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jedibuttercupPG-13; PotC/Fifth Element, Korben/Leeloo; 4000 words. Post-canon for both, for ffutures.
"Fewer and fewer people recognize even the ship these days, let alone me; it's enough to give a lonely psychopomp a complex. Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, aboard the Flying Dutchman. But what have we here?"
Title: Welcome to Fhloston, Paradise Not Guaranteed
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Post-canon for Fifth Element and PotC: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Notes: Forffutures, who once requested a drabble on the theme "Fifth Element/PotC; Leeloo &/ Calypso &/ Jack &/ Korben; tentacles." Twelve years late, and probably taken way more seriously than was meant. :)
Summary: "Fewer and fewer people recognize even the ship these days, let alone me; it's enough to give a lonely psychopomp a complex. Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, aboard the Flying Dutchman. But what have we here?" 4000 words
The funny thing about participating in a quest to end all curses at sea, including one placed by and dedicated to a goddess of the sea who might already have a particular interest in said questor, is that when that goddess went looking for her reluctant current priest and found him no longer bound to her will... said participation made one an obvious target for commandeering a replacement.
Perhaps one might've thought that being instrumentally involved in freeing the goddess from her human bonds would've earned a pirate some degree of goodwill, never mind the long association of bargains made and kept in the years before that... but having also been instrumentally involved in killing the former and much beloved target of the curse, no matter how necessary the act might've been, had muddied the waters enough to make a certain Captain Jack Sparrow feel he'd come off rather lightly, considering. As Tia Dalma, she'd always been mysterious in both origins and motivation; as Calypso, the goddess was as vast and as changeable as the sea that was her domain. He'd already spent time in Davy Jones' Locker; he had no desire to risk ever going back there, however long or short the stay.
Besides. The immortality accompanying the title of Captain of the Flying Dutchman made for one hell of an incentive. The transmogrification that came with the job might limit somewhat what a man might do in his one allotted day every ten years ashore, but when what that man desired most was a swift ship and a following breeze, then what cause had he to repine? Every treasure left to the seas was in his charge, and every soul that passed over the waves likewise. He had only to devise a means of occasionally restocking the ship's hold with rum-- generally courtesy of a dying sailor carried to port rather than signed up or left to drown, a small deviation from his duties that Calypso seemed willing to overlook-- and he was set. The only fly in the ointment was leaving the Black Pearl behind yet again, but Jack knew Gibbs would treat her as she deserved.
Before he knew it, decades had turned into centuries, and one world's seas into many as humanity spread out amongst the stars. As a population moved, so did its myths and legends, aided by the fact that rather than simply export those able to afford a new life as a colonist, whole cultures were lifted away from sweltering, starving countries and drowning islands by the governments of Earth and punted to planets as yet unbesmirched. Fhloston, for example; Jack eventually spent a lot of time on Fhloston. It was the closest to the classical Caribbean he'd yet found among the Federated Territories, over ninety-eight percent ocean with plenty of islands scattered in tropical latitudes. The natives didn't honour Calypso, but the vast influx of humanity still remembered her name, and every so often one of the floating resorts would tip all its vacationers and treasure into the surf for him to sift through.
And that wasn't even mentioning the ships lost between worlds. If there were some other ferryman collecting the souls of the races who'd walked the stars before theirs, Jack had never met them; but there was still plenty for him to do. The first time the Dutchman had emerged in the solar wind, flexing its curse to adopt a shape fit for the airless void, Jack had thought he'd sailed off the edge of the world again to some unexpected version of the Locker. But then he'd seen the wreck. Always messy deaths, those; but entire new horizons had opened for him to sail that day. Along with an endless supply of new men to ask the question.
Five centuries and more since his first days in the Captain's cabin, Jack had gone through several changes of crew. Especially since, with both Turners always a reminder in the back of his thoughts, he occasionally let one off to their just reward early if they found themselves especially ill-suited to life before the mast. Thus he always had room, even when a near-corpse fished from a wreck seemed likelier to stir trouble than honestly accept his orders. The slightly exploded gentleman with the limp and partially shaved head he hooked one day in 2263 was not the first belligerent nabob Jack had broken to discipline, and wasn't likely to be the last. Zorg did have one of the more interesting stories he'd heard in years, though.
After handing the new crewman off to the current bo'sun, Jack took himself up to the taffrail, leaning against it as he whistled a particular old tune into the wind.
Some men have died, and some are alive, and others sail on the sea....
A human-sized figure coalesced out of the evening breeze next to him, dreadlocked hair glinting with starlight as if set with gems. After all these years, she was the most enduring being in his life-- and still one of the most frustrating, endless mysteries tucked in the corners of her smile. "Witty Jack," Calypso greeted him. "It has been some time since you last called."
