Spun

by : epiphanies

Part One

Jack Sparrow was a filthy, lying, layabout, good-for-nothing pirate who liked rum. He liked to bake in the sun and watch it set, he liked to feel the sand on his ship beneath his feet, he liked to sweat until his shirt bled with it. He liked to sail and be a captain and be in charge. He liked making people wonder about him. It was a part of who he was, after all.

At the moment, the most important part about him, however, was that he did not, did definitely not, fall in love.

Contrary to popular belief, piracy isn't a romantic career. Sure, there would be cheap wenches and rum, and one was never sure which was the cheapest. There would be the captured and sometimes the captives, and there would always be that one drunken time with the cabin boy, if at the time he had a cabin boy, but none of it meant anything.

That's why he liked his rum best, more than his mates, only an inch less than his ship herself.

Aurolyn Siskin, however, didn't like watching pirates get drunk.

Aurolyn Siskin didn't like getting drunk herself.

Aurolyn Siskin didn't like wearing her heavy dress in the Caribbean, she didn't even -want- to be in the Caribbean, she just wanted to go home. To London. To be pretty and fair-skinned and desirable to all of the men that she would never allow to have her. She held her chastity as a prize in the palm of her innocent little hand, and men had been trying to pry it open with money, fragrance, alcohol and words ever since her thirteenth birthday five years before.

In fact, the only reason that she was sitting in the God-forsaken Tortugan pirate bar was that her father was a very important man who was to meet with another very important man - Aurolyn didn't like to think of her father as a bad man, although he was to just about everybody but she herself. He struck deals and carried a pistol and didn't mind shooting anybody - as long as his lovely daughter was not present. She knew this, and considered him a good person for it.

He was currently sitting in the back room of the bar - or, she thought, a common whorehouse - striking a deal with a very important member of the - what shall she call it, the dark community? The black market community? She left it, in her mind, as the Pirate Community, because she disliked pirates, she had ever since she'd been robbed by one in the streets of London. Of course, everybody knew that pirates didn't run about London, but he had been wearing scarves and braids and the like, and so she reckoned him a pirate anyway. He taken her favourite gem necklace.

She leaned against the darkest corner of the bar, sipping at her drink. She hated to drink, for it put her in a lazy state of mind, and she liked to be sharp. However, they didn't seem to serve anything else and having to drink nothing but red wine the entire trip from London to the Caribbean, she was dying for something that didn't taste as putrid.

She braced herself as a man swaggered toward her, wearing a tri-pointed hat and carrying a pint of what she assumed was rum. Pirates drank rum, did they not?

"What's a young thing like you doing in a place like this?" he asked her, not bothering to ask before sitting down beside her. She raised an eyebrow, but she doubted he could see her through the thick darkness. She could smell the rum and could tell by the way he'd walked that he was overly intoxicated.

"Do you come here often?" he asked, not noticing that she hadn't responded to his last question.

"Certainly not," she answered shortly, pressing out her skirts. He smirked at her.

"Ah, a London Lady. I reckon you have people on business here, then?"

"Why would you assume something like that?" she snapped. He held his hands back,

"Hey, darling, just a guess. I suppose I'm right now, aren't I," he slurred, "Or else you wouldn't be fitting about it."

"Perhaps I'm 'fitting,' as you say because I don't feel like having this conversation with such a person as you are."

"Fine, lass. Your loss."

She realized suddenly what he had been trying to do. As he stood up and began to walk away, she said angrily,

"You think I'm a whore?"

He spun around, likewise to a ballerina, she thought, and stared at her.

"A scarlet woman," she fumed, standing up to meet him inches from his face, "a common wench?"

"Er," his eyes were swimming in their sockets, but landed on her finally and said, "Is this a trick question?"

"No," she snarled, and slapped him.

He blinked and touched his pinking cheek with a frown at her, "What was that for?"

"For thinking of me that way," she glared at him, turned on her heel and stamped back to her table.

As the bar made their way back into conversation, for everyone had seen the scene, he meandered back to his stool, rubbing his infirmed cheek.

She sighed as she sat back down and took a swift swig from her mug.

"A wench," she muttered disgustedly, "Do I look like a wench? Of course I don't. Lousy stupid fool blighter."

She didn't notice that she'd never before said that word before entering the bar. -Blighter.- It was seeping into her veins.

Her father appeared at her elbow just then and whispered, "You alright out here, darling?"

"I'm fine," she muttered, and he touched her arm, "I have to go out to one of the ships here for the goods. Are you all right getting back to our room safely, or would you rather wait here and I'll walk you when I return?"

"I want to go back now," she decided, "I'm fine to go back."

And she was fine. She paid for her drink, left her mug, and headed out the door.

She wasn't five feet from it when she smelled rum. She whirled around to face the pirate that had cornered her only a quarter of an hour earlier.

"What is your business in following me?" she demanded, and he smiled, "Darling, I thought my business was of no value to you."

She narrowed her eyes at him, "I already told you that I'm not a whore. Will you not go and find one that is willing to be filthy with you? I have no desire to be with any man of your particular ilk."

She turned and began to stalk away when he asked, "And what particular ilk is that, Missy?"

"You're a pirate."

"And?"

"And what?" she furrowed her brow, still not turning or stopping, and he was following her.

"I'm a pirate. What's the matter with that, love? Most women find it all sweeping and romantic."

She turned on him and he nearly fell over, "What do you want with me?"

He raised an eyebrow, and she could stand his cockiness no longer. She pushed him. He fell into the sand, sloshing his drink all about his front. He sputtered, then said in a considerably more sober voice, "You didn't have to do that."

"Apparently, I did. And now," she pressed her lips together, "I'm leaving. Don't you follow me."

"Why?"

"Because you're dreadfully smelly and I don't need you to dirty the doorknocker of where we're staying."

He was following her again, and she had the desire to turn around and smack him, harder than she had in the bar. Instead, she turned and hissed, "Stop following me."

"Stop following me," he mocked her with flailing hands, then studied her growing murderous expression.

"Love, I'm just havin' a bit of fun," he exclaimed, patting her shoulder, "I'm not going to try and give you money for favours."

"Then what are you doing?" she said, holding her hips haughtily. He frowned.

"You just looked like you needed to loosen up a notch, darling. Well, I'm done. Have to get back to me ship," he tipped his hat and turned around, "Goodnight."

She stumbled, "But, but-"

He turned and raised his eyebrows, "Miss?"

She blinked and shook her head slightly, "Goodnight."

He nodded at her, in an infuriatingly promising way, and made his way to the docks in the moonlight. She noticed as she watched him that not only did he not turn back, he didn't stumble at all. She had a strange feeling that the rum either hadn't been drank, or he was completely unaffected by it. She wasn't sure which put her more ill at ease.

She opened the door to her cabin, and remember that she hadn't even found out the mysterious pirate's name.

Odd, she thought as she pulled her covers about her, ready to fall asleep. She noticed the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, and smiled. Finally, something in this place that she could appreciate.

Before she knew it, she had been rocked to sleep.