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dwgmI love writing -- and reading -- Christmas stories! This one is set a year after Home for the Holidays, a story I wrote for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
erinya, formatted as a series of drabbles that were set in my post-AWE Shipwreck Cove universe (which was originally borrowed from inspired by artaxastra's fabulous Outlaws and Inlaws series). One of said drabbles featured Pintel and Ragetti, and this year, in the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
merrypirates holiday fic exchange, were_lemur requested some more P&R - "discussing /arguing /geeking about something Christmas-related a la the krayken/krawken discussion. Or just messing up christmas in some hilariously well-intentioned way". This story is the result.
Many thanks, as always, tohereswith for editing.
~ O Tannenbaum ~
There weren't many pine trees on Shipwreck Island, but there was one, in a sheltered spot of green on the East Ridge, that Ragetti had been considering for some time.
Pintel needed convincing. "Cut down that bloody great tree?"
"You saw how Captain Swann liked the tree we did for her last year," said Ragetti. "What'd they call it? A Tannenbaum? First one in Shipwreck Cove, 'cept for that Hessian bloke's. An' it behooves us to stay on 'er good side, what with her bein' king, not to mention the only captain left at the Cove what'll give us a berth."
A sour look swept over Pintel's face. "You'd think we set Barbossa's beard afire on purpose. An' it weren't no such thing!"
"An' Captain Sparrow's still sore vexed about the mutinies." Ragetti sighed. "I do miss the Pearl fierce sometimes."
Pintel nodded. "Me heart weren't in that last one. Bloody Barbossa."
"Aye," Ragetti agreed. But then he straightened with some determination. "That's why we need to do it. That tree on the east ridge would be a sight, all decorated."
Pintel brightened as the vision of it formed in his head. "It will, won't it?" He turned to Ragetti with a grin and a slap on the shoulder. "You've got it, lad! And won't the poppet be surprised!"
*
Getting the tree proved more difficult than either of them had imagined.
"Be lucky not to have a bloomin' apoplexy, climbin' this 'ere hill," Pintel gasped, wiping his forehead with a kerchief that had seen cleaner days.
Ragetti stopped to allow Pintel to catch up. Ragetti, with his long legs, was having an easier time climbing, but it wasn't what either man was used to. "It ain't like being aboard ship, the ground's hard, and it don't move."
"That's a good thing, when it comes to solid ground," Pintel asserted. "Or so I've been told." Ragetti began to chuckle and Pintel's good humor reasserted itself. "Come on. Only a few hundred feet to go."
"Aye. And it'll be easier coming down."
And so it would have been, without the tree.
"Lord. It's bigger than it looked from down below," Pintel said, walking around the tree's perimeter. "Maybe we should've brought some help."
"It's older, too, and scraggly in spots," Ragetti said, rather worriedly. "And what's this? Someone's took a knife to the trunk. Ain't these letters?"
Pintel bent to look. "Aye, it's letters all right. In a heart. Lovers. Pah!" He spat, disgusted.
"Maybe they're dead."
"Who?"
"Them that carved the letters. The lovers."
"Huh. Probably are. Never heard of anyone climbin' up this way." Pintel pulled his freshly honed hatchet from his sash. "Let's get it cut. The trunk ain't so thick as all that. Poor thing's stunted. We're doing it a favor, takin' it to the Cove to be all prettied up for Christmas, eh?"
Ragetti nodded thoughtfully. "S'pose you're right. Still big to move, though."
"That's why we brought the blanket. We'll wrap it up and pull it down the mountain after us!"
"Won't that break the branches?"
"Naw, pine's bendy, and this tree's endured. Stood fast against hurricanes! A little slide down to the Cove won't hurt it a bit."
*
"Well. There it is," Ragetti said, morosely.
They'd managed to get the tree down to the water and float it back to Shipwreck City, but they'd had to recruit a couple of burly passersby to help wrestle it into the Great Hall, and that hadn't come cheap. Then they'd nailed a cross-brace to the bottom of the cut trunk, so the tree would stand upright. It was now late afternoon and, thankfully, few of the Cove's inhabitants were about.