He thought he heard a note of judgment there. Fair enough; though honestly, there'd been little reason. "Not a lot of mysteries left to the job," he replied, shrugging. "Nor former friends left to escort to Fiddler's Green. But I heard a story today that made me wonder exactly how long you've had a ferryman in your service. Was ol' Davy Jones really the first?"
Jack had tried to keep track of time at first by the squidification of his extremities; his beard had long since acquired tentacular extensions, and suckers ran down the length of his limbs, making it much easier to climb the mainmast but rendering sailor's slops a trickier fit. He'd never quite reached his second predecessor's more extreme level of transformation, though, despite having been in the job north of half a millennium; no lobster claw arm, no saggy mantle under his hat. But whether that was to do with his actually performing the duties, or length of time spent aboard the cursed galleon, was nowhere specified.
Her smile turned distant, sharp-edged and mournful as she looked out over the waves. "Him was the first I loved, as men call love; but no, not the first of his kind. Five thousand years ago, the gods were not as they later became; not even as they are now, those of us who have survived. Magic was a formless thing, as mild as the lapping of waves on shore. Creation's Light saved the world from the Enemy, but also brought the first tides and imbued every mystery with enchantment. There was a need for me, and so I became; and there was a need for a ferryman, and so one was cursed."
"Charon," Jack guessed. He may never've had an official, proper education, but Joshamee Gibbs had been a veritable fountain of seagoing myth, and the Keeper of the Code had had enough schooling to read his son a few classical bedtime tales. "He in the Locker, then? Or the Green?"
"Even he eventually grew weary," she shrugged, waving that away, "but the duties remained. As they will still, even after what is about to happen. Do not think I do not know you, Jack Sparrow. I know why you call; you wonder if this new Enemy will kill me too and set you free."
"Not kill you. Specifically," Jack hedged. The story of the five-thousand-year cycle, and its implications for the future of Earth whether it was destroyed or gained yet another satellite radiating mystical energy, had indeed intrigued; but he hadn't lasted so long by dwelling in depth on the potential length of his own future. "If it were to go the other way. Life wins again. More magic all round. T'would be nice to have a companion." He hadn't run into another immortal in centuries; Calypso had hinted once that there was no longer enough belief in most deities, nor power in those that survived, to support such minions in perpetuity.
Calypso stiffened then, glancing in the direction of the world of their watery birth, and for a long breath of time she seemed almost to dissolve into the evening fog, her form going hazy and indistinct. When she focused again a few moments later, the night had seeped into her eyes, as cold as the endless deep. "The Earth is about to see such signs and wonders as it has not in ages. Keep your eyes open, Jack Sparrow. And if you meet a woman who walks as light-- perhaps you will be surprised."
He blinked at that, brows drawing together; she replied with a sudden, flashing smile, then dissolved back into the night that had brought her.
Well. Great. So the Earth obviously spun on, whatever his newest crewman may have intended. But what did Calypso mean by surprised?
Captain Jack Sparrow shook his head, then did as he was bid; as he would have done anyway. He sailed onward, keeping a weather eye on the horizon.
Korben Dallas didn't know exactly what he'd been expecting to happen after he and Leeloo finished recuperating from saving the world. There was his destroyed taxicab to answer for, his reactivated commission to deal with, and the Mondoshawan's intentions toward the Fifth Element they'd claimed ownership of to worry about, for starters. But the Gemini Corporation rescheduling his ten-day all-expenses-paid vacation on Fhloston had not been on the list. He didn't know if anyone had told them that the Federated government had rigged their Croquette Contest to ensure he won, but if not, he sure wasn't going to tell them; he leapt on the offer before anyone could order him otherwise and didn't breathe a sigh of relief until they were safely off Earth again tucked into a sleeper cabin.
The universe owed them a honeymoon, he figured, and so he'd tell anyone who asked. In the meantime, Leeloo may have devoured all the contents of the astro-priest's condensed wikipedia, but she'd already learned that experience trumped knowledge when it came to the important things and was very enthusiastic about exploring all that the modern world had to offer at his side. Ten days among the beaches and sunset views of Fhloston seemed like the perfect start to that future. When she smiled, it was like the whole world shone; like all the scars of the past melted away into mist. Korben may not have known her long, but he already knew he would do a lot to keep that smile coming.
The first few days on-world were beyond his wildest daydreams. Between the amenities of their suite, the high-class wines and gourmet food that melted on the tongue, vistas to dazzle the eye and entertainment to dazzle the ears, the experience was nearly as perfect as his companion. He woke up each morning at the side of the most amazing woman he'd ever met, shared all the joys and trials of daily living with her, and soaked in the kind of pampering treatment he'd never in his life been able to afford; what was there to worry about?
His luck finally struck on the fourth day, though, when they signed up for an excursion ashore. Korben had wanted to see the wind in Leeloo's hair, and she'd been thrilled about getting to see the planet up close. No one had told them, until their landing shuttle was knocked out of the sky, that they were anywhere near the wreck of the Fhloston Paradise... or that the inevitable scavengers who'd shown up to pick at her bones were likely to be quite that well-armed.
