Chapter Text
22 years prior.
Jose Baden stood at the end of the dock. The sun had long since set, but sundown wasn’t enough to discourage a young boy’s hope. Perhaps there had been a storm on the way, and the ship would arrive during the night. Perhaps his father was valiantly fighting off pirates, just like in the tales of his nautical adventures that he used to tell Jose before bedtime. Perhaps there was simply a miscalculation on the chart that would lead them to a longer course than planned.
He would come home. He always came home.
It must have been past midnight when his father’s butler finally came to fetch him. “Young sir,” said Frederick, “you must know by now that the Captain is not returning. Come to bed. A sixteen-year-old boy needs his rest.”
“He’ll come,” said Jose, not even glancing at Frederick, his eyes glued on the black horizon. “I know he will. I’ll wait for him.”
The butler sighed. “You were told what the Queen decreed regarding your father’s ship, correct?”
Jose nodded solemnly. “That if his ship were still missing by sundown today, the Baden family were to be declared thieves and traitors to the Crown, charged with stealing the Nightingale. Yes, yes, they told me. But I know Father would never do such a thing. He’ll return with the treasure intact. There must have been a storm.”
“No other ships have reported storms on that course in the past two weeks, young sir.”
“Pirates, then. A torn sail. A leak.”
“You sure are optimistic, aren’t you?” Frederick walked closer to the boy, gently resting a hand on his shoulder. Jose was tall for a boy his age—already taller than his father, with the strength and smarts to surpass him in those one day, too. He would surely grow up to be a good man, the butler mused. He would have made a great captain.
“It’s not optimism, it’s trust.” Jose finally turned to face the butler. “I know the realities of the sea, Frederick. He very well might be dead. But he didn’t steal the Nightingale. Captain Enrique Baden is a man of his word and a man of honor, and you know that well.”
“And so does Her Majesty,” sighed the butler. He began to lead the boy back towards land, and the boy finally relented, walking alongside him. “We all know your father is the best captain the Royal Navy has ever seen. But greed can corrupt people. Even the most upstanding man can become twisted if there is enough gold on the line. Many a noble has fallen as a result of wanting more.”
Jose stopped and crossed his arms. “The Badens will never fall.”
“And yet, they have.”
Jose turned back to face the sea. There was no moon that night, so the line where the sea met the sky was almost inscrutable. It was not an ocean, but a void; it was a darkness endless and empty, yet something pulled Jose towards it, as if the emptiness were in fact full of answers. The sea was calling him, as it always had, but now its voice was louder than ever.
“I will prove that Father is innocent, and I will return the glory to the Baden family name,” he declared.
Frederick chuckled, causing Jose to turn and glare at him. “And without any money or resources, how will you do that?”
Jose pulled his gaze away from the sea, staring Frederick straight in the eyes. “Even if our name no longer carries a noble title, the Badens have always been the greatest sea knights, remember? And I am still a Baden. I will find a way.”
Present.
“Drink.” Jose held out his hand, and a bottle was promptly passed to him by a crewmate. He tilted his head back and drained its contents.
“Weren’t we sharing that?” someone groaned. A couple other men griped alongside him until there was a cutlass inches away from his throat.
“I’m the captain of this ship, and all this alcohol is mine, so if you ever want another drop of rum, you’d better watch your mouth,” Jose said sternly, returning his sword to its place on his belt. When the man gulped and nodded, Jose let out a laugh. “I jest. You know I jest. Help yourself to the rum, you all know where I keep it.” Laughter and cheers erupted among the men; their Captain’s sense of humor truly never wavered.
Jose walked away from the group and headed toward the kitchen, where he found the best company on the ship—not quite as rowdy as the rest, but by far the most entertaining. “One of these days you’ll kill someone with the sword gag, you know,” said the small woman wiping the table.
“Then I’ll just toss their body in the ocean, same as anyone else I’ve killed,” Jose scoffed. “Pirate grunts are disposable.”
