Twenty years late to the fandom, but here we are. Hello!
The timeline will mainly follow the movie canon, but there will be plenty of deviations until we go AU altogether. It'll take time before we have to deal with all that, so for now, happy reading!
Prologue
She could not smell the sea anymore. It was one of those natural things you couldn't know was missing until the absence was felt, like lungs starved for breath, and though her ship bobbed in the gentle night waves, that sea-salt scent was gone. All she smelled was the blood.
It leeched across the deck, thin spindly fingers that grasped for purchase wherever it could. It pooled around her knees, soaking through the fabric of her breeches, and through the horror all Izumi could think was how the stains would be terribly difficult to get out. She misliked uncleanliness on her ship. The blood would have to come out at once if she did not want it to ruin the fine wood of her deck.
A pair of rich leather boots came to stand before her. The blood stuck to the soles and squelched under the owner's heel as the boots pivoted to face her. The stains would be even harder to get out now.
"I am running out of patience, Captain Jin." The word was spat as a vile insult. She forced her gaze upward. Upon boarding, the man had introduced himself as Lieutenant John Wolsey, an officer in the British Royal Navy and under the authority of the East India Trading Company. He had waved an official-looking piece of paper at her before she had promptly taken it and tossed it overboard. That had been before the two dozen armed men with him had all pointed their flintlock muskets at her and her crew, outnumbering them two-to-one. Even she hadn't liked those odds. "How many more throats must I cut before you give up Jack Sparrow's location? Surely, you aren't keen on losing your entire crew?"
A dozen stalwart men and women had been at her side less than an hour ago. Now, there were two; Jessamin had memorized all the constellations of the great southern sky by the time she was eight, and at merely fifteen, her navigation was so precise that they often forewent a compass altogether. The young girl trembled beside her, whispering prayers in Spanish under her breath. Her first mate Henry knelt on her other side with at least five muskets trained on him. He was a giant of a man, easily towering over most others and with a body corded in muscle from hard labor. He stared at Lieutenant Wolsey like a wolf might stare down a viper.
"I told you." Her voice rasped on its way out of her throat, and she swallowed. "I've no dealings with Jack Sparrow."
Lieutenant Wolsey smiled at her as an adult would entertain a child's lies. He could scarcely be older than her; in his early twenties, she estimated, but in his pressed uniform and speckless hat, he seemed much older. She supposed power could make even the smallest man carry himself differently. Behind him, two of his men hauled Owen's limp body over the railing and into the sea. The splash of her bosun's body hitting the water sounded like a gunshot in the night.
Jessamin whimpered beside her. She took the younger girl's hand despite the sharp point of the bayonet that dug into her back when she moved. Izumi stifled her grunt of pain.
"This is fascinating," Wolsey said. He sounded like a genuine scholar puzzling over a complex problem. "I knew pirates followed their own code, but loyalty for their squabbling brethren is something I was not expecting." He chuckled. "Though I suppose your ship's name does truly live up to its reputation now, Captain Jin. The Loyal Death." He chuckled again. "Your crew certainly abided by it."
"Jack Sparrow's known to frequent these waters, aye, but that doesn't mean we've made his acquaintance," Henry growled. "If you'd just listen—"
"I make it a point not to listen to any Scotsman," Wolsey said, waving a flippant hand. "Silence the beast until I have need of him."
Henry struggled, and in the end, it took three men just to force a gag into his mouth. Jessamin wept and Izumi stared at the darkening blood.
Wolsey sighed, pinching his nose. "If I'd known you would all be so eager for death, I would've followed through on bringing you to the gallows. Alas, we shall have to finish this unpleasant business the hard way. The girl; bring her to me."
"No." Izumi tightened her grip on Jessamin's hand. "No, take me, she's innocent—"
"She's a pirate." Wolsey's voice was disdainful. "A quick death is more than she deserves. Seize her."
"No!" Izumi lurched forward before the butt of a musket clubbed the back of her head. She fell into the cooling blood with a ragged gasp as Jessamin's hand was ripped from hers.
Henry struggled, grunting through his gag, and more men stepped forward to restrain him as another dragged Jessamin by her hair and dumped her at Wolsey's feet. Izumi fought to get up, but a heavy boot crushed down on her back, driving the air from her chest, while another bayonet tip nestled at the base of her skull. She could only watch as Wolsey gazed down at Jessamin in outright disgust.
"You, girl," he said. "Tell me and tell me true: Where is Jack Sparrow? I don't need his precise location; just a heading is enough for me. Tell me, and I will let you and your captain live."
"I don't know," Jessamin sobbed. "None of us do, I swear it to God! He stays out of our way and we stay out of his – the sea is big, we have no need—"
Izumi screamed. With a subtle hand movement, Wolsey had commanded the soldier standing behind Jessamin to ram his bayonet through her throat. Jessamin reached for her neck, clawing at loose flaps of flesh as more blood poured from the hole in her throat. She choked and gurgled for a long, agonizing moment before she pitched forward, twitching and dying in her own blood. Henry shouted through his gag, tears streaming down his face, and it took two men bashing him with their muskets to get him to slump in submission.
