Author's Note:
Hello and welcome. It's been a while since I posted here on FF and recently rewatched the POTC film series and got inspired to write something for that. This will go through all three of the original trilogy with some snippets of information that were fleshed out in the other two that came afterwards. Please review and tell me what you think (no flames please) or favourite/follow if you would like to keep reading.
Usual disclaimer, I do not own POTC or any of the characters from the original content. All I own is my original characters and ideas. Any trigger warnings (if needed) will be applied at the beginning of each chapter.
Rated T to start with (may evolve later depending on how it goes)
Anyway, hope you enjoy the story :)
Chapter 1: A Deal with the Devil
"The King and his men stole the queen from her bed,"
The night on the Caribbean Sea was dark as the great trading ship smoothly cut through the calm, deep waters below.
"-and bound her ii~n her bones."
Not a gull screeched in the air, nor a sailor shouted on deck. All was quiet, except for the quiet voice singing, the sound almost lost to the winds.
"The seas be ours and by the powers."
So it was that no one saw the young ten-year-old girl standing at the stern dressed only in her white night shift and red silk dressing gown…or the taller shadow that approached her silently as a cat.
"Where we will...we'll roam."
The girl's long copper curls fluttered in the breeze as she softly hummed the sea shanty under her breath, the music masking the shadow's cautious steps as it crept up behind her.
"Yo, Ho haul together, hoist the colours high,"
She shut her eyes as she fingered a spiralling pointed conch seashell that hung on a gold chain around her neck
"Heave ho, thieves and beggars"
There was a push.
A scream.
And a splash.
"Never shall we die"
A little girl no older than eight, with damp copper curls, shorn short and pale waterlogged skin, shook and shivered as she stumbled through the door and onto on the sodden carpet.
The room before her was massive and cluttered with trinkets and lit with many large waxy candles. At the far end of the room was a pipe organ massive in size, its tubular pipes almost moulding into the very walls on either side while a large image of a woman was carved over the three rows of black and ivory keys. It was at the seat of this great instrument that a man sat, his broad shoulders hunched, and his head bowed as if in silent prayer to an unknown heathen god.
Or at least, it was shaped like a man.
It had arms, legs and a head and wore human clothes, yes, but that was where the devil's similarities with humankind ended. For no man would ever truly be able to match a being of such cruelty and malice.
"Do you know why I summoned you here lass?" a man's voice spoke from the devil's mouth.
"N-no Captain." The little girl shook her head, trying and failing to will her shivers to come to a stop.
"Do you know why you're here on this ship?"
"b-because you found me sir after I was…" the girl gulped. "When I was in the ocean."
"That's right. I found you. I found you, brought you aboard this ship and gave you a second chance to keep breathing." The Devil's head turned slightly in its chair to glower back at her "And yet for all my charity, what do I find you doin' when my back is turned?"
"S-sir-"
"Trying to escape through the triple guns portholes." The Devil chuckled softly, wicked, dark echoes filling the room and bouncing eerily off the walls and rattling within the organ's pipes. "I must admit, that was an interesting choice, lass. Most escapees usually try the portholes on the lower decks."
"S-Sir I'm sorry, it won't happen again-"
"What won't happen lass? You won't try to escape again? Or you won't try to escape the same way? Hmm?" The Devil gave a seething chuckle "And don't try to feed me some fake apology. I have no patience for liars. If you were sorry you'd be throwing yourself on my mercy and begging for a chance at redemption. Hmph!" he smirked when the girl stayed defiantly silent at this taunt "But you and I both know that's not going to happen. Because you don't regret what you did, do you? You just regret getting caught."
"What is going to happen to me sir?" the girl mumbled, tears streaming freely down her pale and pallid cheeks. There was no use denying the accusations, not when they both knew they were true.
There was silence as the devil slowly rose to his feet, his back still turned on the terrified child. But he did not answer. Not because he did not know what to say. He just wanted to savour his victim's silent tears as she squirmed.
She could feel her breath catch in her chest. The room was so quiet she could hear the crew singing their shanty high above on deck.
"Some men have died, and some are alive,
and others sail on the sea."
"If ye were a man you'd be getting fifty lashes and a month in the brig." The Devil said softly, his tone nonchalant as if he were talking about the weather. "But seeing as I am such a magnanimous captain, and you are only a little lass I have something less violent in store for you. Something that will teach you a valuable lesson."
