooth motion and floating it around her shoulders. His shirtsleeves underneath were crisp and tidy, his embellished vest neatly buttoned and his cravat still tied in a complicated knot.Carina leaned back and blinked in surprise and disappointment.  He looked at her in a way that she did NOT want to think was pitying, and raised the hand that had been on her back.  It was bright red, dripping with her blood. Captain Salazar tilted his head and quirked up one corner of his mouth, “If you are too medicated to feel that, Mariposa, you are too medicated for me to honorably receive a kiss.”He pressed down on one of her shoulders lightly with the hand that was not bloodied, and she sat on instinct in the chair he had just vacated.  She realized that she felt a throbbing, a phantom pain on her back, but it wasn’t the screaming agony that bleeding that freely implied.How much of whatever painkiller they’d given her was in her system?How long until it wore off?She barely noticed when he opened his cabin door, murmuring an instruction quietly to someone on the other side, and then he shut it firmly behind him.Limping back over to her, he casually loosened his sword from the floor, using it once more as a cane.  He sat down elegantly on the bed, resting his hands on the pommel and looking at her.She looked at him bleakly, and he sighed.  “You can have the book back,” he started, her eyes brightening warily, “when you find Jack Sparrow.”  The light in her eyes dimmed as he went on, “He has a compass in his possession, and it is the key that will unlock the door to this hell.  Free me, and I will find you. You may have your little trinket back then.”She tilted her head to the side, “How long have you been here?”  Her tone was soft and sad.He chuckled again, black blood beginning to drip down his chin in earnest, and she stared at his mouth, remembering how badly she wanted him to kiss her moments ago.  His eyes lit up, flickering between red and orange, “I cannot tell the passing of time so well, there are no stars here to follow, but some of the ledgers on the ships passing through are dated.  I have been here at least forty years.”She blanched, bleating, “Forty… How do you even know this pirate is alive?  I don’t think they live to a very old age with their lifestyle.”Baring those black, inky teeth at her, he growled, “I’m still here, Mariposa, and that is how I know.  He is alive, and he holds the compass!” His back straightened, his hands clenching the corroded pommel, and he glared at her, “Get the compass and I will give you back the book. That is the only deal I am willing to make."Whatever she was going to say in return was interrupted by the cabin door opening quickly and a ghost with a severely cracked face and long black hat stormed in.  Or would have, if he’d had his legs. As it was, he floated in a way that suggested an angry stomp. He held a large black leather satchel in one hand, it looked much newer than everything else on this boat, Carina guessed that it had been salvaged from The Monarch.   He glared at the captain from under thick, black brows and snarled, “¡Mi paciente, Capitán!  I leave you alone with her for ten minutes and Gui comes to me, saying she has torn herself open again!”The look on Captain Salazar’s face sent a cold chill down her spine, it was so furious, “You dare speak that way to me-”  He stood slowly, unfurling himself from the bed.  A wave of black blood spilled out of his mouth, and his snarl was fearsome.  The black tendrils of his hair whipped around like snakes. He brought his sword up, as if to fell the other man for his impudence.“You,” shot back the doctor, “are the one who told me that she must be saved, revived, and rehabilitated so you could send her off to find the Sparrow.  Do you contradict yourself?” He met his captain’s eyes squarely, his head tilting up, “Your orders demand I speak that way, Capitán.  I know it has been some… time since we last had a mortal on board with the intent of saving them,” Carina tilted her head to the side, suddenly very interested, “but you need to remember your own strength, Capitán.”Captain Salazar stood, tall, straight and proud, before seeming to bite his own tongue and slowly return to his seat on the bed.  He turned stiffly back to Carina, "My apologies, Señorita Smyth. I forget that... I misremember my strength. I should have been more gentle with you, in your condition.  Officer, if you would." He gestured between Carina and Miguel, who immediately handed her the fallen blanket to cover herself and eased the jacket off her shoulders.She snorted, inelegantly, "More careful, I almost had my diary, before you-"  Whatever else she was going to say was bit off as Miguel, behind her, started unwinding the bandages.The pain was intense from the first, the bandages had stuck to the wounds, taking them off felt like she was being skinned. She opened her mouth to give out a ragged scream that ended in a choked sob at the sheer magnitude of the agony seared along her nerve endings, robbing her of her voice. Her mouth remained open as tears streamed down her face, she was past caring if anyone saw her cry and thought less of her for it.  The painkiller had either worn off, or it was masking pain that was brutal enough to drive her insane.Captain Salazar had stood without her noticing and walked behind her, looking at the unbandaged wounds next to Doctor Magda.  At her first scream, he’d had the urge to cut his doctor into pieces, but he’d been able to wrestle the curse back down. This was a necessary pain.  Her back was a mess of raw, red flesh and long, oozing lines. There were no dark veins of blood poisoning that signaled her being past saving, but that did not mean she would survive.  He assessed silently before exchanged a glance with the doctor, whose face was grim. Carina herself was busy panting and trying to push away the nausea from the agony.“Capitán…” he said softly, “the pain… El dolor solo podría matarla.”
The pain alone might kill her.
The wildest thought slithered through his brain,'If she is infected, sharing in your fate, she will never be in pain again.'  He shoved it to the back of his mind almost immediately. This was a hell and he would NOT allow the curse to better his common sense this way.  She had to live, and she had to go.He sighed and tilted his head before coming around to kneel in front of Carina, who’d bent over to empty her stomach of it’s bile, since she hadn’t eaten since she’d been thrown in the brig on The Monarch.  He cupped one cold hand under her chin to lift her head, her bloodshot sclera making her blue eyes almost glow as they stared at him beseechingly, “Can I… more…”He shook his head once, sharply, “It would be an overdose, Mariposa, it’s been too short of a time since your last.  The pain you feel now is telling me you are building up a resistance to the morphine, any more and you might die.” Her face crumpled as her legs started to shake, and he gripped her chin harder.  Her suffering was making him unsteady, and for a minute, he faltered.The primal fear in her face struck him.  She hadn’t been this afraid of him or his crew, she’d almost stuck her hand inside of his head wound, and the fact that she was afraid of this pain bothered him more than he cared to admit.  The feeling was part annoyance and part empathy, she would be strong enough to survive this, and she would be strong enough to bear her scars as surely as he bore his.She sucked in great lungfuls of air through her mouth, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and he leaned in without thinking about it, pressing his forehead to hers.  His eyes glowed a fierce tawny gold, and he held her head still as Officer Magda started cleaning the long, infected lacerations on her back.Carina started letting out high pitched sounds in time with her pants, her whole body straining against where their foreheads touched, desperate to get away from the pain, and she pressed her teeth together so hard he was sure he heard them creak, pushing his name out between them painfully, “C… Captain...”  He rejected the impulse to gather her to him, bury his face in her neck, and- No. Not now, not here, not like this.“You will endure,” he said softly, pained wheezes accentuating each word, “because you are on my ship, and I am telling you, as your captain, that you will.  You will wear your stories on your back, and live to tell the tale.”She met his eyes, dull with pain, and nodded before grimacing and shaking again, all of her nerves screaming with pain, as Officer Magda lanced the second wound.  The ground was getting slippery with foul-smelling blood. He needed to distract her, before she noticed how much of herself was under his own boots.“Tell me a story, eh?”  He’d had to talk his crew through painful surgery before, in what felt like another lifetime ago, getting limbs cut off on the deck as battle raged around them, men holding their own intestines back from falling out of holes from their stomachs, he’d held their hands and looked into their eyes, distracting them even if everything went pear shaped and they died in his arms.  He was a captain, and in that moment, Carina Smyth was part of his crew.She started crying in earnest, “What story could I possibly tell that would be interesting to someone like you?”  She leaned her head into his palm, her face so hot he felt like it would burn him. He pressed his cold hand into her skin, spreading his fingers to feel more of her.  She almost sighed with the relief of it.“Why were you on The Monarch?” he tossed out, reaching out with his free hand to hold her steady during another wave of intense pain.“Cinco más, Capitán,” Officer Magda murmured as he finished lancing and cleaning out another angry lash. Five more.Carina leaned her head forward, resting it on his shoulder as his hand slid to cup the back of head through her dark curls, now flattened and damp with sweat, “My… my… I never knew my father,” she bit out through gritted teeth, eyes squeezed closed as she tried to concentrate on her story.  “My mother died giving birth to me. I had no one, no family. Only a book, a sky full of stars and my name.” She gasped as Magda ran a cloth over the wound, another wave of blood spattering to the ground. Almost hyperventilating, she bit out, “I had to go. I had to find it. The book is a map, somehow.  The map no man can read. But I’ll read it. I’ll find where it goes, and when I do, I’ll find out where my father wanted to send me.” She screamed at the end, but it sounded more determined and less fearful than before. “I was on The Monarch to go somewhere, anywhere, far away from where I was.”Captain Salazar held her, his hand sliding down to the back of her neck, his mind whirling.  The map no man could read? It was a fable, a story. Then again, he’d thought the same of ghosts.  He vowed to read the diary in full as soon as she was asleep.Belatedly, he murmured into her hair, “My family was taken from me when I was young, my father because of his relationship to treacherous pirates, accepting their bribes, and my mother was made to pay the price of his greed.  She died for his sins in the workhouse.” He turned his face into her hair, breathing her in, and Officer Magda pretended not to notice. He didn’t want to examine why he was whispering his life story to a girl he barely knew but felt more connected to than anyone since before the curse.“What,” she breathed out painfully, “happened to your father?  Did he die?”He pulled back and gave her a frightening grin, his eyes like fire, “I avenged my mother, Mariposa, with my blade to his neck when he tried to enter our home after serving his sentence from the comfort of a jail cell.  His body doesn’t share a graveyard with hers.  To avenge my family, my past and what might have been my future, I vowed to wipe piracy from the oceans.  I joined the Spanish Navy young, and spent my years hunting those wretches on the water,” she didn’t react when Officer Magda sliced open another lash, and Captain Salazar continued, keeping her eyes riveted to him, “I almost managed it, every ship but one.”  His lip curled up as she stared at him, her eyes wide and glassy, her attention hanging on his every word, “The Wicked Wench, captained by none other than a young Jack Sparrow.”He leaned in close, and she tilted her face into his instinctively, “He is the reason I sailed my crew into the Devil’s Triangle, he tricked me.  He is the reason I am as I am now, and when I kill him, it will bring me the greatest pleasure I have yet known.”  He hovered his lips over hers, eyes open even as hers fluttered shut, and he flicked his gaze to Officer Magda, who held up two fingers.She licked her lips, opened her eyes again, and looked… disappointed?  Carina said faintly, “Revenge, Captain? I wish I had ever loved anything as much as you hate that pirate.”His immediate reaction was to slap her.  He fisted his hand tightly in her hair and gripped her shoulder to prevent himself from doing so.  Making light of the great ruin Jack Sparrow had made of his life had gotten men killed before, and she dared to sound so sad while she said it.   Carina gave a low whine in her throat, wincing at the pressure, even as Officer Magda performed the last few motions of his work with a professional quickness and deft hand.  Captain Salazar couldn’t stifle the snarl that came to his face, black blood coming in a wave down his chin, the water in his lungs making his breath rattle, and he was suddenly aware of his death wounds with a painful clarity.  How must he look, to someone bright and whole and living as her? How could she possibly tell him that he was handsome? He breathed out, shaking her head to force her to focus on him. It was a slow process, but when her eyes landed on him dully, he made his visage as fearsome as he could.  The procedure, the blood loss, it was coming together to make her body suddenly feel boneless, like she was floating. She couldn’t find it within her to be afraid, and her arm wouldn’t obey her command to raise up and press her fingers into his cheek. It stayed, limp and boneless, at her side.“I am a man of strong emotion,” he said, giving her an insincere smile, “I think you will discover that while you are here, yes?”She slurred, “Passionate, yes,” before her eyes fluttered shut lazily and she collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.  She didn’t go far, her head landing on his shoulder and he immediately braced himself to hold her slight weight.“Will she live?”  He asked immediately, head snapping up and hair flying wildly around his head.  His eyes were flying through all of the colors of hellfire like a kaleidoscope. He was resisting every urge to curse her, now, and preserve her life while she still had it.Officer Magda sighed and gave the last wound one more swipe.  “She is healing, but slowly. Too slowly. Some of these wounds, they look better on the inside.  The flesh is coming back together, but they need to stay free of filth. She needs food, water and rest.  I have lanced the worst of them, but Capitán… these sorts of wounds… on a man, larger, we would just give him a few more days of rest and send him to work.  If he could not work, he would die. A woman is different, Capitán.” He looked distinctly uncomfortable for a moment, “Remember your strength, Capitán.”He looked at Officer Magda flatly, his eyes settling a deep maroon.  He looked like he wanted to say something, a retort, but he couldn’t find one worthy.  He could not fault Miguel, it was a fair criticism. They stayed silent while he gave all of the wounds a final cleanse. Salazar nodded toward the open wounds when he was done.  “Put whatever poultice you can, and bind her again. I will sit with her to give her food and water when she wakes.”Officer Magda complied silently, and together they lifted her into the bed.  Miguel nudged open the door to what was left of his quarters, half of the starboard wall blown out and large gaps in the floor.  He wasn’t paying attention, trying not to drop the heavy bag that was now in his care, when he was pulled inside and the door shut quickly behind him."Miguel what happened!" Antonio whispered, worry creasing his cracked face. "We heard the screaming...""It was not pleasant," Diego grimaced. "Hearing a woman scream like that.  And then it just… stopped."Gui was silent, but watched Miguel closely, waiting for his answer."She lives." Miguel said quietly. "For now."  There was silence, the ambient sounds of the Mary and the waves filling the spaces between them as a little bit of the tension eased out of the group.  Everyone but Gui, who only seemed to tense further."How is el Capitán?" Asked Antonio, a slightly hint of romance in his eyes.  "Does he tend to her now?""Sí," Miguel answered briefly.  He was tired, stressed, and still trying to comprehend what he’d just seen.  He closed his eyes and just wished they would all go. "How long will it take for her to recover?" Diego asked.Antonio bit back a sigh and Nico elbowed him in the ribs, "Are you going to swoon?"  He sounded slightly disgusted, "Those were not romantic cries, idiot, even I know that.  She must have been in terrible pain. It worse than that time el Capitán fed the sharks those Portuguese child slavers, remember that?  He made it last far, far too long." He turned back, "Besides recovery time, Miguel, how bad were the wounds, to make her cry so?""Very bad," he replied. "The Capitán..."  He paused, a complicated expression passing over his face.Gui stiffened, even more attentive than before.  "Sí?" He prompted, when Miguel took far too long. "What about him?"He looked very uncomfortable.  "Remember, Gui, when you lost your eye?  How he held you during the triage and kept you still, so I could work?  Talked to you?"Gui nodded slowly, already understanding where this was going and really not liking it."He did the same for her," he said softly, spreading his hands.  "He held her, and pressed his head against hers. He told her about... about his family.""He... held her." Gui's voice was soft, but his expression worried.  “As if she was one of his men?”"Gui," Miguel pressed, trying to get him to understand, "He told her about his father.""He spoke..." Gui was shocked. "Of him? To her?  Of his…"“All of it,” Miguel said, staring at him.  “He told her about all of it. ”All present knew that the Capitán never mentioned his disgraced father. His grandfather, yes; a man celebrated in the Spanish Armada. But never his father.  "Why?" His voice was completely bewildered.Miguel struggled to word it.  He wound up not being able to say anything at all, just giving him a stare and a pleading expression, begging him to understand.As though comprehending a fully-formed answer, Gui nodded; his face resolved into perfect blankness - one that all present recognized, and it made them all on edge.  It was the expression he always wore right before he was about to 'talk' to the Capitán - and usually with results that would prove unpleasant for the entire crew. The last time Lesaro had ‘talked’ to the Capitán, he’d been furious for a full year."No, Gui, don't!" Miguel was alarmed. "You cannot confront the Capitán about this!"  Lower, he hissed, “If he knows I said anything…”"And what alternative do I have? He watches over her constantly, he never leaves her side longer than a half hour at a time  - if that - and now you tell me he is confiding in her of his father?" He practically shouted at the end. “Do none of you understand what this means?”  Gui looked around at them harshly, his eyes angry.Diego was the first to agree. "If we do not remove her from the Mary, we are risking her innocence, and her life. We all know what the Capitán can be like. Who knows what strange fancy might take hold in his mind?""Her father left her," Miguel said desperately, standing in front of Gui but addressing all of them, "and her mother died in childbirth.  She is an orphan, Gui, with nobody and nothing. She told him her story, he told her his. It was not... unprompted." His eyes were desperately sad, "Such a woman, to have struggled so hard and gotten so far, so educated and clever, I am sure you can see why he would be drawn to her, even without the curse."  He felt terrible about breaking that confidence between a doctor and a patient, between an officer and his captain, but he couldn’t stop himself. They had to understand. Gui made an impatient noise and looked away from him."And," he bit out, staring at Diego, "For her to leave now would be certain death.  She is too unwell to even stand. The wounds need time.  If we send her out on a boat to die, we might as well just throw ourselves on land, because that is absolutely what el Capitan is going to do."  He rubbed one hand over his head, "They flogged her as though she were a man twice her size. I still do not know why, impersonating a member of the crew... the Spanish Armada would not have such a harsh punishment.  She may have done something worse, or rebuked the advances of Capitán of the ship, I do not know. But they're deep, and bad, and she has not had food, water, or proper rest." He gave them all a very frustrated look.  “She cannot heal, and she will die, if we don’t give her a chance to recover.  If we kill her,” he reiterated, staring at each of them in turn, “we will not live to see freedom.”"Does el Capitán not deserve to know love?" blurted Antonio.  "He cares for her, it is apparent, and deeply."Surprisingly, it was Nico who spoke up, "El Capitán is not capable of love, Antonio."  He looked older than his eternal seventeen years, his face serious and sad. “He is only capable of obsession and rage, cruelty and hatred.  If she stays, amigo, he will turn to at least one of those, eventually.”Antonio frowned thoughtfully but didn’t refute him.  He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the cabin wall.Diego sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.  “The curse,” he said slowly, “has not allowed him free of his hatred of Jack Sparrow.”  Nobody argued with him. He continued, “When it is time for her to go, will it allow him to release… whatever it is he’s feeling for La Mariposa?”“No,” came Gui’s hard, immediate answer.  “It is already too late for that. If he has told her of his father, held her through her suffering, and is tending to her even now?  He will be unable to let her go.” His voice hushed and all of them looked worried, “I would not consider it out of the realm of possibility that he cannot contain himself, and slaughters her at the edge of the Triangle, rather than see her go out into daylight without him.”Even Antonio winced at that, and all of them looked distinctly uncomfortable.Miguel interjected into the silence softly, “She still can’t leave now, Gui.  It is not possible. Her back… she cannot row.”Gui bit off a curse and slammed his fist into the wall.  He breathed heavily for a moment, fighting to contain himself.  He spread his fingers out and laid his weight against the wood, and it groaned against the pressure.  “If she must stay,” he said lowly, “then when it does come time for her to leave, he must not be allowed to be alone with her.  Even now, I want someone stationed outside of his cabin door. If there is a struggle, if he sounds enraged or she sounds frightened, we do what we must to get her away from him.”He turned to them and stood tall, his good eye glinting, “She is an innocent. We protect innocents.  Armando Salazar destroys everything he touches,” he said with a firm finality, “We must ensure she makes it to freedom.”They all murmured their assent, the cabin falling into disquiet for the rest of the evening.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Carina was getting tired of waking up like this, having been manhandled and rebandaged without her knowledge or permission.And every time she woke, her face was turned to the porthole, nothing but dense, dark clouds and dead birds outside.  She was itching to see the stars. The blood moon was coming, she knew it, and as she stared at the roiling clouds, she quickly tried to think of an excuse to ask for parchment.  She needed to scratch out her calculations, they were quickly growing too large for her mind to contain.Her stomach rumbled, and she was uncomfortably reminded that she hadn’t eaten since her last meal before the brig.  There was no sun here, she couldn’t begin to guess how long she’d been on this boat. Four days? Maybe five? She needed her chronometer, but it had been in the pocket of her blue jacket, which the captain of the Monarch had thrown ruthlessly into the sea.Far too many days, however many they were.“Is the Trident a clue, Father,” she murmured to the sky, “to who you really are?”“If it is,” a deep voice rumbled behind her, “it’s a terrible one.”She gasped and turned her head too quickly, her vision swimming.  There, sitting next to the bed, was Captain Salazar. He had her journal open, casually flipping through the pages.  His boots were propped up near her feet, he had a small table next to him with a tall, slightly charred cup full of what looked like clean, fresh water, and a wooden plank with hunks of salt cod, salt beef and salt pork, as well as a fresh pink-skinned apple and a wicked little knife.  He was looking at her with an intensity that made her shiver.He gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and waved the book in front of him.  “Hola, Mariposa.”“You..” her eyes kept flicking between the book and the water, her throat so painfully dry, “My diary…”He tilted his head, his grin turning into a sly smirk, “Let us get you fed, first, Mariposa.  And then we can discuss the,” he paused, his eyes flicking to the book as he turned it over in his hands, “contents of this journal.”She didn’t protest as he helped her sit up, trading places with her so she had the chair.  His hands lingered on her shoulders, fingertips pressed into her gently, and she found those spots tingling as he drew away.  Someone had dressed her a man's shirt, though it was too large and smelled like smoke and gunpowder. Her back groaned as she moved, and he tutted her quietly, “The wounds were bad,” he said, “but not impossible to recover from.  Mostly flesh, none down to the bone, some down to the muscle.” He nodded at the table, “You need to eat.” Tucking the book into his pocket, she noticed he was wearing his jacket again, he sat on the bed. “If you want that back,” he patted the pocket gently, “you need to be strong enough to find me a compass and a Sparrow, yes?”“I didn’t agree to that,” she said tartly, reaching for the cup with two shaky hands.  “You didn’t have to,” he countered confidently, his eyes following her movements carefully.She only spilled a little before she lifted it to her lips and drained it in one long swallow. The water was fresh, clean, crisp, and tasted like life itself.  She didn’t even wince as her cracked, dry lips stung from the movement. “More,” she gasped, slamming it down. She held out the cup to the ghost captain, who took it in his ruined hands carefully.“Eat something,” he commanded her softly, and she leapt to obey, not even thinking twice, ripping off small pieces of everything to stuff in her mouth, practically moaning at the combination of salt and protein.  He felt his eyes start to glow at the display, and remembered the taste of a ripe yellow apple, the last taste on his tongue before death.Slowly, while she gorged herself on meat, he filled the cup from a small wooden cask at his side, setting it half-full on the table.  His hand immediately drifted to the apple and knife.Carina paused her feast, drinking to wash away the strong salty taste in her mouth, watching him cautiously.  He picked up the knife and stabbed the apple through the core, lifting it easily.“I have not,” he said conversationally, pulling the knife free as he gently cupped the fruit with his hand, “eaten anything since I died.”  He cut a wedge of apple, the soft pink skin parting easily beneath the blade, and he held up the slice in two grey fingers, studying it in the poor light, “The last thing I had was a sweet apple, golden where this is rose, but the flesh was just as white.”  He brought it to his nose and sniffed it gently, “The texture was firm, crisp, the juice, oh , the juice… I have not tasted anything as sweet in my life.”Carina paused, a flush coming to her face as she watched him study the fruit.  A fat drop of juice rolled down the edge of the skin, puddling lazily on his fingertip, and she ran her tongue over her teeth at the sight of it.  His eyes caught her tongue, and he angled the top of the slice toward her. "It will be delicious," he said, his voice low and hushed as he offered her something that felt forbidden.She leaned forward, filling the space between them, and opened her mouth just enough to catch the flesh of the apple between her teeth.  He pressed it past her lips, and her tongue flashed out to catch the pad of his thumb, licking the sticky sweetness off of it. His eyes widened slightly, pupils dilating, and a small, sharp breath slipped out of him.  His thumb followed her tongue unconsciously, right into the barrier of her soft cupid's bow mouth. He pressed against the pillowy flesh for a moment, and her quick, clever eyes watched the series of expressions that ran over his face.  Desire, lust, need and an aching, deep hunger.She'd never felt more powerful, or so under his control."This is an English apple," he said, his voice rough, and he drew his thumb back slowly.  "Spanish apples are far superior, the best in the world." He cut another wedge slowly, the sound of the knife loud in the silence of the cabin.  "One day," softly, almost to himself, "you will taste one." When he fed her this time, he let his index finger brush her cheek as his thumb skirted her upper lip.  Her eyes got darker, and his breathing got a little faster.Silently, he sliced the apple and fed her each bit, his fingers brushing her lips and face as he did so, and she felt a shift in their strange dynamic, something that might have been playful flirting sliding into something with far less innocent implications.With the last slice, she stuffed it into her cheek and caught the tip of his thumb with her front teeth, holding him there for a moment.  His eyes darkened and flickered from a bright, bloody red to a rich garnet. His gaze wandered down her front before she deliberately tilted her head up, the angle of his thumb forcing his fingers to rest so lightly against her throat.  He felt her swallow the last piece of apple, fingertips tracing the smooth line of muscle.They stared at each other, his eyes sliding between luminous gold and a deep, burnished copper, and hers darkening until they resembled the ocean before a storm, all deep and dark and dangerous.“Do you want me to touch you like this?”  His whisper was hoarse, soft and accented, and he could not stop the drop of black blood that welled at the corner of his mouth.She released his thumb, and he pressed it into the delicate dip between her lip and chin.  “You,” she said, a wondering expression on her face, “are the first man I have wanted to touch me like this.”  There had been men, of course, in the past, guardians of knowledge who wanted to exchange touch for books, but she’d always declined, always found the idea repulsive.  She saw an expression slide across his face, something wanton and dark that echoed inside of her, and his touch pressed slightly harder as they both leaned in fractionally.There was a knock at the door then, and they did not break apart even as it opened slightly and Lieutenant Lesaro stepped across the threshold.His froze, his good eye flashing between them, taking in twin expressions of arousal. He blinked twice before schooling his already impassive face into something supremely unaffected by the thick tension in the air.  “Capitán, there is a matter at the helm that requires your presence.”Salazar didn’t react, didn’t move his hand, and the only indication of his annoyance was the slow brightening of his eyes to an angry, lurid red that promised punishment for the interruption.  Carina felt a flush slide across her cheeks, but made no move to shake his hand from her face and neck. Her hands, still holding the cup, trembled only slightly. He drew in a breath, pained with the impatient slosh of water in his lungs, and in a voice much rougher and deeper than normal, he sent a sharp look at Lieutenant Lesaro and bit out, “Can it wait, Lieutenant?”Lesaro’s expression didn’t falter, even as his Capitán’s eyes were so red they were practically glowing, casting a faint sheen to his cheekbones that was highly unsettling.  His voice was smooth and even, “I’m afraid not, Capitán. It is a matter of urgency.”Salazar couldn’t stop the snarl that flashed over his face, and he pressed his fingers, once, roughly against Carina’s neck before sliding them away.  She fluttered her eyelashes and found herself at a loss of words. She made a slightly embarrassing needy noise in the back of her throat as his touch left her, and the way his eyes flashed a brilliant gold made her blush harder.  His eyes didn’t leave hers as he idly said, “A moment, Lieutenant. I will come.”He nodded, sharply, but stood to the side of the open doorway, as if he expected Salazar to leave immediately.“The door, Lieutenant.”  Salazar still didn’t look at him, and Lesaro had to bite his own sharp retort as it tried to leave his mouth.“This matter,” he said cautiously, but couldn’t keep the reproachful edge out of his tone, “is very sensitive to time, Capitán.”The look on his face was murderous, and if Lesaro knew that if his news had included anyone living drifting into the Triangle, they would have tasted the frustrated bite of his blade without any hint of mercy.It was Carina that soothed him, her hands belatedly setting the cup on the small table as she softly called, “I will be here, Armando.”  Her use of his given name, and the softness of her tone, made something alarming turn over low in Lesaro’s stomach, and he understood, suddenly, wildly, that whatever Salazar did feel for her, she was past merely accepting it, she was reciprocating.  His mind stuttered to a stop as he stared between them, and the only thing he could think was, ‘What if she does not want to go?’His Capitán was no longer the suave, charming, handsomely intense man he had been in life.  Lieutenant Lesaro had grown up with Armando, had fought by his side as they both climbed in rank, and after these long years he no longer recognized the man who stood before him now.  Death wounds aside, he’d all but embraced the curse. It had changed him, allowing his cruelty to grow unchecked and his bloodlust to become insatiable.  He killed indiscriminately, and rarely was it neat, clean, fast. Did she see that? Could she possibly know the depths of his depravity?  He swallowed his panic and the urge to shove her off in a smallboat, consequences be damned. She’d only been lucid for a day, she must have seen him through the halo of morphine and Salazar’s intense interest.  After her time on the Monarch, he probably looked to be the best of men. She couldn’t understand, she couldn’t see. Salazar had come back to her, and touched the backs of two of his fingers to the curve of her cheek, gently, and his deep rumble, “I will send Officer Magda here, to check on you, after I attend to the ‘urgent’ matter.”  Lesaro’s eye hardened at the small touch and the accompanying soft look that came over her face. He was already ruining her. Armando Salazar ruined everything.  It was only a matter of time before he turned on her, and Officer Cortez had been completely right when he said that the Capitán was incapable of love.  The curse had ripped that part of his humanity out by the roots and thrown it away.The Capitán didn’t give him another glance as he stepped away from her and passed by him, over the threshold.  In the cabin, Carina’s eyes were dreamy, and she was gently touching her cheek, staring out of the blown open porthole.Lesaro shut the door with a finality, turning to keep stride at Salazar’s side.  Salazar approached the crowd of officers at the banister quietly, and they parted unconsciously around him.  He made his way to the front, and Officer Magda, who had been looking through the spyglass, automatically held it out for him.“She is not ready,” He said immediately, his voice layered with worry.  There was a ship near the entrance, sailing close enough for them to sense and see from afar, but clearly not going into the narrow opening to the Triangle.  Magda’s continued, “Capitán, if this is not a ship full of generous sailors, she will die before they can reach her. We will be able to do nothing but watch.  She is too weak to row that far. Her back...”Salazar held up a hand, and Magda stopped talking.  He made a low hum in his throat and pulled back. Lesaro stepped up, his gaze cool, and said, “Prepare the smallboat, if we hurry, she can reach-”“No.”  Salazar’s answer was calm and he turned his head, “It is a British ship.  She will not sail with the British again.”Officer Magda watched Lieutenant Lesaro’s face freeze, a hint of something ugly sliding across it for a moment.  “Capitán, we do not know when-”“No British,” he turned to stare at his Lieutenant, his voice going soft and dangerous.  “She has been mistreated by them too much already for me to send her with them again. Whoever the Capitán of the Essex is, I cannot trust that he is a good man that will tend her wounds, instead of a man who runs a ship full of rapists and sadists!”He turned in a tight circle, his temper rising to the surface, “Back to your stations, all of you!”  He slammed his sword against the creaking deck and the officers scattered, like rats in the daylight.“Officer Magda, tend to La Mariposa.  See how her wounds are healing.” Miguel nodded his head sharply and went to retrieve his tools.“Lieutenant Lesaro-”“Un momento, por favor.”  Lesaro’s mouth was a thin, grim line.  He knew he was stepping out of line, he knew he was directly in line of sight of the rest of the men, but he had to talk to him.  Had to gauge his state of mind. “Walk with me?”For a moment, he thought Salazar would refuse and turn away.  But at the last minute, he gestured at the railing. Lesaro jumped first, followed quickly by Salazar.  They landed on the smooth water, walking far enough to not be overheard. Thoughtlessly, Gui took off his hat and held it in his hands, studying the familiar folds of the stiff fabric.  “I hardly recognize you sometimes, Mondo.”Surprisingly, he laughed.  It was a genuine one, not with the bite of cruelty or anger to it.  “I should hope not, we have been dead so long. Though, hey, I miss your handsome face, amigo.”  He gave a smile that took Gui aback, he hadn’t seen that level of casual… anything on his face since… a long time.  Longer than the curse, that was for sure.They walked slowly across the water, and Gui sighed.  He wanted to engage in playful banter, the opportunity so rare, but this was serious.  “That’s not what I meant, Mondo, and you know it.”  His tone was soft and slightly reproachful. “You… this is the most I’ve seen you act like the Armando Salazar that I knew and loved for longer than I care to think.  You’re always so caught up in the curse, all of us resist it, cling to who we used to be, but you…” He fell silent, and watched his friend’s face slip into something slightly darker, “You stroke it,” he said finally, “You go out of you way to embrace it like a lover, something to be pleased, than you try to treat it like a disease to be overcome.  You revel in it, Mondo.”"Is this what you wanted me at the helm for, Lieutenant?" Salazar was cold. "To  bore me with your shallow insights?" He started to step faster, and Gui watched as Armando slowly melted away, behind the chilly mask of Salazar.“Mondo, please!  I need you… I just want to understand.” He stopped, hands outspread, and as Armando stopped and turned, and sighed.  “I have not seen you act gently with anyone for a very long time, Armando.  Yet, you are gentle with her. I’m afraid…” He swallowed and chose his next words very carefully.  “You know that she must leave.  I want to know that you understand why.”As his Capitán’s gaze darkened with the beginnings of a furious anger, he pressed on, “You must let her go, Mondo, you cannot hold her here.  You cannot keep her, cage her, and if the curse is driving you to make her like us… Mondo, I need you to fight it. You have to send Carina, La Mariposa, out into the world again!”Salazar turned in a narrow, angry circle before practically shouting, “Let her go?  Send her away? To what, Gui? The men of that world would kill her.  Whip her, flog her, destroy her simply because of how different, bright and good-”  His face wavered between a deep rage and curious tenderness, and his voice softened, “You have seen her, Gui, you know how rare and precious she is.  How unlike any woman we have met before. Even your own love,” and here he looked at him earnestly, “she was perfection made flesh, but even she was not as clever as Carina.  You would have me toss her back out into the world? I can protect her, Gui.”“Armando, she is not yours!”  Gui practically exploded, “You have known her for a few days , I knew Maria for years before she confessed an admiration that matched my own.  Carina does not belong to you, she is not yours to keep!”Instantly, he knew he’d made a mistake.  He’d crossed too many lines, and shoved a sore and tender spot on his Capitán’s heart.  His eyes started to creep from yellow to orange, with veins of red striating through, “It is not your place to say such things,” he breathed, lines of black blood running down his chin, “Do you remember, Lieutenant, who is Capitán on this ship?”It was too late to take anything back, too late to do anything but try to force his way through the barrier he could practically see the curse raising around his mind.  “I remember the man who held me as I got this!” He ripped off his eyepatch, barely keeping it in his hand. If he threw it down now, he’d be searching the sea floor for months to find it again.  “This is why I asked you here! To show you this! I got this on your first run as Capitán, Mondo, and yet you would not let me hide. You told me it was a ‘badge of honor’, do you remember?”His eyes softened to yellow as he took in the hideous scar tissue, not made less horrible by the gray pallor of his friend’s skin.  It was pale, whiter than the skin around it, having been protected from the blast by the black oval Gui now crushed in his grip.  The twisted remains of his eyelashes and eyebrow, though, were gory reminders of what had once been there. “I remember,” he said softly, “your bravery, fighting through the pain.  I remember our training, in secret, to help you with your blind spot.” His hand want, automatically, to the side where Gui had nearly gotten run through during their first real skirmish with pirates after losing his eye.  They’d taken advantage of his weakness, and if Armando had not been at his back… he might not be in this hell today. They’d trained together, late into the night, until protecting his blind side became second nature. Armando stepped closer to him, “I remember, the first time Maria touched your scar.  You told me-” He bit his tongue and stared up into the sky, the violent purple and black clouds roiling, as they had every day since they were cursed. He sighed and didn’t look at Gui as he said softly, “She has wounds, Gui, that I would destroy nations over. It is not the same as yours, in battle. She was beaten while she could not defend herself.  Unfairly flogged, a punishment far too harsh for her infarction. I cannot train her with a weapon, her pain is still too great. I cannot send her with my sword, it would turn to ash at the barrier of this place.” He shook his head.“You can give her courage,” Gui said, softly, “You can give her the power to hold her head up high.  You can-” He paused, entirely sure that saying it was a terrible idea, but his stupid brain pushed it out anyway, “You can give her your regard, that she might hold onto your own courage when hers falters.”At the way Armando’s eyes floated back towards where he knew his quarters were, he felt like Carina Smyth had started something bigger than all of them.  Maybe instead of Salazar, she would be the one to put them all back into their graves, silent and still. Maybe she was the worst sort of mistake a dead man could make.“Perhaps.” Was all his Capitán could say, and they turned to start walking back.Before they got within earshot of the Mary, Gui reached out and clasped Salazar’s elbow, tightly, forcing the other man to look at him, “Swear to me,” he hissed, fervently, in a last ditch effort, “Swear to me that when the right ship comes, you will let her go.”  At the other man’s hesitation, Gui shook his elbow once. “Armando.”“I grant you this liberty, Lieutenant, because I know you care the most for my Lady.  That is all,” At his pointed gaze, Gui dropped his arm and they both straightened.  After a heartbeat, Armando whispered, “I swear it, Gui, I will send her back out when the time is right.”Knowing it was the best he could get, he stayed silent at the other man’s side as they jumped back up onto the quarterdeck.  At the door to his quarters, Captain Salazar found himself pressing an ear to the thin wood, eavesdropping a quiet conversation between Miguel and Carina.  The wood was full of splits and deep cracks, and he looked through a ravine to see what was going on. Miguel was bent over her back, a look of extreme concentration on his face, and she was staring at her hands, mouth twisted down into a frown.“You must be very careful in how you move, Señorita,” he murmured, “We need the scar tissue to build up less, to stop tearing open, so that it will not hurt so much when you must row away.”Her frown deepened, and she sighed, “Nobody will miss me if I must stay longer, Doctor.”  Salazar’s hand made a fist, and he shoved back the longing to hold her.“This is no place for a young woman,” Miguel sounded sad, and prodded a spot on her back that made her wince.  “This is no place for any living thing.” He paused, staring at her, and came around to look at her face. “The Capitán has read your diary,” and she frowned viciously at the reminder.  He found a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “The Trident of Poseidon is mentioned,” he said, at length, pressing past the annoyed noise in her throat. “He had me look at your calculations, and as an… educated colleague,” he said cautiously, “I am interested in your thoughts of the validity of such an object.”She looked stunned, for a moment, at his solicitation of her opinion.  Salazar found his tongue suddenly thick in his mouth. Was this the first time someone had acknowledged her intelligence as an equal?  No mention of her gender, her station, her struggle to gain the knowledge she now held so precious. He was suddenly, fiercely proud of Officer Magda.  “Oh. Well. I didn’t believe in it, of course, curses at sea, and a tool to break them?  What a ridiculous notion, a flight of fantasy.”Officer Magda smiled at her, “I thought much the same, Miss Smyth, but-” he gestured at himself, his torso floating above legs that simply weren’t there, “It is in the nature of a scientist to question their opinion when presented with new evidence to the contrary of what it was before.”She gave him such a brilliant smile that Salazar felt a slight tug of jealousy.“Just so,” she said happily, obviously pleased to be engaged in such a conversation with one who appeared to take her seriously.  “Now that I know curses exist, it would make sense for there to be a ‘control’ object, something that could cancel all of the magic in one fell swoop.”  She made a thoughtful hum in her throat, “Everything that I have read, in the languages available to me, points to the answer being revealed during a blood moon.  Such a celestial event is rare, but on the Monarch, I was able to freely write out calculations before…” She tried to shrug, but the reminder of why she’d had to stop made her hiss in pain.“Barbarians with no self control,” Miguel said tartly, quickly reaching out to hold her shoulder still and checking the bandages.  “Little gestures can make a big impact, Miss Smyth, you must try to refrain. But please, continue.”She sighed and tried to keep still, “The Captain tore my sleeves and threw my coat overboard.  My chronometer was in the pocket, and I did not want to reveal the location of my diary while in custody.  I have not had the opportunity to do calculations since.”Officer Magda made a thoughtful noise, “I can check my desk in my quarters, it was locked during the explosion and some paper may have survived.  A pencil perhaps, as well. The lock was melted and I simply haven’t tried to break it open otherwise. Lo siento, my apologies, I do not believe any of our instruments escaped the fire.  Even if they did, they would be in such a state of disrepair…” He spread his hands and looked decidedly apologetic.“It hardly matters,” she gave him a thin grin, “Arman- Captain Salazar,” she hastily corrected herself, “has my diary.  My calculations. I would need them to do anything of use.” He felt the diary, heavy in his pocket, and held himself very still.“If you asked,” Miguel said gently, “I am sure he would allow you to hold it for your study.  He is not an unreasonable man, when it comes to you.” She looked doubtful, a blush creeping up her neck, and he pressed her, “I could tell him that the exercise would be good for your mind and spirit.  He will return shortly, I will wait with you if you would like for me to provide support for your request. And…” he bit his tongue almost, and shyly extended, “I would be honored to watch you work, Miss Smyth.  