"Tell me a story! Tell me a story!" bounced a small, six year old boy, his long dark blond hair flapping in the wind on the rocky beach below the cliff in Port Royal.

An older man sat on a boulder near by, his legs up to his thighs still covered in sea water and seaweed from his trek from the small rowboat 'anchored' out to sea. He seemed a bit worried, as if he didn't feel especially comfortable on dry land, and indeed, when he moved it was with the lurch of a man instinctively moving with the swoop of a ship breaching a wave. He was keeping an eye on the lad, and a younger women, presumably the boy's mother, stood staring out to sea with a sad smile on her face at a crusty ship anchored away from shore, seemingly entranced by it. She was metres away, but just in earshot. It was the older man that the boy addressed, finally coming to rest on the man's lap, who laughed openly and ruffled the boy's hair and, almost like a father, straightened the boy's sand coated brown shirt and trousers.

"A story, young James?" he asked, in a gruff voice, "Ye want a story from your old Grandfather Bootstrap?" The lad nodded, and his Grandfather paused to think of a story he could tell. From the look on his face, he had obviously had an idea. "Well, I don't know…"

The boy's mother looked across, hearing them both go quiet. She pushed her hair, a curlier, lighter version of her son's, out of her eyes, and adjusted the yellow dress which she was obviously uncomfortable in. Elizabeth Swann had spent so little time wearing a dress before the birth of her son that she'd grown unaccustomed to the certain way you had to learn to breathe. She and the man made eye contact, and a question passed between them, to which she nodded, a small movement barely visible.

"He has to know some day, Bill." She mouthed, before returning her gaze to the ship. Her son hadn't seemed to notice her looking, his eyes glued to the round man in front of him.

"Fine," sighed the man, rolling his eyes and putting his hands in the air as if admitting defeat, "You win. I'll tell you my story, how about that?"

James nodded quickly, his vision going cross-eyed. His mother sat back sadly.

"Will should be here." Whispered Elizabeth, smiling softly at how well and how fast her son, James, named for the brave late James Norrington, got on with his Grandfather Turner.

Unlike James' father, who sailed full time on the same ship as his father, the amiable man James was with, Bill Turner could come on shore whenever he pleased. That, Bill had explained to Elizabeth when he had turned up earlier that morning, was Will's only regret – Not getting on shore to see her again, and, for the first time, his son. Her shoulders drooped, and she blinked back tears brimming behind her eyes. Four more years. That was all they needed to wait.

"Well, do you know why your father can't be here?"

James stood up and scowled, but nodded again. He traced a line in the sand with one of his bare toes, sniffing, and Bootstrap looked closed his eyes. The look was heartbreaking. He knew, and he should, that a boy needs to know his father when he's growing up. But it couldn't really be helped. He too looked out to the ship where Elizabeth was looking, his own instinct pinpointing where Will was.

Bill tickled the lad's neck, and the boy started to roar with laughter, climbing back into his Grandfather's knee, pushing his hand away with unanticipated strength. Bill laughed too, and with a start decided he was finally happy.

"Well, it all started on The Black Pearl…"

The water lapped against the side of the ship softly, the fury of the storm subsiding after a long night. Many a crewmen had been lost overboard, claimed by the sea's crashing waves, their bones crushed with the ease of a tomcat with a ball of yarn. Standing on the deck, the remaining pirates – along with sailors on ships across the Caribbean – thanked the heavens that mercy had been received, as the collected the scattered pieces of ship and cargo from the dripping decks.

One such ship was The Black Pearl, a majestic vessel with flapping black sails that earned the ship it's name. Barely a crack had tarnished the ship, and the superstitious among the crew worried that it was a bad omen, surviving in a flood of driftwood around them. The Captain, Hector Barbossa, had ordered all men to strap themselves to the ship, and despite their protests that if the ship went down so did they, the crew had agreed. After all, if their Captain was willing to cross Jack Sparrow, the previous Captain until a mere three days ago, there was no telling what he'd do in return to any man who denied his orders.

Besides, it was bad luck for a sailor to know how to swim, it only prolonged death. But sure enough, they had sailed through the storm to lose but a handful of their bountiful crewmen, and an equally small amount of the hundreds of Aztec gold coins they had recently stolen from the tomb of Cortés himself!

