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Elizabeth Swann is brutal and merciless in a way that Barbossa hasn’t seen in a long time, even amongst men. She does not hesitate to draw her sword and he gets the feeling that, if given the option in battle, she would take no prisoners. She is harsher than a winter’s wind and as wild as the maddest of tempests and somehow, she is easy to care for.
Barbossa is not a man that loves easily. But in the months between his revival from the halls of the damned and his trip back there to rescue Jack Sparrow, he comes to love Elizabeth Swann in the way that a father loves his daughter. There is some amount of fear in that, because he knows she would not hesitate to turn her sword on him should the occasion arise, and they’re both all too willing to betray each other should it come down to it. But he loves her, in whatever way he can.
He knows that he’s not the only one that cares for her- the other men see her as an object, certainly, and he’s seen her fend them off on multiple occasions. But they all have a history, now, and the misogynistic jabs that Elizabeth is clearly all too used to are taken with grace and retorts that are just as stinging. Still, Barbossa knows that if necessary, these men would fight to the death at Elizabeth’s command.
Then there’s Will Turner. Will Turner, who is a mystery unto himself. Barbossa has never been quite sure what to think of Will Turner- where there’s the easy camaraderie and competition and slight hatred with Jack, and easy banter and companionship with Elizabeth, there is a wall of ice that Will has put up around himself. Barbossa is not one of those privy to the melting of the ice; he thinks Elizabeth may be the only one who is.
Because Elizabeth, bloody and brutal and brilliant as she is, has an air about her that makes you want to let down your guard. That makes you want to stop and listen. That makes you want to follow her. She’s a natural-born leader, and yet, when she’s with Will, they fit perfectly at each other’s sides. Neither of them a step ahead or behind, perfectly in sync.
It amazes Barbossa, after all this time, how two people can be so perfect in partnership and so terrible at communication. Granted, they have bigger things to worry about than love, but in the end, it was love that caused all of this, wasn’t it? Maybe it will be love that sets them free.
It does not come as a surprise, in hindsight, that Elizabeth killed Jack. The others seem completely and utterly shocked when Jack tells them that she was the only one to succeed in killing him; Barbossa thinks it is fitting. He tells her so, later on, and she simply glares at him and walks away. Not in the mood for compliments, then.
After the debacle with Sao Feng, when she joins them at Shipwreck Cove as the Captain of a ship, as one of the Nine Pirate Lords, something is different. It’s been less than a week and yet she is not the same woman she was when Barbossa last saw her. He watches the way she stabs her sword into the globe, strides up and takes her place with no emotion. She is different. The innocence she once had, the childishness, is now gone. If there was any mercy left in her heart, it is there no longer, replaced by the cool gaze of the woman that stands before him.
Something happened, then, he thinks. There is no time to talk about it. Elizabeth does not cry.
They name her King. It seems fitting, after everything. She holds the title well, placed on her head like a crown of steel. That night, he seeks her out, standing at the top of the Cove, overlooking the sea. She doesn’t startle when he clears his throat to make himself known.
“You just missed Jack,” she says, not turning to look at him.
“You talked to Jack?” Barbossa asks. He assumed, after everything, that the two would probably try to avoid each other. As tends to happen when one of you murders the other.
“Jack talked to me,” Elizabeth corrects him. He comes to stand next to her; there’s a slight smile playing at her lips. “As he does.”
“And what did Sparrow have to say?”
“Some nonsense about how it wasn’t my fault,” she hums. “With the kraken. Even though it was. Even though I’d do it again.”
“Would you,” he says, a statement, not a question. He knows she would.
“We got him back,” she murmurs. “That’s what matters in the end.”
There’s a long pause.
“We’re going to die tomorrow,” Elizabeth tells him, finally turning to look at him.
“Aye, we may,” he agrees.
“If it comes down to it, I want you to release Calypso.” It’s said as an order, but she’s talking to him as a friend. “Point a gun at me if you have to. Make it seem like a mutiny. But if we have no other choice, set her free.” She pauses. Waits a moment. “If we survive without her help, we will set her free anyways.”
