Heave Ho!
Disclaimer: Of course, I don't own PotC. I am not a pirate. I am not a published author. I am not J K Rowling, either, even though this isn't that fandom.
It was a dark and stormy night. Rain slashed at the windows as thunder rolled and crashed. Ann, standing in the kitchen with her arms in soapy dishwater, was glad that she lived in her mistress's home—one never knew what could happen, walking outside on a night like this.
It is probably best to get things like this over with, and quickly, so that the real story can begin. Ann was of middling height and square build. She wasn't slim and lissome, with a generous bosom and a curvy waist—not many of the servants were truly good looking, as hard work and meager living since childhood were apt to cause things like large muscles, rough hands, and a certain sheepness of mind, which did nothing for the looks. She had straggly brownish hair, and a sort of muddy, hazelish eye color. Her nose was prominent, her arms were brawny, and her chest was flat enough that she could probably impersonate a husky man, if she so chose. She had a ruddy face, and her feet were generally planted apart to help keep her balance while doing difficult tasks.
Mrs. Mooney was a fair mistress; she didn't ask too much of her servants, but she didn't hand out fat bonuses every Christmas, either. Ann had been sent over from Shropshire, where her father kept cows and sheep. She was ostensibly sent to become a wife to a nice-young-man who had settled down with a trade and enough money to get a house, yet needed a woman, though this had seemed unlikely even back at home. (In fact, her father had said under his breath, "And pity the poor, nearsighted lad as takes you," before she left.) After three months at Mistress Lovett's Rooming for Marriageable Young Ladies, Mistress Lovett had found her a place with Mrs. Mooney, where the hours weren't too bad and the beds weren't too buggy, and one of the stableboys sometimes tried to tumble her. Life was comfortably all right. And now we may return to the story.
Trinn, the only servant Ann had ever seen who was truly beautiful, waltzed by with an armload of dried china dishes to be put back into the cupboard in the dining room. Trinn—Ann wasn't quite sure what her name was; something like Katryna, she knew—was excruciatingly wonderful. She was slim, lissome, she had everything, in short, that Ann lacked. The stable lads treated her like a china doll; you could bet that her father never pitied her future husband. That was also because her father had been hanged, when she was seven, for the crime of piracy. Trinn hated pirates with a fiery vengeance, and looked pale and sorrowful whenever some notice of them was read from the paper; she seemed to regard the pirates as killing her father, though Ann thought it more likely to have been the fault of the governor. Trinn had sultry red curls, to match her fiery vengeance, and flashing green eyes that could pierce a man's heart while his wife stood nearby, fuming. Yet, somehow, no-one (except the jealous wives and Ann) could look beyond the exterior to see the conniving, nasty little brat inside.
Everyone else had gone to bed already, as Ann had volunteered to finish the dishes and Trinn had, as she said while picking up a handful of wet cutlery, "so wanted to be helpful." Ann had no idea why she should suddenly choose now to be helpful, but she was grateful to her for taking some of the work. Ann was forever looking for good things in people, even when there was no reason to believe any good existed. Perhaps Trinn was meeting a man at a quarter to nine in the middle of a storm.
The thunder seemed to grow just a bit louder and more percussive. It was possible that the storm had gotten even closer, but now that Ann thought about it, it sounded less like thunder and more like…cannon fire? Could it possibly be—pirates? They'd have to be mind-bogglingly stupid pirates, to be out sailing on a night like this. Though, really, the thunder had disguised the cannons very well. There wasn't much reason to panic, as pirates had never before penetrated Mooney House—the late Mr. Mooney had built it solidly and staffed it with many guardsmen. Ann sighed inwardly. She hoped that someone was near Trinn to keep her from rushing out, blade in hand, to attack the pirates single handedly. Which was, to say the least, idiotic.
And, Ann noted, was happening right now.
Trinn ran into the room, brandishing one of the swords from over the fireplace in the main dining room. She had a vaguely mad expression on her face, and paused in her dash from the room to strike a pretty pose, holding the sword aloft, and cried, "I must go to avenge my father!" The sword, which glinted dangerously, was, Ann knew, made of a fairly flimsy metal and probably couldn't cut through paper. Trinn then turned, tossed her scarlet curls, and dashed out into the rain.
Oh, bother, thought Ann, as she made a pointless attempt to dry her hands and rushed out after her.
The streets were dark, but they were filled with a flood of people and rainwater. As Trinn was heading for the source of the confusion, Ann had to battle her way through the crowds like a salmon heading up a waterfall. She realized, belatedly, that she had no weapon and was heading to almost certain death or Worse Than Death, but it was rather too late to go back now. The other servants would have locked and barred the doors by now, and it was likely that a pirate would get her before she made it home anyway. There wasn't too much to worry about from the Worse Than Death area; if any pirate meant that, he'd take one look at her and probably throw her in the sea.
Without warning, Ann ran into a ring of pirates, swords out and sense of decency and kindness left at home. The loss of the pressure of a thousand moving bodies caused her to stumble into the figure—a familiar, red-tressed figure—standing in the middle of the ring. As Trinn fell to one side, one of the pirates knocked her sword out of her hand; it bounced as it hit the ground, but Trinn could not notice, as she was now held over the pirate's shoulder. Her squalls were met with coarse laughter and ribald suggestions.
