Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even a poster anymore.
"Load the cannons!" came the manic howl, fighting to be heard over the crush of the sea as it rose to wash onto the deck.
Priest cursed as she ducked under a flailing rope and stormed up the steps to the steering wheel. Her first mate stood there, his pox-marked face twisted into an ugly scowl and his eyes squinted against the salty spray.
Priest sucked in a deep breath and screamed over the raging wind.
"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, Barbosa?"
His head snapped around, eyes widening at her drenched form. The waters battered the Pearl and Priest had gotten plenty wet on her way from bellow.
She glared, clawing at the strands of hair that blew across her face. Barbosa drew himself up and they both cursed as the ship hauled to the side sharply with a high wave.
Priest barely kept herself from slamming into the heavy spindles of the wheel, her hands flying out to catch herself as her boots slipped dangerously on the deck. Her legs were still weak from so many days a bed but she had felt the crew stir in a hurtling heave and had acted accordingly. Which is to say, she got her ruddy ass up and dressed and out topside in record time.
"You should be a'bed, cap'in!" Barbosa yelled in her ear as they both clutched at the wheel.
"I should think not! Now, re-" her command was cut short as they were hit with a wall of water. She heard the screams of her crew and cursed with some of the blackest language she knew.
Hector didn't bother with talking; simply jutting a finger out in the direction they were to fire.
Priest's hair whipped into her face again as she turned and squinted. Through the dark torrent of the storm she could see the black outline of a large ship closing in on them. From their steering, she doubted they could see the Pearl. She cursed.
Then, her keen eyes caught the sight of the flag they waved and she felt a sharp stab of hatred burn in her gut.
A slave transport.
Such of the like that she herself had been aboard, so long ago. She smiled cruelly at her first mate and nodded. They were going down; the Pearl would send them to their watery graves.
.
The waters were calm and the relaxing, repetitive dip of the bow was almost enough to send her to sleep. Half lidded eyes stared off into the vast blue distance, a long hand weaving through the salty waves.
Suddenly, Priest lifted her hand, grasped the bow, and swung herself over the extending pillar of wood. Her ankles and wrists crossed strongly over the beam and she tipped her head back to wet her head. The ocean waters lapped at her back until she swung herself back up to grip her thighs around the wood and shake out her straggly hair. Her thin shirt stuck coolly to her back and she stood, her feet poised, her balance firm as she walked back onto the main body of her boat.
Dark wood was warm beneath the bare souls of her calloused feet and she weaved through sweaty men and women as they worked, heading to wheel.
She was interrupted by the lean, grunting form of a young man as he stumbled into her. His tan skin was thrown into stark relief by his white billowy shirt and large, dark eyes widened at her before he ducked his head and mumbled a hasty apology. All knees and elbows, he stuttered.
She remembered him now, as she looked over his hunched and abashed figure. He was old Tee's son. The one who hadn't wanted to be a pirate.
She had taken him aboard at the last dock. And why not? She recalled when she had been similar to him and she knew that with the right amount of influence he would be a fine man some day.
Like Pearl had tugged Priest from her shell against the world and introduced her to the sea, so would Priest tug young Jackie from his she had decided.
Priest grinned wryly and caught his shoulder before he could pass. He peeked at her with wide eyes as she laughed and joked about with him, all while leading him to wheel. His lessons would start now, she decided as she felt his back give and his posture relax and then stiffen under her steady hold.
"Come come now, young Jack! I've just the time ta be showin ya!" She waved jauntily to a bird as it flew overhead. A sparrow. What good luck she'd be having this day!
Her low voice heavy with years of sea-speak, she was artfully covering her original, quiet noticeable, accent. Jackie didn't seem to notice, having looked up and frowned at whatever it was that his captain had been motioning to.
"Up up now lad!" She half pushed him up the flight of stairs to the wheel. He hesitated some, but soon enough he was pliant under her hand.
"You're relieved, sir!" she told the man manning the steering.
"Aye Cap'in. As ye be wishin." He nodded and smiled at her as he left his post. She turned quickly as she remembered what she had wanted to tell him.
"Oh, Mr. Bows! Please, help ya self to a drink for me will ya? I see me self being a bit busy the next couple turns!"
The man's wide, dirty mouth smiled back at her. Tipping his hat as he disappeared below deck, she heard his belated cry of, "Aye Cap'in!" after he was out of sight.
