Little Sparrow
Summary: "Now up is down," was the last thing any of them heard before the rush of water drowned everything else out. Later, waking up on a random, deserted island, they almost immediately notice that something was not right with their Captain. Sparrington, Salazak, Willabeth, maybe others mentioned.
When James woke up again, it was once again to an empty blanket beside him and no young lover by his side as he sat up in the great cabin on the Black Pearl. He could hear her Captain, though, shouting orders above on the quarterdeck, no doubt at the helm, which meant they must already be close to this infamous Crossing the pirates feared and dreaded so much. Seeing as Jack didn't seemed bothered by it and was relatively calm about the supposedly deadly passage, James hadn't really heeded the worried murmurs among the crew or how uneasy Barbossa seemed about it. Elizabeth, Will, Theodore and Philip were as clueless as James was about what could possibly be so scary, but Frederico seemed interested enough in it to ask a few questions of good ol' Mr Gibbs.
Gibbs had, naturally, been all too happy to supply him with answers, answers that the whole crew had listened to as Jack had been too busy talking with Tia Dalma, just a few days ago.
"Ya see, Mr Sanchez, not everyone could've found th' Cove. Th' Island itself is neigh unapproachable if ya don't know these parts well. There are rare few captains spawned outside of Shipwreck Cove these days that know how to make the Crossing." He had explained. "We call it the Devil's Throat, fer it will surely swallow ya whole, no survivors, if ye're not careful 'nough. No one who is not directly taught by another who is experienced at makin' th' Crossing can enter th' Cove. 'Tis why it's such an impenetrable fortress! Only those who already know how ta do it can teach another. No matter yer luck or how much ye be blessed by th' gods, ye cannot make the Crossing if ya haven't done it b'fore or haven't been shown how ta. It keeps the enemies out. Even if they can approach Shipwreck Island, which I doubt is very probably considering how it was named, the Devil's Throat will take care of anyone foolish 'nough to try and brave it."
"An' it's even protected by powerful enough magic t' keep anythin' not human out, no matter how powerful it be." Barbossa had thrown in as he passed them by while Gibbs was talking about the Crossing. "Not even the Flying Dutchman can enter those waters."
Of course, many more questions from the all around frightened crew had followed, the main one being the most obvious: had anyone present ever done the Crossing? They had all half expected Barbossa and maybe Gibbs to say they have, but no such words left their mouth. Before the panic could set in, Frederico had called for Sparrow to see if he knew how and Jack had replied of course he did, not only was he Captain Jack Sparrow but he grew up in there. He could get in or out with nothing but a dingy and had actually done that before. Gibbs had been pale at hearing this and had drank his entire flask up in a few swallows before muttering something about being too old for this. Jack had in turned called out to him that it had happened before they even met and Gibbs had no retribution to fear.
"'E says that now. I'll be dead b'fore I breathe five minutes of the Cove's air," had been the old sailor's grumbled reply before he left the group to wonder at the strange conversation, if it can even be called that.
That had been yesterday, which meant that the Crossing was probably in sight or already underway. James quickly gathered his clothes and dressed, washed his face and checked if he was presentable on the very mirror he had held during the fight against the El Arquero more out of inbred habit than any sense of vanity before he joined the crew on the deck. His jaw very nearly joined Elizabeth's, Will's and his two young Lieutenants' when he caught sight of the enormous cave mouth they were just entering. It was suddenly deathly silent on the ship, as though a switch had been flipped, no one daring making any noise but the wind as it pushed the Black Pearl deeper into this ... deadly passage. It indeed deserved its name, for it resembled the gates of hell accurately enough. Spikes, protruding rocks, the remains of wrecked ships, that's the sight that greeted them as Jack confidently led his ship into this graveyard of foolish sailors.
"Oh my god," Groves gasped from somewhere near the railing on the starboard side, seeing skeletons stuck on giant rock spikes, their entire gut area stabbed through by the sharp minerals. There were hundreds of human remains all over the place and it sent a chill down the spines of the men and woman watching this. Tia Dalma wasn't bothered, but those who practice the dark arts of voodoo are often more familiar with death than other men are comfortable with. Jack, also, wasn't really bothered, as he had seen the Devil's Throat enough times in his youth for it to be a normal scenery to him. He was, however, counting the new poor bastards and unfortunate ships that had joined the collection of the Devil's Throat since the last time he - as his eighteen year old self - had seen it.
