Chapter Two: 'Who I Am' and Mutinous Mates
"Oof." Jesse said, pushing the heap of man that was Captain Jack Sparrow off of her. The burly man that had shoved the two in the cell was now smiling disgustingly at the two.
"You two bunny rabbits behave yourselves." He said. Jesse growled, grabbing what she presumed to be a drumstick and throwing it at the guard. It would have struck the guard, too, had it not been for the bars separating the cell and his head.
Instead, it clanged very loudly and echoed through the prison, causing the guard to stumble backwards. But he soon regained his composure and pulled his face dangerously close to the bars, warning, "That'll be enough of that." Jesse snorted as the guard turned around and marched up the stone steps to the prisons' exit.
"'Ello." 'Captain Jack Sparrow said plainly, probably not back to full thinking capacity.
"Oh, now I'm worthy to speak to? Why, because you're going to die in the morning?" Jesse snapped, plopping down on a stone bench built into the wall.
The Captain frowned. He had forgotten his lack of speech at the smithy's shop-, oh no, he remembered now. "I was in a bit of a rush…" he tried to think of a good excuse for not having talked to her.
"Didn't seem that way when you were chattin' away with the blacksmith." She said sing-songily.
"Yes, well…" he began.
"Yes, well forget it. It's done with now." She cut him off.
"Does that mean I'm forgiven?"
"Seeing as you'll be hung in the morning and the only thing I've got going for me right now is my gender, I'd say yes." She sighed, looking up at her current cellmate.
He smiled, revealing a few golden teeth. She managed an almost-sincere smile back and looked down at her empty belt, devoid of now a gun, a sword, a few extra shots, two daggers and the small pouch of money Captain Alden had given her.
"Well … who would you be?" he asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
She looked up at him. "Jess." She answered slowly.
"And that would be short for…" he encouraged her on.
She swallowed, not sure if she should tell him, on the off chance of him selling her name out to the Navy. She went against better judgement and told him anyway. "Jesse Jaine."
Captain Sparrows' eyes widened a bit and he nodded in disbelief. "Uh-huh." He said.
She smiled faintly; this was why it worked out all so well for her- no one would believe who she was, even if she did tell them. And there wasn't really a way to tell for sure; she had no tell-tale signs or markings, no physical scars left as cruel reminders of some horrible accident, no tattoos to label or identify her. And that was just the way Jesse liked it.
"I wouldn't lie about it. It doesn't matter much if I am or not, I'll probably be hung tomorrow anyway." She said, her tone seemingly very convincing, seeing as the Captain now appeared to believe her.
"Well, love, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. It's nice te meet ye." He said, buffing his nails on his shirt, and then extended a polite hand for her to shake.
Jesse looked at his hand, covered in oil and dirt, and back at him. It had been so long since she had shaken anybody's hand. It had been so long since she had touched a man that wasn't dying sooner than later. She shook his hand anyway, noting its warmth- something rarely felt in a dying man- , the murderer in her surfacing as it did on strange occasions.
"I'd suppose I'm inclined to know your name, judging by which the tone you said it in." Jesse said, leaning back against the wall.
Captain Jack Sparrow thought for a moment about what she had just said and then answered, "Since we've never been introduced before, I guess you shouldn't. But is it really wrong to expect you to know the name 'Captain Jack Sparrow'?" he said.
'Careful, you'll contaminate the air around you if your ego gives off any more gas.' Jesse thought, but said nothing to that effect.
"I don't read the penny-cent books for kids, forgive me. I haven't managed a newspaper in the past…ever. And I don't socialize much. You'll have to be satisfied with a 'yes, it is 'so wrong' for you to expect me to know any name'."
"Ah. Well, then… I suppose ye wouldn't have heard of me." He said, sitting down and leaning against a wall facing Jesse.
The cell was considerably larger than that of a ship's brig, but not quite as large as either would like. The ground was littered with hay and the only moveable object in the stony room was a plate of melted candles, currently unlit. Both Jesse and her fellow cellmate had decided to ignore the six or so men in the cell next to theirs'.
