Right, here we go...! This is my first PotC fanfic, so please be gentle. ;) I'd love some reviews on it, though.. (And by the way, Jack DOES appear in the first chapter, though it may not look like he's going to!)
***
INTRODUCING THE TINYS
It was a quiet night, at least considering how things usually were like at The Cursed Villain. Working there had turned out to be better than I thought. Of course I had feared working at The Villain, its rumours were without exception about whores and drunken sailors with little or no money. Needless to say was violence also a common word used to describe the pub The Cursed Villain.
But I was no whore. And I'd worked in plenty of worse places than this one. Like the house in Tortuga, which had been a living nightmare. Such a job would I never take again, not even if I was completely desperate.
As it happened, I WAS completely desperate when I took the job on The Villain. It looked like a shabby, scary kind of pub, and I knew for a fact that its second floor was only used by prostitutes and their customers. On a small island such as this, one couldn't find a pub without violence, whores and too much rum. But I had found the best one there was, I guess I could say.
"Hard day, Sally?" Pete said to me.
Pete was one of the regular customers. He used to have Peg, one of the girls there, as his personal company (if there is such a term), but after he'd lost his ship and gotten older he had given up on her, and now he would just show up on The Villain every night to talk about whatever popped into his mind.
"Nah," I answered, giving him another glass. "It's never been this quiet before. I think there's a lot of the navy out at sea nowadays, keeping the scum at bay, if you know what I'm sayin'?"
"Aye, I know," Pete grinned. "Must be hard for ya though, Sal, when there's no men around to please?"
"Keep your hole shut, Pete, like I do with mine," I said.
My only duty at The Villain was to serve the customers with whatever they wanted to eat or drink. I didn't offer any other services, and knowing that, Pete loved messing with me. He used to call me snotty, saying I thought too much of myself for not letting a guy "experience" me, as he had put it.
But Pete was an old man now, one I didn't care about. What he said had little or no effect on me, it was just a conversation to make time pass.
It was getting late, and the few customers we'd had that evening were slowly leaving. As there was no more than three or four left in the pub, Peg came down stairs with a man she quickly pushed out through the door. Finally I was no longer alone on the first floor.
"How was it then?" I said to Peg, smiling.
"As boring as always, love," she replied, giving me a hand with cleaning the tables. The few men left in the pub were too tired to even react on us starting to clean up with them still present. Usually we wouldn't clean up at all during night, there would be too many customers. "I'm getting' really tired of it. Ya should be glad all ya have to serve is drinks."
I smiled. "Well, I guess the owner showed me mercy. Maybe you should ask for some yourself, if it's so horrible?"
"Nah. It's all right, at least there's some money in it for me as well. I bet I make more than ya, Golden Sally."
I laughed. "Yeah, you do. But at what cause."
I noticed Pete had fallen asleep just as the door creaked. Someone was entering our dark, abandoned pub this late at night? I had really thought it to be the end of the evening, but clearly, I was wrong.
"You take care of it, Peg," I whispered to her. "I don't wanna deal with any more drunk, horny sailors tonight."
"Fine, love," Peg said, and went over to the three gentlemen who had by then taken a seat by one of the empty tables. As I finished cleaning, I stopped not too far away, but in the shadows, listening in on the covernsation. The gentlemen were different than the usual we got in there. They were more... dressed up, more decent. Like they were someone important.
"Nothing to drink, thank you," I heard one of them say to Peg with a fine, clean voice. "And definitely none of that!" he beamed as she'd tried to stroke him across the chest. "We're not here to get accompanied by the common whore. We just want some information."
"Fine," Peg said, acting hurt at the rejection, although I knew she was atually quite happy with not having to please another man this late at night. "What is it you be wantin' to know from me?"
"We are looking for a Goldee," the man replied.
My heart made a big jump. Goldee?
"A miss Sally Goldee. We've been told she has taken a refuge on this island. Do you know where we can find her?"
I made sure I stayed hidden in the shadows, so the gentlemen could not see me. But Peg caught my eye, as if to ask me what she should reply. I quickly shook my head fiercly towards her, and she nodded. "No," Peg said to the gentlemen. "I don't know Sally Goldee, and she's never been 'round here no where. I suggest you go look elsewhere. I've been told she's in Tortuga, maybe that's where you should be lookin'."
