Later, I sat in my hiding spot, watching the crew scrub the deck. Pintel walks by and I flinch, but my movement gives away my position. He turns and sneers at me. “Who are you spyin’ on poppet? Your precious Ragetti?” I snarl at him and lash out with my hand, and in my anger, my nails turn into claws. I scratch his arm and he recoils. “Why?!” I spit. “Why did you do that to me? I HATE YOU!” he tried to respond, but I was too busy venting to care. I vented 9 years of hate, rage, fear, pain, and the despair he caused me. I couldn’t stop. Everything I’d ever felt came tumbling out. Tears ran down my face in a torrent. I turn and run away to the farthest part of the ship I can.
I jump into the sea and scream. A swirling liquid orb surrounds me, then releases into a shockwave that thunders in all directions. Then, I see a large shape heading towards me with all haste. Its eyes flash from the sunlight streaming through the water. A serpentine body swirls with speed and grace, leaving a fine trail of bubbles in its wake. As it approaches, it lets out a fierce cry. The sound of it sent shivers down my spine, but I knew it meant no harm to me. The blue hued scales sparkle as it rushes towards me. I let out a call for help, and this beast answered that call.
As she (I decided that it was a she) came to me, she chirps with concern, her huge sea green eyes looking worriedly at me. I stroke her face soothingly.
“It’s okay, girl. I was just frustrated, that’s all. I know you came to help, so why don’t you stay with me?”
I look at her more closely, and realized that she was quite young, only a little older than a child (for her kind. she’s a Tiamat, a large sea serpent). She was almost 300 feet long, with dagger-like teeth in her huge jaws. It was quite terrifying. I laughed.
“Adalinda. That’s what your name shall be. Adalinda means noble serpent, and that is what you are. Come here, Adalinda, I want to introduce to a couple of people I know.”
When my head broke the surface, almost the whole crew was looking at me. I didn’t know that I was down there for that long. As I rose up, I rose above the surface; I went higher than the deck of the ship. She carried me up, and when the crew saw her in her entirety, they panicked. I shouted at them to be calm.
“She won’t hurt you! Calm down! Put away your weapons!”
Elizabeth is near to fainting. I set down on the deck and it’s silent. All eyes are on me. Barbossa is the first one to speak.
“Now where did you find her?”
“First things first, Barbossa. How long was I down there?”
“Oh, about…say, an hour.”
I stop cold. “What? I was only down there a little while. You can’t be serious!” I look up and see that he’s right. It was about noon when I left, and now the sun has sank lower in the horizon.
“We thought you were dead, Marina. You just jumped.” He pauses. “Marina, do you have a medallion?” I look at him, and then I stand there and laugh.
“No, of course not! Barbossa, you’re missing all of them except one. How would I have it? You already know where that is! Speaking of which, we are heading to the Isla de Muerta, right?”
“You know too much.” is all he said.
I look at the crew, and see that two are missing. Before I can go and find them, Elizabeth strides angrily over to me.
“YOU! You scared me to death. I thought you had killed yourself and left me with these monsters!”
“No, I just jumped to escape. I thought that I was only down there a little bit. What happened?”
“It was actually Pintel. He got worried and called man overboard. Ragetti’s freaking out.” I was startled.
“Wait, Pintel? Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure. Also, Ragetti’s down in the ship somewhere.”