"How did the pirates even find out there was anything more behind this ... nightmare?" Gillete could be heard asking from the same direction as Theodore but James could not take his eyes off of his lover. De-aged or not, Captain Jack Sparrow looked like he belonged nowhere more than he did at the helm of his ship, easily guiding her around the rocks that had been the doom of so many a other good sailors. He didn't seem the least bit worried and he was the one who would grieve the most if the Pearl were to sink again.
"It be the first Brethren Court that found this place, Mr Gillete," Barbossa said as quietly as he can while still being heard. They all feared that if they were to be loud enough, they will somehow disturb this seemingly magically ease with which the Black Pearl was avoiding certain doom. "Many decades ago. Legends say that a demon from hell 'ad been chasin' 'em an' the future first Pirate King 'ad hid in this very passage but that he 'ad ta go in deeper and deeper as more an' more ships followed his lead, seein' that 'e were safe. An' so, naturally, after a while they stumbled upon the inside of this 'hell' as you so accurately described it. The future first Brethren Court staked claim ta it an' it's been ours ever since."
"Was there really a demon chasing them?" The ever pirate-curious-and-fascinated Groves asked in barely a whisper as they indeed passed a wreckage that could be said to be old enough to fit Barbossa's story. Almost two centuries have passed since those first few ships sailed into this very passage and named it the Devil's Throat for only a third of the ships that made that first Crossing had remained intact when they finally reached the other side. The first nine to make it to the other side were the first nine Pirate Lords. Jack explained as much from his place at the helm, completely ignoring how fearful everyone looked at his loud voice.
"Relax, mates. I've made the Crossing thousands of times before."
"Yes, but never when one o' us could see it, ya little cur! So stop talkin' and concentrate on gettin' us through!" Jack rolled his eyes at his fellow Pirate Lord, not even bothering to reply. By now, he could make the Crossing with his eyes closed, especially if it was with his beloved vessel. She sang smugly as she sailed through the wrecks of other, slower, weaker ships that had not made it, sauntering past them as though she were a queen walking through her court of faithful, loyal servants. If Jack were indeed to close his eyes, she would guide his hand with her voice and they would make the Crossing just as well.
"I think Witty Jack knows wot 'e be doin'." Tia Dalma called to them with a wicked smile, making it clear she was oh so enjoying their fear. "Relax. Dere be no mermaids in dese waters. Not dat any could tempt Witty Jack. Or dat dey would. We be in safe hands."
"It's nothing against Jack, on my part." A ghostly pale Will told her in a tight voice. "I just ... don't like the vibes of this place."
"Dat be de death. Ever since Davy Jones stopped ferryin' souls, dey be stuck 'ere. Witty Jack once brought me 'ere ta help dem local witch an' shaman an' voodoo priest excercise de souls from da Crossin', since dey be scaryin' good captain's inta makin' stupid mistakes." The jungle beauty shrugged indifferently as her eyes rowed over the decaying ships and their crews. "Powerful magic keep 'em out. Da feelin' stays." Gibbs crossed himself three times, did some stupid and funny chicken dance and spat over the railing of the Black Pearl. Tia Dalma and Jack rolled their eyes simultaneously before they carried on with their business.
"I've only ever heard snippets of rumors about the Shipwreck Cove before." Elizabeth told Will as she guided him over to where Theodore and Philip had migrated to James, who had finally stopped staring at Jack. He hoped he hadn't been too obvious, but judging by the wicked twinkle in Frederico's eyes, he might not have succeeded in seeming discreet. "I've never imagined I'd get to see it myself."
"I wonder how Sparrow is taking all of this so lightly?" Philip more commented than mused, staring up at said Captain with grudging admiration that he would never admit to.
"Well, he did say he grew up here. It was probably one of the first things he learned." Turner offered awkwardly, trying not too show just how unnerved the deadly Crossing made him. He felt ashamed and inadequate in comparison to the laid back Jack, who even seemed to be humming to himself in a very carefree manner. He envied him that level of confidence, in himself and in his skills. Will still at times paused in hesitation before making that first swing with his hammer when he was making something in a smithy.