A new mind, orientated to the ways of science, is something I-” He could hardly bring himself to finish, and at the door, Captain Salazar’s eyebrows were trying to fly right off his forehead. Did his doctor have a crush on her?“Oh!”  She pinked slightly, and looked flustered, “I have not had a… study partner?  A like-minded- I would like that,” she rushed out, both of them terribly wrong footed, “but we must ask Captain Salazar.  I have… I think there might be a…” She was past pink, now, and slowly shifting further into red.“There is an understanding between you,” he blurted out, “It is not… there are few secrets, on this ship, and that is not my intention.”  Both of them looked mortified, and Captain Salazar decided to take pity on them.He pushed the door open, both snapping around to look at him with equally guilty expressions.  He raised one eyebrow, the silence growing thick between the three of them.Carina was turning a shade of red that he found quite becoming, and despite his assurance he would be there to support her, Officer Magda fell suspiciously silent.  He stepped closer, and when neither of them said anything, he prompted, “How are her wounds, Officer?”Automatically, Miguel slid into the smooth professional tone of an officer briefing his superior, “They’re healing well, Capitán, but she must refrain from as much small movement as large.”  He came to her back and gestured across the shoulder blades, where one of the deepest lashes lay, “Every time the skin breaks, more scar tissue is formed. In time, that will prevent the flexibility needed for her to row, and cause her pain for years to come.  They’re going to be deep, the tissue will be thick. She is young enough that they made fade into something lighter, in time, but they will never vanish. If I had more tools, I could create something, a salve, maybe, to help soften them, but for now, all I can recommend is stillness, rest, and a constant monitoring of the flesh as it knits back together.”Carina’s face was sliding back to a more normal shade of pink, the distance between them giving her a measure of comfort.  She sighed, “My apologies-”“You have done nothing,” Captain Salazar said quietly, his eyes intense, “to apologize for, Miss Smyth.  The fault is mine, for having you sit upright too soon, and for antagonizing you into tearing them again in the first place.”  He gave her a half bow, deeper than normal, one arm automatically crossed his chest in a display of respect. “You have my most sincere regrets for my behavior.  If there is anything you desire, anything at all, you have but to ask.”Officer Magda’s eyes widened, he hadn’t seen such… civilized behavior from his Capitán in so years.  He drew back in extreme surprise as Capitán Salazar withdrew her diary from his jacket, holding it out with one hand loosely.  “I begin with this,” he said, “as an apology.” As she reached out and gripped the corner of the old leather binding gently, his grip did not waver.  “This is not for good. It is simply to occupy your mind while you heal. Understood?”A flicker of annoyance crossed her face, before it smoothed back out into something much more grateful, “Yes, Captain, I do understand.”  He held onto it for another heartbeat before he very deliberately let it go.Miguel excused himself quietly, though from the way those two were looking at each other, he doubted either one noticed, and scuttled back to his cabin to hack open his desk and get his paper.By the time he came back with what he could salvage from his desk, Captain Salazar was gone and Carina was flushed an even deeper pink than when he had left.  She was touching her cheek, and it took him calling her name twice before she snapped out of her daze and quietly accepted the paper from him with thanks.  “La Maripooosa, are you awake?”  Nico poked his head into the cabin, quickly looking around.  Salazar had left not three minutes ago, and he knew this might be his only chance to see her up close.  “Antonio, come on! Nobody is here and she is asleep! One little peek, one little touch, who is going to know?"  He hissed, dragging Antonio into the cabin forcefully."If the Lieutenant or el Capitán find us..." Antonio's voice was high with hushed fear, his face pinched with worry.Nico scoffed, "What is Gui going to do, amigo?  He blusters and he threatens, but he is all bark and no bite.  And el Capitán... we'll just have to be gone before he arrives."  His face turned hungry, and he stretched one hand out to the blanket on the bed.  "It has been so long since I've felt a woman," he was entranced, his eyes eating up all of the dips and valleys of her back.Carina sighed happily and nestled deeper into the pillow, murmuring something neither one of them caught, but the spill of her hair across the bed, shining in the moonlight, proved to be too much temptation for Nico.  He picked a single curl up and twined it between his fingers. "Give me your dagger, Antonio," he murmured absently."What? Why?"  Antonio took a step back, his voice shocked, "What are you going to-""Just a souvenir," he said quietly, "Just one little piece."  He held the curl out farther, and extended his other hand behind him.  "The blade, Antonio."He shrank back further, "No, Nico.  This was a bad idea." He started inching toward the door."I can see why el Capitán would desire her so," he said as if he hadn't heard, his eyes drinking in her face.  "She's beautiful." He reached out and pressed his thumb along her cheekbone, curving it down to touch the corner of her mouth.  "Bella Virgin, right, Antonio?" At the coolness of his touch, she smiled further and murmured something that might have been the name of their captain.He didn't say anything at all, taking another step back.  He was so frightened, his teeth were starting to chatter."Bella Virgin."  His eyes, a clear yellow, glowed slightly in the dark.  The pronunciation was sinister, dark and full of a type of longing that made Antonio quake harder.He leaned down, his breath ghosting over her cheek, as Antonio made a small frightened sound, a squeak pushing out of his ruined throat.  "Come, come, Antonio. After I am done, you may have a turn." Carina, still so deeply asleep, simply turned her head closer to the source of the coolness, "See?  She is eager , amigo.""What do you think you are doing?" The cool voice of their Capitán slid through the darkness around the edges of the cabin.  Antonio’s high yelp almost sounded like it was full of tears.Nico didn't release her curl, his bravado, his frustration, his stupid teenage anger rising to the surface, "We just wanted a peek at the treasure you've been so hoarding, Capitán."  He didn't stand up, he didn't move from his position over her, and he whispered, "It isn't fair for you to keep her all to yourself."His hand meandered down to his belt, plucking his own broken dagger out from its moulded sheath, bits of the blade still embedded in his own hip.  With one smooth movement, he parted the curl from the rest of her hair, clutching it triumphantly in his fist, "It isn't fair that you should be the only one to touch her!""Nico," Antonio practically whimpered, pressed back against the wall of the cabin as Salazar stepped inside and closed the door behind him.Salazar looked from the curl Nico held in his hand as he stood, to Carina, sleeping peacefully on his bed, unaware of what had just been taken from her.Nico's face was mulish as he met his Capitán's eye.He swallowed at the carefully curated blankness he saw there and curled his hand around the handle of the dagger tighter.  Antonio was trying very hard to phase through the wood, but the once-living panels weren't letting him through.Salazar tilted his head, letting his hair fall into his face, and he hummed.  "You're holding something that doesn't belong to you, Officer."His hand was shaking as he gripped the curl, and he bit out, "I was seventeen when I died, Capitán.  I understand, now, that I was barely a boy. Not really a man. But I had a man's tastes, and barely got to whet my appetite for them before we got trapped in this hell."  He was hard, angry, as he stared at Salazar, "You didn't give anyone else a chance to even talk to her. You can't just swoop in and take whatever you want. I could have carried her.  She could have stayed in my bunk.""What," Salazar asked as if he hadn’t heard anything the younger man had said, "Is the first rule on my ship?"  He waited. "Do you not remember?"Nico didn't respond, just set his jaw stubbornly and glared."Antonio?" Salazar's sudden question made Moss almost choke, but Salazar wasn't looking at him. "Surely you remember. After all, it's only one word...""S-Spain..." Moss whispered."Sí, Spain." Salazar nodded, hair swirling. "And the second?"  His eyes, bright orange and glaring out of his pale face, were still locked on Nico."F-f-family.""Correct." His gaze hardened and he tilted his head, causing his hair to cover half his face. "And the last?""Honor." Moss gulped, quavering."So, Nico." Salazar started slowly towards him. "Is your action worthy of Spain?"Nico reluctantly looked away. "No...""No?" Salazar cupped a hand to his ear. "No, what?""No, Capitán." Nico grudgingly said."And is it worthy of your family? Your brothers, here, on La María Silenciosa?"  He cocked his head and gestured back towards Antonio. He felt a frisson of fear slide up his spine.  For Salazar to use the Mary’s Spanish name… he must have been furious.Nico shook his head, looking away. "No, Capitán."Salazar stood now in front of Nico, and his voice was barely raised."And... honor."Nico looked down, shame-faced at his feet."Is it honorable, to take from a lady?  What she does not consent to give?"He stood quietly, unable to answer.  He clutched the curl tighter in his fist."I'm waiting," Salazar said.  Carina stirred, but did not open her eyes.  His eyes shot to her for a minute, quickly assessing her, before slowing turning back to Nico.He bit his lip, casting his eyes to her as well, hints of dark longing still pooling on the surface.  "No. No, Captián.""Tell me the rules again, Nico."  He tapped his sword three times."Spain. Family. Honor." He responded automatically.Salazar held out his hand.  Wordlessly, Nico dropped the curl in his rough, cracked palm.  He scrubbed at his cheek. "Now go, both of you, and report to Lieutenant Lesaro," Salazar said softly. "Tell him what you did. He will decide an appropriate discipline."As they left, Antonio slapping Nico on the back of the head as they went, Salazar's fist closed over the silky curl, and he looked down at the still sleeping woman.  She would never know, he decided, of the breach on her person. He rubbed the hair between his fingers, staring out the porthole. He should toss it out on the evening breeze, send the strands flying, but something stopped him.She was going to leave.He put the curl into his pocket, flexing his hand afterwards.  As the sky beyond the stone arch of the Devil's Triangle deepened into the indigo of evening, Salazar watched Carina sleep.  He traced every detail of her face: the shadow cast by her dark eyelashes. The sweet freckles sprinkled lightly across her nose, remnants of time spent in the sunshine.  The Cupid's bow of her lips, his fingers would remember their softness for the rest of his eternal existence. The rich, dark hair, cascading over her shoulder as she slept, tumbling across her bandaged back, a curl, shorter than the rest, falling over her mouth as she moaned and turned in her sleep."Shhh, shhh, shhh," he bent over her, smoothing the hair away from her lips, gently coaxing her to lie on her stomach with a soft touch to her bare shoulder. "No con la espalda, Carina..." Not on your back. At the sound of his voice, a softly mumbled, "Armando..."  She sighed sweetly after his name, and a smile curled over her lips.He halted, hand still on her shoulder, as she turned over onto her stomach again.  The intimacy of his name on her lips made all thought shudder to a stop, and he could not move for the longest time, searching her face for an answer he wasn't even sure he wanted to ask the question to.  He had to stop indulging… this. He was on a collision course, he could tell, and he had to stop. He had to, but he was absolutely certain he could not.There was a soft knock on the door, only audible to his curse-enhanced hearing.Salazar straightened at once, the soft look that had stolen over his cracked face dismissed into his habitual sternness.  "Entra," he ordered quietly."Capitán," Lesaro stepped inside and softly closed the door behind him, careful not to wake Carina.  She didn’t stir. "Officers Cortez and Moss have been... disciplined. After, of course, Miguel and I had words with them."  He cleared his throat a little.Salazar nodded, reluctantly tearing his eyes from the lady in his bed.  "And -" His voice was curiously thick, "Officer Cortez..."Understanding Salazar's question without it even having to be formulated, Lesaro answered.  "He bore his punishment well, like a man. He accepted all of the rocks from the crew, and did not struggle as he went under.  His isolation will last five days time. Officer Moss, however, will be sleeping with the sharks for longer." He shook his head.  “That he did not try to stop him… Miguel was almost more furious at Officer Moss than Officer Cortez. He had to address the crew, tell them how he earned such isolation.  There is… some uneasiness, amongst the men. I will handle it, but you may want to… address them. Remind them of the rules.”Salazar nodded again, absently, before turning slowly away, to walk towards the desk in the corner of the cabin.  Lesaro noted his limp seemed more pronounced than ever tonight, a sign that his Capitán was tired. Lesaro took a deep breath, as Salazar sat in the sole surviving chair at the desk, eyes cast down at something he held in the palm of his hand.  He wasn't close enough to see, but he had a terrible feeling he knew exactly what it was."Capitán," Lesaro began, stepping toward him."I know, I know," Salazar said, his voice deep and tired. "I know already what you are going to say."  He glanced again at Carina, but her deep even breaths reassured him that she was deeply asleep. His eyes lingered on her face, longingly, even as something died a little in his gaze.  "You are worried for her." He said quietly.  He was worried, himself, and deeply disgusted that he could not have protected her from his own crew.  He hadn't felt anything this negative about himself since... since... he couldn't even remember.  His disappointment felt like ash on his tongue, and he couldn't even swallow it, just let it all drip down his chin without cleaning it away."I am worried for both of you," Lesaro answered frankly. "I - I know now...."Salazar looked up at him, eyes flicking over his expression.Lesaro shifted awkwardly on his feet, before saying, "I know, how hard it must be. She - is - a very... a very special woman." Seeing Salazar's raised eyebrows, Lesaro hurried on, "I know you care for her. I know you wish to protect her. And - all of us, Capitán, we all wish to see her healed and well again.  All of us."  He paused, judging his reaction.Salazar's gaze slid, like a magnet, to the lady in the bed.  His hands flexed, and his eyes slid into a pale yellow. "But you are right, Gui," Salazar said softly. "She must -"  He took in a pained breath. "She must be allowed to leave.  She is not meant to stay in a place like this." He let his breath out slowly, and he seemed to deflate along with it.Silence fell between them, and Lesaro felt how much it cost his Capitán to say that."I will help you, in any way I can, Armando," Lesaro promised. "But you must know, that once she is well again - I meant what I said. She must leave, unharmed, allowed to go back out into the world."Salazar's lips twisted into a smile.  "Sí, sí... or I will have you and Miguel to face for the rest of eternity, I know!”Lesaro returned Salazar's wry smile with one of his own.   "You think I am bad, Capitán, but you still have never seen Miguel lose his temper. And when it comes to 'mi paciente'...." Lesaro shook his head. "We are all going to need to stay out of his way!  Moss and Cortez will be lucky if he forgives them in the next century. "Salazar looked speculatively at Lesaro. "Miguel is an admirer?"  He’d already had an idea, of course, from his time eavesdropping at his cabin door, but if Gui had any new information...Lesaro shook his head immediately. "Not an admirer, Capitán, por favor but you must know he only looks on the Lady like a sister… and..." he bit his tongue, "as a colleague.  He keeps her mind company, and she him.""Bien," Salazar stood at length. "I am glad."  He was, he realized, pleased that she was providing respite and comfort to more than one member of his crew.  A ray of light in this dark, terrible place.  He walked over to Carina once more, his fist tightening.  Lesaro forced his eyes to slide away.Lesaro bowed at Salazar.  "We will continue to watch for a ship, Capitán. Once a suitable one is within distance, we will inform you, should Señorita Smyth be well enough.""Gracias, Lieutenant," Salazar answered, eyes caught on Carina’s face.  Lesaro took the thanks for the dismissal that it was, and silently excused himself.As the door closed softly once more behind him, and his footsteps faded away, Salazar opened his fist.  A single, dark curl of hair lay in his palm. Cursed as he was, he could still feel some things; and as he closed his eyes, he allowed himself just one single moment of pure indulgence, and touched the silky curl to his lips.  He immediately felt filthy, dirty and unworthy, and lowered it again.  She had not consented to give him such a favor, his youngest, wildest member of his crew now sat in isolation on the seabed for the act of taking it, and he held it to his lips like some romantic conquistador of old?  The curse came up, soothing his ruffled feathers and self disgust, overpowering him into bring it up once more to brush the curl against his lips thoughtfully."Mi frágil pequeña Mariposa..." he murmured.   My fragile little butterfly.  She sighed in response, turning her head back toward him, and it took all of his willpower to look past her into the night, to shake off the curse's desire to look at her for eternity.  She had to leave, yes, she would bring a message to Jack Sparrow, but would the curse allow him to leave her unscathed?  He found himself painfully aware that the answer was not a hard ‘no’, it's control already embedded enough to sway him into keeping the curl pressed against his mouth.  He felt the curse, even now, purring of an eternal existence with her at his side, together.  He knew this was wrong, unhealthy, spiraling out of control, and he would do what he could to curb it, but he knew that the curse would try to win.  It always did.  If he could resist her until she was gone, he could lose himself to the madness of a second obsession after she was safely out of the Triangle.  He clutched the curl tighter, telling the curse they would always have her memory, but it began to churn and rage inside of him, unsatisfied with such a paltry offering when the whole woman laid out before them like a feast.He sat by her bedside, silently, warring with himself, and was gone before she woke.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The days that passed found Carina more irritable than ever as her wounds started to heal.  Captain Salazar sat with her at mealtime but did not feed her again. He barely talked to her, and nothing like the witty banter of before.  Something had shifted since she had been asleep, and he no longer reached out to touch her so freely. In fact, he often looked at her with a strange, shuttered expression that almost seemed… lonely.  Also, a lock of her hair kept falling into her face where it had not before. She blamed it on lack of a proper bath and brush. She would pull it back into something more sensible, but could not yet lift her hands so high.She could barely lift them up enough to write properly, scratch out her calculations, and she could not do it as fast as she could think.Her back was waves of throbbing pain and severe itching in turn.  The shirt was light cotton but felt like heavy lead against the bandages.  Oppressive. Binding. Restrictive.Officer Magda was beside her, happily chatting on about something when she gave a wordless, irritated screech and tossed the paper off of the plank of wood serving as a lap desk.  He ceased talking immediately, and she crossed her arms despite the discomfort, suddenly ashamed for her childish outburst. Her shoulders rippled with the need to scratch her back, and she turned her head sullenly to the porthole.He stood, cautiously, from the edge of the bed, bending down to pick up the weathered sheets.  “Should I go retrieve el Capitán?”“What for?” She bickered, “He’s barely spoken to me for two days.”  Sighing, she raised her hand up and bent her head down, so she could rub her brow.  “Forgive me, Officer Magda. My back…” “Ah,” instantly, he was behind her, helping her lift the edge of the shirt while she tried to sit up.  He looked at the bandages for a moment, “They are due for a changing. I will need a second hand. Por favor, I just need a moment.”  He laid the bottom of the shirt back down and ghosted his hand down her back in a supplicating gesture. She muttered her assent as he quickly left the cabin, nodding to someone on the other side of the door.  She raised her eyebrow. Was there a guard? She couldn’t recall a guard before. “Hello?”  Carina called out cautiously.A member of the crew she hadn’t seen before stepped indolently into the doorway.  The middle of his torso was missing, and he looked annoyed. “Officer Magda will return.  What did you need?”She stared at him blankly.  “I haven’t met you before.”He stared back.  “There are very few crew members allowed to interact with you, Señorita Smyth.”She blinked at that new information, suddenly cognizant that she hadn’t left the room, and barely the bed, since she’d arrived.  Of course, the number of people she’d met would be tightly restricted. “You know my name,” she ventured, “may I have one in return?”He rolled his eyes, muttering, “As long as I’m not tossed to the bottom of the sea,” then, louder, “Officer Santos, Señorita Smyth.”She narrowed her eyes at him.  “What did you mean, ‘tossed to the bottom of the sea’?”He closed his eyes and muttered something that was probably a curse in Spanish, “What are the odds of you not mentioning that to anyone else?”She just narrowed her eyes further.He shook his head.  “El Capitán will kill me.  Some crew members were… out of line.  Isolation is a punishment.” He gestured broadly at his ruined body and quirked an eyebrow at her, “The sea no longer holds any threat to us.  The hull no longer exists, in the strongest sense of the word. We are sunk to the bottom of the sea for a strong enough transgression.” He held up one hand at her curious expression.  “That’s all I will say. I strongly, strongly, suggest you do not question Capitán Salazar about it. Officer Magda, or Lieutenant Lesaro, maybe, but not the Capitán.  Understood?” She murmured her assent while he stood to the side again.  There were a few minutes of silence before the familiar, hasty, uneven gate of Capitán Salazar approached the cabin, though Miguel was the first through the door. He smiled apologetically at her, “Lo siento, Mariposa, but Capitán Salazar has insisted that he be the one to assist you in times of… tenuous modesty.”She locked eyes with Salazar, who looked away as soon as the stray curl of hair fell into her face.  Carina offered a tentative greeting, “Armando,” he looked at her again and she smiled at him tenderly, “I missed you.”  Her admission was ruined by a terrible itching that made her back seize. She gave an irritated, frustrated moan and bent forward, trying to inch one hand over to scratch at it.Instantly, Officer Magda was at her side, clucking his tongue, “That is what you meant earlier.  Señorita, we will change your bandages and then you must try to refrain from scratching at it!”  She felt his cool hands on her back, lifting up the shirt, all professional movement, as Salazar closed the door.  He slowly walked over to stand behind her as Officer Magda worked.“Ah,” said Officer Magda happily, as he finished unwinding the bandages, “They’re already starting to scab over.  See, Capitán? There’s very little seepage now, and none of it is foul and infected. Clear is good. And it’s warm, a little swollen, but the itching is a good sign.  It has been several days now, almost a week, maybe a little more, I think, since the initial trauma.” She felt a different set of hands, larger and less impersonal, gently touch a warm, itchy area on her back.  “This is much healthier than it was when we brought her on board.”She sighed and closed her eyes, “That feels good,” she breathed.Immediately, the hand withdrew.  She frowned.“I can see,” Officer Magda said with false cheerfulness, rushing to fill the air between them, “why you were so irritable!”  His own cold hands replaced Armando’s, gently feeling the warm edges of her wounds. He palpated the edges carefully, and she winced a little as he did so.  After several tense, silent minutes, he pulled back, murmuring, “Bien. Capitán, if you would assist?”Without looking, Captain Salazar came to stand in front of her, Officer Magda helping her to lean on him.  She hissed as her arms were stretched up enough to grasp his shoulders, and he automatically tucked her head under his chin.  Gently, Officer Magda began winding clean dressings around her. His torso blocked her breasts from view, and she noticed his sharp inhale to pull his chest away from hers.  Her neck twinged, the skin on her back pulled, and she let out a deep, shuddering breath that ended in something that may have been a sob. He automatically hushed her. “It will be over soon, Mariposa.  Bear it a little longer.”She got the sense, immediately, that he was talking about more than just the bandaging.  She just nodded and tilted her head up, her nose bumping his, her warm breath puffing against his cold lips.  He tensed and lifted his head up and away, but she reached up with one slim hand to catch the edge of his jaw with her fingertips, “Wait-” she bit out, and he looked down at her.  Her voice held an edge of longing and desperation. Her eyes were so soft, so blue, and he couldn’t look away.Officer Magda studiously ignored them and worked a little faster.“I miss you,” she said again, softly, and tried to stretch herself up to press her face against his.  He gave a low rumble in his chest and allowed her to press her cheekbone against his unbroken jawline.  “I don’t know what changed, or what happened, but you’ve been so distant, I-”Her bandages had been neatly replaced without her noticing, and he tore his eyes away from hers, studiously ignoring her, “Officer Magda, if you would help Señorita Smyth back into bed?  I have… business to attend to.” He gently extricated himself from her, unable to keep from smoothing one hand through her dark, tangled curls, and exited the cabin hastily.Carina didn’t protest as Officer Magda pulled the shirt back over her head, but when he came back around to her front, to help her back into the bed, she grabbed the front of his uniform and jerked him close.  His eyes widened and he immediately let her go, “Wh-”“Why is he acting this way?”  Her eyes narrowed and she practically growled at him, “What happened?”  The curl fell into her face again, and she watched Magda’s eyes focus on it.  He gulped, and she glared at him.He sighed and began to talk.  Salazar walked out of the darkness, picking his way over the rough, rocky bottom of the seabed.  Nico didn't look up, just laid on the ground surrounded by rocks and ropes, "Hola, Capitán. Pull up a seat.  Sorry for the mess, I don't entertain regularly." He pushed the sound out through his water-filled lungs, the words mumbled and merely vibrations underwater."Your time here is nearly done, Officer.  I just wanted to talk to you, man to man."  Salazar reached out and connected to him through the curse, creating a telepathic link.  Nico did look at up at that, and Salazar made himself comfortable on a large, barnacle-covered boulder.He sat up, "Sí?  What did you want to talk about?"  The dark water streamed around them, a dead fish, mostly bones, swam lazily into Nico’s face.  He sputtered and waved it away."La Mariposa."  He raised one eyebrow as Nico cast his eyes down, crossing his heavy arms across his chest."What for?" He said sullenly, "Lesaro and Miguel already gave me a verbal lashing.  I've never seen Miguel so riled up. I know, I know, we don't touch el Capitán's playthings.""No," he corrected immediately, "La Mariposa is not my plaything.  She will never be my 'plaything'. She is a bright, lovely, intelligent young woman, who has chosen me as a companion while she is here."  However ill-advised that was, he had to give the impression of confidence.  Nico’s branch of the curse was very difficult to fool. He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, his face shuttered, "The reason I can touch La Mariposa when you cannot is consent, Officer Cortez.  The Lady wishes me to touch her, and if she did not I would keep my hands to myself."  He looked down for a moment, at his hand, and then flicked his bright, glowing gaze to Nico, "And, yes, I am Capitán.  I consider it my responsibility to care for wounded innocents, even giving up my personal comfort to them.  Though we have not had an innocent in the Triangle before, my sense of decorum has not abandoned me entirely.  I know what your bunk looks like. I would not have set her in such a mess."Nico sighed, "It's just been so long since I've seen a woman..."His response was swift, "As it has been for all aboard La Maria.  Yet you are the only one who invaded my cabin when you thought I wasn't there, to take your knife and part her from a lock of her hair."  He leaned forward, eyes calculating, "If I had not come in, Officer Cortez, what else might you have done?  And would Antonio had been brave enough, loved you enough, to stop you?"He shrank back, suddenly afraid, because he did not know how far he would have gone with no intervention.  He was a loyal son of Spain, and to rape was the lowest of the low, the admission you were not charming, suave, enough to seduce, but the curse had gripped him with a terrible sort of yearning.  "I do not know," he said softly, and he watched the Captián's eyes narrow."It is the truth, Capitán!  She was there, and the moonlight, so soft on her face..." even now, his face went dreamy and his eyes flared amber, "Bella Virgin," he sighed, and suddenly, there, before him, was the point of Salazar's rapier."The curse makes it difficult for all of us to control our more... prominent unsavory flaws," He said gently, as if he wasn't about to spear Nico through the eye, "For Antonio, it is fear.  Outside of battle, he is much more shy and cowardly than he was in life.  Without me there to feed him my fury, my bloodlust, he would quiver in his boots when faced with any sort of violence.  What is it for you, Nico?"Nico stayed silent, staring at the blade, and after several moments, Salazar removed it and cocked his head.  "It is avarice, Nico.  Do you know what that is?"Nico shook his head silently.  He stared down at the thick ropes around his wrists."It is greed.  The worst sort of greed.  Covetousness, jealousy, desire combined into something twisted and hateful.  I know my men, and I know who to watch. I knew you would come to La Mariposa sooner or later, the same way I know you covet my childhood friendship with Lieutenant Lesaro, and it leads to your foolish defiance of him.  Antonio would not have stopped you, he would have covered his face with his hands and wished to be anywhere else. You would have ravaged her, Nico, so that you could have something, anything, before me."  He leaned in closer, "You would not have reacted to her cries, to her fervent denial, to her fists trying to throw you off, and I would have had to put you on dry land for it."  His face was millimeters from Nico's and his whisper was unmistakable, "She chooses to be mine, hombre, and there is nothing anyone can do about that."  He quirked a smile, “Least of all me.”Salazar stood suddenly.  He straightened his coat, as much as he could underwater, "Your sentence ends tomorrow.  Will you see La Mariposa again?""No," he whispered.  Then he shook his head and said, firmer, "No, Capitán."There was a heartbeat of silence, and then he hummed thoughtfully.  "I might allow you and Antonio to meet her, properly, so you can understand exactly how much of a gem she is.  How rare, how interesting, how worth protecting. But I will be right beside you," he tapped the pommel of his rapier, "and the porthole will be next to one of the spires with a beach."Without waiting for his response, Salazar broke off the link and shot himself up to the surface of the sea, leaving Nico alone in the dark, crushing pressure, his head swirling with thoughts.  As soon as he’d broken the tension of the water, he heard the shouting, “Capitán!  Capitán Salazar! There is a ship! Lieutenant Lesaro, where is el Capitán?” There was commotion up on deck, so many of his crew sounding excited.He looked up, to where the side of his quarters was blown open wide, to see Carina and Miguel, heads bowed together, and he fought the urge to see what they were doing before tending to his mariners.  Under his sharp gaze, Carina’s head pulled back and she wore a deep, worried frown. She reached up and fingered the shorter lock of hair. Miguel also pulled back, and he looked… Salazar’s eyes narrowed.  He looked frightened.  Anger coiled deep in his gut as he considered the very shallow pool of subjects that would bring that expression to his loyal doctor’s face and have Carina touch the curl that had started habitually falling into the middle of her forehead.Then, Gui came into the chamber, all proper form and polite bows.  Carina drew back, pulled the loose shirt tighter around her collar and… Gui was trying to haul her up?  His eyebrows rose, and he quietly propelled himself onto the deck.Officer Santos was standing on the quarterdeck, holding the spyglass, and he called out, annoyed, “Someone, anyone, find El Capitán.  Lieutenant Lesaro has gone to fetch La Mariposa, we must move quickly.”“Hola, Officer.”  A nasty grin split his face as Santos jumped about two feet straight up, and he chuckled unkindly.  “Oh, it is difficult to frighten you, Diego.  Come come. What is this noise about?”  He grimaced, his eyes alighting on the other man's collar, and reached out thoughtlessly to get the fabric to sit properly.  It faltered immediately, the stitching no longer there to hold it up, and he sighed. Carina’s presence had distracted him from keeping his men, and the ship, tidy and orderly.He gave his Capitán a long-suffering look but didn't otherwise react to his taunt.  “A ship has been detected, Capitán.” His tone was distantly attentive as he lead him to the starboard side of the deck, facing the opening of the Triangle.  He held up the spyglass and muttered, “Lieutenant Lesaro is certain this is the one. He has pre-emptively decided to gather La Mariposa.”In the background, four of his lower officers were readying the smallboat they’d salvaged from the Monarch, and he hummed thoughtfully as he looked into the spyglass.  Immediately, his heart sank but also felt incredibly light.Almost as if he had been summoned, Lieutenant Lesaro appeared at his side.  Annoyed, he bit out, “La Mariposa refuses to leave the cabin without you, Capitán.  This ship is suitable. I await your command.”He was right.  He was painfully right.  Never had Salazar felt disappointment and relief war so violently within him.“They’re nuns,” he murmured, peering closer.  “French nuns, if I’m reading the flag correctly.”  The ship had also caught a favorable wind. It was not slicing its way through the waves to the entrance of the Triangle, but would be out of view in the hour.  She had to leave within the next ten minutes if she had any hope of catching them. He wasted fifteen seconds simply staring at the flag and little green-clad figures bustling on deck.He felt Lesaro’s agitated energy at his side, practically buzzing in place, and bit back a sigh.  “Ready the-”“Already done.”  Lesaro was watching him very closely, his good eye scrutinizing him, and in a rare show of audacity, he felt a tendril of the other man’s curse reach out to touch his own.  Immediately, he slapped it down and sent him a glare that promised punishment if he tried it again.“Mondo,” he said softly, quietly, and Salazar gave him a hard shake of his head.  Not now.“Miguel is still in her- my quarters?”  His gaze strayed back to the fractured wooden door, and he felt Gui ignore his slip and nod sternly.Without another word, he took the space in one huge leap, the decaying boards below him groaning from the pressure of his launch.  He refused to look at Lesaro’s face as he yanked open the door to the cabin and stepped inside.  He came out of his quarters minutes later in his shirtsleeves, Officer Magda hovering near him, and a half-naked Carina Smyth, bundled up in the captain’s jacket, stuck between them.  Her top half had been divested of the shirt and fresh bandages, the first because it could not cross the barrier and the second to avoid too many questions from the nuns. His long, mangled jacket was the only thing protecting her from the curious gaze of his crew.  He hovered near her, and the looks thrown her way were nowhere near discreet, but Carina found herself leaning back towards Salazar regardless. A sudden shift of his head made a soft bunch of his hair trail along her neck, and she shivered.Carina’s breathing was unsteady and fearful, her face wincing from the twinging and aching as the rough fabric of the jacket brushed against the tender new skin on her back.  Still not healed, not all the way, she could tear them open again if she tried hard enough, distort the new scar tissue without hardly any effort at all. Officer Magda hovered at her elbow, ready to catch her if she should fall.“There was no time to help soften and stretch the tissue, so you should expect pain.  Maybe some reopening, but I am hopeful they will send a boat to meet you and you will not have to work so hard to get to them before they vanish on the horizon.  I am sorry we cannot dose you with more morphine,” he murmured regretfully, his eyes flicking nervously to Salazar, “but you need your wits about you to get to the ship.”She gave him a watery smile, “I understand, Officer Magda, and I appreciate your concern.  The pain is,” she winced again, “bracing. Not as bad as it was, but I doubt I will forget to paddle.”“Call me Miguel,” he said suddenly, almost shyly, and the glare that formed on Captain Salazar’s face made him regret the invitation immediately.Carina didn’t see the captain's expression, and she gave the good doctor a genuine smile, she’d formed such a rapport with him, despite her earlier interrogation, and she genuinely appreciated the extended olive branch, “Then you must call me Carina.  Your skills have doubtlessly saved my life, your conversation my sanity, and I wanted to thank you.” She reached one hand out from under the jacket and squeezed his arm. Officer Magda would have blushed if he still had blood in his veins, but he was too busy watching the captain’s eyes flare a dangerous looking greenish-gold, tracking her fingers as they dug into the fabric of his own, less decorated jacket.  They made eye contact and Officer Magda knew he looked terrified as the captain glowered at him in a way that promised pain if she touched him again. He gave her a weak smile and subtly extracted his arm from her grip.“Carina,” he said politely, respectfully, and gave her a small bow, “It has been my pleasure to assist you.”  The captain’s moody silence was not reassuring.She gave him another smile as they reached a staircase, Officer Magda moving in front of her to catch her should she fall, Carina reaching out to hold what was left of the banister, and Captain Salazar at her side.  She looked out over the vast remains of the vessel, “She is a large ship, she must have been handsome in her day,” she complimented him, trying to draw him out of his sullen silence.Straightening a little, pride tinting his voice, he boasted, “The Silent Mary was the pride of the Spanish Armada, Mariposa, no ship could outrun her.  She was damaged in the blast, it is true, but we work to keep her as fit as we can. She has gained character, yes?” He looked fondly upon the deck and what was left of the sails.  The body was free, for the most part, of growing greenery, and even as she watched, a pair of officers she’d never met knelt down at the bow and inspected a loose plank of disintegrating wood.  It became obvious, instantly, that all the crew cared for the ship, and she felt something warm in her heart that surprised her. The scene felt very domestic, and she shyly felt a part of herself nestle into place.“Scars tell stories,” she affirmed, belatedly, startled when the banister beneath her hand gave a pleasant hum.  She snatched her hand back before gently touching her fingertips to the wood again. There was a playful little vibration, a coy invitation to grab the rail, and she couldn’t help the little grin that quirked up the corner of her mouth.Noticing her expression, he gave a little laugh, “The curse has given her a personality, and she is receptive to compliments.”  She smiled at him, and he returned the gesture before slowly making his own way down the slick, rotten steps.They slowly descended the staircase, Carina breathing heavily by the time they got to the last step.  Her back hurt , despite the half-healed state of the lashes, and she wondered, suddenly, if he felt a pain like this, a wound never closing, all of his days.As Officer Magda, Miguel, fussed over her on the landing, she looked at the lifeboat, waiting to be lowered into the water, with trepidation.  Her back, entire body, really, was aching just from the walk here, how was she going to be able to row as far as the ship she saw, sort of, through the tall dark pillars of the entrance?  The white speck of the sails fluttering against the horizon made her shudder with something like panic, something like excitement. Carina delayed the inevitable a little longer, “Does she talk to you, The Silent Mary?”  More of the crew was popping out to stop and stare at her, and she clutched the jacket a little tighter against their gaze.He shrugged, “As much as a ship can.  It is more a… connection. I understand what she needs me to know, and she will do what she can when I give her inquiries.”  He ran one hand along a balustrade fondly, and Carina fought down the irrational rush of jealousy she felt. He hadn’t been this open with her, this fond, since the incident with her hair she’d squeezed out of Miguel.  His open affection for the ship made her… she pushed the feeling to the back of her head, firmly ignoring it.Noticing the eyes of the crew, suddenly, he glared and struck the planks once, hard, and they scattered, going back to their stations.They’d made it to the lifeboat, Lieutenant Lesaro waiting at its side.  He silently offered his arm, in place of the captain, to help her in. She leaned on him heavily and murmured her thanks.  He nodded sharply and stepped back.“Do I have to remove your jacket now, or-”  Her voice was soft and nervous, hesitant, and Captain Salazar shook his head once.  She hunched her shoulders, her dark curls spilling over the collar, as his medals rang gently in the air.  Carina sat tensely on the rough wooden plank, her back tingling and her legs shaking. She hadn’t even walked since she’d been flogged, her muscles were atrophied and tight.  If she couldn’t row, she would die, but just the act of getting in the boat made that feel like less of a terrible possibility. At least in death, she might be free from this pain.  Or, she judged, staring at a member of the crew with most of his innards missing, what was left floating around the shattered remains of a spine and ribcage, maybe not.“When we are the barrier of the Triangle, Mariposa.  Only I will accompany you that far.” In the light outside of his cabin, his eyes were very clear, the color of lemon quartz shot through with copper.  “Your virtue is safe with me,” he murmured. She smiled at him, honestly, and he found he was unable to keep himself from returning it.Two nameless members of the crew started to lower the boat carefully, Lieutenant Lesaro stepped forward, close to Salazar’s back, and softly murmured,  “Capitán, are you sure you are well enough to do this alone? You won’t need… help? Letting her go?”His eyes shifting closer to cracked spinel, Captain Salazar intoned a flat, “No.  To your post. This time is… you are not needed.” He said the last part slowly, turning back to watch her lower closer to the water.  Their window was running short. He breathed softly, and looked at Lieutenant Lesaro, “Gui, I cannot leave things so… I must speak to her privately.”Without another word, without waiting for Lieutenant Lesaro to nod, he leaped down to land next to the boat without so much as a splash.  Carina, who’d had her eyes closed against the pain the movement of the lifeboat was causing, shrieked. “You-!” She looked over the edge, incredibly inquisitive.  “But… you have mass. You have weight,” and then she blushed, remembering the feeling of his heavy hands on her face, her chin and her back, and her voice went down to a whisper, “How are you walking on water?  That goes against the laws of-” She bit off what she was about to say, realizing that everything about this man and his crew went against the laws of nature.He gave her a silent smirk and felt something in his chest constrict.  It was happening. She was leaving, right now. Without his permission, black blood spilled down his chin to drip into the water.  The curse slinked through him, carnal and red.Above them, Lesaro’s eye was trained on him, his hand resting tensely on his own rapier.  Officer Magda, apprehensive at his side.Something in Salazar’s face made her freeze, and she bit her lip before trying for a smile.  “You have my journal, Captain Salazar?” She already knew he did, he’d taken it quietly from the bed when he’d come to retrieve her.He wordlessly drew it out of his waistband.  The ruby sparkled dully in the low light.She nodded and then picked up the oars, wincing as she did.  “Let’s go,” she said softly, dipping them below the water to start moving the boat.  As soon as she pulled up, her face went white and she trembled. He watched her, silent, as she took a deep breath and pushed on, rowing through the pain.  Brave. His heart ached.  He sauntered next to her, offering her no help and no advice.  Letting her row at her own speed, he contemplated the strong lines of her shoulders under his jacket.  The Silent Mary was still, not even her hull creaking, as they made the short journey to the slim opening of the cave.  He’d stared at this spot for the past four decades, rueing the day he’d sailed into this cursed Triangle. Never had he hated it so much as he did now, Carina’s pained face framed by the two tall spires.He put one foot in the boat, stopping it just before the space where he could go no further.“Mariposa,” he whispered, sheathing his sword and holding out one hand.  She set down her oars and placed her hand in his, letting him help lift her as if she weighed nothing.  They stared, both trembling, studying each other’s features as if they would never see them again. Had he really appreciated the sharp cut of her eyebrow, the way the light settled on her cheekbone, the deep sapphire of her eyes?  Her soft, plush mouth, slightly open now, revealing her white teeth and the tip of her pink tongue. Her body, unrestrained by skirts and corset, finely muscled from working The Monarch and singing stories of her bravery and daring in the long lines on her back.  “Mariposa, you… I… ” His voice was hushed, like he couldn’t quite admit what he was trying to say.“I still don’t believe in ghosts,” she said, startling him.  He stared, without words, as she looked at him with an emotion softer and deeper than he could really stand, brushing the short curl out of her face, “A ghost is a soul without a body.  You have a body,” and she managed to say it without blushing, but her eyes got darker, “therefore, you are not a ghost. You must be a man.”“A dead one,” he shot back, falling easily into the banter.She inclined her head, raising one eyebrow, “But for how much longer?”They locked eyes, something ancient and powerful passing between them.  Carina thought, for a moment, she felt a pulse of something… supernatural, beneath her skin.  Salazar’s long, serious face, hair floating whimsically around him, the twisted line of his spine and the way his uniform, kept so tidy, gave him the dignity the curse had stripped away.  She vowed then, quietly in her heart, to find the Trident and restore him to life, so he might stand to his full height at her side.His features settled into an expression like a panther, about to eat her alive.  His eyes seemed to focus on the shorter curl, the one Miguel had told her about in hushed tones.  The bands of copper turned darker and spread. This was her time to let him know she didn’t blame him, but the words seemed stuck in her throat, and time was short.  Then his gaze slid to her mouth, and she almost gasped from the heat she saw building there. His voice pitched deeper, darker, “Mariposa… Sólo tú y yo, sólo tú y yo, amor mío.”   Only you and me, only you and me, my love.   A poem from a lifetime ago sat in a part of his ruined brain, that refrain rattling around quietly.“You’ll have my journal,” she was quick to say, not understanding his soft Spanish, “so you have to find me.  I’ll need it back.” She quirked a grin that he didn’t return. She felt a curl of fear from the intense expression on his face, but something else slithered up beside it that she did not expect.  Arousal, hot, sudden and it hit her with all of the force of a galloping draft horse. Carina from before this voyage would have been rowing as fast as possible to get away from this creature, but the Carina of now wanted to linger until she pushed the limits of her time to catch the boat.  If she missed it, surely there would be another one, someday. It wasn’t like there was anyone in the world outside of The Silent Mary, wondering where she was.“I’ll find you, no matter how far you go,” he said it like a vow, deep and serious, and it resonated down to the marrow in her bones.  The curse sang through his thick black blood, and before he could think about it, he’d cupped the back of her head and pulled her closer, the lifeboat listing from the shift in weight.  His hair came to settle around them like a shroud, blocking the light and providing a screen of privacy that let him feel freer to clutch at her as desperately as he felt. At that moment, an interest tipped over into an obsession.  There was no letting her go into the wide world without some small part of him left inside of her, some measurement of his claim burned onto her skin. The idea that Jack Sparrow was a pirate, a dangerous pirate, and she’d agreed to go find him, alone, burned its way to the forefront of his mind.  He hadn’t given it much thought, not really, but now the curse was screaming at him to protect her, a way to reach out and snap the neck of anyone who dared try to hurt her.Carina closed her eyes, expecting him to kiss her, at last, on the mouth, but he wrenched her head to the side and shoved his jacket off her torso, one hand curling around her naked back.  At the juncture of her neck and shoulder, the smooth expanse of skin untouched by sun or lash, he pressed his open mouth. His tongue bathed the spot, feeling her rich, warm, beautiful blood flow beneath her skin, and, the curse making his eyes go red as an inferno, his teeth snapped down with all the power he could muster.Her hands immediately went to his, trying to rip it off of the hold he had on her head, but he was immovable.  One hand curled tighter around where he had placed it on the curve of her ribs, the other solid on the spot where her skull met her spine, long fingers caught in her hair.  She let out a short, sharp scream at the sudden pain, and before anyone could move, he shoved himself back, his mouth dripping blood, his and hers, her shoulder a mess of black and red that was unmistakable as anything but a deep, ragged wound made by very human teeth, and he snarled at her, like a demon, “Tell Jack Sparrow I will behold the daylight again, and when I do, death is coming straight for him.”  He felt suddenly, painfully confident, as he felt the curse sear itself into her, that if Sparrow so much as touched her, if any man laid hand to her, he would know, and he would be able to destroy them.She stared at him, shocked and betrayed, but as she drifted out of his reach, he lowered his voice, “And I will be coming for you,” and his face was terrifying in its intensity, “Carina Smyth, mi Mariposa, to make me a living man once more.  When I am, I will never let you go again.” He held up her journal, his face serious, before he threw it into the rowboat.“I don’t need that,” he breathed, “to find you now.”He picked up his jacket from where it had fallen onto the water, shrugging it on like armor.  When he looked at her again, he was El Matador Del Mar in what was left of his flesh.She stared at him, too shocked to cover her breasts, as the current carried her toward the boat that would take her away from here, never to return.  Her arousal frightened her, the set of his jaw and the light in his eyes making her burn.  This was too much, too fast, too intense, and felt more like a binding contract, an eventuality that was as sure as the sun rising in the east, than a promise that had the potential to remain unfulfilled.  The wound on her neck felt cold and throbbed in time to a heartbeat that was not her own.Carina barely had the presence of mind to pick up the oars and row, but once she did, she moved faster than she thought possible, her mind resonating with one thought, ‘Run away from this place.’  She cursed herself for a coward even as she rowed far from his range.  Too afraid to face that she was not disgusted, she was enchanted. El Matador Del Mar wanted to claim her, but Carina Smyth, the astronomer, wanted to set him alight and make him her terrible sun at the center of her small, lonely universe where she had been the only entity for far, far too long.His eyes had brightened to a neon, infernal yellow that followed her until he saw another boat meet her halfway, and then a bunch of shapeless figures in dark green and white bundled her mostly-naked form back to the large galleon set sail for some colonized island in the tropics.Even after it had dipped beyond the horizon, he didn’t move for a long time.He felt the echo of her heart, deep inside of him, fluttering like a caged butterfly.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

