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Whispers of Redemption	By : GeorgieFain Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > General Views: 2243 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Year Thirty-two

Dreams and a Baptism

He was back in the Locker. Somehow, he knew this was wrong.

But, then, he'd thought it was wrong all along.

He was chained to the mast again, by one arm. His wrist chafed as he pulled at the chain, squinting under the intense white sunlight. The ship was deserted---he hadn't seen another soul in centuries. As he managed to get a bit of blood from his skin---rubbing it back and forth against the manacle's edge, he decided that it might be best if he just cut off the hand and be done with the whole bloody mess. He could learn to live without his hand, couldn't he? He could get a hook. Pirates did that, all the time. It would make an awesome, unbeatable weapon. And as long as he remembered not to scratch his ballocks with it, no worries.

'Ye don't want to be doin' that, boy.' Barbossa's voice came at him from behind. He could hear the sound of boots descending from the quarterdeck, now. The other pirate approached, chuckling. 'Wi' a hook, ye'll get drunk an' make a eunuch o' yerself. T'would be a terrible loss, Jack me lad.'

He braced himself for a horror, but it was just Hector. As he remembered Hector, last. The weathered face was smiling with a cruel bemusement. He lifted his chin and played defiant. 'You're forgetting, mate. No rum. No danger of me getting drunk, savvy?'

'There is that.' Hector mused, reaching out to touch his shirt's collar with a leather-wrapped hand. His matelot's oversized, ridiculous hat was missing and, in the sunlight, the faded green calico scarf was darkened in places with sweat. Barbossa wore only his worn breeches and shirt; the frock coat and baldric were missing. To his sight, it seemed as if the mutineer was unarmed and only half-dressed. With a curl of his upper lip that creased the long scar on his right cheek, Hector leaned close to whisper huskily at him. 'Tis a pity. Ye always were at yer best, wi' th' rum in yer veins. But, perhaps ye want a parlay? I might be inclined to free ye, if'n th' terms are to me likin'.'

A key was dangled before him, black iron freedom almost within his grasp. It jangled on its ring from Barbossa's other hand, held just out of his reach. A plan formulated itself in Jack's mind. He had to get loose from the manacle and it was Barbossa who held the key---he could use that. It was about leverage, aye?

Tipping his head to the side, he pushed his cheek at the callused hand which brushed at his shoulder. Lowering his eyes, he drawled an answer. 'Terms? What need we for terms, Hector? It's simple enough. I'll do anything to get free of this blasted chain and...I have my ideas of what you want. Straight trade, then?'

He saw how Barbossa's eyes widened, the pupils growing larger. There was a moment when he thought he might've gone too far...that he had misjudged the other pirate's desire. But, then, with a sigh that sounded deep and fathomless, Hector crossed the last distance and he only let his eyelids drop closed as his matelot's lips brushed at his opened mouth. Barbossa's kiss was hot, spiced with rum and apples, and he felt his bones melt under the expert tongue that caressed and searched him. He couldn't resist a growly purr as he heard the key tossed away and felt both hands come up to cup his jaw, lifting his face to be devoured by the man who had once so terribly betrayed him.

Even as the ship wasn't moving---there was no sea, no wind---he felt himself being moved. He was turned bodily at the mast, his mouth suddenly lost without the lips that offered a sensual salvation. Now, he was facing the massive wooden mast, his clothes being stripped away by strong hands that knew their business. He went willingly, even as his skin scraped the mast's uneven splinters. His cheek and brow bounced against the rough, tar-painted wood; he gritted his teeth at the impact but said nothing.

Then, unexpectedly, his head was pulled back by the length of his hair.

'Yer a mad gommerel, Jack.' It was whispered into his ear from behind. 'Ye'll have to work for it, boy, an' I've a mind to work ye hard. But, first, ye'll sweeten th' deal, as it were.'

He had only a moment of whining protest before---BONK---he saw stars.

When Jack came to himself, he was flat on his back in a soft bed. And he wasn't chained. Blinking, he looked around and saw that he was in the captain's cabin---it was in perfect order, just as he remembered everything. He was naked, in his own bed, and outside the mullioned windows, it was dark...night, then.

Hector lay on the bed beside him naked and freckled, golden and wiry.

With a welcoming smile and words of offering. 'Ye get first turn, Jack.'

