the Dalaverse

Having watched all the relevant scenes of "The Princess Bride," I polished up my little Jack/Inigo fic and here 'tis. Translations provided at the end -- knew I was going to exercise my Spanish this semester, even though it's the first time I haven't had a class in five and a half years.


An Overdeveloped Sense of Vengeance



Jack watches the Spaniard from the back of the tavern for a good hour, waiting for the mugs to pile up on his table. The Spaniard has the most beautiful sword Jack has ever seen, and since his own is no longer in service, he’s of a mind to take this one.

Fingering the rough hilt strapped to his belt, Jack scowls. The blade is sheared off below it, but no one need know that. It was broken in a bit of a scuffle earlier, three men cornering him in an alley and demanding a little attention. Jack counted himself lucky that he was quick and light, and they’d been so drunk he was able to get away with nary a scratch. Even if it cost him a weapon, the sword was fairly cheap, and he relishes the chance to secure a new one.

Like this fine piece of shine, he thinks, catching another glimpse of the sword as the man shifts in his chair. One more drink and he should be ripe for the taking; already his head is drooping over the table. When he rises, slapping money down on the table and staggering out the door, Jack is on his heels.

The Spaniard clutches his sword hilt as he blinks up at the sky and Jack groans inwardly. He’s hoping for the man to pass out in one of the alleys or a horse trough, but the Spaniard doesn’t move for a long moment, looking to the stars and running his thumb across the fanciful gilded curlicues at his hip.

Finally he stumbles along, hitting a wall and leaning against it with both hands. A moment Jack couldn’t have timed better – he ducks his shoulder and knocks against the other man.

“So sorry, mate, had one too many in there,” he says affably as he carefully feels for the drunkard’s belt in a show of righting himself.

He manages to get the buckle undone with only a confused hiccup from the Spaniard, but as soon as the weight of the sword leaves his body he is alert. Falling into a crouch, he grips his sword and yanks it out of Jack’s grasp.

Damn, Jack thinks fervently as he backs up, hitting the other wall in the narrow alley. He raises both hands as the sword is drawn, flashing steel in the dark, and raised to his throat. Not even the quickest of grabs for the knives he has in his belt and one of his boots would prevent him from being dispatched before he could twitch a finger.

The Spaniard leans close to him, whiskey heavy on his breath. Jack didn’t catch the best of looks in the tavern, but he has nowhere else to look now. His face is dark and thin, much younger than Jack first thought. The pale twin scars slicing his cheeks follow the angles of a straight nose, a sharp chin. His eyes are brown and set wide apart, offset by thick arched brows. Jack is a little envious of the ease of the Spaniard’s mustache, as he’s having trouble cultivating one of his own.

He looks into those dark eyes and sees a fire and intensity that would be enough to give him pause even if he didn’t have a finely-wrought blade at his throat. A hot Spanish temper is one thing, but this is a man who lives for something, some purpose or lover or quest or ideal, and Jack figures that is something he ought to know about.

“Cobarde,” the Spaniard hisses.

“Lo siento,” says Jack, wracking his brain for the bits of Spanish he’s picked up over the years. “Ah, un error, sí? No...no me mata, por favor.”

“No? And tell me why I should not run you through, pirata?” His English is heavily accented, but serviceable. The point of the sword presses against Jack’s leaping pulse. “You try to steal my sword.”

“Only to admire it,” says Jack frantically, nearly babbling. “It’s such a pretty blade, really, splendid as any I’ve seen.”

The Spaniard purses his lips at the praise, but his hand stays steady.

Jack tries a smile. “Did you make it yourself? Craftsmanship of a genuis –”

Something crystallizes in the Spaniard’s eyes. “The man who made this sword is dead. Shall I use it to send you to join him?”

His hands scraping against the wall at his back, Jack blurts out the first thing that comes into his mind. “Take me to the docks, if you please, and do it there.”

Confusion knits the Spaniard’s brow. “Por qué?”

“If I’m to meet my maker, I’d rather not do it on dry land,” says Jack, quite sincere.