Content that she had been fair with the situation, she turned to see Jack quickly snatch a hand back from where he was about to touch a worn wooden spindle. She thought she saw his face flush as he ducked his head, his short dreads falling round his face.
"Go ahead, boy. 'Tis what I brought ya up here for anyhow." He turned, surprised at her admission and she smiled cheekily. Without waiting for anything further, she stepped behind him, guiding his hands to position.
"Now, ya'll be wanting to start with hands here, now, don't cha worry bout all fancy and stuff what not, just be part of the ship. Ya are merely an extension of her as she cuts through the water. Feel the wood beneath ya feet and the wind through ya hair. Good, good, ya're almost there…"
And so the lessons began.
.
What Priest hated most about pirating were captives.
Now, sure, a new face was great and all after the repetition of her crew for weeks and months and years, but dealing with the bastards? Now that was a different story.
Bringing her hand up, she let the butt of her pistol fall heavily on the man's face. He grunted as he tipped to the side on his knees, spitting blood upon her deck. She stood before him in full gear: Armed to the teeth and chest suitably bound.
She knew that she made quiet the picture.
The slaver before her was looking up at her with angry eyes, and she hit him again. Just because she could.
"Men, what would ya say if I asked whether or not these bastards look like they needed…a bath?"
The sound was lost to the roar of her men as they screamed their assent.
"Well, then." Priest smiled an ugly smile and tapped her pistol against the man's head mockingly.
"Looks like ya'll be get'in clean of your sins soon afterall, mate."
.
The slaves were dropped off at a side port a few days later where Priest secured them a ride to a safe place for them. She knew that it wouldn't help much, but the zealous thanks of the many African's made her want to rage at the unfairness of the world.
That night she worked to crawl into a bottle of her finest.
Or, really, Barbosa's finest. Man had damn good taste in drink.
Stripped to her chest bandages and an old pair of pants, she lay sprawled in her nest above the ship. The man on watch sat besides her, keeping an eye on her and the dark sky. Now he, he had talent.
She laughed aloud and realized that she was well and truly drunk.
Down to her boots. Ooops! She wiggled her bare toes. She wasn't wearing boots!
Giggling, she hauled herself up and swayed with the rocking ship as it gently heaved with the kiss of the sea. Bottle in one hand, she saluted the man and started her slide down the ratlines.
With assuredness born from years at sea and aboard the Pearl, her feet reached wood safely.
Then she nearly gutted young Jackie when he snuck out of the shadow next to her. Barely stopping her knife, she sunk it into the wood a hair away from his side. He gasped and she shushed him as she fell against him from the force of her thrust.
The bottle stayed securely in her hand.
(Wouldn't do for Barbosa to pitch one with her over one lousy bottle of drink.)
Unwinding her fingers from the hilt of her knife, she touched young Jackie's side. All she found a slight, smooth cut in the white thin fabric of his shirt and sighed with relief.
Her fuzzy head spun some as she pushed off of him, tucking her knife back into her pants, and she would've fallen on her ass in front of the boy had he not grabbed her.
The metal braided into her hair chimed beautifully and she let herself lean in his hold. His hands had her round her waist; a hot, heavy heat on her chilled skin. Her free hand had hold of his shirt.
Her head fell back, into open air, and she sighed happily.
She didn't feel her feet begin to slid through his legs nor hear the raging curse he spat as he fought to keep her up. All she felt was the wind through her hair.
It felt…so…nice.
Without a thought, she dropped to unconsciousness.
.
Jack grunted as they fell and he barely kept himself from crushing her as he straddled her thighs. His face went hot at the thought of how bloody powerful they had to be.
He had watched her work the lines from the nest. One handed! Either she was damn bloody good of she had some powerful stuff!
Getting off of her, he shook his head to see her still clutching her bottle. He awkwardly pulled her into his arms, maneuvering both bottle and her.
She ended up with her head and shoulders flung over his arm. Her hair fell long and thick, twisting in his hands and catching on his calluses. It was frustratingly slow getting her below deck.
She snored. And drooled. Some.
Jack grimaced as he stared at the locked door of the captain's quarters. Of course it was locked.
He scowled and determinedly turned around to dump her at Barbosa's. He could bloody deal with her.
And so he did just that.
.
She woke up in Barbosa's bed.
