First story! Excited = kinda. Nervous = very. This may or may not work out, and if I slip up or do not finish, please keep reading whatever I write.

Wish me luck!

I picked up the already lit candle, watching it melt with little interest. It really was beautiful, though. The slow trickling of droplets of wax moving downwards until they hit the golden candleholder truly made me gaze in fascination. I gently touched a still wet bead that was rolling towards it's fate and watched it harden on my fingertip.

Sighing, I moved to the next candle in the small hut and lit it. And the next one. And the next. On and on, I continued until the entire room was filled with the dim glow of candlelight. Like butterscotch washing over Tia's many relics, I thought gently. It seeps off of everything, making a shadow of darkness. I began to look hurriedly around for a scroll of some sort so I could write that down.

Tia mumbled indistinctly over her spot at the rotting wooden table. Her hands were hovering above her crab claws and corks. She was studying them with rapt attention. I never fully understood why they were of importance, but, then again, it wasn't mine to understand.

While turning around, I saw something completely out of the ordinary: a face peering in through the windows in her door. Immediately, I backed up until I was basically behind her peeling, moth-eaten, ragged curtain. The stranger opened the door and Tia looked up from her work.

"Jack Sparrow," she drawled in her heavy accent. The man - rather tall, reeking of piracy - gave her a charming smile.

"Tia Dalma," he replied, dodging a hanging jar of rotting kidney stones hanging from the ceiling. He was followed shortly by several men, all of whom were smelling just as foul of treason, killing, and rum.

"I always knew da wind would blow ya back to me one day," she said slowly. She had risen and was standing happily in front of him for a moment before looking away at the man just a bit taller who was in behind Sparrow. "You," Tia suddenly breathed. "You have a touch of…destiny about you, William Turner."

He looked down at her quizzically. "You know me?" he asked. I heard her breathy laugh.

"You wanna know me?" Sparrow stepped in between them, more than a little rattled at her sudden liking to his colleague.

"There'll be no knowing you," he gruffly said. "We've come for help and we're not leaving without it." He turned Tia around and walked her back to the table, mumbling, "I thought I knew you."

"Not so well as I had hoped," she tittered with a smile. "Come."

"Come," Sparrow mimicked.

I felt her eyes fall upon me lurking behind the shadows and she nodded her head towards the incoming men. I shook mine in return, but she widened her eyes and barred her teeth. Sighing, I stepped out just enough so I was visible.

"Dis is my…apprentice, if you will," Tia said. "Jack Sparrow, William Turner, all of your crew, dis is Emberlynn." She motioned towards me and I felt my face grow warmer than usual. The tallest, thinnest man of any of them with a wooden eye couldn't stop looking at me, but it wasn't with vulgarity or perverted instincts. It was a shy, nervous gaze. I smiled at him and he gulped visibly.

"So…what service may I do you?" Tia ran her hand over William's cheek, smiling naughtily. She looked up at the last moment, though, to Sparrow. "You know I demand payment," she stipulated. Sparrow held up a hand.

"I brought payment," he replied easily. He whistled at his crew and one brought over a cage holding a monkey. Tia eyed it oddly. "Look," he said, holding it and taking out his pistol. I felt myself gasp as he pulled the trigger, yet the monkey just covered his ears in fright. He was unharmed. "An undead monkey! Top that."

Tia opened the cage and the crew watched with disappointment as it ran off. "You've no idea how long it took us to catch that," he groaned. She shrugged and set the cage on the floor.

"De payment is fair," she said simply. William took something out of his jacket and set it onto the table.

"We're looking for this." Tia gazed down at the material and I, too, tried to make out what it was. From my limited vision, it seemed to be a key. "And what it goes to."

She immediately turned to Sparrow. "De compass you bartered from me, it cannot lead you to dis?" she accused. He stopped looking at the hat in his hands.

"Maybe. Why?" he replied. Tia's grin grew like a Cheshire cat.

"Aye," she began, sitting down, looking gleeful. "Jack Sparrow does not know what he wants! Or, do you know? But load to claim it as your own?" She looked around at them all expectantly. "Your key go to a chest. And it is what lay inside de chest you seek, don't it?"

"What is inside?" the man with the overgrown sideburns asked.

"Gold? Jewels? Unclaimed properties of a valuable nature?" the short, pudgy man who looked most like a pirate inquired. I rolled my eyes. Of course, pirates were very into the whole 'what're we searching for' thing.

The man who had been looking at me before averted his line of sight from a jar of eyeballs next to his head. "Nothing…bad I hope?" Yep, he was my favorite.

"You know of Davy Jones, yes?" Tia said darkly. My head snapped to look at her. She wasn't usually into sharing about him. "A man of de sea. A great sailor. Until he run afoul of what vex all men."

"What vexes all men?" William asked. Tia ran her hand over his, letting out another laugh.