The man stood up, facing Peg close up. "Listen, you whore," he said. "We've been to Tortuga. We've been to every bloody island in the Caribbean looking for Sally Goldee, and everyone gives us that same reply. We've been told she's hiding on this island." He reached for his sword, making sure Peg could see it. "Are you SURE you haven't seen her?"
"Are you deaf?" Peg replied. "I ain't seen her, she's not on this island! I don't know what ya be wantin' with Sally Goldee, but I can't help ya! Now kindly take your hand off your sword, sir, or leave my pub!"
The man slowly took his hand off the sword. "You just keep an eye out," he finally said, as his fellow friends stood up. "If you see Sally Goldee, you are not to tell anyone that you have seen her. Is that clear? We will be back here in a few days, and if you have seen her, you will tell us and nobody else. Do you understand?"
"Why're ya comin' back?" Peg asked fiercly. "I've already told ya I don't know where this Sally Goldee is."
"We need to confirm what our sources have told us," the man explained. "Too many people have said Sally Goldee is on this island, too many for it to be a coincidence. So we'll be back. And if you find out she's here, you keep your mouth shut until we're back. Okay?"
"Fine," Peg said. "I don't even know what this Goldee looks like, but I'll sure keep my eye out for her!" she finished angrily as they left The Villain.
I came out from the shadows and approached Peg.
"That was one mean lad," she said. "What could he be wantin' with ya, Sally?"
"I don't know," I replied. "But he didn't seem like the sort of man I want lookin' for me. Hopefully he doesn't know what I look like, and so his return here will lead him to nothing. I hope I'll have no trouble with him."
"Aye," Peg said. "I don't know what he could be wantin' with ya, but he didn't seem like any good guy. Lets just hope he doesn't speak to anyone else who knows who ya are."
"Don't worry," I said. "Whoever he was, it was probably nothing. A lot of names get lost for the wrong purpose around here, he was probably given the wrong name by someone. After all, what could he possibly be wantin' with me?"
***
Jack emptied his bottle. To the pirates around him, it would seem as though he had been drinking all evening, and they would be surprised to see him being able to even stand up.
But Jack had started on an already pretty much empty bottle of rum, and his body language had permanently become that of a drunken pirate's. Although Jack enjoyed drinking, it was a great advantage for him that people about him thought him as less of a threat than what he really was, because he seemed permanently wasted.
"Next time, don't bring your own drinks," the maid grinned to Jack. "Can I get you a glass now, Captain?"
"No, no," Jack replied. "I think I've had enough."
"Well, that's a first," she replied, and went off.
Jack leaned his elbows on the table, looking around in the overfilled and loud pub. Pirates from all over the Caribbean would come here, and there was always noise, fight and rum everywhere you looked. Jack enjoyed it. Usually, he would participate in the activities, but on this particular evening he had intentionally taken care not to get too sloshed.
Gibbs, one of his crew, had earlier that day spotted the Tinys on the bay. And seeing as how these lads were always looking for trouble - not to mention Jack - he had decided to be careful with the rum, in case he needed to use his brains on an encounter with them.
The Tinys were the pirates' nickname for a group of rich earls and dukes from Port Royal. Calling themselves "the law", they often travelled about on the seas trying to fulfil the duties that the navy never managed. But they rarely succeeded, because they were short in number and not on the least as good fighters as the pirates they often stood up against.
As it happened, one of the pirates they often stood up against, was Captain Jack Sparrow.
They had been searching for him since the day he escaped on Commodore Norrington, and they still searched. Jack had encountered them on several occasions, but he had always gotten away, some times with more luck than others. But Jack knew he had to take certain precautions when it came to the Tinys, because they were often better armed with guns than he was. A bullet kills fast, he constantly reminded himself in order to stay off the rum, at least until the Tinys had left Tortuga.
As Jack stood up to leave, he was approached by an old and shabby pirate he immediately recognized as Peter Derry, a man originally from the small and obscene island Warren. Pete Derry, who had been a great and dreaded pirate in his prime days, was now a tired and sad old man who just wanted to waste his last years talking.
"Hello there," he said to Jack and took a seat. Jack considered for a moment on whether he should just leave the old man or stay there for a few more minutes, then went for the last option.
