tentacruelest | 10th Wave

10th Wave

The cacophony of noise here is growing worse. Stow your bleating, lambs, or I'll cast yeh overboard to fill your jabbering mouths with seawater.

[Never mind that they're not even sailing over water at the moment. Jones can understand English, but is speaking in Scots Gaelic]

[Private to Sylvanas]

If yeh would oblige me a moment, m'lady..? I've something you might like to see.

[Private to Bush]

Yeh've been quiet, Warden. Plotting something?

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In another ten years I'll have killed you more times than you'd like to count. Are ye prepared for that?

[At this, Jones grows cold and stressed, anxious and angry and flustered. When it's matters of ship and sail, he knows precisely where he stands. Love is another battlefield altogether.

He immediately leaps on the defensive; a definite departure from usual tactics]

She was not so degraded as to be a bit player in any man's book. You cannot - do not speak her name-! - she was...

She is not Sylvanas.

Death frightened me more before I'd been through it twice, Jones.

I'm glad you recognize in her faults and virtues both, Sylvanas is not her. It'd be unfair to the lady if you didn't. To both of'm.

Then I'll be sure to think up something that will frighten you.

Did yeh ever wonder why it was that you could control the sea as you do, Bush? Where on land you'd be slow-going and lumbering at grueling pace, on the open ocean you could cover twice the distance in half the time?

You have her t'thank for it. She's wild and untamable and I was a fool and I paid for my mistakes. Never again will I know joy or rage like that. I am heartless; I died heartless; I will forever be heartless. There is nothing you can do to alter that.

We sacrifice to her like pagans still. Blood and sweat and days without water, weevily bread, dying in tempests. And we love her. You ain't the only man ever loved her. But you loved her more'n most.

That means something to you or you wouldn't be so angry now.

I was a fool to think she could love me back. She abandoned me to die. I mattered as little to her as a flea.

And still my wretched heart beats. I hear it. I hate it.

When we next reach port, let me bury it again.

It's yours to bury. I won't prevent you.

I can't and won't stop the Admiral from bringing it back as suits him, though.

He would not be so cruel as to inflict it on me time and time again.

...Jones, the only worse and more capricious captain I ever had than the Admiral was Sawyer, and that poor man was mad.

I don't know any Sawyer. But I can say the Admiral likely knows precisely what he is doing.

And here I thought myself the terror of any ship.

I wouldn't think you did. He served with Nelson, and you're well before Nelson.

This ship is brimming over with terrors. You can't be the only one.

Who the damned hell is Nelson?

I've just killed one. I'd say that makes me one of the biggest.

And his friend or his conspirator or whatever Mister Riddick is is unmoved except to threaten to take the 'cephalo' off your 'pod' whatever that means. It wasn't quite English even before this.

Nelson was a war hero; a sea captain as brave and clever as any you've ever met, and as an Admiral he thrashed Boney at Trafalgar. One of the finest the Navy's ever seen; there's few of his quality.

If you aim to let him, that's your business. I understand consequences well enough; and now Arthas does, too.

I'll assume 'Boney' is another sea captain of yours. I'll save my reservations for when I meet him face to face. It was I who carried the souls of Henry Morgan, Black Bart Roberts, Ned Low and many others to their graves.

[Bush scoffs, offended.] Bonaparte's no sea captain. He was a General of the French Army and now he thinks he's an Emperor. He had his teeth in all Europe except Britain, for a bad few years. Admiral Villeneuve or however it's pronounced was the commanding officer of the action. He lived to return to France, and that's where Bonaparte had him murdered for failure, so they say.

And God rest his soul, Admiral Lord Nelson died at in that battle. That was the year five; in eight-- no, nine-- years there hasn't been another like him except Hornblower.

And as it happens I don't have a mind to let anyone murder you. I was told that there's no death for punishment her and I'll abide by those laws.

French. Never could much stand by 'em.

Then if he's died at sea, I might've been the one to collect him, in time. Think he'd serve under me?

[He's joking; teasing, to get Bush hot and bothered again]

I was told no such thing. And the penalty for death should be death.

He'd more likely take your position. The men always were fond of him. [He doesn't rise to this bait, at least.]

He'd have t'stab me to do it. Mutiny's a mite more complicated aboard the Dutchman. Yeh'd have to carve your own heart out in order to seal it.

Perhaps he's already managed it and it's him ferrying sailors about in my day.

If he is, then he'd be the one to have stabbed the boy William Turner. And for that, I'd thank him.

If Turner is commanding you shouldn't meet him to thank him. It means you are still here, I suppose. If that's how it works.

If we are speaking of second chances - and if I were, by some miracle, to want and earn it - then the only places left for me are either the Dutchman or Hell. There will be no place for me on my ship unless I murder the boy, and that would send me straight back here.

Although the thought appeals; let Turner serve his time on the Barge. We could make it cyclical.

And asking for your life back is only for wardens to do, I see. Not good enough for you.

My life was worth nothing to anyone. It is not worth the trouble of demanding back.

Then maybe Turner will berth us together as dead men bound for wherever we're bound, when the time comes we go back. I shouldn't be sorry for the chance to vex you to the last.

Turner will be set free in ten years' time, if his love remains true. It is my fondest wish she doesn't. Let him feel the sting of loss.

And he will not see fit to carry me anywhere. He would take you gladly; I will be left to rot, as I allowed so many to do so in my stead. A fitting, poetic end.

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