Yield
by buck1eys, for @litallusion
PROMPT: “If James is the so-called “scourge of piracy”, then he must have encountered Barbossa and his crew at some point…right? Think “James Norrington’s bisexual awakening”, but instead of Jack being the cause of these new stirrings, it’s yet another old man (who also eventually gets a wig…huh).”
WORD COUNT: 2,012
James Norrington loved the Navy. He loved the order of it, the easy routine of waking, rising, getting his bunk in order. He loved looking after his weapon and looking out for his more scatterbrained fellow recruits. He loved pushing his body to his limits, he testing his mind against the puzzles of navigation and battle. He loved the rhythm of the boat and the rhythm of the days, the rhythm of the songs they would sing together when they came into port and rolled into the nearest tavern like a thrashing wave of sweat and voices. He loved the freedom that came from being part of something bigger, the friends he had made and the feel of command, when the time came. Everyone said he would go far, and, when he’d first looked at himself in his new captain’s uniform, James had found it easy to agree with them. He loved the Navy, and the Navy loved him in return.
They were sailing for India to assist the EIC with some trouble in the Bay of Bengal. The weather had been calm, the crew had been badly behaved in Casablanca and were making up for it with a diffident attention to their work which made his first command easy. He had even had the time to give some of the newer recruits some sword practice. It was one thing to learn how to fight in training, quite another to cross blades with a real pirate. You never knew if you had the stomach for it until the chance presented itself. James, at twenty one, had discovered he had.
His best friend at officer school, Runcible, had discovered he hadn’t, and been skewered to the mast for his moment of indecision.
Kinder to make sure the troops were prepared, James thought, as he knocked the blade from Able Seaman Maitland’s hand and asked him to yield.
A shout came from the helm,“Captain, ship’s been sighted.”
James gave Maitland his hand and pulled him up. He was barely sixteen, and fragile as a fawn. James worried for him.
He came to the wheel and followed Midshipman Symthe’s pointed finger. There was a ship on the horizon. It wasn’t flying any colours.
A conversation from his appointment dinner played in his mind.“Don’t worry son,” Admiral Boniface had told him, red faced with age and sherry. “Young captains, they get a taste of the action and they get paranoid. Think every merchant ship from the back of beyond’s a pirate intent on taking them down. You’ve got the might of the British Empire behind you, lad, and those rascals will be scared shitless.”
James had thought about Boniface’s advice as they’d sailed. He’d thought about Runcible, how it had taken him two days to die of his wound. How the ship’s surgeon had held his hand and James had watched as the light left his eyes. He had been afraid, at the end.
James Norrington was not afraid of pirates. He was hungry for them.
The ship on the horizon didn’t look too big. It was fast though, faster than they were, and that made James’ decision easier. And if it was a merchant vessel, no harm would be done. His blood was up and singing in his ears.
“Hard to starboard,” he directed his crew. They would stay upwind, better for the canons. The men, who had grown more and more languid in the afternoon heat, sprung to attention. Norrington smiled. He loved the British Navy.
His confidence was misplaced. The battle, when it came, was awful. If hell existed, it must be something like this, James thought.
In the half hour it had taken the ship to reach them the autumn weather had turned, and a Mediterranean storm was making the deck slippery with rain and blood. The screams of men, whether friend or foe James couldn’t tell, were torn away by the howling wind. Already he could feel his fingers freezing on his sword. A dagger whistled past his ear and split the sail behind him.
“Fall back,” James shouted into the raging storm, wondering if anyone would hear him. By a blessed miracle someone did, and the call rose up for the men to retreat back to their vessel. They had damaged the pirate ship pretty well with their canons, and the enemy’s main sail was in tatters. James could only hope it would give them enough time to sail away. More battles at sea were lost to ship maintenance than swordplay, they’d had that drummed into them in training. James prayed it was true, because they were being outfought by these pirates. The crew wasn’t desperate enough, and they were being slaughtered for it.
James watched the blue flashes of the men’s coats swing by as the fled the ship. He sliced at a pirate running at him with a cutlass. The man dodged the blade but slipped on something sticky on the deck and went flying off the edge of the boat. James shuddered. Falling between two vessels was one of the worst deaths he could think of.
He didn’t have long to dwell on it. Two more pirates came at him, and James was forced to dance his way free. He stabbed one through the heart and the other one paused. James pointed his sword at his throat, but before he could ask him to yield, he felt the press of another blade at his ear.
“No, captain. It’s ye we’ll be asking to yield.”
James spun round, and found himself face to face with a pirate captain. He was tall, as tall as James, with long hair flying round his grim face. His eyes glittered with demonic enjoyment and his rich clothes were stained with blood from the fighting. There was a sinister sort of smile playing on his lips. James knew a master of the trade when he saw one, this man was in complete control of his situation. The captain grinned, as though he could read James’ mind, and traced the point of his sword over James’ throat.
James swallowed hard.
“Will ye yield to Captain Barbossa and his dread band of buccaneers, boy, or will ye die?”
Time seemed to slow down. It was because he was facing certain death, surely. The blood rush of killing and the adrenaline in his veins was making him excited. If it was arousal, it was the arousal of battle. James had never been one for book study, but he was sure the Greeks had written about this.
