They bring her up from the wretched, waterlogged hold, bound in rope and chain.

O ETERNAL Lord God, who alone spreadest out the heavens, and rulest the raging
of the sea; who hast compassed the waters with bounds, until day and night come to an end;
Be pleased to receive into thy Almighty and most gracious protection, the persons
of us thy servants, and the Ship in which we serve. Preserve us
from the dangers of the sea

They needn't bother; her bindings are too tight already, the body she is trapped in heavier than the thickest chain, but still she holds her head high and stares at them until they drop their curious gazes. Sailors, of all mortals, are superstitious men, and they do not dare to meet her eyes.

They're scum, worthless. She searches the crowd to find Barbossa, and their eyes meet: of all the sailors he and Elizabeth alone stand their ground, but she doesn't watch or listen to them; her attention is on a small iron bowl held by one of Barbossa's men, and on the small pieces that roll about in it, clinking. It's Barbossa who pours the oil over them, Barbossa who lights them, Barbossa who intones in solemn voice the charm to release her from her bonds. She takes a breath, impatient, straining against her bonds.

"Calypso!" His voice is deep, rasping; he lets it roll grandly over the gathered company, and pauses to enjoy the silence. "I release you from your human bonds."

It isn't enough. It isn't enough, and she struggles for the first time, in impatient and impotent fury. Barbossa has no idea what love might be, the charm won't work, all this has come to naught and the Pirate Lords who bound her will never be punished, she'll never be free...

"You aren't saying it right."

It's gentle and almost impossible to hear, but she focuses on the voice and glares in it's direction to see Barbossa's man, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly under the weight of attention. He looks nearly apologetic, but maybe, maybe...

His breath is but a whisper against her neck, his voice unheard save by her ear, but he says it and

Calypso?

she takes a breath and

I release you

it returns as a wind that shakes the sails of the Black Pearl.

from your human bonds.

---

Above her there are stars and deep, deep black; below her are the sparkling fish and the shifting sands and she is no she any longer but a massive presence only, fierce and furious and drifting--and yet there is one hold still, one slender thread that focuses what is left of this human mind that they caught her in. A voice, one among her own myriad, but strong nonetheless, and familiar, and saying words which draw her back. It questions her; she answers with a snarl and a tempest.

Who? it asks, in the silence of her pause, who betrayed you?

The Pirate Lords.

How did they betray you?

They bound me.

How did they know to?

I do not know.

Who told them?

I do not know.

A pause. She feels water swirling about her feet. He knows. She pushes towards his mind but cannot find her way through. Aggrieved, she demands:

Name him.

Who betrayed you?

Fury.

Name him!

There is silence, and then Will leans forward, his voice a harsh whisper against the scream of wind.

Davy Jones

The human heart they had so cruelly given her limps; the human body they had sentenced her to begins to shake--but the charm is spoken, what was done now undone, and she releases her hold on the fragile thread that is Will to dive deep into the cold, the dark, the multitude that welcomes Calypso back to it.

Her mind, free of its human weaknesses, calms, but her rage is unabated. With one stroke she could obliterate the Pirate Lords from the sweeps of her ocean; with one wave shatter the Pearl into less than matchsticks, but she is confused. Who was the betrayer, the pirates or their enemy? Was it her followers or her lover who snatched her away from this her bed and forced her into a singular form lifted above the waters and the creatures she once had been?

Is it the Black Pearl or the Flying Dutchman that deserves her wrath?

In her uncertain anger, the waters begin to swirl, clouds gather, lightning strikes and wounds the slate-colored waves. Far above comes a cry of "Maelstrom!" as she pulls together the two ships that are all the power and glory of the men who had betrayed her before drawing away herself, to some secluded and peaceful part of the ocean, to keep watch.

The fight is fair, and her anger appeased: neither side has the advantage. The strong winds keep the Pearl from flanking or fleeing; the steep drop of the whirlpool holds the Dutchman's formidable arms at bay.

Her part in this war is ended, and she turns all but the smallest portion of her attention to it, to the cries and the sounds of cannon and screams. Soon it will end, but before then she has other matters to attend.


O MOST powerful and glorious Lord God, at whose command the winds blow, and
lift up the waves of the sea, and who stillest the rage thereof;
We, thy creatures, but miserable sinners, do in this our great distress cry unto thee for help; Save, Lord,
or else we perish--

The living, the living shall praise thee O send thy word of command to rebuke the raging winds and the roaring sea

Jailed, again.

