They sailed through ice. Ice so cold that their skin turned pale and red, and frost coated their hair as icicles formed on their clothes and blood stopped flowing through their bodies.
"Why don't that Obeah woman bring Jack back the same way she brought back Barbossa?" Pintel asked.
"Because Barbossa was only dead!" Tia Dalma exclaimed. "And I had the life's blood of him descendant, the heart of the sea. Jack Sparrow is taken, body and soul, to a place not of death, but punishment. The worst fate a person can bring upon himself stretching on forever. That's what awaits at Davy Jones' Locker.
"Yeah, I knew there was a good reason," Ragetti insisted as Cora and Will shivered over the charts.
"These can't be as accurate as modern charts."
"Actually, they be more so," Cora corrected him. "For they lead to more places. We ain't be the first to try and take Sao Feng's charts. These be legendary charts. See," she said as she put her hand over Will's and spun the circles to reveal a message.
"Over the edge, over again," Will read.
"And..." Cora continued as she spun the circles again and ran a finger across the new message.
"Sunrise sets. Flash of green." And then Will was on his feet as he was handing over the maps to her father. "Do you care to interpret, Captain Barbossa?" he asked.
"Ever gazed upon the green flash, Master Gibbs?" her also frozen father asked.
"I reckon I seen my fair share. Happens on rare occasion. The last glimpse of sunset, a green flash shoots up into the sky. Some go their whole lives without ever seeing it. Some claim to have seen it who ain't. And some say..."
"It be signalling when a soul comes back to this world from the dead," Cora finished, rather bored of Gibb's dramatic explanation. "Father and I saw it once."
"Aye, me Cora. And to see a soul returned has an interesting effect on one's own soul," Barbossa said as he brought his daughter under his arm in an attempt to warm her up. "Trust me, young Master Turner. It's not getting to the land of the dead that's the problem. It's getting back."
Will was handed back the charts as they sailed onwards through the ice. Into a cavern of pure darkness that spat them out on a sea that was so still it be a mirror of the sky above them. A sky that was speckled with more stars than once could count and more constellations than any could name. it was as if they were sailing on the sky, on those constellations and on those stars.
And under those stars, two people who hadn't spoken in a while began speaking.
"How long do we continue not talking?" Will asked as he approached Elizabeth, but she simply glanced at him before turning back to stare at the black horizon.
"Once we rescue Jack, everything will be fine," Elizabeth said softly.
"And if we rescue Jack and nothing happens? What becomes of our friendship then?"
Elizabeth picked at her nail a little harder as her jaw tightened. "Are you sure your lover will have no objections to our friendship?"
"My lover?" Will asked with furrowed brows before he followed Elizabeth's gaze to where Cora was standing with her father as they read over the charts again. "Cora?!" he chuckled despite the sour taste in his mouth, especially after what he said next. "Elizabeth, aside from keeping my bed warm, Cora has no influence on my life. What issue do you have with her?"
"I don't have an issue," Elizabeth snapped.
"Clearly."
"I think you are the one with the issue if you didn't even tell me that you were sharing a bed with Barbossa's daughter!"
"What does it matter?! It is my business! I do not see how who I spend my nights with is relevant to our relationship?"
"I thought the only relationship you had was with Cora?!"
"Do there be a problem?" Cora asked after hearing her name leave Elizabeth's lips as she argued with Will, the two friends had hardly spoken in the last few months they'd been preparing for this journey.
"No," Elizabeth huffed. "There is no problem. Just take your lover and leave me be." And she marched off as Cora was left alone with Will.
Indeed, things had changed between them. After her father's return, Cora returned the ring she'd worn to him. And for some reason, Will found himself in the cabin she was staying in on the very large ship they'd paid for passage to Singapore on. He found himself there with a ring to give her to replace the one on her necklace.
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"Can I help ye, Mr Turner?" Cora asked as she tied up her hair, getting ready to turn in for the night.
"Actually, I thought I could help you," he said, and she raised a brow.
"How so?"
"For you," he said as he tossed something to her that she caught with ease. It was a simple gold ring with a small circular blue stone.
"No," Cora said as she looked up from the jewel.
"I'm sorry?"
"No. My answer to your proposal. I mean I hardly know you, it is much too early in our relationship, and I believe yer forgetting the fact that we wholly dislike one another," she joked, and Will huffed a laugh. "But why give this to me?"
"To replace the one around your neck," he answered. "The one you gave back to your father."
She seemed surprised at the gesture, and she most certainly had not expected it. She was silent for a time before she bit her lips and they stretched into a small smile. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," he replied as he watched her thread the ring onto the empty cord that still sat around her neck.
"Where did you even get this from?" she wondered as she did the cord up around her neck again. "We be in the middle of the ocean."
"I swiped it from one of the crew of this ship. Figured they wouldn't miss such a tiny thing what with all the other treasures they have onboard," he shrugged, and she broke into a massive smile as she laughed.