He woke up some unknown amount of time after the explosion and impact, curled on a gently floating piece of wreckage, unexpectedly in one piece. He groaned, carefully stretching his arms and legs, frowning at the lack of obvious injury-- then looked up and felt his breath catch. Leeloo knelt over him, body arched as if to shield him, and every inch of her glimmered with light. Her eyes were still blue, but not normal blue; they were the actinic blue of a forgeflame, and even the teeth exposed by her smile were limned in a pearlescent glow. It was as if she'd stored a little of the Light of Creation against future need, and inexplicably judged him worthy of it.
"Leeloo," he breathed, gazing up at her. "Are you all right?"
She laughed at the question, leaning back a little to crouch on her heels. "I told you; I am the Fifth Element. I protect you."
Well, yeah; but Korben knew better than anyone that just being the Fifth Element didn't make her invulnerable. Then again, when she'd been so badly injured before, the injury had been as much to the spirit as the flesh; she'd doubted both herself and the Life she'd been created to save. Love had recharged her; had made her capable of blasting that ball of flame and shadow into a dull sphere of rock, no threat to anything but the tides. Maybe... maybe that applied to more than just an impending apocalypse.
For just a moment, the weight of being the partner and anchor of such a powerful force dragged at him; how could anyone merely human measure up? But he hadn't lived as long as he had, carrying the responsibilities that had been repeatedly shoved his way, by thinking too hard about anything other than what was right in front of him. There was a reason he was the only survivor of his unit.
"Yeah, you do," he agreed, beaming up at her. "You're amazing, you know that?"
From the crinkles at the corners of her eyes, it was clear she did; and also that she appreciated him saying it. But before they could do more than bask in one another's presence, maybe even get a little lip and tongue involved, a sudden rushing sound and splash of water from behind him rocked their unstable piece of wreckage. Korben scrambled to force himself upright and get a better grip on Leeloo before they ended up swamped, and barely succeeded in recapturing their balance. A shadow fell over them next, blocking the sun, and when Korben turned to see what on Fhloston was causing it his breath caught for the second time in one day.
"What the hell?" he blurted, staring up the side of what looked an awful lot like the ghost of an ancient ship. A sailing ship, not a spaceship. It was much, much bigger than their little scrap of metal, still sheeting enough water off its sides to threaten to sink them as if it had risen somehow from the deeps, and every piece of its timber was weathered and covered in barnacles. Even the sails looked tattered and worn, barely intact enough to flutter in the light breeze. "Leeloo, are you seeing this?"
Leeloo's smile sharpened; she was still radiating faint light, and it intensified as she stared up at their visitor. "I see something that should not be here."
"Took the words right out of me mouth," a strange voice replied from above. A face appeared over the ship's rail, leaning down above them: a face as strange as the voice, like a human's but covered in damp greyish skin, with a dull red bandanna tied around his forehead under a tricorn hat and what looked like tentacles dangling from his chin. "I've just finished mopping up what was left of your shuttle and the would-be pirates that failed to get clear of the results of their own weapon. Always appreciate when they make it easy for me like that. Not so the pair of you, though. How is it that neither one of you's dead or dying?"
"Maybe if I had any idea who-- or what-- the fuck you are, I might have some incentive to answer that question," Korben replied, frowning. Was this guy some kind of native the Federated Territories didn't know about who didn't appreciate off-worlders on Fhloston quite so much as the rest of them? But no, Leeloo had said he didn't belong here, either.
The being heaved a sigh... then somehow vanished, only to step out of thin air onto their scrap of wreckage. There had barely been enough room on it for just Korben and Leeloo; the damaged sheet of metal tilted further at the sudden appearance, bobbing lower in the water. "Fewer and fewer people recognize even the ship these days, let alone me; it's enough to give a lonely psychopomp a complex. Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, aboard the Flying Dutchman. But what have we here?"
Up close, Korben could see what looked like suction cups running down the man's limbs, continuing the tentacled theme of the beard, but the eyes were very human, currently wide and locked onto his companion. "She told me to look for one who walks as light," Sparrow continued, nonsensically. "Didn't quite expect it to be that literal. Is that the surprise?"
Abruptly, Korben was very annoyed with all this nonsense. They were still on vacation. Could the universe stop with its demands already? "To answer your earlier question," he said very dryly, "she's more than five thousand years old and just literally saved the universe with the power of love. A little shuttle crash is nothin' by comparison. I'm just the guy lucky enough to've been there both times. But if that's the Flying Dutchman, how come it's not a spaceship? I might be Army, not Federated Navy, but I've traveled on enough ships to hear the stories."
"So you have heard of it." Sparrow brightened, bearded tentacles coiling themselves up in reaction. "And it doesn't always look like this, does it? Different ocean, different shape. Still the same captain."
"No," Leeloo replied, frowning at him as she titled her head in a birdlike motion. "Not the same."
