True North; Neverland : Prologue
Title: True North; Neverland
Author: pixies_pirates aka Capt. Tehrin of the Spanish Main
Chapter: Prologue
Characters/Pairings: Jack with Jack/Elizabeth/Will spinklings and Jack/Pearl; the Darling family
Word Count: 1184
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Spoilers from the end of DMC
Summary: There's always the end of the road, but what about the beginning? How did the events that led one to find the end of the road happen? At World's End, there's Neverland; a place of beginnings. AU. Crossover.
Disclaimers: Pirates of the Caribbean is property of the Walt Disney Co. Peter Pan is property of the Great Ormond Street Hospital and the work of J.M. Barrie, not Disney. This is an unlicensed, unendorsed fanfiction, which is written not for profit, but for the enjoyment of the author and whoever might be reading.
True North; Neverland
Prologue
To fully understand a story, it would be best to start at the beginning. The question is where to begin about a story that involves so many places, so many legends, and so many different dates. After all, our concept of time really has no meaning in Neverland where most of the events take place. Of course, time does pass within Neverland itself, but time in Neverland doesn’t ebb forward constantly in tangent with the Earth’s time. Sometimes Neverland likes to turn the pages back to recall certain favorite stories on Earth or skip centuries all together to get to a certain passage on a later page. Imagine if Rip van Winkle had fallen asleep in Neverland, and then Neverland decided in one of her mood swings wouldn’t it be funny to play a joke? And when Rip flew back to the Hudson River Valley, he returned on the day he was born instead of twenty years later? Of course, Rip van Winkle might not have even aged if he had gone to Neverland. Age is another thing as fickle as time over there and the majority of the population ages slowly, if at all.
One thing is for sure. It was lucky for the Darling family that Neverland was extraordinarily fond of Peter Pan, children, and good stories, and fortunately for our history books, Peter Pan never quite figured out how fond Neverland was of him, or he would have taken advantage of it to participate in Roman chariot races, visit Babylonian gardens, converse with Mayan astronomers, or do anything his heart desired. That doesn’t mean that Pan isn’t clever. He’s a bright boy, but he will forever be a child; devilish and naïve at the same time.
But enough about Peter Pan. He is important in his own right as a legend, and we will return to him shortly. For the sake of our beginning, we will start in the linear Earth fashion at an interval earlier in time, and just for you, dear reader, Neverland has been kind enough to let us borrow her mirror, so let us look into it now, together. With a little bit of pixie dust, we can look back through the mists of time to reflect on what happened many a year ago in the days of tall ships, high seas, and pirate kings. . . .
“It’s after you, not the ship. It’s not us. This is the only way, don’t you see? …I’m not sorry.”
“Pirate.”
His smile glittered at Elizabeth as she rushed away over to the side and disappeared, not looking back once. Jack Sparrow should have known it would come to this. He was betrayed once more by something as shiny and as beautiful as treasure. The first time was in friendship; the second time was by his lust. That was what he got for being a dishonest, thieving pirate, willing to sacrifice everything in the name of his own selfish desires.
Among humans, it was Jack’s actions against Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann that sent him to the grave, but the list of humans he had harmed was not small. He cost James Norrington his honor and Governor Swann his daughter. He was responsible for taking the lives of two entire crews under his leadership over the span of a few days because of his dealing with Jones (minus seven men, one female, and a parrot), but, on Jack’s behalf, let it be said that the backstabbing Wooden Jack had given to Lord Cutler Beckett many years before was deserved.
If that wasn’t enough to condemn him, it was The Black Pearl who deserved retribution above anyone else. Ships have souls and it’s disastrous to forget The Pearl’s feelings when it comes to her Captain’s moment of neglect. When she was clenched and crushed in the many arms of the slimy, towering, ferocious Kraken pet of Davy Jones, Jack attempted to escape from battle to save his own skin over that of his ship. He would have made it to land if the compass needle hadn’t swiveled back towards the ship and Jack would have sworn he heard The Pearl herself shout at him.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, SPARROW?” The Pearl bellowed. Her voice was even more screeching and scathing in his head than Elizabeth in her worst temper. “You made that wager to raise me from the depths only to let me die without you?! How could I have loved you, Coward! Criminal! Pirate!”
