Ahoy, this be me first PotC fic, so be gentle with me!
A/N: Firstly, you need to know that I usually write fics with someone else, you know, writing a page and giving it to my friend to write the next piece. But since she is kinda busy with schoolwork(as I should be), I decided to give it a shot on my own. takes a swig of her fruit juice, then hovers fingers over keys
Okay, without further ado, my first chapter of: "A Seaman's Tale"
Chapter One: "A Bleedin' Pirate"
The pub was nice and crowded, it was easier to do my job then, because when you frequently get bumped and jostled you usually don't notice the slight tugging on your purse when it's being stolen from you by the best pickpocket in town, if I may say so meself.
I slunk between tables, looking for suitable victims who carry big, jingling pouches. The bad thing about that is that those people are usually pirates, and they are primarily very protective of their money, and secondarily, if they catch you nickin' their purse, they are not very understanding with a fellow-thief. A good beating is what I could expect then, or the occasional death threat. The only reason that I'm not dead yet, is because I waited until they were fairly drunk, before I even attempted to rob them blind.
And as luck would have it, the pirate who was sittin' in the corner did not only look drunk(I noticed he was just emptying his fifth bottle of rum), he also had a crowd gathered around him, listening intently to the story he was telling with slurred voice and exaggerated, somewhat womanly hand gestures. A grin appeared on my face, and I walked over to stand in the crowd, seemingly listening to his story, which involved pieces of gold, zombies, and, if I understood correctly, a monkey.
I inched closer ever so slightly, and started looking for his pouch which was, inconveniently, located very near his bum. My left hand moved to get hold of the purse, but a second later I got a nasty shock. At the exact moment I was about to cut the strap of leather, which attached the bag to his belt, with the knife in my right hand, he gripped my left hand firmly with incredible speed. A breath that smelled of pure alcohol blew softly into my face when he said jovially:" I hope yer in mind of stealin' me purse, because howe'er much it may appear to you I'm on the queer side, I can assure yeh, I'm very much into girls mate!" then he burst out laughing, and the circle of people around us started laughing too, and I noticed some filthy buggers with appalling grins on their faces made disgusting hand movements at me. I swallowed nervously, laughed a bit, backing away, and then rushed out of the pub.
With the pub's stony wall at my back, I breathing in the cool night's air, silently cursing the mangy, scabberous dog of a pirate who had not only caught me stealing, but then made a joke about it like that. It wasn't just humiliating, it was insulting! How could he have noticed my intentions, when all the other drunks that I robbed never did?
I walked down the street a bit, swerving around wobbly sailors, with or without a whore by their side, and other whores trying to look their most appealing to customers. My eyes wandered over them, seeing them making hand kisses and pulling up their dresses for passing men, showing almost every bit of bare flesh they could, and sighed. Beggars, thieves like yours truly, and more of the unsavoury folk you would find on the street at night were also doing what they were best at to make some money. Some whores who knew me raised their hand in greeting, saying: "Hey Kibb, how's it going, having a good night tonight?" or, "Evenin' Kibb, I foun' a really good pub, perfect for us, comin' "? One or two waved at me from a high window, signalling for me to come up.
I smiled and raised my hand back at them or shouted back a friendly reply, but kept walking. The destination was my hideout, my vantage point from where I could overlook the whole street. It was actually an old balcony, covered with rags and pieces of wood. Attached to an abandoned house and accessible by a narrow and dark alley with a pile of wooden crates stacked up in it, it was as perfect a thieves' home as they come. I put all my stolen loot in there and the beauty of it was that no one would look twice at it and think of what could actually be up there.
When I found it, it was inaccessible, two floors up and looking like it would collapse if you merely sighed at it. Making it reachable from the outside, I hauled the crates into the alley next to it myself. I found out that it was actually quite solid, built to last, but you wouldn't say that looking at it from he ground. Then I attached discarded plates and planks to the balcony and the wall, closing it off from view and making sure it wouldn't come down and crash into tiny pieces, with me in it! All this work was done at night, when the majority of my small town's inhabitants was finally asleep, or at least, in bed.
About seven feet in length, it was not very big, but more than enough for me and my humble possessions. Also, the old house it was attached to, inhabited by a group of beggars and second-rate whores, provided a safe escape route for me if I was being chased by an angry victim or, more serious, the Law. I knew that if I happened to actually get caught, there'd be a rope tied around my neck and my feet six inches above the ground before I could say: "You've got the wrong person", for they were happy to hang anyone who even looked remotely suspicious, and I wasn't exactly what you'd call an "honest citizen".
