Notes from the Author: It seems the "Pirates.." category has become a mighty vessel in these few weeks since the release of the film, but I could not resist affixing my own paltry addition to it. Jack Sparrow is quite the devil and the charmer, is he not? Hamina hamina! Here's to hoping you enjoy my fic, and a toast to many bountiful (and funnier, we all hope) chapters in the future! Please let me know what you think, or if you have any ideas/improvements for future additions. Thank you!
Ascent into Legend
Chapter I
Among these few were Jack Sparrow, legendary pirate and captain of the Black Pearl, along with his companion and shipmate, Mr. Gibbs. Two tankards more than half empty stood on the bar between them, and their faces were red with the liquor, but their voices weren't slurred with drunkenness (any more than usual, that is). Their looks were hard toward each other, Gibbs' brow furrowed with worry, Jack's mouth turned down in disgust, but they each held their tongues until the barkeep was pulled away, and they were out of earshot of him and his wandering lips.
"Jack," Gibbs hissed, leaning forward. "I talked to Old Bailey today, and ya knows what he 'ad t' say?"
"The shipwright? Looking to build a ship of your own, mate?" Jack replied, his voice husky and garbled, his face newly alight with merriment. One look at him and you'd think the two were locked in some elaborate jest, but glance again and you'd see Gibbs' face was no mockery of concern, and Jack's eyes were hard and flinty. He knew exactly what Old Bailey had said, but he wasn't in a mind to hear it.
"Jack, ya can't dance 'round it no longer. Old Bailey said she ain't fit t' sail. It's time ya let 'er go."
"Blind as a bat, Old Bailey. Couldn't tell a doubloon from a pint of rum, he couldn't." Jack replied, taking a swig from his tankard and smiling like an old whore without a penny in her pocket. Anybody with two eyes, blind or no, could tell the Black Pearl was done for, but he'd be stuck through and hung by the gizzard before he'd let her go without a fight. Ten years he'd spent trying to get her back, ten years he'd fought and plotted for her, and he wasn't one to sacrifice for nothing. After his recent exploits with Barbossa, it had taken more gold than he cared to admit to patch the Pearl up, but he and the crew had done it swiftly, muttering about forks all the while. Then, she was back up to scratch, the finest ship on the water, the terror of the seas! It had been a fine month of gallivanting with the men after that, until three days before, when they'd been attacked by a rival pirate vessel.
The Pearl had been anchored close to a fleet of small merchant ships heading to the Caribbean from England, who had already cut their losses and decided to give up their cargo. With bountiful insurance policies laid on their merchandise, most ships gave in easily to the threat of a pirate craft; being ransacked was considered a business hazard. Jack, being the soft-hearted scalawag that he was, was always much obliged to pillage and plunder without the trouble of spilling blood, and he made sure his men did not get overzealous during their marauding. Captain Sparrow and his crew had already boarded the ship and were deeply immersed in linen and spices and chests of gold trinkets when they heard the first cannon fire.
Thinking the merchants had screwed up their mettle to tamper with their ship, Jack and his men raced to the deck to find only astonished British faces watching the destruction of the Black Pearl. Just beyond the black sails of Jack's ship was another vessel, small, but heavy-laden with cannons, flying under a red flag. From that distance it was easy to see the great hourglass adorning their Jolly Roger, signaling that their time was running out, and indeed it was. The Pearl had nearly been blown to bits by the time Jack and his crew had made their cannons ready to return fire, and by that time the enemy vessel was gliding easily out of range. That had been the start of Jack's sore mood, when he ordered the men to forget the spoils, as well as the worthless clod that, instead of keeping his watch, had been trying to find a bit of entertainment with the buxom English cook. He'd forgotten his lost prize alright, but he'd be damned if he'd forget his hard-won Pearl, and he asserted as much to Gibbs.
"Jack, you'll go to the Devil and Davy Jones if ye persist with this ruddy nonsense! The Pearl is shark bait, and yer a bloody fool if ye think otherwise. It's bad luck t' be lashin' yerself to the figurehead o' a sinkin' ship," said Gibbs, with a look of Puritan righteousness that hardly dared to be scorned. Jack, however, heedlessly ignored Gibbs and all his superstition, despite its being quite sensible in this case. He was in a bloody foul mood, and Gibbs spouting sense and reason like some damnable scholar was only serving to worsen it. Jack wasn't a simpleton, and he'd gained more of his share of sense and cleverness during his long years on the crests of the waves, but Gibbs' holy preaching was a lot of rational garbage he just didn't care to hear.
Jack sloshed his tankard empty over the general vicinity of his mouth, and brandished it high in the air for a refill. Gibbs was going at it again, and it was going to take a hell of a lot of the Dancing Crab's watered-down alcohol to make his current life even passably tolerable. Behind Gibbs' lecturing, Jack could easily discern a storm brewing within the rabble, who were never on genial terms for long once ashore. Hard as it was to divide some types of booty, some of the men had begun disputing what part of their most recent prize was rightfully theirs. The volume increased at a fevered pitch with curses being shouted to the four winds, and all the while Mr. Gibbs continued his tirade, oblivious to them and to Jack's stalwart inattention.
Jack down another half of his tankard in an attempt to drown out his unusually talkative shipmate, staring moodily at the dust-caked kegs behind the counter. The ruckus around the hearth had grown to a brawl, shaking the candle-laden lanterns hung from the ceiling from their easy shuddering jig into a series of boisterous jumps, as though they were skipping on the swells of the ocean during a squall. A glob of hot melted wax fell from its precariously swinging holder onto the brim of Jack's battered trifold, where it slipped and slid down the weather-beaten leather onto his weather-beaten face. Normally, he would've chuckled good-naturedly and swiped it away with a flick of his sleeve, but in his disconsolate agitation he stood with the suddenness of a man sober and set his tankard down with a thunderous clap on the counter.
"Can't you bloody well change the subject already?" he bellowed, his eyes shut hard against the throbbing in his head from drink and irritation. He usually wasn't one to direct the attention of a crowd, but every man in the tavern dropped his fist and jaw at his bark, reddening at their moment of incivility. Normally they wouldn't have shook a whisker, but the man who'd brought the mighty Black Pearl, the ship that had been tainted by the Devil's own sailors for the past decade, back to its golden prime commanded the buccaneers' utmost respect. Without so much as a curse uttered, the men throughout the tavern settled back into their seats around the fire, their quarrel quickly shoved under the hearthrug. Jack, however, did not return to his stool, for the man for whom his question had been intended took precious little notice of him at all. With a grimace at Gibbs, he flung his neglected dreadlocks over his shoulder and wavered out of the room.
Gibbs pursed his lips in distaste and took a look into Jack's tankard, which sat lonesomely on the counter where he'd left it in a huff.
"Old dog must be sufferin' out o' his head---he left 'af his rum,"
And so, Chapter I meets its demise. A fine start, methinks. R&R, arrr!