AUTHOR: shoneaugen
EMAIL: cparkerho@hotmail.com
DISTRIBUTION: Ask first.
FEEDBACK: Pretty please? Pretty as Jack?
SUMMARY: What they say about Captain Jack Sparrow... [futurefic]
NOTES: Arr. Sleep deprivation is a bad, bad thing. This is its result.
'Who's Captain Jack Sparrow?' Haven't you ever heard the tales, boy?
No?
Well. They used to say that he was the best pirate in the Spanish Main, and then in the whole world. Honorable, he was. Even for a pirate. Back when he was just a lad, the East India Trading Company caught him. Branded him. He got away the next day, took the irons and two bars off his jail cell, and all he left 'em was one of the gold teeth plucked right from his mouth.
That's what they say, anyway.
The next the Trading Company heard of him, he'd raided an entire port in the Bahama Isle. Not a single shot fired. Left the Bahamas with their prize ship -- the Pearl -- put 'er up in black sails, and renamed her. The whole Mediterranean knew about Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl after that.
According to what they say, he never burned a ship, nor killed anyone who was smart enough to run away. 'cause he was Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy? Didn't need aught else to get what he wanted. He'd take what he came for and be off with it. You'd never get hit by him twice, either, unless you were in the Royal Navy...
Chased his Pearl for ten years to get her back, ten years, and after that... they say he turned all but respectable. Yearly visits to Port Royal in Jamaica. They say that you can tell the ports he's been to since he gave up raiding -- every one he's gotten into, he leaves a bottle of rum and a sword. No one ever drinks the rum -- some say it's poisoned, some say it'll turn anyone who drinks it into a skeleton or some monster -- and no one's ever tried to forge the same kind of sword. Always the finest blade: a swan drawn into one side, a sparrow on the other. And now they say it's good luck to put it someplace where folk can see it. There're ports with swords and bottles all 'round the world now -- never could stay in one spot long, that Jack Sparrow. They say he had folks who loved him, but he loved nothing but the Black Pearl and the sea.
Quiet, lad, I'm getting to the end. Some years after that, there was a hurricane went right through Jamaica -- and a right blighter it was. Tore apart bits of the cliffs, wrecked the whole naval fort. The governor of Port Royal died, and so did his daughter and his son-in-law... It's a haunted place, they say. And not just by the dead.
See, the Black Pearl was docked in Port Royal on one of them yearly visits when the hurricane came through. They say she was there to warn then about the storm, but... even Jack Sparrow and the Pearl weren't fast enough to outrun a hurricane. When the skies cleared again and they started looking for survivors, the first place Jack Sparrow went was to the harbor.
They say that all he found of the Black Pearl that wasn't underwater was a bit of black sail blown up against the cliffside.
Now, he was always a bit touched in the head, the captain. Can't be as good as he was without being a little off somehow. But when the Pearl sank, they say he didn't seem mad in the slightest. He helped search for folks, set up shelters for the ones who were still alive. They held a burial at sea for Port Royal, and he left the day after that -- just took off in a boat with his compass and a bottle of rum, and no one ever saw him again.
So they say that he went back to the Isla de Muerta -- the island that can't be found except by those who already know where it is. And from there he reopened the store of Aztec treasure that he'd left there, years before. Cursed treasure, that curses those who take it out of its rightful place. He took one of them Aztec medallions, and -- hush, boy, you're ruining my story -- and he dived into the sea.
They say he's wandering the depths with the medallion, not alive but not dead. They say he's searching for his lost Pearl still, looking for her through the deep, and that as long as the Black Pearl remains lost, he is lost without her, and will live with nothing but his other love: the sea.
And that, m'boy, is the fate of Captain Jack Sparrow. Everything I know about him, and everything they've ever said. Maybe not the end, but it's close enough.