For a second the Spaniard continues to look confused, before he lets his sword fall and starts to laugh. “You would go to the gates wet and dripping, como un pez, is that what you are saying?” He sheathes the fine sword, shaking his head. “You are strange English man, I think.”

“But a strange English man who gets to keep his head, I wager?” says Jack, grinning winsomely at the suddenly friendly Spaniard.

“Sí, for stealing my weapon badly I can let go – how do you say, let you go, for it?”

“Forgive,” Jack supplies, immensely relieved.

“Forgive,” the man repeats with a nod. Dark eyes go quickly somber again. “Forgive is not a word I use, most of the time.”

“Well, I am certainly pleased to hear you use it tonight,” says Jack. He extends a hand. “Captain Jack Sparrow, mate.”

The Spaniard shakes his hand with a firm grip, his palms nearly as callused as Jack’s own, though they are not sailor’s hands. “Inigo Montoya. Un capitán? And your boat, dónde está su barco?”

“Ship,” Jack corrects with an inward wince. “And that is quite the tale.”

Inigo claps a hand on his shoulder. “As the tale of my sword. Come, I will buy you a drink, and we will trade, yes?”



“So you don’t know the chap’s name? Only that he’s got six fingers on one hand?”

Inigo nods, nursing his tankard of ale. His eyes are still bright with the fervor of his story.

Jack tilts his chair back against the wall, steepling his fingers under his chin. “I knew a man with eleven toes once. He had one of ‘em cut off. Who’s to say your six-fingered man won’t do the same?”

With a frown, Inigo says, “I will avenge my father’s death. If it take me twenty years, I will do this.”

Handsome little devil, but none too bright, Jack reflects, letting his chair drop back on all fours with a bang. A man cheating at cards the next table over tosses up his hand in shock and a brawl breaks out. Inigo and Jack ignore it.

“What will you say when you meet him, then, your father’s murderer?” he asks curiously.

The young man’s face gets tight with that near-religious intensity again, so holding Jack’s attention that he couldn’t look away if he tried. “I will go up to him, and I will say these words.” His eyes go unfocused as he looks past Jack to his unseen enemy. “‘Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.’”

Jack cocks his head. “Simple and to the point. I like it.”

“And you?” says Inigo. “What will you say to your traidor, your capitán Barbossa, when you should find your black ship?”

He shrugs, swirling the dregs of the rum in his glass. “Haven’t gotten that far yet. Mostly I’m thinking to just shoot him in the heart.”

Inigo looks a bit disappointed.

“What?” Jack demands. “It’s a valid choice.”

“Sí, sí,” says Inigo, waving a hand at him in dismissal. Dramatic whelp, Jack thinks ungraciously. “I do find it interesting that we two seekers for revenge are met in the same place at the same time.”

“Aye, we are men of action, we are,” says Jack proudly. “You for your da, and me for m’Pearl.”

“No action, I am thinking, at this moment,” says Inigo gravely. “I search for ten years and find nothing.”

Jack says nothing to this, but privately thinks that Inigo’s situation is rather pathetically hopeless. Ten years is a long time to keep after one unnamed man. He’s been hunting the Pearl for just a few months, and already he knows that it will not take as long as Inigo’s quest for his father’s killer. He is certain that he will find Barbossa and take the ship back in far less time, in part because there is no way he can last that long.

Just thinking of her is like pouring salt on a fresh wound. Jack downs the last of his rum, orders another, tips it back and swallows it down. When he is finished, he looks up to see Inigo studying him, that strange hint of age in his fathomless eyes.

“You drink much,” he says quietly. “For to fill the loss. Lo comprendo. And you also.”

Jack twists his mouth in a bitter appropriation of a grin. “No you don’t, lad. You haven’t got the sea in your blood.”

“True, I do not care much for the oceans,” Inigo admits casually. “But I am here on this sailor’s rock looking for passage to Barbados, where I am to see a master of the blade, to train.”