An uncomfortable silence ensued for a few more minutes before Jesse decided to speak up.
"How many times have you been caught before, Captain Sparrow?"
"Ye can call me Jack, love. And I don' exactly remember all the times I've been caught." He said, looking as though he was trying to remember how many times he had been caught.
"More than once, I'd take it, Jack?" she said curiously.
"Plenty more. At least ten or so. And that's just by the Royal Navy and the Trading companies."
"And the other captors would be…" she asked, furrowing her brow.
"Spanish, natives, a few holy men… people like that." He said, ticking off the groups on his fingers, and then waving his hand when he got to the 'holy men'.
"Oh." She said quietly.
Her eyes fell onto her own hands, and the one ring decorating her right hand. The light from outside that filtered through the barred window fell just on her knees and managed to just catch the silver trinket.
It was hardly a fourth of an inch wide and decorated with a tendril-ridden vine wrapping around the blackened center and framed with a nautical rope-like band on either side of the vine. The rope-like cords were framed by a silver band on each side that shined the brightest where the sun hit it.
She remained entranced with the shining silver; oblivious to the fact that Jack was staring intently at her, taking in details most others wouldn't have cared to notice.
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Her sun-kissed face, tinged a rosy pink, and was framed by the dry scraggly curls that were her hair, an ashen auburn that seemed to be faded by the sun. Her eyes were a sea of green, and one that swam with many colors at that. Her lips were small and well-formed, tinged a deeper pink by the sun as well.
Her cheekbones were slightly higher than most and her soft jaw helped measure her into a perfectly rounded face. Her face drew attention away from her neck, long and slender, but not enough to hide her delicate waist and sturdy hips. Her over-all frame was medium and her height was just average, maybe three inches or less short than Jack himself.
Her arms were slender, like her neck, but muscled from her work; her hands where charred and stained -and her fingers lent to well-bitten nails.
She was sprinkled with freckles, touched with dignity, blessed with grace, honored with valor, and beautiful in her own way.
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'Well, no wonder no one ever knows it's her. She doesn't look like the killin' type. She looks younger than they make her seem. She can't be over 25. Much too… innocent looking as well. This can't be the girl who killed 40 men. But she looks exactly how they describe her… same hair… same eyes… same face… same everything. But it all seems so… plain.'
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Jesse became bored with her ring and looked up, to find Jack looking at her with his head cocked to the side a bit.
"I can't be that interesting. Trust me, I should know." She said condescendingly.
"How do you do it?" Jack blurted, snapping out of his trance.
Jesse shook her head. "It's easier than most people think. No worse than any other murderer just because I'm a woman. It's not like I do it all on my own. People come to me, tell me who they want done in and why, pay me, and I go from there. It's not much to think about."
"How do people know it's you and you not get caught?" Jack asked, still not sure of everything she had told him.
"I have… friends. They let me know if someone's looking for me." She shrugged. She had never talked much about her 'job', it was always… uncomfortable.
"Oh." Jack said, and pulled his hat down over his eyes, "Alright, then."
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Jesse had just managed to catch a good glimpse of his eyes before the hat hid them. They were a lovely chocolate brown, delicately flecked and rimmed with a golden honey color.
His face was tan and defined and he seemed pretty strong, from what she guessed.
His hair was dark and seemed as though he had never decided how to style it. Some of it was braided, some of it was dreadlocked, and some of it was loose and decorated with beads or stones.
Jesse assumed he was probably between 25 and 35, no telling how much the sea could age a man. His chest rose and fell lightly, alerting her to the fact that he was still awake. She sighed deeply and adjusted herself on the bench so that she could lie down.
'It's going to be a long afternoon.'
Jesse was given a bit of a start when a door slammed somewhere in her dreamless slumber. She hadn't even known she was asleep. She sat up and stretched, her muscles aching from the cold hard surface that had been her bed.
