Kap 01 (~english~)
(Da ich kein Nativespeaker bin und auch meine Betaleserin nicht(die in Englisch wesentlich besser ist als ich ^^ sind grammatikalische und zeitliche Fehler vorbehalten =) )
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He was stroking the dark wood with his fingertips. His thoughts were drifting off and he couldn't really tell where to...
Maybe to the night when he had been the victim of a mutiny. Maybe to the day he had been branded as a pirate. Wanted or not. Never ever would anyone believe his version of how it had come to this - the truth. Everyone takes a look at him and knows, he is a pirate. A filthy creature who has no right to live. Not even the right to exist.
He deserves only one end: Death.
Now he sat on the quarterdeck of his ship and he could hear his men - and woman - talking, laughing and telling stories. They were sitting near the mast, drinking rum and enjoying the cool breeze.
Black eyes - almost as black and dark as this fine lady he is calling now again his own - half closed, his gaze never finding a destination. Nothing he wanted to look at this moment.
He was alone. Well, he had some company. A fine lady who was always listening to him.
Who wass always faithful to him, nevertheless what he had done. Or not done...
"Thought you would need this...", a familiar voice said and Jack looked up slowly. The other man's face looked a little bit strange in the dim light of a near torch. He held two bottles of rum in his hands and one of them was now in front of Jack's nose.
"Didn't think of that...", the pirate answered in a low voice and took the bottle. The glass felt cool. Unlike the sun-warmed wood. "Thanks, mate..."
Norrington leaned against the rail of the Black Pearl and was looking down to the sitting man in front of him. "Never thought you would be one of these guys...", he mumbled into his bottle before taking a sip of the liquid.
"And...'these guys' means...what exactly?" Jack watched the brown rum. It was darker than in the bright sunlight. But not as dark and silvery as in the cold light of the fullmoon.
"Sitting alone in a corner of the room...well...in some kind of corner of a ship and talking to himself..."
"Was never talking to meself...not at the moment. Guess I'm too sober...", there was a grin on Jack's face and James could see the golden teeth in the pirate's mouth. He wondered about how it came that Jack wore gold instead of his teeth. Just for fun? For looking more exotic than he would without it? Or had he lost his teeth in a fight?
"You always seemed to me like a man who likes to be in company. Among people who are listening to your stories...and so on..."
Jack nodded towards a free place near him and waited until his company had sat in front of him on the deck of the Pearl. He watched the younger man like he had watched the rum a moment before.
It was now nearly two weeks since they had found Norrington in Tortuga. He had been drunk. As drunk as Jack often had been. Except that Jack knew how to act. James didn't know and in the end he had been kicked out of the Faithful Bride and landed next to some pigs in the mug.
In this night Jack had been looking for some new crewmembers. It had turned out that Norrington had lost his job after this whole Isla de Muerta story. He had given Jack a day's head start and had never been able to catch the Sparrow after setting him free. The haunt - or the storm he had tried to sail through - had cost him not only most of his men and his proud ship but also his life. Now he was a filthy scallywag like Jack was. And the former Commodore was not happy with this state of being after hating and haunting and killing pirates.
"I'm in company, mate. Was talking to my beloved Pearl...listening to what she was answering me...think this is not talking to meself since I'm not with me onesies...savvy?", his hand was moving on its own. It was some kind of habit of the older pirate. When talking about something, he had to move his hands to embellish and illustrate his words.
"You are talking to a ship, Sparrow. I hope you know that...", James was wondering again how a man like Jack Sparrow could be as slippery as an eel when it came up to catching him. He knew manoeuvres no other captain would even dare to think about. And now he was sitting in front of the Ex-Commodore and told him he talked to his ship.
"Nah...she's no ordinary ship. Thought ye knew that... Said it already to Miss Swann...or...Misses Turner nowadays...however...", he gulped down the rum and took a deep breath. "Pearl's got a mast and a rail and a keel...and a bow and all that stuff. Ye know. But all this doesn't make her an ordinary ship. Keep this in your mind..."
James nodded a little bit and stroked with his fingertips the darkened wood beneath him. "And she answers you?"
He couldn't believe what he had just asked.
"O'course she does! She's a polite girl...that she is...", there again was a slight grin on his lips. The trinkets in Jack's hair jingled as he shook his head a little. Disbelief showed on his face. "Can't believe you don't believe me, James. After all we've been through together..."
"I think it's just me but I can't remember 'all' those things you're refering to. Besides...that doesn't explain a talking ship as you put it."
"Just 'cause you've never heard a ship talk doesn't mean they're not able to, aye? Close your eyes an' listen to 'er, luv...", the pirate put the bottle down onto the deck and gesticulated with both of his hands. He was looking more like he wanted to charm a snake than that he was talking to an other human being. So it was all the more surprising when James closed his eyes and leaned with his back against the rail while he tried to hear something.
