The vessel flew Bastion colors and had the emblem on the mainsail of the huge, foremast, but Ansem didn't recognize the craft as one of the fleet. It was huge and old-fashioned, both body and sails entirely black. Ansem, still easily half the size of all but one of the crew, hung back slightly, close to his father, unsure what to make of the motley collection of men.
"Nara!"
Ansem goggled. The man wasn't quite as tall as his father was, perhaps shorter by an inch or two, the strange three-cornered hat made it difficult to gauge. He was a bit broader, although that could have just been the weathered great coat, the tails flapping about his legs in the stiff oceanfront breeze. While his father sometimes wore a sword on state occasions, this man had one- large and plain with a strange covered handle- slung on his hip and an ornate yet clumsy-looking hand gun stuck into his belt. As if to make up for his otherwise plain attire, there were a myriad of strings and beads and baubles woven into the seaman's tangled hair and even into his beard which he'd plaited into two narrow braids. From the way he tripped down the gangplank to the dock, Ansem had to wonder if he was drunk. There was indeed a distinct smell of alcohol about him, but it was nearly overridden by the powerful scent of man and sweat, wet wood, gunpowder, and above all, salt.
"Captain Sparrow," his father offered a hand with a smile. The captain returned both, displaying thick, heavy rings on his fingers and more gold checkered amongst his smile.
"How's land treating you?"
"Fair enough. I take it the wind has been kind to you?"
"We have our ups and downs, truth be told," the Captain muttered behind the back of his hand in a conspiratory manner, "but we made good time. Good voyage. I assume we can help our selves to re-supply?"
"To all but the treasury," his father smiled. The captain chuckled, again showing a glint of gold.
"Don't trust me?"
"I trust you, Captain. I trust you to behave as a pirate."
The two men laughed, the captain throwing his head back at the joke. One of the of the deckhands, a smaller man in a black hat with a sagging brim, a teenager perhaps, paused only long enough to shake his head before moving on.
Pirates? REAL pirates?
"And who's this then?"
Ansem jumped slightly and had to force himself to resist the urge to hide behind his father's leg.
"My son, Ansem."
"Well I'll be blowed," the Captain remarked, again offering a brief glint of golden teeth. "Right handsome little lad, smart as paint he looks! No end of apples and roseycakes from the little ladies is there?"
His father chuckled and lowered a hand to smooth his son's head. Ansem wished he wouldn't do that, particularly in the presence of other grown-ups. He might only be seven, but even a young prince had a certain amount of dignity to maintain.
"Perhaps in a few years," he smiled. Ansem rather doubted this. "Come inside when you've finished unloading. There is food and lodging for your crew and yourself. I should like to invite you and your first mate to dine with us this evening- provided of course that the silverware dose not leave with you."
The adults laughed again and the captain nodded.
"A pleasure. We'll discuss your business proposal then."
"Very well. Come, Ansem."
Ansem came, following at his father's elbow, but could not resist sneaking a last glimpse of the pirates before being ushered back inside.
Pirates! Real pirates!
"Father," Ansem asked, "who is that man Captain Sparrow? Is he really a pirate?"
His father looked up, a vague smile on his face. Marking his place and setting his book aside, he turned his attention to his son.
"Captain Jack Sparrow is indeed a pirate, the worst in the Spanish Main, or so it is said."
"The worst pirate?" Ansem echoed, eyes wide.
"Yes, the worst pirate that ever was heard of, that is to say, the most unusual pirate ever to have sailed his particular corner of the world."
Ansem wondered which corner that was. "What has he done?"
"Things strange and beyond belief. He is said to have vanished from under the eyes of seven tradesmen and all their guards, escaped countless prison cells with neither key nor pick, slipped out of shackles as if they were mere bangles, escaped marooning by riding away on the backs of sea turtles, sacked whole ports without firing a single shot or spilling a drop of blood, battled the living dead, bested the Old Man of the sea, and even courted Calypso herself."
"Surely none of that can possibly be true!" Ansem gawked. He was seven, but he wasn't stupid, and old enough to know the difference between fact and fairytale. His father smiled.
"Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. Truth is often stranger than fiction, Ansem, and things are different in Captain Sparrow's country. Perhaps what is marvelous to us is commonplace to others."
Ansem thought about that.
"What I do know is this," his father continued, "there is nothing on earth be it man or beast, trinket or treasure that remains hidden from Jack Sparrow. If there is a thing to be found, he will find it."
A thousand questions crowded his young mind, each elbowing the other in their rush to get to his mouth. Alas, the first to find voice was simply: "How?"
His father smiled. "Captain Sparrow is a great navigator though he is said to possess a compass that is broken. It does not point North, but it does point to other things."
"What things?"
"Anything the heart may desire."
"What does your heart desire, father?"
His smile grew dim. "That is a business matter between me and Captain Sparrow." A grownup's matter. While he had a good guess, he never did confirm what it was Captain Sparrow had been sent to seek.
"Master Ansem?"
