Returnable
A
Pirates of the Caribbean
Tale
Disclaimer: I don't own POTC or any of the characters from the movie. However, any helpless town folk scurrying around, a ship or two and anything that isn't in the movie: it's mine. Back off. Liska is my own creation so please respect that.
Summary: Barbossa was shot and killed by Jack Sparrow. He should, by all means, be gone and done with, yet because of the curse, a mix-up occurred in Heaven, Hell, and Fiddler's Green. He's now a 'returnable', trying to find the answer to a question. Yet first, he has to discover what the question is in order to have it answered.
Other: Hey, Softbrush here! The proceeding chapter takes place before the movie, once again. Liska is there, and a famous ship and captain sinks. Ten cookies if you can guess what famous Pirate Captain ran his ship aground, drowned almost every man of his crew including himself. Hint-his career lasted nine months.
Err, sexual intercourse alert. Don't worry, all you young'uns, though. I didn't give you a visual image let alone details. Oh, and Jack's at the end of the chapter, for all you fan girls. I also figured out how to format the bloody thing! Wahoo!
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Propose And Plot
I hadn't realized that the port, in which Liska lived in, Port Vulpes, was so close to Tortuga. It wasn't more then a two days sail, which provided me with much worry. It was close and often pillaged and re-stocked, pillaged and so forth, as the British Royal Navy found no reason to guard it well enough. She was in constant danger. I of course, being a pirate, was in danger as well, but it was different. However, I found good reason for the closeness of Port Vulpes. Many ships went there and came back, and that meant I could temporarily join their crew or stow-away.
At first I only stowed away, hiding and running about the ship, sometimes being glanced and spoken about by the more superstitious pirates as a ghost or spirit. Yet as my luck applauded me, my captain, Samuel Carp, did indeed get shot and die: Over a drink, in a bar, at that. I was a free pirate for a while, working on a few ships that would go back and forth, staying sometimes at Vulpes, other times leaving with the ships.
Just to see her. I was happy to just see her, and she didn't mind. In fact, she enjoyed my company as I did hers. We would talk long into the night and early into the mornings, and sometimes I would stay for another day or until my ship left (not all were pirate ships, you see. Some were neutral merchant ships granted protection by most Tortuga pirates as they delivered supplies to the island).
The gnawing feeling in my chest never left me when I was around her, and I constantly though of the possibility of having emotional attachments to her. I never brought the subject up though, thinking perhaps she would feel uncomfortable around me then. Yet we both came clean, the same night. She said she enjoyed my company and I blurted out I loved her, and the she admitted she loved me to. It was a very…odd set of moments.
We weren't always as fortunate as our first meeting. We had many brushes and close calls when it came to secrecy. Many a times we were nearly caught, suspected and she was interrogated, and other times I had to eliminate a few servants or sailors that discovered us. Liska became worried that I wouldn't return some day as these brushes became more frequent, the servants of the house and her parents becoming more suspicious every time she 'went to bed early' and emerged to breakfast the next morning with tired yet happy eyes. She was constantly questioned and once her room was searched with me hiding under her bed.
I didn't want her to worry-I felt it my job to worry about her safety. I recall one day six months since we first met she broke down and sobbed her words into my chest that she was scared I wouldn't come back next time a ship came into port and I was supposed to be on it.
I thought for a few days while at sea while on a pirate ship called The Diver what could I do to make her sure I wouldn't leave her. I was a pirate, what could I possibly do to console somebody let alone a lover? She had even used that point against me.
"You're a pirate, how can I be sure you're telling me the truth? For all I know the next time you have to slaughter somebody it'll be the final straw for you!"
I didn't mind killing for her, not at all. I didn't mind anyways, so it was a shy yet important matter to me, the death of a stranger. As I pondered over this conflict, the captain ran the ship aground.
Water flooded the damn boat quickly as the gaping hole on the bottom of her belly grew with each eroding moment. Planks moaned and I recall the sound of a mast cracking in half and falling on deck, crushing a few men. I was trapped a deck above the hole, and a deck below the air. There were sixteen others and all of them saw doom.
I didn't. I couldn't bring myself to see my death. Water began surging up through the wood that couldn't absorb anymore and the ship tilted to the left dramatically, causing a whole bunch of us to loose our balance and tumble with the tilt. The more who fell, the more the boat would tip. I was still clinging to the wall with my heels pushing against gravity on the floor when the ship fell on its side. My hat slipped off and I would have chuckled had I not been in mortal peril.
A huge hole became apparent and a large chunk of the ceiling above us collapsed, crushing a few men and trapping the others in the water, making sure they drowned. The only other man still clinging to the wall let his grip fail and I winced as he was impaled upon an over-turned table leg, the table floating slightly on the water. He cried out the name of his bonnie lass and let his arm flail, knocking over a basket of granny smith apples. It struck me then, as I gazed at the fruit.
