Pintel and Ragetti were sitting in their cell, very bored. Ragetti often looked up from making a little ship out of straw (that vaguely resembled the Black Pearl) to gaze dreamily out the small window above their cell. He'd sigh wistfully but get straight back to work.
Pintel on the other hand was thinking up new ways to try and escape. The rest of the crew had tried many different ways of escaping before and, in effect, they were all taken away from each other to other parts of the city.
Pintel had always been a clever man. He didn't like to flaunt his intellect because he was a pirate after all and he kept what he could for himself.
Ragetti never had that problem. He was as thick as the cell walls they were enclosed in but remarkably, he knew all sorts of trivia, history, and even a bit of mythology that Pintel could only make fanciful guesses about. Pintel never questioned it though: how he knew all what he knew. He had learned a tough lesson not to ask Ragetti to explain things. Ragetti had decided to answer Pintel's inquiry about Troy in full length and very precise detail. He also wouldn't let Pintel rest until he had finished his rambling. It was a very, very long night.
But now, that was the furthest thing from his mind. Pintel was concentrating very hard on an escape plan. It seems that their best chance would be at night after the guards gave them their supper, if you could even call it that. It was a little more than cold soup and moldy bread but after ten years of not being able to eat, none of the pirates gave any thought to the condition of their food.
Pintel sighed. Even without that dreaded curse, they were still suffering. They went directly from one curse to another, one prison to the next. It seemed like no matter what they did, they would die cursed men. A soft cough derailed Pintel's thoughts abruptly.
"Hey, Pinters," Ragetti prodded him in the back, "Lookit whot I made." Ragetti motioned to his seemingly completed straw-ship. Unfortunately, straw doesn't make good supplies for arts and crafts of any sort. As soon as Pintel looked away from Ragetti's creation, it collapsed. Ragetti sighed regrettably.
In a fit of boredom, he removed his prosthetic eye and began fishing stray splinters out of his right eye socket. He tossed the slivers aside but instead of popping his eye back into its home, he tossed it between his hands boredly. He increased his speed gradually, to see how fast he could catch between the two hands. Ragetti unfortunately over looked the small detail that he was almost completely devoid of any grace or coordination. As a result, he missed the flying optical which bounced several times on the floor before rolling merrily out of their cell.
"M-ME EYE!!" Ragetti shrieked. He dove for it but it was too late. It was well out of reach and sitting idly at the other side of the hallway. Ragetti stuck his arm out of the bars as far as he could, groping for his most prized possession. He finally admitted defeat and slunk back over to the scratchy pile of straw they had to call a bed. He curled up on the bed as he rested his head very low to the ground.
Pintel had taken notice, of course. As soon as he saw that flying sphere and the shrill cry from his best friend, he knew what had happened. Of course Ragetti had lost his eye before, both his real one as well as his wooden one. It was really the latter that had given him the most trouble. His sight was limited obviously, but at least he could retrieve the prosthetic so he wouldn't have a gaping hole in his face. The difficulty was mostly on the Black Pearl, with the rocking and slippery deck. Amazingly enough, he would always manage to retrieve the eye and settle it back into its place.
Pintel began devising a new plan, but this time with a completely different objective: get Ragetti's eye back.
'We could prol'ly make a stick or somethink long enough te get the eye… but whot if it rolls away even farther? I suppose we might be able te get the dog or possibly a guard te give it back… but tha's really only if we're lucky.' Pintel considered all the options available. The best idea would be to try and make something long enough for them to retrieve the eye. The dog wouldn't be cooperative enough and the guards would most likely kick it down the hallway and laugh in their face. Pintel started gathering the straw needed when a rather loud, and rather shrill, noise cut him off.
"This ain't the armory!" A young woman called out. She looked out of breath as she very nearly fell down the stairs and stumbled into the dankness of the dungeon. Her hair was golden blonde which would shimmer beautifully in the sunlight… if it were brushed properly, that is. Just as she reached the last step of the stairs, she tripped, fell, and crashed against the stone wall like a rag doll. Both pirates gawked at the seemingly injured girl. Amazingly enough though, she stood back up, brushed herself off, and smiled broadly.
"Eh… miss? Would ye mind terribly te be so 'elpful as te get me eye back, please?" Ragetti pleaded meekly. The woman snapped to attention and looked around.
"Ye lost yer eye??" She asked while looking around in the dark corridor. She found the eye before Ragetti could answer, brushed it off, and handed it to Pintel. Ragetti gratefully accepted his prosthetic and happily popped it back into its rightful place. The eye swiveled around a bit before adjusting to about the same position as the other one. Ragetti grinned and thanked her.