She sits in murky light, in a cell that smells of mold and rats and old seawater, and runs her fingertip around and around the details of her locket. There's a click when she slips a nail into the opening, and a slight whirring, and then her cell is filled with the plaintive plucking of a lullaby--an old song with no words but many memories.

She lets the little melody play, on and on, lilting delicately through her jail, while her eyes follow the track of the cogs and wheels inside.

It's company, of a sort.

She's waiting still, but soon--very soon, now--what she longs to see will appear.

Things have been set in motion now, and by more hands than hers, after all. Barefoot, hand fisted about the silver locket, she stands in the sun and breathes in the salt air, while the wind whispers secrets to her.

Her eyes dart eagerly along the horizon, and sometimes she turns as though hearing footfalls behind her. No one has come yet, and Will is nowhere to be seen, but she still stands.

It won't be long. She's called, after all, and the call must be answered.

"Ah," she sighs, with the waves lapping up over the sand, sighing with her.

She had been waiting.

But not for Jack. Oh, no, to wait for Jack is folly, she knows well: this would never be his decision to make. Not any longer.

"So be it, your choice," she says, and reaches out, as if to lay one hand on Will's cheek, but an instant before her palm touches his skin, she jerks her hand away, her eyes pleased, brilliant in the sun. Her face is transfigured, bright and eager with a wildness that is only barely contained.

There's a wind growing, a fair stiff breeze, and it swirls at the Pearl's rigging, tugs at Will's jacket and hair.

She stands on her toes, stretching up as though to kiss his cheek, and whispers in his ear with her voice laughing and sighing all at once. "A touch," she says,

(And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him)

(the wind sighs, and pulls, and the Pearl shifts in her berth)

(He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them")

"of destiny."

Her steps away are quick and decisive; she walks to the meeting of the sand and the water, where the little inlet seeps into the heavy forest and makes it smell of fresh dark water. She clutches something before her chest; her words are low and muttered, strange words that echo and then fade away, rippling through the air. She lifts her hands as though in prayer, tosses them, and

one
 two
        three
                 four
                     five
                 six
          seven
 eight
nine

little drops fall, into water that has turned utterly placid. Somewhere far away, a rustle stirs through the leaves of the woods and then stills.

At the water's edge, Tia Dalma clutches at the locket that hangs at her throat, and waits, her eyes wide and impatient, a small figure dwarfed by the ship before her. She is waiting, waiting, and the time has finally come.

And then the wind comes.

With it races the scent of salt; the wild lilting calls of the curlews and the gulls, and the woods--the land--shiver, and shake, groaning.

She closes her eyes, and raises her arms, embracing the wild wind that smells of salt and sun and dim-lit rainforests; sand and storms and tar.

(But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone")

And when she drops them again, the inlet is larger. Much larger; it stretches and shines, unfolds beyond into a great dark and hazy line, over which rolls purple clouds and the beginnings of the final glints of a Caribbean sunset.

It's to this horizon that she turns her face now, eager as a girl, her hands dropping to her sides--no. One goes to her side, the other falls to her stomach, where it cradles the silver locket that is laid there--

And she waits.

It won't be long now.

There's a fair wind blowing, but it's hemmed by the trees and the buildings; rustling leaves and water and still black sails in frustration, ruffling her hem where she stands, toes curling into the coarse lakeside sand.

The Pearl is further from shore now, anchored and secure far out in the water, with no way for her to get to it, and Tia Dalma clenches one brown fist with annoyance, the beads she holds denting her palm. The smell of salt is very faint--though her nostrils flare, she can catch only the slightest hint of it. The static lake is just like a puddle of rainwater that hasn't been soaked up yet, and she, never patient, is growing restless.

She's seen the new arrivals; this edge of the universe is growing crowded.

The thought makes her smile, if only to herself.

There is nothing like the river, here.

There is no warmth; there is no mist, there are no fireflies to carry the misguided, the forgotten, the wandering souls away. There is no smell of salt in the earth, no warmth of the Carribbean in the little dusking breezes.

She walks with bare feet and skirts whose hems grow ragged against the frosted ground, her steps careful and precise, for though the fire inside is warm and attractive, there is a...call, to this place.

It settles and thrums around her shoulders like warm thread, it sings in her ears like the hum of taut rigging in a wind. It is warm and dancing and addicting and even though she watches the black ship with annoyance, she remains drawn to it.

She hasn't walked out to it yet, though. Pride is as strong a bind as nearly anything else--pride and power figting each other too hard to call.

Pride and love, now. Which might be the stronger of those two?