Sparrow's brow furrowed at that. "How so?"
She reached out to brush still-glowing fingertips over his damp, greyish cheek-- and from where her fingers touched, living color rippled out across the man's features like ink spreading in water. Dull, slick skin flushed a healthy bronze; the fishlike fringe above his lip and tentacles waving from his chin quivered, then went limp, suddenly transformed into a dark mustache and braided beard; eyebrows emerged from supraorbital ridges; and a dark scar appeared high on his right cheekbone. He looked almost human like that... and not just human, like a pirate on preindustrial Earth.
"Like so," Leeloo said, smiling gently at him. "Time is not important. Only life is important."
Captain Sparrow drew in a sharp breath, then pulled away from her touch, reaching absently up to pat at his face with a shaking hand. His fingers also showed a healthy tan skin-tone, though interestingly enough still bore lines of suckers, trailing up across the palm to where they joined in a single line of larger cups at the wrist and ran up into the sleeve of his linen shirt. It was enough to make even a taken man wonder just how far those suckers went, and what the pirate might be able to do with them.
"Well, that's a handsome face the world hasn't seen in some time," Sparrow said distractedly, then noticed his still-altered hand and flexed it, grinning. "Admit to the past only as the remembrance brings you pleasure, hey? Thought I was doing better than that, but I appreciate the perspective check, love. Doesn't change the question, though. Who the hell are you?"
"Leeloominaï Lekatariba-Lamina-Tchaï, Ekbat de Sebat," Leeloo answered, then grinned conspiratorially over at Korben. "For short, Leeloo Dallas. And this is Korben Dallas."
Sparrow's eyes widened again as he looked Korben up and down, as if really registering him for the first time after being blinded by Leeloo's presence. "You actually married yours? I know I always said my first love was the sea, but I never tried to put a ring on it. Respect, mate."
Leeloo laughed delightedly, reading something there that Korben didn't have the context to understand. While he appreciated that, the context he did have was rapidly suggesting that they would have died in that wreck if Leeloo wasn't who she was, and that on their own they had very little chance of making it back to their hotel. All their long-range comms equipment and trackers were either back in their room or scattered with the fragments of the shuttle; anyone that had seen the explosion probably thought they were dead, and somehow he doubted any satellites with a view of the current state of things were recording anything other than empty ocean. It only made sense; otherwise, the Flying Dutchman would have made news site headlines long since.
"Thank you. But back to the beginning of this utterly surreal conversation," Korben said, shaking his head. He could feel water lapping at his ankles now; their makeshift float was definitely sinking. "You asked why we weren't dead or dying. Do we have to be, to take a ride on that ship of yours?" He jerked his chin up at the side of the massive wooden galleon.
"Normally, the offer's a hundred years before the mast, or Davy Jones' Locker," Sparrow replied, thoughtfully. "But circumstances being what they are... I wouldn't dare attempt to bind her, and somehow I think she'd object if I bound you. So tell me. How d'you feel about rum?"
"Not my beverage of choice-- but I don't judge," Korben replied, trying to follow the logic. Was Sparrow asking for an offering? "Don't tell me-- you're in need of some."
"Wouldn't call it need. But the rum is gone, and a pirate gets a little thirsty when he can only set foot on land one day in a decade," Sparrow shrugged. "So will ye serve? I solemnly swear to put you ashore at first opportunity." He drew an expansive X over his heart with a finger.
Leeloo was still smiling, her otherworldly glow beginning to fade back into her normal slim, stunning strength. A month ago, faced with a creature out of myth asking him to buy them a drink, Korben's response would have been unprintable; but now that he'd helped one save the world and slept at her side every day, the sheer unbelievability of the situation was a little less a factor. And, it began to occur to him, it would be pretty difficult for any of those situations he'd been worried about to catch up to them while they were aboard the Flying Dutchman. Depending on what conditions were like, and whether this guy was blowing smoke up their ass, he might not even care how long it took to get to that next shore.
"Like you said, I only serve her," Korben replied, jerking his chin toward Leeloo. "But sure, I'll join the crew. In a strictly visiting capacity."
"I've been waiting for someone to greet me," Leeloo agreed, tangling her fingers in amongst his. "The worlds have been too quiet, apart from the Shadow's touch. She and I will have much to speak about."
"Take your word for it, mate," Sparrow shrugged; he clearly knew who she meant. Then he reached out to them with both hands, palm-up. "Oh, and word to the wise; there's a crewman aboard who knows you."
The suction cups, Korben found, tickled pleasantly against his skin; a lot more pleasant than trying to figure out what Sparrow meant. But Leeloo was with him, and the long-buried seed of adventure in his soul that had sent him to the Army in the first place and curled up wounded and sleeping until Leeloo's arrival began to send out a few more leaves.
"Yo, ho, yo ho," he chuckled as the ship's deck appeared beneath his feet, "a pirate's life for me."
