Title: The Silver Rings
Author: Pirate Captain Elk
Rating: T
Summary: Set during Curse of the Black Pearl. Commodore Norrington was having a bad enough day before eight year old Jessica landed herself in his office during a pirate attack. Now they're bound together with two silver rings and can't be more than thirty feet apart. How is one supposed to save and woo a beautiful woman (half your age) with a little pirate-like lass following you around all the time? Well, simply put, one doesn't.
Chapter One: The Worst Day Ever
James Norrington was having a very bad day. Oh, his promotion had been fine enough – Commodore had such a nice ring to it – and his morning was very well and nice, but things had taken a sharp turn for the worse directly after. His day had plummeted like an anchor into the sea.
As if having to work up the nerve to propose to the beautiful Elizabeth Swann hadn't been difficult enough as it were, she'd gone and fallen over a cliff while he was in the middle of actually doing the proposing, only narrowly missing the jagged rocks below.
"It's like an omen," he thought to himself as he hurried down the hill to the docks with soldiers in tow. "A very blunt omen." He'd been too preoccupied scanning the water for Elizabeth – who also happened to be the Governor's daughter – to give this notion much thought, though and had dismissed it. "Omen or no, Ms. Swann is going to drown if someone doesn't rescue her soon."
And someone did rescue her. Just not Norrington. Or any of his bevy of soldiers. Or any other person that the newly appointed Commodore would have approved of touching his hopefully future wife. No. Not even close.
A very scraggly looking man with a drunken sort of look about him wearing leather and an odd assortment of decorations in his tangled hair – including a bone and a red bandanna – had hauled her up on to the wood. She was no longer wearing the beautiful gown and instead was soaked to the bone in only her grey shift and a corset, which the villain of a man had continued to tear of with a knife.
So it had restricted her breathing and the dress weighed quite a lot and would have drowned them both – Norrington still thought it highly inappropriate. Thus, he did not protest when the Governor (who had come along to the docks with them, obviously concerned that his daughter was about to drown) ordered the soldiers to shoot the man.
Elizabeth did, though, calling him her "savior". She didn't think so much of him when only moments later he – now revealed as being a pirate by the name of Jack Sparrow – had her by the neck with a thick chain and was threatening her. Only to be later caught by a lazy, drunken bastard of a blacksmith that looked like a pig and smelled like one, too.
"Just doing my civic duty, sir," the dirty blacksmith, Mr. Brown, had grunted, holding up a broken rum bottle, his dust covered apprentice by his side and Jack Sparrow unconscious on the floor.
Things could not get much worse, Norrington decided, frowning down at the papers that lay before him at his desk. He'd been reading the same sentence for ten minutes now and still had no idea what it said. With a sigh, he stood and walked over to the window, where he gazed out on the fort and, beyond it, Port Royal.
Port Royal was paradise to many, rich in sugar, spices, green plants, crystal clear water, strange animals, and a beauty so fair that it was hard to put in words. There was nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Jamaica was heaven on Earth. Plantation workers seemed to think so too.
Norrington grimaced. That was one thing he didn't like. The slaver ships that came up from Africa routinely. Not even the pirates liked the slaver ships. In fact, they avoided them like the black plague. It wasn't difficult, either. You could smell a slaver from miles away. It stunk of blood and sweat and sickness and…pure malice. He gave an involuntarily shudder.
As beautiful as Port Royal was, it had its bad spots. Many of them. And all Norrington's years of rubbing them out seemed to have caught up with him. Why else should his luck turn sour on the very day of his promotion? He didn't want to think on that.
A knock came on the door and he snapped out of his thoughts, turning away from the moonlight bathed town.
"Who is it?" he called.
"It's Governor Swann," the knocker answered. "I was wondering…would you care to walk with me for a while?"
Norrington opened the door to reveal the Governor standing before him, his face creased with the wrinkles of age and worry that came of living a life like his and his powdered wig placed exactly right on his head, which the Commodore was sure had gone bald long ago, though he had no proof.
