Author Here! I don't own pirates, from the Caribbean or otherwise. I don't own Wesley - though it would be nice, rrrrowr! - and I hope he doesn't mind that he was borrowed for a bit.
Chapter Eight
It was over before it had begun, really. The entirety of the battle lasted just long enough for all parties concerned to break the slightest of sweats, and as Jack stood there, unarmed, with the tip of the dread pirate Roberts' rapier lying along his collarbone, he started to get chilly. It would be nice, he decided, if this infernal fog would let the sun come out.
What had happened after the dread pirate Roberts had boarded the Yellow Dart? What a ridiculous question! Of course there was a grand and epic swordfight and battle with glorious scenes smoky with cannon-fire and wrought with the singing of steel in the air. It was just the type of fantastic, expensive-to-film-and-time-consuming-to-choreograph scene that fills audiences and readers alike with a sense of awe and a burning conviction that piracy is clearly the lifestyle of choice. It was just type of scene that you can't wait to see or read again: suspenseful yet wildly entertaining. It was just the type of scene that truly allows one to see the mettle of these scallywags, and illustrates the grandiose lifestyle they lead on the open ocean.
It was just the type of scene that a sleepy English major who has to remember to feed her fish before she goes to bed can hardly be expected to write.
So.
"It would seem the day is mine," said the dread pirate Roberts. He smirked under his black mask, and his blue eyes flashed to where Captain Melanie Cash stood gagged and bound. She narrowed her eyes at him with silent rage.
"But you see my dilemma," he continued. "The dread pirate Roberts never leaves survivors. After all, once it's got out that a pirate's gone soft, it's nothing but work, work, work all the time." He withdrew his sword and leaned against the mast. He surveyed the crew of the Yellow Dart, who were standing in a crudely surrounded little group with their hands in the air. "Yet you are all pirates, as I am. Now, while I have no quarrel with looting you for all you are worth, it would be rather uncouth of me to kill you. Too much like cannibalism for my taste."
"If it weren't for these pesky pirate brands of ours, you'd be home free, wouldn't you, eh?" Jack piped up. "Awful shame about them."
The dread pirate Roberts smiled thinly. "Yours, my salty friend, is all too easily removed." He gestured to Jack's forearm and the puckered, pink 'P' burned into his skin. "One well placed chop and that's the end of that." He made a sudden slicing motion. Jack gulped.
"But your fine captain's brand is in an altogether more inconvenient location." Indeed, the front of Melanie Cash's shirt had been torn just enough to reveal her telltale pirate scar. It was over her heart. "And that, Mr. Sparrow, is not so readily taken off. It appears that we are at an impasse. I cannot kill you, but neither would it be prudent to allow you to live."
"If it pleased you, sir," Matthew piped up from the gaggle of the defeated crew, "you could just drop us off on an island somewhere, you know, along the way. We wouldn't be dead, but neither would we be able to tell about how you've gone ... well, not soft, but ... we wouldn't be able to tell anyone how you've gone and found yourself a conscience of sorts."
"An island," the dread pirate Roberts mused.
"Oh it would be really horrible," the little wench Carly put in. The monkey on her shoulder was hiding its face in its tail in fear. "All those bugs ... nothing to eat but coconuts and leaves ..."
"Don't forget the sunburn!" Monica the look-out added, and the entire crew nodded together. The dread pirate Roberts considered for a moment, then smiled.
"Well then, it looks like we've all agreed - "
"No, no, NO." Jack stepped between the dread pirate Roberts and the crew. "No islands. No beautiful sandy beaches. Couldn't you just keel-haul the lot of us or something?"
The dread pirate Roberts laughed and put a gloved arm good-naturedly around Jack's shoulders. "My dear Mr. Sparrow. Where would the irony be in that?"
~
"Come now, Mr. Sparrow. Try and smile - you're not dead yet." Jack looked down at the water from his vantage point on the Yellow Dart's plank and did not feel at all comforted. He could swim, obviously. He was fairly an otter in the water. And the water wasn't cold - they were in the Caribbean. And it wasn't as though he had a long way to swim. But what waits for me after that nice little swim in the warm Caribbean? he asked himself ruefully.
