Black Wings of Fate
Summary: For every fiftieth human born into the world, there is one guardian born for them, their souls connected by a single gem. Others have gems and guardians they can't ever see or meet. But James Norrington was born with a black pearl in his hand and a guardian so opposite to him that they could never be.
It took them a year to finally actually start their search for World's End and another few weeks to reach it after that whole spectacle in Sao Feng's Singapore bath house, what with the need of a ship, crew and the legendary Mao Kun map. In that years, they had had to get to Singapore, a not so easy task. They had first had to commandeer a ship and then repair it in order for it to be seaworthy enough to last an ocean worth of sailing. They had had to run from plenty of EITC and Navy ships and they always had to engage in some form of battle in order to make their escape. They kept forgetting it was not the Black Pearl they were sailing on, but some poor excuse for a ship to make such a long journey. They did not have Jack there to make matters easier, either, and his presence was sorely missed.
After everything went all screwy during the meeting with Sao Feng, what with Will being caught and Ian Mercer barging in with the Navy, it was a miracle they had all gotten out alive, let alone with a ship and a crew that they would need in order to travel to World's End. Barbossa kept a weather eye on Will, not trusting such an easy transaction with Sao Feng as Turner was suggesting. He knew the Pirate Lord of the South China Sea better than the whelps and Sparrow's crew could guess. He and Sparrow were partially the reason why he was a Pirate Lord at all. He knew, no matter what you promised Feng, he would not have agreed to anything that might bring Jack Sparrow back to the land of the living, such was his hatred for the Curatrix.
Barbossa himself found he no longer held any ill feelings where his fellow Pirate Lord and captain of the Black Pearl was concerned. It might be this second chance at life and it might be because of the respect he had felt Sparrow give him after his last breath was drawn or it might be that he needed the man in order to keep this second chance at life, but he held no ill will against the eccentric man. If anything, he couldn't wait for his former captain/friend/enemy to come back. The world has been screwed sideways ever since Sparrow's death and only he would be able to set it straight. The fallen Curatrix was a master manipulator and he understood the mechanics of the world and its peoples a lot better than most would give him credit for. Jack would know how to deal with Beckett, the Brethren Court and even Jones himself. He'd had dealings with all of them a lot more than Barbossa had.
And that was not even mentioning Sparrow's other strange relationships, namely being best mates with a sea goddess or having various creatures of the sea owing him favors. No wonder he survived all those messes he got himself dragged into. Barbossa had been visited by one too many pissed off selkie, siren, mermaid, harpy and that one sea serpent that had caused a not so proud reaction out of Barbossa when he had spotted the beast to be comfortable with the idea of just how many connections Sparrow had.
It was not going to be easy, by any means. Barbossa had only once traveled to the gateways that lead to World's End and it had been with Sparrow's charts - aboard the Black Pearl, in the great cabin - while he had been under the curse of Aztec Gold. He had had nothing to fear. There was no death looming over him or his crew. Tai Huang's men were as mortal as the rest of them and they were cowards with no real loyalty to anyone but themselves. Not even to Sao Feng. They just feared him more than they did others because they knew how cruel he can be.
The cold and the eery stillness of World's End was starting to get to everyone. It would have been different if Jack were around. Barbossa had seen men completely at ease as Sparrow sailed them straight into the eye of a storm, once, when they were many years younger. Sparrow's presence commanded the deck, the attention, charm or no charm. He was larger than life and so it was easy to see whether he was truly gone from the world. It was indeed a much bleaker, darker place without the guardian. It was felt most among the men who had sailed with him. They would turn towards the helm, expecting a drunk-looking smile with glittering gold teeth and an easy answer that would set their minds to rest, only to find someone else there, just as uneasy as they were. They were all shivering and they missed the sunny smiles and warm amused eyes that would have made it all at least a bit more bearable, this dark, heavy atmosphere and the duty they had to fulfill.
It was a heavy burden without the knowledge that the song has been sung in Port Royal, of all places. Beckett had Jones under his thumb and a good strategist on his side to command his armada. The whelps from Port Royal were certain it was Norrington and Barbossa was inclined to agree. The Commodore was too much like his old man in too many ways for it to be anyone else. Barbossa had nearly died at the hands of Admiral Lawrence Norrington and his son was a chip off the old block. The senior Norrington had been dealt with by the Keeper of the Code and the man no longer sailed. If you asked Barbossa, it was only fitting that Sparrow deals with this Norrington.
