May the stars guide you home

May the stars guide you home. To the Islands.

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Salazar paced towards the plea, no smirk gracing his lips. This was not a pirate vessel; there was no honour in sending it to the depths. The drive to rout a ship such as this one from the Devil’s Triangle was not his own. There was no victory in this. Only another facet to his prison.

The capitán paused before the bars of the brig, golden eyes having long since adjusted to the dark of the accursed Triangle. There, standing far too boldly for a prisoner, was…

“…A woman? Aboard a vessel?” Salazar arched an eyebrow, and this time, a smirk did pull a the corner of his mouth. “Ah. That explains the terrible luck it has come upon, eh?”

With a rumbling and bitter laugh, the capitán stepped forwards through the bars, his form fading past the iron. “So…what bargain is this, hm?”

Under ordinary circumstances Carina would have been affronted by the “woman” comment. But standing face to face with the figure that spoke it, the insult barely registered. 

The… person that stood before her was no pirate - she could tell that much by the dim light streaming through the crevices of her tiny prison. Glowing yellow eyes regarded her keenly from a ruined face, with deep black wounds that cut across his sallow skin like the cracks in sun-scorched earth. His head was framed by an inky pool of jet black hair that floated untethered around him as he moved and spoke. And speaking of his head - a good chunk of it appeared to be missing, leaving nothing but a blackened mess of gristle and protruding bone. 

Carina was no physician, but she knew a fatal injury when she saw one. And yet the figure before her was very much alive and walking (albeit with some difficulty). 

Impossible. 

And then he moved clear through the bars of her cell. 

With a squeak of terror she stumbled backwards over her skirts until she felt the rough wood of the cell wall bite into her back. He had passed through solid metal as if it were nothing, in direct contradiction to the laws of everything, and as no man ought to be able to do. 

Her fear was overwhelming now, and it was all Carina could do to avoid hyperventilating.

“Are… are you going to kill me?” she managed in reply, her voice shaking with fright as all notions of striking a bargain were long forgotten. She thought suddenly of her father, and how she would die here with no name for him. How he would never know how and why she’d met her end, and all the years she’d spent searching for him. 

The days within the Devil’s Triangle had stretched on in endless, unchanging darkness, drowning each man aboard the Silent Mary in deranged ennui. Starved of stimuli, their sense of honour, self, and humanity had withered and died in the shadows of the cursed rock formation. That the curse compelled them to attack all who entered was a point of pain to begin with.

As time went on, however, the sight of a ship sailing into the Triangle had turned from an omen of despair to one of manic elation. Something was better than nothing, and gods above, how their minds had rotted in the embrace of nothingness.

Their euphoria could hardly be put to words then when the biggest change of all had graced their miserable lives.

The Devil’s Triangle had crumbled around them.

Half-drunk with glee, they had hunted down any ship on the immediate horizon, the Silent Mary arching up and swallowing vessels whole. Such was the fate of the poor HMS Roebuck, navy ship or not.

Ghosts poured over the deck like termites upon bark, and they were just as efficient in stripping life from it.

The capitán of the ghostly crew paced down the length of the ship, stopping for neither flame nor fallen soldier, his sword and cane scraping the deck like the hooves of a bull stomping towards its matador, his head lowered in kind.

A sound below deck. A crash. Cargo?

The curse hissed in his head; he had to check. Hunt it down. Hunt it down.

Armando didn’t head for the stairs, of course. Instead, the capitán simply phased through the floor, dropping with a thud to the lower deck.

Golden eyes ignited in the gloom, scouring for life among the dead.

One heavy footstep. The clack of his sword. The thud of his cane. Another heavy footstep…

The battle was over before it had even begun. “Battle” wasn’t the right word for it - what happened to the crew of the HMS Roebuck was a slaughter. The attackers cut through the ship like a hot blade through butter, leaving nothing but deathly silence in their wake. 

There’s nobody left, Carina realised with mounting horror, fear twisting in her gut like a cold knife. Nobody but me. 

She needed to escape the ship, and fast, before the boarders searched the lower decks and found her in her cell. She’d rather die fighting for her life in the clutches of the Atlantic than in the hands of pirates - and that was assuming they didn’t torture her first. 

Stumbling towards the cell door, she dragged her fingers through her tangled mane for her hair pin. Trembling fingers made finding the lock a challenge, but finally, after what felt like an eternity, it disengaged with a satisfying click. 

It took every ounce of willpower she had to not immediately run for the stairs. Instead, she took a tenuous step forwards, ears straining over the sound of her quickened heart for any sound of the intruders above. 

CRASH!

In the dim light of the Roebuck’s brig, she’d failed to spot the slop bucket abandoned outside her cell. Her shin caught painfully against the rusted rim, sending it skidding across the deck with an almighty racket. Teetering forwards, her hands flailed wildly in the dark for something - anything - to grasp onto. With nothing but empty space, she crashed to her knees with a sharp cry as splintered wooden tore into her skin.  

Movement above told her that the attackers were alerted to her presence, and her vision blurred with fear as panic took hold. Run, Carina, run. 

But she couldn’t. Not in the dark, and not with nowhere to run to. Her only chance was to try and hide. No! To bargain. She was still in possession of her father’s map, and she alone knew the supposed location of a fabled treasure. She’d plead with the pirates to spare her life in return for her assistance locating it. And somewhere along the way she’d make her escape. 

With a sudden flash of inspiration, she dove back into her cell and pulled the door closed behind her. Better to have something between them and her when she was discovered. With her focus on the door, Carina was spared the sight of the dark figure that phased through the roof above. She only heard the sound of their boots as they dropped to the deck with a dull thud. 

“Spare me, and I’ll make you a deal”, she blurted into the darkness, squaring her shoulders with false confidence as she turned to face the new arrival. 

G-ghost? Ghost! GHOST!

Authority, danger, and then hope! Going by our plot so far, anyway! From "ahh shit, I'm busted/arrested" to "wait, this guy is helping me????"