RETURN TO THE BLACK PEARL

I can't believe I actually got around to writing this. It's a miracle. Cue the heavenly choir.

No, really!

CAST OF THOUSANDS: We believe you.

ME: Hey! Don't you belong to Otherhawk? And shouldn't you be ostracizing her new fanfic, "Blood Rising," which REALLY ought to have been updated now?

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Yes, to all of the above.

ME: Okay, whatever.

Anyway, this was supposed to only be twenty chapters, but they're on the long side. They take me forever to type up, so instead of posting the chapters, I'm going to break them up and post them in scenes. Make any sense?

CAST OF THOUSANDS: No, but you seldom do.

ME: How would you know? You haven't known me that long!

CAST OF THOUSANDS: It doesn't take that long to tell.

ME: Fine. Be that way.


Chapter One: A Good Morning, Part One

A wet, salty sea breeze caused the beads in the matted black hair of Captain Jack Sparrow to make faint clicking noises as they clattered against each other. He stood at the wheel, compass in hand, guiding a ship with black sails to an island that no one could find, unless they already knew where it was.

The Black Pearl was now three days out on the water.

From above him came the voice of Jack's quartermaster, known to all but Jack as Bootstrap Bill Turner, perched in the crow's nest of the Black Pearl. "Land ho!" he called.

Jack could barely see the tiny speck in the distance, but from what his compass was telling him, it was not the destination of the Black Pearl. Even so, her crew all abandoned their duties to scramble to her sides to peer hungrily at the tiny island, still a day's distance from them.

"Is that it?" demanded one of the new crewmembers, a heavyset, balding pirate with yellow eyes that suggested jaundice whose name Jack couldn't for the life of him recall.

"No," responded Jack laconically, once again checking his bearings with his compass.

The breeze died away and the crew went unnaturally still and quiet, the atmosphere of the Black Pearl suddenly taunt with a sense of watchfulness.

"Then where is it?" demanded a new voice, a gravelly one, one that belonged to the grizzled older man that was Jack's new first mate, Barbossa. Jack turned slightly to regard him. Barbossa gestured at the crew in general. "We've been...discussin' the situation," he said, and the monkey on his shoulder screeched and jumped on to the rigging. "The lot of us, we have. If we're all to have an equal share of the treasure, then we should all know where it is, aye?" he said, raising his eyebrows after the last sentence, and most of the men murmured their agreement. "Just in case...somethin' should happen to our illustrious leader," he added, turning back to face Jack.

Jack considered his words for a moment. He knew the bearings of the Isla de Muerta, and the crew knew this, but what they didn't know was that the compass that appeared to be broken—it did not point North—in fact pointed always to the island. It would do no harm to tell them the bearings, if they wanted to know. "Of course," he decided. "That seems fair."

So he told them the bearings.

By the time that dusk fell aboard the Black Pearl, the island had transformed from a tiny speck on the horizon into a tiny speck that was fairly close by. Jack traded his position at the wheel with his first mate, saying only "Wake me at dawn," to the man.

But once inside his cabin, instead of sleep, Jack fell into a bottle of rum. Draining it took the better part of the night. A few hours into his rum, he heard the sound of men scuffling bellow deck. He decided against investigation—the giant of a man that was his bo'sun could enforce discipline without any help from Jack. Sure enough, the noise died down until it was eerily quiet on the Black Pearl.

Rays of sun were appearing through the cracks of the cabin walls, and Jack was mid-swallow of the last few drops of the rum when a knock came from his cabin door. Dropping the now-empty bottle on the already bottle-covered floor, Jack navigated his way around several large piles of junk and opened the door.

To thirty or forty pistols and cutlasses pointed at various parts of his anatomy.

A monkey screeched and jumped onto the shoulder of the man who smiled and said, "Good morning, Jack."


Nice start, huh?

CAST OF THOUSANDS: We hope the rest is more exciting.

Well, if anyone has more CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, feel free to review. In fact, I insist on it. No, really.