I nimbly scrabbled up the grimy crates, pushed the big flap of burlap that covered the opening aside, and pushed myself onto the balcony. Pushed aside, the stolen pillows and blankets on my "lairs" floor revealed half a loaf of bread I stole earlier that day. I couldn't care less about the caked dirt that covered my hands, especially my fingernails, and tore off a chunk with my teeth hungrily, utilising a large crack in my wall to watch people making a living off other people on the cobblestones below. Thinking back on my little scene in the pub earlier, I couldn't help but grin now at what the pirate had said, self-consciously referring to his slightly girlish mannerisms.
On a different note, he was actually quite handsome, underneath all that grime. I silently smiled to myself and shook my head, before making myself comfortable on the pillows.
I must have fallen asleep, because I started at the sound of a door slamming. I looked down at the pub across the street, and in the dim light of the torches that were lit all along the street, I saw the shape of a man, obviously very drunk, seeking support by a wall. He was trying, with difficulty, to put one foot in front of the other, and not fall flat on his face. Judging by the silence, it was probably very late at night, or early in the morning, whichever you prefer. To my surprise, he managed to sing pieces from a song I had heard somewhere before, and make it understandable.
"...devils and black sheep an' really bad eggs, drink up me hearties yo ho..."
Then, a memory connected. Wait a sec, that was the voice of that bloke I tried to rob before. Should I try and rob him now, while he wasn't able to defend himself? He probably had enough money left worth stealing. While he was still singing softly, I pushed the rag aside again and stealthily slid one leg on top of the crate below me, then the other leg, and lowered myself onto it, still not making a sound. I slowly got off the pile of crates, and was just about to tiptoe towards him, when I realised he had stopped singing and, swaying from right to left, was looking at someone standing in front of him.
I could then see someone else approach him from behind, and before I could do anything, he had hit him on the back of the head with a sharp rock, hard. They searched him methodically for any valuables, and were just about to finish him off by hitting him on the head again, which I considered as a revolting and unnecessary precaution, when I decided to step in. I got as far as slitting the throat of one of them silently with my trusty nine-inch knife that I always keep in my boot. He produced a disgusting gurgling sound when the blood was streaming from his mouth and throat, which, to my annoyance, alerted the other attacker. I swear I hard my jaw crack when the rock collided with my chin. I dropped the dying man and kicked the one who hit me in the knee, and before he could swing the rock again, stabbed him in the belly. I couldn't feel just how deep my knife went, but he managed to get away from me and run off with the purse that he had just acquired. Swearing at my carelessness and hearing his hurried and slightly faltering steps slowly die away I checked the dead attacker for any valuables, because now his rotten bastard companion was getting away with my prize. Hope he dies from blood loss. Damn, this is all my own fault, I should stop being so soft-hearted. What good are morals anyway, they don't bring in any food or keep you warm at night. I took a deep breath to wake myself from my philosophical muses. What a night.. Pressing my fingers to my now fiercely throbbing jaw, I winced. That was definitely going to make a big bruise tomorrow.
I looked down and noticed to my shock that the pirates' head was bleeding rather heavily, steadily covering the cobbles in a macabre shade of deep, dark red. I lifted his head and checked his eyes and his breathing, (he was breathing, thankfully) which was still heavy with the smell of cheap rum, and flicked his cheek with my index finger to get a response.
"C'mon, yer not gonna die on me, are yeh, say something, anything!"
I whispered urgently, thinking that if he died, I would always feel it had been my fault. Then he made a soft sound. I leaned closer.
"Ouch.."
Good, he hadn't lost his sense of humour, I thought with a wry smile. I carefully lifted his head off the ground and took his bandana off to see where the wound was, but all the blood in his long, matted hair didn't make it easy. When finally I found the injury, my hands were totally covered in the sticky red substance. The hole was roughly the size of a fingernail, but the amount of blood that was still flowing from it didn't bode well.
A scuffling sound a little way down the street made me jerk my head around in shock, breathing out with relief to see that it was just a rat scurrying through a pile of garbage. I couldn't stay on the street like this any longer, I would be really vulnerable with this bleeding idiot virtually lying in my lap, but I couldn't just leave him to die here, could I?
"Oh, damn yer soul fer bein' such a soddin' drunk! If yeh hadn't been so ignorant, I wouldn'ta have ta get yer scruffy ass outta here !"
The old tri-cornered hat he was wearing when he came out of the pub had acquired a new hole, but I picked it up and put the bandana in it, then stuffed it in the pirate's shirt. Grabbing one of his arms, I hauled him onto my back, his arm over one shoulder, his head on the other. His boots dragged over the ground as I started walking back towards my hideout. The moment my free hand touched the tower of crates, I felt a warm trickle of blood running down my neck, and over my collarbone into my shirt, making it stick to my chest. He sure was heavy, and being a dead weight made him all the harder to carry. I cursed again at the unfairness of it all. Satan's whores, why do these things always seem to happen to me?!
With much difficulty I succeeded in hauling him up the crates and onto the balcony, but I accidentally ripped off the burlap covering the opening, and it fell in folds over the pirate. When I picked it up, the sleeve of his shirt hitched up a bit to reveal a tattoo on his arm, which pictured a sparrow flying over a sea's sunset. The sweat I had already worked up from dragging the unconscious idiot up the crates seemed to cool down in an instant, sending a few involuntary shivers up my spine.
Sparrow? Sp.. Captain Jack Sparrow, current owner of the Black Pearl? Hollerin' hellcats, that's one of the most infamous pirate captains this side of the Caribbean, an' I've got his blood all over me! He's probably got all sorts of powerful allies, an' if he dies, they'll trace his death back to me. Inching back a bit, I looked at the pirate who was partially lying in my hideout, wondering what I had gotten myself into. Should I just dump him in the ocean and be done with it? Biting my lip, I decided not to. I had already gone through the trouble of getting him up here, let's just see if he'll last the night. If he didn't, I'd give him a seaman's grave anyway.
I flattened a pile of pillows in the corner and placed him on it, belly down, so I could reach the wound on the back of his head. It was still bleeding profusely, seeping through his hair and down his face, on my precious furniture. I reached for a satchel hanging on the left wall which, among other things, contained clean strips of cloth and a three-inch bottle of very expensive rum that I stole four months ago. The bottle was still half full, having only opened it once when that son-of-an-ass Cordly stabbed me in the thigh, thinking he could just pilfer my nights' loot and get away with it. My lips formed a crooked smile when thought back to it. Hmpf, he sure learned from that mistake, now being the one-handed an' eared beggar who works the corner of Briddis 'n Hodds. He used to have such talent, light fingered and fast. What a waste. Oh well...
I folded a piece of cloth and drenched it with the alcohol to disinfect it, then pressed it to the wound. The pirate gasped lightly but didn't wake up.
A/N: That's all I got so far, hope you like it, let me know what you think, will you? Flames are also welcome, I can learn from them.
A/N: Firstly, you need to know that I usually write fics with someone else, you know, writing a page and giving it to my friend to write the next piece. But since she is kinda busy with schoolwork(as I should be), I decided to give it a shot on my own. takes a swig of her fruit juice, then hovers fingers over keys
Okay, without further ado, my first chapter of: "A Seaman's Tale"
Chapter One: "A Bleedin' Pirate"
The pub was nice and crowded, it was easier to do my job then, because when you frequently get bumped and jostled you usually don't notice the slight tugging on your purse when it's being stolen from you by the best pickpocket in town, if I may say so meself.
I slunk between tables, looking for suitable victims who carry big, jingling pouches. The bad thing about that is that those people are usually pirates, and they are primarily very protective of their money, and secondarily, if they catch you nickin' their purse, they are not very understanding with a fellow-thief. A good beating is what I could expect then, or the occasional death threat. The only reason that I'm not dead yet, is because I waited until they were fairly drunk, before I even attempted to rob them blind.
And as luck would have it, the pirate who was sittin' in the corner did not only look drunk(I noticed he was just emptying his fifth bottle of rum), he also had a crowd gathered around him, listening intently to the story he was telling with slurred voice and exaggerated, somewhat womanly hand gestures. A grin appeared on my face, and I walked over to stand in the crowd, seemingly listening to his story, which involved pieces of gold, zombies, and, if I understood correctly, a monkey.
I inched closer ever so slightly, and started looking for his pouch which was, inconveniently, located very near his bum. My left hand moved to get hold of the purse, but a second later I got a nasty shock. At the exact moment I was about to cut the strap of leather, which attached the bag to his belt, with the knife in my right hand, he gripped my left hand firmly with incredible speed. A breath that smelled of pure alcohol blew softly into my face when he said jovially:" I hope yer in mind of stealin' me purse, because howe'er much it may appear to you I'm on the queer side, I can assure yeh, I'm very much into girls mate!" then he burst out laughing, and the circle of people around us started laughing too, and I noticed some filthy buggers with appalling grins on their faces made disgusting hand movements at me. I swallowed nervously, laughed a bit, backing away, and then rushed out of the pub.