The men rejoiced, clapping each other on the back and congratulating their seamanship as they slid out of their bonds and stretched their beaten limbs, the wounded attended to while the rest stood to attention on the deck for a head count.

Captain Barbossa thumped down to the deck, having spent the tropical hurricane tethered to the out of control helm, proudly embracing his well-known belief that a pirate should master the seas by the sweat of their backs and the trickery of their characters, and not by the binding of the Heathen Goddess of the Sea, Calypso, who had been bound in human form by the original Brethren Court. He agreed that the sea should belong to the pirates, but not in such a manner, and to prove his point he'd sailed straight and true through the storm with the will that had earned him the rank of First Mate aboard The Black Pearl to begin with. He was also tricky, having convinced Jack to give the crew the coordinates for the Isla de Muerta (host of the treasure chest) and organising a mutiny against the Captain who he felt had no right to the title.

He was just a whelp when he'd become Captain six years previous, having inherited the ship when it's previous Captain had been shot during a battle with a rival pirate ship. He'd started off as the cabin boy at the tender age of ten after stowing away – and since had said nothing of his heritage. Bootstrap had taken him under his wing, teaching him – not that much of the wisdom would've sunk into the boy's arrogant head. Captain Hawkins had had a soft spot for him, that was all.

On the other hand, he had escaped the hangman's noose by escaping from under the eyes of the East India Trading Company at the age of fifteen, been recaptured at the age of twenty and escaped the noose again after releasing a so called 'cargo' of slaves he was recruited into transporting after working for the Company for a brief stint in exchange for his life, and had spent the last two years on the run with his ship, gathering with him an array of legends and stories to be told – Sacking Nassau Port without firing a single shot, impersonating a cleric of the Church of England… And in doing so he'd collected his fair share of scars: Two bullet holes in the chest, scars across his body, miscellaneous tattoos including the sparrow in flight on his right wrist, and the infamous "P" for pirate burnt mercilessly into his wrist in his teenage years by the EITC – something he was loathed to discuss. At least that was something Barbossa had to admire him for, against his better judgement. For all their crimes, no pirate would ever stoop so low as enslaving fellow men. Fewer less would defy the 'Company' to such an extent. And to come out of all it all alive was either madness or brilliance.

"Bloody Jack." Murmured Barbossa under his breath in his West Country accent, smiling almost affectionately at the memory, before shaking his head and carrying on with the task at hand. "Bootstrap!" he called to his first mate, scanning the row of pirates for the young – as far as he was concerned, but he wasn't that much older – man who had taken over his place as first mate.

Bill Turner, or Bootstrap Bill, was a keen pirate, who had left England, a wife and, he'd found at a sea, causing him to take a short month's hiatus after the birth, a son, William, for a life on the sea. Although he'd been a mentor and a friend of the late – so far assumed – Jack Sparrow, he'd proved his bones more than once, and he'd sailed on and knew the ship and it's maintenance better than all of Barbossa's original crew, one of the first men to brace the chest and a strong ally in any fight.

Tall and fit, his long brown hair was matted and dripping wet, and the palms of his hands red and raw from his exhausted yet persistent grip on the sail ropes with another member of the crew throughout, and at hearing his name he stood forward, clenching his hands against the searing pain. He would live, unlike possible others.

"Aye sir."

"Losses?"

Bill reeled off a list of what had been lost over shore, including the personal belongings of some crew members who groaned at the knowledge, most of their food, a couple of cannon balls and some boons – Aztec gold, some cotton they were trading, and a little of the trinkets they'd stolen from passenger ships, The Captain listened patiently, obviously angry, yet Bootstrap's speech slowed and quietened as if, and successfully, calming the nerves of the man he stood before. One other thing he was good for. Once he'd done, he stood back into place with a brief nod, and wrapped a handkerchief round one hand and a dirty strip of cloth round another to stem the bleeding.

"That all?" asked one dreadlocked man, Koehler, sarcastically. His face was a menacing one, and he was a formidable pirate, but completely obsessed with gold.
The Captain backhanded the impertinent pirate, snapping at him. "Be happy it's no yer life ye lost, ye scabrous dog!" He turned his back on the pirates, issuing the order that they make haste for the nearest port or he might change his mind, and his instructions were briskly followed, but not without mutterings of the rumours that men who had fallen overboard in the gale had emerged unharmed later on that night.