Wriggling upward and sideways to straddle Hector's hips, he caught the other man's mouth. He claimed his matelot's lips ferociously, desire growing with the heat between their skin. He slipped his hands down, arching his hips enough to give his fingers the space they needed to find the prick that went on, shoving up at him in need.

It caused Hector to whimper into his mouth, pushing up harder.

His lover was so young, now, in the light of only the lantern that swung nearby from a rough-hewn beam. Hector Barbossa was no longer the man who'd led the crew in a mutiny on him, but instead looked as he had when only seventeen, perhaps eighteen. A mere lad. It made his own cock stiffen and twitch, the scent of his young matelot's lust.

Now, he broke free of the kiss and scooted back to straddle both thighs under his weight as he bent his face to capture one pinked nipple between his teeth. The thin blonde hair tickled his cheek as he began flicking his tongue over it as he went on, stroking and exploring Hector's ribs, belly, the throbbing prick that jerked under his touch.

He moved to the other nipple, blindly, letting his body move with Hector's sudden, writhing spasms. The boy under him began to sob with the pleasure. 'Ah, damn ye, Jack---'

Gently, Jack licked at every inch of skin he could find, making love with his tongue as he sighed and whispered encouragements, open and wet mouth working over his matelot's ribs. He pushed his knees to the bedding, finding a way between the long legs he sat on. Lowering his mouth to the slight dip of the other pirate's navel, he reached to grip Hector's strong hips. He mumbled a curse as his cock dragged on the rough, wool blanket. He could make Barbossa sorry for betraying him, for betraying what they�d shared between them---

Sweating and breathing hard, Hector groaned, shifting to give him more room. He could feel the way the mutineer's skin trembled with nerves and desire. He planted a gentle kiss on the smooth, flat surface of skin only an inch above the bobbing, leaking head of the man's prick.

Hector pulled his feet back and apart, spreading before him in an offering, submissive position---a dream come true. It was beautiful, like open sea under a twilight sky He could feel his insides aching as his body shook like he had the ague.

'Under the blankets, Jack.' Hector murmured.

Fumbling, he found it. The wee bottle of stinking lamp oil. Its sour smell assaulted his nose as he poured the yellowish fluid into his fingers, his face bent to let him breathe on the erection under his mouth. His lips touched the tender place where foreskin pulled back to drip spunk onto the light fur of Hector's belly.

Jack licked at the thick skin, tasting the salt-sweet of slick spunk and the musk that mingled with the scents of tar, rope, salt, and wood. He slipped his fingers down and behind Hector's ballocks, massaging. As he did it, he became aware of the differences: his matelot was young, but he was the same as he'd been when he was chained to the mast. He was the older of them, now. There was his black leather hand-brace and he could feel the scars underneath, where he'd been chained up for a year in Singapore. There, on his chest, the mark of two bullets he'd taken for Barbossa.

The moment was surreal, the strange awareness of how different this was.

'Jack?' With his long driftwood blonde hair laying lank and sweat-dampened on the pillows, Hector was watching him with concern in his pale eyes, a flush in his freckled face. The scar on it was clear, easily seen---only a few years old.

He had stopped, his mouth still against the prick he'd been kissing.

'Jack?' Hector asked again, arching his hips up as if to beg for attention.

He decided; surreal or not, he wasn't going to give up a chance to have Hector. He might be the older man, in this moment, but the Hector he was touching was the Hector Barbossa who had once been...Hector, before going on account. Hector, before the bitterness and hard choices. He could remake this, between them. Even if only for the moment.

With a tenderness that came from the knowledge of what he was doing now, he stroked at his matelot's bung and then up and down, over the other sailor's inner thighs, and back to the velvety thickness of flesh behind the tightened scrote. He lifted his face and licked at the head of the engorged prick. He moaned in his throat as he took it in his mouth, tonguing at the foreskin, down over the head, grasping at the pulsing shaft with his stained fingers.

It was met with a hoarse sigh and the nudging push of the hips under him. Jack swallowed reflexively as he spread the lamp oil into the constricted bud of his matelot's untested arse. Sliding his mouth against the hardness of warm, heavy flesh, he forced himself to breathe slower as he began to push his middle finger into Hector's bum.

His suspicions played out as correct.

'Unggghhh---ah, hell---Jack---' It was a whining, needy noise, but it rose and changed with the careful, steady drive of his finger. 'Too much, ye arsebite---'

Just two knuckles past the hard ring of Hector's bunghole, he rolled his finger and curved it toward the front, gently at first. As he sucked the prick in his mouth deeper, completely into his throat, he caressed the knot he found under his fingertip.

'Damn ye, Jack---' Hector nearly shouted it, sobbing, jerking under him.

Closing his throat against the head of the prick in his mouth, he used his tongue and began to rub, wrap, pull...while nudging his finger at the hot, tight interior of the other pirate's arse, sliding out only long enough to add his first finger. Two going in, he began to work them in a circle, forcing Hector to cry out and fuck into his throat with a lunging shove.

His matelot was trembling in a tendon-popping way. 'God's wounds, Jack...aye...'

The thrust into his throat made his eyes water as he began to fuck into Hector slowly, loosening the muscles with care. Over and over and over. Then, when the boy's hips were bucking into his face as if to make him swallow everything whole, he curved his fingers to find the small, swollen knot again with a light, quick stroke.

Hector screamed in pleasure, hoarse and babbling...incoherent.

Swirling his tongue upward to catch the prick's head, Jack used his fingers to pump the veined shaft. With a deft twist of his wrist, he pulled at the root and gave a thrumming moan at the shove of furry flesh and hardness that was grinding against his face.

That'd be enough, he measured. With care, he slipped back and pulled free, moving up to cover his lover's body. Jack shoved his hands under and around Hector's raw-boned shoulders and ribs, pulling him into an embrace. He hurried to kiss the mouth that opened weakly under his lips and tongue; Hector was still trembly, aching for a relief that had been denied.

He crushed his matelot in his hug, laying between the boy's legs. His lips lingered, brushing at the mouth that waited open for his kisses, and he murmured, almost breathless. 'Promise me you'll be a good lad?'

Hector moaned, sounding broken at the denied pleasure. 'Aye, Jack, I will.'

Something in that gave him the shivers up his spine. If only it could be true.

He found the wee bottle of lamp oil again, with little effort, as he licked at the sweaty stubble and tanned skin, the delicate curves of jaw, throat, ear. Lifting upward, he planted his knees in the bed at the cleft of the boy's arse. Trembling with barely reigned lust, he coated himself with the smelly oil, and tugged at his matelot's legs, drawing them up and around his hips. He kissed at Hector's throat, then blindly sought out the mouth that could break his heart so easily with the wrong words just now. Sucking at Barbossa's lower lip, Jack shifted and maneuvered himself to the opened bum, being tender.

Digging his toes into the bed, he began to push in, the throb becoming fierce. He didn't stop until he was completely buried to the root. He ignored the whine that came from Hector's lips. He wondered, instead, what it was about this act that made him feel protective. He could feel a possessive need to defend and protect the boy under him.

'Jack---' Hector pushed up at him, asking wordlessly to be filled.

Bracing himself on his hand, Jack pulled back a few inches, rolling his hips against the tightness. Then, pounding home again, he pushed his lips down to re-claim the mouth that went on sobbing. Meeting the upward arch, he began to slowly drive into Hector with long, slow, savoring thrusts, churning at the arse that tugged at his hardness. His young matelot pitched up and down to meet his strokes, kissing at him with a feverish, craving tongue. The prick between their bodies had, first, softened at the new sensations, but now was growing hard again.

Jack began to move faster, plunging into the boy's tight arse, breathing hard, driven to find the pinnacle of pleasure that could be had from such simple movement. He bent himself backward at the waist with a groan, hissing, nearly praying for relief as his body spasmed with the effort to hold back his release.

'Ah---aye---' Hector hissed at him, red-faced and sweating.

Up on his knees, Jack grabbed at the hips that moved under his, surging forward with strong, sure strokes, grinding in circles with each retreat. Gasping for breath, he fell against the boy, urgently kissing the eager mouth he found.

It was there, to be felt, as if he was somewhere else at the same time. The knowledge of wishes and desires left unfulfilled and buried truths that suffered in darkness. Wetness stung his eyes as he shut them and gave himself up to the kiss, devouring his matelot's mouth. Their faces rubbed together, from brow to nose; his braided beard scrubbing at stubbly jaw as he made Hector his.

Hector, however, seemed to have other ideas. Wrenching back and forth on his cock and groaning through the kisses, the boy was tense and at the edge of hysterical rage. 'Jack---damn---fuck, harder!'

He lost it there, his eyes squeezed shut at the pressure of keeping pace. He fucked harder, deeper, crashing down into the lean, tall body offered to him as the legs around his hips tightened, holding him. Pulling his mouth back only a bit, Jack breathed in each exhaled sob that came from his matelot. But, as he opened his eyes, he came in a bone-shattering deluge and lost himself utterly to the eyes that stared up into his face.

Collapsing, Jack gave in and dropped his face in the offered throat. His nose fetched up snug at the place where jaw met ear. He was quite happy to stay right there for the next century.

Clink...clink-clink.

The world shifted fast on its axis, up became down.

Jack opened his eyes to find that he was no longer in bed with Hector.

He was back on deck, manacled and on a short chain, unable to escape.

He was alone.

Lowering his head, Jack bit off a curse of frustration.

***

He was surprised to discover that Elizabeth had never been baptized at sea; he had simply assumed that, at some point, she'd crossed the Equator and been given a baptism of some sort. But, upon asking about it among the men, he'd been told of the journey from the Caribbean to Singapore. Not once had they crossed the Equator, in the whole sojourn, which mean---of course---that Elizabeth Turner nee Swann had yet to be baptized A thought that had given him great joy, at its realization.

According to Gibbs, they'd left Jamaica under Barbossa's command and sailed a legitimately purchased ship to Gibraltar and then through the Mediterranean. At Egypt, they had sold the ship and traveled a small distance overland to the Red Sea, stolen a boat, and sailed out to the coast of the Arabian Sea, where with the commandeering of a much larger vessel, they'd made a brief stop at Yemen for supplies. From the Arabian Sea, they had traveled into the Indian Ocean and on into the Bay of Bengal and down through the islands to Singapore. Along the way, they had made contact with a number of the pirate lords, passing along word of the Gathering.

The only part that had seemed unlikely was the idea that Barbossa had paid money for a ship in Tortuga. Confronting the mutinous bastard with all the outrage he could muster, he'd demanded an explanation---and received one. Barbossa hadn't paid for the boat. He'd cheated a man out of it, at cards. Gibbs hadn't been present to see the transaction, having decided to drink himself into an early stupor in the arms of a poxy whore. Apparently, Elizabeth made an excellent distraction when a man sat to gambling. Hector had used that distraction to his best advantage.

Will Turner had been drinking heavily, at the moment, and failed to protect his bonny lass' virtue---as if little Lizzie would allow such an interference in the plans to secure a seaworthy vessel. No doubt she and Barbossa, the two murderous arsebites, had arranged the whole thing, from start to finish---including the part when Turner the Younger was kept away from the gambling tables where he might rashly decide to make an ass of himself and spoil the deception.

After receiving a ship and the charts from Sao Feng---damn that pirate's eyes---the crew had traveled the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan and, finally, into the icy Bering Sea. Returning from the Locker, they had come down into the land of the living north of the Equator, in the Indian Ocean again.

So, Elizabeth had never been baptized at the Equator.

Upon deciding that such a thing had to be rectified, he'd approached Barbossa and Gibbs and, between the three of them, come up with a fantastic plan. No one's virtue had to be compromised and they would all be allowed the satisfaction of watching the newest pirate among them as she gave proper respect to Neptune's Court and then received a proper dousing. Barbossa, however, had insisted that there would be no brutality---a shock to the system, that, hearing his old matelot declaring that missy wouldn't be beaten with barnacle-laced cat o' nine tails or thrown overboard improperly tied.

Gibbs, his own first mate agreed with it, claiming something of a soft spot for the lass.

He, on the other hand, was more than willing to see her receive the same sort of baptism as he'd gotten, on his own first Equatorial crossing. Her Nibs or not, Lizzie was a pirate---if she was going to lay claim to the titles she'd been given, she ought to learn something of what it meant to be a pirate lord, a pirate king.

Well, he thought such things in his more uncharitable moments---

When he was forced to be sober.

The afternoon they crossed the Equator, the drums began. A number of the men carried small bodhran and tippers, another man had a banjo, another a guitar, another a concertina. Among them, they had the makings of a small, impromptu orchestra. When the slow pounding rhythm began from below, in the holds, Jack turned to meet Barbossa's eye. He himself was hanging off the shrouds by his bare toes and fingers, waiting and watching---his old matelot was on the quarterdeck, wearing a shark's smile.

The whole thing had the solemnity of a man being forced to walk the plank---not that it happened very often, being an unusually easy punishment. And not something he personally wanted to ever partake in, again. The men were lined up---nearly all twenty-five of them---along the deck. Two lines, with ropes and belaying pins. At the prow, on the forecastle, waited the Court. Pintel, Ragetti, and Marty---who was playing the naked Sea Baby.

It was his duty to initiate. And he was sincerely looking forward to the job.

Elizabeth came up from the hold, looking very confused---she'd been in her cabinet, no doubt. In men's breeches and shirt, with her hair braided back with leather straps, she looked not only confused but worried. She brushed at her forelock, looking around at the sea and the men. "What's wrong---something happened? Are we under attack? Why are the men beating drums?"

Jack swung down from the shrouds and stepped smartly to reach the newly wed lass. He easily remembered the words that had been used, in his own baptism. They would work. "Mrs Turner...Lizzie, dear..." Then, he took a deep breath, looked over Elizabeth's head at Barbossa, who was watching with great interest. "Pollywog you be, Elizabeth Turner. But, today, you face Neptunus Rex. You are to be initiated into the Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep, as all sea-going men...um, women, must be."

Her brown eyes popped wide as she stared at him, her mouth working openly as if she couldn't quite decide what she should say to that. Beyond them, on the quarterdeck, Hector gave a low, rumbling chuckle.

"I'm to be what---?" Lizzie demanded, dropping her hands to her narrow hips as she took a step toward him. She looked fierce, her tanned skin and golden hair doubling the resemblance to some fierce and lovely jungle beastie. "Jack, what are you talking about?"

He lifted his chin and continued, using all the steel he was able to muster in the face of a potential threat of violence from the wee, fiery lass. "You sail on the sacred line, Mrs Turner. We are at the Equator and you shall become a shellback or die. Your new life awaits you, Elizabeth Turner, but you must be baptized anew."

He didn't turn to address the men as he reached out and dragged Elizabeth forward. "All men to the side---let the pollywog crawl!"

But, now, Elizabeth rebelled. Her face darkened like a storm cloud. "How dare you! Jack! I'm not crawling on my belly through this lot of---"

Setting his jaw, he touched the buckle of his swordbelt as he pushed the unruly lass to her knees. "Aye, you will crawl. Tradition."

"But, you don't believe in---"

"This is one tradition I can't break." He met her angry-worried gaze with a face made of stone. "As long as men have sailed the seas, we�ve been baptized this way. Your first time over the Equator, you�ll be baptized or you�ll die."

"You won't kill me---" She argued, squaring her own jaw in determination and arrogance.

Drawing his sword, he tilted his head to the side and smiled darkly in response as he raised it to caress the laces of her loose-fitting linen shirt. "Are you so sure of me, then? You owe me a life, Lizzie...I've not yet forgiven that. Unless you want to be put off my bloody ship this instant, you'll get on your bloody knees and crawl the gauntlet."

There came murmurs of surprise from the men who waited in the gauntlet. They hadn't expected to see him do something so drastic, not to Elizabeth Turner nee Swann---for whom they all had a soft spot. All the more reason for him to do it; he couldn't be seen as weak, here. Not with Hector Barbossa watching.

The drummers had come up from the hold and the music began in earnest. It was the same chanty which had played when he was baptized. His own request.

Elizabeth pressed in close to him, completely ignoring the sword that tangled in the laces of her shirt and cut them even as he tried to draw it back in time. Her brown eyes were narrowed with cold rage as she leaned to his shoulder and gave a hiss of warning. "Fine, you bloody pirate---I'll play your game and I'll beat you at it. See if I don't."

Her shirt was open now and he started to protest even as he turned, sliding his sword back into the scabbard. But, his words died unspoken as Elizabeth went to her knees and began to crawl the slippery deck, accepting the gauntlet. The worst part was still yet before him, though; it was his duty to push her onward with a whip. Lowering his head, he refused to turn and look at Barbossa---he didn't want to see the smirk he knew would be there. Then, he knew what he could use, rather than the cat o' nine tails. Already the men were lightly tapping and rapping at Elizabeth in rhythm with the drums and the music---no one would hit the lass too hard, it just wouldn't be done.

However, that didn't get him off the hook.

Jack unbuckled his sword and let it fall to the deck as he pulled the belt free. Supple black leather, it would work. As he brought it up over his head, stepping along behind the crawling woman, he realized something horrible about the act itself of whipping Elizabeth. She was probably expecting him to do it---perhaps as a final punishment for what she'd done, betraying him. And no small part of it was mixed up in her grief for Will Turner. The mad little lass believed she deserved such a thing. Which meant that he could not be as light and gentle as the men of the gauntlet.

Cursing under his breath, he steeled himself and brought the flat end of his belt down on her narrow arse in a whistling crack. Elizabeth screamed like she might be dying and fell straight onto her belly on the slippery deck, all four limbs failing her at the same moment under the impetus of the leather.

The music faltered...the men stopped shouting encouragements. Everyone went silent.

His guts flipped at it, the idea of what he'd done...at the knowledge of what he was doing. Gripping the belt in his fist, Jack felt water prickle his eyes as he waited for Elizabeth to gain her knees again. He growled at the sheepishly abashed men. "Are you all slackards, then? Do your duty!"

But, none raised their rum-soaked rope. None raised their belaying pin.

He was close enough that he could hear how Elizabeth was weeping. He could hear her breathing through her teeth as she lurched to her hands and knees---he knew that sound, the hunch of her shoulders. She was furious, she was determined. She would do what he'd ordered and she would accept the punishment. And he knew---once this was finished, she would be completely forgiven on all sides.

He cracked his belt against the deck and roared at her as she started crawling again, struggling to reach the forecastle. "Crawl, you pollywog! Crawl to redemption!"

Each time he brought his leather belt down on her backside, Elizabeth screamed---he wasn't letting up---and fell to her face. By now, her shirt was nearly flapping open. He imagined that a number of the men were enjoying the show of her pretty breasts even as they were repelled by the violence he was doing to the lass. And they were repelled---which was a good sign, altogether. The men weren't the type to torture women. Especially not this woman.

He knew the sweat and tears on his face had mingled and become indistinguishable. All for the best. His breath heaved from him as he brought the belt down over and over, dogging Elizabeth's crawling body as she hurried to get to the forecastle. It was the screams that were torturing him---he'd never had a taste for women screaming in pain. And---despite the betrayal she'd committed, the rum she'd burned, and the general mayhem she seemed to wreck with every adventure she inveigled herself into---he was overly fond of the lass.

He could bear her pain less than any other's, he imagined; not since the days when he'd sailed with Anamaria had he felt such horror at the pain of a woman. But, there was a difference. Anamaria had been a pirate born and bred, tried and true. She'd worked as hard as the men, if not harder. She'd demanded to be treated as one of the men.

Elizabeth had signed on with Barbossa, to come rescue him from the Locker---basically asking for the same treatment. Barbossa had a soft spot for the blonde lass as well, he knew---even if his old matelot would rather be beaten bloody with the flat edge of a sword than to admit any softness of any kind for anyone. Briefly, swinging the belt again, he wondered if Hector could do this very same thing---wielding a weapon against Elizabeth. They�d played at dice for the duty, neither of them wanting it. He�d lost; he was convinced Hector had cheated and he knew the reasons why. He knew the men would believe Barbossa capable of such brutality, but he did doubt it himself.

At last, they reached the forecastle and the Court.

There, seated on two barrels were the ship's resident dunces.

Pintel wore a fine gentleman's frock coat over his ragged breeches and shirt. The black coat strained at the buttons. On his hand was one of Barbossa's rings. Large, extravagant, and entirely, overly ridiculous for a serious swordsman like Hector. As Neptune, the balding, rotund pirate was scowling fiercely.

On the other barrel sat Ragetti with a patch to replace the missing wooden eye. The lanky, blonde sailor wore a dress---a yellow frippery fit only for a harlot, but the only thing they had on hand for such an occasion. Barring, of course, the fine, wine-dark dress that Barbossa had given Elizabeth as a wedding gift. Which no man aboard would dare to touch, even in the interest of this baptism. Between the two barrels stood wee Marty, naked as a newborn babe. The dwarf looked distinctly uncomfortable now, after being a witness to the beating.