(x-posted at AO3)
ffutures."Fewer and fewer people recognize even the ship these days, let alone me; it's enough to give a lonely psychopomp a complex. Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, aboard the Flying Dutchman. But what have we here?"
Title: Welcome to Fhloston, Paradise Not Guaranteed
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Post-canon for Fifth Element and PotC: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Notes: For
ffutures, who once requested a drabble on the theme "Fifth Element/PotC; Leeloo &/ Calypso &/ Jack &/ Korben; tentacles." Twelve years late, and probably taken way more seriously than was meant. :)Summary: "Fewer and fewer people recognize even the ship these days, let alone me; it's enough to give a lonely psychopomp a complex. Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, aboard the Flying Dutchman. But what have we here?" 4000 words
The funny thing about participating in a quest to end all curses at sea, including one placed by and dedicated to a goddess of the sea who might already have a particular interest in said questor, is that when that goddess went looking for her reluctant current priest and found him no longer bound to her will... said participation made one an obvious target for commandeering a replacement.
Perhaps one might've thought that being instrumentally involved in freeing the goddess from her human bonds would've earned a pirate some degree of goodwill, never mind the long association of bargains made and kept in the years before that... but having also been instrumentally involved in killing the former and much beloved target of the curse, no matter how necessary the act might've been, had muddied the waters enough to make a certain Captain Jack Sparrow feel he'd come off rather lightly, considering. As Tia Dalma, she'd always been mysterious in both origins and motivation; as Calypso, the goddess was as vast and as changeable as the sea that was her domain. He'd already spent time in Davy Jones' Locker; he had no desire to risk ever going back there, however long or short the stay.
Besides. The immortality accompanying the title of Captain of the Flying Dutchman made for one hell of an incentive. The transmogrification that came with the job might limit somewhat what a man might do in his one allotted day every ten years ashore, but when what that man desired most was a swift ship and a following breeze, then what cause had he to repine? Every treasure left to the seas was in his charge, and every soul that passed over the waves likewise. He had only to devise a means of occasionally restocking the ship's hold with rum-- generally courtesy of a dying sailor carried to port rather than signed up or left to drown, a small deviation from his duties that Calypso seemed willing to overlook-- and he was set. The only fly in the ointment was leaving the Black Pearl behind yet again, but Jack knew Gibbs would treat her as she deserved.
Before he knew it, decades had turned into centuries, and one world's seas into many as humanity spread out amongst the stars. As a population moved, so did its myths and legends, aided by the fact that rather than simply export those able to afford a new life as a colonist, whole cultures were lifted away from sweltering, starving countries and drowning islands by the governments of Earth and punted to planets as yet unbesmirched. Fhloston, for example; Jack eventually spent a lot of time on Fhloston. It was the closest to the classical Caribbean he'd yet found among the Federated Territories, over ninety-eight percent ocean with plenty of islands scattered in tropical latitudes. The natives didn't honour Calypso, but the vast influx of humanity still remembered her name, and every so often one of the floating resorts would tip all its vacationers and treasure into the surf for him to sift through.
And that wasn't even mentioning the ships lost between worlds. If there were some other ferryman collecting the souls of the races who'd walked the stars before theirs, Jack had never met them; but there was still plenty for him to do. The first time the Dutchman had emerged in the solar wind, flexing its curse to adopt a shape fit for the airless void, Jack had thought he'd sailed off the edge of the world again to some unexpected version of the Locker. But then he'd seen the wreck. Always messy deaths, those; but entire new horizons had opened for him to sail that day. Along with an endless supply of new men to ask the question.
Five centuries and more since his first days in the Captain's cabin, Jack had gone through several changes of crew. Especially since, with both Turners always a reminder in the back of his thoughts, he occasionally let one off to their just reward early if they found themselves especially ill-suited to life before the mast. Thus he always had room, even when a near-corpse fished from a wreck seemed likelier to stir trouble than honestly accept his orders. The slightly exploded gentleman with the limp and partially shaved head he hooked one day in 2263 was not the first belligerent nabob Jack had broken to discipline, and wasn't likely to be the last. Zorg did have one of the more interesting stories he'd heard in years, though.
After handing the new crewman off to the current bo'sun, Jack took himself up to the taffrail, leaning against it as he whistled a particular old tune into the wind.
Some men have died, and some are alive, and others sail on the sea....
A human-sized figure coalesced out of the evening breeze next to him, dreadlocked hair glinting with starlight as if set with gems. After all these years, she was the most enduring being in his life-- and still one of the most frustrating, endless mysteries tucked in the corners of her smile. "Witty Jack," Calypso greeted him. "It has been some time since you last called."
He thought he heard a note of judgment there. Fair enough; though honestly, there'd been little reason. "Not a lot of mysteries left to the job," he replied, shrugging. "Nor former friends left to escort to Fiddler's Green. But I heard a story today that made me wonder exactly how long you've had a ferryman in your service. Was ol' Davy Jones really the first?"