That was what stabbed him in the chest and made him row as rapidly as he could back to the ship and his own damnation. His ship had loved him best out of all the women in his life and it was with her he had made a vow to go down with on that final adventure. Jack never considered himself as good of a man as Lizzie was always telling him he was, but he was going to be honorable in his own death if in anything at all.
Now shackled to the mast by his wrists, the lingering traitorous kiss on his lips marked his last and final betrayal. Well, William would never have to know about that. Now Elizabeth was free to go back to his arms, he could console her and everything would be right as rain. The happy married couple could go home, pop a few buns in the oven, and hopefully the kids would take after their mother in cunning and their father in ingenuity. The children would be extremely pretty and make great pirates one day, no doubt.
Jack then prayed, perhaps the first time in his life, on behalf of the future Turner line. Let the children not become eunuchs like their father. Amen. He then decided to solve his current situation. Dying while shackled was like being spoon-fed to an infant and it was not in his plans for a final send off.
The send off was written like an overture and the story of it would pass into shanties that would be sung from the Greater Antilles to Singapore to England and all the way around the world through Cape Horn. This time he didn’t even use his back hair or sea turtles to do it. Caressing the mast for one last time, he freed himself in a flash using the oil from a broken lantern to lather his wrists and slip from his restraints. The sea rumbled beneath him, causing the injured his Pearl to moan in warning at her captain that the monster was coming. Jack then turned around and he stared his own death in its face as the Kraken slithered up on the starboard side.
The Kraken had many teeth; all sharp, angled and ready in their many rows much like shark’s teeth. Each one of the teeth was just itching to take a chunk out of Ol’ Jack. Its arms quivered in anticipation and with a foul rancid meat smell on its breath, the beast opened wide and roared.
However, what the shanties won’t tell you is that the roar part was messy, but the Kraken was kind enough to return his lost tricorne hat.
Picking up the hat, Jack put it on his head. With a “Hello Beastie,” Jack drew his sword and poised it high before he lunged at the Kraken. The Pearl cracked and splintered as it was torn in twain. Steel flashed on the deck against tooth and tentacle as Jack was taken with his beloved to the depths. The smoke from the fires burned and choked his lungs until finally the Kraken got Jack into its beak-maw. Even then, he didn’t scream as it ate him, whole.
All that the escape party could see of the ship, its sails, and her captain when they reached land - and could stomach the sight was a tiny black dot on the horizon before it disappeared beneath the waves.
“That was a wonderful story! Will you tell it again tomorrow night?” John Darling was wide awake, his head propped on his knees as he hung onto every word. Even if one eye was hidden by an eye patch, it was clear both eyes were open in awe of yet another one of Mary Darling’s bedtime tales. It was the first time in half a year that he requested a retelling of one of her stories.
“You’re still awake, John? What am I going to do with you?! If your father knew this, he’d scold you for being too old for pirates!” Mrs. Darling tried to soften her laugh by covering her mouth, not wanting to wake the other children. She stroked her son’s ebony hair, trying to coax him to sleep.
“I’m almost six and a man, Mother. I’ll decide when I want to be too old for pirates.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Mrs. Darling could stifle her laugh no longer. “I will be a pirate some day just like him, but I’ll be less of a fool.”
“He’s right, Mother. It was a lovely story.”
“Oh, Wendy, you’re awake too? Don’t tell me Michael is--” Mrs. Darling turned her head to face the smallest bed and indeed, the youngest Darling was fast asleep. The magic of the bedtime story had worked on one of them at least. She sighed, deftly removed John’s eye patch and George Darling’s old ascot John liked using for a headscarf, and tucked him in. “Would you really want to be a pirate, dearest? Pirates are not the wonderful people you read about in stories. They are mean and vicious and would murder little boys like you without a second thought.”