"Of course, Governor," he nodded, stepping out and shutting the door behind himself. "I could use a little fresh air."
"Has my daughter given you an answer yet?"
They were out on the fort wall overlooking the port, strolling along with the leisure of two careless English gentlemen. English gentlemen though they may be, careless they were not.
"No," Norrington replied after a pause. "No, she hasn't."
"Well, she has had a very trying day," the Governor said, as though the Commodore needed telling. "Ghastly weather, don't you think?"
He paused in his step to look out at the now mist covered town.
"Bleak," Norrington agreed dryly. "Very bleak."
Indeed, the weather seemed to be conspiring to make his night just as bad as his day.
"What's that?" Governor Swann asked suddenly, looking out onto the water.
Commodore Norrington paused and listened, his heart suddenly jumping into his throat. It had been there, a soft, faint blast, and now the whistling sound…
"Cannon fire!" he yelled, turning and tackling the Governor to the ground as a cannon ball struck the fort wall only feet from where they were now laying. "Return fire!"
Soldiers began scurrying about, loading cannons and following the Commodore's bellowed orders.
"Sight the muzzle flash!" he continued as the Governor watched in fear and confusion.
"Aim for the flashes!" a soldier called.
"I need a full strike, fore and aft!" Norrington yelled over the sound of cannon fire and the collision of cannon ball with stone. "Let these demons bite at this!" He then rounded on the Governor and, in a softer yet still commanding tone, he said, "Governor, barricade yourself in my office. That's an order."
The Governor hurried off in the direction of Norrington's office and the Commodore resumed the yelling of orders, squinting down at the devil ship that was shrouded in an eerie mist. The Black Pearl.
"James," he heard Governor Swann's voice and whirled around to see him standing white faced before him.
"I thought I said-" Norrington began.
"There was, ah, already someone there," the Governor said, clearing his throat.
From behind him, a little girl no more than eight slid out. Her long brown hair was neatly tucked behind her ears and she had two large, round eyes the color of ocean water – not quite blue or green, yet somewhere in the middle. She wore a simple white dress that looked more like a night gown than anything Norrington had seen before and her feet were bare.
"What in God's name?" he stared intently at the girl, who shrunk away under his gaze.
He bent down and reached out to touch her cheek and suddenly found himself and the girl bathed in white light. She looked just as frightened as he felt. The white light whirled about them, like a wind that whistled by their ears and centered around the pointer fingers on their right hands. When it was gone, two identical silver rings were in its place.
"What devilry is this?" Norrington yelled, trying to pry the ring from his finger.
The girl just stared at her finger in mild shock, fear, and confusion. She obviously had no idea a) what had just happened b) where she was and c) what was going on.
"Get her to safety," the Commodore shook his head. "Back to my office. I don't have time for this now!"
He had only turned back to the more severe problem at hand when he felt a sharp tug on this finger. The one with the ring on it. Turning, Norrington saw the Governor trying to pull the girl in the direction of his office with no affect. She simply wouldn't budge. He released her and she stumbled forward a step. The tugging instantly ceased.
Norrington sighed and cursed under his breath. It was, without a doubt, the worst day of his entire life.
Author's Note: I really love this chapter. I think it's a bit rough, but I think it's one of the best first chapters I've ever written. For Fanfiction, at least.
Okay, now to cover some basic stuff. I really just want to see what everyone thinks of this (what do you think I should add in, is it good, does it need tweaking, etc), so please review. I'm probably going to post more, but I'm not the most commited person ever. I hate that about myself, so I'm really making an effort to be commited. I love this story idea, too! So I'm trying to stick with it with all my inner pirate strength.
While this follows the plot line of POTC I, I've tweaked a couple of the lines. You may or may not catch the tweakings. They're little things. This is, for the most part, the movie from Norrington's POV, except that it'll have a lot from the POV of the eight year old, whom you will learn more about in the next chapter.
That's about it. Please post 'Savvy' in your review if you've read this and have a good day.
-Pirate Captain Elk