“That’s no way to talk about your crew, is it?”
“It’s true! They’ve all got the same priorities: drink, shit, and plunder. You control them with gold like dogs and soon enough they’ll take a blade to the heart for you. It’s amazing how easy it is to gain their loyalty once you’ve sunken their old ship.” Jose sat down in a chair and leaned back, propping his boots on the table and earning an eye-roll from the woman who had just wiped it down.
She gently slapped him with her rag. “And I’m a ‘pirate grunt’ to you, too, right?”
Though she was clearly teasing, Jose gasped in offense. “Heavens, no! Demi, you’re the only real companion I have. You actually have a brain, and more valuably, a heart. But don’t touch my coat with your dirty rag, it’s velvet. You know how much of a bastard it is to wash.”
Demi raised her eyebrows. “I thought pirates didn’t care about cleanliness,” she joked.
“Well, most of them don’t, but you must be forgetting my noble upbringing. These buffoons seek riches without any inkling of an idea of how to properly indulge in them. Gold is not made to be looked at. One must exchange it for fine wines, unique swords, rare books, exquisite art, and, of course, velvet coats. That, my dear, is luxury. ”
“And ‘luxury’ is putting your boots on my table?”
“Well, that’s part of it, yes.” Jose reached up to take off his hat, made of dark blue velvet to match his coat and topped with a plume made from the finest goosefeather. He set it on the table next to where he rested his feet. “I am also rather drunk at the moment.”
Demi snorted. “You’re always drunk.”
“False. I was sober yesterday.”
“Yesterday you tried to hold your sword with your hook hand and blamed the sword when you dropped it.”
“Well, I must be thinking of two days ago, then.” Jose pulled his pocket watch out of his jacket and spun it loosely around his finger. “Regardless, I’m only drunk some of the time. And you’re not one to talk about being drunk. I bet you’re drunk right now.”
“Not tonight,” Demi laughed, ruffling the captain’s hair (much to his annoyance). “We’re supposed to reach land by morning, remember? I’m off to the markets to restock on food while you go treasure hunting. Haggling with a hangover is not a good time.”
Jose started. “Tomorrow already? That’s… well, I did go and tell the crew to help themselves to the rum…”
“Good grief, Jose. For a smart man, you do some dumb shit when you’re drunk.” The woman punched his good shoulder, and despite her size, she packed a punch. “It’ll be fine. Maybe you should just take this one on your own and leave them to barf off the side of the ship all day.”
“Another pearl of wisdom from Miss Demi Bourbon. Truly, what would I do without you?” Jose swung his legs off the table, took his friend’s hand, and placed a courtly kiss on the backs of her knuckles. He paused. “Goodness, I’m drunk.”
Demi stood on her toes to place his hat back on his head. “We’ve been over that, yeah. Go to bed, will you? I’ll tell the crew about the change of plans. You make sure you’re in your right mind when we reach land.”
“That I’ll do,” Jose promised, making his way to the door of the kitchen. “Good night, Demi. If I’m not awake by sunrise, feel free to come bang pots and pans in my quarters.”
The next thing Jose remembered was Demi banging pots and pans in his quarters. He nearly jumped out of his bed, startled by the sudden noise, but he settled down when he saw her grinning down at him. “Good morning, sunshine,” she teased, setting her soup pot and frying pan down on Jose’s bedside table. “We’ll be onshore in an hour. It’s just you and me getting off the ship, so I’d suggest you get yourself ready before I ditch you.”
“You’re the only person I’ve met in the past twenty-two years with the gall to leave me behind,” Jose grumbled. He pulled himself out of bed and stretched his arms. “Of course, that’s why I respect you the most. I’ll be on the move in twenty, if you don’t mind helping me with my buttons.”