If possible, Captain Salazar became even more ruthless after Carina left The Silent Mary.He drilled them in new routines, harder and faster than before, preparing for the day when Carina fulfilled her end of the bargain and got Jack Sparrow to betray the compass.  He directed Officers Cortez and Moss, once they were back from their punishments, to set up lines of wood as targets, and rapped out patterns that were quicker, more complicated than ever, to see if they could keep up and maintain accuracy, precision slaughter instead of mindless killing.Every time they failed, his disappointment was cold and cruel.Their successes were met with more difficult challenges.Lieutenant Lesaro obeyed Salazar's commands with cold efficiency, directing his men with short, terse direction on his behest.Since Salazar's silent return to the ship, the Lieutenant had not spoken one word to his Capitán about the bite.Salazar knew his Lieutenant had witnessed him biting Carina, from the deck of the Mary. Knew his Lieutenant was deeply troubled - even angry - by it. But he had no time for his Lieutenant; their freedom was approaching, he could sense it deep in his rotted bones, and there'd be time enough to deal with Lesaro's dark expression and clipped answers later.His eyes would stray ever so often to Officer Magda’s forearm, where she had pressed her fingertips in gratitude.  The pressure of his grip on the aging iron of his sword made it creak, and always, a line of black blood would drip down his chin.  Officer Magda took to staying more and more in the belly of the ship, away from his captain’s cursed yellow eyes.Few knew what he did in his cabin, but anyone who strayed past and looked in the doorway would see that it’s arrangement was frozen in time from when La Mariposa had rested there, down to the fold of the blanket as she’d been pulled out of bed for the final time.  Captain Salazar would often sit in the aging chair beside it, and stare out of the window, concentrating on the feeling of a woman halfway across this little strip of ocean that connected them. He would sit, motionless, for hours, before finally unfolding himself and drilling his men harder, faster, than the day before.She was getting close to Sparrow.He could feel it.  Quietly, Carina followed the handsome young man with the rough ponytail, chiseled jaw and threadbare, low-quality clothing through the street, wishing for the freedom of her breeches.  She’d been among the nuns for two weeks on St. Martin, pretending to not know English and wilting under the leering gazes of the soldiers stationed around the hospital grounds. The nuns hadn’t asked about the bite when they’d hauled her out of her rowboat, hadn’t asked about the foul black blood tainting it, had just silently bandaged her and given her a habit.  They would protect her, one of them had explained in broken English, and not ask questions. Some of them, she learned, carried scars also made by the vicious teeth of men. Carina felt strong solidarity with the group, and a small part of her lamented the fact that she had to betray their kindness to further her own agenda. But now, under the hot sun and her prey dead in her sights, she pushed all guilt away and kept her wits about her.It had been difficult to get away, but she’d gone with a group of sisters to the open air market and snuck into the shadows at the first opportunity.  She’d divested herself of her telltale apron, wishing she could rip off the broad white cuffs and high yoke of the dress. They were bright spots of white against the dull green of her dress, the sun almost making them blinding.  The cuffs she could do, but the yoke had to stay. It was doing a fine job of covering the curse mark, and she’d fended off all offers from the nuns to change the bandaging and check on the healing process. It wasn’t healing, it would never heal, and had already started to grow dark at the edges where the curse was settling itself in.The mystery man, luckily, had been speaking freely, albeit foolishly, of the Trident of Poseidon and Jack Sparrow where anyone could overhear.  Smooth, tanned skin and deep, soulful brown eyes aside, Carina absolutely could not believe there had been another person with the same objectives as her.  It was too neatly done. So, she followed him.It worked well until she got to an enormous crowd, the entire town seemed to have gathered in the square to look at the opening of… a bank?  So many fine ladies in candy-colored gowns, every high-brow man there, a sea of parasols and white wigs. The square was ringed with redcoats, each one with a polished musket.  Somehow, the young man slipped out of her sight and vanished.Carina paused, suddenly uncomfortably aware of how much she stood out.  The sisters never went anywhere alone.Two redcoats were looking at her and smiling in a way that she didn’t particularly like.  One of them she recognized from his rotation at the hospital, one who always stood in doorways and made the younger sisters press against him to pass by, and her skin crawled.  The wound on her neck pulsed in response to her rush of fear, and she slapped a hand over it, annoyed.Stupid thing was absolutely supernatural, flexing its power at all the most inconvenient times.  At night, she was compelled to sneak out the back entrance to go stand in the sea for at least an hour, but even yesterday, she’d needed to stay an extra five minutes before she could stand to set foot on land again.  Otherwise, it started to hurt in a way she didn’t want to think about. Deep down, she knew there would be a time when stepping on land would be impossible for the pain, and her time was running out. Every time she peeked under the high collar of her dress, the wound looked more… more like the wounds of the men on The Silent Mary.  Black, cracked, parts of it broken off to be suspended like ash. Tracing the impression of Captain Salazar’s teeth, she would always cover it back up carefully, willing it to spread south to parts easier to cover than her face. She had to find that man and convince him to go with her to sail for the Trident, or else she had to strike out alone.Even if she never found Jack Sparrow, the Trident would give her the power of the sea.  She could then, theoretically, use it to undo his curse and destroy The Devil’s Triangle.  No need for Jack Sparrow, no need for a compass. Tidy. The journal, tied in her pantaloons, burned against her thigh.As long as she ignored the factor of his insane obsession, and the fury that he would undoubtedly have as soon as she showed up alone wielding the magical pitchfork, she could imagine a future where he was whole and human, and then…And then…And then what?  Did they just live happily ever after?  She felt an uncomfortable tightness in her chest when she realized she didn’t know the answer to that.  She didn’t really know much about the Captain at all, other than he hated pirates, one with a passion, and his family history listed toward patricide.  Well, she knew he liked her neck and her scars. Unclouded by the curse, would his eyes still find her story one worth reading?Carina pressed herself into the yellow plaster of a building in the square, forcing her thoughts to return the present instead of speculating on the future.  The two redcoats that had been eyeing her earlier had peeled away from their posts, headed straight for her.Then, the crowd gasped and furious mutterings filled the air.The doors to the bank had been opened, and there was a snoring pirate in the vault.A pirate with baggy clothing, long dreadlocks with trinkets woven in, and very familiar facial hair.  Carina felt her eyes go impossibly wide, mind flashing to a poster that still lived in a dead captain’s pocket, and she blinked rapidly.  No.  What were the odds?He rolled out from on top of the money, standing gracelessly, and looked around.  The silence of the square was deafening. “This may seem a peculiar request, but could someone tell me as to why I’m here?”  He squinted out at the crowd, and Carina felt her heart sink. This was the pirate that had trapped Captain Armando Salazar in The Devil’s Triangle?The two redcoats that had been striding toward her suddenly redirected, flowing with the tide of other soldiers to the front of the crowd, forming a tight rank of shining musket barrels, all pointed at the lanky man in the bank.He smiled insincerely at the crowd and held up one tattooed hand, “No, wait, it’s coming to me.  I just need a moment to clear me head.” He turned and uncorked the dark green bottle in his hand, tipping it up to take a lengthy swallow.  She felt her lip curl up in disgust. It was barely 10 o’clock in the morning.“Make ready,” called the captain, and every soldier lined up, half of them kneeling.  “Present,” came a second later, and Carina’s heart started to pound. Every musket pointed at the fair target of the pirate.“Hold your fire!  There’s a woman with him in the vault!”  She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when, indeed, a lovely woman, perhaps a few years older than herself, sleepily sat up, curls mussed, her bright yellow dress badly wrinkled and pushed up above her-Oh.Carina felt her eyebrows creep over her forehead.In a vault? On top of stacks of coins?  Captain Salazar’s broken, dirty bed seemed like a cloud in comparison.  Not that she’d thought about. Often. She felt a shiver, the curse sliding up the back of her neck, and rolled her shoulders to shake it off.“Never mind about that trollop,” came an angry voice from a tall, overdressed man in a grey wig and ugly hat standing on a podium.  The mayor. Carina snorted. That woman was clearly someone of high birth, one dalliance shouldn’t label her a trollop and sentence her to a firing squad.“Sir,” another overdressed man said, his voice holding a bare note of apology and a symphony of interest, “I believe that’s your wife.”Carina couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped as the woman, seeing the crowd that had gathered and let out a collective gasp, suddenly looked terrified and clutched her hands to her chest.  She pushed herself up unsteadily, rushing out of the wide doorway, pausing, frozen, at the front of the bank. She stared at the man on the podium, her face full of fear, embarrassment and absolutely no regret.“Frances?” the man was reduced to a slack-jawed idiot, his mouth gaping and his eyes shimmering with tears, face contorted in betrayal.  Carina fought to school her face into something neutral, she could imagine why she would have found Jack Sparrow attractive if this was her other option.  She couldn’t blame Frances as she turned tail and ran.The pirate was handsome, in a rakish, unclean way.  Carina couldn’t really judge, she thought as she edged her way around the square, since she’d found herself attached to someone that would make almost all proper ladies faint; a cursed dead man who’d had half his head blown off and smeared old blood all over her neck with his cruel mouth.  The bite on her shoulder pulsed steadily, a constant reminder of him and the fine line between adoration and obsession.Jack Sparrow would have been a downright normal choice compared to Captain Armando Salazar.Normal, but not the more exciting.“Right, I got it,” he said, staring at the open vault with a smile that revealed his tarnished gold tooth, “I got it!  I’m robbing the bank!” His voice was so proud and so incredibly loud.  Carina paused in her silent sneaking, feeling a surge of incredulous annoyance.  What kind of terrible criminal was this? He had at least twenty loaded muskets pointed at his face and he yelled out loud what sort of crime he was there to commit?As soon as the last trail of Francis’s sunshine yellow skirts disappeared around the corner, the mayor screamed shrilly, “Shoot him!”The pirate had the audacity to look surprised as he dropped flat to the floor in an unexpected display of reflexes and nimbleness that had Carina immediately wondering if the bottle was simply full of colored water instead of liquor.She rolled her eyes and slipped down a narrow alleyway, determined to go around the crowd and try to find her potential sailing partner.  Jack Sparrow was about to get himself murdered, then he’d no longer be her problem.Then, the whole building ran away.  Carina ran down the tiny alleyways as fast as her skirts would let her.Damn, damn, double damn.  There was absolutely no way she would be able to casually find and chat with the perky young man now.  This was one of her only chances, and a damn pirate had run away with an entire bank and ruined it.She shoved her way through frightened civilians, fighting her way back to the hospital or nunnery, whichever one she came across first.  These alleys were so bloody small and her skirts were so uselessly full.  Modesty, the sisters had insisted. She’d give them modesty when she got back and burned the damn thing.Carina pulled herself to a stop just inches from the opening of the alleyway, a ragtag crew of men on a terrified team of horses, a length of rope, and then the entire bank slid by, close enough for the broken plaster to brush against her skirts.She stopped, panting, her eyes enormous.She could have been killed. The redcoats ran by next, in a group that couldn’t have been called a formation by any stretch of the imagination, their muskets held every which way, some of them desperately pointing their barrels at the empty bank and opening fire.  What was the goal, she thought wildly, hit it in the plaster and stop it?Then, the pair of redcoats that had leered at her in the square ran by.  One of them looked over and caught her eye, his face switching from professional determination to something much, much darker.  His momentum took him past her narrow hiding spot, but he’d be back.Carina had known men like that her entire life, they always came back.  The only thing she could do was run. Her neck wound pulsed frantically, and she felt a brush of something touch her mind.  “Not now,” she panted out, “You’ll only distract me. There’s nothing you can do from where you are.”  Whether it was Captain Salazar, the ship, or the curse itself, Carina Smyth knew for a fact she was on her own.In the end, she was always on her own.She pushed herself harder, ignoring the stitch in her side and the pulling of still-tender skin on her back, determined to get as far away as possible.  Captain Salazar yelled into the midst of his men as they practiced their footwork, “SILENCIO!” He turned and stared into the horizon, his coat and hair whipping around him frantically.  The Silent Mary groaned under him, and the ribs of her hull fluttered uselessly.“Mariposa,” he breathed, his eyes staring unseeing at the opening to The Triangle, “she’s in danger.”He’d never marked anyone before, hadn’t honestly known it would work, but this shot of adrenaline through his body wasn’t his at all.  It belonged to the frantic heartbeat buried deep inside of his chest, the curse that connected the two of them across the wide strip of blue sea.He normally got vague impressions of her mood, never images, never specifics.  He’d tried to talk to her, quietly in his quarters, but she never gave any indication that she heard him.  To that end, he had no idea if she’d tried to talk to him at any point, or if she even thought of him at all.  Half of him, however, was always fixated on her. Always aware of where she lived under his skin.The only thing he knew for sure was that at what must have been the cover of darkness, she crept out of her home and stood in the sea every night.  He could tell the instant the relief hit her, and he could feel her fingertips gently trace the mark he’d left on her.But now, something was wrong.  Her mind, her soul, was full of fear so potent he could taste it on his tongue.  The spike had been so strong it had hurt.  She was his, his, his and he was trapped here while she fended for her life in a place where he could not go.  Now, the feeling of being submerged in her presence, in her world, was heady, intoxicating and he ceased to care about anything else at all.He gripped the railing of The Silent Mary, her wood creaking under his strong fingers, and he felt an ascension of something from the ship’s sentience.An offer of help.  A gift of strength.He reached out with his mind and grabbed it with an iron fist, feeling the rush of power flow through him.  He sent a probing tendril into Carina’s brain, trying to figure out what was going on. “Give me your eyes, Mariposa,” he muttered, closing his own.  “Let me in. Let me see where you’ve fluttered to.”She must have felt him, because there was an almost violent shove from her own… mind?  Spirit?He heard her voice as if she’d whispered in his own ear, “Not now.  You’ll only distract me. There’s nothing you can do from where you are.”  The hopelessness, coupled with a strong determination to survive, and he stopped moving immediately.  He sat, connected to her, for several tense heartbeats.Then, a rough, decidedly male, hand grabbed her arm and he roared.  She’d been foolish.She hadn’t looked where she was going, and the bank building had thrown rubble everywhere.  She’d tripped over a piece of a wall, or maybe a roof, and went down hard. She scraped her palms and chin as her face met the rough ground, grunting slightly at the impact.In doing so, she’d lost all of her head start.The skirts had tripped her as she struggled to get back up, too voluminous and long, her shoes made for someone else and fitting awkwardly on her feet, the high collar restricting, her breath felt too short to sustain her.Beneath it all, the energy and focus of Captain Armando Salazar sat just beneath her skin.  A viper ready to strike.She could feel the skin on her arm cracking, slowly, the curse sinking bone-deep and cold as the open sea.  Carina grabbed her bicep, gasping frantically. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it did feel strange.  Unpleasant and irreversible, part of her dying while the rest of her could do nothing to stop it.Too wrapped up in her own thoughts, she didn’t hear the soft, standard issue leather boots pick their way around the rubble until it was too late.The pair of redcoats had caught her, and they were barely out of breath.“Well, well, well.  Hello, sister,” the first one purred, probably trying to sound seductive and failing, “fancy seeing you here.”  Both men were thin, fit from regular meals and daily drills, but the leader was a head shorter than his less intelligent friend, both of them commonly colored in shades of brown (hair lighter than the eyes on one, but both sun-kissed to a similar bronze) and their uniforms indicated they held the same rank.His friend gave an ugly laugh and hit his shoulder, “C’mon, mate, you know she don’t speak English.  Why you even tryin’? Everyone’s distracted, let’s just hold her down and gave a go, yeah?”He reached for her, catching her on the cursed shoulder, and she hissed, stepping back. Carina landed against the wall, wincing at the sheer strangeness of the sensation.  Where the curse had spread didn’t hurt when touched, but it felt… it felt… it felt like Captain Salazar would know.  Like touching that spot would summon him, and given the little she knew of him, she guessed he wouldn’t be pleased by the attempted rape in progress.  The energy beneath her skin was starting to swell, and she had no idea what would happen when it burst.The first man, his small, cruelly set dark eyes caught on her face, and the expression he held there stopped her cold.  “Don’t scream, little one, and we won’t knock your teeth out,” he looked soulless. Evil. She knew, then, that this man was a predator.  He’d killed women like her, she realized, after he’d done what he wanted with their bodies. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, maybe the curse had heightened her intuition, but it was screaming at her to hit him in the face, the groin, somewhere sensitive, and run straight off this island and back to the safety of Salazar’s arms.He reached out and grabbed the bare skin of her forearm, where the shorter sleeves of her dress had made it easier for her to reach her hands into clean water to treat patients in the hospital, catching her just below the wide, white cuffs.Then, his hand exploded into a fine mist.Carina squeezed her eyes shut and screamed as the power flowed through her, burning pathways beneath her skin, a fury that felt very much like Captain Salazar infusing every area that the redcoat had touched.  The second man was screaming too, but she phased it out. There was nothing left past his wrist, and she blinked rapidly at the bloody stump and mangled bone left behind.She heard a deep voice in her ear, plain as day, “Mariposa.”  His raspy, wheezing breath was the most beautiful sound she could have thought of, and she almost sobbed with the sheer relief of it.“Armando,” she breathed out.“I meant it,” and she looked around, hoping to catch his eyes on her, but he wasn’t there. Only their connection, and his attention from thousands of miles away like a tangible thing pressing into her, wrapping around her, “when I said I would destroy anyone who hurt you.”  She felt the cold from his chest at her back, and swore his hair fluttered around her face, the ends settling on her cheeks. She longed, longed, longed to fold herself into his arms, but he wasn’t really here. He’d done something, reached out through the bite and saved her, but he could do no more.  One of the men was down, and the other had pulled his short sword out of his scabbard and was looking at her with unfiltered hatred.“Witch,” he hissed, and Carina wasted no time in picking up her skirts past her knees and running as fast as her legs would carry her.Captain Salazar could protect her from an unwanted touch, but she didn’t want to test him against the sharp edge of a blade.The screams of the rapist and the accusations of his friend followed her for what felt like miles.Then, she crossed into an empty street and saw a very welcome shape.  A sextant, wrought in shining silver and suspended from the front of two handsomely kept doors.  Ignoring the blatant ‘No Women, No Dogs’ sign out front, she used her skirt to wipe any blood from her face and pushed the door open, shutting it quickly behind her.  Once she’d blocked out the outside world, Carina breathed out a sigh of relief.  She was surrounded by familiar implements; sextants, globes, charts so beautifully drawn they were more stunning than any painting.  An oasis of knowledge amidst the chaos. Polished imported black walnut paneling, rows upon rows of lovingly bound books, displays of precision-made chronometers.  Her happy place, her safe haven. All of the tension in her body drained out of her, and she took a moment to breathe in the scent of books and ink, returning her wits to her.And, in the middle of the shop, a gleaming golden Herschel telescope, it’s tube stretching up into the sky.  She adjusted her white head wrap and couldn’t resist, stepping up to look through the eyepiece and gently starting to correct its alignment.  It was off, just a little, but she could fix that.“Shop boy!” came a startled screech, and Carina looked up suddenly, not frightened, exactly, but certainly disappointed to have gotten caught so early.  The telescope needed more accurate adjustments, but she’d automatically corrected what she could. There was a thin, reedy man in a smart brown suit, staring at her partly in disgust and partly in shock.  She saw his eyes stray to the scrape on her chin, but he didn’t ask after her well being. He muttered, “Nobody’s ever handled my Herschel.”Raising one dark brow, Carina didn’t doubt that for a second.  She held up her hands, mindful of revealing where the rough ground had torn the edges of her palms open and the red mess of her left sleeve, releasing the telescope, and took a step back from the platform.“Shop boy!” he shouted again, louder, and snapped shut the heavy ledger he’d been reading through.  He didn’t take his eyes off of Carina.Wondering if she should try to pass herself off as French still, she tried her best thick accent, “Monsieur, yur celestial fix was off. Ai 'ave adjusted déux degrees Nairth. Yur map weehl non longair be imprécize. Ai regret, you weehl 'ave to start eet again.”  While she’d been blundering through her speech, the shop keeper had set his ledger down on a desk, coming over to check her measurements and then stare at the lovely, though imprecise, map he’d been working on.“You… do they teach witchcraft at those French nunneries?”  He had clearly bought her disguise, and a small part of her relaxed.  She could play this, absolutely. He’d obviously never been to France, and probably considered any culture not his own as barely more than ‘savage’.There was a noise above them, like a bunch of boxes falling over, and they both glanced upwards.She looked down at the ground, playing bashful, and smiled her friendliest smile, “Non, but zey do teach astronomy.  Do zey not do téach women whairé you are from?”“No,” he muttered, eyeing her distrustfully, “they do not.”“Zat eez a shame. Ai 'ave cataloged ovair deux 'undred stars, mon tailents wairé found vairy useful.”  Internally, she winced and apologized to the kind French women that had given her safe passage on their vessel.  The only reason this was working was clearly because this man hadn’t been this close to a woman before, and she was willing to bet he’d never set foot in the hospital to hear a real accent.She turned, keeping her hands behind her back, and looked at the table of chronometers.  Looking them over with interest, she casually mentioned, “Mon calculashe-ons sai a blood moon eez comeng.”  She held her tongue to the roof of her mouth, the accent was flexing the thick muscle in ways she’d never had to before and it was getting tired.  How much longer until she could slip away? Spotting a fine device with a sturdy silver chain, she leaned over the display, inspecting it without touching.  “Mon chronométair was lost at séa, ai need to purchase a nu un. Ai undairstand yur pulicees, but ai weehl pai you doubuhl fair selleng to a woman.” Reaching out with one hand, she delicately lifted the one she found good enough, flipping it over to observe the back.Just then, the same handsome boy she’d been following earlier stumbled down the stairs, dropping books left and right.A slow, unfriendly smile stretched over her face, her eyes brightening.  Wasn’t this just her lucky day.“For heaven’s-” the shopkeeper ran over to yank the books that were left out of the young man’s arms, “Henry Turner, if any of these are damaged, it’s coming out of your pay!”Her grin deepened.  He had a name.Henry Turner.“Go assist the nun, and get her out of my shop!  She’s paying double for that chronometer, and then I want her gone, boy.”  The stuffy man bent down, quickly stacking the fallen books and checking the spines, muttering to himself about good help being so hard to find.Henry turned to look at her a did a very visible double take, eyes raking down her body.  Carina regretted, for one moment, a lack of her cleavage to play to her advantage. Men were such simple creatures, if she could show a little bosom or a little shoulder, she was sure she could make him forget to charge her double the price of such a middling device.  As it was, she fluttered her pretty blue eyes and smiled her most charming smile. “'allo, was eet Hénry?” She let the syllables of his name fill her mouth, over-enunciating them, and watched his eyes dilate with satisfaction.She hated having to use her feminine charm to gain access to things men took for granted, but it was a tool that she had in her arsenal, and at the end of the day, she was going to use that chronometer to find that stupid trident and break this damn curse.Belatedly, realized he was staring, Henry smiled and opened his mouth to reply, stepping closer, when the door slammed open.The shopkeeper yelped and stood up straight, knocking all of the books over again.In swaggered Jack Sparrow, a bottle of what was definitely rum, from the smell, clutched in his hand.  There were droplets in his beard and some smeared on his chin.Instantly, she was sucked back into The Devil’s Triangle, dark clouds overhead, deep water under her feet, the groaning of the rotten planks of the Silent Mary filling her ears.  She felt cold, paralyzed from the weight of Captain Armando Salazar. He was all around her, and his attention was directed at, “Jack the Sparrow.”  He wheezed it out, a black rage boiling up through the connection, and she felt him sink tendrils of control through the curse, seeking to command her arm.Jack Sparrow turned to look at her, but his eyes were unfocused in a way that had nothing to do with drink and everything to do with the fact that he could sense something wrong.  Henry was also giving her an odd look, and she was suddenly, painfully, aware that she had no idea what her face was doing.She slapped a lid on the connection, shoving Salazar back through curse, ignoring his struggle and his frantic seething, “Te odio, Sparrow!” Shut up, she sent his way, giving another pointed shove, You can watch, but don’t sabotage this.  I need to get that compass, and I doubt I can strangle him for it. She got a vague sense of ‘Why don’t we find out, mi amada?’ before slamming the lid shut viciously to only give him the faintest sense of what was happening.  He thrashed against her, but she tuned him out.Sparrow shook his head and blinked rapidly, before his gaze focused on her as if he’d never laid eyes on her before.  He gave Carina a leer and leaned in, “Hello, sister. Might I say the blood on your dress makes you look mighty pious today.”  She blanched and used her cold, sweaty hands to hide the spatters in the folds.“You’re Captain Jack Sparrow,” Henry said, excited, reaching out to shake his hand.  Sparrow held his fingers up and angled himself away, staring at the boy in suspicion.“Why do you look familiar?” he muttered to himself, squinting his heavily lined eyes at him.The shopkeeper immediately pulled out a small pistol and shouted, “Sparrow?  I’ve heard of you! Pirate! There’s a pirate in my shop! There’s a woman and a pirate in my shop!  Somebody help!”All three of them looked at him in confusion and no little distaste before Jack Sparrow rolled his eyes, “Well it’s your lucky day!”  He took another sip before slurring, “Have any of the six of you seen my bank?”Then, the building flew by, ripping the Herschel off its axis and tearing out half the shop’s roof and front facade.  Carina felt Salazar push against her alarm, and she sent him a pacifying wave.Staring blankly, Sparrow blurted, “Found it.”  Henry and Carina both nodded faintly and they stood, shocked, watching it pass.  The shopkeeper was shrieking and covering his head, throwing himself on top of his pile of books.The pirate ran out of the shop quicker than he should have been able to with the amount of rum he’d been sucking down, and the sudden ugly pulse of Salazar straining to break through the connection in her shoulder compelled her follow him.  She’d slipped the chronometer in the pocket of her dress, hoping Henry didn’t notice, and as they ran through a grass-lined side street, Jack yelped, “Were you two part of the plan?”“I’m not looking for trouble,” Henry panted, running alongside Carina while Jack flitted ahead of them, faster than he had any right to be.  She threw a glare over, she’d been about to say the exact same thing but with a worse accent.“Me eivair,” she bit out, ruining the words as they tumbled out of her mouth.“What a horrible way to live,” Jack muttered, sharply turning a corner.  Carina shoved Henry to the side and followed him, ignoring the man’s yelp and crash as he hit a wall, then the fast, uneven steps as he tried to regain his balance to catch up to them.“What kind of nun are you?” he muttered, clearly not expecting her to hear him, and she couldn’t help the grin that passed over her face.A patrol of military men rounded the corner, deep blue coats, following them quickly.  At the back of the crowd, Carina immediately picked up the single flash of red, was the friend of the man whose hand she’d destroyed earlier.  She felt cold, that man would absolutely slit her throat without a second thought. The three of them scurried up a ladder to a thatched roof, amid cries of, “Stop that pirate!” and “Why is there a nun with him?”Carina reached up and made sure her head wrap was secured.  It disguised much more of her than she’d originally thought.  Most men didn’t bother to stop and see past the piety. Hopefully, that one man who would doubtedly cry, “Witch!” wouldn’t be taken seriously.“We’re trapped,” Henry observed, and Carina resisted the urge to smack him.  Once again, he’d snatched the words right out of her mouth. “What do we do?”“There they are!  Watch the sister!” An angry shout and the sound of a gun getting ready to fire.  She knew, knew, that at least one of those men was not aiming for the pirate, but for her.Jack grabbed Henry and Carina both, clutching their elbows and sloshing rum all over Henry’s sleeve.  He gave them both a very frightening grin, “You two need to scream.”He shoved Henry first, who yelped, and then Carina, who, to her chagrin, really did scream.  She landed on top of Henry in the hay cart, her elbow smacking him right in the nose and snapping it instantly.  He howled, hands clutching his face while he curled into a ball and the horses startled, running openly into the street.  The reins were just out of her reach, but she flattened herself in the cart and tried to inch forward.They almost ran over the militia troop, and it vindicated her a little, until she saw the manic, hate-filled face in the crowd, whose eyes never left hers.  She saw his mouth make the shape of ‘Witch’, even if he didn’t voice the word out loud. This man, she realized, would not stop hunting her. She either had to kill him or leave the island before he revealed what she’d done.  If he told his commanding officer, it dawned on her, there would be a manhunt. A trial, maybe. A hanging. She wondered, faintly, if she could even die. Best not to find out.She looked away first, to the tall form still on the roof, barely remembering to lay the accent on thickly, “You filthy piraté!”“No need for name-calling!” he practically sang down at her, as the cart wildly pulled them away with Henry moaning in a ball and Carina glaring at Jack until after they’d peeled around a corner.Carina sat up a little, wiggling forward as fast as her restrictive garment would let her.  There was a rush of boots behind the cart, and she pressed herself down into the hay, one hand holding Henry down, as she heard the cocking of the muskets.  The bullets flew wild, one hitting a casket of water that sprayed them as they flew past, one nicking the edge of the cart, but none hitting the horses, Henry, or herself.  She closed her eyes as shrapnel from another bullet hitting the plaster wall above them flew down, but that just left both of them covered in a cloud of fine white dust.As soon as they were clear, she sat up and grabbed the reins, directing the horses into another, cleaner alleyway and pulling the cart to a stop.  Carina jumped out and immediately shouted in pain, gripping the rough planks of the cart to hold herself up as her leg buckled beneath her. She thought she’d gotten away unwounded, but she was wrong.  The bullet that had hit the cart had sent a large splinter of wood, easily longer than her palm, deep into her unprotected calf, and she hadn’t even noticed the pain until she tried to stand on it.  The adrenaline was wearing off, and she stared at the jagged spear in shock. It went straight through her calf muscle, the sharp end poking out on the inner side, and the larger half was protruding toward the exterior.  It looked full of sharp, barb-like protrusions that would make a quick extraction extremely painful.Carina felt the full weight of Salazar’s alarm, the bite throbbing, and she fought back the urge to cry.  There would be no Officer Magda here to pull the splinter out, no Captain Salazar there to hold her hand through the pain.  The only person here with her was Henry Turner, and he was just barely coherent through the broken nose she’d given him. One step above being alone, but only just.  She was so damn tired, and she closed her eyes for a minute, feeling Salazar press his mind against hers. She felt his concern, his frustration at his inability to do anything, and she savored the attention for a second before gently pushing him to the back of her mind.Henry opened his eyes, barely, and gave her a questioning look through his hands.  She grimaced at him and hissed, accent forgotten, “I need your help.”Henry looked shocked at first, “You… you’re… English?  British?”“I’ll explain later,” the pain making her voice high and tight, “but I need you to help me walk.  We have to get away from here before they find us.”He gingerly hopped out of the cart, making a noise of shock as he saw her leg, and immediately wound his arm around her waist, lifting her arm over his shoulders, holding her steady, and they frantically limped away together.The energy beneath her skin hummed angrily, making the hair on her arms stand up, and she sent a silent, ‘I need him, Armando, to get me to safety.  Please don’t hurt him.’ The energy gave one angry pulse before subsiding, and she felt his deep suspicion and the idea of his cool hands on her face.  ‘I wish you were here,’ she thought, and she felt an answering brush against her mind.‘I know,’ his deep voice rumbled in her ear, and it was all she could do to blink back her tears.  She felt him seal off the connection this time, his end going dark and unresponsive. Carina ignored the pang in her heart and pressed forward, the pain working to clear her of anything but the determination to live another day.Henry helped her turn a corner, and they watched, shocked, as the bank slammed into the main entrance to the town and practically destroyed it.  The small form of Jack Sparrow sprinted over the top and hopped over the other side. So impossibly nimble.Carina tugged Henry back into the alleyway as more soldiers ran past, turning them around and hissing, “How do we leave this place?”The curse itched all down her shoulder and upper arm, throbbing hotly, and she didn’t dare touch it in front of Henry.  She didn’t want to think about how long she was going to have to stand in the water tonight to feel whole, or even when she was going to have the time to sneak away.“There’s another way, down by the sea, but shouldn’t you go to the hospital?”  His voice was worried, and Carina shook her head sharply.“No.  I have to leave this island.”  Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and opened them again, staring at him, “I’m searching for The Trident of Poseidon.”  The chronometer in her pocket felt heavy, the journal hung on her like lead, and the curse sang through her bloodstream.The way his eyes lit up almost made her feel bad.  Almost.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

They managed to hobble out into the balmy jungle, finding a patch of soft grass hidden behind thick brush.  Carina longed for morphine, rum, anything to dull the pain. She closed her eyes and thought of Captain Salazar, reaching out through their connection.  There was no response, his end silent and closed off. What could she have expected him to do? Hold her hand? She cursed herself for a fool.Carina swallowed heavily and squeezed her eyes closed, her stomach roiling against the pain, and she gradually became aware that Henry was babbling at her.“What?” she croaked, opening one eye to look at him.“I said, you must have a very high tolerance for pain,” he was staring at her leg, looking somewhere between scandalized at seeing her ankles and about to be sick from the gore of her wound.  His own face was covered in blood, a little trail still actively dripping, and his nose was a little crooked. One eye was starting to blacken, and the bruise continued over the bridge of his nose to his opposite eyebrow.“This isn’t the worst thing to happen to me,” she responded before she could think better of it.  She sat down heavily and pulled her skirt up to her knee, Henry turning bright red and looking away.  “Just… do you have any experience with triage?” she asked desperately.He stared at the sky, “I sailed here on a quiet voyage, there were no injuries like this on board, so…”  He let his voice trail off meaningfully. He murmured, closing his eyes, “The only thing Mr. Swift injured on a daily basis was my pride.”“The wood has to come out,” she said slowly, as if she hadn’t heard him, staring at it.  “I can’t do it myself, so you’re going to have to do it for me.”His eyes snapped to the wound, his face paling and tinting green, “Why can't you do it?”“Because,” she said softly, unwinding her head covering, “I need to keep myself from screaming.” Her long, dark hair had been braided and pinned up in a crown, so there was no dramatic cascade of curls.  Even the shorter curl had been tucked away and no longer bothered her. She proceeded to tear the quality linen into long strips, lamenting the lack of hot water with which to cleanse them.She set most of them to the side as bandages to bind her leg and then twisted three more into a thick rope. She laid back on the grass, holding the rope between two hands, telling Henry confidently, “Just be as fast as possible.”  As he took a shaky breath, she squeezed her eyes shut and shoved the rope into her mouth, holding the ends in a white-knuckled grip.  Captain Salazar ran.He’d leapt from the deck of The Silent Mary, hoping the distance from his ship would bring him distance from the connection with Carina.She was so distracting. He was supposed to care about killing pirates.  Capturing Jack Sparrow, destroying him, getting his revenge.Her fear, her panic, her pain had overwhelmed him.  He wanted to soothe her brow while she suffered, he wanted to disembowel everyone who had dared to hurt her, and he couldn’t even think of Jack Sparrow when she called for him.  The feeling of that boy’s hands on her had seared its way through him, and he’d practically snapped the banister in half when she asked for mercy on his behalf.  And he complied.  She consumed him.She was under his skin, in his head, and it made him want to rip her out by the roots.  She made him weak. He ran through his cursed prison, leaping over waves and eddies until he found the dark, dank cave that was as far as possible from daylight, the one with stalagmites roughly the shape of men.  Most of them were crusted with glittering salt, but the minerals underneath were shades of orange-red. When he cut them it looked as though they were bleeding. One of them was the same height and build as a young Jack Sparrow, and it was completely covered in gashes made by his blade.Captain Salazar stormed into the cave, uncaring of the tide.  If it was low, he would stand on the surface of the water. If it was high, he would simply sink beneath the waves.When he’d first found this place, ten years into his eternal sentence, he’d stayed for a week.  He’d stood in the same spot and let the unending rhythm of the ocean batter him about, longing for something, anything, to kill him.What is dead may never die.He’d come back to his ship at the end of the seventh day, unchanged.He found a stalagmite easily and lifted his blade, willing his mind to overlay the smirking face of that insolent child, that bastard Sparrow, thrice-damned compass in his grip, so he might cut the boy’s arms off.The image swam to the surface of his mind, and he lined up his rapier, true to form, and struck.At the last second, the mental overlay wavered, replaced by a man in red military dress, cold brown eyes trained on him and an evil sneer curling up one thin lip.  This was the man that had wanted to lay hand to Carina, as seen through her eyes. This was the man that had reached out and grabbed her, feeling the instant rebuke of Salazar’s own power, but not before Carina’s interpretation of his intentions had screamed between their connection to overwhelm his own thoughts.