“Jack wasn’t! He was a coward, but he wasn’t really mean or vicious. I would be a good pirate!” John proclaimed as his mother kissed his freckled cheeks, before she headed over to make sure Michael was covered by his blanket. “Wendy, what do you think? Tell Mother I’m right.”
“Hm…”Seven-year old Wendy looked pensively to the ceiling, fingering her lip with her thumb, before handing down her verdict. “Pirates are dreadful….but I’d still like to be one.”
“You’re a girl. Girls can’t be pirates.”
“Elizabeth was! And she was the Governor’s daughter, too!”
“But it’s a story. Real girls can’t be pirates and ladies at the same time.”
“I’ll be a pirate. And I’ll be a lady. And I’ll be better at it than you!”
“Shhh…At least write me letters so I know the Navy hasn’t caught you when you do become pirates then, my little ones.” Defeated, Mrs. Darling smiled, and making sure Wendy was tucked in, she blew out her own candle. The night lights would stand sentinel until the children fell asleep. As determined as Wendy sounded in her speech, Mrs. Darling knew she would forget all about being a pirate by morning. “Good night, children.”
“Good night, Mother.”
“But you’ll tell us more about Captain Jack Sparrow tomorrow, right?”
“Go to sleep, John!”
Authors Notes: Special thanks to my betas: silvermuse89 for doing the primary draft and helping me bounce of titles, theprophetsaid for already suffering through part of the next installment. fir_kun for the summary, and kzerina for the final draft check. Uber special thanks to bartle_by over on jf for randomly mentioning back in September on a fandom_discuss thread that she would love to see this as a crossover. If she hadn't that idea wouldn't have come back to plague me in November when I had sunstroke and thought up the plot for this. I hope she still likes the idea.
I will give thimbles and pixie dust for feedback.
Author: pixies_pirates aka Capt. Tehrin of the Spanish Main
Chapter: Prologue
Characters/Pairings: Jack with Jack/Elizabeth/Will spinklings and Jack/Pearl; the Darling family
Word Count: 1184
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Spoilers from the end of DMC
Summary: There's always the end of the road, but what about the beginning? How did the events that led one to find the end of the road happen? At World's End, there's Neverland; a place of beginnings. AU. Crossover.
Disclaimers: Pirates of the Caribbean is property of the Walt Disney Co. Peter Pan is property of the Great Ormond Street Hospital and the work of J.M. Barrie, not Disney. This is an unlicensed, unendorsed fanfiction, which is written not for profit, but for the enjoyment of the author and whoever might be reading.
True North; Neverland
Prologue
To fully understand a story, it would be best to start at the beginning. The question is where to begin about a story that involves so many places, so many legends, and so many different dates. After all, our concept of time really has no meaning in Neverland where most of the events take place. Of course, time does pass within Neverland itself, but time in Neverland doesn’t ebb forward constantly in tangent with the Earth’s time. Sometimes Neverland likes to turn the pages back to recall certain favorite stories on Earth or skip centuries all together to get to a certain passage on a later page. Imagine if Rip van Winkle had fallen asleep in Neverland, and then Neverland decided in one of her mood swings wouldn’t it be funny to play a joke? And when Rip flew back to the Hudson River Valley, he returned on the day he was born instead of twenty years later? Of course, Rip van Winkle might not have even aged if he had gone to Neverland. Age is another thing as fickle as time over there and the majority of the population ages slowly, if at all.
One thing is for sure. It was lucky for the Darling family that Neverland was extraordinarily fond of Peter Pan, children, and good stories, and fortunately for our history books, Peter Pan never quite figured out how fond Neverland was of him, or he would have taken advantage of it to participate in Roman chariot races, visit Babylonian gardens, converse with Mayan astronomers, or do anything his heart desired. That doesn’t mean that Pan isn’t clever. He’s a bright boy, but he will forever be a child; devilish and naïve at the same time.