"And?"
"Can't say I hear something...new or something odd. Sounds like a ship to me. A fine ship, indeed. But a ship..."
Jack sighed deeply. It seemed like some kind of neverending story. The younger man wouldn't understand him. Not that the pirate wanted him to do so but he would be pleased if the former Commodore tried to comprehend.
"So...what d'ye hear, mate?", Jack asked curiously and dark brown eyes met green ones. After opening his eyes again the younger man looked directly in Jack's face and smiled.
"The ordinary, Captain Sparrow. Maybe I'm too sober at the moment to hear your ship talking to me..."
"Tell me what ye're hearing..."
Now it was up to James to sigh. This pirate could be distressing.
"I can hear the creak of the wood...the waves against the hull...the cool breeze all around us...so what are you expecting me to hear, Sparrow? A female and prurient voice talking in my head?" There was more irony in his voice than he wanted to, but it was just too ridiculous. How could a ship talk?
Grinning, Jack took the bottle again and the cool glass met the warmth of his lips before he could taste the rum.
"All this creaking and groaning and so on...as ye said...is 'er way of talking to me. Ye just have to...listen more carefully..."
"And what is she telling you? How fine the sea is? How warm the water? Or what she has seen?", it was one thing to affirm to talk with dead objects. It was an other thing to actually do so. James shook his head again, grinned and drank more of the rum. Maybe he really was too sober for talking to a ship. It would be a new experience after all.
"At the moment she's just listening to me...as always...", the pirate closed his eyes again, his ear against the black wood. James could see the smudgy kohl on the eyelids of the other man. Another exotic detail of a man who looked like an exotic animal anyway. An exotic bird, to be more precisely.
"And why are you talking to her? Where's the difference between...talking to a ship und talking to a person?"
James crossed his ankles, the bottle in his lap and gazed at the pirate captain. He couldn't remember if he had ever talked to an animal. Now he was sitting aboard the Black Pearl and tried to hear if the ship would talk to him.
Ridiculous!
"She's honest to me, mate...jus' honest. Has never been unfaithful to me...", Jack mumbled in a soft voice. If he weren't sitting next to him, James would have believed the pirate was talking to himself - again.
"Unfaithful? Is that what you are afraid of, Jack? That people would be unfaithful to you? That they would cheat on you?" James knew the stories which were told about the eccentric man. He had once lost his ship to Barbossa because he had trusted him too much. It was Will who had told him that story. James had shrugged it off. Now it seemed that this betrayal and the mutiny have left more scars on Jack than he had thought.
"People are unfaithful, James. If it comes to their own benefit...some would sell their own grandmother. Ye know that, too. Think 'bout the good Miss Elizabeth. 't was betrayal on you, luv. She accepted your proposal so you would save the dear whelp for her. And even if I'm happy for them ... that they found each other... I saw the look on yer face when she told ye the truth ... well, she insinuated so..."
A grim smile showed on James' face as he remembered this specific moment at the Fort. "Maybe we made some kind of similiar experience when it comes to betrayal. In my case it was rejection. I lost the woman I once loved. Perhaps I love her to this day. But her rejection didn't cost me my life...and now I'm here. Aboard a pirate ship together with my fiend. The fiend I tried to catch and hang. Now I've to trust this enemy because he is the captain of this ship. Sometimes we've to trust another to survive. And sometimes we just want to trust..."
"Are you that drunk or that sober, to talk like that?", there was a small smile on Jack lips as he opened his eyes and looked at James.
"Maybe both...or neither. Can't tell."
"So...now you're telling me that I should trust...?"
"Aye..."
"And whom?"
"There are enough men aboa-"
"And a woman...", Jack interrupted.
"...there are enough men and a woman aboard I thought you would trust. Perhaps just a little...but it doesn't make a difference here..."
"It doesn't?"
"No..."
"Why?"
Jack couldn't tell why but this conversation was very interesting at the moment. He hadn't talked about this to noone. And he couldn't say why he was doing it now. Maybe he was too drunk...
"Trust is trust...it just depends on you whom you trust. Who is it worth to be trusted. You're their captain and they've to trust you. As do I - at the moment. As some kind of crewmember..."
"Hm...sometimes ye Brits aren't as stupid as I thought..."
"See. World isn't black and white. I've had to learn that, too. A normal civilian can be worse than a pirate. And even a pirate can be a good man. Sometimes...if he wants to be."
"Thanks, luv...", suddenly Jack bent forward and gave the former Commodore a kiss on the unshaved cheek before he took his bottle again and gulped down the brown liquid.
The younger man rubbed his cheek in disbelief.
"I guess ... you're welcome..."
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