Barbossa considers this. “Why do you care?” he asks eventually. “You’re not a pirate.”
“You’re right,” Elizabeth laughs. “I’m not just a pirate. I’m their King.” She looks back to the sea. “I know what it feels like to be scorned by love. If it kills me, I will see her returned to her place. She belongs out there. Not trapped in a human form.”
Barbossa thinks, perhaps, Elizabeth is not just talking about Calypso. That maybe she’s talking about herself, in a way, expected to remain on land, at home, when she longs to be at sea. If they both survive the coming hours, Barbossa thinks, he’ll make sure she is able to carve her place in the waters before them.
The next morning, he watches the way she stares at Will. Like he’s betrayed her. Like she’d kill him if she had to. Like she understands completely. She proposes the trade and they walk back across the sand and she and Will do not speak, at first. When they do, Barbossa feels like he is intruding.
“King?” Will asks.
“Courtesy of Jack,” Elizabeth replies with a slight sneer. Then her gaze softens, the sweetest Barbossa has ever seen it. He looks away, but he still hears her say, “When this is over, we’re going to talk.”
“If we survive,” Will reminds her.
“We’ll survive.”
She says it with such surety that Barbossa knows it will be true. On his shoulder, the monkey chitters. They walk on. As they row back to the ship, him and Will at the oars, she stares ahead of them. To the Brethren, not to their enemies. And he realizes-
She is no monster, but she is not human either, not really. What woman would act the way Elizabeth Swann does? What mortal being could possess her capabilities, her skill with the sword, the way she commands attention and draws pirates in like dragons to their treasure? No, Barbossa thinks, Elizabeth Swann is no monster, no kraken. She is a lighthouse: safety and a warning all at once.
Elizabeth Swann will lead them to victory.
He officiates her wedding in the middle of one of the bloodiest battles he’s ever taken part in. He watches as she finally, finally cries over Will. And later, when Will and the Dutchman are gone, when Jack has taken off, he finds her sitting on the beach.
“What will you do?” he asks her gruffly. He wants to put an arm around her. To comfort her. He doesn’t.
“What do you expect?” she asks him coolly. Her eyes are still red, but her voice is steady. “I am still the Pirate King. I have a people to lead.”
Elizabeth Swann does not go back to land, not that he really expected her to. He sees her sometimes; she rules the same way she leads, brutal and merciless and kind to those who deserve it. She has grown, he thinks; no longer generous to her enemies but ten times more so to her allies and friends. He is lucky to count himself amongst the latter. She rarely steps on land, they say, and nine months after the battle Barbossa finds that she has given birth while at sea. They say she fought off three ships while in labor and none on her crew died. They say the baby, her son, was born five minutes after the final ship had finished sinking.
They say that the realms of the dead and the living collided that day. That the Dutchman was seen above water for the first time in nearly a year. That Will Turner, who could not step foot on land, stepped foot on the solid wood of his wife’s ship and held her and their son in his arms.
They say Elizabeth Swann travels with two ships, one above the sea, one below it. They say her son is blessed by the sea herself. They say Calypso placed her hands on his tiny little head and declared he would be the happiest child in the world. They say Elizabeth Swann vowed to never set foot on land as long as her husband was still at sea. They say many things. Barbossa believes it all.
The Brethren Court meets a few times. He sees her there, her son in her arms, or holding her hand, or at her side. Every time she hugs him and tells her son that this is Uncle Hector and he laughs and teaches the boy how to hold his second sword. Not his first- his mother taught him how to hold his first- but Barbossa gets to be second.
He is there when Will Turner steps on land for the first time in ten years, and the first time that Elizabeth Swann does as well. Their legs are unsteady, their son trailing behind them, and the family disappears into the little island cottage for a day. Barbossa guards the door; if anyone tries to get to the King of the Sea and the king below it, they will have him to deal with.
It is, ultimately, his honor to know Elizabeth for as long as his time allows. It is his honor to serve the Pirate King. It is his honor to be witness to the lighthouse that remains at sea.