"I wan' depth soundin'!" ordered Barbossa, scratching the back of his neck under his hat as he weaved between his crew, each carrying out their orders.

Just under a week later, as the sun rose, they had arrived in the port of Isle de Vache, and with a cheer the men tied up at the pier and demanded their earnings – for services rendered and/or limbs lots – heading straight for the taverns and various small houses in the quest for drink, food and pleasurable company, pleased by the extra gold (Aztec) they had received from their latest success.
Some of the crew looked up, but eventually a short bald man nodded, and went to fetch the heavy lead weight to tie to a length of rope that measured the depth.

They lowered the topsails and crept into the small harbour, bit by bit. The short journey was split by shouts of depth.

"Fifteen fathoms. Eleven. Eight."

At five fathoms, close to being grounded, Hector called for an able man who could quickly travel the last metres to shore. Koehler handed the end of the rope to his companion, and took some steps back, expertly jumping over the gap and grabbing hold of the pier. He scrambled up, and stood to catch another length of thickly coiled rope, which he tied to the pier to hold them in place. The anchor was lowered, and two planks of wood laid tip to tip as The Black Pearl came to a halt.

The crew were anxious to get onto dry land. The lot of them had all been inundated by the same nightmare since their raid on the Aztec Gold in the Isla de Muerta, they could only assume from bad food. Koehler had been especially violent with Bootstrap, blaming him, because he had been in charge of checking the losses after the storm, for the food being ruined. His slight limp was a side effect of the lashes he'd received for attempting to harm a fellow crewmen without good reason whilst at sea.

The nightmare was a strange one, and indistinguishable whether they were asleep or awake. Most of the men, the ones who hadn't refused to leave the cabins after the incidents, had been experiencing strange things. Anything they ate or drank seemed to satisfy them less and less each night. Some men even asserted that they were forever hungry and their throats parched with thirst. Only a handful, although experiencing the same symptoms, had kept quiet, Barbossa and Bill for example. But even stranger things had happened.

There had been very few days where the moon had shone, and on these rare occasions the moon had barely graced The Black Pearl with it's shining face. But when it did, those on deck claimed to have seen themselves and their peers portrayed as Hellish skeletons, and two shaken young men, the most spooked on the ship, and the first off it when they came into port (many believed they wouldn't be seen on the ship again) said they had seen Captain Barbossa's monkey, unofficially christened Jack, as a carcass. Captain Hector Barbossa was adamant that they were all hallucinating, and had cut down on the rum allowance temporarily much to the crew's disgust, but there were whispers that he himself had never been out in the moonlight.

When Jack had first been told about the treasure, he had been warned of a curse.
Almost a hundred years before, when Columbus came to the Caribbean, he brought with him blood and death. Men followed him from Europe, men like Cortés, and they killed and killed, and took what belonged to the islanders as their own. The natives got angry – f justifiably so, as Jack pointed out – but they knew that the Spanish were stronger, and had much better arsenal, so they offered them treasure, to appease their greed, to stop the killing, eight hundred and eight two pieces of gold. But the natives had never set eyes on the gold, and the gold was not there's to give, and any man who stole the gold, as the men did, would be cursed, punished forever. So Cortés buried the chest on an island you cannot find if you do not know where it is – Isla de Muerta.

Jack'd relayed this warning onto every member of his crew, and not one of them, himself included, had believed a word of it, until now. They believed in gold, they believed in freedom, they believed in the sea. Pirates, well known, for a being a superstitious lot, had a belief that sailing with a woman was bad luck, but as Jack pointed out it had never done The Pearl any trouble. Although pirates had a habit of blasting everything out of proportion, to the extent that some men began suggest that every word they had been told was true. And the more buccaneers who reheard the stories, with the fresh evidence, the more buccaneers there were who believed they were cursed.

So the men were grateful for new food and more rum and less swaying.

Barbossa, Bootstrap Bill, and two ungainly pirates, the youngest on the ship after the cabin boy and the two men who had scarpered, named Pintel and Ragetti, the latter in possession of one eye and one wooden eye, stayed behind reluctantly, under orders to fulfil various tasks before they set sail.

