Disclaimer & A/N: The history of piracy has always been filled with men as it was a man's profession to be any type of sailor but there were those few women who took their place among some of the most terrible pirates that ever sailed the seas. Women like Anne Bonney, Mary Read and Grace O'Malley fought with more bravery than some of their male counterparts of the time. This is the story of one such woman who fought in the ranks of men. I know that pirate!woman has probably been done so many times in this category that it's probably like a dead horse. Still, I had to go and create my own. Yes, I know that the women mentioned above are probably the only female pirates that there ever were (I might have missed one or two) and even a female pirate Captain would be the rarest of rare. Keep in mind though that most women who became pirates hid their true identity for years.
Morgan White is more in the area of villains for the deeds she has done instead of being considered a heroine of her time. Her story is one of pure fiction but who knows if there ever was such a woman that lived who was forgotten by history.
I have tried to make this tale as close to reality as possible, which means that sometimes there is violence and foul language by some of these most colorful characters in various sections of the story. I have done research into the golden age of piracy so that I wasn't going off on this half-cocked and I'm still learning as I go on. There will be no pairings except for Will/Elizabeth and very little of that. This is not a romance, slapstick comedy, modern art or parody. All characters that you recognize (Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann, Will Turner and Commodore Norrington) belong to Disney while all the rest belong to me. I'm just borrowing Disney's characters for the time being so I may create this little story. I've based a few of these characters on people from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly but what takes place is going to be nothing like that story. I'm a big fan of spaghetti westerns so I tried to make this play out as one at least through the first half of the story. I also began writing this story long before I saw PotC: 2 so it is somewhat AU. I think I'll be leaving it that way until I see Part III to see how everything else plays out.
Besides that, please keep your arms, legs, fingers, toes, children, pets and belonging inside the vehicle at all times. Flamers are not welcome and reviewers are giving my love and admiration. Thank you and enjoy the show.
The Island of Lost Souls
Chapter 1 – Vengeance Is Mine
Captain Morgan White licked her sun burnt lips as she stood on the deck of a merchant ship. Her crew of the Cicatriz had overtaken the ship quickly in sea battle and wiped out most of the men aboard in a matter of a few minutes after trying to scare the sailors into submission.
Morgan could taste blood in her mouth from a hit she had taken in the upper half of her jaw from one of the merchants she had fought against. Looking towards her other pirates aboard the ship, she could tell they still had the upper hand. The merchants had lost too many men and the battle would soon be over.
"Seven, Captain," A crew member named Aaron told her as he made a count for those that were still alive. The members of the Cicatriz held guns to the remaining men from the English merchant ship as they awaited orders from their captain.
Morgan looked down at one of the bodies at her feet with a frown. She didn't remember killing that one. She shook her head, trying to remember what had just happened as she placed her empty pistol in her belt.
"You can't just..," one of the sailors began before he was silenced by the bullet of a gun in his belly.
"Now it's six," she said to the pirate next to her. "Anyone else?" she growled at the remaining captured crew members.
The remaining men were silent with fear. The pirates had overtaken their ship before they knew what had happened. The remaining men had begun to surrender when they saw how fast their members were dying in battle.
The Captain had been first, taken down with a close range shot from the pirate's leader, the dark haired woman, whom they believed was a man. She was a woman of twenty-two who looked more like a young boy with her men's attire. Her hair was long and brown, tied back at her neck and looked knotted and snarled, giving signs that it had never seen a brush. Pulling it back from her forehead was a long maroon bandana with ends that reached down and curled around her neck. Above both sat a wide black hat rimmed with golden edges.
She wore tan pants, brown boots and a golden sash tied at her waist that was filled with pistols, most of which that were spent of their single shot. The upper half of her body could never been seen as a woman's until one got a close look at the assets she hid beneath her clothes. Morgan White wore a white shirt with a navy blue vest while her usual dark gray coat had been tossed off in battle, resting by the side of the ship.
When she spoke to them for the first time, they could detect a slight femininity to her voice that had become raspy from years of shouting orders but had considered it to the fact that she was really a young boy. Considering she was a young thing as small as a rail, who possibly suffered from scurvy, not one of the merchant crew members would have considered that she could have been a lady in an elegant dress with servants waiting on her hand and foot.
"Now I ask ye, what treasure do ye have aboard this puny ship?" Morgan asked as she sheathed her sword and approached them.
"Only supplies," a brave seaman replied. He avoided her gaze as he spoke and his blonde hair fell into his face as he glanced down.
Morgan took his head forcefully in her hands and turned it so he was looking into her gray eyes. "Only supplies?" she asked in what could have only been taken for a growl.