James looked at this captain – Barbossa, he had called himself. He shuddered, though not just with fear.
Behind him, James could hear the distant shouts of his men on the ship, but all meaning was rent to nothing on the wild air.
What was left of Barbossa’s crew was massing round him. It was like being stood in the eye of a hurricane.
Barbossa pressed slightly harder on his Adam’s apple with the blade. James felt something hot and wet trickle down his neck.
James loved the Navy. He loved the freedom which came from following orders. And right now, his order was to yield.
He thought of Runcible, dying slowly in the surgeon’s cabin. Rage thrummed in his chest like drums. Something else thrummed in his groin, but James tried not to think about that.
It was as though Barbossa was a mind reader though, because he threw his head back and laughed.
Then he was right in James’ face, the sword between them, his rancid breath in James’ ear and his leg just dangerously close to James’ groin.
“I know your type, laddie. Ye think ye want to rule, but I see ye. Ye’ll serve and be grateful.” He smiled wickedly. “Ye might even enjoy it.” And he pressed his leg, just for a second, where James needed it.
Rage and desire did battle in him. Rage was fighting a losing game. “One final time, Mr Captain,” Barbossa stepped back and addressed the crew with theatrical flair. There were unfriendly murmurs of excitement from the band of pirates, all of whom were eyeing James as if he were a meal. “Will ye yield, or shall ye die?”
James had often wondered since, in the tortured hours of a night watch when the shadows crept with doubt and guilty shapes, which he would have chosen. As it was, he was spared an answer, because at that moment the crack of a musket distracted them.
The bullet flew right past James’ ear and burst the feather on Barbossa’s hat. Barbossa roared with rage and threw a dagger into the storm, but they all heard it thunk into wood, not flesh. The pirates rushed forward to shoot back, and James took his chance.
There was no worse a death than being crushed between two ships, but he would have to take the risk. He cut a boarding line free and swung, praying that his feet would meet tarred wood and not water.
James Norrington, naval captain, landed in a heap on his own deck.
His men, bless them, cheered.
James leapt to his feet again. Being back on his own ship had brought him to his senses.
“Cut the lines, heave away.” he shouted, and the call went up. A bullet whistled past and hit the far side of the quarterdeck. They weren’t out of danger yet.
James looked around for a weapon. To his undying surprise he saw young Maitland struggling to reload his musket.
“It was you, sailor?” he said in amazement.
“Yes captain.” Maitland looked shocked at his own daring.
“Good lad,” James clapped him on the shoulder.
He made short work of reloading the musket, but they were already pulling out of range. He had calculated right, Barbossa’s sail was too damaged to make a pursuit worthwhile, and besides, they were sailing with the storm.
As Barbossa’s ship disappeared off the horizon again, the men lost the frantic look in their eye and became rowdy and despondent by turns. James ordered a double tot as a reward, which did the trick. In the early darkness the men got to singing and telling stories over dinner. They were all of them very impressed with their young captain’s daring escape, and said as much. When old Blount nodded and raised a toast James felt he had finally earned the respect of the older sea dogs, the ones who had been sailing longer than James had been drawing breath.
But the victory felt hollow. His crew didn’t know it, but James knew Barbossa had let him go. He’d been bested by a pirate. Worse by far, the baser part of himself had enjoyed it.
James went to his quarters early that night. Maitland was on watch, with old Blount. He smiled as he heard Maitland telling Blount how he’d shot the feather off the pirate captain’s hat. The boy might make a fine sailor yet.
Still, James’ mood was miserable as he turned in. Barbossa had let him go, but he’d left him with a problem. James addressed the most urgent practicalities, cursing even as he came. If anything, he felt even worse, guilty as well as frustrated.
Barbossa was evil, he was the enemy of everything James stood for. And he’d turned him on and then let him go in his debt.
James Norrington made himself a promise last night. Whatever he’d felt, that had been the heat of battle talking. Barbossa was a good sailor and a repulsive man. His kind had killed Runcible. Whatever he’d felt had been a mistake, an aberration. He loved the Navy, he loved being captain. And he would hunt down every last pirate who threatened that.
There would be another pirate, many years from now, and another storm. But James Norrington went to bed that night with no dream but that of glory to his country and to his crew. Desire didn’t come into it.
Desire, as it turned out, would wait.
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Well, that was a hell of a night. Time to check in with the rest of our companions!
We'll go clockwise around the room, starting with Shadowheart, and I'm just gonna do conversation highlights because these turned out to be rather long chats. :D
Highlights from Shadowheart conversation:
She noticed murals in the grove that appeared to depict Shar warriors (specifically, an elite group called the Dark Justiciars) in combat. Hector gathered that she would have liked to join them, and she agrees it would have been a great honor, but it's a "distant dream," as the Justiciars haven't been active for years.
Hector said her conviction was admirable but that he would not have submitted to the loss of memory she went through in order to fulfill her mission - that he would prefer to know what he was getting himself into. She responded, "That's not a luxury open to many people, us included. I have my faith to turn to instead. You should find something of your own." Which...ouch. (It really is kind of annoying that as a monk I don't have the option to choose a deity as I would with a cleric. It's still an ostensibly religious calling, no?)