Jack had tried to keep track of time at first by the squidification of his extremities; his beard had long since acquired tentacular extensions, and suckers ran down the length of his limbs, making it much easier to climb the mainmast but rendering sailor's slops a trickier fit. He'd never quite reached his second predecessor's more extreme level of transformation, though, despite having been in the job north of half a millennium; no lobster claw arm, no saggy mantle under his hat. But whether that was to do with his actually performing the duties, or length of time spent aboard the cursed galleon, was nowhere specified.
Her smile turned distant, sharp-edged and mournful as she looked out over the waves. "Him was the first I loved, as men call love; but no, not the first of his kind. Five thousand years ago, the gods were not as they later became; not even as they are now, those of us who have survived. Magic was a formless thing, as mild as the lapping of waves on shore. Creation's Light saved the world from the Enemy, but also brought the first tides and imbued every mystery with enchantment. There was a need for me, and so I became; and there was a need for a ferryman, and so one was cursed."
"Charon," Jack guessed. He may never've had an official, proper education, but Joshamee Gibbs had been a veritable fountain of seagoing myth, and the Keeper of the Code had had enough schooling to read his son a few classical bedtime tales. "He in the Locker, then? Or the Green?"
"Even he eventually grew weary," she shrugged, waving that away, "but the duties remained. As they will still, even after what is about to happen. Do not think I do not know you, Jack Sparrow. I know why you call; you wonder if this new Enemy will kill me too and set you free."
"Not kill you. Specifically," Jack hedged. The story of the five-thousand-year cycle, and its implications for the future of Earth whether it was destroyed or gained yet another satellite radiating mystical energy, had indeed intrigued; but he hadn't lasted so long by dwelling in depth on the potential length of his own future. "If it were to go the other way. Life wins again. More magic all round. T'would be nice to have a companion." He hadn't run into another immortal in centuries; Calypso had hinted once that there was no longer enough belief in most deities, nor power in those that survived, to support such minions in perpetuity.
Calypso stiffened then, glancing in the direction of the world of their watery birth, and for a long breath of time she seemed almost to dissolve into the evening fog, her form going hazy and indistinct. When she focused again a few moments later, the night had seeped into her eyes, as cold as the endless deep. "The Earth is about to see such signs and wonders as it has not in ages. Keep your eyes open, Jack Sparrow. And if you meet a woman who walks as light-- perhaps you will be surprised."
He blinked at that, brows drawing together; she replied with a sudden, flashing smile, then dissolved back into the night that had brought her.
Well. Great. So the Earth obviously spun on, whatever his newest crewman may have intended. But what did Calypso mean by surprised?
Captain Jack Sparrow shook his head, then did as he was bid; as he would have done anyway. He sailed onward, keeping a weather eye on the horizon.
Korben Dallas didn't know exactly what he'd been expecting to happen after he and Leeloo finished recuperating from saving the world. There was his destroyed taxicab to answer for, his reactivated commission to deal with, and the Mondoshawan's intentions toward the Fifth Element they'd claimed ownership of to worry about, for starters. But the Gemini Corporation rescheduling his ten-day all-expenses-paid vacation on Fhloston had not been on the list. He didn't know if anyone had told them that the Federated government had rigged their Croquette Contest to ensure he won, but if not, he sure wasn't going to tell them; he leapt on the offer before anyone could order him otherwise and didn't breathe a sigh of relief until they were safely off Earth again tucked into a sleeper cabin.
The universe owed them a honeymoon, he figured, and so he'd tell anyone who asked. In the meantime, Leeloo may have devoured all the contents of the astro-priest's condensed wikipedia, but she'd already learned that experience trumped knowledge when it came to the important things and was very enthusiastic about exploring all that the modern world had to offer at his side. Ten days among the beaches and sunset views of Fhloston seemed like the perfect start to that future. When she smiled, it was like the whole world shone; like all the scars of the past melted away into mist. Korben may not have known her long, but he already knew he would do a lot to keep that smile coming.
The first few days on-world were beyond his wildest daydreams. Between the amenities of their suite, the high-class wines and gourmet food that melted on the tongue, vistas to dazzle the eye and entertainment to dazzle the ears, the experience was nearly as perfect as his companion. He woke up each morning at the side of the most amazing woman he'd ever met, shared all the joys and trials of daily living with her, and soaked in the kind of pampering treatment he'd never in his life been able to afford; what was there to worry about?
His luck finally struck on the fourth day, though, when they signed up for an excursion ashore. Korben had wanted to see the wind in Leeloo's hair, and she'd been thrilled about getting to see the planet up close. No one had told them, until their landing shuttle was knocked out of the sky, that they were anywhere near the wreck of the Fhloston Paradise... or that the inevitable scavengers who'd shown up to pick at her bones were likely to be quite that well-armed.