"I'll propose," I shouted above the roar of the incoming water. I managed to find a way to climb out through the hole that the collapsing ceiling had made, and swam the short distance to the nearest island. Me and the other nine survivors were picked up by a passing pirate ship called Frolic and returned to Tortuga. My hat had floated to shore not an hour after the sinking. I did laugh, then.
Regardless how shaken up I was, I caught the next ship going to Port Vulpes and honestly purchased a golden band with a diamond set into it. That night Liska and I agreed to be married, and she gave me her dead grandmother's wedding ring. It was a simple golden band and nothing more yet it was perfect to me.
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"Oh, it's gorgeous," Liska exclaimed to me as she pushed the ring I had offered her up on her left ring finger. The diamond embedded into the golden band shone brightly in the candlelight and her hazel eyes gleamed with tears and happiness. She quickly threw her arms about me and rested her face in my neck. "Yes, of course I will!" she commented quietly, and I felt two drops of salt-water land on my skin.
I had told her about The Diver and my adventure there, ending the story with a "So, miss Catharsis, y'eh goin' t'er marry me or not?" And now, after seeing her fearful expression throughout my tale, she had her arms around me and was accepting.
"Good," I murmured playfully into her ear. She tore her face away from my chest and looked up at me, a grin planted on her lips. Her eyes trailed to the cut on my right cheek, just below my eye.
"Was it the sinking?" she inquired gently, meaning the sinking of The Diver. I nodded my head and proceeded to explain.
"When the ceiling crashed, I got a face full of splinters and a chunk of wood managed to cut me," I told her. It was the truth; the wood had cut me after collapsing. The cut stung to the touch yet had scabbed somewhat and stopped bleeding. It was red, it's edges dried and caked with blood and I figured it would leave a scar.
She peered at my cut for a moment before disappearing out of her bedroom and through a hall, down the stairs and out of my sight. She came back not five minutes later with a damp cloth that smelled strongly of whiskey.
"It needs to be cleaned properly," she said and instructed me to sit on her bed. I did so, and she attacked me right away with the cloth. The alcohol stung incredibly and with a wrath. I heard a soft hissing sound, or perhaps a sizzling, and bit my tongue to keep myself from making any noise. She took the cloth away and proceeding to dab at any other small nicks I had on my face, which was only two small ones caused when I escaped the sinking ship.
She suddenly slipped a golden band over my left ring finger and kissed my unscathed cheek, abandoning the dirtied cloth on the floor and wrapping her arms around me; I followed her motion.
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I'd prefer not to explain what happened that night, if you don't mind. However, I will say it rather sealed the proposal. Most definitely.
My next trip back to Tortuga proved a most interesting one. We ran into a navy ship and opened fire, sank them, and continued on our merry way. Once we arrived at the island, my luck held out-nobody noticed my ring. I hadn't taken it off, and those that did see it must have thought it was a simple decoration.
And then he showed up. 'Captain' Jack Sparrow waltzed right into the tavern I was sitting in, minding my own business as I stole an unguarded purse, and started sashaying right towards my table. He took a seat opposite of me (myself being the only one at the table) and leaned forward.
"You gatta crew, mate?" he said, and I blinked mentally. Very outright he was.
"Not at the moment."
"What says you that I give you position aboard me ship?"
"To sail…?"
"Isle de Muerta…" Sparrow said dryly, and my attention was caught. As I knew, Muerta meant 'death' in Spanish. I pondered why he would be going there, absently running a finger down my wedding band.
"Pray tell, why?" I questioned.
Jack continued to explain to me the gold medallions, the stone chest, the story behind the curse and Cortez…And I was interested. He was bold and reckless to sail through those waters. I had heard stories of ships that sunk in there, and even had seen ships go out and not return. He then told me about The Black Pearl, and how she was the fastest ship in the Caribbean. He wanted a crew. I knew the sea.
"We have an accord," I said, and we shook wrists. Just then I noticed two pirates I hadn't seen for ages. I had even gone so far as to believe they were dead.
"Eh, lookit this! It's Barbossa! Hey!" Pintel scrambled forward and plopped into a seat betwixt Jack and myself.
"So it is…" Ragetti who still hadn't gotten a glass eye (yet he had filled his empty socket with a replacement) strode over, nodded in greeting and merely stood behind the vacant chair.
"You know these…fine, ah, gentlemen?" he gave me a look and I sneered.
"I do. Two fine pirates they be."
Introductions were made; the two were recruited along with me to Jack's crew and a deal was closed. I was the first mate. We later, after gathering some more crew folk (mind you not all our crew was from Tortuga), took a gander at The Black Pearl. She was a beauty, I knew, and couldn't help but ponder what Liska would think if I sailed into port with a hold bursting with gold and treasure such a fine ship…
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Cmdr. Gabe E- Thanks for your review! I sincerely appreciate your thoughts. I did a bit of research on the POTC homepage and discovered a lot of back-story and past belonging to Barbossa, and tried to enter it a bit into the story, hoping it would all make sense.
Keep reading and reviewing! : D