At World's Beginning

A Pirate's Life for Me

Now

No matter how often James wiped the damp cloth across his mouth, or how much rum he drank, the taste of blood lingered like a vengeful, copper ghost.

They'd left him a bottle, as well as a small bucket of water and cloth, both which he appreciated. Though if he was being honest with himself, the bottle cheered him more than it should have. It also dulled the ache in his nose—definitely broken—as well as the other sore parts of his body.

I'll have to thank the crew for that, he thought with a wry smile. As far as he could tell, this was simply a merchant vessel, but the men had seemed rough enough to be brigands. Of course, the seas being what they were nowadays, there wasn't much room for the soft-hearted and those of timid nature.

James sighed and leaned his head back against the bars, wondering if this is what pirates felt like as they waited for their dawn appointments with the gallows. Most had been clever enough to stay away from Port Royal, heading for the more pirate-friendly, degenerate bay of Tortuga if they needed to make port. But once in a while, his marines would find a loathsome pirate on his lonesome, prowling the docks.

Not unlike a certain Jack Sparrow, he thought with wry amusement. He hadn't thought about the man in quite a while, but he did now, wondering if Beckett had caught up to him at Shipwreck Cove. The pirates could be extinct by now, for all James knew. At one time, he would have celebrated such extermination. He had put many, many pirates to death himself—a fact that didn't use to bother him in the least.

Now... Now, he didn't know what he felt. The blacksmith's apprentice had gone pirate. His old acquaintance, Mr. Gibbs, had gone pirate. Even his ex-fiancée, brief though their engagement had been, now embraced the skull-and-crossbones flag.

You were a pirate too, for a time, a voice in his thoughts pointed out.

Yes, as a matter of convenience, James answered back, annoyed. It was not born out of an innate love of depravity and lawlessness.

Same bird, different colors, the voice quipped in amusement. That voice sounded an awful lot like a certain pirate captain. One who had undeniably led to the ruination of his life.

Come now, sour fellow. Ye know ye did that all by yer onesies, the incessant voice responded.

Oh, do shut up, he snapped moodily.

Were that I could, mate, the voice added with a grin he could feel, if not see. I'd love nothing more than to vacate the premises because it's nothin' but self-flagellation in here. But seein' as how I'm not real and all...

"I'm going mad," James muttered, this time aloud.

"Happens to the best of us."

James snapped his head up at the unexpected words, fearing for a moment the voice in his head had come to life. But the figure that separated from the shadows was not Jack Sparrow, and the voice did not belong to him either. It was the captain who stood there, eyeing James with steely grey eyes above his flint-and-silver beard.

Lord, he moves silent like a ghost, James thought as he gave a hard swallow.

"I apologize for startling you. And for that," the man said with a nod toward James' bloodied face. "I thought my men knew better, but apparently I was wrong on that account."

James studied him for a moment. He gauged that the man seemed sincere, so he asked the question he had worried upon despite the fact he had much more pressing matters to think about.

"How fares your navigator? She took quite the blow." And on my behalf as well, he didn't add. It was a curious thing that she would put herself between him and danger, especially when he was a stranger. Not to mention it was odd she had been in the brig to begin with. One does not send their prized navigator to clean up prisoner vomit.