"What indeed."

"The sea?" Sideburns guessed.

"Sums!" the chubby man next to him cried.

"Dichotomy of good and evil?" Everyone stared at the wooden eyeball man in shock. I needed to let out the correct answer before someone said something even more stupid.

"A woman." I was surprised to hear that Sparrow had said it at the same time. He gave me a withering look and I stuck my tongue out at him juvenilely.

"A woman! He fell in love," Tia sighed. I crossed my arms over my chest, thinking sullenly, I know where this is going.

Sideburns shook his head. "No, no, no, no, I heard it was the sea he fell in love with." Tia glared at him.

"Same story, different versions, and all are true," she scolded. "See, it was a woman, as changing, and harsh, and untameable as de sea. Him never stop loving her. But de pain it cause him was too much to live wid, but not enough to cause him to die."

"What exactly did he put into the chest?" William asked quietly. Tia put her right hand near her left shoulder.

"Him heart," she exhaled.

"Literally or figuratively?" Wooden Eyeball asked.

"He couldn't li'erally put his heart in the chest!" Chubby turned to Tia. "Could he?"

"It was not wort' feeling what small, fleeting joy life brings," she replied smartly. "So…him carve out him heart, lock it away in a chest, and hide de chest from de world. De key -" She paused to gaze down at the drawing "- he keep wid him at all times."

William stood up abruptly, glaring at Sparrow with anger. "You knew this," he said harshly. Sparrow feinted ignorance.

"I did not." I hated him. "I didn't know where the key was. But now we do! So all that's left is to climb aboard the Flying Dutchman, grab the key, you go back to Port Royal and save your bonnie lass, aye!" He turned to leave, and I felt rage bubble within me. Lying to someone you're close to, pretending things that aren't real. It made me sick.

And then, I felt myself say, rather loudly, "Let me see your hand."

Everyone froze, including me. Sparrow turned around slowly on his heel to look at me. I felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me.

"Beg pardon, love?" he asked. His tone was taunting, even if it was just underneath all the words. I mustered any courage I had in my suddenly cold body and held out my own, much smaller palm.

"Let. Me. See. Your. Hand," I said gradually. He smirked and held out his right one. I looked at it for a moment, eyeing him sceptically. Finally, he sighed and gave me his left. I pulled it towards me roughly. As I began to take off the bandage that he had covering his lower palm, I noticed that his skin was rather calloused. He was flinching as I moved my skin against his.

I pulled the end of the gauze off and Sideburns gasped dramatically. A large, inflamed stretch of skin was the color of charcoal.

"The black spot!" Sideburns cried. He wiped his hands on his chest, turned around to his left once, and spit on the floor. I flinched at how disgusting that was. However, Wooden Eye and Chubby repeated his actions, muttering, "Black spot!" as they did.

"My eyesight's as good as ever, just to you know," Sparrow announced. I sighed and looked at Tia. She nodded. Silently, I dropped the gauze and went behind the curtains. Walking past the corpse that the monkey had climbed upon, I began to look through her many shelves of things. I came across an open case displaying human teeth, several plates with larva or broken moths crawling across them weakly, and an interestingly designed lace glove with a bite taken out of it. At last, I found what was needed.

"Davy Jones cannot make port," I heard Tia begin while walking back in. "Cannot step on land but once every ten years. Land is where you are safe, Jack Sparrow. And so -" She took the large glass container of sand from me and held it out to him "- you will carry land wid you."

Silence followed while Sparrow inspected the bottle. "Dirt. This is a jar of dirt." Tia nodded.

"Yes."

"Is the jar of dirt going to help?" he asked hopefully. She gave him a fierce look.

"If ya don't want it, give it back," she snapped. He clutched it to his chest.

"No!" he angrily grumbled.

Tia smiled again. "Den it helps." William coughed a bit.

"It seems we have a need to find the Flying Dutchman," he said. Tia sat back down and picked up her dice-like crab claws. Shaking them, she muttered, "A touch of destiny!" And threw them onto the tabletop so they were in an order.

She explained to Jack where they were supposed to head to find Davy Jones, and when everyone began to pile out, she pulled my arm.

"Go wid dem," she said clearly. I gaped at her.

"No, I'm not done my training," I tried to tell her. "I have so much to learn. You promised to teach me -"

"- as udder-wise you would have told de world what you learned when your parents died," Tia finished. "But if it's for de greater good for all, I tink you should go do it."

"How is following a bunch of squabbling pirates with hygiene problems for the greater good?" I snapped. She put a hand on my shoulder.

"It will come to you," she replied gently.

And for some reason, I did.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm following the plotline of Dead Man's Chest. I'll be doing that and possibly - if I get that far - all the way to the end of At World's End. It IS a romance, but it is a lot of hating and spatting all the time between our later-lovers. So, enjoy this, and press that button there! Downwards!