A nice warm little island. Again.
"Everyone else has already jumped," the dread pirate Roberts said reasonably. "You don't want them to think you're afraid, do you?"
"Not in the least," Jack murmured, his eyes on the water.
"Then I think it's about time you set off. You've got some bug-eating and sun-burning to do, and I really am keen to get started on the pillaging of your ship. So if you would be so kind as to be off then - " he finished, and stomped on the wooden plank.
Jack's hands weren't tied, and so he hit the water with ease enough and began to swim towards the island's shore. The rest of the Yellow Dart's crew was already standing - haggard - on the beach when Jack trudged onto the sand. No rum cache this time. No smart-mouthed governor's daughter either.
"Finally," Carly said, and shielded her eyes with a hand to look over Jack's shoulder at the two ships. "I thought he'd never get around to leavin' us here."
Jack glared in the young pirate's direction and started squeezing the water out of his hair. "And where's the good in this, eh? I could spit and hit the other side o'this island. What're we supposed to do?"
"Well, what're our assets?" Carly asked him calmly. "We've got them pistols that Mr. Roberts was so kind to supply us wif. That's a start."
"Excellent," muttered Jack. "All the better to kill myself with."
"I really don't know what you're so grumpy about." Melanie was pulling off ribbons of seaweed that had become tangled in her hair and offering them to Carly. The waif was weaving with them. "I'm sure even you have been in worse situations that this." She shook the water from her hat.
"I've had my ship stolen, yes. And I've been stranded on more islands than I care to count," he replied.
Melanie snorted.
"Well, two."
Melanie raised her eyebrows.
"Well, twice on the same island. But my point, fair captain, is that both times I was very fortunate and had luck smile on me in order to escape. I see no such opportunities here."
"Sometimes you don't need luck," Melanie said. "Especially not when you have a crew like mine." She pulled a parchment and pencil from the pocket of her tanned jacket and began to scribble something on it. Carly, humming, finished her weaving and strode into a thicket of trees. The captain continued. "It's really quite interesting how intelligent these tropical birds are."
"What's that got to do with anything, love?" Jack was perched on a log and pouring the water from his boot. He poured for a long time. "That is, apart from the fact that they've got beautiful plumage?"
"Plumage doesn't enter into it, my lad," the captain said with a wink. "But it is quite a feat when you combine the innate intelligence and playfulness of certain tropical birds with the rather, unusual gifts of a certain crewman." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder and Jack looked up in time to see Carly emerging from the trees. She was carrying something.
"What've you got there?"
She smiled up at him and opened her hands to reveal a plump green and blue bird. The bird seemed perfectly at home in the girl's hands, but cocked its head and eyed Jack. It made a low, muttering sound.
"To this day I still dunno what they're called," she said, still smiling. She stroked the bird's head fondly. "But these little fellows n'me have helped the Cap many a time. Isn't that right, Cap'n?"
"That's right Carly. How long is this going to take you?"
"Not long," the girl chirped, and plucked the folded parchment from Melanie's fingers. "How far away are we talking this time?"
Jack watched the captain consider carefully. "About this many leagues," she decided at last, and began to cut Carly's woven cord into sections.
"That's to his home?"
"That's to the anvil in his smithy," Melanie answered smoothly and passed the lengths of cord to Carly. "I've never been wrong."
"Neither have I," the girl responded brightly. "You just make sure you've said all you need to in this little note-y o'yours."
"I hope I have."
"While I hate to interrupt this wonderfully obscure conversation," came Jack's voice, "what in the name of Davey Jones are you two going on about?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Carly said to him. She passed him the bird and it sat in his cupped hands and ruffled its feathers. "I keep forgettin' that you n'Mr. Gibbs ain't part o'the crew. I do this all the time when we're in a pinch on an island."
Jack raised his eyebrows and looked at Melanie, who had taken that moment to start whistling and carefully examine her fingernails. "This type of thing has happened before?"
