Author's Note
A very special thank-you to Gaming_Bros_9861 for inspiring Tamara's role in this story.Your idea of her rescuing Edward after he falls overboard in the Black Pearl battle was fantastic and added great emotional depth and a spark of romance to the tale.
Thank you for supporting the story and helping shape this world!
The Black Pearl burst from the fog like a demon-ship born from gunpowder and nightmares.
Black sails.Ghost-silent crew.Cannons glinting like iron fangs.
Edward's pulse thrummed. He had dreamed this moment in another life, in another world, but dreams never smelled like burning rope and blood-salt wind.
"LOAD PORTSIDE!" sailors roared.Powder burned the air.Men scrambled, fear sharp as the splinters flying from the first Pearl volley.
BOOM — BOOM — BOOM!
Cannonballs screamed through the hull, blasting timbers into the sky.One smashed the main rail right beside Edward, showering him in shards. He hit the deck in a roll, grabbing a rope and sword in the same fluid motion.
Will appeared beside him. "We can't outrun her!"
"No," Edward said, teeth bared, "but we can make them bleed for trying!"
A sailor screamed as grappling hooks sank into the railing. Black-cloaked pirates swarmed aboard like carrion crows.
Edward charged into the fray.
He moved fast, not magically fast, not impossibly fast — just a man who had trained until his muscles carried memory and steel sang in his hands.
His blade met another with ringing force.He parried. Twisted. Disarmed. Kicked the pirate into the sea.
Another swung at him. Edward ducked, elbowed him, and headbutted him for good measure.
Jack shouted across the deck, hat somehow immaculate,"Edward! Try not to DIE! Terribly inconvenient, that!"
"COME HELP, YOU RUM-SOAKED PEACOCK!"
"Morale is assistance!"
"YOUR FACE is"
BOOOOM
A cannonball tore through the mast , splinters everywhere , and then
A sound like thunder inside the bone.
Something slammed Edward's side with the force of a god's hammer.
His world shattered into noise, light, flying fragments Then silence.
Will saw it.
Edward was thrown backward, swallowed by smoke. A cannonball slices the rail the young man disappears into the roaring, churning black water below.
"No—EDWARD!"
Will lunged, but Jack grabbed him.
"Don't," Jack said quietly.
"He fell, he"
Jack's voice was unusually steady. "A man doesn't survive a blast like that."
The ocean boiled. Flaming wreckage drifted. No sign of Edward. None.
Will dropped to his knees, chest tight.Even Jack… looked away.
The crew bowed their heads.Elizabeth wasn't there; she'd be safe, but this? This felt like fate spitting in their eyes.
"He died saving us," Will whispered.
Jack nodded once.
"Damn fool," he muttered softly. "Should've ducked."
The Interceptor turned, leaving smoke and fire behind — and a friend they thought they'd lost.
Cold. Crushing. Endless.
Edward drifted through swirling light and dark, lungs screaming, mind fraying.
He saw nothing but the deep until a soft glow approached.
A hand touched his cheek.
Not cold.Not cruel.Warm. Familiar.
Tamara's voice reached him through water and oblivion.
"Even in death, you fight," she whispered.
She wrapped her arm around him, pulling him upward, singing not a siren's hunt-song, but something ancient and protective.
The sea obeyed.
The current lifted him.
The surface shattered.
Air burned back into his chest.
He gasped, coughing life back into his shaking body.
Tamara held him steady. "Breathe, Edward Swann."
He clung to her like a lifeline, vision blurring then narrowing on her face.
"You… saved me."
"You annoy the sea," she said, lips quirking. "But you interest it too."
He laughed weakly, breathless. "You have terrible taste."
"I know."
She guided him to driftwood. He collapsed onto it, half-dead, whole heart pounding.
"Rest," she murmured.
"No," he muttered. "Must… yell at Jack later…"
A small, musical laugh.She brushed his forehead a touch warmer than the sun.
"Do not die before I see you again," she whispered.
He swallowed. "Can't. Sister would kill me."
She smiled. Then vanished beneath the waves like moonlight falling into a dream.
Later
Edward floated, blinking at the sky.
"…Everyone thinks I'm dead."
He sighed, proud and annoyed at once.
"That is going to be very dramatic when I return."
A seagull landed on his plank.
He glared.It stared.
"Don't judge me."
It squawked.
"Oh, go drown in a soup bowl."
The gull pecked his hair.
"I hate birds."
He lifted a fist to the heavens.
"JACK SPARROW, YOU OWE ME YOUR ENTIRE COLLECTION OF RUM!"
The sea rolled.
Edward cursed passionately.
Then clung to dignity, driftwood, and vengeance.