The Hobbit and Pirates: Curse of the Black Pearl/Chapter 5

Chapter 5: A Curse Revealed

For what felt like the umpteenth time, Bilbo heard Elizabeth apologize on how she got them both into this mess and how they were both stuck on the Black Pearl. Bilbo tried to tell her that she had already apologized at least multiple times. However, she ignored him. They were there at least two full days and when it was finally night time on the second night, they were starved. What did these pirates want to do with them? Why couldn't they just leave because Barbossa already had his missing piece? Why were they still waiting around for the captain to pardon them both?

Their answers were seemingly heard, as Pintel and Ragetti entered the room. One of them had a deep purple dress in their hand.

"You'll be dining' with the captain," said Pintel. He held up the dress. "And he requests you wear this, Miss Turner."

"While I speak for Bilbo and myself here, you may tell your captain that we are disinclined to acquiesce to his request," Elizabeth said. She had quite a tongue on her today.

Both the pirates gave a creepy smile.

"He said you'd say that," Pintel said with a mouth. "He also said if that be the case, you'll be dining with the crew…and you'll be naked. And as for Mr. Bilbo, well, we won't say what he would do should you not wear it."

Elizabeth looked at Bilbo, who was looking at her with a pleading look. Elizabeth, for hers and Bilbo's sake, took the dress while putting it over her nightgown while Bilbo was made into straightening at least his current wear. Later that night, the crew came in with food and put it down at the table, where Elizabeth Bilbo and Barbossa began to sit. The woman in their group was eating daintily with Barbossa watching her.

"There's no need to stand on ceremony, nor call to impress anyone. You must be hungry," he told Elizabeth and pushed the food in front of her. At first she still looked at the knife and fork. She was always told to eat like a lady in front of company, no matter whom or what it was. Then she dropped both silverware and ate like a hungry animal.

Meanwhile, Bilbo refused to eat anything and just sat there for nothing. Barbossa glared at him more, wondering why the Hobbit wouldn't bother to eat anything.

"Why do you linger there and not bother to eat anything?" the Captain of the Black Crew asked.

"Do you really think I am that stupid?" Bilbo said. He usually didn't show off his tongue, not unless they were captors or someone Bilbo just didn't like. "How do I know if the food is even poisoned?"

Barbossa just stared at him with a glare and a conniving smile. Quite reluctantly, he took a piece of meat from the middle of his view and took a small bite before he swallowed the piece of meat whole. Barbossa looked at him.

"Believe it to be poisoned now, Master Bilbo?" he asked the hobbit.

Mr. Baggins glared down at it and then followed Elizabeth's example and began to eat it like he had once seen his dwarf friends. Elizabeth handed him at least several other things for him to eat and Bilbo saw that none of their foods were poisoned. It was actually an acquired taste to several of the foods. He was offered wine and took it with Elizabeth. However, when Barbossa held out apple in between the both of them, Elizabeth stopped herself from taking it.

Maybe Bilbo is right,  Elizabeth thought. Maybe some of the foods are poisoned.

Neither Hobbit nor woman took the green apples from Barbossa's hand.

"It's poisoned," Elizabeth said.

"Aren't you both one and the same?" Barbossa said, looking in between Bilbo and Elizabeth. "There is no point in killing either of you, Miss Turner."

"Then release us," Elizabeth said. "You have your trinket; We are of no further value to you.

"You don't know what this is, do ye?" Barbossa asked them both. Bilbo shook his head. Aside from seeing it around her neck every day and the day they were rescued and then kidnapped by Pirates, he never had seen it before and never knew what it meant.

"It's a pirate medallion?" Elizabeth answered.

"This is Aztec gold… one of 882 identical pieces they delivered in a stone chest to Cortés himself. Blood money paid to stem the slaughter he wreaked upon them with his armies. But the greed of Cortés was insatiable. So the heathen gods placed upon the gold…a terrible curse. Any mortal that removes but a single piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity."

"We hardly believe in ghost stories anymore, Captain Barbossa," Bilbo commented and took a sip from his wine.

"Aye. That's exactly what I thought when we were first told the tale," Barbossa answered. "Buried on an Island of Dead what cannot be found except for those who know where it is. Find it, we did. There be the chest. Inside be the gold. And we took 'em all. We spent 'em and traded 'em and frittered 'em away on drink and food and pleasurable company. The more we gave 'em away, the more we came to realize…the drink would not satisfy, food turned to ash in our mouths, and all the pleasurable company in the world could not slake our lust. We are cursed men, Miss Turner. Compelled by greed, we were, but now we are consumed by it."

Barbossa, without realizing it, Elizabeth had taken a butter knife and hid it up her sleeve. Bilbo was getting a very bad feeling about this man. Barbossa didn't kill him or Elizabeth yet, which caused him to become more suspicious. Then, Barbossa intruded his thoughts and Bilbo heard him speak one last time.

"There is one way we can end our curse. All the scattered pieces of the Aztec gold must be restored and the blood repaid," answered Barbossa. "Thanks to ye and yer companion here, we have the final piece."

"And the blood to be repaid?" Elizabeth asked and the monkey screeched.

"That's why there's no sense to be killin' ye and Mr. Bilbo, Miss Turner," he told her, and added, "yet." He offered her an apple again as Elizabeth took the knife, ready to kill him. At that moment she stabbed him with her butter knife. Bilbo grimaced and clenched his teeth a Barbossa took the blade out with blood, but showed no pain.

"I'm curious – after killin' me what was it you plannin' on doing next?" he asked her.

Elizabeth ran out in horror at the sight of it all. She ran out of the room, scared. However, when Elizabeth exited the Captain's quarters, the crew had turned into monstrous creatures. They were walking skeletons in the moonlight. They were terrifying. She ran away quickly up the stairs, but she was scared by more skeletal figures of the crew. Elizabeth had to get off the ship. She didn't even remember to think about Bilbo. All she had to do was get out of there.

However, when she went to leave, she was bounced up and down the tarp the pirates were cleaning before she ran away again and underneath a staircase. For a second there, nothing, and then the blasted monkey (also a skeleton) came down, scaring her. Elizabeth made a run for it into the captain's quarters. However, Barbossa caught her and turned her around to look at the moonlight let out their true nature. He then grabbed Bilbo's wrist none too kindly and pushed him in front. This impact caused the Hobbit to whimper.

"Look! The moonlight shows us for what we really are," he said and forced them both to face him. "We are not among the living, and so we cannot die, but neither are we dead." As he advanced on them, both Bilbo and Elizabeth then backed out. "For too long I've been parched with thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I've been starving to death and haven't died. I feel nothing – not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea, nor the warmth of a woman's flesh or a lad's soft hair" He took out his hand. Both Elizabeth and Bilbo grimaced.

"You best start believing in ghost stories Miss Turner and Mr. Bilbo," he said. Barbossa slowly walked out the door revealing his full skeleton form. "You are both in one!" He took his mouth and drank out the rum. Both of them looked, seeing as it poured all over the skeleton's ribs. Elizabeth and Bilbo both ran into the cabin as Barbossa threw the glass at the door and slammed it shut. He started laughing with all his followers laughing with him. This time, Barbossa had enough and grew serious again.

"What are ye looking at? Back to work!" Barbossa shouted.

"You heard the Captain," the Bo'sun said. "Back to work.

Quickly, the captain walked away as the rest of the crew began to work on their problems.