Looking out through the cell door, she noticed a young man in a blue uniform with a long stick to which one end was lit. He walked down the prison's empty corridor, lighting the candles that hung from the ceiling.
Jesse picked up the plate of candles on the bench near her and set them next to the door. She trudged back to the area she was sitting in and plopped back down, her eyes wandering from the candles to the young man. He didn't glance at her once, or anyone else for that matter, as he lit the candles she had set down and the ones hanging overhead.
He left as quickly as he had come, leaving the darkening prison with an eerie glow from the newly lit wax creations. When the door closed at the prisons' exit, Jesse got back up and picked up the candles, then resolutely set them back on their original place upon the bench.
Jack smiled slyly underneath the short brim of his hat, seeing her wearily trudge back and forth. A few more moments passed as Jesse watched the candles. Those minutes seemed the longest, quite like someone was holding their breath, waiting.
Hushed whispers and the rustling of movement began to arise in the cell next to Jack and Jesse's. After a few moments, voices broke the silence.
"Come 'ere doggy…"
Jesse rolled her eyes as she looked through the bars; they were calling a dog with a set of keys in its mouth. 'I wouldn't come to them if I was a dog, that's for sure.'
Whistling began and the calls became more persistent.
"Can you smell it? It's marrowbone…"
"Come here…"
"Come here, boy."
"Want a nice juicy bone?"
Jesse had observed one of them was holding a bone and another was clutching a rope formed to make a noose, probably to lasso the dog if it comes close enough. Something told her this wasn't the first time they had done this.
"Come 'ere, boy!"
"Come on…" they continued to call.
"You can keep doing that forever; the dog is never going to move." Came the annoyed Jack Sparrow's voice.
Jesse looked over at him. 'Exactly what I was thinking…'
A few of the men trying to coax the dog looked over at their cell.
"Oh, excuse us if we haven't resigned ourselves to the gallows jus' yet." He said just as irritably as arrogant as Jack had.
Jack smirked and turned his head back facing his knee. Jesse wasn't sure why he had smirked. Perhaps it sounded like something he would've said the first time he had been caught? Or maybe he knew they were wasting their time calling the damn dog? She shook her head and resolved to forget about it.
A few more moments passed and the men stopped calling the dog. Jesse wasn't sure whether it was because they had given up or the chill in the air that had just set in; she didn't really care seeing as they had begun to give her a headache. It seemed even quieter, without the 'cat-calls' to the dog and any movement anywhere in the prison.
All of the sudden, a loud 'thud' broke in the distance. Jesse would've sworn for a moment she was back in Tortuga. She knew the sound all too well-
"Cannon fire!" a voice broke the night silence somewhere outside the barred window, just as a cannon struck a building nearby.
"Return fire!" came a voice, probably the same one who alerted the people of the situation moments before.
"I know those guns." Jack had remained indifferent for a moment before he stood up and climbed onto the bench to look out the prison window.
"Men to arms!" shouted the same man outside; he was most likely on the battlements.
A couple more cannons were fired before Jack spoke again. "It's the Pearl." He grinned widely, the candle light glinting of his golden teeth.
Jesse stood up and pulled herself up next to Jack and looked down into the bay to see a ship centered perfectly, cannons firing off from each side. Its dark sails were tattered and fluttered in the breeze as the ship sat motionless on the blanket of water beneath it. The whole scene was like something out of a…pirate story.
"The Black Pearl?" a man in the cell next to them asked. Jesse looked over, though Jack did not, at the men creeping to the adjoined cell wall as one spoke, his chin resting on the bars.
"I've heard stories." He said, looking back at one of his cellmates.
"She's been preying on ships and settlements for near ten years." He directed at Jesse, who was looking at him curiously.
"Never leaves any survivors." He added, checking behind him to make sure his buddies were still listening to him.
Before Jesse could ask or say anything Jack tore his eyes away from the bay and looked at the cell next to them. "No survivors? Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?" he smiled.
'Ooh…sexy grin.'
Jesse almost fell off the bench she was currently using as a stool, completely missing the confused looks of the other prisoners, but luckily kept her grip on the bars. Where the hell had that come from? She concluded NOT to think about it and wrote it off to the hormones she never had.
The navy began yelling random commands that Jesse didn't understand, but tried to make sense of anyway. Something about 'aiming for the flashes' and 'full strike, fore and aft' was mentioned and she guessed they meant aim for the ships' cannons and maybe hit them before and after they struck them.
More minutes passed and Jesse looked out at Port Royals' more public side and saw cannons being fired over there as well. A few smaller bursts of light could be seen, but that was all. She couldn't help but hope that the Rosa de Espina had sailed off earlier today, though she could tell there were still a number of ships sitting in the harbor.
The cries in the public Port Royal became louder and Jesse could only come to one conclusion: the pirates had reached land. Her suspicions were practically confirmed as she made out torches climbing a gated hill up to a huge house. Jesse knew only two people could live there; a governor, or the founder of the city. And considering that the founder of Port Royal was most likely dead, it was almost definitely a governor.
The lights reached the house and much to Jesse's surprise, the door opened and a flash of light from a gun flickered, then the lights disappeared into the house. Jesse tried to catch any other movement, but the only other thing she could make out was a cannon ripping through the house, due to the lack of proper lighting and distance between the two points.
All of the sudden Jack's arms grabbed Jesses' waist and pulled her back away from the window and onto the ground just as a cannon ball hit the prison with an echoing blast. Both looked up hesitantly, fearing a second cannon they knew wouldn't come. Jacks look turned to one of disbelief as Jesses' mouth fell open.
The cannon had hit right in the cell next to theirs, blasting a whole just too small for them to fit through.
"My sympathies, friends- You've no matter of luck at all." The story-telling fiend said, then crawled out through the opening and into freedom.
Jack got up as the last prisoner passed through the breach. He walked over to the gap and rested his head right between the bars and the wall. Jesse frowned. 'He has bad luck like it's a disease.'
Turning quickly his eyes searched the ground on the cell next to theirs, mumbling something that sounded like 'That was meant for me…my ruddy escape.' He stopped looking and bent down, picking up the bone that sat on the stone floor.
He turned to the cell door and stuck his hand out, whistling. "Come on, doggy." Jesse shook her head and stood up, dusting off her pants and left arm. She sat down on the bench corner and dwelled on whether she should say 'you can keep doing that forever; the dog is never going to move.', but didn't.
"It's just you and me, now. It's just you and old Jack." He cooed. Jesse smiled despite herself, had he really forgotten she was right behind him?
"Come on, come on. That's a boy." Jesse frowned, was it working? Sure sounded like it…
"Good boy. Come get the bone. That's a good boy. Come on. A bit closer, a bit closer." Jesse leaned forward. Was it actually coming? It couldn't be…
"That's it. That's it, doggy." She could actually see the dog, its eyes glued to the bone, its steps high and light, the keys jingling in its mouth.
"Come on you filthy, slimy, mangy cur." Jack's voice became hushed and deeper as the dog got closer.
A loud creak echoed somewhere, probably a guard coming to check on the prisoners. Whatever it was, it scared the dog, which ran off leaving Jesse cursing and Jack shouting apologies after it.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't mean it! I didn't mean it! I didn't, oh…"
Another creak, louder this time, sounded and shouts were heard near the raised entrance. A heavy series of bumps and clatters followed, revealing themselves to have been the noise of a navy officer falling down the steps. Two men appeared after him, looking a lot like the guilty party of the man's death.
"This ain't the armory!" one shouted, as he looked around. The other ones' eyes had fallen on Jesse and Jack's cell.
"Well, well, well. Look what we have here, Twigg." Jack stood up, placing his arms through the bars to casually support himself.
