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likeadeuce: Six Degrees From Hank McCoy (X-Men) to Elizabeth Swann (Pirates of the Caribbean). I cheated a bit by using 1602!Hank, and... well, you'll see. Spoilers for 1602 by Neil Gaiman as well as Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon, and for PotC: At World's End.

Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end

I.

There was a saying about curiosity and cats, but Henry McCoy had never found it applied to him. After all, the most commonly used insult directed at him had been “ape”, and besides, finding shelter with Carlos Javier had only served to heighten his conviction that without the urge to learn more about the world, he might as well have remained in the cage they had tried to lock him in after the death of his mother.

Javier was not surprised when Henry told him of his plans to explore the new world, once they could be sure the good citizens of Roanoke were safe from the King’s retaliation, and wished him good speed. For a while, Henry roamed through the wilderness, happily filling his mind with new plants, animals, and the languages of the tribes there, but then the longing to touch books again, to test his mettle against another scholar, grew to an irresistible degree. By this time, he found himself near the Spanish colony that had been founded by Juan Ponce de Léon almost a century ago and named for the Flowery Easter week. There was no reason to expect the Spanish colonists would bear more love for the witchbreed than their cousins in Spain, but there were books to be found in St. Augustine and Pensacola, and some might even contain wisdom. Henry McCoy shaved his head and, having disguised himself as a wandering monk, entered Florida.

II.

As usual, it’s all Jack’s fault. Well, most of it. In any case, Elizabeth would have been content to rule as Pirate King from land instead of sea for a while longer, given that her child had not yet passed his second year, but then three captains in a row told her the rumours about Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa racing each other to the Fountain of Youth in Florida and managing to get themselves captured by a fabled Beast instead of gaining the immortality they sought. They were soon to be devoured, if they had not met their gory demise already.

There was really nothing to it but rescue them, if only so she could scorch their ears for their foolishness afterwards.

III.

When preparing the potion, Henry had not seriously contemplated immortality. He had simply wished to find out whether it could be done at all, and what its effects would be, given that every single scholar he had ever read seemed to be sure it was impossible.

There was also the Frenchwoman, an infuriating person named Abigail Brandon, a Huguenot who worked for the French King and seemed to believe the fact Henry bore no love for the Spanish and their witchbreed-hating ways made him her ally. It might have done, at that, had he not met her when she sent an innocent Indian to his death to gain advantage over some Spaniards.

“Menéndez de Avilés killed my father and most of my people,” she said to Henry, disdainful of his accusations, “and we came here from the Old World after they slaughtered us in the streets of Paris on Bartholomew’s Eve. I am done with being a lamb, witchbreed. You and your ilk could help us kill every last Spaniard in this colony, but if you will not, then make sure you do not stand in my way.”

Henry had not come to Florida to stand by while people slaughtered each other. If there was truly a potion that could banish death, he thought, it might save them all, Spanish and French, Catholic and Protestant alike, and give them more than one lifetime to learn to live with each other.

But he would have to test it first.

IV.

Elizabeth had to admit it was good to be at sea again, though she missed her child dearly. She had left the boy with Teague, who had also helped by consulting all the old maps that might contain a hint as to where in Florida the fountain of youth might be found. In the end, though, the most helpful method of tracking Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa down was by looking for furious folk of either gender in one case, and for dead bodies in the other.

There was a part of her that hoped the dead Barbossa had left in his wake served another purpose, but if the Flying Dutchman had come to ferry their souls to their destination, it had been before she arrived to bury their remains. Still, she knew she would see Will again; just not on this journey.

She wondered, not for the first time, what she would do if the curse could not be broken. Elizabeth had no wish for eternal life, not since she had first seen Barbossa turn into a skeleton in front of her, showing what immortality could be, but when she thought of Will going through eternity alone, it did not bear contemplating, either.

V.

The potion had turned Henry’s skin into fur, had given him claws and whiskers and eyes that saw too much in the dark. What it had not given, as far as could be seen, was eternal life.

“Why did you not have someone else take it first, so you could see what it would do?” Abigail Brandon whispered in indignation and something that sounded suspiciously like sorrow.

“As you would have done?” Henry asked. “I would not use other men as mice to run through wheels for me, or be harmed so I would not. Nor women, either,” he added, and looked away from her.

“Then that makes you a fool,” Abigail said, but when he started his journey back to Roanoke and was discovered by a group of Spanish soldiers who thought it sport to hunt a giant beast, the Spaniards found themselves attacked by a French virago and her wild assembly of Indians and Huguenots. The French won, but in the skirmish, Abigail took a wound near the heart.

“Why did you do this?” Henry asked, and she told him it had been another opportunity to strike at the Spanish, pure and simple. He had always known she was a liar.

VI.

Elizabeth had expected to find Jack and Barbossa either caged in some dungeon, or trying to sell each other to the fabled Beast, or fighting it, or fighting each other, or some other wild combination of such circumstances. What she had not expected was finding them both attending to what looked like a giant but very old cat as courtiers would to a monarch.

“Forgive me for detaining your subjects for so long, Captain Swann,” the creature said to Elizabeth, sounding amused. “But they still will not believe I do not have eternal life to give, and are trying to persuade me of their worthiness.”

“Well, seeing as you told us you were born well nigh over a century and a half ago…” Jack began. The creature said:

“Ah, but cats have nine lives. That is why he gave me the potion when I lay dying, I think. He wanted to save me. He was always a sentimentalist, but I never was.”

“You mean you do not even know how to brew the bloody potion?” Barbossa thundered. “We attended your every whim for weeks and you are not the beast that found the philosopher’s stone?”

“Men are foolish, are they not?” the creature said to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth found herself smiling back. “They cannot even see what is right in front of them. Do I look as if I possess eternal youth?”

“They truly are. And yet,” Elizabeth said, “we do miss them when they are gone.”

For a moment, she could see an old woman lurking out of the eyes of the person in front of her, and the woman knew all too much about grief and loss, and the absurdity of life.

“That we do,” Abigail Brandon said, and sighed.

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