Not an uncommon experience, but normally she at least remembered the sex she had.
She snorted as she flung out a hand to find the bed empty. Not unusual. Her head throbbed and she was quick to her feet with practiced ease to find some water. She then staggered around Barbosa's space, looking for her things that weren't there. She then pattered herself down and found herself clothed.
Odd.
Walking out of his room, she quickly walked down the small hall to her room and plucked a key from between her breasts. The lock was quick to turn and she was inside in a jiff.
Undoing her ties, her pert breasts assumed their normal positions as she threw on a shirt over her sore parts and massaged them, wincing slowly.
Her pants were left on and her key shoved over her door.
She often didn't lock her door like this. She had scared the men enough with the talk of things going on in there that should any of them try… well, she doubted it would ever come to that.
Ah, the powers of manipulation.
.
"What'da ya tink of it, eh?" Young Priest's eyes snapped to the equally small black girl beside her. Wrapped in the remains of one of her best dresses, Priest's small, white hands tugged absently on a remaining piece of ribbon.
"Think of what?" she asked, kicking her feet. They sat on the end of a small dock in an equally small town. Her bare, dirty feet just barely skimmed the cool blue waters of the Mediterranean.
"Of da sea! Ya silly girl! What else would we be talking bout, so close to 'er?" Pearl snapped back, wondering at the scatterbrain stuff of her young, light friend. Her heavy accent weighted heartily on her words as she exclaimed, motioning wildly to open expanse of water in front of them.
To Pearl, it was the only way to escape.
"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry, I suppose my mind was wondering off somewhere," Priest spoke the memorized words dutifully, forgetting that her parents weren't there to beat her for being impolite. She folded her hands politely in her lap, fingers longing to pick at the holes in her tattered dress.
"Now, what hav I been tellin ya, bout talkin like dat?" Pearl demanded, shoving at her friends shoulder.
"Oh, I, well-" Priest righted herself and struggled to come up with an answer that might placate her friend.
"No if, ands, or butts! I'm tryin ta keep ya breathin! But ya gotta give me sumptin to work with!" And it was true. The only reason Priest hadn't fallen to the hungry dogs was because of the young girl beside her. Pearl had saved her. Priest would never forget it.
"A-alright," Priest said, straightening impeccably and then flinching, slumping back down.
"Now, let me hear ya say, arrrggghhh!" Pearl said loudly, the overhead sun hot on her shaved head. She pumped a fist in the air as she growled like a pirate.
"Arrrggghhh?" Priest tried to copy…and failed…miserably.
"Was dat a questin ya be askin?" Pearl asked, giving her friend an ugly eye.
"Yes?" Priest picked at her torn dress seam and avoided Pearl's gaze.
"No! Now, try it again!" Pearl answered for her, reaching out a grubby hand to jerk Priest's head back up.
And so it went on.
.
"Well, what do to do about this?" she muttered to herself, bending over her maps, her sleeves pushed up, her face determined. She would find them a path.
Hector was at the wheel, supervising young, or really, not so young Jack.
And boy, he was a Jack now.
He had finally grown into the height and muscles he ended up inheriting. His dreads now reached his shoulders and his face was one enough to make any ditzy girl of port swoon. Hell, it was almost enough to make her swoon.
Priest brushed impatiently at her hair, straightening and groaning as her back popped loudly. She rubbed it and shaded her eyes as she stepped out from the shade. The maps where left forgotten. Let Barbosa deal with them. He was better at math then Priest.
.
On the night of his ten and ninth year, she took him to her room.
Not to bed him, as it was clear he thought that, but to sit him down and make him what he already was in name if not appearance.
She made him a Pirate.
She had always loved changing the appearance of others. To her it was art, without a brush or pen and sitting in front of him, she kept his back to her vanity mirror and looked him over. Luckily she had been thinking about this moment for a long time so she instantly got to work undoing a few dreads and grabbing her bead box.
Jack sat still, for the most part, not asking what she was doing or why. She figured that the men had told him about her ritual. Hell, a few of them had been through it!
With nimble fingers she weaved strands of durable glass beads and gold coins into his ratty, coarse hair.
Once done, she got out her kohl. She wore it, though it was hard to come by, and she wanted Jack to wear it too. Demanding that he close his eyes, she gently traced a dark path round his dark eyes.
She lay it on thick, smudging it with her fingers to get it to meet his lash line. Sitting back, she briefly admired her work.
