The Birth of the Shark Tooth [Pirates of the Caribbean Fanfic]

Chapter 11: The Legend of the Shark Tooth

The sea was calm and serene. The sun was shining in the blue sky. It all seemed peaceful under the calls of seagulls.

I was standing at the prow, looking at the horizon. My heart was beating with worry and concern. I could not find answers to my questions – why did the Flying Dutchman appear? Why was it after us? Why was Davy Jones alive after so many tales told about his being dead? Why had demons of the sea returned from the cursed waters after all the curses had been lifted by legendary pirates' breaking the Trident of Poseidon?

It was all a mystery, and I was dying to know the answers.

"Hey... Why are you standing frozen over there? Don't you have work to do?"

I glanced back and gazed at my captain, whose chest was long bandaged (many days had passed since our clash with the demons, so he was rather fine now. Chinese medicine was a cool thing. It instantly healed from both physical and supernatural wounds (after being in the seas for long I came to know that such wounds indeed existed)). I sighed and looked back at the sea.

"I was just thinking..."

"About what?" Blood Rain stood beside me and leaned on the hand-rails of the ship.

I looked up at him again. His eye curiously watched me, and a faint smile was covering his face.

"I just can't understand why Davy Jones is alive." I furrowed my brow, "Didn't they say he was killed? And those sea demons? Isn't the Trident of Poseidon broken? Why are there so many demons?"

"You seem to know a lot about pirate legends and tales." he chuckled. "The Trident of Poseidon is broken, it's true. Captain Jack Sparrow's greatest rival, Captain Hector Barbossa, died in that battle against the cursed ghosts. However, there are more in-depth details to those stories. The fact that Davy Jones was bound to the Flying Dutchman was not a curse but a blessing... from his lover, Sea Goddess Calypso." A bitter smile ran through his lips. "It is a tragic love story. Davy Jones was charged with the duty to guide dead souls through the sea to the other world... and once every ten years, he could set foot ashore and meet his beloved_"

"Duh, I know that story very well! Calypso betrayed him. After ten years, when he came to the land where they were supposed to meet, Calypso did not appear. Jones counted it as a betrayal and, enraged, decided to take revenge and tell the Brethren Court how to bind Calypso in a human form. They bound her indeed, and Jones became the ruler of the seas, taming the evil sea demon, Kraken. But then, legendary pirates called the Fourth Brethren Court, released Calypso, defeated Jones, and William Turner took his role. Then, his son and other legendary pirates broke the Trident and thus broke all the curses, freeing William from the Dutchman."

At my heated words as if mad at how he considered me ignorant of these matters, he laughed.

"That is how people know of the story, but that common knowledge is missing some very important details. Actually, the 'land where they were supposed to meet' was Shark Jaw Island, where we are heading now."

"Shark Jaw Island?!" I exclaimed in a stupor, not believing my ears.

"Yes. The 'legendary pirates' you're talking about were none others than Captain Jack Sparrow, his rival Captain Hector Barbossa, and his first mate Mr. Gibbs. Or you think Captain Jack Sparrow is named the Pirate Lord of the Caribbean for nothing?"

"What?!"

Now I was completely dumbfounded - that drunkard and the innocent old man were the pirates who killed Davy Jones and broke the Trident of Poseidon?!

"Yes. But the in-depth details I was talking about were others," he continued, "As I said, because Calypso charged his lover with such a duty, receiving the Flying Dutchman was a blessing, not a curse. The curse was when he cut his heart out and swore that whoever killed his heart would have to replace him as the captain of the Dutchman and their heart too should be cut out. But then, there's one question that arises - when he cut his heart out, why didn't he die on the spot?"

"Because... he was immortal?" I raised my eyebrow – what was he grinning about? It was a common knowledge.

"True. But then, how come whenever someone stabbed his heart, he died?"

"Because..." I stopped. Actually, he did have a point - if Jones was indeed 'immortal', how come whenever someone stabbed his heart he died? And if he was mortal, when he cut his heart out and it lost the link with his body, how come he did not die back then?

"The answer is simple, really - he didn't cut his heart out to hide it away and escape death. He cut it out because it was too hard for him to carry the whole emotional burden - betrayal, his lover's imprisonment, sense of guilt and loneliness... So he got rid of the organ that cared for emotions. It did not determine his death. However, his heart, as it was agreed between him and the goddess, always belonged to Calypso... He had gifted it to her. So, when he got rid of his heart, he damaged the link with the Flying Dutchman, and corrupted his duty. Then, Calypso disclosed to him the gruesome truth about his bond with her and the Dutchman: his immortality was not eternal like he thought it to be. Once he gave up on his heart and betrayed Calypso, his heart would become mortal. That is why he hid it in a chest. He feared death, because his death would be even more painful and humiliating than for a simple sailor to arrive in Davy Jones' Locker. For Davy Jones, things were a lot more complicated: if he ever died, he would return to where his soul was locked and thus permitted him to be immortal - in Calypso's prison, the tooth of a shark, to suffer eternal damnation for breaking his promise to the goddess."

"The tooth of a shark?!" I blinked - what did he mean? I had never heard such a story before.

"Calypso is the sea, so she is the mother of all sea creatures. In order to make Davy Jones immortal, she locked his soul away in the tooth of her biggest shark - the Megalodon. Legends say its size exceeds those of a human's imagination. That shark was born in the waters of Shark Jaw Island, where Calypso and Jones later got engaged. It has thousands of giant teeth, and a single tiny tooth - the exact one where Calypso locked Jones' soul. Ancient legends say that if that tooth ever gets cut out and the shark gets killed, it will cause Jones' permanent death (for his soul will die), and the one who killed the shark and cut the tiny tooth out, will become the possessor of the most precious treasure of all the Seven Seas - the treasure of Calypso."

The treasure of Calypso?! As he had written in his diary, Captain Blood Rain sought exactly for that. And its story involved Jones?! Then it was no wonder why he attacked us so out of the blue! That Megalodon... Was it the 'beast' Blood Rain and Jack Sparrow had been talking about back on Tortuga?

"Hmm, I guess now you understand everything." the captain smiled at me.

"So much fuss... over a single ship?"

I looked up at him in confusion - in his diary, he wrote that the treasure was a ship. Who the heck needed to go through so many obstacles for a single ship?! But once I noticed his frown, I widened my eyes in dread - oh no, I had disclosed more than I should have!

"I... I mean..."

Sweat poured off my forehead - how could I not hold my tongue?! Now I had told him that I had sneaked into his cabin and peeped into his diary!

"I've seen for first a black-and-white person's going so pale..." he laughed. He caressed me on the head: "No worries, I've discovered long ago that you had read my diary. You're forgiven. After all, it's thanks to you I came back alive from the battle on the Dutchman."

"Oh... Whew!" I wiped the sweat off my forehead - he was in a good mood.

"And it is not a fuss for any ship but the strongest one that exists in the oceans. The ship of Goddess Calypso."

"I guess, you pirates have nothing more precious than your good ships." I shrugged - yeah, it sort of made more sense now.

"Yes, that's true."

"Anyway... How are you going to kill a shark which, as you've said, is so immense that even a human's mind cannot imagine?"

"I too wondered about that. Jack provided a vague answer... But now, after seeing your battle with Davy Jones, I am completely sure of who can make it." he grinned at me.

I watched him with stupor, but then I sort of guessed what he implied on, and stepped back.

"No... you don't mean..."

"That's right, Janette. Only you can do it."