"No, I didn't quite mean that, although I have to commend him for being so coolheaded when the rest of us are losing our heads with worry and panic." Gillete grunted. "No matter his experience, he is still only eighteen. Should this be a normal situation, regarding a normal ship and a normal eighteen year old lad, it would be him going crazy, not us. But I guess he could never be quite as normal as he'd like to become. He is Captain Jack Sparrow. Something tells me you have to be born that mad. But that's not what I meant."
"They what did you mean?" James inquired with a cocked eyebrow of interest.
"I meant, all of this." He gestured vaguely to encompass the entire situation of the past couple of weeks. "Spell or no spell, eccentric or not, no man should take all of this as in stride as he had. Twenty years, James! That's practically a lifetime! No matter what he had seen, he should be freaking out right about now. I know I would have been. Especially if I had as crazy a life as Sparrow's."
Norrington felt his lips thin as the others started realizing that Gillete was right. He stayed quiet, letting them talk amongst themselves while his eyes kept straying from the Black Pearl's innocent seeming crow's nest to her cheery Captain. Only he, she, Tia Dalma and possibly Gibbs or Frederico knew just how hard Jack was taking some of these things. Jack was relying heavily on his seeming soul-deep connection with the Black Pearl to keep his head above the water. For all that every rational part of James' brain protested the idea of the ship being in any way sentient, he could not lie to himself well enough to forget or explain away that first night in the crow's nest, when he had clearly felt her shudder when Jack had needed comforting and how the teen had immediately been a bit more relaxed. He had felt her doing it a few times after that as well. Let the others call it crazy, but James knew Jack was suffering and trying to do it quietly as he fought to comprehend a world twenty years ahead of him. Since no one could tell him what he had done in all of those twenty years, not even the Pearl - there was a decade long gap between their two meetings and James wasn't sure Jack ever told her everything he had lived through just to get her back - he had to make connections on his own, establish a time line of events he was not even yet aware of and try to figure out just why the bloody hell Davy Jones and some random Englishman were after him.
Yes, Jack was probably taking this whole thing too much in stride for normal standards, but Norrington agreed with Gillete on one thing: he was Captain Jack Sparrow, the most crazy and most eccentric man in the world. He was probably born so different that no matter his upbringing, he would have ended up the exact same way he was right now.
It took them about three hours to make the Crossing, that was how long the Devil's Throat was. They saw many more wrecks along the way and they kind of got used to it. Well, at least enough that they were no longer so horrified by the sight as they had been when they saw the first dozen or so. It was like a museum of ships, some at least twice as old as the Pearl probably was, not that Jack had ever shared his lady's age. That was just rude and improper. But at the end of that museum came the really incredible sight that was the Town of Shipwreck within the Shipwreck Cove itself.
Jack grinned at his home, steering his beloved ship towards the docks reserved for the nine Pirate Lords and the Keeper of the Code. "Welcome to Shipwreck Cove, maties!" He called cheerfully to the awestruck group. Rare few had ever entered the Cove, for 'ordinary' pirates only ever came here when the song has been sung and the Brethren was meeting or if they were to be judged by the Keeper for a grave affront against the Code. Their reaction was expected, for what a sight it was to behold!
Despite it being located inside a gigantic cavern that made up almost the whole of the island, Shipwreck Cove was amazingly well lit. Some of the first pirates who had followed the first Pirate Lords through the deadly Devil's Throat had been disgraced scholars, hunted for their scientific words against the laws of nature the Church approved or against the laws of men that the Crown sanctioned. So artists, scientists, poets, engineers and many, many other common but witty men turned to piracy to save their necks. Some of them had worked out an ancient Egyptian trick, a system of mirrors to increase the amount of light a single ray of sunshine could produce. That, combined with the strange crystals growing in most of the openings where sunlight even penetrated into the cavern, was used to light up the entire Cove, making it as sunny as it was outside, if not more. At night, when there is no other natural light but the moon and the stars, which were not nearly enough to light up a cavern the size of Shipwreck Cove, a few of the other men had made small mirror-disks the likes of which were used for lighthouses, placed them around some of the crystals that don't grow in the openings in the walls of the cavern - no need to alert anyone that a secret island was right there in the middle of the night, if a ship was passing by - and simply lit lamps right next to the crystals. It had much the same effect and, depending on the days and moments, certain amounts of these lamps were lit.