But, for that, they need Sparrow back among the living. The sooner the better. It's already been a year and it was now only a matter of time before Sparrow's mind is completely lost to madness, or so Tia Dalma said. Humans have gone mad in a lot less time but she figured a Curatrix would hold up better. Hector personally thought Jack was going to be only slightly crazier than he already was. That man was made of tougher stuff than they all believed him to be. He was a powerful guardian. Barbossa had had ten years to do some research about Curatrix and he had come to the conclusion as to the wing span and color difference. The more you inherit from your angelic side, the bigger your wings are, but the more you inherit of your human side, the more colorful they are. And from what he had gathered from Sparrow himself, the man's wings had not always been black. That did not impact the fact that Sparrow was quite possibly the strongest semi-mortal being to walk the earth that was not pure divinity. It would take a lot more to take him down as long as he had something to fight for and freedom was it this time like any other before.
And that was not even mentioning Jack's Tutela, some 'Jamie' person. Hector did not even know their gender but they held Sparrow's absolute love. It would have helped to have his Tutela here. Tia Dalma said it would have made the whole thing easier but there was always the possibility it would push the trapped Pirate Lord of the Caribbean over the edge.
Hadn't Turner Junior said something about an edge? Over the edge. Over again. Sunrise sets. Flash of green. Ah, yes, that sounds about right. If only he knew what it meant. Barbossa was not stupid by far, but he was not a fan of puzzles and riddles and this be just that. It was a clue as to how to return from the world of the dead, for entering is not the hard part. It's getting back. And with the incompetent miscreant crew he had to deal with ... Urgh! He hopes Sparrow is not as addle in the brain as everyone seemed to fear.
They would need his savvy to get out of this one.
00000
It has been a little over a year and his gem was still not healing. James L. Norrington, Admiral of the East India Trading Company's armada, had been on edge for just as long, not daring to show his precious little black pearl to anyone other than Dr Witwicky and the man was as baffled about the cracks as he had been three years ago, when the first one had appeared. Only he got to see and touch them for himself this time around and he had seen just what James' strange condition looked like while it was still lasting.
The cracks would some days get better, shallower and James would feel hope blossoming in his heart, that any day now, they would disappear completely and his Curatrix would appear by his side, alive and well, a beaming grin on a face he could not even properly imagine as a grown man. Other days, they would remain the same as they were when they had first appeared, a year ago. Those days left James exhausted and rather hopeless, when there was no change. And then, there were those worst kind of days. Days when the cracks would deepen so much that James thought the pearl was going to break apart and a breeze was going to take away its remains like dust. Stardust seeping out of them and actually being carried off did not help his state of mind. At times he swore it was like an sand clock and that the sand was slowly running out. He wondered if he was crazy to consider even that a blessing as opposed to not knowing anything that was happening to his Curatrix.
The past year had not been easy, even without having to worry about his Curatrix and his gem. He now worked for Beckett and he had come to realize the man was a tyrant in the worst possible meaning of the word. James had did his duty and hunted down every pirate that he came across. However, that's where things changed and soon got out of control. Beckett did not let the survivors of the attacks get a trial. Instead, they were first interrogated by his assassin secretary James was sure wasn't entirely human and they they were hanged, also without trial. He kept expecting them to sing of all things, something James did not understand the need of. Beckett attended each group hanging and waited for this song to be sang, only to repeat the process with each next hanging. James was even expected to be at most of them, so he got the front row seat to see how annoyed, disappointed and resigned Beckett was with each group hanging gone without this song.
What was worse, or rather made even worse, was the fact that Beckett soon stopped caring who he was hanging. Old men, women, children, Curatrix, old war veterans, merchants, a privateer here and there, a soldier, once ... Nothing was sacred to the man. Anyone and everyone who had had even the slightest bit of contact with a pirate, even if unknowingly, was hunted down, out on sea or on land, it didn't matter, shackled, interrogated and then hanged without a chance to prove their innocence. Beckett watched it all while drinking tea and eating biscuits, not at all caring about the lives he was destroying for his own sick reasons.
It got to the point that Jones took pity on the pirates he was hunting and started simply killing them all so that there were no survivors left for Mercer to interrogate. It was a sad day when you realized that was mercy.