"Oh, loads of times. Anyways, I've got this thing wif animals, see? At least, that's what me mum used to say ..." the child's face clouded with homesickness for a moment, then she brightened. "Oh! Where's Milton?"
"Milt-" Jack started to ask, when a furry weight dropped onto his shoulder. The pirate swallowed back a yelp and turned his head to meet the intelligent eyes of Carly's capuchin monkey. It chittered.
"There's Milton. Now, where was I?"
"Animals," Jack murmured, not unkindly.
"That's right! Animals. If you need help wif'em, you come to me. And especially if you need'em to help you, you come to me. I've got a knick for this kind of thing, you know."
"A knack," Melanie corrected gently.
"Right, that's what I said." All the while that she spoke, Carly was counting out the cut sections of seaweed and rolling them into little balls. The bird in Jack's hands was very interested in them. It was sitting very still and not making a sound.
"Now I was teaching one o'these birds to play catch one day - "
"Catch?"
Melanie leaned over and spoke in a low voice. "She teaches everything to play catch." Jack chuckled softly.
" - but they didn't really like the catchin' part. What they did like was the droppin' part. And the funny thing is, they won't drop whatever they've got until they've flown about a league."
Jack laughed out loud now. "An entire league, little one?"
Carly smiled back at him. "I wish I could explain it, Mr. Sparrow. I really do. Maybe they're just stubborn. So they fly and fly until they drop whatever they've got, and then they fly down and look for it!" She lifted the bird from Jack's hands. "The most hilarious part is that they'll only look if they've got nothing else left. They like to have things, even if it's just one."
Jack was now interested. "So this bird will fly and fly -"
"Sometimes it has to rest."
" - until it's dropped all these little balls, one for every league, and then it stops to look for the last one?"
"That's right," said Carly, pleased. "I invented it."
Melanie laughed. "You didn't invent it. But you certainly have turned it to our benefit." The child stuck out her tongue and tied the note to the bird's leg.
"And in what direction shall we be pointing this little contraption?" asked Jack. Carly smiled and allowed the excited bird to gather up all the little balls in its clawed feet.
"In Will's direction, o'course."
Chapter Eight
It was over before it had begun, really. The entirety of the battle lasted just long enough for all parties concerned to break the slightest of sweats, and as Jack stood there, unarmed, with the tip of the dread pirate Roberts' rapier lying along his collarbone, he started to get chilly. It would be nice, he decided, if this infernal fog would let the sun come out.
What had happened after the dread pirate Roberts had boarded the Yellow Dart? What a ridiculous question! Of course there was a grand and epic swordfight and battle with glorious scenes smoky with cannon-fire and wrought with the singing of steel in the air. It was just the type of fantastic, expensive-to-film-and-time-consuming-to-choreograph scene that fills audiences and readers alike with a sense of awe and a burning conviction that piracy is clearly the lifestyle of choice. It was just type of scene that you can't wait to see or read again: suspenseful yet wildly entertaining. It was just the type of scene that truly allows one to see the mettle of these scallywags, and illustrates the grandiose lifestyle they lead on the open ocean.
It was just the type of scene that a sleepy English major who has to remember to feed her fish before she goes to bed can hardly be expected to write.
So.
"It would seem the day is mine," said the dread pirate Roberts. He smirked under his black mask, and his blue eyes flashed to where Captain Melanie Cash stood gagged and bound. She narrowed her eyes at him with silent rage.
"But you see my dilemma," he continued. "The dread pirate Roberts never leaves survivors. After all, once it's got out that a pirate's gone soft, it's nothing but work, work, work all the time." He withdrew his sword and leaned against the mast. He surveyed the crew of the Yellow Dart, who were standing in a crudely surrounded little group with their hands in the air. "Yet you are all pirates, as I am. Now, while I have no quarrel with looting you for all you are worth, it would be rather uncouth of me to kill you. Too much like cannibalism for my taste."
"If it weren't for these pesky pirate brands of ours, you'd be home free, wouldn't you, eh?" Jack piped up. "Awful shame about them."