Another oddity of the Cove was the architecture. Even after a good number of men were trained properly to make the Crossing, people still managed to crash their ships in the docks of the Town of Shipwreck. There was just too many pointy ricks all over the place but the wrecks were starting to stack up a little. Being practical and all, another group of those educated people were assigned to see what they can use of the ships without having to tear them apart, for that cost time and some of the material integrity. So some smartass had decided to stack the ships together - don't ask how, as even the oldest of pirate residents of the Cove have no idea - and make a giant citadel from it in the most visible spot in the Cove. That just so happened to be the very middle of it, on a bunch of pointy rocks. After a good number of wrecks were stacked as a solid enough foundation, the Citadel was built and today it was the tallest building in the Cove, made out of no less than fifty shipwrecks. The intriguing thing is that the spikes it was built on varied from two to twenty meters in hight, so you can imagine how some of those spikes were still visible at random angles among the wrecks. It also somehow made the whole structure infinitively more stable. There was not a strong enough earthquake to move one floorboard out of place, let alone anything bigger. All the shipwrecks were lit up so everyone can see it, for the sole purpose to prevent any idiot from managing to hit his ship against that. And yes, it was needed for it had actually happened once.
Another thing that set apart this particular harbor from any other in the world was that it had ten lighthouses around the Citadel and ten more corresponding ones on the outskirts of the outer circle of the cove. Three bridges connected the Citadel with the rest of the Cove and only one was permanent. The other two were mobile bridges, moved aside to let ships and boats pass. Everything was better lit than some ballroom for a royal party and it was done a lot more cheaply, too.
The other buildings in the Cove ... Well, they were all bigger than one would expect of a pirate only port. The smallest house had three floors, the biggest - only half as high as the Citadel - having five to six, depending on where they were built. They looked more than decent enough. If anyone expected a port like Tortuga, they were greatly mistaken, for the streets were clean and orderly - as much as any port town can be - and there was what appeared to be a regular guard. Jack tried not to look at the crossed cutlasses on many a men's clothing and hoped James would be too distracted by the signs that clearly stated that the Cove had a bank, a Library, a jail, a courthouse - or something like it - and even a church and various other temples for other religions like any other 'civilized' port to notice the repeating symbol. He didn't need him asking questions right now when he did not have all the answers himself. Shipwreck Cove, of course, had a street for her craftsmen, just like any other town did these days, too, although they had only a couple of them and none of them made any fancy shmancy hats, coats, gloves or things like that. The fanciest thing you can find within the Cove were those crossed cutlasses that Jack was trying very hard not to feel the burn of on his skin from the back of his west and on his right bicep.
There were more smaller caverns connected to the big one that held more housing for the pirates that lived here or came often enough to own a house. It also provided for more docking places for ships in times like these. The Cove itself had been adapted to its inhabitants and there were bridges and ropes high over the Town of Shipwreck that the Keeper's men used to go about their daily business. One such business being the mail and delivery of lighter packages through various birds, including pelicans and alabasters. Anything heavier than what a pelican can carry was either brought by ships or by highly trained marine creatures, such as giant sea turtles, dolphins and seals. Once again, many a men to make the first Crossing with the first nine Pirate Lords were educated people. They taught the rest of the Cove inhabitants how to train the animals and so Shipwreck Cove had possibly the best marine mailing system in the world.
Another thing unique to the Cove was one of the smaller side caverns that was used esplictly for agriculture. Shipwreck Cove could withstand years upon decades of a blockade only on the supplies they always had in storage units, but it could probably last two centuries on the amount of food they produce. With several drinking water sources and this strange soil in that one side cavern that just made crops beg to grow, the pirates could stay in there until Beckett's grandchildren had grandchildren. Well, that is, if anyone would want to have his children in the first place.
All in all, with the biggest docks in the world and all of the attributes named above, you can just guess how difficult the Pirate Lords will be to get off of their fat asses and chase away the Royal Navy once and for all.
Jack could already hear the squabbling and felt a migraine coming on.