"Jack Sparrow, am I right?"
Jack nodded. "Captain," he added, noticing Pete's obvious drunkeness as they shook hands.
"Right, right, Captain," Pete agreed. "What brings ya to Tortuga in these days? It's not wise, ya know."
"Yeah, I know," Jack said.
"After all, the Tinys -"
"Yeah, the Tinys are here. I know," Jack interrupted. "Ya don't have to tell me, mate, I'm trying to keep a low profile."
"Oh, they're after the lot of us," Pete sighed, a powerful smell of alcohol escaping his lips. "But they wouldn't be takin' an old man like meself, lad... Not Pete Derry, oh no."
"Ya should consider yerself lucky, then," Jack replied. "But they're not here to get their hands on every pirate in Tortuga. Not even the Tinys are that stupid, they're here for a special reason."
"What reason?" Pete asked curiously.
Jack shrugged. "Don't know."
"Oh, speak of the devil," Pete mumbled as he stared towards the door. Through the many pirates and ladies in the pub he and Jack could clearly spot what had to be four Tinys entering. Their strict apperance and fine clothing spoke for itself. The pirates about them yelled and laughed at them, mocking them as they passed through the pub. It was a known fact that the Tinys were even less popular than the navy on the seas because they thought they were good enough to deal with pirates and criminals all by themselves, taking the law in their own hands. Cocky dukes and earls, they were. Although they had lost a lot of their battles, they were still doing what they thought of as their duty. And they were more than likely to kill every pirate in the pub, had they not had with a special errand.
The four men approached the lady working in the bar as the noise and normal mess took up again.
Jack stayed hidden in the shadows of the corner where his table was, making sure his drunken company Pete kept his voice down. "If they're here for me, I'll know it," Pete whispered. "They'll laugh if they see me, I'm nuttin' but the shadow of Peter Derry."
"Relax mate, it's not yer day," Jack whispered, closely observing the Tinys. They hadn't seen him, and hopefully, they wouldn't. "They're lookin' for someone special."
"Yeah, I know," Pete said. "And it's not me."
Jack looked at him. "You're drunk, mate, you're not talkin' sense. Be quiet."
"I know I said it could be me they'd be wantin'," Pete continued, "but it's not, and I know it. I know who it is. So now I have to realize, I'm no longer wanted for anythin'..."
"Stop yer whining," Jack mumbled. Then he realized what the old idiot had just said. "Pete," he whispered, staring at the old man, "do ya know who they'd be wantin'?"
"Yes, of course," the drunk replied. "I was there when they first started their search. Well, I don't know if that's when the search started, it's difficult to remember, really... But I was there, mate... I've seen it with me own eyes, they're lookin' fer her."
"Fer who? Who are they looking fer?" Jack asked.
"Sally," Pete sighed. "Poor, little Sally. And she's such a young one, too... Such a shame they'd be wantin' her..."
"Sally? Who's Sally?" Jack waited eagerly, still keeping a close eye on the Tinys making sure they wouldn't spot him. Even if they were looking for this Sally, they could still be wanting to take care of him once and for all if they got the opportunity.
"Golden Sally," Pete answered. "That little one... With the black hair who's on Warren island. She works in The Villain!" he added with enthusiasm. "I grew up there, mate... Not far from The Villain..."
"Golden Sally?" Jack said. "Why does that sound familiar?"
"Oh, it ain't her real name," Pete continued. "Her name's Sally Gold, or somethin' like that. She used to work here, I think, a year ago or so... They'd be wantin' her for something, but I don't know what. I was there, the night they came to The Villain askin' fer her. I pretended to be asleep, ya see, so they wouldn't get to me, but I realize I'm not wanted by no one no more, so I guess there was no point in me fakin' my sleep..." His talk continued and turned into obsessive whining about his glorious days, and Jack decided it was time to leave the drunken Peter Derry.
He got up and sneaked silently through the crowd in the pub, taking every precaution not to be spotted by the Tinys. As he walked through the door he could just make our the last sentence spoken by the barmaid: "No, like I told you gentlemen the last time you were here, miss Sally Goldee quit over a year ago. She went off to another island, I told you already, I think it was Warren island..."
At that, Captain Jack Sparrow left the pub and ran quickly into Tortuga's darkness with only his ship and the name Sally Goldee in mind...
