pirates, BLACK PEARL

32 | james norrington

You wondered about the man that was going to join the crew of the Black Pearl at the same time as you. You were walking silently through Tortuga together and he seemed very adamant about ignoring you.

"Is that a new bow in your hair? When I met you in the tavern you used string." You asked.

"Should I be concerned you were looking so closely at my hair?" He responded with a side glance in your direction.

"You can tell a lot about someone with how they present themselves. If they have a clean shaven face or not. If they mend holes in their clothes. Those kind of things."

You had been watching this man waste his life down the drain until the day Jack Sparrow turned up. Watched this man who never told anyone his name loose all the colour in his cheeks and drink his way to death but never to debt. Yet he was here, you didn't think he had it in him.

"You must think I'm a beggar then, or worse, that I'm a pirate."

"I don't think you're either." You answered.

"But you and me, Y/N, we're going to work on a pirate ship - I think that makes us pirates." It surprised you that he knew your name and it must have shown on your face, "Come on, everyone in that tavern knew you. I always wondered what for."

"And what did they tell you?"

It was just a ghost of a smile that came to his lips, "That your aim isn't just good for darts."

"Well I'm glad they gossip with the truth. But here's the thing, they all gossip about you but they never say anything because nobody knows anything."

"Do you know anything?"

"I know you're a man who keeps his hair well tied back when it's important. You never let your clothes get too tattered even if they seem to be falling apart at any moment and I know that you don't want to be a pirate even when that's exactly what we're becoming. And that's it. I don't even know your name."

You both had reached the harbour and could see the rigging for the Black Pearl. You had assumed that the man had had enough of your conversation by now and you left him slightly.

"Don't you want to know what I know about you?"

"Enlighten me then."

"You're too smart to spend your days in a tavern and your going to waste your life away if you stay on this ship. That's what I think."

His words dug under your skin and you knew somehow that they were going to stick. You walked on board and he followed.

"What makes you an expert?"

"I know a fair amount about ambition actually and I think its something that you need to find."

"Who are you?" You asked, "Because let me tell you the drunk that I met every single night in a tavern getting thrown to the pigs does not seem like a man with ambition."

"You're right, it's a man who lost it all because of it," He pauses and looked as if he was going to turn away, he whispered the next part, "My name is James, James Norrington."

You realised then it was time to stop arguing. You could tell he hadn't said his name in a long time, it didn't sound natural and wondered if it was because he was ashamed of it.

He needed a friend and you needed ambition to achieve something according to him. It seemed like quite a good match.

You smiled at him for the first time as he stood on the Black Pearl

"So do you mind if I call you Jamie?"

And this is how James Norrington reacted, he was going to have to get used to his new nickname it seemed but deep down, he loved the way it sounded.