He’s going to violate me.

He’s going to kill me.

He’s going to do to me what he’s done to all the other women.

There’s no one coming to save me.

I cannot save myself.
He dropped the sword and followed his thrust through with his own fist, slamming it into where the man’s face would have been.  He punched the rock until he’d made a concave indentation, roaring at his own hand that refused to break.There was a sigh at the back of his mind, a flutter from his Mariposa, and he ruthlessly shoved it aside.Even here, even as far away from her as he was allowed to be, she still tried to intrude.He’d fought the image of her would-be attacker fiercer than he could remember ever fighting Jack Sparrow.He’d never cared so damn much, and he hated it. “ENOUGH!” he screamed into the void, his voice refracting in the acoustics of the cave and echoing back to him.  He snatched up his fallen sword, stalking around the small space, weaving between the stalagmites.He had to break it.  He had to destroy the connection, his determination rising even as the curse squalled against him, wrapping its evil light around the idea of her.  “I have to kill the Sparrow,” he muttered, his eyes bright, “Nothing else can matter.”He conjured up her image, as the Carina he remembered most fondly, the one who had bared her wounds to him and said she liked her scars.  He opened his eyes, seeing her standing in place of the pillar with her back to him, looking over one shoulder with her bright blue gaze. Soft and endless, the embodiment of summertime.  She wore nothing but her breeches, which had slipped low on her hips, but that was the least interesting part of her.Her injuries were worse in his mind, long gouges down to the bone, all of them weeping blood and clear fluid.  Her hair was pulled over her shoulder, his bite mark prominently featured on her exposed neck, black and red, and she smiled at him sadly before turning her face forward.
‘Scars tell our stories, Sir, and I shall not be ashamed of mine.’
She stood with her spine straight, gleaming bone peeking out through ragged flesh, and he lined up his rapier, holding it level to where his ear should have been, and pointed the dull tip at her heart.“Turn around,” he softly commanded, his hand shaking slightly.“No,” she sounded amused, tilting her head to the side and extending the long line of her neck.  His bite mark gaped open, and as he watched, the edges started to blacken and crack, the skin around it turning a dull grey.“I would not stab you through the back,” he said, his tone almost pleading.She turned her profile to him again, raising one eyebrow, “Yet you would stab me unarmed, defenseless, through my bare breast?  Where is the honor in that, Captain?”He couldn’t respond, black fluid spilling freely down his chin, and he snarled at his own hallucination.  He pulled his hand back slightly further, ready to strike, quick as a viper, when her head snapped from him, staring past the cave, into the horizon.Her blue eyes grew hazy, and she said, “I need you, Armando.”  Her form wavered, and she went from being almost naked to wearing a dirty nun’s dress, the head wrap missing and her hair pinned up in a tidy braided crown that had seen better days.  Her face contorted in a grimace before smoothing out like glass.She had a long, jagged spear of wood sticking out of her calf.  It was dirty, splintered and covered in her blood. As he watched, a fresh red wave ran down her leg.The image of Carina turned around and looked at him before gazing down blankly at her leg.  “The boy I’m with is going to rip this out of me, and it’s going to hurt. I keep calling for you, but you're not responding.  Why?”He didn’t answer and didn’t drop his sword.She didn’t look at him as her eyes filled with tears that didn’t fall. “I should have known better,” she whispered, “than to think, even for a moment, that I wasn’t alone.”  She closed her eyes and turned her head to the side, and he used the moment to strike.His sword came within a centimeter of her breast, the point touching the ugly green fabric, and he could not bring himself to rend her flesh.  His hand, cracked, grey, dead but still so nimble, gripped the handle tightly. It was the same hand that had fed her slices of apple. The same one that had smoothed down her hair as she suffered.He did not know if it was the curse or his own conscious staying his hand, and he did not want to examine his motivation any further than was necessary.She didn’t move, barely breathed, and they stood in a terrible tableau for longer than he would have thought possible before she screamed, in a way that made a wave of concern and possession slide through him, and collapsed, a great spurt of blood coming from her leg.  The wound was ragged, huge, and the boy had not done a good job of removing the wood. If Magda had seen this, he would have thrown a fit.As soon as she hit the water, his image of her vanished, but her cry sank deep inside of him.
Help me help me help me
“What can I do?” he shouted, shoving the question through the bond, “I’m trapped, stuck, I cannot come to you!”  He slammed the edge of his blade against the stalagmite, showering the area is small bits of salt and red rock.  “I cannot leave! I cannot destroy that which hurts you.”He felt her then, forcing the bond open, and she just reached out and ran her mind against his, holding his presence to her.  The boy was there, one hand holding her leg still while the other worked the wood out, but the only one in her thoughts was him.Dimly, he became aware that she didn’t expect him to do anything.She just wanted to feel him at her side, while she braved her ordeal.  In his mind, Lesaro’s soft voice rumbled, ‘You can give her your regard, that she might hold onto your own courage when hers falters.’ She held the idea of him to her tightly, he could practically feel her hands on his back and her head in his chest.  She could do this, he realized slowly, she could deal with the pain, she could suffer, but it comforted her to be near him.She didn’t want to be alone. The hand holding the blade shook, the curse winding around their connection like a snake, constricting, and he closed his eyes, reaching out to her.  He gave her all of him, every rotten, charred, terrible part, and flooded their bond with his devotion. Take it, he encouraged her, take from me what you need. “I’m here,” he said to the empty air, no witness but the waves, “I’ll find you, and you’ll never leave my side again.”He felt the moment the wood was pulled free of her leg, and he stood stock still in the middle of the cave, staring at nothing, his skin humming with her presence.  He felt her mind lean against his, and they didn’t say another word.She started bandaging herself, and let him fall to the back of her mind.He collapsed against the pillar, the curse purring with satisfaction as it lapped up the remains of his anguish and her pain.  Carina limped toward the tavern, a makeshift head wrap covering her hair.  She’d torn the bottom half of her white underskirts to make it, and if one didn’t get too close, it was quite a passable job.  Henry, dear boy, had helped her arrange it in a semblance that he tentatively found believable. They’d agreed that she would go in to retrieve Sparrow, and he would wait outside to help cover and hustle him away.  Well, ‘agreed’ was a loose term. More like she’d said it flatly and he’d meekly acquiesced.The rain was splattering mud onto her clean bandages, running into her eyes and soaking her already heavy dress.  She cursed the entire week, month, year, that had lead her to this spot right now.  Her eyes locked onto the door, pale light flickering from between the rough-hewn boards, and pulled herself to the present and concentrated.  The promise of rest after this was done, the idea of laying the deck of a boat, under the stars and above the waves, kept her standing upright and moving forward.A lonely Jack Sparrow had flopped his way in here, covered in filth that not even the rain could wash off.  She was going to drag him out of there and chain him to her side until this was done.Without access to the hospital, the wound on her leg was sure to become infected.  Henry had tried his best, but he had less practical experience than even her, and she was entirely sure he’d left shards of wood and debris behind.  The barbs had rent her flesh painfully, and the hole was wider than it should have been. She’d been unable to sneak away and tuck her feet into the ocean, Salazar’s bite mark punishing her with stinging pain.  If she closed her eyes, it felt like she was burning along the edges, the curse squealing with fear as it back away from the solid land around her. Even the fresh water of the rain wasn’t helping.She didn’t want to know what would happen if she went another day completely landlocked.  She’d overheard dry land being used as threat against Armando’s crew, hadn’t she?Armando… she almost bit her tongue when she thought about the way she’d shoved her way through his blockade and practically molested his… mind?  Spirit? Whatever it was that was connected between them, she’d leaned the whole of herself against it, and she’d recieved an answering wave of something she didn’t want to examine from him.   A vow , her mind supplied, the part of her childhood that had been steeped in Catholicism, and unwillingly, a line from the scripture floated through the pain, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’  She blinked slowly, staring at the tavern, and tried to replace the thoughts of Armando and the near-fanatic feelings she both felt and inspired with thoughts of the blood moon and the trail to the Trident.According to the predictions she’d been writing against the journal, the blood moon would be either that night or the next.She would be getting that pirate and shoving him on a boat, even if she had to beat him into submission to do it.  Carina was almost out of time, and completely out of patience. She shoved all thoughts of Armando Salazar out of her mind and focused.Carina waited another heartbeat, then two, and pushed the door open just enough to let her small form slip in.  The first thing she noticed was a poster with a much more accurate illustration than she’d seen on the Monarch, proclaiming Captain Jack Sparrow to be a ‘Notorious Pirate’, wanted dead or alive for a reward of decreasing amounts, all the way down to one pound.Jack himself was covered head to toe in mud and slumped in front of the bar.  Carina could smell him from here.He looked about as worthless as the poster said he was.  Not for the first time, Carina heavily doubted Captain Salazar’s obsession.  She was, however, fairly certain this pirate had a ship, and a ship was what she needed.  Curiously, Salazar’s end was silent. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d been avoiding her since she forced open their bond during her makeshift triage earlier.  The idea did nothing to improve her mood.He was swaying unsteadily, and Carina slipped around the darkened edges of the room, eyes locked on the bar and annoyed face of the bartender.“May I please have a drink, please?” she heard him, barely audible over the uproarious laughter of the room.The bartender blinked slowly, one tendril of silvery-blonde hair falling into his face.  “Show me your silver,” he said, sounding bored. Carina raised her eyebrow. Was Sparrow a regular at this spot, and known for being penniless?“Hey sister, can I get help with a medical condition?”  The voice was high pitched and slurred, interrupting her reconnaissance quite rudely. Carina fluttered her eyes shut and turned to look at the drunken cur beside her.  His face was flushed, eyes barely focused, and her patience was running very thin. He didn’t wait for a response before grabbing her bare wrist, pulling her down to press her palm against the crotch of his breeches.  “I have a bad case of blues, can you feel them?”Without thinking about it, her hand remembered the instruction of an old man a lifetime ago, and she curled her free hand into a fist and slammed it into his nose.His head snapped back, nose not broken but certainly in pain, and he automatically released his hold on her hand, Salazar waking belatedly beneath her skin.  Well well, it only took a physical threat of her person from another man to wake him up.  Nevermind the calls she'd been pinging to him, this was what it took to get his attention?  Annoying.  ‘Shut up,’ she thought, ‘I can handle myself.’ She shoved the connection closed, sending a wave of bad mood right before, and pushed it to the back of her mind.She turned her head to watch Jack Sparrow hold up a black box, edged in gilt, and felt dread settle low in her belly.  Without hardly thinking about it, she strode forward, shoving another man out of the way with more strength than she naturally possessed as he rushed to confront her about the drunkard who’s nose she’d broken.  His petty squabbles fell on deaf ears, and she spun away as he tried to grasp her.“How about a trade?” she heard faintly.  “Give me the bottle.” He sounded defeated, serious, world-weary as he tossed the compass down on the counter.The room shook supernaturally, dust tumbling down from the rafters.  Carina moved her feet quicker, keeping her balance over the rumbling floorboards.  The quaking had gotten worse, and there was a yelp as a cook sliced himself into the pile of onions on his butcher’s block.  Two bottles fell from a shelf and shattered. The bartender was looking at the compass with definite interest and almost no trepidation.The pale man set a green bottle, the shadow of liquid sloshing against the long neck, on the wooden bar just as Jack was reaching out to take the compass back, but then Carina threw down her shiny chronometer, slapping her hand on the device with one hand, just as the bartender had grabbed the long chain, and the curling the other around the tall neck of the bottle.“For both,” she panted, staring hard at the two men, who were looking at her in shock, “and the pirate.”The bartender made no nod of acceptance, just stared at her for a moment too long before quietly picked up the chronometer by its heavy chain, watching it spin slowly, and gently set it into his own pocket.  It was far too fine to put in the pile of sundries behind him. There were rats and human teeth in there.She took a long pull of the bottle, Jack staring at her blearily, dropping the compass into her own pocket hidden in the folds of her gown.  She reached out with one hand, fisting a handful of filthy dreadlocks, and yanked Sparrow toward the exit as he slurred, “Why is a nun drinking me rum?”  Captain Salazar gave an irritated huff as Carina had shoved him out of the connection before he even had an idea of what was happening.  Someone had touched her without her consent, but the immediate violence in her reply had been all hers. He contemplated her, the water unusually still, and thought of how many liberties he allowed La Mariposa to take.  She was changing, the softness he’d seen on the Mary wilting under the harshness of the outside world. Her mood was foul, her leg hurt, her back was overwrought and tender, and she defied him without a second thought.What an enchanting woman.  He ached for her.There was a ripple in the water, then, a pulse in his bones, and he whipped around to stare at the entrance to the Triangle.  Something was happening. Something was changing. Unwittingly, he hummed a song he barely remembered, a popular one he’d constantly heard at the docks while the pretty señoritas had flounced in brightly colored dresses.  The excitement he felt was like they were whirling inside of him, frilled skirts brushing up against all of his nerve endings, bright blue and yellow, like the sun and sky he hadn’t seen in so long, and he knew.One tall spire cracked down the middle, and a shaft of weak light hit his face.The wheel of the Mary moved on her own, turning them toward the entrance of The Devil’s Triangle.Lieutenant Lesaro called, “Capitán, what is happening?”  His bewilderment overcame his cold anger at Salazar’s treatment of Carina, and he stepped closer to his commanding officer.  Officers Magda and Moss, who had been quietly conversing with him, stared at the wheel as it spun and the ship lurched into movement.  The entire crew stopped what they were doing, afraid to move. La Maria could move on her own, sometimes, but it was usually their Capitán who directed her.  This was new. He grinned, wide and evil, black blood flowing out of his mouth like a waterfall, “Jack Sparrow has betrayed the compass.”  The deck was silent for a moment before another spire split and crumbled, more light throwing across the black water and ruined ship.  There were disbelieving shouts from his men, whoops and laughs, as their prison crumbled around them. Lesaro was stunned into silence, Nico and Antonio were shouting gleefully, and Magda looked alarmed.He rushed to the front of the deck, his breath labored and his gait uneven, to get his first true glimpse of blue sky and feel the heat of the sun on his dead body.  “Daylight,” he called, feeling his face split into a genuine smile, “Daylight!” He pulled at his connection for Carina, but she didn’t respond. It was still locked down tight, and he felt some kind of overwhelming urgency at her side.  He ignored it, too overcome with the warmth of daylight bathing his form. He shook his head, letting his hair flow in the fresh air, and laughed. Forty years. It had been forty years since he’d last felt anything like this.All of the rocks rushed under the water at once, throwing up churns of seafoam, and he took in the faces of his men, the expressions on those who no longer had enough of a face to smile, and gave another sharp bark of amusement.“We are free!” he shouted it to the sky, eyes wide, drinking in the fluffy clouds and the glitter of the wide open sea.  The dead birds still seemed tied to the ship, to the curse, and they screamed their joy out with the rest of the crew. The sun was getting close to setting, and something in his blood pulled him to the south-east, a fast flutter of a heartbeat not his own.  He almost couldn’t handle the overload of sensory input, every part of him feeling alive for the first time in decades. He opened his eyes and looked around, running one hand over the banister as he took in the current state of The Silent Mary.In the bright sun, his ship looked an absolute ruin.  The tallest mast was listing in the water, the hold hardly anything but ribs, but The Silent Mary rejoiced in her freedom. Her rotting wood and scraps of sails no longer propelled her, she propelled herself.  The figurehead at the front, the only thing in good repair, tilted her head slightly, and he was sure he was the only one who’d seen it, and the ship changed direction to follow her gaze.For a moment, he felt a sickening regret, an image of the ship on the day he’d been presented his command of her.  His Highness had practically wept, still so deeply grieved over the death of the queen, and La Maria Silenciosa had been her namesake.  A tribute, the pride of the Spanish Armada. The complete wreck of her would have made His Highness furious, but Salazar only thought of her sentience.  The curse had set her free, no man could really command her.  It was better, this way.He closed his eyes and sent a deep wave of solidarity through the ship, feeling her excitement at the waves and live fish come to nibble at the flotsam on her ribs, her desire to roam the open seas and consume, consume, any other ship that dare sail against them.Amid the celebration of his crew, Captain Salazar opened his eyes.  “Now now,” he said, almost to himself, The Silent Mary’s joy thrumming through him, “It’s time to hunt a pirate.”  The ship got a new burst of speed, bloodlust roaring through her, and the crew ran to their stations.Internally, he felt for Carina.She was in close proximity to Sparrow, he knew it.  The curse snaked through him, singing of her whereabouts, forked tongue sliding out from his bite to pick up the energy of Sparrow.  He breathed in the ocean air and exhaled in a pained wheeze.Captain Salazar gave a frightening snarl of a grin as they spotted the white sails of a ship on the horizon.  The flag, small as it was, flapped open to reveal the Union Jack. British. Oh, how he hated the British.At that moment, the curse quietly nudged his attention away, just a little, just enough, and had him feed his rage and bloodlust into the crew as it silently started to break down his connection to his little butterfly.  It wouldn’t do for him to get distracted from battle by a delicate slip of a girl. The curse wanted anger, it wanted blood.  Lust and this deep infatuation had been acceptable substitutes, but now the real thing was right in front of it.  Nothing else would do. It didn’t even care about Sparrow, let the girl drag the pirate to them, but the curse didn’t want him to care so much.Salazar’s eyes hazed red, and the happy cries of the crew started to turn to frenzied roars.The curse stifled Carina’s frantic cries for help and if it had a mouth, it would have smiled.  Henry threw a length of black oilcloth over Jack, who struggled for a moment, before he hissed, “Father, I was worried about you.”  He shoved the older man’s head down to keep him in a hunched stance, throwing an arm around him to keep him from standing upright again.  A small battalion of men in military dress rounded the corner and paused, the men looking the group over carefully.Henry called over, “It’s alright, lads!  The sister here helped me find my father, he was in that bar again.”  He gave a fondly exasperated shake of his head, and Carina dipped her chin deferentially.  “Sister, help me get him home and then I will escort you back to the hospital.”The men turned away and marched down the street, looking for a rakish pirate.  Not a sad old drunk.One man, however, had recognized the false nun.  He peeled away from the group and went down a back alley, intent on getting revenge for a man currently dying in the hospital.  Nobody had believed him when he said the nun had done it. The exploded hand had been treated, but whether from lack of medical skill or magical interference, the wound had gone septic within an hour.  He had a fever that resulted in delirium, leaving him screaming about ghosts and demons. The man hoped, faintly, that killing the witch would cure his illness. If not, he would die within days, if not that very night.Either way, the witch would pay for what she’d done.  Carina hissed at Henry, “One of them is following us.”  She’d noticed the tail immediately, and Jack tensed under the oilcloth, walking stiffly.She clucked her tongue, leaning down to pretend to check on Jack, who’d proven to be incredibly willing to improvise and had silently gone with the plot as it had unfolded.  He’d arched his back and subtly changed his gait, falling into the role of the elderly easily. As she adjusted his cape, she flicked her eyes over his shoulder and froze.It was the friend, the partner of the man whose hand Salazar’s power had destroyed.  She reached for Salazar immediately, but he didn’t respond.“I know him,” she whispered, and bent her head closer to Jack, “Do you have anything?  Any sort of weapon?”His eyes were shuttered, the mud having mostly washed off, and his expression was blank.  “Got yourself an admirer, sister?”  Despite his sass, he silently produced a slim stiletto from his sleeve, passing it to her covertly.She looked up at Henry, palming the weapon, “Get him back to our little hiding spot.  I’ll follow when I can.” Henry opened his mouth, his brows drawn down in concern, and Carina slashed her hand quickly, “No.  This man, he wants…” she paused for a minute, Jack and Henry looking at her. Henry looked afraid for her, and Jack… Jack was starting to look interested.  “He has business with me,” she said finally.  Even as she said it, the curse roiled under her skin.  Carina didn’t move, didn’t touch it, but she noticed the way Jack’s eyes strayed to the left half of her body.Henry’s eyes roved over her expression before he nodded.  “Be careful,” he whispered, before taking Jack’s arm over his shoulder, bending down to preserve the illusion of his poor posture.  Louder, “I thank you for your assistance, sister, and if you’re sure you can get back on your own…” He let the statement trail off meaningfully, stepping away from her.She silently nodded her head, hands clasped before her submissively, and kept eye contact with both of them for another heartbeat before turning and striding up the street.  Jack and Henry ducked into an alleyway, watching in wait as, true to her word, the militia tail unfolded himself from the wall and padded behind her.Jack whispered, “Should we follow?”  He knew Henry would take the question as a concern for her safety, but the reality was that Jack Sparrow was certain she was going to do something unusual.  There was something wrong about her, something off, and letting her out his sight made him nervous.Henry, considering, shook his head slowly, “She’s… unlike any other woman I’ve met.”  He looked uneasy, but said firmly, “If she wanted to go alone, it was for a reason. We’ll meet where she told us to.”Keeping Jack bent at an angle, they slipped through the streets, back to the jungle.  In the dark, it was difficult to tell when sunset was.  The sky was black with clouds, no hint of the sun coming through, and she felt in her bones that the night was creeping up faster than she’d like.She had to get rid of the soldier before the blood moon.  She had to get somewhere safe, warm, and dry so she could use the journal to reveal the map.  Tartly, Carina refused to think of it as ‘The Map No Man Could Read’ since that was a long and tedious way to describe anything.  She tried to keep her mind occupied, but her senses sharp and open, while she ducked through the dark, rain-slick streets.When she felt the hard grip on her elbow, she was ready.Spinning around, she kept a firm grip on the stiletto and used the force of her turn to slam it into the soft area just under his ribs.  The soldier clearly hadn’t been expecting it, and the blade parted his coat with ease, driving deep into his side. It stuck in something, maybe bone, she might’ve miscalculated the angle and struck the bottom rib, but maybe it was a dense organ, and he shouted before stepping away, shoving her back.  She stumbled for a moment, then braced herself against a wall. She tried for a fierce glare, but was fairly sure he didn’t find her frightening at all.A part of her called out for Captain Salazar, but all she got a rush of euphoria from far away, and then the connection collapsed.  She could have sworn the curse laughed at her.She was alone with a madman who looked at her with wide, frenzied eyes.  He ripped the blade out of him and threw it down the alley, charging her and roaring, “Die, witch!”With no Salazar to direct it, the curse couldn’t save her now.  She couldn’t use any of the power she felt sitting deep below the surface.  Wildly, she wondered if it would release in an uncontrolled torrent if he stabbed her.  Like a crack in a dam.Carina screamed back at him, wordless and full of rage, ducking under his wild swing with his musket, the walls too close for him to aim properly.  She grabbed for the glitter of the blade in the light, closing her fingers on the sharp edge and crying out as the skin of her palm parted easily.She had it in her grip, though, and was what mattered.  But in getting it, she slipped and fell on her front, her skirts sodden and unwieldy.  Her back protested the sudden movement, the torn skin on her hands and chin colliding painfully with the cobblestones, and she felt the angry wound on her leg leak some sort of liquid into her boot.  She coughed, once, an instinctual contraction of her diaphragm, and rode out the sudden wave of combined exhaustion and agony. Unlike before, where Salazar had been a tangible presence in the air, there was only Carina.The soldier roared at her, rage turning him more beast than man, using the end of his musket like a club.  He got her once in the back, she felt something snap and hissed, grasped the blade harder, turning it in her hand to hold the handle instead of the sharp edge with enough leverage to get him again.  As long as the blood from the long gash on her palm didn’t make it too slippery, she felt confident about the angle. Her back was healed over, mostly, but the new skin still pulled and she was sure he’d broken at least one rib, maybe two and bruised three.  As long as it wasn’t her spine. Either way, she was absolutely sure she was going to have trouble sitting up tomorrow. Assuming she made it that far.She tried, again, desperately to call across the cursed wound to Salazar, but there was no response.  Not even a faint hint of emotion, it was like the tunnel between them was completely broken.  There wasn’t any time to give it another second of thought.Carina rolled to the side, kicking out weakly, her legs tangled in her skirts, catching him on the edge of his thigh and barely causing him to stumble.  He looked at her with pure hatred in his eyes, raising the gun up over his head, and seethed, “Burn in hell,” before bringing the butt of his musket down towards her head.  Carina stumbled into the clearing, wiping her hands absently on foliage as she passed.  It would be difficult for Henry to tell, the red blending into the dark mass her dress had become, but she was willing to bet Jack would be able to smell the blood that had soaked into the utilitarian cloth.She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, now that she had blundered away, the shock settling over her like a blanket, but she knew he’d missed her head.  It had struck the cobblestone hard enough to leave her half-deaf from the crack of it.  She’d stuck the dagger back in his side, close to the original wound, then had drawn his sword from his scabbard while he’d had his hands full with the musket, and- Oh.She looked down at the gore covering her front.She’d swiped at his legs to put him off balance, then shoved him onto his back, using his sword to slice through the tissue, fat and muscle, through the firm mass of his abdominal wall.  One strong slash, then two, and it had been enough to spill his entrails onto her boots. Carina wasn’t sure if the curse or fear had made her strong, but it had been only a little harder than slicing through a loaf of fresh bread.  He’d been making terrible noises, and she’d wanted them to stop. The sound would attract people, other soldiers, and they’d kill her. The noises came from his throat, so… Numbly, Carina realized the only thought in her head that had been above the pounding of her heart had been, ‘Please let me live, please let me survive this.’  If she’d been able to look, she would have realized the spray of blood covering her chest, neck, and face had come from the high pressure of his carotid artery as she’d sliced it open.The memory felt hazy, far away, but when she reached up to touch her cheek, the thick, sticky blood made her flinch and wipe her hand on a large leaf.She wondered, faintly, if her movements had been directed by the echo of memory from Armando Salazar, his time in the military and what must have been battle after battle, borrowed and buried deep in her brain, but that line of thinking stuttered to an abrupt stop when she heard the rustling of fabric in front of her.When she looked up, Jack, Henry, and a gang of about fifteen men of various sizes were staring at her.  The only one that didn’t look deeply shocked was Jack Sparrow.The uncomfortable pause lasted for far too long.“Do you,” her voice was hoarse from screaming, and she stopped to clear it, lick her lips, and try again, “Do you have a ship?”  She wanted water. She wanted tea, hot tea with lemon, and a warm blanket, and a roof, and the absence of fear.  Carina couldn’t have any of it, not in a future she could see, so she’d settle for a seaworthy vessel.The speculative look on Jack Sparrow’s face was one she would never forget.  “Why is it that everytime I see you, you’ve got blood on you?”  Carina and Henry stood close together, expressions identical disappointment, as they surveyed the deck of The Dying Gull.  Carina shifted, and Henry noticeably moved his arm away from her bloody sleeve. She pretended she didn’t see, and he stepped away confidently.Henry took himself on a tour of the ship, pointing out the biggest flaws, “The canvas needs repair,” he pointed out at length, demonstrating to the topsail.  His critical eye looked at the worn fabric, “All of the sails, evidently, need repair. We’re not going to get any kind of speed.” Almost to himself, he muttered, “An apron held open on a smallboat would sail easier.”  Jack gave Henry an insincere sneer and fluttered his hands. Most of the crew, at least, had the good sense to look chagrined.“There’s a… board.  Nailed over what appears to be damage from ironshot on the stern.  Are you-” Henry bit his tongue and looked closely at Jack, as if trying to determine that this was, indeed, the famed Captain Jack Sparrow.  “Has it even been waterproofed? We can’t sail in a ship full of holes.  That rather defeats the purpose, yes?  Holes with no pitch in them have a tendency to let in water.  Ships have a hard time floating when they’re sinking.”  He ran a hand over his face and sighed, “We can patch it in the water, but this is… this should have been done as soon as possible.”An older pirate with a kerchief tied around his neck was glaring at Jack’s back.  “Everything has rather been going south when it comes to repairs, young Sir.”Getting closer to the planks of the deck, Henry turned his head to the side quickly, coughing.  “That’s molded. Mildewed. Do none of you smell that?” Immediately, he started to inspect the rope.  Carina, then, realized she didn’t smell anything but blood, so much of it was caked on her. Henry could have thrown a pile of rotten fish at her feet and she wouldn’t have smelled it.  Almost angrily, he threw down a coiled length of rope that was looking rather blackened. “This is beyond stupid, this is dangerous.  I expect more from novice sailors, not to mention experienced seamen such as yourselves.”  He let himself below deck, two of the crew hurrying to follow him.Carina and Jack stared at each other in the dim light for a few heartbeats before there was the banging of Henry stomping back upstairs, practically shouting, “There’s no food.  What you have is rotted.  When we negotiated the terms of our passage, you assured me the ship was ready to sail immediately.  There are casks of water, but I’m very doubtful of their viability given the rest of your management of this ship.”Jack had started to look slightly nervous.  Apparently, he hadn’t thought Henry would think to check for… anything.  He tried for a bravado that instantly fell flat, “A true pirate does not need such intricacies.”  He flourished a fancy pose that was undermined by the annoyed looks of his crew behind him. One of the subtly spit on the ground, and Carina raised an eyebrow.“This,” Henry said flatly, “is not a proper vessel.  It is a pile of driftwood.” Carina had to admit she was impressed.  This was a practical application of Henry’s knowledge, and she was content to sit back and allow him to express his judgment.  She would be lying if she didn’t say she found the demonstration a little… arousing. She examined the flare of emotion carefully, prodding the edges of the curse for a reaction from Salazar, and there was none.  Interesting, if not a little disappointing. Henry was talking, and she turned her attention back toward him. “We need a ship,” he took a threatening step closer to Jack, who crossed his arms defensively, glaring at him, “to get the Trident and free my father from his curse aboard The Flying Dutchmen!”“What?!”  Jack flew back, his eyes enormous, “You’re the… offspring… I knew you looked familiar.  Spawn of them two, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann!”  He looked deeply offended for a moment, before sidling closer and purring, “Does Mummy ever ask about me?  Call out in her sleep, maybe?” His eyes went dark, and he fluttered his eyelashes.Carina was tired.  She was covered in blood and other… things… Her back was making it hard to breathe through the agony, her leg hurt, the curse was starting to scream inside of her that she need to be on the ocean now, and she knew, absolutely knew, that the blood moon was going to be that night.  She’d silently reviewed her estimates while Jack led them back to his ‘ship’, and everything pointed to it happening now.  As soon as the clouds parted, it could be there.  She wanted to sail away from this damned island, never to see it again, and she wanted to do it immediately.  She didn’t even want to think about the sliver of betrayal sliding around the back of her head, her heart aching at the lack of Salazar’s response to her very mortal peril and the pain she was in now.  He hadn’t even so much as sent a wave of curiosity her direction, and the only thing she could glean, when she concentrated, was some kind of near euphoric joy on his end. It felt washed out, like the connection was dampened, and the feeling of dismissal ran deep.  And the past hour, she hadn’t been able to feel anything at all. She felt her temper grow short, and then her patience dissipated entirely.She interrupted Jack’s perverse questions about Henry Turner’s mother, “We can fish, and I can build a device to catch condensation if we do not have fresh water.  If any repairs can be made at sea, we will do them then. Is this ship seaworthy right now or not?”  Her voice was hard, angry, and she wildly considered throwing Jack’s stiletto back at his head.“Of course she is,” he said, haughtily, at the same as Henry made a noise of dissent in his throat.  Henry bit out, “It is if you don’t mind the odds of sinking immediately being quite high.  I’ll lead the repairs, but I’ll need to commandeer time from the men. Our safe passage was bartered, and I’ll require anything necessary to ensure it.  Your crew is funded by my coin, but also the promise of treasure once we reach the Trident, so the price is settled.”  His coin? There was a story she would be getting later. She knew of no treasure near the Trident, but if there was, she didn’t want it.  The pirates were welcome to it. He turned to Carina, “You said you were seeking the Trident. Do you have any idea where it might be?”Carina slowly sat down on a squat little barrel, all of her muscles aching, and pulled up her dress, exposing her uninjured calf.  She ignored the gasps and leers of the crew, too tired to react to any of it, and untied the string from her bloomer leg. She wiggled the diary past the hemline, holding it up with one limp hand.“This,” she said softly, exhaustion weighing on her voice, “is the journal of Galileo Galilei.  It was the only thing my father ever gave me, and based on my translation of the text, charts, predictions and illustrations, it will tell me how to read The Map No Man Can Read, which will lead us to the Trident of Poseidon.”  She wasn’t excited to explain this again, and quite frankly, now that she was sitting down, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to stand back up again. She wanted, suddenly, to do nothing more than sleep.And cry.  The spatters on the back of her hand reminded her that she’d murdered someone, in cold blood, and left the body rolled behind trash in an alley.  She’d taken a life, and the fact slapped her like a wave.Someone had asked her a question, but she couldn’t hear anything over the rushing in her ears.Then, the clouds dissipated.The moon was red.The gem pulsed and glowed on the book.“Huh,” she said quietly, not even thinking as she pried the chunk of rock off of the book with her fingertips.  Henry, Jack and the crew all crowded around her. It came off cleanly, and she looked at the book with no small amount of suspicion.  “That’s… how was that even on there?”She shook her head, and the light hit the rock and cast a brilliant shadow on the book cover.  “There’s… words.” She moved it closer. “To release the power of the sea, all must divide.”“That’s cryptic,” groused Sparrow, who was immediately smacked by four of the nearest crew members.She tuned him out, moving the ruby further down the cover, over the constellation that was her namesake, and at the bottom, over the miniscule embossed leather lines that looked like the sea, was the glowing image of a little landmass that had not been there before.“It’s the map,” she whispered.  “It’s the stars.  The constellation leads to an island!”  She wasn’t a wayfinder, not by any means, and she’d traded her chronometer for everything else, but she knew how to read stars well enough to follow just the one.  The compass sat heavy in her pocket, but it felt wrong. Unnatural, and she was afraid to open it.Henry sucked in a quiet breath next to her, and she looked up to meet his eyes.  They were full of hope, of anticipation, and he looked at her with an emotion she couldn’t name.  “My father,” he said, disbelieving, “I’ll really be able to… my father…” He wiped one hand down his face and sat on the crate next to her.Jack smiled at them both, but it wasn’t a very friendly look.  “Well, let’s make an accord. You get to break the curse, and we,” he gestured to his raggedy crew, “get to keep everything else.  Now there’s a map, I want your word.”Carina almost, almost, told him about Captain Salazar come to kill him.  That breaking the curse was in his best interests, that if Salazar was human, he might feel less inclined to run his sword through the pirate’s sternum, or at least might be a more fair fight, but then the curse itched on her neck and upper arm.  If she told him, he’d want to know how she knew. She couldn’t reveal that, not now, not to anybody, and she instead schooled her face into something considering. What was between Captain Salazar and Carina was private, secret, and she was determined to keep it close to her heart.She was already strange enough, this would make her practically inhuman in their eyes.So, Carina turned to look at Henry, who tilted his head at her.  His warm brown eyes crinkled up at the corners in a smile, and he nodded once.  She didn’t pay attention to the unexpected rush of pleasure his attention and acknowledgment brought, instead turning back to Jack Sparrow, whose sharp black eyes hadn’t missed anything, and solemnly said, “Agreed.”When they shook hands, she ignored the repulsion of the curse through her skin.Salazar’s end, at the other side of the universe, stayed silent and still as a grave.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The man quivered, his ruddy face slack with terror, and he couldn’t speak as the heavy boots of the… the… demon came towards him.  Black blood running down his chin, posture hunched, eyes sallow but sharp.“No need to fear me, hombre,” he tutted, leaning on his scabbard, casually lifting his sword to sink it deep into the chest of a man gasping his last breaths on deck.  The sound stopped, and the man shook harder. The sword took a minute to pull free, but there was a soft gush of fluid as it did, and the demon flicked it, absently scattering blood across the deck.  When he used it, once more, as a crutch, the sound of the heavy iron striking the weathered planks was sinister.He stopped and considered the shaking man.  Older, but not ancient, wiry instead of soft, but the look in his eye did not bode well.  Captain Salazar sighed and turned to find Lieutenant Lesaro, calling out to him. “Do we not have another one?”Lieutenant Lesaro shifted uncomfortably, “These pirates are under some sort of network, Capitán, and it’s made them,” he paused as if searching for the right word, “softer.  This was the strongest one aboard.”He clucked his tongue, annoyed.  The last man they’d tried to save from a ship had lost his mind, floundered, and then drowned twenty feet from the boat.  Sourly, he turned back to the jellied mass of humanity on the deck. His perfect track record, ruined. The ‘one man alive to tell the tale’ had become like his calling card and having that man die before his eyes made him more bitter than he’d expected.“Who is your Capitán,” he asked the man, whacking his leg with his long scabbard.  The man was terrified enough that he didn’t even flinch.The man stuttered stupidly for a moment, his mouth working silently, before he pushed out, “C-C-C-Captain Bar-Barbossa.”Barbossa?  A Portuguese name.  Interesting. Idly, he wondered what the Spanish relationship with the Portuguese was these days.“Is he on this ship?” Captain Salazar tilted his head in a way he knew was off-putting, angling the side of his face that was half gone toward the man.  “We have found no man with the bearing or dress of a Capitán.”“The Captain?”  Apparently, this was such a ludicrous notion that the man had the gall to let out a sharp bark of laughter.  “No, the Captain doesn’t do the dirty work.  He has a great fancy ship, and sails only for pleasure now.”  The man relaxed, like he’d forgotten exactly who he was talking to.  Salazar raised his eyebrow. Gossiping about El Capitán must have been a common pastime, for it to unwind him so.“Well, Sir,” said the dead man, smiling a great, terrible smile, “Would you be so kind as to deliver him a message?”  They’d set sail, the only lurch being when one of the ropes holding the Gull on shore had not been cut, and everyone had been thrown violently into the deck.  Carina had fallen onto her palms, reopening the scrapes from the day before and leaving bloody handprints in the wood. Her knees landed with force, and the shock reverberated in her wounded calf in a way that made her feel nauseous.  As soon as the hull of the boat receded fully into the water and stayed afloat, she’d released an audible sigh of relief. She still hurt, her nerves lighting up with pain, but it became abruptly bearable. Honestly, she would have been happy if it had sunk, as long as she was on the water.  The curse immediately settled down and stopped feeling like she was being stuck with a thousand needles and slowly flayed alive at the same time.The conversations of the crew around her were like the buzzing of flies; background noise, so easy to ignore.  She dozed, staring up at the stars through heavy eyelids until Captain Sparrow gently touched her cursed shoulder.  He snatched his hand back, too fast, and Carina was suddenly wide awake. Where he had touched felt… more alive? Waving, searching, seeking, but not with the sentience of Captain Salazar.  This was something else.He stared at the spot his fingertips had pressed upon, his face heavily lined with concentration.  He shifted that dark, glittering gaze to her face, and said, distantly, “My cabin is behind the wheel.  Don’t worry, door locks. Go get some rest.” He looked at her shoulder one more time, shaking his hand as if to rid it of an unsavory sensation, before turning away from her and striding to the other side of the ship.  She waited until he wasn’t looking to roll that shoulder uncomfortably. The feeling of the bite moving under the dress, ragged edges catching on the thread of the yoke, was still strange and she always thought it should hurt, but it was consistently numb.  Wondering once more, absently, on how the curse must interface with the nerves and synapses in her brain, she slowly forced herself to stand.Maybe Jack hadn’t felt anything supernatural.  Maybe he just hadn’t touched a woman so innocently in years.  Maybe he was just afraid of the blood, but that was a heavy reach.  Her dress covered the curse, she told herself convincingly. There was nothing tactile there for him to feel, and even if there was, she could claim it an old disfigurement.  Those were disappointingly common, especially on the young woman who had to make their own ways in the world. The mere idea that he could sense the residue of the evil magic was so disconcerting that it sent another burst of adrenaline through her veins, but it wore off almost immediately.  She was at her limit. Touching her fingertips to her eyelids, she took one step forward. Unless he meant to kill her in her sleep, even if he had felt the curse, there was nothing else she could do right now.Exhausted, she couldn’t think for another moment.  She trudged to the cabin, pushing the door open just enough to slip in, locked it behind her, and threw herself into the hammock.She was asleep before her head hit the suspiciously gray pillow.  She landed in a dream.  A nightmare.She was back in the alley, fighting for her life, but the stiletto kept skittering out of reach.  The rain was heavier, obscuring her vision and making everything so slick. The man, whose name she’d never learned, was larger than he had been in life.  