***
Right, there's my first chapter! Please review, I would love some comments!
***
INTRODUCING THE TINYS
It was a quiet night, at least considering how things usually were like at The Cursed Villain. Working there had turned out to be better than I thought. Of course I had feared working at The Villain, its rumours were without exception about whores and drunken sailors with little or no money. Needless to say was violence also a common word used to describe the pub The Cursed Villain.
But I was no whore. And I'd worked in plenty of worse places than this one. Like the house in Tortuga, which had been a living nightmare. Such a job would I never take again, not even if I was completely desperate.
As it happened, I WAS completely desperate when I took the job on The Villain. It looked like a shabby, scary kind of pub, and I knew for a fact that its second floor was only used by prostitutes and their customers. On a small island such as this, one couldn't find a pub without violence, whores and too much rum. But I had found the best one there was, I guess I could say.
"Hard day, Sally?" Pete said to me.
Pete was one of the regular customers. He used to have Peg, one of the girls there, as his personal company (if there is such a term), but after he'd lost his ship and gotten older he had given up on her, and now he would just show up on The Villain every night to talk about whatever popped into his mind.
"Nah," I answered, giving him another glass. "It's never been this quiet before. I think there's a lot of the navy out at sea nowadays, keeping the scum at bay, if you know what I'm sayin'?"
"Aye, I know," Pete grinned. "Must be hard for ya though, Sal, when there's no men around to please?"
"Keep your hole shut, Pete, like I do with mine," I said.
My only duty at The Villain was to serve the customers with whatever they wanted to eat or drink. I didn't offer any other services, and knowing that, Pete loved messing with me. He used to call me snotty, saying I thought too much of myself for not letting a guy "experience" me, as he had put it.
But Pete was an old man now, one I didn't care about. What he said had little or no effect on me, it was just a conversation to make time pass.
It was getting late, and the few customers we'd had that evening were slowly leaving. As there was no more than three or four left in the pub, Peg came down stairs with a man she quickly pushed out through the door. Finally I was no longer alone on the first floor.
"How was it then?" I said to Peg, smiling.
"As boring as always, love," she replied, giving me a hand with cleaning the tables. The few men left in the pub were too tired to even react on us starting to clean up with them still present. Usually we wouldn't clean up at all during night, there would be too many customers. "I'm getting' really tired of it. Ya should be glad all ya have to serve is drinks."
I smiled. "Well, I guess the owner showed me mercy. Maybe you should ask for some yourself, if it's so horrible?"
"Nah. It's all right, at least there's some money in it for me as well. I bet I make more than ya, Golden Sally."
I laughed. "Yeah, you do. But at what cause."
I noticed Pete had fallen asleep just as the door creaked. Someone was entering our dark, abandoned pub this late at night? I had really thought it to be the end of the evening, but clearly, I was wrong.
"You take care of it, Peg," I whispered to her. "I don't wanna deal with any more drunk, horny sailors tonight."
"Fine, love," Peg said, and went over to the three gentlemen who had by then taken a seat by one of the empty tables. As I finished cleaning, I stopped not too far away, but in the shadows, listening in on the covernsation. The gentlemen were different than the usual we got in there. They were more... dressed up, more decent. Like they were someone important.
"Nothing to drink, thank you," I heard one of them say to Peg with a fine, clean voice. "And definitely none of that!" he beamed as she'd tried to stroke him across the chest. "We're not here to get accompanied by the common whore. We just want some information."
"Fine," Peg said, acting hurt at the rejection, although I knew she was atually quite happy with not having to please another man this late at night. "What is it you be wantin' to know from me?"
"We are looking for a Goldee," the man replied.
My heart made a big jump. Goldee?
"A miss Sally Goldee. We've been told she has taken a refuge on this island. Do you know where we can find her?"
I made sure I stayed hidden in the shadows, so the gentlemen could not see me. But Peg caught my eye, as if to ask me what she should reply. I quickly shook my head fiercly towards her, and she nodded. "No," Peg said to the gentlemen. "I don't know Sally Goldee, and she's never been 'round here no where. I suggest you go look elsewhere. I've been told she's in Tortuga, maybe that's where you should be lookin'."
