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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Let the rum, and the words, flow!

Jack's leaning lazily against one of the interior supports, toying with a glass and occasionally glancing up at the steady white glow of the lantern above.

"See anything interesting?" Rachel asked curiously as she took in the direction of his gaze. She had her own glass, how not, though she seemed fairly unaffected by drinking from it...a sad thing that.

"All sorts of things to see in the fire, luv," Jack informs her, and gives a quick nod toward the distant Gibbs-- setting beaded braids to clicking as he does.

"Now that man there could tell you all about them, too." He shrugs, offering a wicked grin.

"Just have to know how to look."

Rachel chuckled at his comments, sound open and as cheerful as any flame "I know" and she did. Better than most.

"That doesn't answer my question though" she poked him gently in the side. "And I promise when you do, I'll go ask Gibbs the same thing"

She will, to. She was always curious about how people saw things...

He grins at her, wickedly unrepentant-- but after a moment, he looks back up at the lantern.

"Too bright to be a star, savvy? But it puts me in mind of a special sort of star I saw once, a long time gone."

Rachel's gaze wasn't for Jack, or his lantern, but for the amber depths of the rum held in her hands. Stars...

Ah yes, Stars...

"What did you see, Jack?"

"Was on the water," he says, still looking up at the lantern. "Becalmed, and no sound but the breeze whispering and the creaking of the ship under me feet-- not the Pearl," Jack adds swiftly, glancing briefly at her.

"I was the only one on deck, looking up at the sky, with all the little stars set like bright chips of diamond in the black."

A wry, oddly knowing smile twists his lips.

"Only seen something like it in one place since. Anyway, there I was, minding me own, when suddenly a blaze went streaking across the sky like someone'd fired a shot through the heavens."

Rachel set down her glass of rum on the nearest table and came over to lean beside Jack on the wall. Then she cupped her hands around a handful of light and spread her fingers wide...

There was a picture carved in flame and shadows, of a younger Jack, star gazing, the ship around him flickering in detail "Go on" Rachel begged softly.

She was a woman who loved stories.

He flashes her an oddly enchanted, blithely brilliant smile as he notices the image, but continues easily,

"'S just what I did, savvy? Arrowed straight down the deck to the very stern so's I could get a better look. It went falling down toward a distant horizon, falling with wings of fire trailing out behind it, and if I'd not been looking at the opportune moment, I'd never have seen it land."

And the picture followed suit, showing a lithe limbed scramble across a sleeping ship, and breath held in wonderment as the horizon streaked then glowed...

After all, breathing would have broken the spell.

"It's the moments like that that matter" she agreed softly.

"A glass, Jack?"

Slowly, every motion deliberate, Elizabeth approaches and pours rum into her own glass. Even an optimist would be forced to admit her bottle is really just almost empty.

"I wasn't sure you knew how to use one," she finishes with a cheeky smile.

"Lot of things about me you don't know, Lizzie," he drawls, looking her over.

Still, Jack makes no move to stop her from taking the rum.

It was later in the evening by the time Rachel found herself by Gibb's side once more, glass in hand and steady as a rock despite the amount imbibed. She'd said that'd she'd ask the man a question, and she rarely ever went against her word.

"A moment, Gibbs?" she asked softly from the shadows.

He's a bit startled, not quite seeing her, and not quite sober (more so than usual).

"Oh, Miss Grey, it's you. What can I do for you?"

The flicker of flame across her face may help with the seeing. It may not...depended on sobriety perhaps...

But that wasn't the matter at hand.

"Jack mentioned to me that you've seen things in fore to, in fact, his words were "All sorts of things to see in the fire luv, now that man there could tell you all about it..." and so...I've come to ask you..." her smile from the shadows was remarkably clear of flame, just honest and bright.

"What do you see Gibbs?"

What a strange question. Or a strange way of putting it, at any rate. But then, this woman seems to be close to the Captain, and maybe you need to ask strange things to understand him.

"I see...well, I see that you seem to be on fire a bit, which is likely the rum and the food and the season talking. And I see the ship, which is as fine as it's ever been. Finer, perhaps, as we've had the time to treat her right."

"She is a fine ship" she agreed with that same smile, gaze drifting slowly along the walls and towards a window...

"Jack taught me how to steer, or as well I could learn in just a night" she admitted softly. "And I am on fire usually, so no need to worry about your eye sight."

"How long have you traveled with Jack?" she asked curiously.

What's more odd? That a lass would be on fire, or that Jack would teach a lass to steer? Though here anything is likely, and Jack surely had something else in mind with the lass.

"I've been on the Pearl this past year, since we took it back from the scoundrel Barbossa. But I've traveled with the Captain for many years now. Since I mustered out of the navy, and I found myself in need of an occupation."

"He didn't really have anything else on his mind" she offered softly, yes, in answer to things unspoken. "The Pearl was free of the lake for a little while, and he thought it a good way to repay..." she shrugged. Not that she'd meant to intrude, she was simply quick to defend friends.

Then she tilted her head, bird-like in her curiosity "Barbossa?" she asked, certain there was a story in there somewhere.

Did she hear his thoughts? No, that cannot be. And anyone who could hear thougts would no doubt be driven to distraction by Jack's. Besides, Gibbs has more imoprtant matters to address.

"The captain has never told you of Barbossa? It's quite a tale, and one that I would have guessed...but's there's never any tellin'w ith Jack.

"Barbossa was the traitor who turned the crew of the Pearl against Jack and took his ship, more than a decade ago. Before I ever knew him."

No, Gibbs simply thought loud, no reading needed? And jack...was only distracting when one was inflexible..."Nope, he never came up" she admitted, sliding close enough to be in polite listening range and leaning against the wall comfortably.

"Mutiny?" she asked simply. She knew that term at least. "Did he get it back before or after you teamed up with him?"

"Mutiny. Which Jack says is the worst sin a man can commit." Gibss has no idea why, having never read Dante. "They left Jack on a desert island to die, and went after the treasure of Isla del Muerte without him.

"For ten years, he schemed to get his ship back, and when the moment arrived, I was the first man he recruited.

"But there was more to it than that. For Barbossa, in betraying his captain, sealed his own fate and that of the treacherous louts in that crew. They were cursed!"

"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."

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