He’d long since gotten past the embarrassment of asking Demi to button his shirt and coat. Having a hook for a hand was extremely impractical, but at least he’d killed the man who sliced his left arm off at the elbow. And besides, he’d learned early on that Demi did with women what he did with men, so there wasn’t any risk of the intimacy changing things between them.
By the time they anchored, the two stood together at the bow of the ship, watching the seaside town quickly draw nearer. It was a few miles east of here that Jose was meant to venture. He’d need to borrow a horse if he wanted to find what he was looking for and return by evening; fortunately for him, he hadn’t spent his whole life at sea, so he was as good a rider as any. But it’d be best for Demi to get the horse and bring it to him outside of town. His predilection for extravagant clothes made him quite recognizable. Most people with sense would cower at the sight of him, or perhaps even call for his arrest, which he’d like to avoid at all costs. It would be difficult to search for his father’s missing treasure from jail.
More importantly, though, he might have become a pirate but he didn’t become uncivilized. Any dealings with merchants were done with money, for the right price. Most pirates would steal whatever they liked from whomever they liked, but Jose disagreed with that philosophy. There was no need to rob the innocent. He did, however, leave Demi in charge of most transactions, as a cheerful young woman was far more trustworthy than a battle-scarred pirate dressed in velvet and gold—and she was admittedly a much better haggler than he could ever dream to be. Some things were better left to those who grew up commoners.
Not long after they separated at the shore, Demi brought him a horse as planned, along with a small pouch. She explained that it contained bread, an apple, a block of cheese, and a flask of water. “You’re like the mother I never had,” Jose said endearingly, both of them fully aware that she was seventeen years his junior.
“I’m heading over to the markets now,” Demi told him, winking and waving goodbye. “Stay alive and meet me here at dusk!”
“I’ll do my best,” Jose promised. He swung himself up on the horse and checked the map he’d drawn. There was a road that would take him most of the way, but he’d have to go through the woods for about half a mile. That wouldn’t be a problem for him; his cutlass was an effective machete when it needed to be. Now he could only hope that the tip he’d been given was true.
He spurred the horse onwards.
They slowed to a halt a few miles down the road. Jose recognized this sharp bend in the road, as it was where the route was marked to continue straight when the road veered left instead. He swung himself off the horse, gave it a gentle pat on the muzzle, and tied its saddle to a nearby tree.
“I won’t be more than a few hours,” he told the horse, and it whinnied as if it understood his words. Somehow feeling more assured by that, Jose ventured into the woods. The trees were sparse, and while the earth beneath his boots was covered in grass and ferns, it was flat—it would make sense for this to have been an old road, with a new one having been built to go around the ruins that were now buried in the woods.
There had been a small village here until twenty-odd years ago when a massive flood crushed every building and washed every citizen out to sea. The village was known for creating lovely textiles, colorfully detailed tapestries woven by hand from the finest silks, and a favorite gift from Captain Baden to those he felt deserved them. There had been one in Jose’s bedroom when he was a child that depicted the ancient Greek hero Jason braving a storm on his famous ship, the Argo. He smiled thinly at the memory as he pushed his way through the branches.
At the time of the Captain’s disappearance, he had been scheduled to pay a visit to a Spanish nobleman with whom he’d grown up closely. It would only have been proper for him to commission a tapestry for his friend and pick it up on the journey home, but as the ship had vanished and so had the textile town, there was no way for anyone to confirm or deny it. That is, unless there remained a trace of that specific tapestry in the ruins. It would give Jose a hint as to where the ship could have disappeared, thus leading him to the Nightingale. And he, having heard tales of his father’s friend and their adventures together for the first sixteen years of his life, was the only one who knew what to look for.
It wasn’t long until the trees opened up further and a layer of stone in the clearing ahead signified that a house had once stood upon it. There were no traces of thread on this foundation, only a few rotten planks that used to be walls and a pile of shattered clay pots. If he remembered correctly, the workshop of the weaver his father liked to commission was in the very center of town. He’d have to continue further.