The man stood up, facing Peg close up. "Listen, you whore," he said. "We've been to Tortuga. We've been to every bloody island in the Caribbean looking for Sally Goldee, and everyone gives us that same reply. We've been told she's hiding on this island." He reached for his sword, making sure Peg could see it. "Are you SURE you haven't seen her?"
"Are you deaf?" Peg replied. "I ain't seen her, she's not on this island! I don't know what ya be wantin' with Sally Goldee, but I can't help ya! Now kindly take your hand off your sword, sir, or leave my pub!"
The man slowly took his hand off the sword. "You just keep an eye out," he finally said, as his fellow friends stood up. "If you see Sally Goldee, you are not to tell anyone that you have seen her. Is that clear? We will be back here in a few days, and if you have seen her, you will tell us and nobody else. Do you understand?"
"Why're ya comin' back?" Peg asked fiercly. "I've already told ya I don't know where this Sally Goldee is."
"We need to confirm what our sources have told us," the man explained. "Too many people have said Sally Goldee is on this island, too many for it to be a coincidence. So we'll be back. And if you find out she's here, you keep your mouth shut until we're back. Okay?"
"Fine," Peg said. "I don't even know what this Goldee looks like, but I'll sure keep my eye out for her!" she finished angrily as they left The Villain.
I came out from the shadows and approached Peg.
"That was one mean lad," she said. "What could he be wantin' with ya, Sally?"
"I don't know," I replied. "But he didn't seem like the sort of man I want lookin' for me. Hopefully he doesn't know what I look like, and so his return here will lead him to nothing. I hope I'll have no trouble with him."
"Aye," Peg said. "I don't know what he could be wantin' with ya, but he didn't seem like any good guy. Lets just hope he doesn't speak to anyone else who knows who ya are."
"Don't worry," I said. "Whoever he was, it was probably nothing. A lot of names get lost for the wrong purpose around here, he was probably given the wrong name by someone. After all, what could he possibly be wantin' with me?"
***
Jack emptied his bottle. To the pirates around him, it would seem as though he had been drinking all evening, and they would be surprised to see him being able to even stand up.
But Jack had started on an already pretty much empty bottle of rum, and his body language had permanently become that of a drunken pirate's. Although Jack enjoyed drinking, it was a great advantage for him that people about him thought him as less of a threat than what he really was, because he seemed permanently wasted.
"Next time, don't bring your own drinks," the maid grinned to Jack. "Can I get you a glass now, Captain?"
"No, no," Jack replied. "I think I've had enough."
"Well, that's a first," she replied, and went off.
Jack leaned his elbows on the table, looking around in the overfilled and loud pub. Pirates from all over the Caribbean would come here, and there was always noise, fight and rum everywhere you looked. Jack enjoyed it. Usually, he would participate in the activities, but on this particular evening he had intentionally taken care not to get too sloshed.
Gibbs, one of his crew, had earlier that day spotted the Tinys on the bay. And seeing as how these lads were always looking for trouble - not to mention Jack - he had decided to be careful with the rum, in case he needed to use his brains on an encounter with them.
The Tinys were the pirates' nickname for a group of rich earls and dukes from Port Royal. Calling themselves "the law", they often travelled about on the seas trying to fulfil the duties that the navy never managed. But they rarely succeeded, because they were short in number and not on the least as good fighters as the pirates they often stood up against.
As it happened, one of the pirates they often stood up against, was Captain Jack Sparrow.
They had been searching for him since the day he escaped on Commodore Norrington, and they still searched. Jack had encountered them on several occasions, but he had always gotten away, some times with more luck than others. But Jack knew he had to take certain precautions when it came to the Tinys, because they were often better armed with guns than he was. A bullet kills fast, he constantly reminded himself in order to stay off the rum, at least until the Tinys had left Tortuga.
As Jack stood up to leave, he was approached by an old and shabby pirate he immediately recognized as Peter Derry, a man originally from the small and obscene island Warren. Pete Derry, who had been a great and dreaded pirate in his prime days, was now a tired and sad old man who just wanted to waste his last years talking.
"Hello there," he said to Jack and took a seat. Jack considered for a moment on whether he should just leave the old man or stay there for a few more minutes, then went for the last option.
"Jack Sparrow, am I right?"
Jack nodded. "Captain," he added, noticing Pete's obvious drunkeness as they shook hands.