Izumi breathed through the blood around her, unable to tear her gaze from Jessamin's lifeless eyes. They bored into her, glassy and damning, and she no longer cared about the boot on her back nor the bayonet poised to execute her in the same manner as Jessamin. She no longer cared about anything at all. She closed her eyes.
Wolsey approached her; she knew it was him even without seeing. He had an exaggeratedly slow step like the prowl of a predator; a victor strolling among the casualties of the army he had conquered. Beyond him, men grunted and heaved, and another distant splash told her that Jessamin's body had been cast overboard as well.
There are no stars tonight, Izumi realized. Jessamin wanted to die with the stars above her.
"Is this truly the sort of death you crave, Lady Jin?" Wolsey said softly. She sensed him kneel; recoiled when his hand smoothed away her blood-soaked hair. "Alone in the dark, your loyal crew dead in the water, nothing more than bloated corpses that can attest to their captain's cruel obstinacy?"
Izumi cowered in the cold blood of her crew. She had handpicked each one for their daring and loyalty, and each had died in her name. It was as if she had walked them to the gallows herself.
"Kill me," she whispered.
Wolsey leaned closer. "Hm? What was that?"
"Spare Henry," she croaked. "Spare him. Kill me. We don't have what you want. Kill me and be done with it."
Wolsey sat back on his heels, dissatisfied. "Now that's much too easy, Lady Jin. You put me through all that effort, all that slaughter, just to beg for death like some mewling rat caught in a trap? You don't want to make this fun for me? For us?" He clucked his tongue. "No last stand, no grand duel… My, you're a disappointment."
He slapped his knees and stood in one fluent movement. "Very well. Back to the ship, men. Officer Bennett, put this one to the torch."
"Sir?" The man with his bayonet trained on Izumi sounded confused. "What would you have us do with these two?"
Wolsey stared down at Izumi, utterly unrepentant and utterly gleeful. "Leave them. If the captain wishes to go down with her ship, let her. Come."
After a slight hesitation, the company filed off Izumi's ship and across the gangplank to their own frigate. Lamps flickered to life on the other ship; it was how Izumi and her crew had been caught by surprise. With the thick cloud cover and no discernible lights, Wolsey had used the darkness to his advantage and boarded them before they knew what was happening. She might have done the same had the roles been reversed.
Oil washed away the scent of blood, and then smoke rose to claim its place. As the first tendrils of smoke curled around her face, she saw Wolsey's face one last time, smiling down at her.
"Farewell, Lady Jin." His blue eyes, cold as a glacial sea, sparked in the darkness. "I do hope this is not the end of our beautiful tale."
She shut her eyes once more and prayed to smell the sea again, but there was no time for her to mourn. Henry was hauling her to her feet as soon as Wolsey's fine boots left the deck.
"Captain," Henry was saying, but his voice sounded far away. He shook her shoulders, gently at first, then harder when he noticed her gaze on the retreating light of Wolsey's lamps. "Captain!"
He was starting to look fuzzy, but she assumed it was the smoke. He swore. "We need get off the ship! Grab what you can, and we'll make for the longboat!"
She stared at the spot where Jessamin had been butchered, and Owen before her, and Jean-Philippe, and Tao…
In an instant, her first mate threw her over his shoulder and ran to the aft deck where they kept two longboats tied. He dumped her unceremoniously into the nearest one before striding back across the deck. By the time she had stirred and reached for the line, he was jumping in beside her with several cutlasses, daggers, and pistols in his arms. Behind him, smoke plumed into the dark sky, limned with harsh edges of gold as the fire grew and devoured the nimble Chinese junk that had been her pride, her lifeline connecting her to the seas. Flames were already climbing the masts and devouring the red sails. Embers floated gently past her like snowflakes.
Henry lowered them to the water and launched the boat as the first flames began to eat away the deck where they had been moments before. He grabbed a pair of oars and rowed as fast as his powerful arms could.
They said nothing as they fled across the black water. High above the flames, a single star had appeared. Only then did she allow her tears to fall.
The Loyal Death burned as brightly as a second sun when dawn arrived. Izumi was surprised at how long the ship kept burning, but the sea claimed all in her own time. Her ship would not go quickly; it would burn for hours as a last jape from the gods, and she would watch as Henry rowed their longboat farther and farther away.
They had escaped with nothing but their skins and whatever weapons Henry had gathered as the deck blackened and splintered beneath him. Her grandfather's swords lay on the bench beside her, and if she'd had the strength, she would have thrown them to the sharks. Instead, she sat and stared hollowly at the shrinking flames. Her tears had burned away with the last of her beloved ship.
"I see land," Henry said quietly around mid-morning. Crests of frothy white waves crashed against a distant rocky beach, and Izumi's stomach plummeted. If they could have made it to port before Wolsey caught up to them, they could have made a stand. Her crew might still be alive. "We'll stock on provisions and…"
He trailed off, realizing what she had.
"We have no money." Her voice was flat and emotionless. "No money, no crew, no ship."
Henry frowned. Soot and sweat mixed together on his face, obscuring his expression, but his eyes were pained. "We have our lives, Captain. Perhaps that is miracle enough for now."
She said nothing, and he kept rowing, and the Loyal Death kept burning until, at last, it sank beneath the waves.
Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts!