Chapter 28:  Legends and Dreams

 

“Can’t you sleep, John?”  Jack glanced over at Robin, who was gazing worriedly at the boy sitting in the corner of the cell.  John shook his head.  Robin moved to sit next to him.  “Come here.”  She wrapped an arm around him and held him close to her.  “What does your mother do when you can’t sleep?”

“She would tell me a story,” John said quietly.  “When she was alive…” he added sadly.  Robin ran a hand through the boy’s hair.  John looked up at her.  “I don’t want to die alone.”

Robin held him closer to her.  “You won’t, John.”

“Will you be my mother?”

Robin looked up at Jack in confusion.  “I think he likes you, love,” he said with an amused grin.

“Mother held me and told me stories.  So…you’re like my mother for now,” the boy explained.  Robin smiled and shook her head slightly at the boy’s logic.

“Of course I’ll be your mother for awhile, John, if you want me to be.”  Robin’s eyes sparkled as she looked up at Jack again.  Jack smiled.  Robin would have made a good mother if life had treated them differently.  “What sort of story would you like to hear?”

John shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

Robin moistened her lips as she thought.  “All right.”  She glanced at Jack, appearing to almost be questioning whether or not she should be telling whatever story she had in mind.

“There was once a girl born of a goddess and a man.”  Jack raised his eyebrows.  Robin appeared to avoid eye contact with him, making Jack all most the more suspicious.  “The daughter was named Libertas.  Now, Libertas’ mother abandoned her to the father, letting him raise her however he wished.  The heathen gods did not find this a problem—Libertas was not powerful enough to pose any sort of real threat should she ever choose to turn on them.  Then Libertas did something entirely against her free nature.”  John looked up at Robin with interest at this point.  “She fell in love.”

“Is this a love story?” John asked, appearing to be slightly worried.  Jack grinned with amusement, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes, listening much more carefully than he appeared.

Robin chuckled.  “In a sense.  Libertas became engaged to a mortal man.  But then the man Libertas had fallen in love with did something completely unforgivable.  Libertas became angry, and with her anger, her true powers surfaced.  With her powers over the sea, she destroyed the fleet stationed at the port where her fiancé lived.”

“I heard that it was only half the fleet,” Jack interjected.  He opened an eye to catch Robin’s reaction.

“It’s a myth; I can exaggerate,” Robin said quickly, her face flushing slightly.  “Well, the heathen gods began paying attention to Libertas.  Her action, in a sense, had been an act of piracy.  The gods could not allow a goddess to run around wreaking such havoc on the mortal world.  They considered her dangerous.”

“The goddess Calypso was charged with binding Libertas into flesh, just as the sea goddess herself was.  Using much of what was left of her powers, Calypso sealed Libertas’ power inside of her and forced her to essentially become an average woman.”

“There has to be a way out,” John said.  “There always is,” he added knowingly.

“Yes.  But it was something that the gods were sure would never happen.  See, Libertas’ nature is to desire freedom about all else.  The one time she had allowed herself to be bound to another, through love, she had been deeply hurt.  The gods were sure that this would keep her from ever feeling love for another again.  So Libertas was bound with seven chains.  She would have to reveal her love to seven others and connect herself to them forever before she could be free.  And even then, as an extra precaution, Libertas would have to give her heart to another completely in order to become who she was born to be.”

“How did she have to reveal her love?” John asked curiously.

“Through a kiss,” replied Robin.

Jack opened his eyes just in time to see John stick out his tongue in disgust.  Robin laughed.  “Not only on the lips, John.  Anywhere—on the cheek, the hand, the head…”  Robin kissed the top of John’s head as though to demonstrate.  “As long as her love was true, the connection would be made and one chain link would no longer be a burden.

John appeared to be growing sleepy as Robin stroked his hair and continued with her story.  “For a long time, the gods’ plan worked.  Libertas did not love.”

“She has to win…” John mumbled as his eyelids became heavy.