"Ye continue to surprise me, Mystery Man," she chuckled, and he smiled.
"Why do you insist on calling me that?"
She shrugged this time. "I dunno. There always seems to be this air of mystery about ye, even after I found out who you were. Ye keep surprising me."
Will took a few steps closer to her. "If anything, you are the mysterious and surprising one. I can never predict what you're about to do. I don't think anyone can really."
"At least I'm not boring," she returned, and he chuckled.
"No. You are most certainly not boring." He was silent for a second before his tongue darted out across his bottom lip. "Do you remember the first time I kissed you?"
Her eyes lit up with intrigue as she tugged on the ring, sliding it across the cord. "Why?"
He stepped closer to her till they were almost toe to toe. "You didn't answer my question."
"You didn't answer mine."
And their eyes searched each other's before they lunged.
Cora leapt up as he caught her, and their lips collided. And it was just like before. It was bruising, angry and passionate. It was everything.
"This means nothing," Cora panted as her back hit the wall and Will's shirt was tugged off.
"I was just about to say the same."
"Liar."
"Oh relax. I still hate you as much as you hate me."
And they were devouring each other again as pleasure and pain twined together as an understanding began to form. That there would be no feelings between them except this one. This burning fire, this raging sea. The feeling that surged when they kissed, they had become addicted to it, and they were not about to let it go anytime soon.
The only reason anyone had found out was because as good as William Turner was in bed, he was terrible at subtly when he'd walked out of her cabin as he was putting his shirt on only to run into both Elizabeth and Hector. And naturally, Cora had to come out to prevent her father from killing him. But there was definite no misinterpreting what had happened between them when Cora came out in trousers and a cloth around her chest.
Elizabeth had definitely not been happy to learn about that. It would seem that while Will had discovered long ago that he didn't love Elizabeth, Elizabeth still held onto whatever feelings she felt for him, hoping simply that he'd come to realise that he did love her after all. So far that day hadn't happened.
But what happened, was that it had begun. When it was starting to be more than just physical between them as Will was sleeping next to her with no clothes on, and he saw the ring he gave her still tied around her neck.
But it had been a long time since they'd been alone together as they were now stuck on this tiny ship, sailing to their deaths with only the hope that they could come back.
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"For what we want most," came Tia's voice as she approached the two of them, "there is a cost must be paid in the end."
While Cora was trying to ponder what that meant, Will placed a hand on her elbow as his eyes pointed at one of the necklaces around Tia Dalma's neck and Cora knew exactly what he meant. Because a particular heart-shaped pendant looked rather a lot like a certain music box they had seen aboard Davy Jones' ship.
Will's eyes then landed on something else, the mist before a waterfall as he went running towards the back of the ship where Barbossa was steering. "Barbossa, ahead!"
"Aye, we're good and lost now," her father said.
"But, Father, we're heading right towards a waterfall!" Cora exclaimed.
"Lost?!" Elizabeth cried but she was ignored.
"Relax, me Cora. For certain you have to be lost to find a place as can't be found. Elseways, everyone would know where it was."
"Father, that doesn't account for the fact that we be heading for a waterfall!" Cora bellowed but her father simply cupped her cheek.
"Have I ever led ye wrong before?" he asked as she leaned into his touch.
"No."
"Do ye really think I'd bring me one n only daughter on a quest to the afterlife if I thought there was even a chance ye'd be stuck there?"
"No," she answered honestly. "Ye be the only one who ne'er betray me, Father." Well, him and Will, but she wasn't about to tell him that.
"Exactly why ye need to relax, me Cora. All will be fine."
As her father let her go, she became aware of the fact that Will was barking orders to turn them around.
"Nay! BELAY THAT! Let her run straight and true!" Barbossa yelled as some of them gathered on the prow to see the massive edge they were about to sail over.
"You've doomed us all," Elizabeth spat at the captain.
"Don't be so unkind," Barbossa retorted. "You may not survive to pass this way again, and these be the last friendly words you'll hear. "
And while he dealt with that, Cora ran to the back of the ship where Will was trying to turn the rudder.
"Will! Will! STOP!" Cora urged.
"Do you want to die?!" he shouted back.
"Will, we are on the same side are we not?!"
"Yes?"
"So one may say ye trust me?"
Will hesitated for a second before he answered, "Yes."
"My father is not Jack. He won't leave me to die. I trust him. And you trust me. We'll be ok."
Will straightened but kept a hand on the rudder. "You really trust him?"
"I do."
"Alright then," Will relented as he let go of the rudder and stood in front of her. "I hope you are right about this."
"Me too."
And Will grabbed onto Cora as he grabbed back onto the rudder and bellowed, "HOLD ON!"
And as she held onto Will and onto the rudder, over the screams of the crew, Cora could hear her father laugh as they sailed off the edge of the world and their boat fell off the edge of the waterfall. And they fell off the edge of the world.