More muscular, his face wreathed in shadow, but his eyes glowed with insane anger. Supernatural, like two coals stuck in his face. His gun was enormous, almost closer to a crude club, ready to break her spine and dash her head into the cobblestones.The burst of terror sent a signal to run to her legs, and Carina threw herself to her feet clumsily.  Her skirts tried to trip her, longer and heavier than they’d been in real life, but she gathered them up in her aching arms and moved faster.  The fabric didn’t want to be held, and she had to waste precious moments trying to get the heavy folds to stay in her grip. Her feet slipped over slick cobblestones, triggering a terrifying bout of vertigo, but she wheeled and recovered, always keeping her momentum going forward.  She could feel him behind her, hand ready to grab her arm, dress, hair, anything to bring her down and end her for good. Or, the more terrifying second option, destroy her just enough that she lay prone and compliant beneath him. She pushed herself to be quicker, even as a heavy sob tore its way out of her aching throat.The man screamed slurs, more felt than understood, after her that rang against the cold alleyway, and every person who might help disappeared behind a latched door, a shuttered window.  She had no weapon, she had no hope, she was going to die- There, at the end of the alley, a familiar shape.  Floating, charred, hunched over, the flash of a sword in the dim light.  “Armando!” she screamed, running for him as he lurched toward her. He was here, he would save her, her heart expanded and she felt the first dangerous threads of hope shoot through her.The man stepped into the light just as she got within arms reach, but it wasn’t Captain Salazar.  It was the soldier, even larger than when he’d fought her at the start, and he sneered. He didn’t say anything at all, but the judgment in his gaze told her he knew exactly who she thought he was, her undead demon lover, and he condemned her for it.  She was frozen by the disgust in his face and didn’t react to the sound of his blade unsheathing. The hope soured into a grotesque, coagulated mess of resignation, disappointment, and despair, and it choked her.His sword slid deep into her belly, angled up, and she felt it pass through her, slicing through a lung and scraping three of her vertebrae on the exit.She couldn’t even scream, the pain was so swift, so intense.There was a presence behind her, another man, and she felt a tear fall down her face.  A sob stuck in her throat, but she would not give them the satisfaction. Would they violate her as she lay dying?  She’d heard of such things happening, of course, the older girls in the orphanage had cautioned the younger ones, but surely this indignity would not be laid upon the hour of her passing.A strong, tanned hand, wreathed by a large cuff of striped black and white, came over her shoulder.  A shining rapier, metal refracting all of the light from the windows and the stars, whispered through the air and cut off the man’s head with hardly a sound.  His body fell backward with a thump that was drowned out by the rain, the head rolling off into the darkness. His hand released the grip of his weapon in shock, and Carina remained impaled on it.  Her hands hovered over the handle, but she didn’t dare touch it.“Carina,” the voice was familiar, worried, heavy and soothing, but there was something different about it.  It didn’t sound pained.  The sword was still in her belly, and it hurt, it hurt, and as she slowly angled her head back, she blinked in surprise.It was Armando.  Captain Salazar. Alive. He was painfully handsome, his strong, even features staring at her intensely, his dark hair pulled back into a neat queue and his uniform immaculate.   She stared at him, realizing, belatedly, that his eyes were an astonishingly dark brown, almost black in the poor light.  They were looking at her with deep affection and a deeper concern.“I’m dying,” she choked out, feeling a rush of blood in her throat, and he shushed her, helping her down as her legs buckled beneath her.  The white of his uniform was so bright, she almost felt bad about the spatter of blood she got on it.  He didn’t notice, his eyes focused on the hilt of the sword, stabbed through her abdomen and starting to bleed.“No, amor mio, you are not dying.  You are dreaming.”  He ran his hand over her head, calluses catching on her curls, staring down at her, “You… I can’t… I can’t see you like this.  I can’t. I’ll kill everyone on that island, every single one of them, everyone on the sea if this ever happened to you.  I want to kill them, even now, just at the thought of this happening to you.” His image flickered, death creating a hollow overlay, eyes burning yellow and red in turns, and his expression turned furious, barely in control.  She reached up to feel his face, her hand driving away the image of his corpse as she touched her fingers to his temple.  "I never should have let you go," he whispered, but she didn't pay attention.He was warm beneath her hand.  Living. She caressed him, running one finger up his brow, then down his aquiline nose until she brushed his top lip, her thumb reaching for his lower, pressing into the flesh as he’d done with her a lifetime ago.His eyes caught on her face, turning almost maroon, nearly the color of old blood, and he said, slowly, “What gives you such a nightmare, Mariposa?  Where is this coming from, and why am I just now learning about it?” His eyes roved around the alley, taking in the detail, everything from the wet shine to the microscope finishes of the uniform on the soldier.  He blinked slowly, his jaw tightening, and he considered that it might not be a nightmare. It might be a memory. She almost cried, his attention on her making her feel so safe, but there was something in the shadow.  An echo, a familiar feeling that made her freeze, like the sound of a black snake sliding over the cobblestones.  She knew, instantly, that whatever it was, it did not like that Salazar was holding her.  It did not like that Salazar was here.  It reminded her of an ugly twinge in her shoulder, a cracking down her arm, but bigger.  Hungry.  Angry.  Possessive.“If it’s a dream,” she said quickly, though it pained her a great deal and a line of blood came out of her mouth, “take me somewhere beautiful.  I don’t want to die,” her voice went very high for a moment, the frightened cry of a child with no guardian, “here, with the garbage.”  It would be fitting, she thought wildly, thrown away by everyone.  Her parents, the crew of the Monarch, Salazar himself. And wasn’t this what she’d done to the man who just killed her?  There was something like this in the Bible, right? Something about reaping what you sowed? She couldn’t remember, the stern nuns of her childhood so far away.  She closed her eyes, everything was slowing down and she could swear she could feel the life draining out of her. Everyone always tossed her away. There was a loss of pressure as he removed his hand, and she felt a tear slip down her face.  Even he was going to walk away and let her bleed out on the dirty ground, she knew it. She opened her eyes again slowly, to look at his face one more time.Then, Captain Salazar grabbed the sword with one strong hand and yanked it out.  His eyes had gone red, caught on the wound, and he could not bear to see the filthy metal parting her flesh for another minute.She screamed, shut her eyes, and sat up.  She opened them again, blinking rapidly. He was before her, still in his handsome uniform, with sunlight catching on the sharp points of his many medals.  His hand was empty.  She stared at him in the clear, bright daylight, drinking him in. His skin was a healthy brown, no gray on him at all,  his uniform was crisp black and white and his sword hung at his side.  His hair, to her surprise, wasn’t black; it was a deep, burnished mahogany with a few threads of gold, bleached by the sun, shot through. Slicked back as it was, she could see the edge of a queue behind him, and he looked… he looked good.  Handsome.  She felt wildly insecure for a moment, a pauper next to a prince.  Belatedly, she looked down. She was in a sunshine yellow dress, edged in intricate white lace, in an unusual and somewhat old fashioned cut, her hair up in a heavy, cumbersome style.  A large teardrop pearl at her throat, held there by a yellow diamond on a fine gold chain. For the first time, she realized he really had been stuck in the Triangle for almost an entire lifetime, longer than she’d been alive.  She’d never seen this style of dress worn before, but it echoed a more modern cut she’d observed higher ladies wear in London.  She looked past him, and her eyes widened.She was in an orchard, sitting on a lush green lawn.  The heady scent of crushed grass and sunbathed loam wafted up to her, and she breathed in deeply.  There was birdsong, somewhere above her. It was beautiful, and she heard the rustling of feathers clearly as they played among the branches.The sun was bright, spring-warm and robust, and the apple trees were in bloom.  She gaped, staring at the enormous clusters of pink and white flowers, petals falling slowly in the slight breeze, and turned to stare at Captain Salazar.  He was looking at her with an expression she didn’t want to name, but was willing to bet preceded three very dangerous little words that she was sure he couldn’t mean.The perfume washed over her, thick and aromatic, apple blossoms heavy with pollen and sun, and her eyes fluttered closed, distracted.  “Have you been here before?” She tilted her head and reached one hand up, touching the spot on her neck that had not stopped throbbing since that fateful moment, framed by ugly rock spires, only to feel nothing but clean, smooth skin.  The curse was gone, in this place. Her dress, she realized, bared her shoulders and collarbones to his hungry gaze, the sleeves merely gauzy ruffles that crossed her biceps. She found she didn’t mind the bare skin or his eyes as they devoured her.“Yes,” the answer was swift, his voice very low and intense.  She got the impression, abruptly, that this was something very private.  Something nobody else had ever known from him. A special, sacred place. And he was sharing it with her.  “Once.  A long time ago.”She opened her eyes again, and had to look up, he was so close.  Heat radiated from him, and she heard his deep breaths, no water, no pain.  Only sweet, fresh air, in and out.“I told you,” he said, leaning towards her, “that you would taste a Spanish apple one day.  I will bring you here, to this spot, and feed you one. I swear it.” Like The Silent Mary, this felt like a vow.  Inevitable. A promise he would not, could not break. A small part of her whispered that he’d already betrayed that vow, he’d abandoned her in her hour of need, and she didn’t have the will to bat it away.She didn’t get to reply or refute him as, for the first time, he kissed her on the mouth.  His lips were soft, his tongue insistent, and she found herself disregarding her doubt entirely and responding as though starved of love and affection, consuming him.  Surging up against him, she opened her mouth and let him inside, biting his lips and nipping at his tongue, parting and rejoining. It felt divine.  He tasted sweet and tart as though he’d just eaten a basket of apples, and she licked at the roof of his mouth to taste more.  He groaned and pressed her to him tighter, the buttons of his jacket digging into her, his hands tight on her waist. She wound her arms around his neck and arched her back into his chest.  She was so happy, she could die. As the thought crossed her mind, she pulled herself violently away and quickly ripped open the bodice of the gown.Immediately, Captain Salazar was flustered, “I didn’t… that’s not… you don’t have to- I know this is a dream, Mariposa, but we do not-”“Shut up,” she hissed, feeling the whole skin over her stomach, sliding her hand under the fabric to feel her back.  If he was taken aback by her short, coarse language, he didn’t show it. She sighed in relief. No wound. Not even a scratch.  “I’m… I’m fine. I’m not dead.”“No,” he said, his eyes watching her closely, “You are not.  I do not know what happened, Mariposa, but I am here.” He reached out and cupped the back of her head, where her skull met her neck, and pulled her closer, “If you call for me, I will come.”He lowered his plush lips to hers again, and she whispered against his open mouth, “Liar,” before taking him in a harsh, punishing kiss.  He’d just tentatively replaced his hand on her waist, through her shift, exposed as it was by the gaping front of her gown, and she moaned, pushing herself eagerly into his hands.  He sucked in a surprised breath and spread his fingers wider on her pain-free ribcage, the tips of his questing fingers just barely brushing the underside of her breasts.She was ripped out of her dream by a pair of slim, uncalloused hands, belonging to one Henry Turner, shaking her roughly.She woke to glare at him, hissing, “What?”  He startled and lept back, his brown eyes wide, and Carina lifted a hand to her face.  It was still sticky, and her hair was dried to her forehead with blood. The rest of it pulled in a way the told her it was greatly tangled, matted with bodily fluids that were not her own.  She was no longer in a lovely dress and pearls, pressed up against a living Spaniard under the warm sun.  She was here, filthy and in Jack Sparrow's hammock.“You… you were screaming and I… picked the lock, I hope you don’t-”  She ignored his stumbling explanation to close her eyes and center herself.  She’d forgotten what it was like to be without pain, and that dream had been too real to let her settle back into this body without feeling every injury.She sat up and winced.  Her back was throbbing, and she suspected the man had cracked at least one of her ribs with the hard end of his musket.  If she had to bet, she’d go up three broken with a mild certainty of at least a contusion on two more. Her half-healed skin from the flogging still hurt, and her leg was pulsing in a way that made her dread looking at it.  Her hands, her face, everywhere ached. The heavy skirts shifted and the ripe smell of blood and bile wafted up towards her.She’d fallen asleep without bathing first.She’d killed a man yesterday.Her hands started to tremble, and all of her muscles felt like they were both too tight and too loose to hold her upright.  Her insides felt like liquid, and they churned inside of her.Henry was staring at her, concern writ on his features.  In daylight, the splatters were significantly more visible.  “That’s… a lot of blood, Carina. What-”“He was going to kill me!  And worse! He tried- Before- I had to!”  She was suddenly ashamed to feel tears filling her eyes, her words tumbling out of her in a rush, “There are things I can’t tell you, Henry, truly I wish I could, but I… I had to live.  I had to go.  I had to.  There was no other choice.” Her vision was blurred as the desire to confess poured out of her. “I don’t-” she hiccuped, “I didn’t want to die.”Abruptly, she was wrapped in a warm embrace that still smelled faintly of the shop, old books, and leather, overlaid with the bitter pitch from working to patch the ship.  She squeezed her eyes shut and threw her arms around him, releasing her tears in a powerful torrent. She cried in a way that was not delicate or feminine, snot running out of her nose and her eyes instantly itchy and red, and ruined the off-white cotton of his shirt.  He murmured meaningless platitudes in her ear, one arm caught around her shoulders and the other laying, lightly, between her shoulder blades. She’d wrapped both arms around his torso, holding onto him as if her sanity depended on it.He held her as she sobbed, and the silence of Salazar’s connection made her cry all the harder.  He came out of the trance he’d fallen into when La Mariposa had pulled him, frantically, into her dreamspace suddenly.  One minute he’d been finally, finally, tasting her, feeling her whole and warm against him, and the next, he was staring out the porthole of his ruined quarters.  The flavor of her anxiety, her fear, her blood, sat heavy and stale on his tongue. Even the space he’d conjured, the most peaceful he’d ever known, had been tinted by her lingering panic.  She hadn’t noticed the storm clouds at the edges of the blue sky, the way some of the blossoms had bruised and crumpled, but he’d sensed it immediately.What had happened in that alley?  When had it happened?  Why hadn’t he felt what must have been her violent pulls, trying to bring him in as her defender?  He’d been preoccupied with battles, ships and men and all of their blood running along his sword, but surely, if her need had been great enough, he would have heard her?The curse rolled through him, glutted on the blood he’d been spilling the past fortnight, and casually pushed against his thoughts of her, parting them easily.  It tried to dampen her, bring the desire for vengeance to the foreground, and Captain Salazar held on to the idea of Carina determinedly. The curse fed on emotion, he’d realized that in the first year, when he’d swung between violent rages and an aching depression that it had siphoned from him like a leech.He wasn’t sure if the curse was a living thing, dependant on sustenance, but it was sentient.  It had desires, it could influence him, had influenced him, and he knew, achingly, that he’d marked La Mariposa because the curse had been flaring at full strength.  What might have been a passing fancy was now a full-blown obsession, bordering on an incredibly unhealthy love, and the curse had used his feelings for her as a substitute for his ever-present anger.  But now, he was free. He was able to slaughter pirate and militia alike, indiscriminately, and the curse no longer found value in maintaining the open communication between the two of them. He realized, suddenly, almost fearfully, that the curse had tried to discard her, throw her away because she was no longer useful, and he tentatively tried to find their connection inside of him.It slid in front of him, trying to redirect him when he attempted to reach for her.He might have pushed harder if deep red sails on the horizon had not caught his attention.The curse sighed, fat and content, as his rage and desire for blood took over his mind and the thought of Carina fell to the background.  It closed the connection almost completely, any calls she made no more heard than if she had yelled them at a wall.  Carina scrubbed at her face with the bucket of salt water.  She longed to jump in the wide sea and wash her dress, but she couldn’t risk anyone on board seeing her curse mark, and they were going remarkably fast for the perceived poor quality of the ship.  She suspected that Henry had been working tirelessly to fix the ship as much as he was able to improve their speed. He had some new scrapes on his hands, and under his fingernails was filthy.She was still in Captain Sparrow’s cabin, Henry having discreetly brought her the rough-hewn bucket full of stale water and a dirty rag that she’d tossed to the side in favor of her hands, and the door was once again locked.  She could look, maybe, and see how far it had spread.  She'd never fully looked at it before, choosing the keep the dress on and run a cloth under the fabric.  She fingered the dingy white of her yoke for a minute, slipping one finger under to feel the dry skin and long crack that had formed.The rest of the cursed mark lit up at her touch, itching like mad.  She pulled her finger out of her collar and clamped her hand down on her arm, willing it to lie dormant again.“Knock knock.”  A flat, heavy voice called to her from the doorway.  Jack was there, leaning against the entryway, staring at the spot her hand was clutching.  He’d come in without her noticing, somehow. She was unsurprised when Salazar didn’t even stir but was slightly shocked when the rest of her curse hummed in recognition at the sight of him.“I thought,” she said, her voice soft but with a sharp edge, “that the door was locked.”He snorted, “Captain’s quarters, darling, do you really think I don’t have a key?”  A flash of gold in his hand and he slipped it back into his pocket. He studied her for a moment, and she felt smaller under his gaze somehow.  As if he was scrutinizing her, a bug beneath a spyglass. “I just can’t figure it out,” he murmured, almost too quiet for her to hear. The hand that had touched her yesterday flexed its fingers slowly.“Can I help you, Captain?  I’d really rather go back to cleaning myself up if it’s all the same to you.”  To make her point, she grabbed the disgusting cloth, dampened it, and ran it across the back of her neck a few times.  When she wrung it back out, the water had a pinkish tinge. She grimaced, but her skin felt a little cleaner.He watched her bathe for a minute too long for her liking and then jerked his head.  “Good enough, young missus, you have a job to do.” He gave her a smile that sat poorly on his features, and his heavily lined eyes looked tired.  He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway, an air of false nonchalance around him.Carina sighed and folded up the cloth, leaning against the wall as she pulled herself up.  “And what, exactly, is that?” She was still tired and processing the grief of her ordeal had left her drained.  Her leg had a pulse all it’s own, not supernatural but this was almost worse, and she didn’t trust any of the pirates aboard this boat to know any version of modern medicine.  Her back was a solid mass of bruises, and she wanted nothing more than to lay in that hammock for a week. If she took a deep breath or turned wrong, she could feel her ribs under the bruise shift slightly.  Patently horrendous, and she wistfully prayed for a calm, unremarkable voyage to the Trident.“Navigation, Miss Smyth.  You, after all, are the only one who can parse The Map No Man Can Read.”  His tone was mocking, but the words fell flat. His eyes were on her gait as she tried to stride across the cabin, and he shut the door behind him before she’d taken two steps.“Your leg,” he gestured, the faint light catching on his rings.  “What happened to it?”If there was one thing Carina was sure about, it was that being alone in a private space with this man was a bad idea.  She couldn’t believe that his intentions with her injury were for her own health and safety. She couldn’t trust that he wasn’t twice as clever and quick as he appeared.“Why do you want to know?” She shot back, taking a step away from him.  Her leg buckled for a moment, just a little, but the damn pirate was so keen, of course, he saw it.He gave her a dishonest smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes for a moment.  “We have an accord, yes?” His voice went a little deeper, and though he whispered his voice held the power of command, “You need to navigate me to the treasure.  You take the little Trident, I take everything else, savvy? You can’t navigate me there if you die of your injuries. Show me.” He waved his hand at her leg again, the gesture short, choppy and impatient.She remembered, achingly, a similar time on the Mary.  Miguel at her back to cleanse her lashes, Salazar cupping her face with his large, cool hands, his deep voice resonating through her and carrying her through the shrieking riptide of pain.There was no Miguel now, just a pirate with clever, watching eyes and dancing fingers.  There was no Salazar, only a faint residue of connection that buzzed faintly with whatever emotion he was feeling, but had been silent since she woke.  She’d have to carry herself through, and she was so damn tired. Without another word, she sat on the closest available surface, the hammock, which swayed slightly.  She yanked up her skirts to expose the filthy bandage, now stained a deep, bloody brown, that covered the wound on her calf.  He hummed thoughtfully. “Unwrap it. I need to see the damage, darling.”She grimaced and set about pulling the scrap of linen off her wound, hissing as it pulled at the sticky edges.  The splinter had been large, but the wound somehow looked bigger than it had before. The edges were puffy and warm, and it was sluggishly leaking an opaque, pale yellow fluid.  It felt swollen, and the area around it was flushed a bright red. There had absolutely been debris left in the wound, and she cursed herself for not taking the time to force Henry to clean it out.  Jack clasped his hands behind his back and knelt down, making an interested noise in the back of his throat. “That,” he said at length, “does not look good.” He reached out with one finger and poked at the area just to the left of the redness, “Does that hurt?”She shook her head, “No.  The rest of it…”“Oh yes, I imagine the pain is rather annoying.”  He stood back up, and his shirt gaped open for a moment.  His torso was covered in scars. She suddenly had a very clear understanding that ‘annoying pain’ for Jack Sparrow would be ‘unbearable agony’ for anyone else. “I’ll send in Mister Gibbs if it’s all the same to you.  He’s patched me up quite a few times, he has a very delicate touch.” Jack gave another smile that showed his gold tooth but didn’t reach his eyes, and she sighed.“If you must.”  She was too tired to argue, and she automatically sent another pulse across the ocean, trying to get the attention of Captain Salazar again.  The curse pushed against her lazily, and she couldn’t help the wince and sad dip to the corners of her mouth that followed.She didn’t notice the way Jack’s eyes flared with something close to understanding, his gaze straying to the juncture of her neck and shoulder.  His hand flexed at his side, a phantom tingle running up and down the limb.  “Captain Salazar, I hear yeh be lookin’ for Jack Sparrah!” The shout rang in his ears, and he looked down in disbelief.  The Mary paused at his nudge, the bones of her hull waving in the air like the legs of a centipede, and he looked down to see a man with a stupid hat, enormous curled wig, a gilded peg leg, and holding the arm of the sailor he’d sent to give a message to a pirate named...“Capitán Barbossa,” Captain Salazar purred to himself.  Sail for pleasure indeed, the ship was a monstrosity of bad taste.  At the jerk of his head, Lieutenant Lesaro led the fall to the other ship.  Stolen finery draped the entire thing, gold and red and gaudy. From above, Captain Salazar hummed his displeasure.  As his men leaped into place, he waited. He always took the last jump for himself. He’d spent the last forty years practicing his dramatic flourishes, and something told him Barbossa appreciated a little drama.Might as well give him one more show before he joined the rest of the pirates that ended their sordid careers on the end of Salazar's blade.He waited for Lieutenant Lesaro’s loud, “Hold point and await orders,” before stepping up on the railing and launching himself off smoothly.He landed exactly where he’d meant to, behind and to the right of Captain Barbossa, and let his breath wheeze louder than normal, tapping his sword heavily against the deck.  When Barbossa turned toward him, Captain Salazar practically purred at the fear in his eyes. The man next to him, the messenger, wasn’t quivering as badly as he had on the ship, last time they’d met.He shifted his gaze from Captain Barbossa to the messenger, smiling a black smile, “Thank you,” he said warmly, “for delivering my message.”  The man gave him a trembling, hesitant smile, and Captain Salazar drove his rapier through his heart, savoring in the look of shock on his face, before flicking his sword and tossing the body to the side.  He turned to Barbossa, who’s eyes had gotten much, much more serious. “You should discard an envelope,” he said softly, “after a note is received.”He moved very close, a scant handspan between them, and waited.“My name is Cap’n Barbosser, and I stand b’fore yeh with cordial intent.”  He narrowed his eyes and gave an insincere smile, borne of his attempt to restrict his terror, and Captain Salazar gave a bark of laughter.“Cordial intent.”  He looked out at his crew, Lieutenant Lesaro paying very close attention, and called, “Do you hear that?  This pirate wishes to be cordial.”  He turned back to Captain Barbossa, his tone very matter-of-fact.  “Let me show you what my cordiality is, hombre.”  He unfolded himself to his full height, forcing the shorter man to look up.  Black dripped down his chin, and the sun filtered through his hair. He felt a pulse from Carina, through the bond, but the curse redirected his attention from her immediately.  He let out a short, pained breath before continuing. “Every time I tap my sword, one of your men will die, so I suggest you speak quickly.” He tapped his sword once, loud and with intent, turning to look at Officer Moss, “Ole ahí.”Without another prompt, Officer Moss schooled his expression into something fierce, and slid his sword through the man in front of him, kicking him viciously after running him through.Captain Salazar smiled, relishing the ironclad command of his crew, the hours of drilling ensuring a smooth performance, the realization of the very real consequences schooling Captain Barbossa’s face into something terrible, and said, with joy in his voice, “Might want to go a bit faster, Capitán.”  He tapped his sword twice, two more men falling, before he turned in a tight circle. The curse was pushing at him, and while he would normally revel in playing this game and cleansing the crew with a beat in his step, he needed information.He hadn’t been able to feel Carina’s space in the world for the entire day.  Her little nudges were more of reminders, her mind trying to brush up against his, and the curse quickly redirected his thoughts.  Even when he reached out, the curse felled him.  It didn't want him to feel her, to find her, and he hated it, but he couldn't directly overcome it. The pirates, the hunting, the thrill of it had distracted him, but he’d made a vow.  To find her, to find the Trident, he had to find a songbird.“Where’s Jack Sparrow?”  He snarled the name, rolling the 'r' on his tongue, another line of black dripping down his chin.“Jack be sailing for the Trident, or so a little bird told me,” the older pirate said, his face suddenly crafty as a smirk slid across his mouth.  Captain Salazar considered for a moment, that Carina was on a ship, navigating for Jack Sparrow, and the curse sparked along his nerves at the surge of possessiveness that shot through him.“A bird?” a portly pirate, standing nearby, and Salazar immediately got the impression that intelligent thought was difficult for him.  “Weren’t no bird, Captain, were that witch. The scary one with the…” he gestured to his head, drawing lines over his forehead, and Barbossa lost the fear in his face for annoyance.As one, Salazar and Barbossa turned to stare at the offending pirate, who blanched and nearly backed into Officer Magda’s blade.  He muttered an apology and Salazar sighed.“No,” he drawled, drawing Barbossa’s attention again, willing the pirate to tell him wrong, “the sea belongs to the dead.”“And the Trident controls the sea,” Captain Barbossa shot back, the irritation at the interruption still tainting his voice.  Salazar frowned, he wanted nothing but fear when the pirate talked to him.He whirled away, a hiss coming out of his mouth like an inhumane shriek, “No!” He slammed his sword against the deck, and he pushed the connection to his Mariposa, trying to force the anger-glutted body of the curse out of the way, but it did little more than hum.  He held the image of Jack and Carina, together, holding the Trident, and snarled, “There’s no treasure, no treasure, that can save him.”  His hair was whirling wildly around his head, and he raised his rapier up for a kill, suddenly weary of this conversation, “He will die, as will you.”Pirates.  It was always, always pirates.  Kill this one, kill Sparrow, and get Carina.  The curse pulsed once, twice, and pushed at him.“I be the only one that can lead you to him!”  Cocky. The pirate’s eyes were wide and so blue-Like a summer’s day.
My… my father.  It was the only thing he ever gave me.  That book is very precious to me.
She was an astronomer.  A navigator. He’d read the book, seen her neat, evenly-printed calculations.The curse, he could tell, was laughing at him.  Had it known the entire time? He could never understand the true nature of such magic, or how far into the world it’s influence spread, but it knew, with not a trace of doubt, that this ruddy-cheeked, tackily dressed pirate captain was the father of the woman he’d claimed for himself.  The curse made sure to hiss that the woman who’s heartbeat he held so close to his own was the daughter of a pirate.  It waited, eagerly, for his reaction.His hand trembled, and he drew in a pained breath, his eyes going near black.  He pressed the tip of his sword into the mass of curls layered over Captain Barbossa’s breast, and the pirate saturated the silence with more of his stupid, useless, lying words.“I declare that yeh shall have Jack’s life by sunrise on the marrow, or yeh can take me own then.”  His voice shook, and Captain Salazar realized that the look on his face must have been fearsome indeed. “Do we have an accord?”  His voice stumbled, faltered on the hard consonants of the last word, and Captain Salazar savored the terror. He had no doubt, no doubt, that this man could find the same place his daughter was yearning to go.  The challenge he had set before her as an infant. He wondered, for a moment, if the other man would feel a hint of guilt at the scars decorating the baby he’d abandoned, alone, into the cruel world that had battered her so terribly?Somehow, Captain Salazar didn’t think so.He gave a short, cruel laugh.  Keeping the point of his sword pressed against Captain Barbossa, he stepped forward.  “Take me to him,” he tilted his head in acquiescence, hair unfurling around him, “and you will live to tell the tale.”This close, he could see the permanent damage done to the skin by the sun, the broken veins signifying too much drink, and the ugly, stained whites of his eyes that made the blue so bright it burned.  “Yeh have me word.”   He lowered the point of his rapier, the heavy metal scraping across the deck.  He looked away for just a moment, and Captain Barbossa made a terrible mistake.  “I thank yeh, on behalf of me crew.”Thanked him.  As if Captain Barbossa was a man, capable of manners, instead of a pirate.  Instead of a beast.  He gave a low, ugly chuckle and tapped out a fast pattern with his sword, accenting it with his boot in a way that told his men to make the deaths as painful as possible.  Hits to the liver, lungs, center mass, anywhere that would take more time to die than a shot to the head or the heart.  Then kick them into the sea and let them drown.“Well, hey, you can take what’s left of them.”  He sneered, his hair flying out, and walked away from the stunned, silent Captain Barbossa.  Couldn’t even protest the death of his ‘crew’.  Coward.  All pirates were cowards, not even a peep to the cries of his dying men.  “The living come aboard,” he shouted, his tone short and annoyed.He’d expected better, from the man who helped make a woman as strong and willful as Carina Smyth.  He knew that she would not have sat back, quietly, and acquiesced to the death of her crew. She would have fought him. As he put one boot up on the over-designed railing, there was a gentle clearing of a voice behind him.  He tilted his head sharply, hair sliding in front of his eyes, and saw Officer Madga clean his blade on the back of the man he’d just killed, gently, and barked a sharp, “Que?”“This is a ship full of numerous comforts, and many supplies the living will need to remain in good health,” Officer Magda said, politely, and he turned just enough to make eye contact with his doctor.  There was a heartbeat, then two, of silence, before he pressed, “We are getting close to her, yes?  Perhaps we should-”“Take what you can,” he snarled, the reminder of Carina grating against his inability to contact her, “and sink the rest.  I want to watch this monstrosity disappear into the deep, where it belongs.”  He didn't wait for Officer Magda’s reply.He propelled himself back onto The Mary, limping to his quarters and slamming the door behind him.  Carina was listing, slowly, to the side, barely able to focus on the stars in front of her.  She leaned into the wheel, determined to keep her entire body pushing the Gull in the right direction.  Her journal was safely back in her pocket, the stars brilliant enough in the cold night that she didn’t need it.  She’d sketched the constellation and what she was fairly certain were the coordinates earlier, but now she was so tired, she was sure her pencil would just fall from her fingers.  She blinked at the sky, willing the ship to go faster.She had to get the Trident.  She had to break the curse that had started acting strangely, started rolling under her skin and into her bones.  The chill never left, and she clutched the roughspun grey blanket closer around her shoulders with one hand, a light tremor going through her.  At least the curse had been fairly quiet. It acted up around Jack, and sometimes slid under her skin in a way that reminded her of Salazar, but the pain she’d been plagued with on land had completely stopped.  She resisted the urge, again, to slide one finger under her collar and feel the long cracks that had started to deepen into fissures.  They grew deeper and longer by the hour.There was a step behind her, a soft sound, and Carina stiffened for a moment before sighing, “Who’s there?”Maybe, if she was lucky, a mermaid would have flopped up onto the boat to just hand her the Trident.“It’s me,” Henry Turner’s smooth voice rumbled, and he stepped up beside her.  “I noticed the Captain didn’t appoint an Officer of the Watch. I felt compelled to volunteer.”  Not a mermaid then, but Henry would keep her awake and stop any of the crew from bothering her. Good enough.“I’m glad,” she said belatedly, softening her tone and blinking up at him slowly.  They shared a smile, his a little too friendly for her liking, but she was so tired that she didn’t care.  She nodded up at the sky, “Do you see it?”He tore his eyes from her face, from the wound on her chin, and roved the heavens, “...no.  Is it supposed to be-” He gestured closer to Orion’s Belt, and she sighed.“No, it’s-  Just look where I’m pointing.”  She held her arm out, propping her bicep up on the wheel, and Henry brought his head next to hers, practically pressing his smooth cheek against her dirty one, she felt his breath at the sensitive corner of her mouth, and she felt a low thrum of… something deep in her belly that shocked her.  She leaned her head away, but he didn’t notice.“Oh!”  He said happily, “Is it that one?  The three, and then the one, with the two trailing?”  He pointed to the correct constellation this time and tilted his head closer to hers.  “It looks like a trident, doesn’t it? A bit.” He murmured it, and Carina was surprised that she hadn’t considered that at all.  He was rather observant.“Yes,” she said after a lengthy pause, “I suppose it does.”She couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes flickered to her lips when he turned to look at her again, and she was struck by a sudden sense of tragedy.  She knew, without a doubt, that he liked her.  He thought she was pretty, interesting, and he’d been slowly coming by to talk to her over the past few hours, just idle chit-chat, but she’d seen Jack’s smirk every time he’d stopped.  She couldn’t think about the way he’d returned her embrace as she’d cried on his shoulder in the cabin, but the gift of the bucket and washcloth wouldn’t be forgotten any time soon. She should have been able to return his affection.  She longed, suddenly, for an alternate universe where she could flirt with him freely, where there wasn’t a mark from an intense ghost on her shoulder that made her long for his cold fingers, where-Suddenly he was kissing her, pressing his dry, sun-chapped lips to hers tenderly, but she couldn’t recall when either one of them had moved.  She gasped, just a little, a puff of air into his mouth, and he tilted his head to deepen their embrace.She let him, feeling his fingers at the nape of her neck, tangling in the soft, downy hair that gathered there, but she turned most of her attention inwards.  Did Salazar feel this? Did the curse care? She allowed him to ply her into returning his kiss, following his lead, and there was not a single move of interest from the curse or the man who’d laid it on her.Carina let one hand come up to touch gently against his cheek but hissed as the movement stretched the edges of the deep cut that still hadn’t really begun to heal.  He pulled back immediately, concern writ on his features, and his eyes drank in her expression. “Are you... What’s wrong?”She held up her hand again, flexing it and exaggerating her pained expression.  “I’m sorry.” She said it with more emotion than she’d meant to, and he looked confused.  She was, she realized, sorry. She was sorry she’d never return his feelings. She was sorry she was going to leave him for an unnatural monstrosity, a man that was more hatred than flesh, who she longed to lose herself in.  She was sorry that, by the end of this, she was going to be the ruin of a good man like Henry Turner.“I’m tired,” she added afterward, making sure to avert her gaze and lean heavier against the wheel.He murmured, abashed, “I... I should not have… I’m here for my father.  Nothing more. And, well, my face is still… you have hard elbows.” She'd missed, it the dark light, that his nose was still slightly askew, still swollen, and the bridge of his nose and one eye were still darkly bruised.  He winced slightly as he reached up to touch his lips, and she felt a hot flush of shame.  He’d been in pain but kissed her anyway.  She felt compelled to apologize, again, but swallowed it and turned back to the horizon. He stood tall next to her until Mr. Gibbs and Captain Sparrow came to relieve her of her station when the moon was at its peak.If either one of them noticed the awkwardness, they didn’t acknowledge it.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Officer Cortez snickered, slightly, one hand on the pommel of his sword, as the two pirates he was watching muttered their displeasure for the damp planks destroyed the fine fabric of their trousers.  Their stringy hair was escaping out of their tails and obscuring their vision while they scraped thick layers of algae and mold from La Maria’s deck, and their fat faces were slowly turning red from exertion.Each member of the crew had a pirate or two under their command, Antonio was directing his to pluck off the long trails of seaweed from the mizzenmast and Miguel was keeping a close eye on the three he’d acquired to attempt to polish the railing on port-bow.“Somethin’ funny, Spanish?” The stupider looking of the two pirates glared up at him, flipping the pretty, enameled blade he’d been forced to use for his duty.  He’d complained, they’d all complained, about their decorative weapons being ruined, but the Capitán had just laughed.Officer Cortez opened his mouth to reply, but there was abruptly a long iron blade erupting from the idiot pirate’s chest.  Officer Cortez felt his eyes widen as the man was hefted up, a weird, breathy scream coming from his throat as he sunk lower onto the blade. Capitán Salazar lifted him effortlessly, as if he were a sausage on a spear.  The show of strength, his arm not wavering as the man struggled fruitlessly on his blade, was meant to intimidate.It worked.  Every pirate, including Barbossa, stopped and stared.Salazar turned his blade this way and that, watching the way the man’s blood dripped down onto the deck.  It took him too long to die, so the Capitán simply reached up and twisted the man’s neck until there was a terrible pop, a sickening crunch, and all of his limbs went straight, tense, and then bonelessly flopped akimbo.  Salazar flicked his blade and the corpse fell over the railing, into the open ocean with a loud splash.“You will not speak,” his voice was soft but there was no sound on the cursed ship, so it might as well have been a shout, “unless spoken to.”  He flicked his eyes, red streaked with yellow, to Nico, “Officer, get your pirate to clean this, and keep better command unless you want to be doing the work yourself.”Officer Cortez immediately kicked out to his remaining pirate, grabbing the discarded velvet jacket belonging to the man now sinking in the open sea and throwing it at him.  Capitán Salazar walked away without a backward glance, the sound of his boots and sword striking the deck abnormally loud.Captain Barbossa, who had been clutching the barnacle-coated wheel hard enough to leave marks on the thick calluses covering his palms, didn’t say a word as Salazar climbed the steps.  The dead man’s hair waved in a wind opposite to the one blowing on Barbossa’s own face, all of his extremities swaying with a current come straight from hell, but he kept his own rheumy eyes fixed on the horizon.The sun was starting to rise, and the sky burned a beautiful pink, with a burst of gold against the sea and deepening to pale purple, then a velvety dark above, and he allowed himself the opportunity to appreciate it.  It could, after all, be his final one. The witch had spelled him to always know the direction he needed to sail, though she’d murmured that she would have preferred the compass that was currently content to stay in a false nun’s pocket.  If she’d failed, he doubted he’d be able to kill her for it. The men around him, one no more than scraps of floating uniform that could wield a weapon, had ceased to unnerve him in the long hours he’d been navigating.Salazar stepped up next to him, and the light reflected off his dead, white skin in a way that was striking.  The black of his wounds, the dark of his hair, the char of the uniform all seemed to absorb the light, amplifying the contrast of the grey and white of him, now washed rose and yellow.  His breathing was still harsh, still wheezing, and his eyes darkened to an eerie maroon, flicking around the deck and sea.“The sun is up,” he rasped, “and so is your time.”  He sounded bitterly disappointed, and Barbossa felt a new fissure of fear shoot up his spine.  Salazar slammed the point of his rapier against the deck, and the man closest to Barbossa, with only half a face and some of his chest, whipped out his own sword and strode forward.He felt the sharp iron cut into his beard, against his throat, before he leaned as far back as his hands on the wheel would let him and started talking, fast, “Not to disagree, but the precision of our accord ends at sun rise.  This be but first light, far from a fully risin’ sun.”  He was betting, banking, on Salazar being caught up in technicalities, and the sword paused, backing away a millimeter or two.  But, to press his point further, he kept talking, “And I know you to be a man of honor.”Salazar had turned away from him, and Barbossa refused to look away from his back.  He watched the dead man pause, his hair eddying slowly around his shoulders, before he turned his head slightly toward him, “Honor?  You know nothing of me.” He was bemused, his face splitting into a terrible smile, and he turned his head back to stare out at the horizon.  His hair flew up in agitation, and Barbossa saw the ruin of his head clearly in the dawning light.“I know what it’s like to be bested by Jack Sparrah,” he said, unable to help the anger that crept into his voice, craning his head back painfully to avoid the sharp edge of the blade.  Then, he said something he would later recognize as very stupid, “He’s an enemy to us-”Salazar spun around inhumanly fast, the snarl absolutely demonic, hair whipping back, and his eyes turned a bright, neon scarlet.  He slammed his sword into the deck as he propelled himself forward, his deep voice tight with rage, “You don’t know who I am.”  His uniform strained against the speed of his movement, and lightning started to screech above them, almost as if conjured by Salazar’s blackening mood.Salazar was suddenly right against Barbossa, the edge of his coat brushing his own, his hair coming forward like snakes to slide against his face, and in his instinct to get away, Barbossa backed up into the sword of the man with only part of his face, and he felt the blade start to cut through the thick cushion of his beard.  The ghost’s eyes, glowing like an inferno, the pupil ringed with a starburst of gold, were tracked on his face. “I’ve heard stories,” he started to stutter in a placating voice, “of a mighty Spanish captain, El Matador Del Mar.”  