It had only taken a split second and a minorly confused cock of the head for the pirate to realize that it was the son and not the father that stood before him. It had been fifteen years or so and while the captain had perhaps grown a bit browner, his clothes a bit more battered, little seemed to have changed about him. There was little physical variation in that odd stretch of years between twenty and forty and the pirate appeared much the same as he had when Ansem had last seen him as a child of seven. Those past years had now brought his gaze even with that of the captain; master of the Bastion as the pirate was master of his ship.
"Master no longer, I see," the pirate remarked, inclining his head yet leaving his triangular hat where it was. Ansem nodded.
"Yes, I'm Lord of the Bastion now."
"I heard of your father's passing. I'm deeply sorry."
From the look in his eyes, Ansem believed he was.
"Thank you. I trust your voyage went well?"
He nodded. "Just so. Been a while since I sailed your waters. Too long. I was surprised to hear from you considering how I'd come up empty-handed last time."
Ansem made a mental note to later ask just what it was his father had sent the captain out in search of.
"I'm sure you did your best, Captain Sparrow. Take what you need in the way of supplies. Food and lodging has been arranged for your crew. As for you, I would like for you and your first mate to stay with me and join me for dinner, the usual practices applying."
"Your father's son," the captain smiled and made a small obeisance, the palms of his hands pressed together before him. "I should be delighted, and I promise not one ounce of your silver shall leave in me coat pocket."
"Nor your shirt, nor your trouser pocket."
The captain laughed aloud. "You are your father's son!"
Even so young as he was, Ansem had been allowed to sit at the table with his parents and their strange company. At the time, the first mate had been a stubby, stocky man with graying mutton chop whiskers. Now, however, the captain, cleaner though with still wildly tangled hair, entered the room not with the old sailor but a lady on his arm. She was perhaps eye-height to the captain, slender, dark-skinned and darker-haired. Ansem briefly wondered where he'd gotten her from, he'd noticed no women on the docks, but decided the matter could be wondered about later. While the captain had exchanged his beaten slate-colored coat for a similar one though in significantly better condition, the woman had outfitted herself in a gown of garnet and black ornamented with only a long silver chain that hung below the line of her bodice, obscuring the pendant that was presumably strung upon it. Both costumes were rather antique for the Bastion, but most likely fashionable in their own nation.
Ansem, having only been seven at the time, did not remember much of the captain's table manners and was relieved to discover he knew the purpose of a napkin and did not chew with his mouth open. He did note, however, that the pair seemed to eye the cutlery and china as hungrily as they did the food and was glad he'd reminded them of the protocol.
"I trust the food is to your liking, Captain Sparrow?"
The captain nodded. "Aye, very good, though I fear it's wasted on my seaman's tongue." The lady smirked and Ansem gathered he was to interpret this as a joke and therefore gave a wry little smile of his own.
"If I remember correctly the last time you were here, you brought a gentleman with you."
"That'd be Gibbs. Retired since. Found himself a fat wife and pigs to keep. Quite pleased with affairs last I heard from him."
Ansem nodded thoughtfully. Considering Gibbs had been gray then, the fellow must surely be of an advanced age now, perhaps a sailor's life had become too strenuous.
"Anamaria's me first now and a finer mate a captain couldn't ask for."
The lady, Anamaria, smirked but made no comment. Ansem couldn't help quirking an eyebrow at this but held his own silence.
"Tell me, where do you come from? I've heard my father speak of your land but I'm afraid I know little about it."
"We sail chiefly from Port Royal," the captain offered guardedly, "sometimes Tortuga."
"And where is that?"
"Wouldn't be on any map of yours, it's uncharted waters we sail between our home and yours and few can make that passage."
"I take it the journey is difficult then?"
"Nigh impossible for most. Have you ever heard of the Bermuda Triangle?"
"I have not."
"It is a triangular area of the sea, reckoning in latitude and longitude, where ships have the unfortunate habit of disappearing. It is also where most of the queer things of the world have fled, what with explorers and tradesmen poking their noses in places they've no business being. Tell me, do you know how a compass operates?"
"I do."
"The curiosity about the Bermuda Triangle, is that inside that three-cornered space, that which points the needle north fails to function. It spins in all directions and reckoning position is made, as you may guess, extremely difficult. An intelligent man may maybe able to navigate his course by way of the stars, but many no longer practice the art and therefore hang themselves with their own stupidity. I, however, have not had to suffer this particular inconvenience."
"Because your compass does not point North."
"Precisely."
"And the strait that leads to Hollow Bastion lies through this Triangle?"
"And other places."
"Fascinating."
The meal concluded without further conversation and Ansem led the captain and gowned first mate aside to his study.
"Now then," the captain began, taking a seat in one of the thickly-padded chairs, "what is it you'll be requiring of me?"
"My father once told me that there was nothing on earth, man nor beast, treasure nor trinket that could hide itself from Jack Sparrow."
"You father spoke well and he spoke true," the pirate confirmed, smiling a bit at the flattery. "What would you have me after?"
"What do you know about Kingdom Hearts?"