pirate_gibbs | Christmas on the Pearl

Christmas on the Pearl

The Captain's quarters are set. The large desk has been cleared of Jack's personal goods. The rest of the room is neat and orderly, as it tends to be (much to Gibbs' constant surprise). Whatever chairs can be found belowdecks have been dragged up by the first mate, creating a cozy feel.

The desk and the larger chests are covered with oilcloth, which serve as crude tablecloths. The ship's hodgepodge of dishes, cups and silverware, plundered from many ports and ships, sit near a selection of traditional holiday treats, from ham to mincepie. At the center of the desk, there is a crystal decanter with a gold nameplate saying "Captain Jack Sparrow", filled with red wine, surrounded by matching glasses.

And there is a small, sparsely decorated tree in a corner near the hammock.

It's Christmas on the Black Pearl. Welcome.

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"There are worse out there I think" she noted after a moment. "Sins I mean. I've seen them" there was the hint of blood on the tongue, thick and warm as she said that, but it faded quickly.

"Did Jack have them cursed?" it was a valid question after all "And that's why he plotted for ten years or was it an outside force?"

"No, though if Jack could have cursed them, he would have. The cruse was on the Aztec gold. On a treasure stolen from Montezuma by the Spanish, and cursed by the Aztecs. When Barbossa and his men began spending the treasure, they were doomed to walk the earth as little more than the undead, seeming whole until the light of the moon shone down on them, when their hideous skeletal forms were seen by all!" Gibbs represses a smal shudder at his memory of the monsters.

"In a way, Barbossa did Jack a favor by sparing him the curse. But Jack was still without a ship, and under Barbossa's inhuamn command the Pearl cut a swath of violence and plunder across the Caribbean for many a year."

"Skeletons..." Rachel mused, gaze distant as she rolled that idea over in her mind. "Undead tend to burn well, or you could grind them to dust..."

She did snap her attention back to the present though, and offer a flickering smile "I once met a shaman who could curse objects...but it took a lot out of him to do so. It must have taken a whole people to curse the gold enough to effect an entire crew." she reached out a hand to squeeze his shoulder gently, offered comfort in response to the implied horrors of the tale.

"So they became nightmares, and Jack recruited you...what then? You went after them?"

"A whole people apparently did inflict this curse. The Spanish were as treacherous as Barbossa, as they always have been." You can take the sailor out of the Royal Navy, but you can't take the hatred of Spain, Bourbons and the Catholic Church out of Gibbs. "Indeed, his very name says heis one of them.

"Jack had a plan. He knew that to lift the curse, Barbossa needed the blood of every man who had used the gold. But one man was lost to Davey Jones' lokcer." More literally than even Jack had suspected. "Jack, however, knew where the son of that man could be found. And he schemed to strike a false deal with Barbossa, where he would lift the curse, and then kill Barbossa, no longer made undead and quite vulnerable to the one bullet in Jack's gun." And as Gibbs tells the tale, he realizes that - like everything Jack touches - what sems simple had become highly complicated.

She listened intently now, not to the words themselves it seemed, but the hatred behind them. " I don't know much about the Spanish" or the English really, though more the latter than the former. Rachel...simply wasn't good with history. "But I think I pity them"

That stated, she slowly felt her way through the tangle of the rest of the tale. "Jack found bait" she simplified "That could lift the curse, then shot Barbossa when the curse lifted. Sounds almost like something some of my past leaders would have cooked up." Rachel wasn't so much for complex plans.

"And the happy little details left out were: you and the living crew...and the rest of the undead crew in the mean time. That couldn't have been fun."

"Jack was always good at finding ways to make things work." When you don't understand a Captain Jack Sparrow plan, just go along. "And in the end, the curse was lifted, the Pearl was ours, and Jack had here back in his command." Let's skip over taking the ship and leaving Jack to hang, Gibbs can't even bring himself to think.

"But before that happened...yes, we did face Barbossa's undead crew, and they bested us. It was to our great luck that undead or not, most of them were piss poor sailors, and worse pirates. And that the Royal Navy took the brunt of the battle."

"He reminds me of a person the team once knew. Had an uncanny ability for luck..." she chuckled. That was as much key to any of Jack's plans, it seemed, as proper planning.