".. and a chest of gold from a Spanish galleon," he added slowly.
She patted his cheek roughly as a smile slid upon her face. "Good boy," she told him before walking towards another one of her men.
"Bix, get the gold. You three, stay here. The rest of ye get the supplies," she commanded to her crew.
They scurried around as Captain Morgan White stood by watching cautiously. Everything was going as planned.
"What are you going to do with us?" the young seaman asked hopefully.
"Ah, I was just getting to that," Morgan said with a devilish smile.
"Curly, Tuck," she said addressing the gruesome looking pirates by her side. "Kill them."
The two moved in on the men. The seamen were held back by the fact that Aaron stood behind them ready to kill them if they ran. They had no choice in the matter.
Tuck could doctor and fix anything that ailed anyone but he also knew what and where to cut into to make sure that they wouldn't see another day. His dark appearance and crazy hair gave him the look of a wild man, which he used to his advantage whenever possible. He was strangely amusing as a doctor but as a pirate, Tuck was just a killer.
Morgan approached the oldest pirate who watched with pity on the poor souls that we being killed. She smiled slightly at his frown and wondered if he was saying a silent prayer for the men.
"Moore? What's the matter?" Morgan asked, wondering at the look upon his face.
Philip Moore glanced over to her with a heavy heart. He didn't want to tell her that he though she was losing her mind. He couldn't be sure if she was really but he had his doubts when he saw her in times like this.
Philip was the ship's cook. He could snap a man's neck with his big weather beaten hands but could also cook a mean seafood dinner. He preferred the cooking. Moore had once been a member of the British Navy but had given up his work when his foot was run over by a cannon. Since he was not able to give up the sea, he had become an honest merchant for a few years during which time he met up with Henry White, Morgan's father. They had been good friends and when Henry had turned pirate, Philip had came along to look after the man's daughter who had almost become the child he never had. After his death when Morgan was fifteen, he had stayed on to help Henry's daughter through her grief. Now eight years later, he wondered if she was still suffering. Philip had never seen the young woman cry except when she was an only a child. He thought it strange of her to ever have a weak moment but he wished that for once she would just break down and grieve for her loss.
He shook his head. "I was just thinkin' of yer father." Morgan's face fell at the mention of him. "What do you think 'e would have done with those men?"
She glared at him. "I don't care anymore. Maybe 'e would have done the same thing."
Philip shook his head as he turned back to board the Cicatriz. "No, he wouldn't. 'Vengeance is mine, says the Lord'. You're father wouldn't want you to do this." he said before returning to their ship.
Morgan glared at his back. He seemed to do that every time she over took a ship in the same manner. She wanted to settle her own debts. Sometimes she wished Philip wasn't with her crew anymore but he was loyal to her and she didn't have the heart to get rid of him. He had been one of the few people to take an interest in caring for her when she was younger. The rest of her men had less of a conscious than Moore had. They would take care of anything she wanted done without ever asking a question, even if that meant she wanted someone killed for mutiny or to put someone out of their misery.
They knew she was a woman but had not known it when they had asked her to be Captain of the Cicatriz. The ship had once been her father's under the name of The White Sparrow. Morgan worked beneath him, pretending to be his son as they had done since she was just a child.
With his death, the ship had been commanded by another man, a Spaniard who had changed the name of the ship to the Cicatriz, which translated into Spanish meant scar. It suited the former Captain for her had been cut across the face with a cutlass and had a deep scar across his cheek and nose. The Spaniard had acquired most of the crew in various ports and towns while Morgan had stayed with the ship and fought to stay aboard it with men who were much crueler than she had been. In that time, she learned how to survive and keep her place on the Cicatriz.
After the captain had been killed in a sea battle, the crew had chosen Morgan to be their captain mostly to the way she had fought in battle that day. When she had declined due to the fact that she was a woman and only insisted she wanted to work on her father's ship for the rest of her life, they were shocked but still refused to take no for an answer. She had proven that she was able to fight with them as an equal and they almost seemed proud of the fact that they had a female as their leader. After that time, they had taken a different interest in her needs but were promised never let on to others of her secret. Until this time, a young man named Captain Morgan White and the rest of the crew of the Cicatriz was wanted for crimes against the King of England. It gave them all a good laugh sometimes to hear the stories about the son of Henry White who was the captain of the dead man's old ship. Still the stories grew about them and Morgan made no sign to squash the rumors. As a lady, she would not live free but as a man, she had taken on a persona of her own.
As Curly and Tuck's job on the ship had nearly been taken care of, a scream was heard below deck. Morgan rolled her eyes at the sound. She only knew of one type of being that screamed like that - women. Although she herself was one, Morgan venomously hated the weak spirit that so many seemed to have and had quashed the one she had when she was a girl aboard the White Sparrow.