He felt his features begin to over-exaggerate, trying to distract the unstable man from sliding his blade through his liver. “A man who scoured the sea,” Salazar’s face became gleeful, and he nodded in encouragement, “hunted and killed thousands of men.”The sunrise was going more orange than pink, and the light caught on all of the cracks in Salazar’s face, his smile forcing the flesh to split oddly, some of it too stiff to bend.It occurred to him, just then, that he might honestly be murdered by this… ghost.  This creature that used to be a man.When Barbossa had pictured dying, a second time, it had been in a silk and velvet bed, surrounded by treasure and beautiful women.  Not from his heart exploding from fear, on a cursed ship that he could feel sullenly obeying his commands without any mechanism behind it, with a terrifying demon of a man breathing on his face.This close, he smelled like charred wood and the bottom of the sea.“No, no no.” Salazar tutted, his face going serious.  “Men, no. No no no. Pirates, eh?” Something wet and black was starting to collect at the corners of his mouth, and on the hard, explosive enunciation of the ‘p’, some of the liquid flew out to spatter on Barbossa’s cheek and in his beard.  Salazar pressed his face even closer, and Barbossa knew his eyes were wild with fear. He watched, alarmed, as Salazar’s gaze grew hooded, and slid to an orange not unlike the sunrise.He looked out, across, the horizon, and whispered, “Pirates.”  He looked lost in his own mind for a second, and opened his mouth to speak again, then he froze.He cocked his head to the side, his hair echoing the movement, and he purred something that made absolutely no sense, “Hola, Mariposa.” Snapping out of whatever trance he had been in a second later, he flapped one hand at Barbossa, absently, “Lo siento, Capitán, but dead men tell no tales.”Instantly, the man that was more air than flesh withdrew his sword, taking two large steps back.Capitán Salazar shook his head, running one hand over the missing half of his face, as if just thinking about it brought him back to the moment when the mast fell and smashed his skull in, feeling the crunch of the bone giving way, and he remembered the fire, the pain, the water filling his lungs, and as Barbossa watched, he straightened his spine as much as he could, as if the curse was flowing into him, reviving him, holding him together.Barbossa held the wheel tightly, his eyes following the small gestures of Salazar the way a deer watches the movement of a wolf as it sits in the shadows.“It is sunrise,” he said softly, as the sun crested above the waves, slowly walking back around Barbossa, who steeled himself.  “And you are, now, truly out of time.” He raised his sword up, leveling it with the heart of the older pirate.Barbossa had kept his eyes on the horizon, scanning desperately, and he nearly shouted, his voice pitched slightly too high, feeling the point of the sword press into his back, “Not yet, Capitán. There!”  He smiled, his teeth yellow as old ivory, and he hissed triumphantly, “Found as promised.”A speck, a smudge, but unmistakably tall, with tiered sails.  The spell had worked, had guided him true.Salazar stared over his shoulder, at the spot where he knew Carina was standing, the sea hitting her face, even though he couldn’t see her he knew she was there.  His heart swelled with emotion, and his gaze shifted to the oblivious, stupid, cowardly, terrible pirate that was the root of her pain.  The father who had failed her from the start.“I know,” he said, smiling nastily, the guard of his sword concealing most of his face, “I knew the entire time.  But you have a debt to pay for a woman on that ship. I have put it on the butcher’s bill, the child with sapphire eyes that you threw to the wolves.”Barbossa half turned, his eyes confused with a dawning understanding, and as his face slackened in horror, he whispered a half-forgotten name, “Carina.”“Carina.” Salazar’s eyes slid to red as his curse roared to life, and he held the syllables of her name in his mouth with an emotion that could be nothing but a deep, terrible love.Barbossa felt the sword press against him, firmer, the sharp tip parting his fine jacket.  He thought fast, and started talking, “Would you rob her of the opportunity to kill me herself?” He blurted out, and Salazar’s eyebrow raised, but he didn’t lower his sword.  “The girl-child, her mother died and I am what I am, unfit to be a parent at my best. I left her with a treasure, a gem she could sell or part to pay for an easier life, but if she has been reduced-”  Barbossa practically bit his tongue as Salazar swept his sword down, slamming it against the deck, and nearly pressed his forehead against Barbossa’s own sweat-slicked one.“She is not reduced, she is elevated.  She is the Madonna herself, delivered from on high, and none are worthy-”  He pulled back suddenly, frowning, his tone going thoughtful. Barbossa found his head reeling from the switch in temperament.  “Perhaps she should give the command to end your life, she is merciful enough that you may be allowed to live. She may be,” he paused, considering, “Upset.  If she finds that I have ended you before she got the opportunity to spit at your feet.”Barbossa let out a shaky breath, releasing the wheel, and Salazar came up casually to lay his hands upon it.  “La Maria,” he whispered, Barbossa forgotten, “Take me to her.”  They’d been sailing all night before they saw it.It had appeared as a small black blur on the horizon a mere half-hour before first light, when the Cap’n was chatting with the lady, the waves between it and the Gull making it disappear and reappear for some minutes before it became a solid, unshakeable mark on the azure sea.But now it was unmistakable: a ship. They were being followed by a ship, and it was gaining on them.“Strangest ship I ever saw,” Marty peered into the distance.Bollard snorted. “Surprised you can see anything, at your size!”Marty drew himself up to his fullest stature and puffed his chest out. “I ain’t never had anyone complain about my size!”Bollard huffed, before passing the eye-glass to Gibbs, who squinted steadily through it.“It ain’t got no sails,” Gibbs muttered. “Since when can a ship be coming on that fast without sails?”“An’ lookit them dark clouds,” Scrum breathed, pointing. “It’s like it’s bringing its own storm!”“It’s a devil ship,” Jib crossed himself fervently.Carina tried to ignore them all as she stood at the helm, one hand holding her book, eyes on the sky ahead, and one hand on the wheel. She knew who the ship belonged to. She could feel it.  She’d been feeling it, since just past sunrise, and it had pulled her up out of the scant hours of sleep she’d managed to get. She was exhausted, but the curse kept her awake. She’d come out of the cabin and smoothly taken over navigating, Jack easily stepping back and nimbly pulling his fingers away from hers.  She’d ignored him. Her face kept wanting to smile, but she’d mastered the art of schooling her expression ever since she’d left the Devil’s Triangle, and she would not let herself down now.Still, she couldn’t help it. She was excited.  Her half of the curse was waking up, straining, and she felt it start to slowly corrupt more living skin.He was near. He was coming for them.  Coming for her. She hurriedly stuffed her book back in her pocket, and for the first time, felt the compass.  She pulled it out and felt the heft of it in her palm, studying the poorly kept exterior. She tossed it up twice, listening to the mechanism move softly inside.“Do you know,” Jack’s voice drawled behind her, “what that does?”  He was always within eyesight of her lately, which wasn’t hard on a ship this size, but she got the feeling that she was being stalked.  That Jack was just waiting.  For what, she wasn’t sure, but the curse tingled nervously when she thought about it too closely.  Now that Salazar was so near, it was a full-on alarm.She rolled her eyes at him, “Based on your track record, it navigates to something with a surprise twist?  Does it only point towards…” she stared at it, shrugging, “Mermaids, or krakens, or other somesuch nonsense?  Rum, perhaps?” She examined it again, nearly overcome with the urge to open it. A scientist didn’t believe in magic, only unexplained phenomenon.  With enough dedication, rigorous testing, and time, a scientist could unravel any sort of ‘magic’ into a simple set of steps that could, theoretically, be reproduced by anyone.  Carina tried, desperately, to act like herself from before The Silent Mary and force any belief in magic out of her mind. Before she’d been charmed and marked by a dead man, she would have quipped such a thing back at him.  Now, she found the idea of mermaids and krakens not only plausible but probable, and faintly exciting.More things in Heaven and Earth.“It points toward the thing you desire most in this world,” he purred, suddenly much closer than before.  She sent him a flat, unamused gaze, which he responded to with a smile that exposed his golden tooth.“That,” she said with finality, “sounds like the worst compass I’ve ever heard of.”  She put it, pointedly, back in her pocket. Internally, she was buzzing. If she opened it, what would it point to?  The Trident? Captain Salazar? Her father? Something she couldn’t even bring herself to name? She found herself desperately not wanting to know.  She had a dread feeling that no matter what it pointed to, she was going to be disappointed. The curse purred up her spine, almost like the fingers of a ghost, and she kept her eyes on the horizon before her.She ignored Jack’s quiet, distrusting stare. “You seem pretty sure of yourself, Miss Smyth. But I can’t help noticing that you haven’t yet opened it…”  His stare became a sly grin. “Afraid of what you’ll find?"She threw him a nasty look, but didn’t respond.  Stupid, clever, annoying pirate. Grudgingly, she had to admit she was glad Sparrow was technically on her side, he was cagey with his own intelligence and she wouldn’t want to be matched against him in a fight.Jack opened his mouth to needle her further when a rough voice interrupted them."Jack.” It was Gibbs.Standing behind him was the entire crew of the Dying Gull, looking serious.  All of them had their arms crossed, and more than half of them looked on the angry side of serious."Gents," Jack said amiably. "I know what yer all thinkin' -"  He’d been so flippant about the ship earlier, when the crew had approached him about it, and Carina’s stomach started to sink.  It was about to backfire.“They're after ye," Gibbs said it flatly, and his eyes were hard. Jack stared back at him, unsurprised. "They're always after ye, Jack."Carina suddenly felt Salazar's voice in her ear, ‘Hola Mariposa.’  She felt his breath on the back of her neck, his hair brushing against her cheeks, before he vanished in the strong wind that swept over the deck.  Jack wasn't paying attention to her, but she watched as all the hair on his forearms stood to attention. He shook his hands absently, trying to dispel the sensation, and tore his eyes away from Gibbs for a moment, glaring at her.  She turned back to the wheel almost desperately, trying to ignore him.Jack swung back to the crew and scrunched up his nose. "What?""Jack, I be the first mate f'twenty years, an' anytime anythin' goes pear-shaped, it's always come back to ye being the cause of it..."  Gibbs wasn’t buying his ignorance, not for a second.Another shiver ran up Carina’s spine, sliding sideways and setting her curse alight, and she resisted the urge to turn and look at the ship behind them.  He was standing at the bow, she knew it, she felt it in her very bones, and he was staring, unblinking, at the Gull as it bobbed on the waves.  The image slammed its way into her mind, and she couldn’t shake it out.Sensing the change in the atmosphere onboard, Henry had come to stand next to Carina, a worried look on his face.  He’d avoided her after their ill-fated kiss, and she’d let him. This conversation got him over any lingering wistfulness that had tainted all of the glances he’d thrown her way, and she welcomed the distraction.“What’s going on?” he whispered to her.“Nothing good,” she murmured back, refusing to look.There was too much silence on deck, and then Jack sighed, "You're right, Mr. Gibbs. Most of the time, whatever supernatural danger there is, it's coming for me."  He gave an insincere smile and a short, mocking bow.Mr. Gibbs gestured silently at the smallboat, and Jack followed his hand with a shuttered expression.  He let his eyes land on the tiny boat before slowly turning his head back to his first mate."Are you suggestin', Mr Gibbs," Jack made a face, but his voice was smooth and dangerous, "A mutiny?""Aye," Gibbs was firm. "I am."Next to him, Bollard folded his meaty arms across his broad chest. "We all are, Jack.""What, all of you?" Jack looked at the handful of bedraggled pirates.  Underneath the disbelief in his voice, he sounded almost hurt, but Carina heard a note of fierce pride that surprised her."Aye," Pike nodded, brandishing his rusty, ill-kept cutlass. "I'm with Gibbs. Every time we've had trouble, it's always been your fault, Jack.""Has not!"  He insisted, indignant, and held up his hands as if to count the few instances where it had not been his fault.Marty disagreed, interrupting him. "Actually, it has."  Jack’s fingers slowly curled back into a loose fist that fell to his side."And, sorry t'say, Jack," Gibbs thought out loud, "But if that there ship over yonder," he nodded at the dark, foreboding mass sailing straight for them,  "Is comin' for us, then, it seems we should at least - lighten the load a little. For a cleaner getaway." His eyes softened, and he murmured, “This is one fight looks like we can’t win, Jack.  I have t’ think of the men.”"Rubbish!" Jack exclaimed, ignoring the last half of Gibb’s speech. "There's plenty onboard this ship we could throw overboard before you have to start thinkin' of mutiny..."  Carina could practically hear the gears of his mind whirring, trying to find a loophole, a way to negotiate anything that would turn this more to his favor."Like what?" Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "Ye mean, like the rum, Jack?"Jack blanched and stumbled slightly backward.  That was, evidently, not where he’d hoped their minds would go."Hear, hear," Bollard grinned nastily. "There's a lotta rum on this tub, could definitely lighten the load if we put it over the side..."  There was a ripple of agreement and light laughter through the rest of the crew."Absolutely not!" Jack said abruptly, shaking his head sharply and slicing his hand through the air. "There'll be no rum-tossin' of any kind!"  He crossed his arms and tilted his head back authoritatively."Well," Gibbs said, unaffected by Jack’s posture, "That's the choice, Jack. The rum- or you."Jack froze, eyes roving wildly over the crew.  He found no sympathy, no friendly face. His eyebrow twitched, and he slowly lowered his arms."Might I- suggest..." Jack said, tilting his head charmingly, "That perhaps... in light of yer Captain's volunteering... that you might... at least let him leave - with the rum...?"Gibbs sighed and gave him a sad smile, "No, Jack.  Not the rum. But you can take your wards." He gestured at Henry and Carina.  "We don't know the lad or the lady, and both of them are on this crazy quest, same as you.  They go. Odds are that ship might be after one of them as much as it might be you."Henry scoffed immediately.But Jack... Jack's eyes lit on Carina, and she was held too still, her face too smooth, for that to be anything but true. Something about that ship was pulsing for her.  She hadn't removed any part of her costume except to show him her injured leg, but he knew, he knew that there was dark magic on her.   Something that tied her back to the thundercloud of a warship coming up on them fast.  "Alright," Jack said, lowly, his change in mood immediate. The crew shuffled in suspicion, but nobody wanted to move and have him change his mind.Never let it be said that Jack had done nothing for his crew.Carina didn't protest, didn't say a word as she was hurried from the wheel into the smallboat at swordpoint.  She refused to look at the darkening horizon behind them, and couldn't look any of the crew in the eye. The compass pressed against her thigh, and the journal burned in her second pocket, the rough edges of the gem stabbing through the thick layers to dig into her muscle painfully.  She kept her hands clasped together in her lap, as though to prevent herself from doing something she ought.'Where is it,' Jack wanted to say, 'Where is the magic you're trying so hard to not touch?'  His own hand remembered a roiling black spot, bisecting his lifeline, and he fought to control the urge to scrub it on his pants.  That curse was done, the spot gone, but the feeling would always linger. He sat next to her, pressing against her side through the skirts and listing the boat back.  He put his long legs up, adding more weight to the middle of the boat. Carina frowned.Henry, however, refused to join them.  He crossed his arms and widened his stance.  “I paid,” he said stubbornly, eyes narrow, “for safe passage to the Trident.  This is- Carina, are we even halfway?”Into her clasped hands, she muttered, “If I had my chronometer, I could tell you.  As it is… I can’t calculate it. Perhaps halfway, perhaps less.”Gibbs, to the hisses of the crew, grabbed a leather pouch from his belt and threw it Henry’s face.  His face was serious, and he said, “Take yer coin and get into the boat.” Marty spit on the deck, angrily, and Gibbs spun around, glaring at each of the men in turn, “There will be more treasure, lads, but yeh have but one life!  I don’t want to fight whatever commands that,” and he jabbed one thick finger at the ship coming up on them fast, his accent going rough, “and I dinna’ think any of yeh do either!”Nobody moved for a second, then half of the men pulled their weapons; cutlass, sword, and pistol, and as one, they all pointed the business ends at Henry.  He put his hands up into the air and slowly stomped his way to the little boat.He sat sullenly in the rower’s seat on the smallboat, the coins clinking from where he’d hastily tied the bag to his waist, and Gibbs cut the line that held them to the Gull.  They were released without a parting word, just a bunch of solemn faces that watched them get sucked away by the current.Henry rowed in silence, sharp, angry strokes, and Carina stayed staring at her hands.  They were navigating for a little island on the horizon, and the Silent Mary had subtly shifted in her course to follow them.Henry had fine, strong muscles, Carina acknowledged, and their little boat could slice through the waves quickly, but the Mary was propelled by hatred and sorcery.  She was gaining on them. Carina could feel it. She fluttered her eyes closed for a minute, just a minute, to feel the collapsed tunnel of the connection. She prodded at the edges, and it felt… alive.  Still closed, and she couldn’t feel any direct thoughts, more impressions, and emotions, but it was more than she’d felt for days. The way he’d spoken to her on the deck of the Gull… Her eyes opened again, and she realized her hands were clenched tight enough that her knuckles had turned white.Movement caught in her peripheral, and when she glanced up, Jack was watching her.  His eyes shifted, deliberately, over her shoulder, and she turned slightly, looking behind her at the dark, angry mass coming toward them.A shiver went through her.He was there.   Salazar stood at the wheel, unblinking, as La Maria shifted under him.Lieutenant Lesaro and Office Magda exchanged a glance, a wordless conversation passing between them, before the doctor slowly approached.  “Capitán, would you like to use the eye-glass?” He held it up, but Salazar didn’t even look at him. He shook his head once, sharply. Lesaro came up quietly, to stand next to Magda.“I do not need to see,” he murmured, his attention mostly inward.  His eyes were dreamy and unfocused, but fixed in the direction of the little boat bobbing in the waves.  He was trying to prise open the connection between himself and his Mariposa, he could feel Sparrow sitting near her, but he wanted to do more than just feel.  He wanted to reach out through the curse, command her arm, and crush his throat.  They would never see it coming, and he would close her eyes so she didn’t have to see, he would spare her that, but he just needed to break through...He snarled as the curse fought him, pushing his attention back and away, and he let go of the wheel, bile dripping down his chin.  La Maria didn’t need his guidance, their course was clear.He held in his mind the memory of Carina’s neck, soft under his fingertips.  Her eyes, bright blue even in the dim light of the Triangle, looking at him in earnest while she held his name between her plush lips.  The taste of her blood in his mouth and his curse under her skin. He would have her, he decided, that very night, if she was well enough.  Her dream came to the forefront of his mind, and he shuddered slowly. Every minute she was away from him, out of his protection, was a minute another person could be trying to kill her.  Sparrow, his own murderer, was in the same space as her, too close. He could reach out and slit her throat- Trying to get the curse to relent was taking too long.  He needed to move faster.He slid his clear yellow gaze to Lesaro, narrowing his eyes, and murmured, “Drop them.”Lesaro allowed himself to be visibly taken aback for a moment, but only a moment, before cautiously asking, “With La Mariposa in the water as well?  Are you sure-” Magda, at his side, stood straighter.“Drop them!” Salazar roared again, slamming a pattern into the deck with his sword, and the ship groaned under him.  His men moved, only Lesaro standing still on the deck. A handful of men started to gather the pirates, moving them all back and keeping their swords on them, and the rest ran to the hold.Where the sharks were kept.Lesaro set his mouth in a firm, unhappy line as Magda joined the rush, and kept his eye on the busted back of Salazar’s head as he followed the progress of the men through the floorboards.Beneath, it was all frantic energy and organized chaos as everyone rushed to free the sharks from their confines.Barely audible over the noise, Lesaro murmured, “What if she drowns, Armando?”He noticed the way the other man’s shoulders hunched and he pressed again, “What happens if they miss the Sparrow and injure her instead?”Salazar’s head turned toward him fractionally, “They won’t.”  He said it confidently, “I will tell them to avoid her.” He turned more of his body to face his Lieutenant.“And if the Sparrow throws her in front of himself?  If the boy slips and she falls? What will you do?” Lesaro’s eye slid between yellow and copper, and he looked like he already knew the answer.  He didn’t need to wait for a reply. “You will send them out anyway. You would risk injury, even a fatality, to her, just so you might have a Sparrow.  So you might have revenge.”Below them, they faintly heard Antonio exclaim with disgust, and the rest of the crew laughed at him.  Salazar’s face creased in annoyance and he slammed his sword down. One of the boards near him obligingly peeled back, and Salazar looked down at his men with a raised eyebrow.There were instantly muttered apologies and promises of respect before they quieted and started carefully carrying the corpses to the starboard side gunports, as more of his crew pulled back corroded, barnacle-encrusted canons.  La Maria groaned around them, and they felt her flutter the ribs of her hull nervously.  Salazar had tied the sharks directly to her power, infused with his own control, and over time, the ship had come to dote on them.  She’d gone so far as to prod him every three or four years to toss them into the water and let them exercise for a few months, swimming through the deep.  This would be their first time being off the ship since they’d been released from the Triangle, and Salazar felt La Maria’s worry deep in his rotting bones.He reached with one hand to run it along the nearest railing affectionately, “I will be gentle with your children,” he said fondly, and Lesaro pursed his lips.“It would be safer not to send them out at all!”  He placed his own hand on the railing, and Salazar fixed his quickly-reddening eyes on his Lieutenant.  The heard the lids slam shut below, and the men exclaiming softly in surprise. There was a fleshy thump as one of the sharks was dropped.  “It would be safer to simply run them down! La Maria Silenciosa has the speed and the power to easily take the smallboat.”The ship purred beneath his touch.Salazar honestly couldn’t believe it.  La Maria had never, never, listened to another as she was listening to Lesaro.  After his Mariposa was safe in his cabin, sated and sleeping in his bed, he was going to find Lesaro and they were going to have a little chat about rank.  If he had to, he would remind him with the point of his sword and the threat of dry land.For now, there was no time.He pulled all of his power up and shoved it into the Mary, overriding her sentience and slamming the lids of the gunports back up.  She slid uneasily against him, pulling between him and his Lieutenant, and he forced her back to his side in a display made stronger by annoyance.  “I am the Capitán. La Maria listens to me.” He said it softly, but with a force that would have made the Lesaro of forty years ago back down. Should have made the one before him back down.  All this Lesaro did now was frown deeply and tighten his grip on the railing.After a minute, he released the damp wood and turned his eyes back to the small smudge of smallboat before them.Salazar struck his sword three times against the deck, and immediately was rewarded by three splashes as the shark cadavers hit the water.La Maria keened against him, anxious about leaving them behind as she cut through the seafoam.Salazar leaned over the edge, batting away the curious beak of one of the undead seabirds that plagued him day in and day out.  He waited a heartbeat, then two, trying again to force his way into Carina’s half of the connection. It fought him still, and he ground his teeth in frustration.“Kill the Sparrow,” he rasped, finally, “But do not harm my Mariposa.”He felt the curse sink into the corpses, their eyes flashing open, and he closed his own in bliss.Salazar felt them orient themselves below the waves, and followed their forward progress until he was pressed up against the bow.  He opened and kept his eyes forward, but heard one of the ruddy-cheeked pirates behind him whisper, “Oh, that’s not good, is it?” He couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face, black blood dripping down.Lesaro turned on his heel and stalked down below deck.  “He is out of his mind,” Lesaro hissed, holding tightly to Magda’s sleeve.  “He is willing to risk her death to reach Sparrow.”He’d caught Magda round the wrist in the hold and now, they were sequestered in an old storage room that was full of crates of rum, and the two of them barely fit.  A small book of poetry, slightly singed and marked with a scrap of uniform, told them that Santos had recently roosted here. He would probably be returning soon, seeking an escape from the excitement and energy of the crew.He hadn’t thought past ‘Salazar is going to kill her’ before going to the only other member of the crew who had spent any amount of time around her.  Magda. The doctor had lanced her wounds and seen her bravery, seen the moment Salazar’s interest piqued, witnessed him display a shocking amount of vulnerability.  The doctor had gotten to know her better than Lesaro, and was maybe the only other person on the ship who wanted to keep her alive and keep the curse at bay. Maybe the only person who really understood what she meant to Salazar.“We have to take her,” Magda looked surprised as he said it, the words coming out without his permission, but then he looked determined and repeated, “We have to get her away before he can do anything to her.  As soon as he gives the command to go to the island. We find some excuse to take her and get away from the Mary before he can notice.”“If she lives that long,” he responded shortly, his lips pressed tightly together after.  They were talking about treason.  Mutiny.  Guillermo Lesaro was a loyal son of Spain, an upstanding member of the Armada, a Lieutenant…  But what would that mean if he sat by and did nothing while an innocent woman was killed as a result of Salazar’s lack of control?For a moment, he saw Carina’s hair flying over her face in the breeze as she’d fled the Triangle, dark curls against pale skin, wind-whipped and tangled.  Her blood bright on her pale neck, the only thing he’d been able to see from his vantage point on the Mary.His mind took him to another place, another brilliant young woman, little Estella, with dark hair that flew in the sea salt air as he held her while she cried.  Her blood… her blood hadn’t been on her neck, but its origins had been just as violent. He couldn’t see the same happening to Carina that happened to his little sister.  The violence. The brutality. He shook himself of his thoughts, he hadn’t dredged that memory up for years, and looked over at the doctor.Miguel didn’t say anything, and Lesaro continued, almost desperately trying to convince himself, “She can’t stay here, she can’t stay with him.  He’ll kill her, one way or another, he’ll ruin her.  He’s a beast we can’t put down, so we have to get her out of his jaws.”  He ran one hand down his face and stared out at the sea through the gaps in the planks.Magda reached his own fingers out in a comforting gesture, “I have felt the same,” he murmured, as quietly as he could, and his voice had steel in it when he said, “Together, we can free her.  We’ll have to think on our feet, but it is possible. I took an oath, Gui, ‘do no harm’, as it is commonly paraphrased, but the truer teaching is ‘if you cannot help, do not hurt’. If I don’t participate in her removal, I would be placing her in harm’s path.”Lesaro met his eyes and they exchanged a look of solemn solidarity.“But,” Magda said quickly, “How are we going to-”He never finished his thought, as the once-sleek bodies of the sharks raced back through the water and Salazar screamed.  In the smallboat, Carina laid amongst the floorboards and tried not to sob.First, it had been a mere brush against the underside of the boat.  An inquisitive bump right under Jack. Then a slightly harder one, under Henry.  He’d stood up, oar in hand, and spread his legs to keep his balance while he looked over the lip of the boat.An undead shark had shot up, completely vertical, holes through its torso and how could it even move like that, and tried to take his head off.  He’d fallen over at the same time as another shark had come up to bite his legs, but got a chunk of the curved side planks instead.  Henry had fallen on top of her, his sharp elbow hitting her right in the solar plexus, and the back of his head had impacted with her nose.  There’d been a soft crunch and a blinding agony that instantly filled her eyes with tears.He’d tried to throw himself sideways, onto Jack, who’s flailing arm had knocked her over, and she’d bent at the waist and there was a very distinct snap as the possibility of fractured ribs turned into the certainty of a break.  She felt them move, the edges of bone catching on something with too many nerve endings under her skin and stabbing in blinding agony.She’d instantly curled into a ball at the bottom of the smallboat, covered her face with her hands, and breathed in as deep as she could bear through her mouth in an attempt to stifle her cries.Maybe it was their proximity, maybe it was his attention, maybe it was something else, but for all that Salazar had never reacted to her pain before, this time she felt his concern and anger through the connection like a wave come to drown her.  His scream echoed across the water, and the sharks had disappeared instantly, barely a ripple on the surface as they swam back to the ominous ship coming upon them.“Carina, God, Carina, I’m so sorry, I’m-” Henry’s voice was strained, and he reached down to grab her arms and haul her upright.  Jack positioned himself to counterbalance their movements and slowly moved to the rower’s seat. He took up the oars silently.She couldn’t talk to reassure him, she couldn’t do anything but close her eyes and try to manage the pain as she sat upright.  She couldn’t draw in a deep breath, and everything hurt. Her hands were still cupped over her face, the pads of her fingertips pressed into her eye sockets, and she allowed Henry to support her.  His words became a drone in the back of her head as Salazar slammed himself against the block in their bond, his emotions breaking it like fractures in a dam. It was so much, too much, she couldn’t hear herself think- At the first peal of thunder, the crack of lightning, her eyes flew open.  The storm that had been tightly coupled to the Mary had unfurled and was racing toward them faster than the ship itself was.  The rain sluiced down in thick, heavy sheets, and a wind came up, strong and fierce, whipping her cheeks with sea spray. It was on them within half a minute.The water had been calm before, little swells that had them bobbing up and down lazily.  It hadn’t helped or hurt their forward progress to the land and had honestly been rather pretty.  If she hadn’t been tense with pain and anticipation, it would have been quite relaxing.The change had been almost instant, the Mary cresting the suddenly huge waves that came up, her ribs fluttering, reaching, grasping for her.  She saw the little figures of the crew leap off and land on the surface, using the momentum of the water to throw themselves forward in great arcs.  The tiny smallboat was being pushed toward land, faster than they could row, and she was struck by a thought, ‘Wouldn’t it have been faster to pull us in the other direction?’Jack held the oars and didn’t look at all surprised by the men racing through the seafoam.  If anything, his eyes were flicking between her and the hulking figure of Captain Salazar, at the head of the group, sword held aloft, as though he expected her to turn on them, or throw herself from the boat.  Henry was too busy trying to hold her steady, arms wrapped around her shoulders, to look back.Then she didn’t think anything at all as a swell that seemed greater than the tallest building on Saint Martin lifted them on high and threw the boat vengefully down into the shallows.  “You know,” Jack said conversationally from the beach, the rain having stopped to a chilly pitter patter almost as soon as the boat had crashed, “People and... other things keep trying to kill me.  It never seems to stick.” Carina picked up on the note of bitter disappointment in his voice. His shirt gaped open, revealing a treasure map of scars as he laid out like a starfish. The clouds started to break apart, the storm went as soon as it had come, and bright rays of light burst through.  There were still waves, but none as large as before and the worst of them were avoiding her.Henry flopped over on the wet sand, covering his face with his forearm.  The crash had dislodged her from his arms, and she was grimly thankful. If Salazar had come, finding her in the clutch of another man… she’d never be in love with Henry, but she’d never wish him harm.  And Salazar would harm him.  Especially, she thought, if he ripped the memory of the back of Henry’s head causing the bloody mess of her face out of her brain.Carina stared at the beach with trepidation through the haze of pain from their violent landing.  She’d been lucky enough to land on her back in the water instead of on the dry sand like the rest of them.  The curse had spread so far. Too far, really, and even though she’d been at sea for only a night and half a day, something in her blood was humming at her to not step foot on dry land.  Her green skirts, ratted as they were, were heavy with sea water. If she tried to swim away, would she drown? Would it matter? Could she even die? She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think about anything, just wanted to lay in the surf and wait, but she couldn’t.  She forced herself up to stand upright, ankle deep in the tide, surrounded by the wreckage of the little lifeboat, the water caressing her feet and trying to draw her back deeper. She’d lost her shoes, she realized. Even though she was standing, her face was wet. When she wiped the sleeve of her forearm against her lower face, it came away dark with coagulating blood.  As she brushed her nose, and she winced from the tenderness.‘If Salazar sees this, Henry is a dead man,’ was her first thought.She heard soft, watery footsteps behind her, and turned to see the entire crew of The Silent Mary approaching. They were walking on the water, their captain at the head of the group.  The waves smoothed out wherever they touched, the effect rippling out across the shallows. She recognized a few of them, Miguel and Lieutenant Lesaro, Officer Santos off to the side. Miguel saw her first, his eyes got wider, and he nudged Lesaro, but they did not break their tight formation.  She saw his eyes jump professionally over her form and the way his face got dark when he saw her face, which must have looked awful, but it faded to strained when he picked out the bloodstains on her dress. ‘Help me,’ is what she wanted to say, but Henry was there, and Jack, so she didn’t say anything at all.  She blinked, instead, slowly, and wavered on her feet.“Jack Sparrow,” sang Captain Salazar, his eyes for the pirate only, “Jack Spaaaarrow.”  He drew out the ‘a’ and tilted his head as he crooned, black blood flowing down his chin.  He didn’t even look in Carina’s direction. She couldn’t feel him through the curse at all.  He might as well have been a million miles away. The change was so sudden from even ten minutes ago when he’d been trying to pry their connection open that she was caught off guard.  His eyes were vermillion, and the longer she looked at him, the more she… felt the curse controlling him. It… whispered. She felt a push from the curse on her side, and it felt like a warning. Don’t distract him. “Do I know you, Spanish?” Jack asked belligerently, swishing his rum in the bottle thoughtfully.  He sat up, resting his forearms on his knees. His eyes were hooded and dark, confident in the safety of the beach.  ‘He knows,’ she thought dimly, ‘he knows the dead can’t step on dry land. How?’ Even if it was damp from the rain, the sand wasn’t soaked with seawater.  It would be dry in a matter of minutes as the dark clouds receded back to the Mary.“You do,” he smiled terribly, inching closer to the land, the tip of his sabre sinking into the shallows.  “We have a history, you and I.”“I once knew a Spaniard named… something in Spanish.”  Jack took a heavy swallow from the bottle, continuing to stare at the sky even as he lowered his hand to his knee again.  “Can’t remember how, though.” He tilted his head thoughtfully, watching a gull soar far above them. A live one, though one of the dead ones from the Mary came circling and snapped at it.  Jack frowned.Captain Salazar stared at him silently, completely still, for far too many heartbeats.  “You know who I am,” he said with a confidence Carina knew right away he didn’t feel. Jack Sparrow was not what he expected, not terrified, not even worried, and the years he’d spent hyper-focused on the sea rat were crumbling around him.  His emotions swelled up through their bond, and for a moment, she was overwhelmed, his thoughts superimposing over hers until she couldn’t think of anything but Jack Sparrow.  She swayed, and shook her head almost violently to clear it.Jack peered at him, sharp black eyes searching his features, lingering on the half of his head that wasn’t there, before shrugging elegantly, "Sorry mate, can't say I do."  He sniffed and stared down at his bottle, supremely unconcerned, muttering a quiet, “Why is the rum always gone?”  For all intents and purposes, he’d dismissed Salazar and his crew.  Not even worth a second thought. He turned those dark eyes to Carina, and she met them with only a little trepidation.  He flicked his eyes to her feet, then to the beach, and a knowing grin started to slide over his face. She fought to keep her toes from curling into the wet sand.He turned to Salazar again, slowly, starting at his boots before sliding his gaze up the rest of him.  Salazar still didn’t acknowledge Carina, his eyes burning red and riveted to the relaxed pirate. Jack tilted his head and squinted, "Wait, did you always have the..." he gestured to the side of his skull."That is your doing!” He snarled, “You are the cause of this curse!"  Black blood dripped irritatingly down his chin, and he shook his head sharply to fling the excess off.  He took another step closer. "You sent me and my crew into the Devil's Triangle, you cursed me and I am here for my revenge!"Sparrow gave him a humorless grin before holding his shirt open to reveal a scarred, tattooed, scrawny, tanned torso.  "Go ahead and try, mate, I'm sure I've done you wrong at some point, even if this story seems a little far fetched. I’ve known plenty of magic in my time, and never cursed no one, and never sent no ship of Spaniards into a triangle.  What did you say your name was?"Captain Salazar was speechless.Was he being played for a fool?The inkling that Jack had moved on, living his life so voraciously, that the mere idea of Captain Armando Salazar had been stripped right out of his memory was beyond devastating.  Jack was the worst thing to ever have happened to him, and Salazar himself wasn’t even a footnote in the man’s story.Jack sauntered closer to the edge of the shore, uncaring of Salazar’s introspection, arms held open, "You want your revenge?  Come and get it." His smile was hard and his eyes unfriendly. He took another hard swallow of rum, most of it spilling down his chin.  His gait listed to the side as he did so, but as his head straightened out he corrected his sloppy course. His limbs were long and loose, moving like they weren’t quite connected to his brain.  Carina froze, suddenly sharply aware of the danger Jack was putting himself in, and also how... She felt like she was seeing something very private, a man at his lowest, and she became incredibly uncomfortable.  She averted her eyes for a moment before steeling herself. Jack couldn’t know the mortal peril he was walking into, and if she closed her eyes, she’d never be able to anticipate the moment Salazar would strike and… what would she do?  Fling herself in front of him? Shove him back onto the beach? What if he grabbed her and pulled her with him? She wasn’t sure what the consequences were for one of the cursed men going onto dry land, but the way her curse felt at the mere thought made her determined to avoid it.Jack stepped closer, his boots sinking into the soft sand. "What're you waiting for, mate?  Can't step on land? That’s how these things always work."  He strode out into the water, voice uncaring, taking another swig from the bottle, draining the last drops.  "Here, let me help."Carina moved quicker than she should have been able to, the pain fading beneath her concern, compelled to try and stop his suicide.  She held up her wet skirts, "Jack," she called, her voice distorted by her tender, swollen nasal cavities, "What are you doing?" She didn’t like him, not really, but she also couldn’t stand by while he essentially marched to his death a few paces from her.  At the sound of her voice, Salazar’s head snapped her direction, and she felt the connection flare to life. The message he sent was clear, ‘Don’t interfere, Mariposa,’ but then he looked at her face and froze.  She felt the stirrings of a great rage in him, intertwined with sharp grief, but he was distracted and she darted forward.  Her leg, ribs and back protested violently, but she shoved the pain back. Four long, clumsy strides and she was close enough that she could almost shove Jack back onto the beach.He gave a harsh bark of laughter, throwing out one arm and catching Carina around the neck as soon as she was within arm’s length.  He held her firm, with a strength belied by his lithe frame. He watching the fury build on Salazar's face, lips curling into a significant smile.Carina paused, her face going white and feeling suddenly faint from fear.  He knew.  He must have known about the curse, the connection, to know to grab her and touch her right on top of the mark.  But how?  She’d never mentioned ghosts, never mentioned magic or curses, hadn’t even told her story of how she came to be hidden in the nunnery.She closed her eyes for a moment, memory returning to her in a rush.  Of course. His reaction that first night on the Gull, when he’d touched the curse mark, that hadn’t been normal. And Jack was, by his own vague admission, heavily familiar with curses and magic and the residue they left behind.  His stares and hesitancy to touch her, his suspicion of her actions, the way he danced around her, it all suddenly fell into place.  The way he watched her.  He hadn’t known, but he suspected, and that was enough for him to do what he’d done and be right.His arm pressed down over the bite, and she flinched back.  Salazar’s power sat under her skin, practically crackling with energy.  "What do you say, mate?" He whispered, throwing the empty bottle into the surf and pulling out his pistol.  "If I shoot her in the head, do you think she'll die?" One of Jack's fingers on her neck hooked into the high collar of her dress, where she’d touched when she was bathing in his cabin and pulled it down just enough to expose the spreading mark of the curse.  One long crack crept up, the skin around it dull and grey. She didn’t feel anything but a faint pressure. Captain Salazar’s eyes didn’t move from the other man’s face, the only indication that he’d heard him the fact that his eyes were quickly shifting from bright red to dark, deadly ruby.  "Or would I just give her a matching-" he gestured at her head, wiggling his fingers to indicate the sediment that floated around Salazar's own skull. Carina stood stock still, shocked. She’d known Jack was a pirate, she’d known what that meant, but to threaten her life?  With a weapon in his hand?She hadn’t seen this coming at all.For all of her bravado before, she was stuck in a state of frightened stillness now.She’d never really trusted him with information, but she had trusted him to not try and kill her.  To not treat her life as a bargaining chip, as part of a game to taunt Captain Salazar, like a dirty secret to expose to all and sundry.What a fool she was.Henry was facing Jack's back, too far away to see, too far away to hear properly over the tide, but as Jack pressed the barrel of the pistol to her temple, she heard something that might have been commands to let her go.  He ran forward, she could hear his steps in the sand, and she squeezed her eyes closed.‘Don’t let him see me like this,’ was her first thought, despair welling up inside of her.  She’d kept the nature of her affliction hidden this entire time, to have her broken flesh exposed for anyone to see… for Henry to see… She liked him.  Maybe she’d never be what she knew he wanted her to be, maybe she’d never have a chance with a fairly normal boy her own young age, with a whole head and hands that were warm instead of the cold of a corpse, but she could pretend.  She could have his respect, something she’d craved since she was a child.  For him to see her true nature, what she’d become since her time on the Mary, he’d recoil in frightened disgust.  She knew it, and she couldn’t bear to see it. She struggled for a moment, trying to pull away. Jack tapped her temple sharply with his gun, a warning“Tell Henry to stay where he is,” she whispered, her voice for Jack’s ears alone.  Her tone was high and desperate.“You,” he hissed back, “are in no position to make any sort of demand.  If the young Turner sees the object of his affection is half dead…” He let his voice trail off.  Captain Salazar’s eyes were bouncing between them, unable to hear their conversation and very clearly not happy about it.  His eyes, however, strayed back to the gun at her head and narrowed.Captain Salazar's face was... it was... it was terrifying.  She'd never seen him look like this, his eyes glowing scarlet and flicking between her face and Jack's leer.  She shut her mouth and swallowed. This wasn’t love, wasn’t anything good or healthy, it was rage and possession, and she felt his searing anger through the mark.  “If I slit your throat,” he said to Jack slowly, his voice lower than she’d ever heard it, full of dark promise and thicker accent, “will you die, Sparrow?”  He took one soft step forward.“Easy, Spanish,” He slid the gun from her temple to the soft spot right behind her jaw, letting the barrel dig in.  “Unless you think you’re faster than a bullet.” Salazar stopped, completely still, his eyes locking onto Carina’s and promising that, later, she would be answering a lot of questions.  