Jack was looking at her, his eyes looking tens of times bigger with the kohl, and she frowned when he batted an errant dreadlock out of his eyes.
It was with careful hands that she withdrew an old, red piece of fabric from her pocket. Wrapping it round his head, she was glad to see it hold back the heavy fall of corded hair. It brought a mixture of gladness and sadness to her to see her old friend's livery sitting on his head.
Smiling widely at him, she pressed a kiss to his cheek and then booted him from her room.
Her work was done.
.
"I don't like 'im," Hector growled as he slammed a heavy cup to the worn table between them. In the tavern, their conversation wouldn't be overheard.
"You act as though I am not aware of that. I'm not so blind as to not see the dislike you carry for him," Priest said calmly, taking a slow, neat drag of her pipe. Her rum sat almost untouched in front of her.
"Tee's spawn or not! It's time he got 'is own place!" Barbosa spat on the dirty floor, and it was long practiced blankness that kept her from wincing.
"I took him in to keep him," she said without heat, taking another puff of tobacco.
"Damned if I don't know that!" he huffed, swallowing his rum in one shot.
It would not be the end of the discussion.
.
It would take a deaf, dumb, and blind fool not to see the want in the boy's eyes when he looked at the captain, Hector decided as he leaned against the wheel. Bellow, Priest was giving the boy a rough beating, tapping him over and over with the broad side of her saber. The boy was fast on his feet though, and he dodged…some.
He also fell…a lot. And even as he sat on his arse in the middle of the deck, embarrassed beyond hell, he still looked at the Captain with-
Hector sneered, love.
Tipping his hat further over his eyes, he failed to catch the talk below him as the wind whistled in his ears.
It was a fine, hot day, indeed.
But, he decided as he watched the boy take the hand that Priest extended to him, the boy would need to learn his place…
The sooner the better.
.
The annual meeting of the Pirate Lords was, as usual, messy, loud, and generally boring.
Priest resisted the urge to smack her head on the table in front of her. Her hat, well loved, was in Jack's hands. She had given it to him for safe keeping in case she had to join the fighting.
Rubbing at her tired eyes, she wondered when the hell this would all be over.
She never noticed the look Jack was giving her.
.
Tee looked down the table, spotting his boy sitting beside little Whitey.
His fingers trailed over the brim of his hat thoughtfully as he watched them.
He could see the devotion in the boy's eyes.
Smiling slowly, he wondered if she would ever tell him about the day that she helped bring him from his mother's body.
Looking again, he decided that maybe it would be better if she didn't.
.
The first time Jack shared a bed with the Captain, it wasn't anything like being with the whores of Tortuga or any other port. Because really, almost all of the ports they visited had willing tavern wenches.
No. It was…he had no real words.
Hot, heavy, opened mouth kisses over slick skin. The musky smell of sex mixed in with the perfume she always seemed to be wearing.
Hands tugging hair and eyes meeting and breathes coming fast.
It was more than he had ever hoped for.
.
The day he got his first, drunken tattoo, he got his name.
The Captain had laughed heartily when the others had dragged him back aboard, thoroughly pissed.
When she caught sight of his swollen arm, she had laughed even harder, saying something along the lines of, "Bloody signs, did the right thing," and, "You really are a Sparrow now!"
He didn't tell her that he had always planned to get it. That he had always dreamed of being the bird; able to fly. Ready to be free.
But from then on, she called him Sparrow.
Jack Sparrow.
It really did have a rather nice ring.
.
She died helping him pull Barbosa off of a cliff ledge.
The rocks were weak.
He saw her face.
Wide eyes, opened mouth, hands pushing him back.
He reached.
He missed.
He watched her fall.
Hit the rocks.
Not come up.
…
They never found the body.
.
Standing over her desk, he read her letter again.
It left him the Pearl.
She had given him her charm just hours before they saved Barbosa.
Shinny in the light, he dangled it and watched the light from the low candle reflect off of old glass and dirty gold.
A new Pirate Lord.
He realized that she would be forgotten.
Already, he could barely remember her face.
Priest. The Pirate. Captain of the Black Pearl. Lost to the waters that she so loved.
He hadn't even known her real name.
Leaning forward, he blew out the candle…and thus said goodbye to the life of the one he would always remember.
Even as time would work to wash her away.