"Captain, we found this in the closet of the captain's quarters," Lars, a nearly toothless and grizzly pirate shouted to her as he produced as young woman of nearly twenty. She screamed and yelped, tossing her blonde hair across her pale face as she squirmed about.
Curly and Tuck quickly finished their work with less accuracy as they looked at the girl with interest. Morgan on the other hand wasn't as impressed.
"Well, here's a beauty for ye, boys," she told her men as she looked the lass over. The girl had no jewelry and the dress she wore seemed to be made of the poorest material that could be bought.
"What's yer name?" she asked their new found treasure, finding her to be of little interest.
"Anne. Anne Baker," the girl replied with wide eyes as she took in all the carnage on the deck.
Morgan nodded. "Well Ms. Baker, what is it that ye think we should do with a pretty little lass as yerself?" Captain White asked, playing sweetly with the child's long blonde hair.
"I don't know," the girl whined pitifully, tears nearly spilling into her eyes.
"Oh, come now. Ye must know," White replied, already bored with her.
"I don't want to die. Please don't let him kill me," Anne whimpered, nearly frightened to death.
Morgan took that as an insult and gasped in mock surprise. "Kill you? Kill you?" she asked at the scared girl. She pulled herself into the girl's neck, her fingers tangled deep in the lass' blonde hair. "I'm the dangerous one here. Understand? I get to choose whether ye live or die." Morgan whispered in the girl's ear as the young woman trebled in fear.
Morgan untangled her hand from the young girl's hair and stepped back. "I just can't decide what I want to do with ye so I guess I'll have me crew decide for me," she said with a smile. "Gentlemen, take care of her," she commanded to her crew before picking up her coat and walking off to her ship.
As she boarded the Cicatriz, Captain White could hear the screams of Miss Baker and she tried not to wince at the sound. She knew they couldn't have kept her. Morgan didn't know what could be done with a girl such as that. Obviously, she didn't have the strength to become a pirate. With an inclination towards getting some shade, she headed to her quarters with no interest in whatever game they were playing. She didn't want to look back and see what they were doing. Morgan didn't even want to know.
Feeling a trickle of what she assumed to be sweat running down her face, Morgan removed her hat and wiped her sleeve across her forehead. It came back tinted with blood and she stared at it for a moment. Feeling her forehead, Morgan found that she had been grazed by a stray bullet on the side of her head. She winced at the sensitive area before turning her hat around to find where it had been cut. It was only a very small perforation and hardly noticeable so Morgan ignored the blood for a moment until she could find a mirror.
She thought about what Philip had said to her earlier about her father. He had been the only parent she had ever known. Her mother had died at her birth, leaving Henry White to raise her on his own. Morgan didn't even know her mother's name. Of course, she had been told years ago but it hadn't made much difference to her then or now. Her mother was dead and that was the end of it.
Henry had been a fine seaman for most of his life but had switched to the side of pirates when Morgan was nine. It had been a confusing time in the young girl's life. She had not seen her father since she was seven when he had gone off on a voyage and left her in the care of Philip Moore for two years. When he returned, he seemed different somehow but he never talked about the journey he went on.
Morgan had traveled with him since she was a child and she had no choice except to switch sides when her father did so too. Now, there was no turning back. At twenty-two, she was quite sure this was the path she would continue for the rest of her life.
"Another ship, sir," she told him as she entered her quarters. "No prisoners taken. Found a wench. Nothing else of interest except for some gold and supplies we took."
Captain White tossed her hat down next to the skull on her desk. "It's too bad ye weren't here to enjoy this," Morgan said as she glanced at herself in the dirtied mirror above her dresser.
A knock on her door interrupted her report to the cold skull. "What?" she asked in annoyance as she poured some salt water into the basin in front of her.
"Captain, the ship has been plundered," the reply came from the other side.
"And the girl?" White asked coolly as she reached for a stray piece of cloth.
There was a pause before she received the reply. "She's dead."
"Send the ship adrift. We've no need for it," she replied before cleaning the cut with the sea water. Morgan winced at the salt she could feel on the open wound.
"But Captain?"
"Do ye want to burn it, Adams? Send it adrift if ye want to leave the bloody British a sign," she replied sourly. Morgan had never liked the British after seeing what they did to her father and had continued in piracy to get some revenge on the men who had taken away the only family she had ever known.
"Yes, Captain."
Morgan looked down at the skull, silently thinking of days when her father had been alive as she dabbed the cut once more. "I'll get back to you later," she told it before tossing the rag into the water and heading back on deck.