He woke up some unknown amount of time after the explosion and impact, curled on a gently floating piece of wreckage, unexpectedly in one piece. He groaned, carefully stretching his arms and legs, frowning at the lack of obvious injury-- then looked up and felt his breath catch. Leeloo knelt over him, body arched as if to shield him, and every inch of her glimmered with light. Her eyes were still blue, but not normal blue; they were the actinic blue of a forgeflame, and even the teeth exposed by her smile were limned in a pearlescent glow. It was as if she'd stored a little of the Light of Creation against future need, and inexplicably judged him worthy of it.
"Leeloo," he breathed, gazing up at her. "Are you all right?"
She laughed at the question, leaning back a little to crouch on her heels. "I told you; I am the Fifth Element. I protect you."
Well, yeah; but Korben knew better than anyone that just being the Fifth Element didn't make her invulnerable. Then again, when she'd been so badly injured before, the injury had been as much to the spirit as the flesh; she'd doubted both herself and the Life she'd been created to save. Love had recharged her; had made her capable of blasting that ball of flame and shadow into a dull sphere of rock, no threat to anything but the tides. Maybe... maybe that applied to more than just an impending apocalypse.
For just a moment, the weight of being the partner and anchor of such a powerful force dragged at him; how could anyone merely human measure up? But he hadn't lived as long as he had, carrying the responsibilities that had been repeatedly shoved his way, by thinking too hard about anything other than what was right in front of him. There was a reason he was the only survivor of his unit.
"Yeah, you do," he agreed, beaming up at her. "You're amazing, you know that?"
From the crinkles at the corners of her eyes, it was clear she did; and also that she appreciated him saying it. But before they could do more than bask in one another's presence, maybe even get a little lip and tongue involved, a sudden rushing sound and splash of water from behind him rocked their unstable piece of wreckage. Korben scrambled to force himself upright and get a better grip on Leeloo before they ended up swamped, and barely succeeded in recapturing their balance. A shadow fell over them next, blocking the sun, and when Korben turned to see what on Fhloston was causing it his breath caught for the second time in one day.
"What the hell?" he blurted, staring up the side of what looked an awful lot like the ghost of an ancient ship. A sailing ship, not a spaceship. It was much, much bigger than their little scrap of metal, still sheeting enough water off its sides to threaten to sink them as if it had risen somehow from the deeps, and every piece of its timber was weathered and covered in barnacles. Even the sails looked tattered and worn, barely intact enough to flutter in the light breeze. "Leeloo, are you seeing this?"
Leeloo's smile sharpened; she was still radiating faint light, and it intensified as she stared up at their visitor. "I see something that should not be here."
"Took the words right out of me mouth," a strange voice replied from above. A face appeared over the ship's rail, leaning down above them: a face as strange as the voice, like a human's but covered in damp greyish skin, with a dull red bandanna tied around his forehead under a tricorn hat and what looked like tentacles dangling from his chin. "I've just finished mopping up what was left of your shuttle and the would-be pirates that failed to get clear of the results of their own weapon. Always appreciate when they make it easy for me like that. Not so the pair of you, though. How is it that neither one of you's dead or dying?"
"Maybe if I had any idea who-- or what-- the fuck you are, I might have some incentive to answer that question," Korben replied, frowning. Was this guy some kind of native the Federated Territories didn't know about who didn't appreciate off-worlders on Fhloston quite so much as the rest of them? But no, Leeloo had said he didn't belong here, either.
The being heaved a sigh... then somehow vanished, only to step out of thin air onto their scrap of wreckage. There had barely been enough room on it for just Korben and Leeloo; the damaged sheet of metal tilted further at the sudden appearance, bobbing lower in the water. "Fewer and fewer people recognize even the ship these days, let alone me; it's enough to give a lonely psychopomp a complex. Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service, aboard the Flying Dutchman. But what have we here?"
Up close, Korben could see what looked like suction cups running down the man's limbs, continuing the tentacled theme of the beard, but the eyes were very human, currently wide and locked onto his companion. "She told me to look for one who walks as light," Sparrow continued, nonsensically. "Didn't quite expect it to be that literal. Is that the surprise?"
Abruptly, Korben was very annoyed with all this nonsense. They were still on vacation. Could the universe stop with its demands already? "To answer your earlier question," he said very dryly, "she's more than five thousand years old and just literally saved the universe with the power of love. A little shuttle crash is nothin' by comparison. I'm just the guy lucky enough to've been there both times. But if that's the Flying Dutchman, how come it's not a spaceship? I might be Army, not Federated Navy, but I've traveled on enough ships to hear the stories."
"So you have heard of it." Sparrow brightened, bearded tentacles coiling themselves up in reaction. "And it doesn't always look like this, does it? Different ocean, different shape. Still the same captain."
"No," Leeloo replied, frowning at him as she titled her head in a birdlike motion. "Not the same."