"…And Bill, go and trade what survived of the storm – ALL of it – for food and drink." Finished Hector, doling out their money and the money needed for their tasks, as Pintel and Ragetti stormed off in a childish huff in search of rope and sail material.

"Bloody storm." Muttered Ragetti, rubbing his wooden eye, "Makes me eye all itchy, it did, and curses too."

"Well stop rubbin' it then." Mollycoddled Pintel, pushing his companions hand away from his eye and silencing him with a glare. It did good not to mention curses in front of Barbossa.

They rounded a corner as Barbossa stopped Bootstrap before he could follow them.

"Lad, will ye bring an old man back some strong drink on yer travels?" he hinted, with a raised eyebrow and a commanding grin, putting his hand on Bill's shoulder.
It'd been the Captain's rota to guard the ship, at least for the next four hours, but the men had been promised some extra time on shore-leave, for services rendered, Not that he minded staying on board, he needed the quiet, but he wouldn't have minded some good ale in a good pub. And he truly needed to clear his head.

Bill froze, ready to throw the man's coarse hand off his shoulder in disgust, but held back his thoughts wisely, and smiled cheerfully in return.

"Yes'sir, we all need it for sure." He agreed, waiting for the grasp to loosen before swinging down onto the wooden pier with a Jack-Sparrow-like mannerism, heading into town, clasping the three ancient gold coins tight.

Barbossa frowned at the uncanny resemblance to Jack, before turning back into the Captain's cabin, leaving Bill alone on the pier. The latter kept stopping and staring at the hand holding the gold, as if deciding what to do with it. Part of him, the pirate within him, was directing him like the stars to spend it, to do something before we petrified or fell asleep. His gut instinct told him otherwise, told him, unlike the opinion he had set forward amongst those on the ship, that the gold was cursed, and he couldn't fight the feeling that they all deserved to be so for what they had done.

His part in the mutiny against Captain Jack Sparrow had been accidental in a manner of speaking, he had never intended to strand his friend without any chance. He'd been shanghaied. Nevertheless, it had been Bill who had convinced Jack to hand over the coordinates. It had been Bill who had put the pistol to his mate's back, keeping him from escaping as the others ganged up on him. It had been Bill who had stood by Hector's side and not where he should've been by Jack's as the plank had been lowered into place, and the condemned man forced down it. You could tell from the boy's expression that he had been shaken that day – Not only had the crew he had grown to trust, he'd been such a reckless lad it had to be admitted, betrayed him, but he was being marooned instead of flat out murdered (although anyone who knew him would wonder if Jack would prefer the scenario where his life lasted longest) and at dawn, when the island, for lack of a better word, he was being marooned on could only been seen from where they were anchored if you were standing on the very rim of the ship, holding out a lantern at arm's length and leaning in the right direction. An embarrassing experience as well, Jack's much loved hat, coat and boats had been taken off him, a first to the best of Bill's knowledge within pirates, and he had been left with only his trousers, and a pistol with one bullet and just enough powder, as was customary.

Jack, typically, had to go down with a bang. With a contemptuous salute with his bound hands and a wink to Barbossa, and a betrayed frown at Bill, he dived into the sea after his pistol (Barbossa had suspected Jack as crazy enough to try and shoot one of them after walking the plank unless his powder was useless). Crewmen all round had cheered when he failed to resurface within the minute, with the exception of the newly appointed Captain and First Mate, but the one man standing on the very rim of the ship, holding out a lantern at arm's length and leaning in the right direction caught a glimpse of the tell-tale red bandana pop out of the water after a crazily long time and, after half the crew had exchanged places to see for themselves, collapse, as far as it looked, on the God-forsaken spit of land christened an island. Governor Sparrow, they'd decided to call him.

Bill would never forgive himself.

Which was how he had ended up outside the mail office, in a queue of sailors waiting to send back treasures and letters to loved ones. Mostly Royal Navy soldiers, they held meticulously enveloped letters, or cradled packages of conical shells and handmade souvenirs, some were even foolish enough to be guarding bags of earnings to send back to needy families. Bill felt out of place with his scrawny letter written on the first piece of paper he had managed to get his hands on, shrouded in another sheet folded and tied around it with a knot of string he usually used to hold back his steadily lengthening brown hair, and the sole piece of Aztec gold he had taken from around his neck, looping the chain it hung from around the coin a couple times to keep it from tangling, and packaged into the make-shift envelope between two sheets. He had also been marginally worried for his safety, being surrounded by so many of the enemy. But it been apparent from the firsts second that he got into line that he would be ranked as a man, not by his profession, and that their reflections were on other matters at any rate.

When his turn came, he cautiously showed the old lady at the 'desk' his package. Expecting to have a price barked out, to trade, and then to be on his way, he turned red when the woman stared at him expectantly.

Behind him an older navy man cleared his throat understandingly. "First time posting from the island?"

Bill nodded sheepishly.

"They weigh what you're sending, that way you pay less if you're sending less, and vice versa."

"Ah."

Handing over the package, the woman returned him an impatient sigh, and after what felt like an eternity told him the hideous price he had been expecting. The coin wasn't exactly light baggage. He forked over the money slowly. Was this really what he wanted to do? Did he really want to be cursed for eternity? He was just being superstitious, that was all.

Bill's plan was simple. One, they all deserved to be cursed, if in fact they were, for their crimes against Jack. Two, if the gold was the key like many of the men were saying, then getting rid of the gold would either break the curse or censure them to a lifetime of it. Three, sending it to his family as a gift would result in either. He could only hope it wouldn't curse his family, since it wasn't them who had stolen it in the first place. Right, so it wasn't that simple, Bill thought to himself.

Tapping her fingers at increasing speed on the counter, the wrinkled old lady sighed exaggeratedly. The other people in the queue also seemed impatient, muttering to themselves behind Bill's back, some even leaving their belongings and the fee with friends and leaving. Raising his eyebrows, Bill Turner took the plunge, handed over the cursed parcel, then waited politely for the man behind him to post his painstakingly written love letter (Bill could tell from the gentle way he passed it over with an unlikely fond smile not unlike the ray of bliss he and Elsie shared). He himself echoed the grin, looking at nothing in particular, until a hand was held out in front of him.

"Guy Norrington." Guy shook Bootstrap's hand. "Admiral." He added.

"Bill Turner." Pirate. "Blacksmith."

"A good trade, and a much sought after skill." Commented Guy, as they both walked deeper into town.

Bill nodded. "Puts food in yer mouth."

"Do you work alone or for someone else."

"Bit o' both, back in Portsmouth." He laughed awkwardly, "You might say I'm taking a short break from employment to see the world."

"From Bristol myself." Guy hummed with interest, and they continued through the small island port, passing the time up to the crossroads they were due to split at talking about whatever came to hand.

"Do you have any family?" Guy asked, catching Bill by surprise. It wasn't the sort of question you usually asked.

"A wife. Elsie – I'd die for her. And a son. William. Fourteen years and counting."
Guy seemed pleased. It was obviously a topic he could sink his teeth into. "I've been married nigh on thirty years, to the most beautiful girl in England, Jane Culms. Our son, James, plans to join the Royal Navy like me. He's twenty three now, working his passage on a ship bound here, to the Caribbean, so he can get some experience. Heard even pirates like some of that nowadays."

Bill didn't comment on the discourteous manner that Guy had dismissed pirates with. He didn't feel the need to use so many words either.

"Do you see them a lot?"

"Not as much as I'd like to."

"Aye. Me neither."

Koehler and a red-headed French-speaking pirate whose name no one had worked out had gone off on their own, like many other groups of pirates who got on well, and were soon in search of a good place for a drink. Although their minds were on the prize, their conversation was of curses and Bootstrap. Koehler was finding the discussion difficult, and it showed on his face, as he understood less French than the Frenchman understood English.

"Parlez-vous Francais?" repeated the Frenchman, for the eighth time that day, after struggling to understand the other pirate's question about where he thought Bootstrap's loyalties laid.

"Non." Replied Koehler, sardonically.

Meanwhile, Ragetti had found the local market, and Pintel's time was being spent trying to get out of it. For such a small village, he was surprised how many markets could be crammed into one place if you did so with no space to walk between them. This resulted in any sale being made in the middle of the market involving people yelling from one end to the other, and then the item in question being passed down the tables under it reached it's new owner. Needless to say, theft was high, even for a place pirates regularly stopped. They'd been informed by a do-gooder that the stalls thinned out as the day went by, but one particular stall had caught Ragetti's eye before Pintel got a chance to strategically move in walk of it.

Wooden eyes. Row, upon row, of wooden eyes. And Pintel failed to notice any difference between his pal's eye and the ones on display, except for the fact that Ragetti's had been a rare gift from Captain Barbossa and these cost more than a shiny penny, but he didn't want to hurt his friend's feelings.

"Look at'em!" breathed Ragetti in awe, his eye plastered to the jar, "I've never seen anyfin' like'em!"

"Obviously ye haven't bin around much then." Grumbled Pintel mutedly, changing his song as Ragetti looked up, having not heard the reply properly, "I said yeah."
Ragetti seemed to approve. "How much d'ye think it'd be?" He took the brown leather-like bag off his belt, and peered in forlornly. Even the small black beetle, which Ragetti threw away disgustedly, found the sum of money pathetic.

"You look like an intelligent man, Sir?" approached the man behind the 'counter', winking at Ragetti and waving a hand of his second-rate eyeballs. "Special supply, straight from Jamaica, hand made these are. You have that look in your…" he paused, "Eye, I can tell you're an educated gentleman, and us educated gentlemen could tell that this:" He picked up one eye seemingly randomly, "Is the eye for you.

Ragetti turned around to ask his friend's opinion. "Pint, what –"

'Pint' had gone.

"An' I said to him, I sai' – 'You can' do tha', tha's ma ship!' an' I smackt 'im one, I did…"

Bootstrap shook his head with a light grin at the drunk on the table opposite him, letting the man's boast of single handily taking on four men wash over him as he returned his attention to the tankard of rum clasped between his shivering hands. Aye, it might've been a warm day in the Caribbean, but not warm enough to fully dry the wet clothes the crew all boasted – not to the complaints of some, anyway. Although he curiously didn't feel cold, he knew by rights he should, and they all knew that if they caught ill they'd be as much use as a hanged man. He took a sip of the hot beverage, his grin widening, although he sat alone, money in a bag tied with too much string to his belt hanging under the table, so as not to be stolen. He'd be at the hands of the Captain if he didn't bring back the supplies he'd been sent for. Sure, he hadn't quite done as he'd been ordered, instead selling their trades and readying to barter off the street market what was needed, seeing as the other traders were in the same position.

The storyteller fell off the table, landing in a drunken heap on the floor, to be thrown by the crowd into the pig's pen just outside the bar, where he seemed content to tell his stories to the hogs, and it was then that they arrived. Three undeniably beautiful young woman, barely nineteen and barely dressed, served up just as the men liked it. Their entrance was greeted by wolf whistling, claps and cheers of names (Scarlet, did he hear one being called?) that led Bill to understand they made a regular appearance in the place. A couple of The Black Pearl crew, excluding Bill, joined in the ruckus, crowding around them as they chose a table to sit at – for the time being.

He blushed bright red, as he saw two of the girls nudge the other and point to his table, and made an exaggerated point of studying the bottom of his tankard, nose almost touching the murky brown liquid, but they came over, inviting themselves to pull up chairs and sit. He glanced up, catching sight of a barely concealed bosom with a smile, but didn't react, despite the boos and sighs from the other men. Two crew members he recognised – Twigg, a scarred, more unwashed than the rest pirate, and (unfortunately) Koehler – joined him, nodding gratefully and launching into how well they knew the fine gentlemen opposite, but he had a wife, and fortunately they of course didn't.

Bill smiled, the memories of Elsie flooding back to him as he took a more free chug of his drink. It seemed like only yesterday he'd met her, and after a couple years of matrimonial bliss the news had reached him of how she'd borne him a son, a bounding rough-and-tumble just like his father. William Turner, named after his father, or Will for short. He'd automatically taken leave of the ship to see his son, three by the time the news reached him, and had been torn to leave them both when he'd rejoined The Black Pearl, and even more to lie to them. Her brown eyes looked so blue when he told her his shipbuilding trade were moving him to the new English settlements in the Caribbean for a while, yet she'd put on a brave face on her pronounced, round features, and that night had been heaven, and the last he had to remember her by. He only hoped sweet, good hearted Elsie Pott and Will – a boy after his own heart who wanted only to be just like his father, were safe and well.