“I have a ship,” says Jack. “Tiny and ugly, but she floats. I c’n get you where you’re going.” The last mug of rum has abruptly hit him harder than he intended, and he will be grateful for a body to lean on back to the docks. “For a fee, o’course.”

Inigo nods. “Por supuesto, capitán.”

“Right.” Jack stands, weaving in real unsteadiness for a change. “We’ll go see some pigs about a man and then we’ll be on our way.”

When they get to the Mermaid Harp, Jack is sober enough to walk fine alone. He and Gibbs make way while Inigo stands off to the side, watching with his bright bird’s eyes and saying nothing. Jack jerks his head as he walks past and Inigo follows him into the cabin. Gibbs waves goodnight from his place at the wheel.

“This is for sleep?” Inigo asks, glancing around the tiny space.

“Aye,” says Jack. He tugs the top half of his double-pallet bed up. “You can sleep on one o’ these.” Before he can separate the two thin mattresses, however, Inigo’s hand stills his own.

“I do not care to sleep, capitán Sparrow,” he says, voice a low rumble.

Pleasant surprise, thinks Jack with a grin as Inigo bears down upon him, carefully setting aside his magnificent sword..

It’s the first time Jack has let a man inside him in too long, since Bill met and married that strumpet of his. He’s forgotten how good it is, the sweet ache and sharp colors, but he remembers quickly enough. Inigo fucks with the same magnitude of concentration he’s so far shown to everything. He’s fair-minded about it, too, bringing Jack off with even pulls along his cock before he lets himself quicken his thrusts. He hisses out a low string of Spanish as he jerks and pumps his release into Jack’s body, some curses Jack recognizes, some he doesn’t, a few entreaties a Dios.

“Gorrión lindo,” Inigo murmurs against his shoulder, slender arms wrapped around him
as they make themselves more comfortable on the pallet. Jack is too sleepy to bother asking him what it means.

The passage to Barbados takes a few days. At first Jack regrets his broken sword which prevents him from dueling with Inigo; however, after watching the Spaniard practice on his own, he doesn’t mind so much. Jack’s a fair hand with a blade, but he is nowhere near the level of this man. At least he is spared the surety of defeat by not being able to attempt to beat him.

They spend the sun-lit hours drinking with Gibbs and giving each other tips, on fencing and sailing and each other’s languages. At night they continue to share the small cabin. For the first time since the mutiny Jack is content, if not happy – he won’t be truly happy till he gets his Pearl back. The presence of Inigo is a welcome distraction during the long, dull days, and a boon during the sweat-soaked, gasping nights. The fiery young man does not even begin to assuage the loss of his ship, but he does help in healing the pain of the loss of Bill.

When they reach the destined port, he tramps down beside Inigo onto the dock.

“Muchas gracias, capitán Sparrow,” says Inigo with a grin.

“De nada,” says Jack, clasping his hand. “You keep that blade safe, savvy? And luck to your search.”

“And yours as well, -- buena suerte,” says Inigo with a graceful nod. “I do not think we will meet again, but if we should, you will be buying the drinks, and we will have a proper duel.”

“Fair enough.” He squeezes back Inigo’s strong grip. “May we both find what we are looking for.”

“Esperamos venganza.” A last flash of his dark smile and darker eyes, a final press of Jack’s hand, and he is gone. Jack stands and watches him vanish into the crowd for a moment. Esperamos indeed. The boy has pluck, even if his quest is hopeless.

Jack turns back to his ramshackle little ship-that-is-not-the-Pearl and boards, whistling a jaunty Spanish reel under his breath.




Spanish translations:

Cobarde -- coward

Lo siento -- I'm sorry

un error, sí? No...no me mata, por favor -- A mistake, right? Don't kill me, please.

como un pez -- like a fish

dónde está su barco? -- where is your boat?

traidor -- betrayer/traitor

Lo comprendo -- I understand it

Por supuesto -- of course

a Dios -- to God

Gorrión lindo -- pretty sparrow

buena suerte -- good luck

Esperamos venganza -- we wait for vengeance/we hope for vengeance (and that is why esperar is the coolest verb in the Spanish language)