The dread pirate Roberts smiled thinly. "Yours, my salty friend, is all too easily removed." He gestured to Jack's forearm and the puckered, pink 'P' burned into his skin. "One well placed chop and that's the end of that." He made a sudden slicing motion. Jack gulped.
"But your fine captain's brand is in an altogether more inconvenient location." Indeed, the front of Melanie Cash's shirt had been torn just enough to reveal her telltale pirate scar. It was over her heart. "And that, Mr. Sparrow, is not so readily taken off. It appears that we are at an impasse. I cannot kill you, but neither would it be prudent to allow you to live."
"If it pleased you, sir," Matthew piped up from the gaggle of the defeated crew, "you could just drop us off on an island somewhere, you know, along the way. We wouldn't be dead, but neither would we be able to tell about how you've gone ... well, not soft, but ... we wouldn't be able to tell anyone how you've gone and found yourself a conscience of sorts."
"An island," the dread pirate Roberts mused.
"Oh it would be really horrible," the little wench Carly put in. The monkey on her shoulder was hiding its face in its tail in fear. "All those bugs ... nothing to eat but coconuts and leaves ..."
"Don't forget the sunburn!" Monica the look-out added, and the entire crew nodded together. The dread pirate Roberts considered for a moment, then smiled.
"Well then, it looks like we've all agreed - "
"No, no, NO." Jack stepped between the dread pirate Roberts and the crew. "No islands. No beautiful sandy beaches. Couldn't you just keel-haul the lot of us or something?"
The dread pirate Roberts laughed and put a gloved arm good-naturedly around Jack's shoulders. "My dear Mr. Sparrow. Where would the irony be in that?"
~
"Come now, Mr. Sparrow. Try and smile - you're not dead yet." Jack looked down at the water from his vantage point on the Yellow Dart's plank and did not feel at all comforted. He could swim, obviously. He was fairly an otter in the water. And the water wasn't cold - they were in the Caribbean. And it wasn't as though he had a long way to swim. But what waits for me after that nice little swim in the warm Caribbean? he asked himself ruefully.
A nice warm little island. Again.
"Everyone else has already jumped," the dread pirate Roberts said reasonably. "You don't want them to think you're afraid, do you?"
"Not in the least," Jack murmured, his eyes on the water.
"Then I think it's about time you set off. You've got some bug-eating and sun-burning to do, and I really am keen to get started on the pillaging of your ship. So if you would be so kind as to be off then - " he finished, and stomped on the wooden plank.
Jack's hands weren't tied, and so he hit the water with ease enough and began to swim towards the island's shore. The rest of the Yellow Dart's crew was already standing - haggard - on the beach when Jack trudged onto the sand. No rum cache this time. No smart-mouthed governor's daughter either.
"Finally," Carly said, and shielded her eyes with a hand to look over Jack's shoulder at the two ships. "I thought he'd never get around to leavin' us here."
Jack glared in the young pirate's direction and started squeezing the water out of his hair. "And where's the good in this, eh? I could spit and hit the other side o'this island. What're we supposed to do?"
"Well, what're our assets?" Carly asked him calmly. "We've got them pistols that Mr. Roberts was so kind to supply us wif. That's a start."
"Excellent," muttered Jack. "All the better to kill myself with."
"I really don't know what you're so grumpy about." Melanie was pulling off ribbons of seaweed that had become tangled in her hair and offering them to Carly. The waif was weaving with them. "I'm sure even you have been in worse situations that this." She shook the water from her hat.
"I've had my ship stolen, yes. And I've been stranded on more islands than I care to count," he replied.
Melanie snorted.
"Well, two."
Melanie raised her eyebrows.
"Well, twice on the same island. But my point, fair captain, is that both times I was very fortunate and had luck smile on me in order to escape. I see no such opportunities here."
"Sometimes you don't need luck," Melanie said. "Especially not when you have a crew like mine." She pulled a parchment and pencil from the pocket of her tanned jacket and began to scribble something on it. Carly, humming, finished her weaving and strode into a thicket of trees. The captain continued. "It's really quite interesting how intelligent these tropical birds are."
