The world is large and strange. Perhaps not as strange as it once was when maps bore the legends 'here there be dragons' to make up for any factual knowledge, but there are still mysteries and curiosities to be found in it. Myths, legends, magic.

All of those things are still here.

They have to be.

Chapter 1

Nico Robin was young and full of questions concerning the world around her. It was hard for an eight-year-old girl to be much of anything else, especially when she was halfway through a voyage that was taking her from everything she ever knew to a completely new life on the other side of the ocean.

For now, however, as she leaned against the forecastle rail, staring out into the thick fog that had swallowed the ship and all the sea around it, she wasn't thinking about much of anything at all except her vague desire for something - anything - to happen. Even humming a few bars of a pirate shanty one of the crew had taught her - along with a warning not to get caught singing the words proper - wasn't doing much to pass the time in this silvery, nearly-empty world.

"Oy, oy, oy. Get away from the edge, Miss Robin - I might be a capable swimmer, but I'd rather not risk losing you in this kind of fog."

"Sorry," Robin said as she dutifully stepped away from the rail, turning her attention to the man in question. "There's just nothing else to do today."

The sailor tugged on his bandana awkwardly. "The bigwigs don't want you in the cabins?"

"They're making plans and such where they don't want me underfoot," she said before grimacing. "Grown-up plans."

"Ah," the man agreed with a tone of understanding. "Grown-ups. Terrible things. Hope I don't ever become one."

"Aren't you in your twenties, Mister Yasopp?"

"Twenty-five. Still doesn't mean I have to be a grown-up," he said, sticking out his tongue in a played-up show of distaste. "Nah, I'm just an outsized powder monkey that got promoted a few more times than I probably deserved."

Yasopp was a gunner, which meant that for most of the journey, he was at loose ends, kept bouncing between other roles on the ship until the time for conflict demanded his attention below decks. He also, in a less professional context, was something of a storyteller, which meant that in the absence of a proper nursemaid, he was the next best person to be handling a child on board.

Robin resented the presumption that she needed a minder, but at least the one she had been assigned was an interesting one that didn't demand that she behave in a 'ladylike' fashion.

"Do you have any stories I haven't heard yet?"

"Anything you haven't heard yet? That's a bit of a tall order, considering how much you like to read…" Yasopp scratched his chin scruff thoughtfully. "Well, let's see… alright, if you've got a taste for ghost stories… how would you like to hear a story about ghost pirates?"

That particular combination of words immediately grabbed Robin's complete attention. "Ghost pirates?"

"Well, I'm sure you're heard of ghost ships," the man said with the sort of tone that implied that he knew for a fact that Robin had and probably had a better understanding of the subject than most.

Robin nodded. "Ships that have been abandoned for no clear reason or are left to drift after their crew all died. Like the Sea Bird or the Octavius."
"Yeah, well, that's not the only kind of ghost ship out there - there's ones that are called that because they're crewed by the dead. The undead."

"Really?"
"Really. I've seen a couple in my time, too - my hair used to be black, before a living skeleton screamed half the color out."

"Just half?" Robin asked, looking at the sailor's yellow hair.

He waved off the question casually. "Well, he might have gotten all of it if a friend of mine hadn't slapped it overboard. Turns out skeletons aren't very good swimmers, especially after their head goes flying off of their shoulders."

That mental image of a beheaded skeleton giving an offended squawk as it was punted into the ocean got a giggle out of the girl.

"Well, anyway, since I did say I was going to tell you a good ol' ghost story, I should give you a proper tale instead of mentioning my own adventures off hand," Yasopp said as he sat down on a barrel, crossing one leg over the other. "They say that there's a number of ghost ships in this corner of the world - and that a certain few of them decided that, being of a similar condition, that there was no reason for them not to ally with each other."

Robin found a comfortable spot on a pile of coiled rope to sit, taking a moment to smooth out her skirts after. Some manners were more habit than anything else at this point.

"They call them the Armada of the Damned. Cursed pirates, all of them. Laid their hands on gold they shouldn't have, only to find themselves trapped in the twilight zone between life and death. The world's a big place, after all, with plenty of mysteries to run into and more than a few ways of dying that don't go quite all the way - and crossing the gods are the easiest ways of managing it you can manage."

"Gods?"

"The old ones. Not just the ones that the people of this area worship either, though they're angry enough given what's become of their people - occasionally, you run into someone who got cursed by the classic set. I know a few sailors who swear that their great grandparents ran afoul of Calypso, Circe, and others of their like back in the day," Yasopp explained before blinking. "Jeez, you have a way of making me go off topic, don't you? Here I was supposed to be telling a ghost story and we're onto mythologic deities."

"It's all very interesting regardless, Mr. Yasopp." Really, Robin almost wished she had a book to take notes. She made the decision to attempt transcribing the man's story from memory later and perhaps to ask if she could write down his stories as he told them in the future.

"I guess," the man said, scratching the back of his head. "Do you want me to tell any stories about that instead of the ghost pirates?"

"Whatever you like, Mr. Yasopp."

"Well, I guess I'll stick with the Armada of the Damned then," he said. "Now, where was I…? Right. At the beginning."

