PotC Fanfic, short: "Omens"

[hsavinien]

Title: Omens
Author: H. Savinien
Disclaimer: Disney et al owns all rights to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. This is a work of fanfiction and I receive no monetary compensation for its creation. I ignore some of Cdre. Norrington's backstory revealed in the kiddie stories about Jack Sparrow.
Rating: PG
Summary: James Norrington contemplates his life. Could be a moment-of-death drabble. Might not be.

In the time of kings long-dead, the grandmothers of England claimed that a child born after his father’s death could see ghosts.  So my mother told me as I grew into young man-hood and professed a desire to follow my father’s path and purchase a commission in His Majesty’s Royal Navy.  My sire was Captain Marcus Norrington of H.M.S. Gyrfalcon, a man o’ war stationed to patrol between the greater ports of the Americas and protect the merchants and traders who enrich the Empire.  He was honorable man, and kind to my mother, though often away.  Or so she told me.  Spanish privateers, sea-scum with a Letter of Marque, widowed my mother four months before my birth.

The pension of the Crown and goodness of a vicar cousin kept my mother and I from poverty and memory of my father’s bravery convinced his second, now a captain himself, to stand us the fee for a midshipman’s position on the Lovelace when I reached eleven years.  I served under Captain Curiffe for several years, seeing action more than once before entering my fifteenth year against enemy warships, privateers and pirates.  At seventeen I stood my lieutenancy examination and passed with moderate laurels, finally receiving a commission on His Majesty’s Ship Dauntless at eighteen. 

She was bound for the West Indies, carrying Swann, newly invested governor of Port Royal Jamaica, from England.  His Excellency traveled with his daughter, Elizabeth, which disconcerted the crew, as “women, cats, and parsons” are universally claimed by the superstitious mind as doom for a ship.  That doom never struck us, but the voyage reinforced only my own hatred for the depredations of the filth of the sea.  The Dauntless met a merchant ship burned to the waterline by pirates, with only a single survivor.  That ill-omen colored the rest of my career and worse, my life.  It matters not if a man believes in spirits and demons.  They do not have a care for your belief or doubt.