The clearing became larger, with more bits and pieces of houses and shops sticking out of the vegetation. The buildings were all in a valley, he noticed now; no wonder the flood had drowned this place and left the nearby seaside town—where Demi was likely negotiating a price for some salted pork, he thought amusedly—completely unscathed. The villagers might have been geniuses with thread, but they were certainly not the world’s greatest civil engineers.
Jose approached the only building that still stood. It was built with stone walls, while the rest had been wooden, so it hadn’t been destroyed by the flood. It was maybe a couple hundred feet square at the largest. What had once been windows were now deadly traps of shattered glass, but what had once been a door was now an easy entrance.
If the villagers had wanted to preserve anything before they all inevitably died, Jose reasoned, they would have kept it all in the only sturdy building in town.
He heard a crash and a voice saying “Ow, fuck ” from inside the stone shack.
So he hadn’t been the first to reason that.
With a hand resting cautiously on the handle of his sword, Jose stepped through the doorway. “Whoever’s in here, I hope you don’t kiss your mother with that mouth,” he called.
Something dropped across the room. A book, maybe, or a light satchel. “I left home years ago, so no, I don’t,” said the voice from before. “And who’re you, saunterin’ into this cozy little lost town and askin’ about my mama?”
Jose took another step forward. “I’m not someone you want to get cheeky with, I will tell you that much. I’m more interested in who you are. And why you’re here.”
He heard the sound of a flint striking steel and the wick of a candle catching a spark. The dim building was lit up now, but only enough so that Jose could get a better view of the man who had arrived here before him. The top half of his face was hidden by a mask, even more so hidden by the gold-trimmed hat he wore, a hat of a style Jose didn’t recognize. He wore a long leather coat that brought a roguish flair to his otherwise professional ensemble. The combination of the man’s dark clothes, dark mask, and dark handlebar mustache gave Jose the distinct feeling that this man would be the villain of his story.
The candle’s flame glinted off of even darker brown eyes. A grin crossed the man’s face. “I’m known as Whiplash,” he said proudly, as if Jose was meant to have known the name. “And I’m gonna assume we’re here for the same reason.”
Jose blinked. “Can’t say we’ve met before, and I find it highly unlikely that we’re searching for the same thing. I’m looking for a very personal lost relic of my father’s. It’s of no importance to anyone but me.”
“The Nightingale belonged to your daddy?” Whiplash laughed when Jose’s expression turned to shock at the mention of the treasure. “Well, I’ll be damned. We are lookin’ for the same thing, then. Ain’t as personal as you thought it was, is it, sweetheart?”
The rogue picked up the candle and walked to where Jose stood speechless. He placed a gloved finger beneath Jose’s chin, tilting the shorter man’s gaze upwards to lock their eyes. “And that makes you… Jose Baden. Former rich kid turned notorious pirate when his daddy got lost at sea. Known to the world as Captain Hook.”
Jose grumbled and took a step back, his eyes fixing pointedly on the floor. “And what’s it to you?”
Whiplash chuckled. “I gotta say, you don’t look as scary as the stories make you seem. You really fixin’ to get that pretty outfit all covered in blood?”
“Listen, I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but I couldn’t give less of a damn what you think about me,” Jose snarled. “The Nightingale is mine and mine alone. I’ll find it before you do, and if you’re still after it then, you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hand.”
“Oh, I get the joke. ‘S only one hand ‘cuz you’ve got a hook on the other.”
“Do I look like I’m joking around to you?”
“I dunno, you could be. Can’t tell with the eyepatch.”
Jose drew his sword, the very tip of the blade making contact with Whiplash’s chest. The man’s eyes widened; Jose had finally gotten the upper hand on him. He smirked victoriously. “Now can you tell?”
The taller man’s stature eased, but Jose saw him hesitantly reach for the sword at his hip. “Are we dueling now? ‘Cuz if we are, this ain’t really a great place to do it. It’s dark and there’s spiderwebs and yarn everywhere. Are ya sure about this?”