Yasopp adopted his storyteller's pose again, leaning forward in a way that left his hands open to gesture as needed to emphasize the weight and size of the things he was about to describe.

"Now, I can't speak to the perfect lore of what happened to bring about that particular alliance - maybe they were touched by the same gods, maybe they'd known each other before, or maybe it was just a twist of fate that brought them together - or even how many are truly involved. But I do know that some of the names tied to that dread force are some of the best known of their era, which is not so far gone as to make even the most practical men to sail these seas think these men dead and gone in the traditional sense."

"The White Brothers and their twin vessels Orthus and Cerberus, Bloodless Bo Beck and the sloop Grim Reaper, James Sterling and his salvaged shipwreck Nemesis, LaShafe of the Sandspine, and - last but certainly not least - Jolly Jack Rodgers and his dread ship the Harkaway. Those aren't the only ships in the Armada, but those are the ones best known. There's no telling how many lost souls are tied up in that stygian mire of black magic and black hearts, but as someone who had the passing privilege of meeting a few of those men before they went over to the dark, I can say that only a few of them deserved it in any way."

"I've never heard of any of those pirates," Robin said. "Did was Rodgers any relation to Gold Roger?"

"That's because you've spent most of your life on the wrong end of the world," Yasopp said lightly. "Though I suppose there's still a few pirates still keeping the waters around England interesting, it's a lot freer out here away from the company interests. And no, they weren't family. Nor friends, I would wager, for I believe Rodgers was a competitor with Gold Roger for the Pirate Lordship that ended up making him Pirate King."

"He lost, of course. Man was not nearly as good at making friends as he was making corpses or enemies. Usually both at the same time. Mean cuss too. Heart as black as the tar he painted his ships with."

"A black ship?" How odd. Most ships Robin had ever seen were either left bare or painted colors that made them bright and easy to identify at a distance.

"Aye, a black ship," Yasopp confirmed. "Always beware of black ships on these seas, save one, Miss Robin. All of them save the Pearl are said to be members of that undead alliance."

"What of the Pearl then?" Robin asked.

"The Black Pearl?" The tone the gunner had taken with the turn in topic was wistful, almost as if he wished to be aboard that ship rather than the Marine vessel he was currently on. "She's a pirate ship as well, but so long as she is passed down from one freedom lover to another, she'll never be anything to be fully afraid of."

Before Robin could ask anything else, Yasopp abruptly stopped, his expression changing sharply from that of a carefree storyteller to a seasoned and wary fighter as he sniffed the air. "Something's burning. Tar. Spent powder."

Robin sniffed the air herself. Now that the gunner had mentioned it, there was a new smell to the air - a harsh, acrid one that immediately raised one's hackles in a way that demanded caution. Fire.

She threw herself up to her feet and to the railing.

There were bits of debris floating in the water. Barrels, bits of broken boards… and the body of a boy, draped over a particularly large bit of shattered planking, bleeding and bruised.

"Mister Yasopp!" she yelled.

"What - Man overboard!" the gunner yelled as soon as he saw the boy. He grabbed a rope, winding it around a cleat in a tight knot that he tested the sureness exactly twice before launching himself over the rail and rappelling down the side of the ship with a lightning speed that would have been alien from the relaxed storyteller Robin had been speaking with earlier.

Beyond the minor debris field was the source of the burning smell - a merchantman ship, crushed in twain by whatever disaster had been visited upon it, and blazing like the Biblical Sodom.

Robin couldn't imagine anyone being alive in that.

"Bring him aboard, carefully," the sailors behind her were saying, finally drawing her attention away from that terrible blaze.

The boy was even more startling up close - wild sky-blue hair, tattered clothes, a battered body covered in burns, bruises, and scrapes… and a shallowly, but steadily rising and falling chest that said he was still very much alive despite those injuries.

"He's still breathing and he's not cold - must not have been in the water long," one of the sailors that had helped haul him aboard said.

"Hard to be cold within any distance of that," another said, staring at the blaze that had held Robin's attention so closely.

"He must have been next to the powder stores when that ship went up, with these sort of wounds," a third sailor whispered, his tone one of horrified awe. "That he's in this good of condition is nothing short of miraculous."

"Don't just stand there gawking - get a boat in the water and see if there's any other survivors!" one of the commanding officers barked. "And I want at least one gunner crew ready on the cannons just in case this is the work of pirates - that fire is far too bright to be more than an hour old!"

The deck became a flurry of action as the ashore boat was brought out and hooked up to the pulleys that would take it down to the water.

"Miss Robin!" the officer said. "If you would keep an eye on our young guest-"

She tried not to jump at the direct address. "Why me?"

The officer's face and tone softened slightly. "Should he wake, you would be the least likely to frighten him, young as you are."

That made sense, by Robin's own logic. It also, to her understanding, a sort of busywork to keep her out from underfoot.

She was fine with that. She had nothing to offer the rescue efforts, even if they did find anyone else.

Robin reached over to brush a stray hair away from the boy's face, only to have him snap to full consciousness with a gasp and a grab at her arm.

"It's alright," she said carefully. "You're safe here."