With the pub's stony wall at my back, I breathing in the cool night's air, silently cursing the mangy, scabberous dog of a pirate who had not only caught me stealing, but then made a joke about it like that. It wasn't just humiliating, it was insulting! How could he have noticed my intentions, when all the other drunks that I robbed never did?
I walked down the street a bit, swerving around wobbly sailors, with or without a whore by their side, and other whores trying to look their most appealing to customers. My eyes wandered over them, seeing them making hand kisses and pulling up their dresses for passing men, showing almost every bit of bare flesh they could, and sighed. Beggars, thieves like yours truly, and more of the unsavoury folk you would find on the street at night were also doing what they were best at to make some money. Some whores who knew me raised their hand in greeting, saying: "Hey Kibb, how's it going, having a good night tonight?" or, "Evenin' Kibb, I foun' a really good pub, perfect for us, comin' "? One or two waved at me from a high window, signalling for me to come up.
I smiled and raised my hand back at them or shouted back a friendly reply, but kept walking. The destination was my hideout, my vantage point from where I could overlook the whole street. It was actually an old balcony, covered with rags and pieces of wood. Attached to an abandoned house and accessible by a narrow and dark alley with a pile of wooden crates stacked up in it, it was as perfect a thieves' home as they come. I put all my stolen loot in there and the beauty of it was that no one would look twice at it and think of what could actually be up there.
When I found it, it was inaccessible, two floors up and looking like it would collapse if you merely sighed at it. Making it reachable from the outside, I hauled the crates into the alley next to it myself. I found out that it was actually quite solid, built to last, but you wouldn't say that looking at it from he ground. Then I attached discarded plates and planks to the balcony and the wall, closing it off from view and making sure it wouldn't come down and crash into tiny pieces, with me in it! All this work was done at night, when the majority of my small town's inhabitants was finally asleep, or at least, in bed.
About seven feet in length, it was not very big, but more than enough for me and my humble possessions. Also, the old house it was attached to, inhabited by a group of beggars and second-rate whores, provided a safe escape route for me if I was being chased by an angry victim or, more serious, the Law. I knew that if I happened to actually get caught, there'd be a rope tied around my neck and my feet six inches above the ground before I could say: "You've got the wrong person", for they were happy to hang anyone who even looked remotely suspicious, and I wasn't exactly what you'd call an "honest citizen".
I nimbly scrabbled up the grimy crates, pushed the big flap of burlap that covered the opening aside, and pushed myself onto the balcony. Pushed aside, the stolen pillows and blankets on my "lairs" floor revealed half a loaf of bread I stole earlier that day. I couldn't care less about the caked dirt that covered my hands, especially my fingernails, and tore off a chunk with my teeth hungrily, utilising a large crack in my wall to watch people making a living off other people on the cobblestones below. Thinking back on my little scene in the pub earlier, I couldn't help but grin now at what the pirate had said, self-consciously referring to his slightly girlish mannerisms.
On a different note, he was actually quite handsome, underneath all that grime. I silently smiled to myself and shook my head, before making myself comfortable on the pillows.
I must have fallen asleep, because I started at the sound of a door slamming. I looked down at the pub across the street, and in the dim light of the torches that were lit all along the street, I saw the shape of a man, obviously very drunk, seeking support by a wall. He was trying, with difficulty, to put one foot in front of the other, and not fall flat on his face. Judging by the silence, it was probably very late at night, or early in the morning, whichever you prefer. To my surprise, he managed to sing pieces from a song I had heard somewhere before, and make it understandable.
"...devils and black sheep an' really bad eggs, drink up me hearties yo ho..."
Then, a memory connected. Wait a sec, that was the voice of that bloke I tried to rob before. Should I try and rob him now, while he wasn't able to defend himself? He probably had enough money left worth stealing. While he was still singing softly, I pushed the rag aside again and stealthily slid one leg on top of the crate below me, then the other leg, and lowered myself onto it, still not making a sound. I slowly got off the pile of crates, and was just about to tiptoe towards him, when I realised he had stopped singing and, swaying from right to left, was looking at someone standing in front of him.