On top of all of Beckett's other sick little traits that made James' very skin crawl if he stayed in his presence longer than ten minutes, the short Lord was completely and irrevocably obsessed with Jack Sparrow, of all people. It was starting to unnerve Norrington, the way the man could insert the now-supposedly-dead pirate's name in any conversation.
If a captain had nearly lost his ship, let alone the cargo, in a freak storm, Beckett would snort and say Sparrow would not have lost a single crate had he been in the man's place.
If a merchant complained about unfavorable winds and blamed them for being late in his delivery, Beckett would retort that Sparrow would have found a favorable current instead.
If a soldier complained about being too drunk to carry out some silly task - usually during their free time of shore leave after weeks out at the sea and allowing himself to indulge a little - that anyone else could have done instead, Beckett would comment that Jack Sparrow, do drunk as to be seeing triple, would have been able to hold court, let alone do something so silly and easy like that.
When someone tried to reason with him that prices were too high on some cargo, he'd go and say he should think like Sparrow if he wants to get anywhere.
And there was that one time when James could not have taken a surprisingly well organized fleet - they had all sailed under the same jolly rodger, if James remembered correctly; a black flag with two crossed cutlasses was dancing in the wind on each mainmast beneath individual flags - without taking some serious damage and Beckett had said that Jack Sparrow would have certainly been able to do it with a single ship, let alone the fleet James had had with him.
James had replied he was not Jack Sparrow - he had a feeling Beckett was right and not exaggerating at all. Sparrow was a creature of fey, if he ever saw one. No man should be that lucky.
And Beckett had almost disappointedly agreed that he was not. He started sending James out more often after that, for which Norrington was grateful. He would rather not see innocent men, women and children be hanged for accidentally associating with pirates. He was glad not to return to Port Royal for a good two months before Beckett called for him again. There was a large assembly of pirates waiting in a long line to be hanged and the first group of the day consisted of a woman, a boy and three men. They were read their 'rights' and the nooses were placed around their necks. The boy couldn't have been older than ten! They didn't even have a length of rope long enough to hang him without putting him on a barrel! James had seen him toying with something in his hand and then he had began singing. A chilling song soon picked up by the rest of the pirates there, clanging their chains and stomping their feet, pride, hope and something else - something between resignation and satisfaction - coloring their voices and faces.
As soon as the song had ended, the group up on the gallows was hanged and whatever the boy had been toying with fell to the ground. A piece of eight of some sort. Not like any James had seen used as a currency anywhere, but he had found several of them on other people. On pirates. Only on pirates. He did not have the time to ponder the boy's innocence before something unthinkable had happened. The sea had shuddered, over the waves and in the depths, traveling away from Port Royal out at the open sea and beyond at a speed that had left many of James' men as superstitious and weary as ol' Gibbs, all staring wide eyed at the deceptively calm waters. The haunting melody seemed to have been vibrating in the air until every last pirate was hanged from that assembly.
Norrington had gone out of his way to pick up the strange coin that had belonged to the boy, intent on ensuring he at least gets a proper burial and has it with him if he's an orphan or to give it to the boy's poor family, but all such thoughts fled his mind when he felt the coin minutely vibrating in his hand. Startled, James had looked around and hid the coin in his breast pocket when he saw that no one was looking. Later, when he was alone, he had throughly examined the coin, going so far as to press it to his ear. After all, if something vibrated, it tended to make some sound, some noise. At first, he had been ready to huff and snort at himself for such naive thinking. A coin, making noise? Please. But then he had heard it.
The humming.
It was quiet, almost indistinguishable, if you were not listening for it. James had been so startled that he had let the coin drop. The eery feeling that had followed the song returned almost immediately, filling his room swiftly and making him shudder. It felt like a warning. It was a pirate coin, no doubt about it. Only pirates would have something like that, all magical and foreboding. James should have thrown the damned thing away. Just like he should have just stabbed the heart of Davy Jones instead of giving it and all that power to Beckett. But he hadn't and he didn't. Something about the coin called to him. It vibrated more strongly when placed close to his black pearl, so he imagined it reacted stronger to a pirate. It meant something, to them. Just like the chilling song meant something. James didn't think that pirate songs and lore is something to take seriously, or at least he hadn't before meeting Jack Sparrow. But now, now he knew better and he tried to make sense of the meaning behind the words.