"With the keys to the cage, and the devil to pay."
"A-and what punishment would that be sir?" The girl gritted her teeth to hold back the sob threatening to engulf her. She knew better than to hope for true mercy or kindness from this demon, but still…
"We lay to Fiddler's Green!"
The devil did not answer immediately. Instead, he took out an ornate smoking pipe from an ashtray on the side of his pipe organ and began tamping the tobacco inside with careful practised precision.
"Two weeks ago, a man boarded this ship. A snivelling deceitful little rat he is," he muttered as he lit the barrel of his smoking pipe with a match and took a small puff. "Like you, he didn't want to die, but neither did he want to join my crew. So, we struck a deal. Thirteen years of freedom and then he returns to serve aboard the Dutchman for a hundred years. A pretty deal if I should say so myself." He sighed, a whisp of smoke floating from his chuckling mouth to trail lazily in the air.
"B-but how can you trust he'll come back to-to sail under your colours, sir? Won't he just dip and run?" The girl mumbled, innocent curiosity winning out against her terror for a fraction of a second.
"Yo, Ho haul together, hoist the colours high"
"Aye, I have no doubt he will lass."
"S-so w-what's going to happen now? What do I have to do?"
The Devil turned his head to look at the girl, his blue-green eyes piercing her from beneath the shadows of his large hat, his face splitting into a wide malicious grin.
"Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die"
A young woman opened her eyes. She was lying on a thin pillow on an even thinner mattress, all set upon an old wooden bed. The slats were half broken, but the linen was fresh and clean and soft to her touch as she ran her hands over the surface.
"Still in my bed." She sighed to herself as she slowly sat up. It was still very much dark outside, though the navy and black of night had morphed into a deep purple-grey as the sun crept upwards from below the horizon line.
Of all the times for that memory to resurface, why did it have to be today? It had been a while since it had popped up in her dreams.
Eyes still hazy from sleep the woman raised her right arm where several large circular red marks coiled around her wrist and forearm in a long spiral. They looked like bruises, gnarly and unpleasant against her healthy complexion. It had been almost twelve years since she got them. Twelve long eventful years.
During that time, she had kept them hidden beneath her sleeves and never bathed nor dressed in front of anyone else. She could not reveal them to another living soul. And nor would she ever. They were her chains, her shackles. Hers to bear and hers alone until the devil came to collect his due.
The woman shivered as she remembered the sucking and the tugging of her skin and the pain that came with it. Ugh even till this day she would never forget the bizarre and terrifying sensation. Nor would she forget her assignment, though she dearly wished she could.
She had only spent the first two of those twelve years fulfilling her mission. Two years of deception, harsh lessons in survival and many near scrapes with death until she had been finally shaken off for good.
She had tried tracking down her quarry for a few months after, but it was no use. She had only been ten years old, and the world she lived in was not kind to children, or indeed, to females in general. She could only count herself lucky she had not landed herself working in a brothel. Many working women had told her she would have made a killing what with her good looks and pretty copper curls that now were long enough to cascade down her back.
Fortunately, she had found work in a wash house, scrubbing clothes and linens all day. It was gruelling work and left her little time for a life outside her duties. It barely allowed her time to stay at home to cook and clean up after her landlord and his apprentice. But she had made it work.
She was not sure how she had done it, but she had made a good honest living for herself for ten years. Ten long and hard, but also wonderful years of freedom away from that floating hellscape.
"The bell has been raised from its watery grave".
Somewhere outside a drunkard was singing loudly while a church bell rang the hour.
"Do you hear its sombre tone?"
Usually, it was a sound that comforted her what with its lazy slow clangs. But right now…now it sounded so heavy, so haunting…and yet somehow, it beckoned to her very soul as she looked out her window to the harbour view beyond.
"A call to all, pay heed to the squall,"
Somewhere out there, a ghostly ship was sailing the seas, hunting for lost souls and cheaters of death.
"And turn your sa~il home!"
But it was not going to find her. She would make sure of that.
Who knows, perhaps the old' devil's forgotten all about me. She thought as she tugged the sleeve of her shift back over her marked arm, as she opened her mouth to softly sing:
"Yo Ho, haul together, hoist the colours high. Heave ho, thieves and beggars, never shall we die."
*full version of "Hoist the Colours" taken from the POTC wiki