Elizabeth Turner crouched on the deck, weeping. Her shoulders hunched, rising and falling with the sobs. She acted as if she expected the beating to continue. He understood that sentiment---when he'd been baptized, he'd not known what to expect. But, then, at his baptism, he'd had only eyes for Hector---naked and glorious---standing before him.

Buckling his belt back on, Jack commanded with an imperious tone. "You must pay homage to the Court, Mrs Turner. You must kiss the hand of Neptune, the foot of our Lady of the Sea, and the belly of the Sea Baby."

Pintel raised his be-ringed hand and offered it forward, his scowl giving way to a tentative smile for the lass. "Come on, poppet...it's almost done."

Elizabeth struggled up and forward on her knees. She took the dirty pirate's hand and raised it to her lips. She kissed the heavy golden ring, sobbing incoherent words. Bowing her head, she crawled to the other barrel and looked up at nervous Ragetti, who blushed and looked as if he was suddenly ready to melt through the deck at the idea of sitting in a ratty, old dress before a woman whose shirt was open.

"Hello." Ragetti whispered, his one good eye wide with painful emotion. "Yer one o� us now, Yer Highness..." Then, the blonde scarecrow of a man lifted his naked foot before him, tugging it free of the dress he wore. It was patchy with scabs and filthy with tar and paint and nearly nothing but bones.

Jack moved to the side, to watch what the lass would do. And she didn't disappoint. With tears in her eyes and part of her long hair falling around her cheeks in a golden spill, she lifted her chin proudly and took the foot between her two hands and pulled it to her mouth. She was regal, like a queen. As she should be. She didn't look away from Ragetti's angular, homely face as she planted a gentle kiss on the tanned, callused instep.

From there, it was but only half a meter to the Sea Baby in the middle. Jack folded his arms to his chest, steadying himself. He didn't need to remember his own baptism, the moment he'd kissed Hector's soft, warm belly before the entire crew. Elizabeth stared up into little Marty's face, now smiling through her tears. She seemed to have made peace with her place as a pirate, the pirate lord of Singapore, and the pirate king. Now that she'd endured the punishments, she was truly one of them and deserving of those titles.

Marty cocked his bald head and smiled broadly down at the kneeling woman---whose head was not so much lower than his, actually. The dwarf's gravely voice was welcoming. "Forever one o� us, ye are. No matter where ye go or what ye become, yer a member o� this crew---we each an� all will spill our blood in yer name, if needs be. Miss Elizabeth."

The blonde lass bent up and, instead of kissing the Sea Baby's belly, laid her lips to Marty's weathered, bronze-skinned brow. It was a dignified move, one significant in its meaning; she wasn't breaking tradition by refusing the kiss, but she was setting her own terms. The move of any true pirate lord.

"I accept." She answered, her voice strong even as it hitched with a broken sob. "I am a member of the crew, now and forever. No matter where you go or what you become, you can count on me to spill my blood in your name, if it need to be. The Black Pearl is my mother, its crew my brothers."

Jack broke out with a fast grin. She'd done it up in style, even beaten and bruised.

But, now for the last part of the ceremony.

Quickly, he jumped forward and tugged Elizabeth to her feet. Dragging her to the rail, he checked the rope. Holding her tightly to his own sun-warmed body, he whispered close to her shell-like ear. "You've been redeemed, Lizzie...now, for the baptism."

Instead of tying her off to the rope and tossing her bodily overboard, he made sure his grip was snug as he cast a glance at Hector's hat-sheltered face. Barbossa, on the quarterdeck, was watching with an impassive expression that could mean only one thing---his old matelot was feeling a lot and thinking hard and masking it all. With a salute to the crew, he pulled Elizabeth overboard with him, one arm tight around her waist and the other hand wrapped in the rope.

The water was cold. Not so different from the last time he'd been forced to jump from the Pearl with Elizabeth. But, much better than his own baptism at this very same part of the Equator. Under the waves, at the ship's side, he opened his stinging eyes and found the lass' face only inches from his own. Her tanned breasts, like rare fruit, showed through the gap in the shirt she wore. She was watching him under the water, smiling despite the cold and the wet and the beating he'd put on her hide.

Well, it was nice to know they were both forgiven...aye?
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Whispers of Redemption