Pintel looked the tree up and down, intently, defensively. "It's not so bad. We'll turn it so the thin side is in the corner, to hide them branches that broke. And we can cut some of these bits that stick out funny, shape it, like. And then we get some help decorating it, same as last year. Won't have to pay folk to do that."
Pintel's confidence was infectious. Ragetti said, "We got to hurry, though. The Pearl's comin' back tomorrow, 'less they've run into foul weather an' such."
"Right, then. Let's get to it."
*
"It's... it's beautiful!" said the Pirate King. Her voice was a bit faint, she was evidently awestruck with admiration.
They'd cut too much off the branches, maybe, especially at the top, but they'd made up for it with decorations, two or three times the number last year's tree had held. The branches were almost sagging under the weight of the shining coins and jewels.
Young Jamie looked amazed, and Captain Jack frowned as he studied the tree. The captain said, "You two certainly put a lot of effort into turnin' her up sweet. Is this the tree that was up on the east ridge, by chance?"
"Aye," said Ragetti. "It was hard to get, but we did it in the end."
"I was afraid of that," Captain Jack said, thoughtfully, then glanced at the doors at the far end of the hall. "And here comes Teague. You'd better look sharp, lads."
"Why?" Pintel frowned, but he and Ragetti shuffled about to stand behind the King and her consort as the Keeper of the Code stalked down the hall to join them.
Teague was staring at the tree, staring hard, and his eyes slowly narrowed. "Is this the tree that was up on the east ridge?"
Something about the way this was said made Ragetti's hair stand on end, and Pintel seemed frozen as a deadly, smouldering eye pinned him.
"It is that tree, isn't it?" Teague said, quiet, bitter. "Isabel's tree, and mine. Where we carved our initials, so they'd last forever! "
His eyes were afire, and his hand groped for his pistol-which wasn't in his sash! He turned to Captain Jack, who shrugged sympathetically and displayed his weaponless state.
Pintel and Ragetti saw their chance. They turned and ran, and were already halfway down the hall when Teague let out a baffled roar and lit out in pursuit.
*
Stunned at the course their homecoming had taken, Elizabeth turned to Jack and smiled to see him draw a pistol -- Teague's pistol! -- from the hidden inside pocket of his coat. "You took it!"
Jamie said, "I'm glad you took it, Uncle Jack!"
Jack shrugged. "Couldn't see lettin' one of 'em get shot over a tree, even if they are daft buggers, and even if it was that tree."
"Your mother's tree." Elizabeth shook her head. "What a sentimental gesture."
"Aye, it's a marvelous thing, what a man in love will do."
"It certainly is. But Jack, do you think he'll forgive them?"
"Have to send 'em away for a few weeks, there's no help for that."
"But they'll miss Christmas here!" She looked at the tree again, and took Jamie's hand. "They went to so much trouble for me. It's too bad."
Aye," said Jack, slipping an arm about her waist. "But with any luck, they'll live to see the next one."
Epilogue
A week later, two days before Christmas, Jack found Teague in the Green Goose, brooding over a tankard of rum. Again.
"They didn't mean it, you know," Jack said, sliding into the chair beside his father.
"Go away, Jackie," Teague growled. "I ain't a forgiving man at the best of times-"
"Don't I bloody know it?" Jack said, under his breath.
Teague glared at him, but went on. "-and this ain't the best of times. Bloody idiot lubbers, damn them both to hell."
"They are, and I've no doubt they will be, eventually," Jack soothed. "But there's something you should see. Lizzie sent me to fetch you. It ain't noon yet, surely an hour or two away from the Goose won't hurt. Your chair won't even get cold."
Teague was still glaring, but he said, "Lizzie sent you? Well. She generally knows better than to waste my time."
"That she does," Jack agreed, getting up. "Come on, let's go see her."