She doesn't know why the wound on her hand hurts, but hopes the meaning will be revealed to her when the time is right. She seemed rather touched when Hector asked if he could do anything to help with it, but asked only for patience when she gets struck by it.
He made a vague comment about having to stop traveling with her if she keeps secrets from him, but she called his bluff and he backed down almost immediately. They also discussed the fact that Shar worship is basically illegal in a lot of places, to which her response was (paraphrased), "Arrest me, then. Oh right, we're in the middle of nowhere and you can't."
Describing her reason for faith in Shar: "She took me in when no one else would. Without her, I wouldn't be alive. She is my Mother. She nurtures me, cares for me, loves me. Don't believe the lies the Selunites tell." Hector, as one of those Selunites, *is* inclined to believe them over her - and yet, as someone who has never known his mother, the imagery is...oddly compelling.
He prodded her for info about herself not to do with Shar or the tadpole. She told him that she likes night orchids and can't swim - and also that she can barely remember anything else of herself, as the memories of Shar's secrets were not the only ones that were suppressed.
Asked what she thinks of Hector: "I don't think I've ever had a confidante quite like you - and if I have, I can't remember them." Which...is equivocal enough that it might not be intended as a compliment, but he suspects it probably is, and it makes him feel bad for how warily he's been treating her in return.
---
Highlights from our first conversation with Wyll:
He also had the dream! (Which leads me to believe the rest of the crew did as well.) He, however, is super skeptical of it and assumes it's a trick of the parasite to encourage us to use its power more. Hector agreed, but somewhat uncertainly - it's hard to shake off the feeling of safety that came with the strange guardian, and she did calm the transformation that was threatening to overtake him.
He told Hector a bit more about his pursuit of Karlach - described her as "chaos incarnate, a devil with pure fire for a heart." However, he was reticent about who exactly his source of information about her was, describing only "a powerful friend with a keen interest in...privacy." More secrets; Hector disapproves.
He explained his life before becoming Blade of Frontiers - child of a single father, who did not want the adventurer's life for his son. But Wyll encountered a young boy in the Cloakwood who was attacked by goblins, and saved him - and it stirred in him a desire for action, to protect those who needed it, and an anger at the monsters of the world and the "so-called good gods" who let evil things happen.
He lost his eye in battle, and the stone replacement is made of bloodstone, "carved from the Galena Mountains just north of the Moonsea. A reminder that sometimes, blood must be shed and sacrifices must be made" - but he did not want to tell the full story. It's "reserved for lifetime friends and calmer days."
---
Astarion highlights:
He also had the dream, and is much more excited about it than Wyll was. He's clearly curious about the manipulative powers of the worms, and was not happy when Hector said they should be careful and avoid using them unnecessarily. Hilariously, he burst out in a bit of a sulky snit - "Is there a reason you're always such an utter drip? Do you have some sort of condition? Honestly, it's like you hate good news. Did you actually want something, or are you just here to spoil my fun?" Lmao.
The weird thing is, in spite of everything, Astarion has such an exaggerated affect that Hector finds he can't entirely dislike him, but he doesn't trust the other man's intentions and has no intention of letting him have free reign with the parasite.
Astarion claims to be a magistrate back in Baldur's Gate, which doesn't entirely track with the images we got in his head back when we first picked him up, so I am pretty sure he is lying. (Not that magistrates can't be vampires, of course, which is the one thing he definitely is.)
He doesn't know what might be waiting in Moonrise Towers, but hopes they can find answers - "if we can convince the right people to talk," he said, with a rather disquieting smirk.
---
Gale highlights:
A pretty short conversation, but the most reassuring to Hector so far as regards the dream. This was the first conversation where Hector was able to express uncertainty about whether he believed the dream guardian was to be trusted. And Gale seemed similarly inclined - "Nothing wrong with maintaining a healthy suspicion in such matters. Still, it might be wiser to keep an open mind - our visitor's promises of aid might yet bear valuable fruit."
His description of his magic-consuming condition was...less reassuring. "Think of it as...tribute. The kind a king might pay to a more powerful neighbor to avoid invasion. As long as I pay, there will be peace. But should I ever stop, along comes a war. I can assure you the battlefield would extend well beyond the borders of my body alone."
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Lae'zel highlights:
A lot of recap here, presumably for people who haven't been paying attention the first six times she told us about the creche. Unsurprisingly, she does not trust the dream and the guardian as far as she could throw them.
They both admitted that neither has much familiarity with the other's race. Lae'zel, humorously, lashed out that Hector looks just as alien to her as she does to him, and that "that large, fleshy nose of yours looks like a mistake." Hector, wisely, did not rise to the taunting.
We got our first chance to actually take a dialogue option reflecting Hector freaking out. Lae'zel gave an entirely-too-vivid description of the actual process of illithid transformation, leading to the very Hector-apropos option Try to suppress your rising panic. She was unimpressed. "That shiver betrays your fear. Suppress it. It is useless. We must find my kind and be rid of the parasite. It's as simple as that."
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