Robin smiled.  “It took years, but Libertas…”  Robin looked down at John, who had fallen asleep.  She sighed and leaned her head back against the cell wall, closing her eyes.  Jack watched his daughter curiously for a few moments before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.

* * *

“Jacqueline?  Jackie, my love!”  Cutler removed his jacket, tossing it onto the nearby divan.  He unbuttoned a few of the top buttons of his shirt as he headed out the back door.  He smiled as he set his eyes on his lovely wife, who was playing with their son in the courtyard.  Cutler kissed his wife gently before ruffling the tousled hair of their son.  Jacqueline’s eyes sparkled like the ocean as she smiled lovingly at her husband.  Cutler leaned forward and kissed her again, more passionately this time, and she returned with equal fervor.

It was all too perfect…

Jacqueline and the boy, John, suddenly seemed to shrink into the distance and rise onto some sort of platform.  Their clothes became dirty and ragged, and Beckett realized with horror that Robin and the boy were on the gallows.  A faint shadow beside Robin became more pronounced and formed into the body of Jack Sparrow.

“Not again…” Beckett breathed as nooses appeared around their necks.  “No…”

“Some men have died, and some are alive, and others sail on the sea,” the boy sang quietly.  “With the keys to the cage and the devil to pay…”

“We lay to Fiddler’s Green,” Sparrow sang, joining the boy in the song.

The two continued, with Beckett feeling the ever-growing anxiety of what was to come.  He caught Robin’s deep brown eyes, pleading silently for her to change her mind.  “The bell has been raised from its watery grave…do you hear its sepulchral tone?”

“A call to all, pay heed the squall…”  Robin mouthed the words as Sparrow and the boy sang.

“No…no, Robin don’t…don’t made me…” Beckett said quietly, fear rising in him.

“And turn your sail toward home.”  Robin’s eyes were downcast as she continued to mouth the words to the pirate anthem.

“I don’t want to…just accept your fate; don’t make me do this,” Beckett muttered, knowing that Robin could not hear him.  “Please…”

“Yo, ho, haul together, hoist the colors high…”

Robin took a deep breath.  Beckett shook his head.  “Don’t…” he breathed.

“Heave ho, thieves and beggars…”  Robin had joined in the song.  Lord Beckett had no choice.  Robin had chosen a side.  Robin lifted her head, her eyes closed.  “Never shall we die.”  As the last not faded, Robin’s eyes opened.

Beckett tried to look away from the blue pools of Robin’s eyes, but was unable to tear away from the scene as the hangman pulled the lever to end the pirates’ lives.  Again he was forced to watch the light fade from her eyes…

Lord Beckett’s eyes snapped open and he sat up.  He put a hand on his heart, his breath quickened.  He took a few deep breaths to calm down from the dream, trying to comfort himself.

But it had not been just a dream.

The three prisoners had died at dawn.  Beckett had made it clear to Robin that she could change her mind up until the moment the lever was pulled.  But she had not.  More than that, she had purposely aligned herself with the losing side—she knew what she was doing when she joined in the pirate anthem.

Beckett put his head in his hands.  He could not believe what he had done to Robin.  He had loved her.  Despite the fate that he should despise her with every fiber of his being, he loved her.  Beckett punched a nearby wall, hardly noticing the sharp pain that shot through his hand as he did so.  He was not even able to feel victory over the death of Jack Sparrow.  He could not.

Beckett slid out of bed and walked to the window and stared out onto the sea.  Damn it.  Damn that thing that had forced him to do this, and damn all to hell.  He had not realized how truly out of control of the entire situation he was until that moment when Robin had looked up at him, singing that song…

Her blue eyes flashed in his mind.

Wait a moment…

“Blue?”

Beckett’s mind raced.  He remembered the ocean-blue eyes he had fallen in love with, and then Robin’s spellbinding deep brown eyes.  As Beckett put all the pieces together, he suddenly began to laugh maniacally.  If anyone had been around to hear, they would have though him to be insane.

“Perhaps I am,” Beckett thought with amusement.  He poured himself a glass of wine.  “Perhaps I am…”