"Well, I'm guessing it's not easy to find a real crew that will follow someone into mutiny and a curse" she noted. "Did they come back after being defeated? Is that why the Pearl's here?"

"Aye, Jack has luck. Shame it's too often bad." Gibbs gets a grim smile.

"Most of the old crew was arrested by the Navy. I hear tell that some were hanged. We did take back two of the lesser membes of that group, but they are merely followers. So they did not lead us to our current state."

"He found Milliways at least" she noted quietly. "That's good luck."

"And you took on Mutineers hmm? That's...kind. Not wise, but kind" she chuckled.

"We...it's more that they took us on. I'm still not sure how they found us. But Pintell and Ragetti are harmless. If you give them an order, they'll do it. Both are actually quite capable sailors. And while cannot swear to it, I think that Ragetti feels remorse for his role in the mutiny." It's a shame that Gibbs wasn't privy to the two other pirates' conversations.

"All that said, though, we aren't particular. It's hard times, being a pirate."

"People are rarely harmless, Gibbs" Rachel noted. For all that she cherished people? There were very few she trusted. "If they come here I can check them out for you, make sure they don't have anything else in mind for you and Jack..."

Then she shook her head softly "Strange. I'd think more people would want to be..."

"Check them out?" He thinks he understands this turn of phrase, but is not sure how she would do this.

"I think that while many envy the life of the pirate, few are bold enough to try." Whichis to say, most are smart enough not to. "But it's also that times have changed. The Royal Navy has made a priority of bringing about the end of piracy in the Atlantic. And the East India Company is, if what I hear in Tortuga is true, is intent on making it come under their purview."

"People have a very hard time lying to me" she chuckled softly, a sound like velvet along the spine.

She was sad though,the very air seemed to shiver with the emotion at the tale of being hounded out..."I can't help with that" she admitted. "And in my last world, there weren't any sea pirates that I knew of...the world was just getting to small I think."

She let her gaze travel upwards to the ceiling though, and beyond that the stars. "Pirates need places to get lost in..."

"Aye. And while I think Jack thinks this is a good place to be lost," Gibbs says rather thoughtfully, "it's not. Any more than our seas have been."

"No" she agreed "It's a place to heal"

Or not heal, depending on the severity of wound.

"And a place to find new paths" she admitted after a moment. "There are greater places than earth to find, worlds of oceans and stars..."

"Did you meet Alanna? She's offered to let us sail on an ocean on her world, after she has her babies. I would guess that Jack would be there in an instant." Gibbs is not sure of such things yet, though.

"I know Alanna" she answered, her smile bright as a summer's day and chasing the shadows away for a moment.

"Jack looks for freedom, Gibbs. The chance to sail and never stop...when and if the time comes, then I guess you get to decide if you love it that much as well, or would prefer waters you know."

"He hasn't found it, you know. Miss Swann told me that I'm destined to go back to the place we left off at and go on a quest to bring him back. To life. And our world. Whatever this place is, for him it's not freedom yet." He's a little surprised to be saying this to anyone, least of all a stranger so young. But Rachel has that way of making people talk, doesn't she?

"I know" she agreed. One could tell by standing near Jack that his story wasn't finished yet. No, not even close.

"But would it be worth having if it was so easy to find?" she offered in kind, flame drowning the emerald in her eyes for a moment.

'Not for Jack, no. And he's had his opportunities. Had he wanted, all those years he was without the Pearl, he could have found a crew and a ship and started over. But she's all he ever wanted." And Gibbs finds himself smiling.

"And maybe that's all we want, too. T' see Jack bein' Jack."

Rachel listened solemnly to Gibbs's realization before nodding "You know, I think you'd do well in Alanna's seas, and I don't think Jack could ask for a better first mate"

He smiles. It's not a soft smile, but it's genuine. "I think it might be interesting to follow him there. Assuming Alanna gets us some charts. There are some things I'm not foolish enough to do."

Truth was rarely gentle, so there was no need to smile softly...

"She tends to think of things like that. And if she forgets, tell me and I'll blackmail her with withholding flying lessons or something"

"Flying..lessons?" Gibbs feels a little of his hard-earned run-generated calm fade.

"Yeah, so she doesn't go nuts when she's bed bound. It's less stressful than walking outside...and a happy Alanna is good for everyone" she noted off hand.

"So she'd probably rush the charts to you then"

Christmas on the Pearl

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