I could then see someone else approach him from behind, and before I could do anything, he had hit him on the back of the head with a sharp rock, hard. They searched him methodically for any valuables, and were just about to finish him off by hitting him on the head again, which I considered as a revolting and unnecessary precaution, when I decided to step in. I got as far as slitting the throat of one of them silently with my trusty nine-inch knife that I always keep in my boot. He produced a disgusting gurgling sound when the blood was streaming from his mouth and throat, which, to my annoyance, alerted the other attacker. I swear I hard my jaw crack when the rock collided with my chin. I dropped the dying man and kicked the one who hit me in the knee, and before he could swing the rock again, stabbed him in the belly. I couldn't feel just how deep my knife went, but he managed to get away from me and run off with the purse that he had just acquired. Swearing at my carelessness and hearing his hurried and slightly faltering steps slowly die away I checked the dead attacker for any valuables, because now his rotten bastard companion was getting away with my prize. Hope he dies from blood loss. Damn, this is all my own fault, I should stop being so soft-hearted. What good are morals anyway, they don't bring in any food or keep you warm at night. I took a deep breath to wake myself from my philosophical muses. What a night.. Pressing my fingers to my now fiercely throbbing jaw, I winced. That was definitely going to make a big bruise tomorrow.
I looked down and noticed to my shock that the pirates' head was bleeding rather heavily, steadily covering the cobbles in a macabre shade of deep, dark red. I lifted his head and checked his eyes and his breathing, (he was breathing, thankfully) which was still heavy with the smell of cheap rum, and flicked his cheek with my index finger to get a response.
"C'mon, yer not gonna die on me, are yeh, say something, anything!"
I whispered urgently, thinking that if he died, I would always feel it had been my fault. Then he made a soft sound. I leaned closer.
"Ouch.."
Good, he hadn't lost his sense of humour, I thought with a wry smile. I carefully lifted his head off the ground and took his bandana off to see where the wound was, but all the blood in his long, matted hair didn't make it easy. When finally I found the injury, my hands were totally covered in the sticky red substance. The hole was roughly the size of a fingernail, but the amount of blood that was still flowing from it didn't bode well.
A scuffling sound a little way down the street made me jerk my head around in shock, breathing out with relief to see that it was just a rat scurrying through a pile of garbage. I couldn't stay on the street like this any longer, I would be really vulnerable with this bleeding idiot virtually lying in my lap, but I couldn't just leave him to die here, could I?
"Oh, damn yer soul fer bein' such a soddin' drunk! If yeh hadn't been so ignorant, I wouldn'ta have ta get yer scruffy ass outta here !"
The old tri-cornered hat he was wearing when he came out of the pub had acquired a new hole, but I picked it up and put the bandana in it, then stuffed it in the pirate's shirt. Grabbing one of his arms, I hauled him onto my back, his arm over one shoulder, his head on the other. His boots dragged over the ground as I started walking back towards my hideout. The moment my free hand touched the tower of crates, I felt a warm trickle of blood running down my neck, and over my collarbone into my shirt, making it stick to my chest. He sure was heavy, and being a dead weight made him all the harder to carry. I cursed again at the unfairness of it all. Satan's whores, why do these things always seem to happen to me?!
With much difficulty I succeeded in hauling him up the crates and onto the balcony, but I accidentally ripped off the burlap covering the opening, and it fell in folds over the pirate. When I picked it up, the sleeve of his shirt hitched up a bit to reveal a tattoo on his arm, which pictured a sparrow flying over a sea's sunset. The sweat I had already worked up from dragging the unconscious idiot up the crates seemed to cool down in an instant, sending a few involuntary shivers up my spine.
Sparrow? Sp.. Captain Jack Sparrow, current owner of the Black Pearl? Hollerin' hellcats, that's one of the most infamous pirate captains this side of the Caribbean, an' I've got his blood all over me! He's probably got all sorts of powerful allies, an' if he dies, they'll trace his death back to me. Inching back a bit, I looked at the pirate who was partially lying in my hideout, wondering what I had gotten myself into. Should I just dump him in the ocean and be done with it? Biting my lip, I decided not to. I had already gone through the trouble of getting him up here, let's just see if he'll last the night. If he didn't, I'd give him a seaman's grave anyway.
I flattened a pile of pillows in the corner and placed him on it, belly down, so I could reach the wound on the back of his head. It was still bleeding profusely, seeping through his hair and down his face, on my precious furniture. I reached for a satchel hanging on the left wall which, among other things, contained clean strips of cloth and a three-inch bottle of very expensive rum that I stole four months ago. The bottle was still half full, having only opened it once when that son-of-an-ass Cordly stabbed me in the thigh, thinking he could just pilfer my nights' loot and get away with it. My lips formed a crooked smile when thought back to it. Hmpf, he sure learned from that mistake, now being the one-handed an' eared beggar who works the corner of Briddis 'n Hodds. He used to have such talent, light fingered and fast. What a waste. Oh well...
I folded a piece of cloth and drenched it with the alcohol to disinfect it, then pressed it to the wound. The pirate gasped lightly but didn't wake up.
A/N: That's all I got so far, hope you like it, let me know what you think, will you? Flames are also welcome, I can learn from them.