As he thought, it didn't occur to him that he'd ordered not only his second, but his third and fourth drink, and that his tongue was running away with him, loosing control of the helm. If he'd looked out the window, he would've noticed that the sun was beginning to set (they'd been out all day, save for the cabin boy who had been sent back with the Captain's draught) and that the clouds were covering the rising moon. He began to flirt with one of the women, a.. cuddly young thing not unlike a rather less modest Elsie at her age, and before long his arm was around her waist, he was no longer shy, and all his worries were over. And yes, he was calm, he was happy – in a way – but the tongue has a curious way of letting slip thoughts it shouldn't when a man is drunk.

"I'm a pirate, I am." Boasted Bootstrap Bill Turner, grinning like a jackal, "A belludy good un' an' all. But our Captain, 'e's one Hell of a pirate. Marooned a man three days ago, he did." He hiccupped, taking a gulp of rum, or whatever it was, and continued slurring his words to the awed girls rather loudly. "But I don't think 'e was right. Jack Sparrow was a good lad, shapin' up ter be a good pirate Captain. Naïve he was, aye, but he didun deserve it, he didun." He gazed solemnly into his empty mug, then raised his arm in a toast. "To Captain Jack Sparrow!"

"To Captain Jack Sparrow!" returned all three girls with a giggle, the lad's reputation having somewhat preceded him anyway, as the marginally less intoxicated Koehler and Twigg exchanged disparaging looks. Something would have to be done about this…

"Barbossa, 'e likes me y'know? An' he's a wonder at the 'elm – wheel – but what a stupid thing to do! I – I…" He slumped down into his chair against the girl, his heavy breathing melting into a nigh-silent snore.

'Elsie…'

Thump! Waking up, Bill realised he was now lying on the stone floor of the tavern, and that he, and the fuming barman, were the only two inside. Both girls were gone, not even a sultry scent to betray they'd been there, and so were his crewmates. Groaning, he tried to remember what had happened last night, but it was all a blur – he couldn't even remember coming into The Briny Meg as the sign, a piece of driftwood from a shipwreck years ago, over the door informed him.
"Did I really drink that much?" he mused, massaging his temples and patting his emptier pocket, much emptier than it had been before his sleep, as he left the pub and made his way to the market, which mercifully was open all night.

"And tha's when ol' Bootstrap passed out, Cap'n." explained Twigg eagerly, practically rubbing his hands with glee.

Koehler was more subdued, but the glint in his eye was just as menacingly eager. "Aye. Blastin' yer name all o'er the pub, he was." He paused to hiccup quietly, his own drunken state barely worn off. He was cracking his knuckles behind his back, much to Hector's annoyance, but he hadn't noticed so far.

"Was 'e now…" mused the last man, Captain Barbossa, a calculating controlled anger brimming behind his features, his hand scratching his chin beneath his scraggly long since trimmed beard. "And now, and lemme put this into words yer simple men can understand, pray tell – Where be Turner now?" He raised an eyebrow, wrinkling his nose at the odour of their breath. He refrained from mentioning that he'd been able to stop drinking the night before.

Twigg opened his mouth to open answer, and closed it again like a guppy, much to the enjoyment of Ragetti – who still seemed infuriated at Pintel for walking away – and Pintel – who seemed amused at the fact that Ragetti had met him again with the same eye – two of the many pirates crowded around the table with the trio to hear the story.

Koehler broke the silence, shrugging. "We left 'im there."

"…Ye what?" demanded Barbossa, in disbelief.

"They left 'im there." Explained another man, raising his hand meekly from behind. He was a newer member of the crew. Barbossa rolled his eyes with pronounced effort, stretching his arms behind him and tapping the man over the head offhandedly with his spyglass.

"Aye, I worked that out."

The rising sun seemed to mirror the mood of the ship and the look of contempt Hector gave his crew – Blazing. He stormed across the deck, standing above the ramp and squinting into the bright light without even gracing them with a reply. The deck groaned warily, the rigging lashing out as it picked up the growing whisper of a wind reaching the harbour. He had some thinking to do, and a betrayer to find.