*
Creative persuasion didn't seem to be enough to get Teague to consent to a hike to the east ridge, but finally truth turned the trick. Jamie said, "Please? You have to come, it's a grand surprise and just for you! " and in so winning a tone that Teague cracked a smile.
"For me, eh? Hmmph."
But he went.
Having lived on land for many years, he had an easier time climbing up to the east ridge than Jack or even Elizabeth, though Jamie capered around them most of the way up. By the time they reached the top, though, they were all ready for the journey to end.
"Oh, look!" Elizabeth said, for she'd not seen the surprise yet, either.
It was a tree, a new one, placed in the same spot that Teague and Isabel's pine had occupied. It was quite large, nearly as tall as the old, stunted tree had been, and it was the kind called a Star Pine, young and vigorous and perfectly formed.
Jamie ran over and pointed to the sturdy trunk, a soft, unblemished gray . "There's plenty of room for the heart and initials! They were going to have Rob Carpenter do it, you know how pretty he carves things, but I said they should let you have a chance to do it, you might want to."
Teague's face was a picture as he studied the tree, like storm and shadows warring with a determined sun. In the end, the sunlight won. He said, gruffly, "I'll do it."
They watched him take out his knife and walk slowly to the new tree, and with great care and surprising skill he carved the initials, JT + IT, with a heart surrounding all.
"There," he said, stepping back, his eyes suspiciously bright.
Elizabeth said, "It's a lovely tree. Jack took Pintel and Ragetti on the Pearl to fetch it, but they did most of the rest of the work, bringing it up here and planting it."
Teague eyed his son askance. "You let those traitorous fools back on the Black Pearl?"
"Just the once," Jack assured him. "It's Christmas, after all."
"So it is." Teague ruminated for a time, then said, "All right. It is a pretty tree. Worthy of Isabel."
Jamie took Teague's gnarled hand in his small one. "Will you let Pintel and Ragetti come back to Shipwreck Cove for Christmas, Captain Teague?"
Teague's mouth twisted, half grimace, half smile. "Oh, I suppose-though they're still lubbers, and always will be. They can come back. I won't shoot 'em. At least until after the holidays."
The End
erinya, formatted as a series of drabbles that were set in my post-AWE Shipwreck Cove universe (which was originally artaxastra's fabulous Outlaws and Inlaws series). One of said drabbles featured Pintel and Ragetti, and this year, in the merrypirates holiday fic exchange, were_lemur requested some more P&R - "discussing /arguing /geeking about something Christmas-related a la the krayken/krawken discussion. Or just messing up christmas in some hilariously well-intentioned way". This story is the result.Many thanks, as always, to
hereswith for editing. ~ O Tannenbaum ~
There weren't many pine trees on Shipwreck Island, but there was one, in a sheltered spot of green on the East Ridge, that Ragetti had been considering for some time.
Pintel needed convincing. "Cut down that bloody great tree?"
"You saw how Captain Swann liked the tree we did for her last year," said Ragetti. "What'd they call it? A Tannenbaum? First one in Shipwreck Cove, 'cept for that Hessian bloke's. An' it behooves us to stay on 'er good side, what with her bein' king, not to mention the only captain left at the Cove what'll give us a berth."
A sour look swept over Pintel's face. "You'd think we set Barbossa's beard afire on purpose. An' it weren't no such thing!"
"An' Captain Sparrow's still sore vexed about the mutinies." Ragetti sighed. "I do miss the Pearl fierce sometimes."
Pintel nodded. "Me heart weren't in that last one. Bloody Barbossa."
"Aye," Ragetti agreed. But then he straightened with some determination. "That's why we need to do it. That tree on the east ridge would be a sight, all decorated."
Pintel brightened as the vision of it formed in his head. "It will, won't it?" He turned to Ragetti with a grin and a slap on the shoulder. "You've got it, lad! And won't the poppet be surprised!"
*
Getting the tree proved more difficult than either of them had imagined.
"Be lucky not to have a bloomin' apoplexy, climbin' this 'ere hill," Pintel gasped, wiping his forehead with a kerchief that had seen cleaner days.