“A good swordsman can fight in any environment,” Jose insisted. He prodded his blade forward, causing the rogue to take a step back. “Unless your fancy sword is just for show?”
Before Jose could continue his taunts, a thin blade struck his curved one, and he parried the second swing easily. He didn’t mind fighting on the defensive, as his quick wit had only once failed to predict an incoming strike. Frankly, he could do this for hours. Whiplash wasn’t a bad swordsman—on the contrary, his form was near perfect and he moved remarkably quickly—it was just that Jose was a better swordsman. He figured that the sword was not Whiplash’s primary weapon, but it wasn’t clear from his fighting style how he specialized.
Their swords crossed over and over, Whiplash trying to outsmart Jose’s defense and Jose quickly blocking each of his attacks. The pirate was carefully watching his adversary’s movements for his chance to strike back. An opportunity arose when Whiplash’s boot caught on a loose spool of thread, sending him slightly off balance, and in that moment Jose swooped in with a quick swing of his sword that sent Whiplash’s blade clattering to the floor.
Both men stood there for a minute, their heavy breaths echoing off the walls of the stone building. Jose looked Whiplash up and down. He could easily kill the man where he stood; instead, he drew back his sword and sheathed it in his belt. “You fight well,” he said.
Whiplash stared at him for a moment before turning to retrieve his blade. “So do you, Baden.”
They looked at each other in silence. Each had hundreds of questions to ask the other, but there was no good place to start. The rogue eventually sighed and adjusted his hat. “You could’ve killed me, y’know.”
Jose nodded. “I could’ve. But I didn’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“I still don’t know what you could possibly want with my father’s treasure,” Jose admitted. “If there is more value to it than I had previously seen, it might add some… obstacles to my pursuit.”
“ Value? ” Whiplash scoffed, pushing himself up to sit on a table. “You’re talkin’ about a golden crown covered in rubies and diamonds sayin’ it ain’t got value? The Nightingale is worth millions, Baden. The millions are what I want.”
“I get it. You’re a greedy thief who wants money just to have it, just like the rest of them,” Jose said with a frown. Admittedly, this discovery was somewhat disappointing. He’d never seen himself as sentimental, but the idea of selling off the item that could reestablish his family’s name and honor hurt his heart more than a little bit.
“I’m not like that in the slightest.” Whiplash glared at Jose, who was starting to think his accusation might have offended the man. “I’ve got a reason I need that money. And it ain’t for you to know.”
“Understood,” said Jose, not quite understanding at all. “Well, since I won our little duel, I will now be expelling you from this building and continuing my search on my own. The door is behind me. You may show yourself out.”
Whiplash shook his head, instead walking to the other side of the stone hut. “No need. I found what you’re lookin’ for.” He grabbed a bundled-up tapestry and tossed it to the pirate. “Did my fair share of research on this fella your daddy was giftin’ and this one seems to fit the bill. It’s all yours, if you wanna keep it.”
Jose watched the man walk past him and toward the door. “I… Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m sure we’ll meet again.” Whiplash winked and tipped his hat before making his exit.
The tapestry, sure enough, was a depiction of a particular battle Jose’s father and his friend had had on the sea years ago. He’d heard the story hundreds of times growing up, practically knew the incident by heart. He didn’t know where Whiplash would’ve gotten that information.
But did it matter? The man was mysterious; he’d surely keep his secrets, so it wasn’t worth it for Jose to wonder. What did matter was that he now knew for sure that he had competition in his search for the Nightingale. Competition that would throw the treasure to waste.
Jose rolled up the tapestry and tied it tightly with an extra length of thread. He didn’t need to take it with him, as its purpose was fulfilled, but perhaps he truly was more sentimental than he’d believed.
The pirate turned back to look at the room before leaving and, as a last thought, snuffed out Whiplash’s candle.