But enough about Peter Pan. He is important in his own right as a legend, and we will return to him shortly. For the sake of our beginning, we will start in the linear Earth fashion at an interval earlier in time, and just for you, dear reader, Neverland has been kind enough to let us borrow her mirror, so let us look into it now, together. With a little bit of pixie dust, we can look back through the mists of time to reflect on what happened many a year ago in the days of tall ships, high seas, and pirate kings. . . .
“It’s after you, not the ship. It’s not us. This is the only way, don’t you see? …I’m not sorry.”
“Pirate.”
His smile glittered at Elizabeth as she rushed away over to the side and disappeared, not looking back once. Jack Sparrow should have known it would come to this. He was betrayed once more by something as shiny and as beautiful as treasure. The first time was in friendship; the second time was by his lust. That was what he got for being a dishonest, thieving pirate, willing to sacrifice everything in the name of his own selfish desires.
Among humans, it was Jack’s actions against Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann that sent him to the grave, but the list of humans he had harmed was not small. He cost James Norrington his honor and Governor Swann his daughter. He was responsible for taking the lives of two entire crews under his leadership over the span of a few days because of his dealing with Jones (minus seven men, one female, and a parrot), but, on Jack’s behalf, let it be said that the backstabbing Wooden Jack had given to Lord Cutler Beckett many years before was deserved.
If that wasn’t enough to condemn him, it was The Black Pearl who deserved retribution above anyone else. Ships have souls and it’s disastrous to forget The Pearl’s feelings when it comes to her Captain’s moment of neglect. When she was clenched and crushed in the many arms of the slimy, towering, ferocious Kraken pet of Davy Jones, Jack attempted to escape from battle to save his own skin over that of his ship. He would have made it to land if the compass needle hadn’t swiveled back towards the ship and Jack would have sworn he heard The Pearl herself shout at him.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, SPARROW?” The Pearl bellowed. Her voice was even more screeching and scathing in his head than Elizabeth in her worst temper. “You made that wager to raise me from the depths only to let me die without you?! How could I have loved you, Coward! Criminal! Pirate!”
That was what stabbed him in the chest and made him row as rapidly as he could back to the ship and his own damnation. His ship had loved him best out of all the women in his life and it was with her he had made a vow to go down with on that final adventure. Jack never considered himself as good of a man as Lizzie was always telling him he was, but he was going to be honorable in his own death if in anything at all.
Now shackled to the mast by his wrists, the lingering traitorous kiss on his lips marked his last and final betrayal. Well, William would never have to know about that. Now Elizabeth was free to go back to his arms, he could console her and everything would be right as rain. The happy married couple could go home, pop a few buns in the oven, and hopefully the kids would take after their mother in cunning and their father in ingenuity. The children would be extremely pretty and make great pirates one day, no doubt.
Jack then prayed, perhaps the first time in his life, on behalf of the future Turner line. Let the children not become eunuchs like their father. Amen. He then decided to solve his current situation. Dying while shackled was like being spoon-fed to an infant and it was not in his plans for a final send off.
The send off was written like an overture and the story of it would pass into shanties that would be sung from the Greater Antilles to Singapore to England and all the way around the world through Cape Horn. This time he didn’t even use his back hair or sea turtles to do it. Caressing the mast for one last time, he freed himself in a flash using the oil from a broken lantern to lather his wrists and slip from his restraints. The sea rumbled beneath him, causing the injured his Pearl to moan in warning at her captain that the monster was coming. Jack then turned around and he stared his own death in its face as the Kraken slithered up on the starboard side.
The Kraken had many teeth; all sharp, angled and ready in their many rows much like shark’s teeth. Each one of the teeth was just itching to take a chunk out of Ol’ Jack. Its arms quivered in anticipation and with a foul rancid meat smell on its breath, the beast opened wide and roared.