But only when she was safe, in his arms. She blinked rapidly, trying to rid the tears that were gathering at the corners of her eyes. This was absolutely not a time to start crying.Jack hummed, hand moving from the edge of her collar to the center seam of it.  With one quick movement that produced an angry, possessive hiss from Salazar and a deep breath from Carina, he ripped the tidy stitches free.  She closed her eyes, grimacing, completely unwilling to see the reactions of the crew, of Salazar, of Jack, of Henry..."It's a love bite," he said, his smile not at all amused, his eyes dark and cruel.  "I knew there was something off, something wrong about her. Been around enough magic, enough curses, they always leave a trace that calls when something of the like is nearby.  I always wanted to peek under here," and he demonstrated by tearing the rest of the high collar off of her dress, exposing the neat ring of marks left in her skin, the curse having ruined everything else around it, "and those, oddly enough, look like they were left by your teeth, Spaniard."  Henry was behind them, out of the surf, and he’d made a shocked, angry yell as he saw just a bit of the ruin of her throat from around Jack.  He couldn’t have heard Jack’s comment, but the wound must have looked vicious. He dropped the stained white fabric into the surf with a soft splash.Carina forced herself to open her eyes, taking in the reaction of those within her range of vision.  She found Lieutenant Lesaro, who had made a sharp, furious sound, Miguel next to him, a few other ghosts who’s faces looked a little familiar.  None of them looked happy, and all of them were stunned. Their eyes were on her curse, Salazar’s bite, and their expressions shifted to varying degrees of disappointment, shock, betrayal, and anger.  Lesaro and Miguel both shot hostile, ugly looks at Salazar’s back, and Miguel gave her one short, sharp nod that let her know that she had at least one person on her side. She didn’t smile, she couldn’t, but she blinked rapidly and dipped her head a fraction of an inch.Captain Salazar closed his lips and narrowed his eyes, stance firm and the grip on his sabre steady.  His hair floated, untouched by the wind or the pattern of the water. Apart from the natural, living world.  She studied him for a moment, and he didn’t react any further to her exposed wound. He didn’t even seem surprised at how far it had spread.  She didn’t have the time or the courage to try and pry their connection back open.Jack’s fingers caressed the edge of her bite wound, and she flinched.Lieutenant Lesaro had to physically restrain Officer Magda, who had started to move forward, muttering rough threats in his childhood dialect, shoving him to the back of the formation.  The rest of the men roiled around him, eager to feel Sparrow’s skin part under their blades. Lieutenant Lesaro, however, felt the dramatic urge to stab Capitan Salazar through the neck.  He held his rapier tighter and made a slashing motion with his free hand. The men fell back into a slightly more organized formation.Jack pressed his nose to her temple suddenly, next to the pistol, the whole of his body leaning into her, "Was he worth it, darling?"  His sour breath smelled of rum and despair, and his voice was slightly slurred. Carina tried to pull away, and he clucked his tongue in disappointment.  "What does it even look like, I can't imagine."“You will unhand her,” Captain Salazar commanded suddenly, bringing up his sword into an automatic offensive stance.  He threw a burst of power through their connection, attempting to destroy Jack Sparrow where his hand laid on her bare skin.Jack laughed, slapping his hand back down over her shoulder and caressing it in a way that made Captain Salazar’s eyes turn black.  “That doesn’t work, mate.  I’ve got too much in me already, you think a little shock is going to do anything but tickle? ”The pirate turned his attention back to her ear, genuine interest in his voice, "Did you really?  With him?" He nibbled the soft skin of her lobe and hissed, "Horologist indeed." He ignored her indignant squeak, one finger pushing her jaw back up when she tried to open her mouth.  She felt Salazar’s insane rage building through the connection, unbidden, and was completely sure he would have wrenched Jack’s head off his shoulders with his bare hands if given the opportunity.  His eyes were slowly starting to brighten like hellfire, licking red and orange. “Now now, love, no need for you to speak. This is going to end for you, one way or another.” Another kiss, this one to the edge of her cheekbone.  The long braids of his beard tickled her neck, and her lip curled. “You can’t live and be dead at the same time,” his voice filled with something, a thick regret, and he murmured, “Believe me, I’ve tried it.” She wanted to hit him and hear more at the same time, suddenly seeing her future in a moment of clarity.  The despair coloring his voice, the reckless actions with the surety he would live to see another day, the complete lack of care for his consequences, she could see herself in him if she didn’t break this curse. Men weren’t meant to last forever.Captain Salazar’s eyes danced along the familiarity, the intimacy, of his touch, before giving a deep, inhuman roar and charging.  Jack displayed no fear, no worry, his eyes bright with the enjoyment of the game and eager anticipation of death in battle.  Corroded iron blade raised, Salazar moved the few feet between them with a speed Carina hadn’t honestly known he possessed. He was too fast for her to do more than let out a shuddering breath and blink.“Are you going to get me through the girl?” Jack yelled back, voice hard and rough, moving Carina directly in front of Captain Salazar’s sword.  He stopped, less than a handspan from them, the point pressed against Carina’s breast. The fabric of her dress split ever so slightly, the blade parting the threads with ease, but stopped short of breaking the thin skin above her heart.  Jack looked manically between them, daring Salazar to spear them together with his blade. “How dead do you want her to be, Spanish?” he whispered, only for their ears alone. He dug the pistol uncomfortably into her jaw, the nerve tingling, his finger resting on the trigger.  She stared at Captain Salazar, and she wasn’t sure what he saw in her face, but his expression wavered for only a moment.Internally, he was remembering the cave.  His hallucination overlaid by real life. It had been this exact situation, and he already knew he couldn’t kill her.  The curse, in his head, whispered that she was already half taken. If he could go through any cursed expanse of skin, he could get Jack with hardly any damage to Carina.  Do it, the curse hissed forcefully, and he had to use all of his will to keep his hand from continuing it's course.“She’s soft,” Jack hissed, pressing his fingertips into her flesh to demonstrate, “It’ll be like cutting through butter.”   Taunting him.  Touching her. He could feel her fear and disgust mingling through the connection.Captain Salazar removed the point, stabbing it deep into the wet sand.Jack made a noise of disappointment.“You go too far, and forget I am El Matador Del Mar,” he murmured.  He straightened his spine as much as he could.There was a heavy silence before Jack’s eyes lit up in recognition, “Oh, it’s you!  I’d forgotten all about you, assumed you were dead.”  He stared at the rotting, charred uniform, the floating hair, the missing bits of him, “Well, I wasn’t wrong, was I?”Carina then decided to do something very, very foolish.  Jack’s hold had loosened in his surprise and sudden interest in Captain Salazar, and she knew, instantly, that this opportunity wouldn’t last.  Consequences be damned, but she had to move. She reached out and grabbed Salazar’s sword from where it was listing in the soft sand, wrenching out of Jack’s grasp and spinning to face him.  She stood between Captain Salazar and Sparrow, sword leveled at his scarred chest. Carina heard Salazar’s surprised wheezing behind her but ignored it.  She felt a lot of things right now, and none of them were good for anyone standing within five feet of her. If she swayed on her feet, she hoped nobody noticed.  Her ribs were screaming, and the curse was overtaking her injured flesh, she could feel it, she could feel her body dying all around her and she couldn't spare a moment of attention for it.She narrowed her eyes, even as Jack’s took on a delighted glitter.“Go back to the shore,” she hissed, ignoring the rumble of displeasure behind her.He raised the pistol and pointed it at her head.  “You’ve raised a sword against me, girl. Are you prepared to be the last to die?”  His face was manic, delighted, and Carina realized, for the first time, how deep his deathwish really went.He walked forward, forcing the point of the sword up into the soft underside of his jaw.  He lowered the barrel of his pistol to her abdomen. If he shot her there, it wouldn’t be fatal.  At least, not instantly. Her mind flew back to Saint Martin, the innards leaking out of a madman, who’d screamed until she’d sliced his own shiny blade against his throat.  It had been nothing but gurgles and escaping air after that. It still felt far away, but she could recall all of the details with piercing clarity. That had happened… two days ago?  Four?“It wouldn’t be your first murder, would it, Carina Smyth?” he whispered.  “You’ll know how to get the red out of your dress.” He pressed a little deeper, the sharp edge of the filthy blade parting his skin just enough for blood to bead to the surface.  She narrowed her eyes, very conscious of the dark stains spread across the wet fabric of her skirts. Blending in now, but the darker spatter marks would be very visible when they were dry.She felt Captain Salazar’s impatience through their connection, but also his curiosity, a current of anger and a tide of protectiveness.  She’d changed since he saw her last, she’d done more, seen more, and he realized he had almost no idea what she was capable of doing now.  He raised his hand to stay his men, his eyes resting heavy on her back.  “Sorry,” she whispered, “I won’t let you be the second.”Henry was standing behind them, staring out at the sea of dead faces in terror, and she flicked her eyes to him, “Henry!  Grab him and get him out of here!” She smacked the side of Jack’s face with the flat of the blade, and he looked startled.  Henry’s eyes strayed from the crew of ghosts to the cursed wound on her neck.He stepped closer to the shore, one foot on the damp sand.  Her hand held the blade steady. “But, Carina, you…” She slapped Jack Sparrow with the flat of the blade again, and he took a step back in annoyance.She felt a cold hand slip around her shoulders as Captain Salazar pressed himself to her back.  “Tell him, Mariposa,” he whispered in her ear, tendrils of black hair coming to float in front of her face as he pressed a chilled, damp kiss to the back of her ear.  The curse flared to life, igniting a fire low in her belly, and she couldn’t help her gasp at the unnaturally intense rush of pleasure his touch brought. His hips pressed into her, and hers tilted back on instinct.  She froze, not feeling quite in control of her body, and he hummed against her neck to soothe her.“Henry,” she choked out, “I can’t… I can’t go on land.  Not anymore.” She stretched her neck to the side, the bite wound gaping, and Captain Salazar wasted no time in pressing an open-mouthed kiss right over it, before lifting his head so Henry Turner could see his claim, his mark, so deeply etched in her skin.  She didn’t want to think about the satisfied, possessive look on his face, and what level of disgust might be on Henry’s. She couldn’t close her eyes, not with Jack so shifty and so close.It was only natural for her to look at Henry anyway.What she saw was not disgust.  It was not fear, or shame, or hatred.  It was much, much worse. It was pity.  Henry’s face took on a look of determination as he darted forward and grabbed the back of Jack’s shirt, pulling the unresisting pirate back to shore.  “I’ll save you from this… this… thing, Carina,” he all but shouted, and she flinched back.  Salazar’s grip on her tightened in irritation before releasing and smoothing down her arms to settle on each side of her waist.  “I’ll find the Trident, and I’ll release you. Just… just… don’t… “ He visibly steeled himself, and Carina felt cold. He wouldn’t.  Not here, not in front of the crew and Jack and everyone else. If he made a declaration for her, or challenged Salazar here… he would have to run to shore, faster than Captain Salazar could move.  And all they’d done was share one soft kiss under the stars and hadn’t even talked about it afterward.Apparently, her gentle, unexplained apology had not dissuaded him.As it was, his feet were still in the surf when he yelled, “I’ll be there, when you’re free, just… this doesn’t change my feelings for you!”She felt Salazar’s intentions before he stirred, and turned before he moved to hold his own sword up against his neck.  He didn’t look at her, his eyes were squarely on Henry, and the rage on his face was palpable. “Mariposa,” he rasped, “you do not know what you have done.”  He pressed closer to her, eyes turning the color of a dying star, a pale whitish-yellow, and he tilted his head up.Carina felt the power of the curse pulse under her skin, and Captain Salazar turned his head sharply to the side.  “Let them go,” she said, her voice hard, and she held the sword level with his throat.Jack and Henry were already farther up on the shore, watching them.  Henry looked pained, and Jack had a shuttered expression on his face, but his eyes were flicking between Carina and Salazar.“You would hold my sword to me, Mariposa,” he purred, his eyes icy and hard, “in front of my men?  In front of this pirate?” He finally slid his eyes over to her, his voice for her ears alone, “Do you seek to defend your lover from my villainous clutches?”Her hand was shaking, and the curse crackled under her skin, “He’s not my lover, he’s my friend, and I’m not going to stand by and watch you slaughter him!”  She felt exhausted, suddenly, tired of this posturing, and she bit out, “Let’s go back the Mary.  You, me, and the crew. Leave them on land.”“Ah, she plays at being Capitán! Is that an order?” His eyes were brightening in curiosity, avarice, and no small amount of arousal.  He stepped closer, the tip of the sword sliding neatly into his throat. She watched, fascinated, as the meager amount of Sparrow’s blood disappeared inside of him.“Even if it was,” she said after a pulse of silence, “I doubt you would obey it.  It’s merely a suggestion and a desire.  My…” and she had the poor timing to wince, “my leg is wounded.”  The salt water did sting, but not as bad as when she’d been first submerged, and she noticed Miguel focus on her with concern.  “I would like to rest, and have Officer Magda attend me. Since I cannot go with them,” she threw one hand behind her, “then it stands to reason I must go with you.”He strode forward confidently, allowed the sword to slide through his neck, through the notches in his vertebra, wrenching his head to the side to pull the handle out of her grip.  She was shocked, stunned, and let it go with barely a protest. “Now,” he said softly, “you know that won’t work on me again.” He raised his eyebrow, reaching up to slowly slide the blade out of him, and picked her up with one hand.  He threw her over his shoulder, and she let out a strange sounding combination of a pained groan and indigent shriek. Her broken ribs moved uncomfortably in her body, and she felt something inside of her tear.The curse smoothed down her ruffled feathers, dulling the pain as fast as it could, and she was almost paralyzed by the sensation of being so close to him.  Her leg was throbbing, her back was aching, ribs protesting where Salazar’s epaulets were digging into them, her head was pulsing unpleasantly, but all of it started to fade away as the misty edges of her curse reached out and tangled with his.  It felt like nothing she’d ever experienced before. It felt like home. From around her foul, voluminous skirts, ignorant of her inner turmoil and pain, Captain Salazar gave Jack Sparrow a deranged grin that the darker man didn’t return.  “I’ll be here, Sparrow, and I’ll be waiting for you.”A sly grin slid over the pirate’s face, unresisting in the hold of Henry Turner, and he gave a low laugh, “Oh, you’ll be doing something, mate, and if you’re thinking of me when you’re doing it, I’ll be honored.”  He let his eyes stray deliberately to the back of her dress, where her lush bottom was hidden.  Salazar took the bait and practically hissed at him, angling her away from his eyes. She struggled weakly in his grip, but she might as well have been fighting a boulder.“Jack,” Henry said, voice both gravelly with fear and annoyance, “don’t antagonize him.  He might-”“Do what, mate?” Jack said, loudly, clearly intending Carina to hear, “Do exactly what she wants him to do?  You saw how she looked at him. You see that bite on her neck. It’s his mark, Henry, stop being such a stupid boy and pay attention.”  He jerked himself out the younger man’s grip and gave Salazar a toothy grin, “Go on, Spanish.  Claim the girl as your own. Break my ward’s tender little heart.” His eyes went manic.Whatever Salazar was going to say in return was interrupted by Carina wheezing painfully against his shoulder.  “Down,” she gasped, “Down, please!” He set her before him, the surf frothing around her ankles. She swayed on her feet, her eyes going hazy, and started to fall.Salazar's men faltered, their attention leaving the despised pirate, drawn to Carina.  They roiled, muttering, all of them knowing that if she fell on the shore and the curse was too strong, she would die.  Absolutely none of them wanted to be under the command of a mourning Salazar, but only one of them was willing to disobey his order to stay back.  Officer Magda pushed them aside, breaking formation first to rush toward her.“Capitán!” He all but shouted, running dangerously close to where the edge of the sea sank into the wet sand.  Salazar barely caught her in time as she started to list backward, towards the beach, and pulled her in with one arm to fall instead onto his chest, his sword still out in warning towards where Jack still held a desperate Henry back on the bank.  He slid his arm to clutch around his waist, breathing her in despite the tense atmosphere. He felt a presence at his side and snarled, but it was Officer Magda. The doctor ignored him, reaching over Salazar’s arm to lightly touch her face. “She is wounded, Capitán, you must let me attend her.  Carina, can you hear me?”She turned her head, just enough to look at his face, and then her eyes rolled back in her skull and she fainted, slipping through Salazar's one-armed hold.“Carina!” Henry yelped, almost throwing Jack back to run for her.  It was only the pirate’s iron bar of an arm around his shoulders that stopped him.She’d fallen into the surf, neither Salazar nor Magda having caught her on time. Magda immediately bent down on top of the waters, checking her breath through her broken nose and her pulse through her limp wrist before looking up at the two men on the beach, his distress at her state making him throw off all protocol as one of Salazar's crew in front of an enemy. “What happened to her?” He called out in his best English.Both men stared at him, Henry’s face mulish and Jack’s thoughtful."Responde!" Miguel snapped when they were silent.Carina groaned as the shallow water lapped around her huddled form, and Miguel put his arms around her, murmuring to her to try and stay conscious.  Salazar looked for a moment as if he would protest his doctor's touch, but visibly restrained himself as Miguel helped her to sit up. He turned his attention to being their protector, his sword still held up in the direction of the boy and Sparrow.“Let me take her-” Henry started, only to close his mouth with a sharp click when Salazar sliced the air between them.“No,” he snarled, “She’s mine.”“And,” came a dry voice behind them, “She’s been cursed.”  Lesaro was standing directly behind Salazar, his good eye a flinty, sharp yellow.  His words were for Henry, but his cold expression was only for his commanding officer.  “If she goes on land now, she dies for certain.” Salazar refused to look at his Lieutenant, but the line of his back tensed.  Lesaro slid his gaze to Jack and Henry, dismissing Salazar as he stepped around the three of them, “Just tell us what we need to be looking for, so we may treat her swiftly.” He felt a sharp stab of anger through the curse but ignored it.Jack's eyelids came down half-mast, as he sized up the cursed Lieutenant, and an opportunistic half-smile flitted across his lips.“Weeping wound to the leg,” Jack said shortly, “Nasty bit of work, had one of my own look at it. You’ll want to lance it.”  Salazar stared at Jack, but Magda nodded sharply, his arms still holding Carina upright."Anything else?" Lesaro prompted after the air was quiet for a minute too long for his liking.Jack continued, even as Henry hissed for him to stop, “She was in a fight. With a soldier. I gave her a blade, then she came back all covered in blood.”  Salazar’s eyes widened and his head drew back, ever so slightly, and Jack filed that information away for later. “Very little of it was hers, but I suspect the lad got her in the back a few times. Her ribs, mate, is what I would bet on being broken.  Especially after that little tangle on the boat, that didn’t do her any favors. And her hand,” he nodded to the slim limb that had a filthy white scrap of fabric tied over it, “and probably four or five other wounds she didn’t tell us about. She’s scrappy, that horologist.”“Jack,” Henry hissed, furious, “Why would you-”“Forget the girl,” Jack said coldly, turning to Henry, his eyes blazing, “She’s been claimed, by him,” he threw his hand out towards Salazar, “For better- " Jack threw a significant glance at Lesaro, "Or for worse, she belongs to him. You can't save her anymore, mate. If she lives or dies, it's just gonna be on his conscience now, I reckon."  Jack pretended not to notice the way Miguel froze at his words, or the way Lesaro's lips pressed tightly together.Henry was stunned into silence, and Miguel muttered, folding Carina into his arms, “Lieutenant, help me.  We must go, quickly. I need my tools.”Salazar glared at Lesaro as he stepped in front of him to take Carina, his eyes flashing, but before he could even open his mouth, Miguel shook his head sharply, standing again with Carina whimpering in his arms.  “Capitán, I know you are connected to her, but we must be swift. Your leg, you cannot carry a burden so far. Lieutenant Lesaro is the steadiest of us all.” He lowered his voice, aware that Jack and Henry were listening closely, “And… if you could find out more about what sort of fight she was in.  The weapon. The timing. Anything you can, it would help me to heal her. Capitán, if we… I’m afraid…” Miguel looked down at Carina as he gently passed her into Gui's arms and murmured, “I do not know how far the curse has progressed. If it takes her before the wounds heal, she will know this agony until we find the Trident.  If not… we might be finding it in her memory.”That got Salazar’s attention immediately, and before he could control it, Magda felt a burst of fury, grief and helpless fear that had him reeling.  He righted himself in time to see Salazar’s curt nod.He murmured something to Lesaro and reached down to gently smooth Carina’s wet hair from her face, his fingers brushing the swollen mess of her nose.He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but stopped himself and withdrew his hand.  He looked at Lesaro, staring his oldest friend in the face, searching his expression, before murmuring, “Go.  Tend to her in my cabin. I will be there shortly.”Without a backward glance, they were gone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Lieutenant Lesaro clutched Carina tighter, her body frighteningly limp and terribly pale.  The sea had calmed considerably, and the Mary had turned toward them, groaning her worry through old wood.He tensed his legs to leap onto the deck, but Magda reached out and gripped the collar of his uniform, jerking him back and down.  When Lesaro turned his good eye toward him, bewildered and stumbling from the interruption to his momentum, Magda snarled. His eyes were lurid curse-yellow, his expression fierce.“No,” he slashed his arm down, “we cannot be so rough with her.  She has too many injuries for me to count.” He shook his head, voice turning pained, “I was not lying when I said you had the smoothest gait of us all, Gui, the fastest as well, but despite our plans, she is more wounded than I imagined she might be.”As if she had been listening to them, the Mary came closer, two of her ribs expanding upward to expose the inside of her hull.  The wet, barnacle-encrusted opening revealed part of the ruined hold, with solid steps to take them up to the deck.As soon as they had stepped inside, Lesaro went to one knee and made a motion to lay her on the wet floorboards.  Carina let out a pained gasp and her eyes fluttered open. They were dark, unevenly dilated, and couldn’t focus. The sides of her mouth pulled down, she gasped out another breath that sounded wet, then she tensed once before her eyes closed and she went limp again.Without another word, Miguel reached out and pulled her out of Lesaro’s arms, one hand under her shoulders and the other under her knees.  He clutched her tightly against his chest and on invisible, ravaged legs, rushed up the stairs.  “My bag,” he threw over his shoulder as they came up to the deck, into the bright sunlight.  “I need my tools. In the black bag in my quarters.” Lieutenant Lesaro knew the bag and didn’t waste any time before he turned and thundered away.The pirates that had been clustered on the deck, unable to sail the Mary in any direction she did not choose and therefore had not needed to be restrained, all stepped out of the way as Miguel hastened the pale form of Carina through the middle of the crowd.  One pirate in particular, at the back, watched her go with pinched, shuttered eyes as blue as the summer sky.  “Capitán.”They’d been standing in the same spot since Lieutenant Lesaro and Officer Magda had taken la Mariposa and swept her back to the ship.  Sparrow and Salazar had stared each other down until the boy had dragged Sparrow back into the thick stands of coconut trees and foliage that had swallowed both of them up.Salazar had sworn, under his breath, as Sparrow had allowed to the leaves to engulf him and break their tense staring contest.  He’d slammed his sword into the soft sand again and again, before snarling and slashing his hand down, “We wait.”  He spat the phrase roughly and with no small amount of black bile that streamed down his chin.So, they'd waited.Nico hadn’t been that shocked at the reveal of la Mariposa’s cursed bite, not really, their own wounds were twice as gruesome and he wasn’t as soft for her as his shipmates, but he wasn’t an idiot. The reality of it had done something to Salazar, something Nico himself would have to tread very carefully around to avoid provoking him in unexpected ways.  And the way Sparrow had draped himself over her so casually… He snorted in his own mind, certain now that she wasn’t a lady, but Salazar would be very receptive to anything that brought him the heads of the two men she was with.  He hoped.Officer Cortez received no response to his soft inquiry, so he tried again, firmer, “Capitán.”Salazar’s head turned minutely, and his hair fanned dramatically behind him.He cautiously took that as assent to continue, “Capitán.  We have been standing here for an hour. Is there no other action we could take, to flush them out faster?”There was an angry clicking sound, and it took several seconds before Officer Cortez realized it was the sound of Salazar’s teeth grinding together.  The ruin of his jawbone made the joint scrape uncomfortably, and the resulting noise made Cortez’s own ache in sympathy.“What,” he said softly, his thick Spanish guttural in his throat, “would you suggest?” The anger, frustration, and desire to hurt something skipped along the curse and slammed into him like a ship running at full speed. He almost staggered back at the force of Salazar's emotions, and he realized that if his plan was a terrible one, Salazar could fulfill the desire to hurt by throwing him bodily on the too-close-for-comfort shore and watching him dissolve with satisfaction. But his plan was a good one, a solid one, and he couldn't afford to look weak.  It was too late to back down, too late to do anything but swallow nervously and open his mouth.  “Guillermo,” Miguel snarled, a wave of professional anger cutting through his conditioned respect of rank and file.  “My bag.”It hadn’t been in the right spot, knocked over from the movement of the ship, unsecured at the start, and he’d had to shove all of the burnt, broken furniture aside in order to reach it.  He was lucky, he knew, that none of the shining silver tools stolen from The Monarch had gone rolling around on the filthy floor. As it was, he’d lost precious minutes. Lesaro tossed the bag in Miguel’s direction and strode over after it.Carina had been laid out, prone and still, on the Capitán’s bed.  He’d adorned it in finery stolen from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, all red silk and goose-down pillows covering the broken frame.  Miguel’s suggestion, he remembered faintly, and it was Miguel now who was tearing strips from one of the sheets and making a tidy pile beside him.Her hand and leg bore fresh bandages made from the slick fabric.  Her wounds had stuck to the old bandages and reopened on the fresh dressing, already starting to soak through.  The red, he realized, would cover the severity of the blood.“What do you need?” He asked belatedly, and Miguel shoved the remainder of the sheet at him.“Tear that,” he directed, “And find something waterproof to stuff it in.  We’ll need to take as many bandages as we can.” He started rummaging through the bag, pulling out a small silver blade and looking between it and Carina uncertainly.Lesaro started automatically tearing long strips of silk, and quietly commented, “We must go. Soon.  The sloop Sparrow and Mariposa were on before is still near enough that we could run and catch it.”“She’s hurt," Magda looked at him in frustration. “And I can do nothing beyond rebandaging without compromising our ability to run freely.  But… these wounds are worse than I anticipated. She could easily die if we hold her improperly. Her ribs,” he touched the back of her dress gently, “are loose.  Two of them. Just as Sparrow said. The sharp edges, the loose bone… she would pierce a lung or any other organ. That is only one concern.”“Her breathing…” Lesaro started, but Miguel shook his head.“Her lungs are still working, but the sound tells me there is pleurisy in them.  I cannot investigate it now.” He frowned and ran one hand down his face. He tossed the blade back into the bag with a clatter.Carina started to sweat from her position on the bed and continued to gasp slowly.There was a commotion on deck, and the two ghosts look at each other.  “We’re out of time,” Lieutenant Lesaro said softly. “If we are going to go, we must do it now.”Office Magda slid one arm under Carina’s shoulders, one under her knees, and picked her up slowly.  The compass and journal, both still in her pockets, made the long skirts of her dress hang awkwardly at the seams, but with Lesaro’s help, he gently wound the fabric up and around.  Cocooning her legs would help keep her still, and prevent the skirts from getting sodden and tripping him mid-stride.Lesaro hefted up the leather bag, stuffing as many silk strips into it as he could before firmly closing it.  They would need all of the tools they could get at Officer Magda’s disposal once they reached the little pirate ship from before and he could finally work in relative peace.Once they were sure there was nothing else they could take with them that could be of use and Carina was positioned gently enough to prevent further injury, Lesaro reached for the handle to the Capitán’s cabin to wrench it open.La Maria groaned, her wood creaking angrily, and the door refused to move.Lesaro let go of the handle in surprise and stepped back.The ship had trapped them.  Capitán Salazar had approved of his plan.He’d liked it, judging by the ugly way a smile slid across his face, allowing more bile to escape his clenched teeth.  The esteemed Capitán directed him to take Officer Santos back to La Maria to get the supplies to execute his vision.In Nico’s mind, it was simple.  They’d acquired rum, gunpowder, flint, fabric, rope, and men when they’d pillaged the Queen Anne’s Revenge.  Use the living men, attached to the dead sailors by chain and rope, and force them to spread gunpowder over the beach and at the treeline.  Then, from the water, stuff the fabric into the bottles of rum, light the end of the fabric, and throw them into the accelerant. The island should burn down to nothing within the day.And even if it didn’t, they had a lot of rum.  They could spread out, surround the speck of land, and tend the hell-pit through the night.They’d run at full tilt back to the Mary, Santos barely raising an eyebrow at the command, and Nico felt his pride rising with every step.  He was going to be the one to deliver Sparrow to Salazar.  Not Lesaro, not Magda, not even sweet Moss. Officer Nico Cortez was going to slap Lieutenant Lesaro in the face with Sparrow’s corpse if he could.Officer Santos sprang up from the sea onto the deck of the Mary, immediately going toward the hold to start gathering crates, and Officer Cortez flung himself up a moment later.   “La Maria Silenciosa,” Lieutenant Lesaro whispered, stuffing down panic as he tried again to force the door open with his curse-given strength, “You must let us go.”The ship groaned, again, her power flaring and a barrage of images assaulted Lieutenant Lesaro’s vision.  It was Salazar, holding Carina tenderly in front of the porthole, and then him running fingers down her bandaged back as she slept in his bed, then a final image that he realized, suddenly, was the ship’s deepest yearning.  Salazar and Carina alive, both dressed in opulent finery, joining their hands together on the bow of the ship, which had been restored to proud beauty, their union recognized by all of the members of the crew. White flowers and ribbons clustered on her railing, banners hanging from her shrouds, her deck gleaming and her men joyous.La Maria wanted them together, bound in matrimony.  She wanted them to be united in love, celebrating and full of promise for the future.  She wanted it so badly she ached. There was another image at the edge of his vision, hazy at best, like the Mary was too shy to share it outright, but he clearly saw the shape of Carina’s silhouette.  Her belly was round, distended beneath voluminous skirts, and if he concentrated, he could make out what must have been Armando’s hand, coming up to caress it.Thinking wildly, feeling the pang of heartache that wasn’t his own, Lieutenant Lesaro slowly supplied another notion.  He hesitated, but only for a moment. Everyone loved La Maria, the ship that had cradled all of them even as she’d taken the most damage from the curse.  He didn’t want to hurt her... feelings, but he had to let her know the reality. What had happened as soon as Salazar had been off the ship, away from her sentience.  Lesaro strengthened his resolved and pushed the image toward her.Capitán Salazar, sinking his teeth into Carina’s soft neck.  He supplied more imagery, more gore than he’d been able to see, but he knew what blood smelled like.  What it must have looked like, sounded like as he rent her flesh. The echo of her scream across the water.  The savagery of the act.The way the bite had looked when Sparrow had revealed it.The ship recoiled, her wood complaining and Lesaro muttered, pleading, “Please.  Please.  He’ll kill her.  She’ll die if she stays here.  He can’t control himself. He’s become a beast.   Armando Salazar ruins everything he touches.”  He pulled on the door again, and Carina moaned quietly in Miguel’s arms.  He cast a desperate glance back at her and pressed his forehead into the wood.  “After the curse is broken, La Maria, I swear I will unite them again when they are human and whole and sane.  But everything that has happened to her is Armando Salazar’s fault.  To fix it, to save her, to save them both, I must take her and go.”The ship hesitated.He replayed the conversation from less than an hour earlier, his lack of concern at Carina’s safety with the sharks in the water, and he whispered, “You know it already, Maria, you took my side over the sharks, this is just more of the same.  He would not hesitate to sacrifice her if his gain was good enough, and you know it.”The two of them held their breath, Carina chest barely moving in Miguel’s arms.Lieutenant Lesaro placed the hand of his ruined arm on the door once more, and with very little prodding it swung open.For a long time afterward, he would have wished that he jumped out of the window instead.  At the sound of a door slamming against a wall, Officer Cortez snapped his eyes to the door.  He raised his eyebrow when Lieutenant Lesaro stepped into the sunlight, a look of determination on his face and… Officer Magda’s black physician’s bag in his arms?  And behind him, Officer Magda himself, carrying… "La Mariposa," Officer Cortez breathed, and his eyes flared a bright yellow, brighter than they'd ever gone, "And the perfect Lieutenant Lesaro?  Running away together?" He didn’t care about Officer Magda. Not even a little, not when Lesaro’s face held an ounce of fear at seeing him.  A terrible smile curved over his broken face, "What, oh what is the Capitán going to think about this?"Lieutenant Lesaro paused just outside of the cabin.  He glanced down and back at Carina’s face, paler and grayer in the sun than the shadow of the cabin, and back at Officer Cortez, who was starting to look positively gleeful.  “We’re just headed to Officer Magda’s quarters,” he tried. It wasn’t untrue, they’d been aiming for going into the hold to avoid leaping from the deck. Now, however, it looked like it wouldn’t be an option.  Officer Magda slid out behind him and pressed his back against the outer wall. He adjusted his grip on Carina and she gasped lightly but did not wake.“You’re a bad liar, Lieutenant.”  Officer Cortez pulled out his broken knife, the point of the blade buried into his hip during the blast, and flipped it thoughtfully between his hands.  It wasn’t a proper weapon, it had been left over from his days before the Armada, but he’d found it to be useful during close combat. Lesaro himself had seen what this little dagger could do, and he pulled his own weapon without another thought.Lieutenant Lesaro whipped his rapier out of his scabbard, "Step aside, Officer Cortez."  There would be no convincing him they were doing anything other than running away. He had to fight, distract him so Officer Magda could start running.Officer Cortez's smile turned sly, and he put his little dagger back into the sheath with a sense of finality.  "And if I don't?" He slid his own rapier out, flourishing it in a complicated, showy whorl.Officer Magda took another step back, toward the sea, and Carina gave a half-hearted moan, eyes fluttering open.  She turned just enough to catch a glance at Officer Cortez, visibly startling, “Wha-” before Officer Magda’s hand slapped down over her mouth.  She was awake, she wasn’t supposed to be awake, what was he supposed to do- Officer Cortez slid his eyes over for just a moment, then he gave a bark of laughter at Lieutenant Lesaro's silence.  "You are giving me such a gift, amigo!""Qué?"  Lieutenant Lesaro bit out, the grip on his sword tightening.  He shifted his stance slightly, widening the legs, and Officer Cortez gave a careless, impolite sweep of his blade."Who do you think will be Lieutenant after I tell el Capitán what you have done?"  He peered over Lieutenant Lesaro's shoulder, meeting Carina’s drowsy, confused stare, "Made all the worse by her weakened state!  You are stealing something she cannot consent to give, am I wrong?"  His tone turned mocking, and his eyes shifted from gold to copper.  "What are the rules of the ship again?""Then let us go," Lieutenant Lesaro said, voice serious, ignoring all of the baiting, "And tell him.  Take the title, I no longer care."Officer Cortez tutted, clicking his tongue disappointedly, "I cannot let it look like I didn't fight to save her, you know the only thing he values more than Jack Sparrow is his precious Mariposa!"  He lunged on the last syllable of her nickname, aiming for Lesaro’s blindside.  Carina shrieked behind Miguel’s firm hand and struggled in his grip. He held her tighter and drew them as far away from the fighting as he dared.Officer Cortez missed his face by centimeters, leaving a fresh gash in the wood behind Lieutenant Lesaro's head.  He didn't move, just stared at the glee starting to slide over Officer Cortez's face. "Why are you here?" He whispered belatedly, eyes flicking around, "And why is it just you?"Officer Cortez gave a sharp bark of laughter, "I have Officer Magda to thank for that!"  At his name, Officer Magda froze in his attempt to sneak off the boat, the slow shuffle of his feet stopping.  He turned his head slightly, mildly alarmed. Officer Cortez gave him a nasty smile, "The gunpower, hombre.  The gunpowder, the rum, and the men.  He listened to me, the esteemed Capitán is willing to follow my plan to burn that island to the ground, flushing out his prize.  The boy will likely die in the process, but ah, what can you do?” He refused to mention that Officer Santos was below deck.  If he needed backup, he could shout, but otherwise, he knew Santos would be obsessing over his damned crates.Carina floundered in Officer Magda's arms, shoving Magda’s hand off of her mouth, fighting viciously for all of her wounds, "Henry!  No, he's not- He has no part in this!  Let him go!"Lieutenant Lesaro ignored her, focusing on Officer Cortez, "That isn’t a job for one man."“It is if one man holds the majority of his Capitán’s trust.” He responded swiftly, bringing his sword up in a mocking salute.  He smiled as he watched Lieutenant Lesaro’s eyes turn hard and calculating.They were interrupted as Carina struggled again against the iron of Officer Magda’s arms, and she flared her curse brighter than the sun, grabbing their attention, stronger than anyone could have anticipated.  As one, they all stared at her. "You can't kill Henry!" She spat it this time, and Officer Magda looked concerned and frustrated as he tried to hold her still without harming her. And her curse, flaring her curse, where had she learned how to do that?   Salazar was going to feel them, he was going to come -Officer Magda started to panic, dropping her swaddled legs and putting the strong bar of his forearm firmly across her throat.  Lieutenant Lesaro stared at them, no expression on his face, but Officer Cortez raised one eyebrow and tilted his head. Carina clawed at Officer Magda’s arm, broken fingernails rending what was left of his coat, but it only made him press harder.  Her hand started to bleed through the silk bandage, dripping down onto the deck. He was murmuring something in her ear, but neither man could hear it."Arman-" she choked out, going from a clawing motion to a pushing one, trying to get his arm off of her, curse flaring erratically, but Officer Magda was a medical professional with the strength of the undead.  He cut off her breath, cut off her blood, and before she could finish the thought, she slumped against him. He caught her again, checking her pulse immediately. It was shallow, but present. He bought them a few moments of silence, a few more minutes to get away, but no more.  Salazar might dismiss her call as confusion from her injuries during treatment, but his concern for her could shine brighter than his desire for Sparrow, and Officer Magda was keenly aware of what it would mean for the three of them to be caught in such a compromising position, so close to dry land.Officer Cortez didn't lower his sword, but his eyes were sharply trained on her face as her eyes fluttered shut.  After a beat of silence, another grin curled across his face, "Oh, he is definitely not going to like that, Miguel."Cortez held his rapier aloft in Lesaro’s face."Are you serious, Nico?" Lieutenant Lesaro raised an incredulous eyebrow, trying to intimidate him.  "You wish to fight me?""Oh, I don't wish to, dear Gui." He whipped his rapier through the air, making an impressive high-pitched whistling, and Miguel was reminded that for all his bragging, Cortez was quite fast.  He’d been allowed to join the crew, despite his young age, because of his talent with a blade. "But how will it look, as I said, if I don't try to stop you all?"Miguel held Carina tighter as he backed up against the wall, dragging her bound legs back up against him. He had seen both men fight, he could taste the roiling tension between them, and he feared for Carina's safety.  Now that she was prone and pliant, he could run easier. Rewrap her legs, tighten what had become loose, and go. But carefully, so much more carefully. In the tussle, he was sure he’d caused more internal damage."Perhaps," Cortez slid lascivious eyes over the bare skin of Carina’s shoulder that had been exposed during her struggle, "After I pin you to the wall, Gui, I'll even let you watch just how much La Mariposa might prefer my company.""You're a fucking bastard, Cortez," Lesaro growled, pivoting to put himself more between them. "But I'm not falling for it. Get out of the way."Nico whirled his sword in a tight figure eight, darting at Lesaro’s neck before turning his blade away to attack the opposite side, faster than thought, trying to throw him off balance with the rapid change in direction. And though Lieutenant Lesaro deflected each easily, he was uncomfortably aware that Nico was buying himself time.  Aware that while he might have been the best on La Maria Silenciosa once upon a time, that might no longer be true.Officer Cortez didn't care if Lesaro and company got away or not - everything about the situation would favor him.  Whether he kept them long enough for Salazar to return and discover their perfidy or got away, Cortez was going to come out shinier than the King's gold.  He twirled his sword again and gave Lesaro a nasty grin."Guillermo," Magda hissed, hefting the dead weight of Carina in his arms again, "We must go.  She's going to wake and call for him again."Lesaro allowed his head to tilt slightly in their direction, the only indication he’d heard the plea.At the distraction, Officer Cortez flashed his rapier in rapid succession, three quick slashes.Lesaro seethed, slapping away Officer Cortez's blade sloppily.  He had to start thinking of Officer Cortez as a serious threat. An enemy worthy of his full attention.  Cortez laughed out loud, as if it were a friendly game and he was winning.  "So tell me, what has made the noble Lieutenant Guillermo Lesaro turn, hm?" Cortez lunged neatly at Lesaro's shoulder, annoying him when the blade tangled with the remains of his flesh and uniform. It didn't hurt, but he could still feel the sensation of the cold iron passing through.  If he’d been alive, during a skirmish like this, he was uncomfortably aware that it would have been a fatal strike.  "Did the lovely lady finally tempt even you? "He kicked suddenly at the older man’s knee with a vicious strike, and to his own utter shock, Lieutenant Lesaro lost his balance.  His knee hit the deck with a heavy thud, and a cloud of ash exploded around him from the impact. There were parts of both of them flying heavy through the air from the fight, and he looked up to see Officer Cortez glaring down at him hatefully through the cloud.He lightly pressed the rapier tip under Lesaro’s chin. "Did you finally decide to throw off your self-righteous mask and come down to the same level as the rest of us?"  He tilted Lesaro’s head up uncomfortably, exposing his vulnerable throat, never losing eye contact, copper to amber. Cortez saw anger, he saw rage, but he forgot, at that moment, exactly who Lieutenant Guillermo Lesaro was.   He hadn’t been handed the title, the valor, the medals, based on his boyhood friendship with Armando Salazar.  He’d earned it.Lesaro silently smashed the hilt of his rapier against the tip of Cortez's, forcing it away from his chin, and leaped to his feet.  