PotC – Telling Tales

Title: Telling Tales
Author: Atra Materia
Fandom/Characters: Pirates of the Caribbean – Jack, Barbossa, OFC Narrator
Rating/Warnings: 13+ – Mentions of character death after the fact.
Summary: On the road to Hell, they never stopped to check who was ahead.
Disclaimer: All content relating directly to Pirates of the Caribbean, including but not limited to its characters, events, and places, is the property of its original creators.

They tell tales in these parts; tales of ghosts and devils and the wild man of the wood.

We don’t bother much with the Catamount or the Sasquatch ’round here. Those are stories for the hill and the thicket – and them Injun burial grounds, well, we ain’t got any of those, either. Injuns all died out West, after the government drove ’em out. No, we got the sand and the sea and the old plantation, and those give us tales a-plenty without needin’ to look anywhere else. We got Confederate soldiers still walkin’ the old fort, and the chains of slaves still rattlin’ in the fields.

But you don’t want to hear ’bout those, of course. No, you want to hear ’bout pirates, jus’ like everybody else that comes to see ol’ Hedda. You want to hear how Blackbeard marooned his crew and sank the Queen Anne’s Revenge right off that beach, there, and how Anne Bonney fled the high life for the high seas. You want to hear ’bout ol’ Jack Sparrow and Black Heart Barbossa.

Now, they’ll be tellin’ you Barbossa was a man so evil even Hell spat him back out – twice – but that ain’t what was goin’ on. Hell loves evil, much as Hell can love anything; so why would it want to cast out a soul so dark it could have been its king? No, the problem, you see, was that Hell already had a king, and that king wasn’t goin’ to be havin’ Barbossa in his court. Not after what Barbossa did on his ship.

Aye, I can see from your eyes that you done made the leap, and that’s exactly right – ol’ Jack Sparrow was the king of Hell, the devil himself. Now, you say, That cain’t be right; Jack may have been a bit of a bastard now and then, but he was a good soul – or at least not so bad a soul as he could have been. What you’re forgettin’, though, is that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions – and ol’ Jack, well, he had many a good intention.

When he called the Pearl up out of the depths, that was a good intention, and when he crewed it with any man who longed for the freedom of the seas, that was a good intention. When he ignored Bootstrap Bill sending a gold coin to his only begotten son – that he knew about – that was a good intention, and when he took that son out to reclaim his true love, that was a good intention. Oh, sure, you cain’t say there wasn’t a measure of selfishness to it; it’s no lie that every one of those acts would have benefitted Jack as much as anyone else if they’d come out right – but ol’ Jack, he liked to make sure everyone got their due; be it good or bad.

Barbossa, he wanted his due, too; but he and Jack didn’t rightly agree on what exactly was due him – so when he left Jack behind on that island? Aye, that was him claimin’ his fiery throne – and when Jack left his bare bones slumped over a pile of curséd gold? That was the king takin’ back what was his and givin’ a usurper his due.

He was the king of the pirates, at that point, and he just went right on carryin’ out those good intentions. Meanwhile, Barbossa’d gone down to Hell, and was settin’ himself up real nice-like there. Jack always liked thinkin’ ’bout Barbossa in Hell, but he didn’t really care much what he was doin’ there long as he was there – kept him out of the way, after all.

Last good intention ol’ Jack had ‘fore he went there himself was turnin’ ’round a longboat an’ goin’ back to his own true love. He was a Cap’n of Cap’n’s, and there was no way he wasn’t goin’ down on her, goin’ down with her. And li’l ‘lizbeth, well, she’d been a good intention, too, but she’d pro’ly gone the baddest of them all – his greatest triumph and his greatest defeat, all wrapped up in one pretty little package.

So ol’ Jack, he went down with his ship, and since he’d been havin’ all those good intentions – well, he’d paved himself a road right to Hell; a road that led down a Kraken’s gullet and into the briny depths. He went in and he passed out; and when he came to, who should he see but Black Heart Barbossa; sittin’ on a pin with an apple in one hand and a coin in the other. S’pose there’s nobody who really knows what went on then but them and God and maybe ol’ Tia Dalma, but one thing you can say for certain is that Barbossa was back above the waves by mornin’.

You know the story from there; I don’t need to be tellin’ you. The crew of the Pearl, they put their trust in the devil they knew, thinkin’ it was better than the devil they didn’t – that devil bein’ a world without ol’ Jack Sparrow – followed him down to Hell themselves, and got the good Cap’n back where he rightfully belonged. Things being what they were, of course, couldn’t have the one in the same place as the other, so those two ol’ devils, they struck a deal – struck it in steel and blood and that one last coin; and by nightfall, Barbossa was back in Hell – likely for good, with the amount of blade that went through him – and Cap’n Sparrow, he was sailin’ into the sunset with li’l ‘lizbeth on one side and a jar of dirt on the other. He always kept that with him after that, just in case.

But you know that Jack; he just went right on with those good intentions. And the day came when he took the helm for the last time, and the sun went down, and there was nothin’ on those waves but an empty ship – ’cause ol’ Jack, he was back in Hell himself; and this time, there wasn’t goin’ to be any cuttin’ of deals with the king of the sea or lookin’ to Aztec gold for answers. But even then, he wasn’t goin’ to have Barbossa in his court, and he certainly wasn’t goin’ to be in Barbossa’s – and ol’ Barbossa felt ’bout the same way. You hear ’bout man’s eternal struggle – well, that’s it, right there. They went to fightin’ that first night, and they been fightin’ ever since. You look out to that sandbar tonight, you look past those Confederate ghosts and those moanin’ slaves, and you’ll see what I mean. Most the time, you’ll see the Blackheart trudgin’ ‘long; lookin’ for a warm bed and a wench and a meal, maybe with some of them green apples he was always so fond of – but sometimes, every now-and-then, you’ll see ol’ Jack; starin’ at the sea and waiting for his Pearl…