However, what the shanties won’t tell you is that the roar part was messy, but the Kraken was kind enough to return his lost tricorne hat.
Picking up the hat, Jack put it on his head. With a “Hello Beastie,” Jack drew his sword and poised it high before he lunged at the Kraken. The Pearl cracked and splintered as it was torn in twain. Steel flashed on the deck against tooth and tentacle as Jack was taken with his beloved to the depths. The smoke from the fires burned and choked his lungs until finally the Kraken got Jack into its beak-maw. Even then, he didn’t scream as it ate him, whole.
All that the escape party could see of the ship, its sails, and her captain when they reached land - and could stomach the sight was a tiny black dot on the horizon before it disappeared beneath the waves.
“That was a wonderful story! Will you tell it again tomorrow night?” John Darling was wide awake, his head propped on his knees as he hung onto every word. Even if one eye was hidden by an eye patch, it was clear both eyes were open in awe of yet another one of Mary Darling’s bedtime tales. It was the first time in half a year that he requested a retelling of one of her stories.
“You’re still awake, John? What am I going to do with you?! If your father knew this, he’d scold you for being too old for pirates!” Mrs. Darling tried to soften her laugh by covering her mouth, not wanting to wake the other children. She stroked her son’s ebony hair, trying to coax him to sleep.
“I’m almost six and a man, Mother. I’ll decide when I want to be too old for pirates.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Mrs. Darling could stifle her laugh no longer. “I will be a pirate some day just like him, but I’ll be less of a fool.”
“He’s right, Mother. It was a lovely story.”
“Oh, Wendy, you’re awake too? Don’t tell me Michael is--” Mrs. Darling turned her head to face the smallest bed and indeed, the youngest Darling was fast asleep. The magic of the bedtime story had worked on one of them at least. She sighed, deftly removed John’s eye patch and George Darling’s old ascot John liked using for a headscarf, and tucked him in. “Would you really want to be a pirate, dearest? Pirates are not the wonderful people you read about in stories. They are mean and vicious and would murder little boys like you without a second thought.”
“Jack wasn’t! He was a coward, but he wasn’t really mean or vicious. I would be a good pirate!” John proclaimed as his mother kissed his freckled cheeks, before she headed over to make sure Michael was covered by his blanket. “Wendy, what do you think? Tell Mother I’m right.”
“Hm…”Seven-year old Wendy looked pensively to the ceiling, fingering her lip with her thumb, before handing down her verdict. “Pirates are dreadful….but I’d still like to be one.”
“You’re a girl. Girls can’t be pirates.”
“Elizabeth was! And she was the Governor’s daughter, too!”
“But it’s a story. Real girls can’t be pirates and ladies at the same time.”
“I’ll be a pirate. And I’ll be a lady. And I’ll be better at it than you!”
“Shhh…At least write me letters so I know the Navy hasn’t caught you when you do become pirates then, my little ones.” Defeated, Mrs. Darling smiled, and making sure Wendy was tucked in, she blew out her own candle. The night lights would stand sentinel until the children fell asleep. As determined as Wendy sounded in her speech, Mrs. Darling knew she would forget all about being a pirate by morning. “Good night, children.”
“Good night, Mother.”
“But you’ll tell us more about Captain Jack Sparrow tomorrow, right?”
“Go to sleep, John!”
Authors Notes: Special thanks to my betas: silvermuse89 for doing the primary draft and helping me bounce of titles, theprophetsaid for already suffering through part of the next installment. fir_kun for the summary, and kzerina for the final draft check. Uber special thanks to bartle_by over on jf for randomly mentioning back in September on a fandom_discuss thread that she would love to see this as a crossover. If she hadn't that idea wouldn't have come back to plague me in November when I had sunstroke and thought up the plot for this. I hope she still likes the idea.
I will give thimbles and pixie dust for feedback.