Ragetti stopped to allow Pintel to catch up. Ragetti, with his long legs, was having an easier time climbing, but it wasn't what either man was used to. "It ain't like being aboard ship, the ground's hard, and it don't move."
"That's a good thing, when it comes to solid ground," Pintel asserted. "Or so I've been told." Ragetti began to chuckle and Pintel's good humor reasserted itself. "Come on. Only a few hundred feet to go."
"Aye. And it'll be easier coming down."
And so it would have been, without the tree.
"Lord. It's bigger than it looked from down below," Pintel said, walking around the tree's perimeter. "Maybe we should've brought some help."
"It's older, too, and scraggly in spots," Ragetti said, rather worriedly. "And what's this? Someone's took a knife to the trunk. Ain't these letters?"
Pintel bent to look. "Aye, it's letters all right. In a heart. Lovers. Pah!" He spat, disgusted.
"Maybe they're dead."
"Who?"
"Them that carved the letters. The lovers."
"Huh. Probably are. Never heard of anyone climbin' up this way." Pintel pulled his freshly honed hatchet from his sash. "Let's get it cut. The trunk ain't so thick as all that. Poor thing's stunted. We're doing it a favor, takin' it to the Cove to be all prettied up for Christmas, eh?"
Ragetti nodded thoughtfully. "S'pose you're right. Still big to move, though."
"That's why we brought the blanket. We'll wrap it up and pull it down the mountain after us!"
"Won't that break the branches?"
"Naw, pine's bendy, and this tree's endured. Stood fast against hurricanes! A little slide down to the Cove won't hurt it a bit."
*
"Well. There it is," Ragetti said, morosely.
They'd managed to get the tree down to the water and float it back to Shipwreck City, but they'd had to recruit a couple of burly passersby to help wrestle it into the Great Hall, and that hadn't come cheap. Then they'd nailed a cross-brace to the bottom of the cut trunk, so the tree would stand upright. It was now late afternoon and, thankfully, few of the Cove's inhabitants were about.
Pintel looked the tree up and down, intently, defensively. "It's not so bad. We'll turn it so the thin side is in the corner, to hide them branches that broke. And we can cut some of these bits that stick out funny, shape it, like. And then we get some help decorating it, same as last year. Won't have to pay folk to do that."
Pintel's confidence was infectious. Ragetti said, "We got to hurry, though. The Pearl's comin' back tomorrow, 'less they've run into foul weather an' such."
"Right, then. Let's get to it."
*
"It's... it's beautiful!" said the Pirate King. Her voice was a bit faint, she was evidently awestruck with admiration.
They'd cut too much off the branches, maybe, especially at the top, but they'd made up for it with decorations, two or three times the number last year's tree had held. The branches were almost sagging under the weight of the shining coins and jewels.
Young Jamie looked amazed, and Captain Jack frowned as he studied the tree. The captain said, "You two certainly put a lot of effort into turnin' her up sweet. Is this the tree that was up on the east ridge, by chance?"
"Aye," said Ragetti. "It was hard to get, but we did it in the end."
"I was afraid of that," Captain Jack said, thoughtfully, then glanced at the doors at the far end of the hall. "And here comes Teague. You'd better look sharp, lads."
"Why?" Pintel frowned, but he and Ragetti shuffled about to stand behind the King and her consort as the Keeper of the Code stalked down the hall to join them.
Teague was staring at the tree, staring hard, and his eyes slowly narrowed. "Is this the tree that was up on the east ridge?"
Something about the way this was said made Ragetti's hair stand on end, and Pintel seemed frozen as a deadly, smouldering eye pinned him.
"It is that tree, isn't it?" Teague said, quiet, bitter. "Isabel's tree, and mine. Where we carved our initials, so they'd last forever! "
His eyes were afire, and his hand groped for his pistol-which wasn't in his sash! He turned to Captain Jack, who shrugged sympathetically and displayed his weaponless state.
