The trip to Nassau was remarkably unremarkable. We targeted some smaller fishing and merchant ships, no single huge prize, but enough to fill the holds of The Revenge by the time we arrived, with enough treasure to allow each member of my crew to live comfortably for a few years, anyway (if, of course, one could convince a pirate to live reasonably and NOT whore and drink away any money he may have earned).
Where the story becomes remarkable again is once we reached port.
My reputation (and that of my crew), it seems, had a better wind than we did. We were promptly arrested and clamped in irons.
The English Royals, you see, at that time, were fairly desperate to end the rampant piracy in the Caribbean, and felt that the use of law enforcement was ineffective. Therefore, they were offering blanket pardons to any pirates who confessed and swore off the life.
Calculating the equations in my head, the combination of my Time Lord physiology, the primitive nature of this Earth, the guaranteed death sentence I would be facing for piracy if convicted and the iron current locked round my wrists and ankles... I took the pardon.
I'll admit, the hold full of valuables on The Revenge would not work in my favour on that matter, and Woodes Rogers, the governor of Nassau and the Bahamas had a bit of a... thorny reputation when it came to dealing with pirates.
He also, however, had a very contentious history with Charles Vane, my former captain.
So, appearing before Rogers, I blamed Charles for my life of piracy, claiming to have been press-ganged into the life, and then, once we had taken the ship, made our our way, in any way we could, to Nassau to forsake the pillaging ways and live the life of law-abiding merchant seamen.
I don't know whether the governor truly believed my tale, but his hatred of Charles held enough sway over his ability to think logically that he issued the pardon (and pardons for my crew), and so, I was released. The following morning, the cargo aboard The Revenge would be unloaded and confiscated.
Since it was just past sundown, however, I had a chance to gather some things before the governor's men got their chance.
I made my way to the main docks with the intention of taking a longboat out to The Revenge and loading it up with whatever it could carry, taking it down shore to a less populated area, unloading it, and then returning before sunrise. I had planned for every contingency.
Save one.
When I arrived on the dock, which would normally have been abandoned by this time of night, on the edge, there was a woman.
She was, to put it simply, picturesque. Clearly a woman of high birth, dressed in expensive clothes, her firey hair tied loosely back, standing with a poise the bespoke nobility and elegance, and, yet, there was something more.
There was, emanating from her, an energy and barely contained fury, like a caged Terralean lynx. Something in her knew there was more to her life than the existence of a lady of breeding in a colonial township. And she clearly wanted to escape that.
And she made my hearts stop.
She was exquisite, in every way. Beautiful in body, mind and spirit. In that moment, there was nothing in this universe... no ship, no treasure, no Bifrost... Just her.
"And what are you staring at, Peacock?"
It was a moment after hearing her voice asking me that, that I had realized I'd been staring fixedly at her.
"I'm fairly sure... an angel" The answer I gave was, to use a more modern colloquialism, cheesy, I know, but... honestly, it was the only thing I could conceive of saying. She had me completely dumbstruck.
And that's how it began.
Her name was Anne. Anne Bonny. From that moment on, we began an affair. I'm not embarrassed to say... it was rather amazing.
Unfortunately, her husband, James, didn't agree with that description.
And James was friendly with the governor.
And so, for our crimes, Anne was sentenced to be whipped. (Did I mention this was a primitive society?) I couldn't stand by and allow that.
First, I followed the local law and attempt to obtain for Anne a "divorce by purchase"... in other words, buy her from her husband.
When Anne found out, well, I've never been hit so hard in my life. I can say that even without my memories from N-space because if I HAD been hit that hard before, trust me, I'd have remembered.
That left me with no other choice.
The Revenge had been sold, after her confiscation, to a merchant by the name of John Ham. On the night before her sentence was to be carried out, I broke Anne out of her cell, and we stole The Revenge back with a small crew.
For the next few months, Anne and I sailed The Revenge, taking small ships for their prizes, adding to our crew, and living in pure freedom.
She was amazing. The very definition of savage beauty.
And savage, she was. Anne Bonny was easily the most vicious fighter during battle, as skilled with knives as I had become with a sword in three decades of training under Ichi.
And she had come by it naturally.
In the months we sailed on The Revenge, we had gained a reputation to be feared.
And our love grew stronger.
We had become inseparable, and we worked in perfect unity.
We would take prizes, and then we would celebrate.
And Anne and I would celebrate in... vigorous ways.
That, sadly, would be how things would eventually go wrong...
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