The blade had left a dark line that threatened the bisect his lower lip, parting his dead flesh. He didn’t say anything, just raised his sword and flashed his tongue out to touch welling black blood."What are you going to do-" Cortez spun and struck Lesaro’s back, sending more ash to flake and flutter into the bright sunlight. "-with her? Woo her? Seduce her? Or are you just going to say ‘to hell’ with your precious morality, get between her legs, and fuck her like those men did to your sister."  His voice was starting to tremble, and his movements became fast but haphazard.  His own emotion was getting the better of him, and he left an opening in his stance.Lesaro roared, turning and grabbing Cortez's sword, ripping it out of his hand by the blade.  He held it aloft and allowed the metal to run down until he had it by the grip. He lifted it up and slammed it deep into the deck, and the Mary groaned in rebuke.  Stunned by such raw strength, such uncharacteristic action, Cortez slid back unsteadily. Lesaro stalked him, his eyes flaring red and yellow in turns, and he reached out, curse-fast, and grabbed Cortez by the throat, pulling him up into the air and close to his own face."I will remember that," he breathed, his voice shaking, "when we are live men again.  I will remember, and I will make sure you never forget what you just said.  Armando Salazar ruins everything he touches, and you are a far better Lieutenant for such a ship than I."  With a grunt of effort and little more, he threw Cortez completely across the deck, leaving his sword embedded in the wood.  He plucked his bicorn hat from his head, turned it in his hands, studied the familiar curves of it, the way the fabric dimpled just so, the half that was gone from the blast of La Maria’s final living moments.  He’d been so proud, the day he earned that hat. He set it neatly on the hilt of Cortez’s sword, adjusted the angle slightly, and let his fingers linger as he turned away. He lead Miguel off the deck, through a broken portion of the railing, in a wide arc that slammed them onto the solid surface of the ocean several meters away.Coughing and rolling to his feet, Cortez groaned as he stood up, the forgotten pirates clustered around the edges of the deck.  He turned and glared at them, “Did anyone see that?”There was dead silence, one pirate coughed and a few rustled their fine, filthy sleeves and shuffled their expensive leather shoes.  His glare turned poisonous and he put his hand where his rapier used to be, but his palm touched open air. Right. His sword was a ship-length away, buried deep enough in the deck that he would have to damage La Maria just to get it out.  He whipped out his dagger instead, annoyed enough to start cutting out tongues to ensure silence.“Aye,” a man with a large hat and splendorous wig pushed his way to the front, his false leg giving his gait a distinctive imbalance.  “We saw yeh tryin’ to keep the girl on the ship. Fightin’ to protect yer captain’s lady love, as it were.” He gave the ghost sailor an insincere smile, then nodded once.  “Yeh have me word, and that of me crew. We saw nothin’ that won’t paint you in a shiny light.”He took the man, painfully, at his sincerity, putting his dagger away decisively.  He turned and watched the little figures of Magda and Lesaro leaping through the water, the swells angling to give them further momentum.  They flew faster than they could have alive, and would be at the sloop before nightfall at the rate they were going.He debated, heavily, on forgetting which direction they’d run in.“The favor of silence begs a boon in return, does it not?”  The pirate captain, Barbossa, stepped forward with one heavy thump of his golden leg.  Officer Cortez turned to look at him slowly, and as he watched, two of the men, a chubby, ruddy-cheeked one and one with drooping jowls and a greying beard slowly walked toward one of the smallboats the crew had salvaged from the Queen Anne’s Revenge.“Remember boys,” he boomed as Cortez watched them but kept his silence.  “She needs the sea."   Both men nodded, the phrase meaningless to Cortez, and the deck was quiet after that but for the gentle splash of the smallboat in the water and the rhythmic rowing as the two departed.Barbossa gave him a grimy smile and stepped back, the pirates flowing around him to swallow him in the crowd.  Cortez bit his own tongue and walked over to his sword, picking up Lesaro’s hat and staring down at it.There was a heavy sound on the stairs, and when he looked up again, Officer Santos was looking around the deck, bewildered.  "What was all that?" He frowned, his arms cradling crates of bottles. They were clear, and the amber rum within sloshed around.  He raised one eyebrow at the ash in the air and the fresh gouges in the deck. Blandly, he asked, "Was there a fight? Is that Gui’s hat?"Officer Cortez couldn’t help the dry, barking laugh that erupted at his question.  Officer Cortez laughed until, if he had been human, he would have choked.  They’d run for an hour before Lesaro was sure Salazar hadn’t immediately returned to the ship to discover their deceit.Cortez wasn’t stupid, he would wait for the opportune moment to reveal to Salazar what had happened on deck.  It was highly likely that he’d tried the instant he’d returned to the island, supplies, and pirates in tow, before attempting to break the news without getting himself thrown on the beach.  It was also twice as likely that Salazar had refused to listen, the curse giving him tunnel vision into his thrice-damned revenge.The ship had been shockingly easy to find.  As the Mary had shrunk into a pinprick on the horizon, the poorly built little sloop had bobbed quietly, her sails slightly askew, and he heard arguing before he saw any live bodies.  Without thinking, all three of them wet from sea spray, he’d lead the launch onto the damp deck.Now, after explaining their situation and putting a temporary halt to their argument, he was faced with the tedious task of getting a group of less-sensible people to understand what they were asking for.He stared, despairing, as the pirate called Scrum scrunched up his face in deep thought.  "So... What yer saying is... yer both ditched yer Captain and threw your lot in with a horologist?"A tense silence settled on the deck of the Gull.  Lesaro stood in front of Magda, who’s curse-strong arms were holding Carina and her sodden clothes steady.  "Sí." Gui said tightly. “Will you provide a safe space for us to save the young Señorita?” He raised his rapier menacingly.  His meaning was clear. They would have a safe space for her, even if the answer was no. His eyes ran over them all, measuring them quickly, reading their slow dawning comprehension on their sea-scarred faces, ready to cut each one of them down.The crew exchanged slow glances with one another."She looks worse than last we saw her.  She appears to be past saving, but she was a sweet lass." the big one, Bollard, said. "Yer can stay."  More than one member of the crew had been looking at Carina’s slack face and pale skin, the way her breathing was shallow, uneven, and Lesaro was suddenly fiercely thankful that the bite and the worst of the curse was disguised by the way that Officer Magda held her.Lesaro could hear a ‘but’ on the tip of the pirate’s tongue and didn’t lower his sword.  “So easily?” His voice was deeply skeptical, and Officer Magda took one step back toward the railing.Scrum sheathed his sword and shrugged. "Well, we kinda don't have a proper Cap'n.""Here, I'm the Captain!" Gibbs protested immediately, outraged.  He also shoved his sword back into the worn sheathe and turned to face the other pirate, more irate with him than afraid of Lesaro."Not a very good one," Jib grumbled, followed by murmurs of agreement from the crew."These two will be able to help with the Captaining, I reckon," Scrum nodded. Lesaro judged their sincerity but didn’t lower his sword.  Magda stayed where he was."What?" Gibbs sputtered."Well it stands to reason, they got a bit more experience with a proper Captain. An' if they be willin' to jump ship with a horologist and wanna join us instead, then... they're kinda the right kind of blokes to be on a pirate ship."Lesaro growled at that, but Magda arrested him with a warning glance and a hiss.  He shifted Carina in his arms and Lesaro reluctantly sheathed his corroded rapier, but didn’t remove his hand from the grip."But-" Gibbs complained. "It's my right as first mate!  And you lot voted for me!""Might I suggest," Pike said carefully, his fingers teasing the air as he thought out loud, "That whoever the Captain is, that perhaps he makes a decision very soon, because..."He pointed over their stern.Everyone looked.A British warship was bearing down in their direction, sails unfurled."Mierde." Lesaro whispered.  It had been the better part of an hour since Nico had returned to the island, men (minus two) and supplies in tow.Salazar’s eyes were red and his entire being was focused on the verdant isle.  He hadn’t even looked as several of his crew came forward to help Officer Cortez and Officer Santos bind the men with chains and rope and distribute the supplies.  He’d been silent as Officer Cortez explained his plan and the way he wanted to use the easterly wind to fan the fire into the middle of the lush jungle, and several of the more experienced members of the crew thoughtfully offered up distribution patterns for the accelerant that would hasten the fire.Once they’d come to an agreement, everyone started to spread the plan and disperse titled and untitled crewmembers around the little speck of land.Once everyone had gone their separate ways, Nico sidled up to Salazar.  The man hadn’t moved, had barely blinked, and even his hair had stopped swaying.  It floated around his head in a great cloud, sunlight catching on the sharp edges of bone and making the ashen particles glitter faintly in the light.If it wasn’t for his quite pained wheezing, Nico would have thought he’d been removed from time.“Cap-” he started, only to feel himself bite down on his tongue as that glowing, odious gaze slid slowly over to him.  The full weight of Salazar’s attention when he was in one of his moods… the feeling was indescribable. He almost excused himself, but he knew that if he withheld this information until Salazar was riding the high of catching Jack Sparrow, his fury would be twice as bad.“Si, Officer Cortez?”  Salazar’s voice was deep and smooth, and it put Nico even further on guard.Instead of speaking again, he attempted to steady his hand and held out the one object that he knew would get the Capitán’s attention.Lieutenant Lesaro’s ruined hat, the right side distinctly disintegrated, a long smudge of ash from where his thumb had smoothed over it.  Salazar’s eyes changed instantly, the pupils shrinking to mere pinpricks and the color blasting to bright orange.He observed the hat for a moment before those hellish eyes snapped back to Nico’s face.  “Where,” he said softly, his voice holding the promise of great violence, “did you get that, Officer Cortez?”  “She needs the sea, she needs the sea, she-”“Will you shut it?”  Mullroy huffed, his face red with exertion as he rowed.  His sweat was running down his cheeks like tears, soaking his fine shirt and soft red coat.  How he’d been stuck in the rower’s seat, he’d never find out.Murtogg glared at him, “We need to figure out what the Cap’n meant by that, Mullroy.  We need to-” He was cut off again by an explosion that rocked him in his seat, making him grasp onto the edges of the little smallboat.A tower of fire erupted from the opposite beach, easily a mile in the air, all roiling yellows and reds and thick, black smoke.  There was a supernatural scream, furious and echoing, and it filled both of them with dread. They watched together in stunned silence as the fire dissolved slowly into the sky, but then the side of the island they couldn’t see started to glow with hellfire, and Murtogg crossed himself as he could swear the heat threatened to scorch his own brows from his face.Mullroy whispered, “Do you reckon he found out about the girl?”Murtogg bit down his sarcasm and answered honestly, “A woman is the only thing I know that can produce a reaction like that.”The fire didn’t subside, and on the thick rocks a league ahead of them, they saw a tiny figure running haphazardly with his arms outstretched in front him.  He was followed by a figure with much surer footing, a large woman in a larger white dress, and a lot of men that looked rather angry.“She needs the sea,” Murtogg murmured to himself, and he practically shouted, “She needs the sea, Mullroy, and she’s the Pearl!  Sparrow has the Pearl!”Mullroy groaned, but started to row faster than before.  Gui stared at Gibb expectantly, who stared back at him with a rather stupid and terrified look on his face."B...begging yer pardon, ghost man, but I don't speak Spanish."  The older man peered at him and clutched the coil of rope tighter.He sighed and brought his ruined arm up to pinch the middle of his brow.  "We're going to speed this pile of driftwood up and then,” he twirled his finger, “we're going to turn it around.  Now.”   He’d started barking orders like he was still on La Maria, of course, the instinct was almost too much to ignore, and his English was passable but not in sailing terminology.  He couldn’t expect this filthy lot to know more than a few curse words and maybe asking for food or a woman in another language.Even before they’d been cursed, most port towns spoke English and catered to the rich British sailors that would swan through.  Salazar had always been in a foul mood after finding a town with no citizens that spoke a lick of Spanish, especially if they spoke French or Dutch in addition to English.As Gibb nodded his understanding and turned to start barking orders to the crew in English terms Lesaro didn’t understand, he cast one glance back at the rough-hewn door that Miguel had slammed shut.  He resisted the temptation to check on them, striding forward and grabbing the wheel, jerking it violently to the left.The sun beat down on them but did nothing to dry his hair, which was unprotected by his coveted hat for the first time in half a century.  A tendril of it stuck to his forehead and tickled his nose, but he didn’t bother to brush it aside. It had been stiff with char, stuck in the curled style that had been demanded of him decades ago.  Now, the curls were falling out and he reached behind him absently, eyes tracking the pirates as they moved surprisingly efficiently around the deck. He found the remains of the ribbon keeping his hair back and yanked on it, breaking the weakened fiber easily.  His hair stuck in the shape of the ponytail, but the pressure of strands kept back that he’d always felt released, and his head felt lighter.To his mixed dismay and relief, his hair didn’t float mysteriously about his face like Salazar’s had.  It hung stiffly around his shoulders, flaking ash from time to time, and he resolved to see if he could do anything with it after this damn battle.  Cut it off, comb it out, something.He heard the English shouting from the other ship, and resolutely gripped the wheel, his mouth settling into an unhappy line.Before he could worry about his vanity, he needed to save his- the men from the enormous warship bearing down on them fast.  She was gone. Snatched from right under him, by the two members of the crew he’d trusted most.  He stood still in the waning sunlight, storm clouds gathering once again at his blackening mood, not even his hair moving, hand gripping his sword, and he concentrated. La Mariposa was still his, still connected by the curse.  His curse, he’d infected her, he’d put himself under her skin, she was his. Lesaro, the traitor, couldn't sever that no matter how hard he tried.The explosion on the island had been a testament to his loss of control, the fire spreading faster than any of them had expected, killing at least six of the pirates but not even their blood could pacify the hate boiling under his skin.  The sea beneath him was churning, thunder started to boom from the roiling clouds gathering above the ship. He gathered all of that energy and shoved it in the direction of his Mariposa. His Carina.He could feel her, so far now she was like the merest pinprick of starlight, but once he grasped hold of her, there was nothing that could stop him from honing in on that tiny light, shooting towards her with inerrant aim, until he all but smashed through into her mind, uncaring how his entrance unbalanced her.The first thing he felt was pain, her body so damaged and unable to be still while Miguel worked on her, and he knew his doctor was there from the panicked shouts that suddenly assaulted his ears.  She was awake, but barely, and he felt his name on her lips. She was in a hammock, he realized from the swaying of her body, and he felt no shame at what he did next.'Sleep, Mariposa, dream and be away with me,' he crooned, trying to coax her into a trance.He felt her resist, felt a mixture of her fear and relief as she tried to pull back from him, but her pain was making her weak, and he snarled.  He dug in the claws of the curse, amplifying its power, and cut her mind off from her body with little preamble. He built a dream, space for him to terrify and confront her, and shoved them both inside.In this place, there was no ornamentation. No comforting orchard, no alleyway slick with terror. He conjured his cabin, as it had been when she was there the first time, all broken bed and blackened furniture.  No elegance, the light of a single tallow candle throwing strange shadows around the uneven room. The hole in the wall lead out to a suffocating blackness, and he banished the persistent auditory memory of the waves lapping at the hull.  There would be nothing but the two of them, and he would… he would… he would do something, in this room that started it all.He materialized them standing inches apart, his hand locked on her wrist and his eyes were already fixed on her battered face.  “Sparrow!”  Mullroy called, about ready to beat Murtogg around the ears with the oars.  “Sparrow, she needs the sea!”“That’s me wife, Beatrice, and if you want to give her to the deep, be my guest,” Sparrow hollered, holding the Pearl in miniature carefully as he dropped to his knees, a piece of driftwood whistling through the air where his head had just been.  The woman holding it snarled, her momentum forcing her to run full tilt past him. Her large white dress caught about her legs and tangled her up. She went down hard, reddish-blonde curls bouncing as her face connected with the rough rock.  She didn’t get up.“The sea, Sparrow!  The ship! She needs-”  Murtogg shouted, making a throwing action with his arms.  He tucked the Pearl against his chest and rolled, a sword striking the stone beside him and sending up a shower of sparks.  “And that would be me brother-in-law, Pig Kelly!” The other man snarled at him, shouting something, and hacked at Sparrow angrily.  The pirate missed each swing by sheer luck, loose stones under his feet causing him to wheel haphazardly to regain his balance.The younger man was fighting three of the angry mob with one sword, flinging one of them off the cliffs and punching another in the face.  “It was a beautiful ceremony,” he called over his shoulder sarcastically, “Nearly brought me to tears!”“Why would you cry?  You weren’t the one who had to kiss her!” Sparrow spat, narrowly avoiding another sword to the face.  He was being maneuvered, Mullroy realized, watching the way Pig Kelly and two other men were stabbing at him.  They were trying to pen him in. Nowhere to run. Mullroy redoubled his efforts to get as close as was safe.Mullroy was about to yell again when Sparrow turned and looked right at him.  Mullroy found himself biting his tongue at the cold expression on Sparrow’s face.  He knew he was being put into a tight spot, and he clutched the ship tighter to himself.“She needs the sea,” Murtogg whispered, and they both watched in horror as Pig Kelly’s blade bit deep into Sparrow’s shoulder, knocking him down with a shout of pain.  The tall, slim boy cut through the men fighting him and cried out. Pig Kelly hissed something with a look of disgust on his face and twisted his blade before pulling it free with a graceless movement.  Sparrow and the Pearl slipped over the edge of the cliff and were swallowed by the waves as they crashed against the rocks.  “Keep it still,” Officer Magda whispered to himself, holding a bloody handful of silk to Carina’s side.  There was so little he could do on the ship when it was swinging about so violently.He’d felt the curse flare, felt as Salazar slammed himself into her, and shouted as he pulled her down and away, leaving her body limp and unresponsive.  She barely breathed now, not even twitching when he pressed fingers roughly against the most vicious wound on her leg.Pushing all of his ethics to the back of his mind, reasoning to himself that if she didn’t respond to pain, this was his only time to fix her.  Invasively. There had been a calm patch in the battle, time enough for him to slice into her side and locate the two loose ribs, one of the ragged edges caught in the tough facia that bound them together in the first place.  She didn’t move when he wriggled the first one back into place with a satisfying snick, then he threw himself on top of her as cannon fire ripped through the air.  He pulled back as it ended and crouched over her, cursing.The ship was moving about too violently for him to risk touching the second rib or even stitch her back together.  The skin around her wounds was pink and healthy, bleeding freely, compared the cursed gray mess on her other side. Even as he watched, the curse crept over more healthy skin, seeping it of all color.Her dress was beyond ruined, but Miguel couldn’t bear to expose her and had sliced through the outer garment and the corset. He tore away as much as he could while still keeping her dignity intact.  He exposed the darkly bruised side that covered her ribs. Now, he put more pressure against the incision and laid one hand flat against her sternum. He felt the steady thrum of her heart, still strong even in these trying times.“Let her go, you wretched man,” he said despairingly, waiting for the ship to stop lurching so he could at least stabilize the placement of the second rib and move on to cleaning out the rest of her terrible infected wounds.Rancid smoke filtered in through the porthole, and the light grew dim as the warship loomed closely between the little ship and the sun.Magda’s lips pulled down into a grimace of concentration as he focused.  All he could do now was keep her stable. Try to staunch the bleeding and keep her heart beating regularly.  He blocked out the sounds of the battle, the taste of the curse in the air, and concentrated on her shallow breath and the steady thrum of her blood pumping through her veins.  In a savage barrage, the Essex's cannonballs whistled through the air and into the water, too high for the Gull, landing yards ahead of the ship and sending geysers of seawater up to spray across the deck. The wind whipped Lesaro’s loose hair forward, and he thanked the Virgin the wind was behind them. It might make their next maneuver difficult, but at least for now it gave them the extra speed they needed to slip just ahead of the British warship."Orders, Captain!" Gibbs cried, fear cracking his voice."Forward!" Lesaro sliced his sword through the air, punctuating his determined response, "Forward!"  He longed to give more detailed instruction, but his English was failing him and forcing him to put more trust that the crew would know what to do.Shot after shot whirred through the air, viciously trying to find the sides of the Gull. From above, a rain of debris tumbled down as a high shot clipped the very top of the mainmast, but Lesaro paid it no mind, his eyes forward on the barely discernible ripples in a patch of sea, leeward to starboard.  A large splinter hit his shoulder and he barely noticed."Ready!" Clipped out a haughty voice from the deck of the Essex. Casting a glance back, he saw the glint of muskets over the side, all pointing down to the deck.  A line of perfect hats and white wigs, British sailors set up like toys against the railing. He cursed low under his breath."Take cover!" Lesaro commanded the Gull's crew - but he himself did not leave the wheel. There was no need, the shot would do nothing but go harmlessly through him, but he knew he would make an attractively easy target.  He stood up straighter and gripped the wheel tighter as the pirates scrambled to hide from the guns trained on them. There would be no doubt, while the cannons had missed them, the muskets would not. Not at this distance."Take aim!" The man knew how to project, his voice ringing between the ships.  The Gull’s crew tucked themselves away, holding up boards and crates where they were not perfectly concealed.Lesaro held his breath. "Fire!"The rattle of a spray of bullets shot up the deck, but mercifully they missed the living.  There were one or two yelps of pain as some men were hit by shrapnel, but nothing more than scratch he could see. No less than ten rifles had fired directly on him, and over half would have been fatal if he’d been mortal.  He saw the confused looks of the men he assumed were the best shots, so certain their marks were true, and he sent them all an evil grin before sliding his attention forward. A stench of dry smoke wafted over him briefly, but he had no time to consider it. The Gull was close now, and he had to calculate the timing of the next maneuver to the very second.Carina's life depended on it.Lesaro’s earlier order to sail the Gull leeward of the Essex had made Gibbs look at him in open-mouthed distrust, but he had recognized something the pirates had not.  The Essex sat high in the water, much higher than she’d been designed to. It was unusual, he knew, for a ship of the size of the Essex to sit so high - but he didn't care. Perhaps the ship had been in a hurry to leave its port, perhaps it had only stocked lightly for a short voyage - but whatever the reason, it now gave Lesaro and the crew of the Gull an advantage.  Before they had even fired their first cannons, he knew they would miss the much smaller and lower-sitting Gull."Prepare for the turn!" Lesaro cried, and spun the wheel hard, cutting the Gull across the very path of the Essex. He heard a muffled Spanish curse from inside the Captain’s quarters, but couldn’t give it any further thought.  ‘Just survive,’ he chanted mentally, ‘Please, just survive this and I’ll make it the smoothest sail in the history of sailing.’Gibbs stood up from his hiding place, blinking in terror and surprise, forgetting his orders.  A loose box nearly clipped him as it slid violently from one side of the deck to the other and it shook him out of his stupor."Now, you rats!" Lesaro cried in exasperation. "Fire the cannons!"“Fire the cannons, yeh scurvy dogs!”  Gibbs repeated, the crew quickly starting to unfurl from their hiding places into quick action. The submerged rocks to leeward were now in the direct line of the Essex's prow, and as Lesaro looked down the length of the ship in passing, he saw what he already knew would be the case - the ship, sitting so high in the water, felt the movements of the sea far more severely.  The ship was too unstable, and after the first round of cannon fire, the cannons had recoiled too far back on the tilting deck.And now, their only hope, the firing of muskets at the Gull, had failed - sprinting up to the prow achieved nothing, for they stumbled over the rolling cannons, unable to reach the prow in time to make any difference to the course of the Gull."Load!" Gibbs boomed. "Aim!"  The men worked less precisely than the navy, but at this range, it didn’t quite matter.  The cannons of the Gull fired - haphazard and out of sync, but they nevertheless made an impact.  Splinters and chunks of debris flew by, one pirate got hit in the face from the backlash, but there was more screaming coming from the inside of the hull of the Essex.  The larger ship was taking real punishment now, damage visible, ominous dribbles of blood coming down the sides from the gunports as the Gull cleared to the opposite side of the ship.Aboard the deck, they could see mass confusion; Lesaro heard the shouts as the men in the rigging and the crow's nest had finally spied the submerged rocks, and saw the rush to trim the sails and turn the ship to avert damage to the hull.The Essex was now turning completely away from the Gull, all efforts at attack abandoned in order to save the ship.He smiled as the men on the deck of the Gull cheered before there was an inhuman shriek from the Captain's quarters, loud and ragged, and he turned toward it in alarm.  It had been a man's voice, a familiar voice.  *Miguel's* voice.  Salazar allowed them no comfort of an altered appearance.  He was as dead as he was in real life, bile dripping down his chin, and she... she looked awful.  Her chin was bloodied and bruised, her eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, she was wavering on her feet, and the bite... the bite made him salivate with a lust stronger than he’d ever felt before.  A part of him that was still human was repulsed at his reaction, but he shoved it away. She looked at him with resignation on her face, not even trying to pull her hand away, and whispered, "I didn't want to go.""And yet," he whispered, his breathing harsh and his voice harsher, "you went."“I wasn’t even awake, I-” She cut herself off and closed her eyes, brows pinched in pain. She leaned her head to the side, the bite gaping, and raised up the hand he wasn't gripping tightly.  The tilt of her head made her lose her balance, she stumbled slightly to the side and her hand made contact with his cheek. He felt the way the scabs caught on the cracks in his flesh, but her fingertips pressed into his face and she swung herself forward sloppily to press her forehead against his chest.  She repeated, her voice thick with tears, "I didn't want to go."He didn't, couldn't respond.  This wasn't what he'd planned.  This wasn't what he wanted. He wanted her to be afraid.  He wanted...But her breathing had gotten harsher, and she started babbling, "I fell, I hurt my face and my hands, and then my leg, it's so bad, if I wasn't already half-dead it might kill me.  Even Sparrow was worried. And then- My back-" She was sobbing now, tears sliding down her face, "I killed someone, Armando, I sliced his throat and his blood is all over my dress, and my back- "She was leaning into him now, in earnest, and he had to fight to retain his balance.  He slipped one hand around her waist to anchor himself and frowned. She tilted her head up, looking at him through her tears, "You didn't come when I called you, back then.  You lied."She surged up and kissed him then, and he was both aroused and dismayed to discover she tasted like despair and old blood.  As he touched her, insistent against him, her words reverberated - you didn't come - you lied - you lied - you lied - Stronger than blood, stronger than rage, stronger than the curse, a tidal wave of grief washed over him, stinging and biting him as he released her wrist and cupped the back of her head.  What was he doing?   He’d cursed her so he could protect her, so he could always feel her in the world, so he wouldn’t be apart from her.  He hadn’t done it to punish her.He felt the Curse also rise up, attempting to crush the pain back down, but it was like trying to hold back a hurricane.  The grief surged through and around the Curse, unstoppable in its sheer inevitability, and Armando could do nothing except sink to the floor with his Mariposa in his arms.  He cradled her against him, mindful of how her wounds must pain her even in this space. and exchange his own bitter kisses for her sweet, needy ones.He pressed his mouth to her cheeks as she drew in shuddering breaths, a thousand memories of broken promises trying to fling themselves to the front of his mind, but he focused on Carina and the words he'd spoken to her; You will never be alone again and realized, heavily, that she was right.  If she... if this was what she looked like now, then she was right.  He'd lied.  He’d lied and he’d failed.The cuff of his coat caught on a split seam in her gown, tugging it and preventing his hand from sliding around her back, and he pulled away entirely.  He released her waist, shrugging his overcoat off and whispering, "I vow it, Mariposa, Carina Smyth, you will be mine. I will find you, and at the end of this, I will keep you."  He threw the coat behind him and reached for her again, but he found her slow to lean into him."I'm tired, Armando."  The way she murmured it, her eyes going soft and glassy, made something cold fill his belly.  "I want to rest. I haven’t rested in so long. Everything hurts, Armando, and I want it to stop."The way her body felt lighter in his arms flooded him with fear, but she smiled gently.  "I think... I think I want to close my eyes for a while." Her eyes fluttered, the bright blue disappearing between her lashes as she sighed.  "You're so warm.  I want to stay with you for-"She stuttered to a stop, her eyes losing all focus, her body going completely limp, and he flew into an outright panic.  She was dying.  She was... here in front of him.  Her body... the curse had not taken enough of her.  He’d felt the swaying of the ship when he took her, more than a simple passage, had it been in battle?  Her side was open and bleeding when it hadn’t been before, but it looked too neat to be a slash, it looked much more like the work of Officer Magda and his sharp little knife.  He didn’t know what was happening to her body, but if he could keep her soul awake...His own heart, which hadn't beat in so long, hammered in his chest, and he gently clutched her to him, "Carina?"  He said it softly, his voice trembling to his own ears, and he released a breath of relief as she sighed against him.  Hating himself, hating everything about this situation, hating Lesaro for stealing her away, this would be so much easier if she was actually in his arms, "Stay awake, mi amada.  Armor mio. Mi Mariposa. Stay with me. Stay." His voice sounded weak and pleading, even to his own ears.  Without thinking about it, he did for her what he’d done for so many men who couldn’t be allowed to slip into sleep.  He reached down and dug his thumb into the wound on her leg, the digit parting her rotting flesh with ease. Something foul leaked out and he cursed the living men of the world under his breath.She stiffened in his arms and screamed, but he held her tighter and concentrated.  "Lo siento, amor mio," he murmured as he reached out and caught the fluttering tendrils of her half of the curse.  He rose his eyebrows in surprise when he felt Lesaro and Magda intertwined with her, her curse having transplanted them to feed off of her dormant power without his notice.  He shook his head and forced his own curse to the surface. The vile thing that forced him to mark her in the first place, that had deepened his capacity for violence into a gaping chasm that he’d never wanted in life, and tried to force more of his own damned power into her through their weakening connection.  His thumb pressed harder and he pleaded under his breath, "Take her. Consume her, and keep her in this world for me. Please."For the first time, the curse spoke back.
Why?
The voice was all red and black, deep and fiery, blood and char, a purr that thrummed through his entire being.  It reverberated in his bones and made his heart ache.Carina cried from the sound of it, great tears in her eyes as she tried to fight against his hold, and he clutched her to him with more restraint, "I love her, Virgin forgive me, but I have done nothing but wrong her.  I love her, and I will fix her, but I just need time. I need her to… to…" He struggled, because ‘live’ was the wrong word, he actually needed her to die, but he needed her to do it in the same way he’d died.  “I need her to not be beyond the mortal plane.” He finished lamely, and he barely noticed that she’d stopped fighting him, shocked at his admission.She was staring up at him with confusion and a gentle hope on her face, and she touched his broken jaw with wonder.The curse manifested before them, a pulsing spherical cloud that was glowing red in the center, dissolving to tendrils of black smoke that curled around and around, over and under, a never-ending helix of magic and foul emotion.  It hovered before them. It looked like a banked ember, and he got the feeling that if he fanned that delicate flame in the middle it would burn him right to the bone. He automatically clutched Carina’s jaw with one hand, forcing her face into his chest.  He turned his shoulder to the malevolent shape, shielding her as best he could. He dropped her injured leg and pushed her lower half behind him.He felt the curse inside of him flare, and Carina shifted uncomfortably in his arms.  The area on her neck went from gray to black, and he watched as the curse darkened her veins where it had reached.  He started to salivate uncontrollably, black bile down his chin, and his back and legs twinged. He knew that if he’d been standing, he would have fallen.  The curse plucked his crushed nerves like a viola and he couldn’t help the grunt of discomfort that escaped him.Whatever it found inside of them made it pause and pull away.  It hummed thoughtfully and started to move around them in a slow circle, leaving a trail of smoke and embers behind it.  You would have me take her, regardless of what she wants?  You would her meet the same fate as you, even if she would rather have death?  She is incapable of loving you as I have loved you, Armando Salazar, she is- "I don't care," he gasped, interrupting the curse, "I don't care if she never feels this way for me, I want her to live.  One day, I will make her live."  Carina swallowed heavily and looked at him with an emotion in her eyes that she couldn’t have articulated if she tried.Sensing her gaze, he looked down at her, his eyes straying to that damned bite, and he felt a shiver of want, but bit out, "I... I should have let you go unmarked.  I..." He pressed his forehead to hers, and she arched her neck up to meet him, both of them breathing as if they'd run for miles to be in each other’s arms, "I-"“I would have died on Saint Martin if it wasn’t for the curse,” she said firmly, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead against his.  “I don’t want to die, not forever, not if this can be broken. I want to live, I want you to live, I want-”He opened his mouth to interrupt her and Carina swallowed whatever he was going to say as she reached up and firmly kissed him.  She tangled her hands in his hair and pulled herself up against him. He felt such a crush of want, and from the way she gasped, so did she, but then they felt the most unwelcome sensation of thick, cold air on their legs.  They pulled apart and, as one, looked down.The curse, closer than before, physically slid tendrils up their legs to the knee, evaluating them before floating back and curling back in on itself.  The ember in the middle pulse brighter, flames licking up in little blades that were gold at the tip.Carina watched the fire bank down as her desire receded, and thought to herself, horrified, ‘It’s eating us.  It feeds on what we feel.’  Before she could voice her discovery, the curse piped up again. For a price. It said decisively."A price?" he spat, involuntarily clutching her tighter.  "Have you not taken enough?"  Carina wound her arms up and around his shoulders protectively, glaring at the mass in front of them.  It rasped out something that might have been a laugh, Enough?  What is enough?  How many pirate corpses is enough?  How many times does Jack Sparrow have to die for it to be enough?  I will always want more. We're very alike that way. “What are you?” The words fell from her mouth, the first she’d ever said to the curse, before she could stop herself.  Salazar glared at her, but the curse laughed.
I am older than you can dream, little stargazer.  I have crushed cities, civilizations, entire generations of men, before I was chained to that archipelago by a puffed-up sea witch with seaweed in her hair and crustaceans at her bidding.
She felt the hesitation in the curse, somehow, like it wanted to say more but thought better of it, and it occurred to her that making another bargain with this thing was a very bad idea."Armando," she started, but she felt the curse brush her aside. Forget her.  The price. It said gently, almost soothingly, Forget her and give yourself entirely to me.  Close the bond. I’ll support and protect her, but you will hold no memory of her.  You will be mine, and kill as I direct you to. That is the cost of trimming the shoot of her curse from your branch. He didn't hesitate, didn’t even look at her, "And she will not die of her wounds?  She will be as immortal as you have made me?"“Armando,” she urged, “Think about this.  You don’t-”The ember glowed brighter and the tendrils curled showily.  They both ignored her. You have my word.  She will not die of her wounds, she will be as seeped in this curse as you and yours.  I'll even completely snip off the two with her now and finish the binding to her, and close them off from you.  Less distraction, wondering why your prized Lieutenant and darling doctor are so far away. Carina was gasping, she reached up to press her fingertips into his face, "Let me die," she demanded, and he leaned back in surprise.  “Don’t do this, Armando, don’t make a bargain with this thing, you can’t trust it, you can’t, I won’t let you-”He covered her hand with his own, thumb still slick with her blood, and cut her off with another kiss, "I am already damned,” he gasped as he released her, “You still have a chance.  You will get the Trident, you will-" He kissed her again, deeper, smashing his mouth against hers, and he angled his head, sliding his other hand to cup where her skull met her neck. She weakened and let him, parting under him, taking what he offered and she had wanted for so long.  He tasted like ash and anger, and she registered, distantly, that it should have been foul.  Instead, she dove deeper into his mouth, pressing back against him, and greedily devoured him.  When they parted for breath, he whispered, "You will free me, free all of us, and when you do, I will be waiting."  Without a moment's hesitation, he glared up into the smoke and fire, "I accept."She held him tighter as a sound, sinister and undoubtedly pleased, reverberated around them and pressed her lips to the ruin of his jaw.  This wasn’t her decision, she couldn’t stop him, it was too late to argue. She couldn’t do anything else but memorize the feel, the smell, the taste of him as the smoke expanded and filled the confines of the dream cabin.  It shoved itself between them, pouring into her nose and robbing her of breath, wiggling between all the places they touched until she couldn’t feel him at all.She heard his agonized scream and flinched as it turned into an inhuman roar.  She could hear the curse as it took him, and she tried to fight through the smoke to reach him.  ‘No,’ she thought desperately, blind to everything around her, ‘Not this, don’t make him into this.’ The curse leered at her, made him roar again, and then ejected her from the dream with as much force as Armando had used to drag her down.   “No!” Magda shouted as her skin paled dramatically, everywhere, cracks webbing out delicately, and the strong beat of her heart started to stutter.  He let go of the silk he was holding to the wound on her side, reaching up and frantically unhooking the front to her dress. He pulled it open and stared, horrified, as the curse overtook her.It was spreading across her skin like ink across paper, fanning out from the bite mark, and he cursed under his breath as he watched.Being a doctor, the loss of life was a sad, necessary part of his employment.  He’d held men on La Maria as they died in his arms of hideous wounds, he’d even helped some pass with copious amounts of morphine.  There was little dignity in death, but before him, Carina was not dying. She was being transformed.Her body was twitching as her nerves were caught in the between state of the curse, dying and then trapped in stasis.  Her heart was beating frantically, unevenly, and her lungs were fluttering in her chest. The incision was laid bare, silk ribbons a bloody tangle on the floor, and he watched in horror as the bones themselves started to crack, her blood turning darker, sluggish, thick, nearly black as it ran down her side.He was helpless to do anything to help her, to stop it, when the curse slammed into him and ripped him open wide.It felt so close , closer than it ever had, as if it was pressing claws hands into his chest, and he gasped out a muffled shriek.
Oh, you covetous little thing, don’t worry.
His head spun, was that the-  Was the curse talking? Images started to throw themselves up, flashing by, and he went cold when he realized they weren’t memories, they were desires.   Carina, drawing equations on a wide board in their joined study as he penned another article.  Plaques and medals rested on the wall behind him, some with his name, some with hers, their joined brilliance acknowledged and lauded across Spain and Europe.  Not his wife, he didn’t care for sex or… relations, but his partner.  His intellectual equal.  Salazar could marry her, could impregnate her, he could care less, and another image swept by, almost too fast to see.  Magda himself, lecturing to three children, all with Salazar’s dark, solemn eyes and their mother’s wild hair. As Godfather, he’d insist that they’d be named after constellations, and- You covet her.   The voice, the one that he didn’t hear so much as he felt vibrating the bones in his skull, was satisfied.He let out a sound of token protest, and it squeezed his insides.
Her mind.  You could care less about her body, you don’t care for anyone’s body and I couldn’t tempt you that way if I tried.  But her mind… she’s a brilliant young woman, isn’t she?
The curse smiled all around him, he could feel it and it was intensely unfriendly.  He wanted to know so many things, but the pain was unlike any he’d ever felt, even being burned alive on La Maria.  Even with his legs in pieces and his stomach somewhere across the other half of the ship as he died. This was like fire and ice and all of the natural world compressed and fit inside of him, ready to explode.  He couldn’t do anything but whimper. The air around him was cold, thick, heavy. Don’t worry, it crooned, You won’t ever have to be away from her again. He shrieked and before he could protest, his mind was shoved far down and his body fell, slack, to the floor of the cabin.  One minute he’d been yelling orders for the men to secure the cargo, check the damage, and calling for Gibbs to help him chart a course, all while striding to check on Miguel in the Captain's quarters, and the next he was screaming.It felt like he’d been punched in the gut and stabbed in the back all at once, the curse exploding out of him in a cloud of dark, inky tendrils, curling like smoke, and it was devouring him.  He couldn’t move his arms, his legs, he couldn’t do anything but yell as he felt the curse moving through his veins, his organs, filling him with bright red light and sifting through him like a lady through a pile of scarves.  Shifting, voluminous, tangled.
You always have to be a hero, don’t you?
It was the curse, he knew it without even knowing why, and he struggled despite the pain.  This vile thing, this evil voice, it had already taken his body, but he could feel it brushing up against his very soul. This had never happened before, and he found himself powerless in the face of the power of the curse. You couldn’t protect one, and image shoved it’s way to the forefront of his mind.  His sister, bright, beautiful Emilia, shuddering on the ground in a ripped dress.  The way she clung to him as she cried, the way Armando had looked at him solemnly when he’d asked his help to track down the men who’d committed the crime, the way it had taken her years to stop flinching... So you try to save another.   Carina, blood running dark down her neck.  Carina, in the cell, finding beauty in a time of pain and darkness.  Carina and Salazar, staring at each other with soft wonder. Salazar, his teeth in her neck.  The cursed mark, the savageness of it, the sheer betrayal.If he concentrated, he could feel the entity behind the curse plucking at the bond, unraveling it slowly. You’ll protect her, it hummed, You’ll protect her until she dies.  You can’t do anything else, can you? That was the last thing he knew as the curse severed the connection between his mind and his body and everything went dark.