"W-who are you?"

"Nico Robin. And you? Who are you? What's your name?"

"C-Cutty Flam," he said, finally getting the words out around the shudder in his voice.

A strange sort of name, though this was hardly the time to be commenting on such things. The shudder in his voice was of greater concern - it wouldn't do for her charge to expire from something so simple as chill after his rather extraordinary ordeal. "I'm watching over you, Cutty Flam. No harm will come to you here."

With that, the boy's grip on her arm relaxed and released as he passed out again, eyes fluttering shut as the energy that had brought him to life so suddenly left again, leaving him to sleep on the deck despite the chaos surrounding him.

"Cutty Flam. Interesting," Robin mused as she looked him over. The wounds were still terrible, but if he had enough energy to do that without flinching, he'd most likely recover from-

Her train of thought stuttered to a stop as she noticed something - a thin woven string around his neck with something shiny on the end. Curiosity saw Robin pull on it, to see what pendant might hang on the end. A cross? A ring? A traveler's token? Perhaps a locket with a portrait of some person precious to him?

It was none of those things.

Instead, it was a gold coin. A gold coin with the glinting smile of a grinning skull smiling up from its strangely angular design that saw her eyes widen in recognition.

Pirate.

On impulse, Robin tugged it, the fragile string snapping easily under the pressure.

It wouldn't do for such a thing to be found on his body. Especially not in the wake of what was likely a pirate attack on the destroyed merchantman they'd pulled him from. Pirate or not, she wasn't going to let him die for something so small as a gold coin.

She turned her gaze towards the back of the ship, only to freeze as a dark ship pulled out of the fog.

It was a decaying ruin of a vessel that didn't look like something that should have been sailing above the water, much less at the wind quick speed it was moving at. The sails were tattered, the planks of the hull looked as if they were oozing tar…

And the flag flying above it bore a grinning skull over two crossed cutlasses.

Pirate flag. Black ship. Painted with tar.

"The Harkaway," she breathed.

Perhaps it was not. Perhaps it was just painted black as a manner of practicality. As some cheap seafarer's trick to ward off rot or to take advantage of a more fearsome reputation than the ship rightly had.

But all of those logical thoughts did nothing to calm her racing heart, even after the ship had vanished back into the fog as quickly as it had come - a ghost ship, in a third sense that Robin had never expected to encounter in her entire life, much less so early on in it.

Twenty years later, Nico Robin couldn't completely speak as to what made her take the coin or why she never told anyone about the black ship. All she knew was what she saw and what she did. She had saved the life of Cutty Flam and taken her price from him in the form of an object that could have seen him killed if found by less friendly eyes. She'd kept her silence in fear of being dismissed as an over-imaginative child.

Perhaps someday she would give that price back. Or even tell him the truth.

But that was not today.

Not yet.

She turned away from the window, taking only a glance towards the door before pulling open the drawer on her bedside table. Pushing aside the various trinkets that filled it, she found the clasp to the hidden compartment in the bottom and pulled up on it.

In the dusty space she just opened up, the grinning gold skull that had first looked up at her from Franky's chest locked eyes with her again.

Somehow, she knew in that moment that she would not be hiding it away again.

Author's Notes

*Bill Wurtz history of the world voice* Hell yeah, now we got business.

Based on my tumblr post covering the concept of Pirates of the Caribbean AU for the Frobin ship first posited by trafalgarlawsdepression that I immediately was all over like white on rice, this took… jeez, like five months to get this much done (not just this-this, but about 9000 other words not yet posted). Mostly because I was bouncing between other projects but also because the bits of this I was getting done were largely out of order based on my own memories of the Pirates of the Caribbean series (I hadn't watched The Curse Of The Black Pearl since I had a copy on VHS, so I had to track down a new DVD copy) and my muse hitting at different bits.

Also historical research. Because I'm that bitch.

This chapter is a touch shorter than what I've been aiming at in my fanfiction in recent years but that's just how this section decided to end so *shrug emoji*.

Yasopp took the part of Joshamee Gibbs, mostly because he was in the right age range to be an adult when Robin's a child but also like, of the options of 'man who tells sea stories', he fit perfectly. Plus it'll make her meeting Usopp later cute af.

The Sea Bird was a real (well, most likely) ghost ship that was found aground in Rhode Island in 1750 (or 1760). The Octavius is a slightly less substantiated and more fictionalized ghost ship that was supposedly found drifting by a whaling ship in 1775, with all of its crew and passengers found frozen solid and its log reporting that it'd been adrift for about 13 years by that point.

I just used these as examples for the term, rather than a specific tool for placing the story at a certain point in time.

All of the members of the Armada of the Damned are undead pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean - mostly the Online game, though Jolly Roger had to make the jump to being Jolly Jack Rodgers for obvious reasons, but James Sterling and the Nemesis were from the cancelled game The Armada of the Damned (and you can guess where I picked up the concept for the undead pirate alliance from there too).

Yes, there are reasons why that's not the Black Pearl itself making its intro at the end.

Questions and comments, leave in the reviews along with, as you can guess, the regular reviews. I hope you all enjoyed what's here so far - I've got more yet to go.