"Captain Jack Sparrow." He said, pronouncing each word with air of mockery. The man stopped to spit at Jack's feet. Jesse couldn't see Jack's face as he adjusted to look down, but she could guess he probably wasn't too happy about it.
"Last time I saw you, you were on a godforsaken island, shrinking into the distance." 'Twigg' said, the other man grunting laughingly at the proper places.
"His fortunes aren't improved much." He said to the grunter of a pirate. Twigg then spotted Jesse…
"Or maybe they have…Hello there, love." He said sweetly to Jesse. Inside she was smiling, but on the outside she sneered.
'Wonder if it'd make a difference to him who I am.'
"Worry about your own fortunes, gentlemen. The deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers." Jack said, not glancing back at Jesse once.
"While you're at it, would you mind telling them to go-" Jesse started, but left the sentence hanging as the others ignored her.
"So there is a curse. That's interesting." Jack said, glancing down at the hand on his neck.
"You know nothing of hell." Spat the nameless pirate, keeping his hold on Jacks' neck. A most amazing thing happened right where the moonlight fell onto the man's arm- it turned to bone.
"Never mind." Jesse squeaked.
The boney pirate finally tuned loose of Jack's neck and him and his friend turned, leaving Jack and Jesse alone in their cell.
"That's very interesting." Jack said, turning the bone that remained clutched in his hand.
Jesse longed to say, "Ew, put that down. What if it's part of one of them?", but she didn't and remained tense against her corner for the next few minutes.
When Jack turned around, finally, Jesses' eyebrows were still raised in confusion.
"If you're not careful, those'll fall off." Jack said to her, smiling.
"How can you…smile after that… that thing grabbed you?" she stumbled, lowering her eyebrows.
Jack shrugged and Jesse shook her head. He sat down on the bench by the window, bringing his knee up this chest, and leaning back into the shadows. "G'night."
"Good night." She said, sighing and falling back against the wall. A few moments passed as she tried to get comfortable. For some reason, it had become uncomfortably hot and Jesse was beginning to sweat. She growled unnoticeably and sat up straight.
Pulling her left leg onto her right knee, she pulled off her boot and set it on the ground, following suit with her right boot. She flexed her tired toes and then tugged off her belt, from which a small tinker emitted, the noise of the buckle. Her hands deftly untied her sash and pulled it off as well, dumping it in the boot next to her belt. She stole a glance at Jack out of the corner of her eye. She then shrugged her shirt over her head and without even glancing up said, "Shove off, I'm hot and it's done with. Even think about touching me or saying anything, and I'll find a way to make sure you don't wake up in the morning."
Jack grinned half-heartedly and fell back into his place among the shadows, mumbling that he 'Ain't got nothin' left to live fer anyhow…'
Jesse placed her shirt on the bench beside her and lay down with her eyes closed.
'Much better.'
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Whew. That was a hard chapter to write.
This chapter is dedicated to my first reviewer, Dawnie-7, because it's her birthday today. Happy Birthday! *Wishes you a Jack stripper*
But I have to dedicate the very end to my Egyptian-princess-pirate-kitty. She's my little darling who sat in my lap and gave me ideas for chapter 8. Her real name's Holly, but I call her that because it looks like she's wearing kohl or ancient Egypt eye make-up.
Stories to read that may have influenced this story, though I don't know it:
'Begun by Blood, By Blood Undone' by Katla
'Call of the Caribbean' by Ebony, the equally wonderful sequel is called 'No Quarter Given'
'Cry' by Captain Crimson, also its sequel and 'Faeries and Sparrows both have wings'
Anything by Sparrow's Girl
Proud Muggle Girl's 'Little Sister', 'Return to Sender', 'Window Shopping', and 'Practical Procrastination'
Lady Star Chaser's POTC fics
FireValkyrie's 'A Pirate's Life Indeed'
Go read, do you really need more? Maybe in the next chapter…
Also, thank you to TriGemini for reviewing.
But I crave reviews- I'm going through a withdraw. Please help me out.