"Right, right, Captain," Pete agreed. "What brings ya to Tortuga in these days? It's not wise, ya know."
"Yeah, I know," Jack said.
"After all, the Tinys -"
"Yeah, the Tinys are here. I know," Jack interrupted. "Ya don't have to tell me, mate, I'm trying to keep a low profile."
"Oh, they're after the lot of us," Pete sighed, a powerful smell of alcohol escaping his lips. "But they wouldn't be takin' an old man like meself, lad... Not Pete Derry, oh no."
"Ya should consider yerself lucky, then," Jack replied. "But they're not here to get their hands on every pirate in Tortuga. Not even the Tinys are that stupid, they're here for a special reason."
"What reason?" Pete asked curiously.
Jack shrugged. "Don't know."
"Oh, speak of the devil," Pete mumbled as he stared towards the door. Through the many pirates and ladies in the pub he and Jack could clearly spot what had to be four Tinys entering. Their strict apperance and fine clothing spoke for itself. The pirates about them yelled and laughed at them, mocking them as they passed through the pub. It was a known fact that the Tinys were even less popular than the navy on the seas because they thought they were good enough to deal with pirates and criminals all by themselves, taking the law in their own hands. Cocky dukes and earls, they were. Although they had lost a lot of their battles, they were still doing what they thought of as their duty. And they were more than likely to kill every pirate in the pub, had they not had with a special errand.
The four men approached the lady working in the bar as the noise and normal mess took up again.
Jack stayed hidden in the shadows of the corner where his table was, making sure his drunken company Pete kept his voice down. "If they're here for me, I'll know it," Pete whispered. "They'll laugh if they see me, I'm nuttin' but the shadow of Peter Derry."
"Relax mate, it's not yer day," Jack whispered, closely observing the Tinys. They hadn't seen him, and hopefully, they wouldn't. "They're lookin' for someone special."
"Yeah, I know," Pete said. "And it's not me."
Jack looked at him. "You're drunk, mate, you're not talkin' sense. Be quiet."
"I know I said it could be me they'd be wantin'," Pete continued, "but it's not, and I know it. I know who it is. So now I have to realize, I'm no longer wanted for anythin'..."
"Stop yer whining," Jack mumbled. Then he realized what the old idiot had just said. "Pete," he whispered, staring at the old man, "do ya know who they'd be wantin'?"
"Yes, of course," the drunk replied. "I was there when they first started their search. Well, I don't know if that's when the search started, it's difficult to remember, really... But I was there, mate... I've seen it with me own eyes, they're lookin' fer her."
"Fer who? Who are they looking fer?" Jack asked.
"Sally," Pete sighed. "Poor, little Sally. And she's such a young one, too... Such a shame they'd be wantin' her..."
"Sally? Who's Sally?" Jack waited eagerly, still keeping a close eye on the Tinys making sure they wouldn't spot him. Even if they were looking for this Sally, they could still be wanting to take care of him once and for all if they got the opportunity.
"Golden Sally," Pete answered. "That little one... With the black hair who's on Warren island. She works in The Villain!" he added with enthusiasm. "I grew up there, mate... Not far from The Villain..."
"Golden Sally?" Jack said. "Why does that sound familiar?"
"Oh, it ain't her real name," Pete continued. "Her name's Sally Gold, or somethin' like that. She used to work here, I think, a year ago or so... They'd be wantin' her for something, but I don't know what. I was there, the night they came to The Villain askin' fer her. I pretended to be asleep, ya see, so they wouldn't get to me, but I realize I'm not wanted by no one no more, so I guess there was no point in me fakin' my sleep..." His talk continued and turned into obsessive whining about his glorious days, and Jack decided it was time to leave the drunken Peter Derry.
He got up and sneaked silently through the crowd in the pub, taking every precaution not to be spotted by the Tinys. As he walked through the door he could just make our the last sentence spoken by the barmaid: "No, like I told you gentlemen the last time you were here, miss Sally Goldee quit over a year ago. She went off to another island, I told you already, I think it was Warren island..."
At that, Captain Jack Sparrow left the pub and ran quickly into Tortuga's darkness with only his ship and the name Sally Goldee in mind...
***
Right, there's my first chapter! Please review, I would love some comments!