Sparrow's brow furrowed at that. "How so?"
She reached out to brush still-glowing fingertips over his damp, greyish cheek-- and from where her fingers touched, living color rippled out across the man's features like ink spreading in water. Dull, slick skin flushed a healthy bronze; the fishlike fringe above his lip and tentacles waving from his chin quivered, then went limp, suddenly transformed into a dark mustache and braided beard; eyebrows emerged from supraorbital ridges; and a dark scar appeared high on his right cheekbone. He looked almost human like that... and not just human, like a pirate on preindustrial Earth.
"Like so," Leeloo said, smiling gently at him. "Time is not important. Only life is important."
Captain Sparrow drew in a sharp breath, then pulled away from her touch, reaching absently up to pat at his face with a shaking hand. His fingers also showed a healthy tan skin-tone, though interestingly enough still bore lines of suckers, trailing up across the palm to where they joined in a single line of larger cups at the wrist and ran up into the sleeve of his linen shirt. It was enough to make even a taken man wonder just how far those suckers went, and what the pirate might be able to do with them.
"Well, that's a handsome face the world hasn't seen in some time," Sparrow said distractedly, then noticed his still-altered hand and flexed it, grinning. "Admit to the past only as the remembrance brings you pleasure, hey? Thought I was doing better than that, but I appreciate the perspective check, love. Doesn't change the question, though. Who the hell are you?"
"Leeloominaï Lekatariba-Lamina-Tchaï, Ekbat de Sebat," Leeloo answered, then grinned conspiratorially over at Korben. "For short, Leeloo Dallas. And this is Korben Dallas."
Sparrow's eyes widened again as he looked Korben up and down, as if really registering him for the first time after being blinded by Leeloo's presence. "You actually married yours? I know I always said my first love was the sea, but I never tried to put a ring on it. Respect, mate."
Leeloo laughed delightedly, reading something there that Korben didn't have the context to understand. While he appreciated that, the context he did have was rapidly suggesting that they would have died in that wreck if Leeloo wasn't who she was, and that on their own they had very little chance of making it back to their hotel. All their long-range comms equipment and trackers were either back in their room or scattered with the fragments of the shuttle; anyone that had seen the explosion probably thought they were dead, and somehow he doubted any satellites with a view of the current state of things were recording anything other than empty ocean. It only made sense; otherwise, the Flying Dutchman would have made news site headlines long since.
"Thank you. But back to the beginning of this utterly surreal conversation," Korben said, shaking his head. He could feel water lapping at his ankles now; their makeshift float was definitely sinking. "You asked why we weren't dead or dying. Do we have to be, to take a ride on that ship of yours?" He jerked his chin up at the side of the massive wooden galleon.
"Normally, the offer's a hundred years before the mast, or Davy Jones' Locker," Sparrow replied, thoughtfully. "But circumstances being what they are... I wouldn't dare attempt to bind her, and somehow I think she'd object if I bound you. So tell me. How d'you feel about rum?"
"Not my beverage of choice-- but I don't judge," Korben replied, trying to follow the logic. Was Sparrow asking for an offering? "Don't tell me-- you're in need of some."
"Wouldn't call it need. But the rum is gone, and a pirate gets a little thirsty when he can only set foot on land one day in a decade," Sparrow shrugged. "So will ye serve? I solemnly swear to put you ashore at first opportunity." He drew an expansive X over his heart with a finger.
Leeloo was still smiling, her otherworldly glow beginning to fade back into her normal slim, stunning strength. A month ago, faced with a creature out of myth asking him to buy them a drink, Korben's response would have been unprintable; but now that he'd helped one save the world and slept at her side every day, the sheer unbelievability of the situation was a little less a factor. And, it began to occur to him, it would be pretty difficult for any of those situations he'd been worried about to catch up to them while they were aboard the Flying Dutchman. Depending on what conditions were like, and whether this guy was blowing smoke up their ass, he might not even care how long it took to get to that next shore.
"Like you said, I only serve her," Korben replied, jerking his chin toward Leeloo. "But sure, I'll join the crew. In a strictly visiting capacity."
"I've been waiting for someone to greet me," Leeloo agreed, tangling her fingers in amongst his. "The worlds have been too quiet, apart from the Shadow's touch. She and I will have much to speak about."
"Take your word for it, mate," Sparrow shrugged; he clearly knew who she meant. Then he reached out to them with both hands, palm-up. "Oh, and word to the wise; there's a crewman aboard who knows you."
The suction cups, Korben found, tickled pleasantly against his skin; a lot more pleasant than trying to figure out what Sparrow meant. But Leeloo was with him, and the long-buried seed of adventure in his soul that had sent him to the Army in the first place and curled up wounded and sleeping until Leeloo's arrival began to send out a few more leaves.
"Yo, ho, yo ho," he chuckled as the ship's deck appeared beneath his feet, "a pirate's life for me."
(x-posted at AO3)