Another pirate had pressed Ann up against a wall, his none-too-clean dagger to her throat. His eyes raked her body, and she waited for some sort of crude comment to come to his lips. Instead, laughter seemed to spring from him in a way that would have been described as jolly, if he did not have a grimy dagger waving around in the area of Ann's chin. He put his dagger away and groped at the upper front of her dress, and Ann blushed in mortification. Perhaps she had been wrong about Worse Than Death.
After a few moments, the pirate managed to get some words out. "You could have done with a bit more padding, laddie. Though the whole thing was useless from the get-go, a great strapping lad like you. You'll want a bit better way to escape from them as know a woman's body. Eh, boys?" All of the pirates chortled as Ann blushed in the depths of now-extreme mortification. "Truth be told, though, you are a strapping lad. Davy!" He motioned with his head to one of the other pirates, who stepped up beside her, drew his sword, and rapped her smartly on the head with the hilt. She pitched forward into blackness and the pirate holding her against the wall.
When Ann awoke, she tried to roll over, but couldn't. And it wasn't because Mary Butterworth, the scullery maid, was taking up more than her share of the bed, either. For some reason, her hands were tied together and to a pole. At last she opened her eyes, and looked about her. She was on a ship. The pole was a mast. This seemed extremely odd, until her jumbled senses finally returned to their proper order, and she recalled last night's events. She craned her upper body and neck as far as they would go, and ascertained that Trinn was on the other side, and had also been knocked out. Ann supposed that the pirates had valued speed over pleasure, and had taken her back for later. They'll probably free her, or let her become some sort of female pirate, she thought with a little rancor. And they'll keep me here to wash the dishes. That was how things worked with Trinn.
As she was thinking, the pirates began to gather in a wide circle around the mast. One of them strolled up to the captives. He was definitely an odd one, Ann decided. Instead of just letting his hair grow long, lank, and greasy, he let it grow long, lank, and greasy and then braided beads into it. His eyes were lined with some dark sort of paint—Ann had never even seen one of the town harlots with that much paint. Overall, he had an air of one treading the line between sanity and madness. Though, she reflected, he certainly did have an air of command about him.
The pirate went to Trinn first. He knelt down—Nice boots, Ann noted—and cut Trinn's hands loose from the mast, though he left them bound together. He then propped the girl up against the mast closer to Ann's right and caressed the vermilion curls that framed Trinn's face. Gradually she came around, and took note of her surroundings, especially of the bearded pirate directly in front of her.
"How dare you touch me!" she shrieked. The other pirates laughed raucously, but their probable leader only raised an eyebrow. "I mean it—you are the dirtiest, lowest, most disgusting pack of sheep's droppings that I have ever seen in my life!"
Ann hoped that someone would hit Trinn on the head before she got them both killed. Although the pirates didn't seem to mind being vilified by the red-head; perhaps they looked at her idiocy as proof of spirit. The pirate stroking Trinn's hair stopped and moved a few feet around the mast until he stood in front of Ann. He looked at her, then back at his men. He glanced, puzzled, at her front, and then turned fully around to face the other pirates. He then placed his hands on his hips and bellowed, "All right, then! Which of you dogs picked up this lad?"
The scruffily bearded pirate who had held his dagger to Ann's throat the night before spoke up. "'Twas me, Cap'n," he said with a proud lilt to his voice. "'E was dressed as a woman, but I could see right through 'im." The man next to him, who Ann remembered as Davy, nudged him in the side. "Oh, and Davy 'ere helped."
"So, you, Mr. Hawkins, and Davy, are responsible for our new acquisition." The Captain seemed to be enjoying himself. "A fine big lad, to help with the heavy work and the fighting." There was a rumble of assent through the crowd. "The only trouble being," he continued, "that the lad ain't a lad."
The crowd rumbled again, this time in astonishment. Mr. Hawkins looked absolutely dumbfounded, and Davy's mouth dropped open. "Not a lad?" Hawkins stammered. "But 'e—"
"Yes—up you get, lass." The leader cut her bonds and pulled her by the hand until she stood. "What's your name, then?"
"Ah—Ann." This was unnerving. Evidently, the pirates didn't mean any harm to her—why else would they untie her? In an uncharitable moment, she hoped that she would come out of the whole thing better than Trinn, but then regretted it, and made herself hope that they would both end up all right.
"And as you aren't going to become an able-bodied seaman, we'll be putting you ashore as soon as possible. Your friend, on the other hand," he sent Trinn a glance that made him look as though he were having some indigestion, "will be staying with us."
Oh, bother again. Ann couldn't very well leave Trinn here to face a fate Worse Than Death, but there didn't seem to be any way to save her. Well…there didn't seem to be any way to save her, but she could keep her from being alone on the ship with dozens of strange, rough men.
"Wait!" she commanded, and was surprised to see that the captain actually turned around from his scrutiny of the nearly-spitting Trinn.
"You—you can't drop me ashore at anyplace I could possibly get home from: the navy'd pick you up for sure. And if you leave me in any of the pirate dens, I'll be in horrible danger—and you all really seem like quite nice pirates, actually, who wouldn't do that to a serving wench, I'm sure; and you might as well have kept me aboard. So why don't you?"
"What?" he asked, tearing his eyes away from the cursing redhead.
"Keep me on board."