"What's that got to do with anything, love?" Jack was perched on a log and pouring the water from his boot. He poured for a long time. "That is, apart from the fact that they've got beautiful plumage?"
"Plumage doesn't enter into it, my lad," the captain said with a wink. "But it is quite a feat when you combine the innate intelligence and playfulness of certain tropical birds with the rather, unusual gifts of a certain crewman." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder and Jack looked up in time to see Carly emerging from the trees. She was carrying something.
"What've you got there?"
She smiled up at him and opened her hands to reveal a plump green and blue bird. The bird seemed perfectly at home in the girl's hands, but cocked its head and eyed Jack. It made a low, muttering sound.
"To this day I still dunno what they're called," she said, still smiling. She stroked the bird's head fondly. "But these little fellows n'me have helped the Cap many a time. Isn't that right, Cap'n?"
"That's right Carly. How long is this going to take you?"
"Not long," the girl chirped, and plucked the folded parchment from Melanie's fingers. "How far away are we talking this time?"
Jack watched the captain consider carefully. "About this many leagues," she decided at last, and began to cut Carly's woven cord into sections.
"That's to his home?"
"That's to the anvil in his smithy," Melanie answered smoothly and passed the lengths of cord to Carly. "I've never been wrong."
"Neither have I," the girl responded brightly. "You just make sure you've said all you need to in this little note-y o'yours."
"I hope I have."
"While I hate to interrupt this wonderfully obscure conversation," came Jack's voice, "what in the name of Davey Jones are you two going on about?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Carly said to him. She passed him the bird and it sat in his cupped hands and ruffled its feathers. "I keep forgettin' that you n'Mr. Gibbs ain't part o'the crew. I do this all the time when we're in a pinch on an island."
Jack raised his eyebrows and looked at Melanie, who had taken that moment to start whistling and carefully examine her fingernails. "This type of thing has happened before?"
"Oh, loads of times. Anyways, I've got this thing wif animals, see? At least, that's what me mum used to say ..." the child's face clouded with homesickness for a moment, then she brightened. "Oh! Where's Milton?"
"Milt-" Jack started to ask, when a furry weight dropped onto his shoulder. The pirate swallowed back a yelp and turned his head to meet the intelligent eyes of Carly's capuchin monkey. It chittered.
"There's Milton. Now, where was I?"
"Animals," Jack murmured, not unkindly.
"That's right! Animals. If you need help wif'em, you come to me. And especially if you need'em to help you, you come to me. I've got a knick for this kind of thing, you know."
"A knack," Melanie corrected gently.
"Right, that's what I said." All the while that she spoke, Carly was counting out the cut sections of seaweed and rolling them into little balls. The bird in Jack's hands was very interested in them. It was sitting very still and not making a sound.
"Now I was teaching one o'these birds to play catch one day - "
"Catch?"
Melanie leaned over and spoke in a low voice. "She teaches everything to play catch." Jack chuckled softly.
" - but they didn't really like the catchin' part. What they did like was the droppin' part. And the funny thing is, they won't drop whatever they've got until they've flown about a league."
Jack laughed out loud now. "An entire league, little one?"
Carly smiled back at him. "I wish I could explain it, Mr. Sparrow. I really do. Maybe they're just stubborn. So they fly and fly until they drop whatever they've got, and then they fly down and look for it!" She lifted the bird from Jack's hands. "The most hilarious part is that they'll only look if they've got nothing else left. They like to have things, even if it's just one."
Jack was now interested. "So this bird will fly and fly -"
"Sometimes it has to rest."
" - until it's dropped all these little balls, one for every league, and then it stops to look for the last one?"
"That's right," said Carly, pleased. "I invented it."
Melanie laughed. "You didn't invent it. But you certainly have turned it to our benefit." The child stuck out her tongue and tied the note to the bird's leg.
"And in what direction shall we be pointing this little contraption?" asked Jack. Carly smiled and allowed the excited bird to gather up all the little balls in its clawed feet.
"In Will's direction, o'course."