"You two seem quite familiar… have we conversed prior to this occasion or is my mind playing tricks upon me?" She studied the two for an intense moment. Pintel looked back to Ragetti, who shrugged unknowingly.
"I don' think we 'ave, miss. Never seen you before. Me name's Pintel an' the one-eyed git over there is Ragetti." Pintel jerked a thumb in Ragetti's general direction, the latter waving meekly to their visitor.
"Fancy that, I do believe I have seen you two before. The memory and details escape me, though. Actually, the past day and a half is a rather vague blur but your faces are familiar to me none the less. My name is Lady Shannon Beckett of England," She curtseyed politely, "I am here for the summer to visit my cousin, Lord Cutler Beckett. Perhaps you have heard of him?"
Ragetti and Pintel exchanged a pained grimace as well as an expression that held utter loathing to the name and title. Shannon's curiosity was immediately aroused by the two men.
"Your expressions hold traces of hatred and pain. For what reason is this?" She crouched down to Pintel's level (he was sitting the entire time mind you) so they could properly converse. Pintel let a strained sigh escape as his face became entirely serious.
"Why do ye think we're in this bloody cage te begin with?" Shannon thought for a moment, a rather quick moment at that, and she showed an expression of revelation. Part of her memory came back, how she had reacted to their records and how brutal she was when asking her cousin a very simple question. That part was back but the rest was not so.
"Y-You're pirates!" She covered her mouth with her hand in shock, "I have seen you two before! I saw your prison records not two days ago!"
"Aye, we're pirates. We served un'ner Cap'n Barbossa of the Black Pearl," He paused to allow an expected gasp to come from Shannon. He waited but none came. She just sat there, waiting to hear his life's story as though she were an infant. He continued, "Ten years ago we sailed un'ner Cap'n Jack Sparrow. We was sailin' te the Isla de Muerta in search of Aztec gold. Only Cap'n Jack knew where the island was. Barbossa asked 'im and Cap'n Jack told all. The next night, we mutinied against 'im an' marooned 'im on an island barely bigger than this corridor. We got te the island and found the gold. 882 pieces of gold there were, all belongin' te Cortez 'imself. But there was a price we 'ad te pay-"
"The gold was cursed! We couln't eat, feel, drink or noffik! Not even pleasurable company would 'elp us when we was cursed." Ragetti interrupted. Pintel whacked his head forcefully but not even so much as to dislodge his eye again. Ragetti just smiled and scooted a bit closer to his friend.
"Yeah… we couln't feel anythin'. Not the spray of the sea, nor warmth, nor pain. We couln't die and every night as the moon would shine, our flesh would rot away te show us for whot we really were." Pintel took on an expression of remorse. He turned to his comrade to finish the tale.
"The problem was, we 'ad given all the pieces away for the things we couln't feel anymore. We searched fer two years fer all 882 pieces, each one calling te the pirate who first gave it away. We found them all, by any means necessary, and we had neared the end of our curse. Except, one of the pirates 'ad felt guilty 'bout betrayin' ol' Cap'n Jack like that. 'E sent away 'is piece on purpose an' said we disserved te be cursed… an' remained cursed. We sen' 'im te the depths, we did, but we forgot tha' we couln't find the piece wiffout 'im an' that we needed his blood to undo the curse. Eight years went by an' we never did find that piece…"
The story grew and grew as the minutes turned to hours. Shannon listened intently to the ill fate of these pirates. No one came to retrieve her and, though curious of that fact, she remained in the prison to hear out the tale. The end of the story came and she was on the verge of tears, for why she didn't know. These were pirates after all and they disserved every bit of bad luck that could be thrown at them. Even with the mind that they had murdered, robbed, and all other disgraceful things, she could not help but have a heavy heart for these souls. She felt something arise in her chest. It was a strangely familiar feathery feeling that reminded her of… something… but the fainting never came. Instead, she stood up and brushed herself off while the two conversed amongst themselves.
"Gentlemen- well, pirates I should say, I have listened to your tale and I must say that my heart holds compassion for you two. But you are pirates, and therefore disserve the punishment you receive. Regrettably, even if that means a hanging in your future. I do not make the laws; I abide by them, much unlike you. Justice will be brought with a swift pull on that handle and your legacy will end. It is the fate you chose as you signed the Black Pearl's articles. I'm not sorry." With that arrogant end, she turned on her heel and proceeded to walk up the stairs. As she marched away, she heard something that wretched her heart straight out of her chest.
"Pinters… I don' wanna die."
Pirate Hatter: The longest of the chapters so far! Yes Shannon seems kind of a bitch in this chapter but that's because her 'weirdness' has worn off… for now. Remember, she's a prim and proper Lady in the court of the King of England. She has to be a bitch! Well, for now.