A stolen and imprisoned queen? Keys to the cage? Fiddler's green? Bell? Home? Those things made no sense whatsoever. James should have really paid more attention to Elizabeth's and Mr Gibbs' pirate stories. The 'devil' was obviously Jones. Pirates still referred openly to him as such. And a call to all was obviously meant to unite a type of people James had never thought could work together. The Admiral feared for their fate if the pirates could indeed unite and stand together. Flying Dutchman or no Flying Dutchman, the pirates knew the sea better than Beckett, James or any other Navy man, merchant or regular sailor could ever hope. Isla de Muerta was proof enough. The Navy tended to ignore all things fantastical and supernatural, as though that alone will be enough to make them nonexistent. It left them vulnerable and they were not even aware of it.
"Thinkin' 'bout the song, are ye, Admiral?" Said man nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard Jones' gravely voice speak behind him. The bigger man, covered in the sea-creatures that now made up his skin, hobbled over to him with a strange sort of limp James would usually associate with a peg leg - not a giant crab leg, as was Jones' case - and a nostalgic look on his face. "It's been a long time since I've heard it or felt it in the sea." His more 'normal' hand gripped the railing in a tight grip that nearly cracked the wood under his hold. "Ya should probably get off this cursed ship and take yer men with ye. A maelstrom is comin' our way."
"You know I will not leave the ship. I was stationed here with a reason." Although he was not at all happy to be anywhere near this man. Something in James' very soul was disgusted with their proximity when Jones was docked in the harbor and James all the way up in Fort Charles, let alone this close. "Besides, I've survived worse before." He said it bitterly, recalling his fall from grace when he had chased Sparrow into a hurricane and had lost his ship and his crew.
Jones laughed cynically and mockingly at him, setting Norrington's nerves on edge and making him grit his teeth. "I wasn't talkin' 'bout the weather, Admiral. And ye've not seen a storm like this just yet." The octopus-faced man snorted. "Then again, it might not come at all. Two of the nine are missing. They can't do nothing without them, by the way of the Code. How easily they are restricted by the very rules they've set. I've forgotten how foolish mortals can be."
"And yet one of those same foolish mortals now holds power over you."
That sent the Captain of the Flying Dutchman into a rage, rounding on Norrington with a scary glare on his face. "Don't think I'll have mercy for ye once I've found a way to free myself of Beckett. Nothing lasts forever, Admiral. Jack Sparrow was the perfect example."
That annoyed Norrington even more than Beckett's constant mentioning of the man. Jones always called on the fact that he had been the one to finally put an end to the legend of Jack Sparrow. He boasted about it at every chance he got and he did it especially so around James, Beckett or other pirates, knowing it would affect them no matter how many times he said it. The pirates reacted because Jack Sparrow was apparently the very embodiment of everything the core of piracy stood for - freedom, a love for the sea and a bottle of rum - and they could not believe a man like that was gone. Beckett had apparently wanted Sparrow at his side almost desperately if he had insisted on the Letters of Marque be for the pirate Captain, although James still didn't know why. It was for the best if he not examine it too closely.
As for James himself, he didn't know. He mused it had something to do with him having a hand in Sparrow's demise, in the end. Guilt. Or maybe it was because Sparrow had been a Curatrix that shared his name - supposing it was his real name - with his Jack. James wasn't sure about the reason why but he always reacted with anger and annoyance. He had not liked Jones since the day he had had the displeasure of meeting the cursed Captain of the Flying Dutchman. It might even have to do something with James' own cracked gem that he kept carefully out of sight at all times. He really didn't know but Jones put him on edge. And Jones' constant boasting about his hand in the fate of the Black Pearl and her eccentric Captain didn't warm him at all for James.
He leveled the larger, older man with a cold, scolding look that somehow managed to look like he was condescendingly looking down his nose at the taller man. An oxymoron in the flesh - and scales. "And yet he seems to be the perfect example that you have failed. He might be dead but his stories live on. The more you mention him, the more he has won. I pity you if you believe you can win in that race. Everyone knows about him and very rare few believe in you. I wonder whose stories will last longer?"
He left the fuming cursed sailor behind him as he stalked off towards the chambers given to him aboard this cursed ship, feeling like he had won a great victory.
He swore he felt a fleeting swell of pride on the other side of the strained bond before it was gone.