Pintel and Ragetti saw their chance. They turned and ran, and were already halfway down the hall when Teague let out a baffled roar and lit out in pursuit.
*
Stunned at the course their homecoming had taken, Elizabeth turned to Jack and smiled to see him draw a pistol -- Teague's pistol! -- from the hidden inside pocket of his coat. "You took it!"
Jamie said, "I'm glad you took it, Uncle Jack!"
Jack shrugged. "Couldn't see lettin' one of 'em get shot over a tree, even if they are daft buggers, and even if it was that tree."
"Your mother's tree." Elizabeth shook her head. "What a sentimental gesture."
"Aye, it's a marvelous thing, what a man in love will do."
"It certainly is. But Jack, do you think he'll forgive them?"
"Have to send 'em away for a few weeks, there's no help for that."
"But they'll miss Christmas here!" She looked at the tree again, and took Jamie's hand. "They went to so much trouble for me. It's too bad."
Aye," said Jack, slipping an arm about her waist. "But with any luck, they'll live to see the next one."
Epilogue
A week later, two days before Christmas, Jack found Teague in the Green Goose, brooding over a tankard of rum. Again.
"They didn't mean it, you know," Jack said, sliding into the chair beside his father.
"Go away, Jackie," Teague growled. "I ain't a forgiving man at the best of times-"
"Don't I bloody know it?" Jack said, under his breath.
Teague glared at him, but went on. "-and this ain't the best of times. Bloody idiot lubbers, damn them both to hell."
"They are, and I've no doubt they will be, eventually," Jack soothed. "But there's something you should see. Lizzie sent me to fetch you. It ain't noon yet, surely an hour or two away from the Goose won't hurt. Your chair won't even get cold."
Teague was still glaring, but he said, "Lizzie sent you? Well. She generally knows better than to waste my time."
"That she does," Jack agreed, getting up. "Come on, let's go see her."
*
Creative persuasion didn't seem to be enough to get Teague to consent to a hike to the east ridge, but finally truth turned the trick. Jamie said, "Please? You have to come, it's a grand surprise and just for you! " and in so winning a tone that Teague cracked a smile.
"For me, eh? Hmmph."
But he went.
Having lived on land for many years, he had an easier time climbing up to the east ridge than Jack or even Elizabeth, though Jamie capered around them most of the way up. By the time they reached the top, though, they were all ready for the journey to end.
"Oh, look!" Elizabeth said, for she'd not seen the surprise yet, either.
It was a tree, a new one, placed in the same spot that Teague and Isabel's pine had occupied. It was quite large, nearly as tall as the old, stunted tree had been, and it was the kind called a Star Pine, young and vigorous and perfectly formed.
Jamie ran over and pointed to the sturdy trunk, a soft, unblemished gray . "There's plenty of room for the heart and initials! They were going to have Rob Carpenter do it, you know how pretty he carves things, but I said they should let you have a chance to do it, you might want to."
Teague's face was a picture as he studied the tree, like storm and shadows warring with a determined sun. In the end, the sunlight won. He said, gruffly, "I'll do it."
They watched him take out his knife and walk slowly to the new tree, and with great care and surprising skill he carved the initials, JT + IT, with a heart surrounding all.
"There," he said, stepping back, his eyes suspiciously bright.
Elizabeth said, "It's a lovely tree. Jack took Pintel and Ragetti on the Pearl to fetch it, but they did most of the rest of the work, bringing it up here and planting it."
Teague eyed his son askance. "You let those traitorous fools back on the Black Pearl?"
"Just the once," Jack assured him. "It's Christmas, after all."
"So it is." Teague ruminated for a time, then said, "All right. It is a pretty tree. Worthy of Isabel."
Jamie took Teague's gnarled hand in his small one. "Will you let Pintel and Ragetti come back to Shipwreck Cove for Christmas, Captain Teague?"
Teague's mouth twisted, half grimace, half smile. "Oh, I suppose-though they're still lubbers, and always will be. They can come back. I won't shoot 'em. At least until after the holidays."
The End