Forget Me Not...

On a tall, lonely cliff stands a tall, wicked looking structure. Wicked looking to any pirate that is. The inside is filled with rooms with bars for doors and windows, where little sunlight can reach, and in the midst of this large, dank, wicked place, lies a courtyard, and in that courtyard stands a gallows, with an empty noose swinging in the wind.

This is where we find our hero, the mischievous Captain Garin, locked in one of the many cells of a prison. Only hoping to try and hatch his own plan of escape, or wait for his friends to come to his rescue...

Or wait for the noose.

Garin sighed as his head hung in his hands, his fingers tangling through his hair, trying to think of how much more stupid he could have been to get caught. He had tried to pull a snatch of jewels in the governor's mansion, but had accidentally stumbled in on the governor's wife while she had been dressing. She of course, didn't know he had made a mistake and started to scream her head off. Garin groaned to himself, cursing his stupidity.

"Okay… You got yourself in here… So you can get yourself out… but just how are you gonna do that?" Garin asked himself.

He had the misfortune of his dagger being taken away from him when he was brought here, so he had no means of escape, other than to use his brain, which was too angry with him to think clearly. Garin sighed and leaned back against the wall.

"How could I have been so bloody stupid?!" he growled to himself.

"You've been askin' yourself that same question for th' last half-hour, so would ya mind shuttin' up?" came a voice, a voice that Garin recognized. He leaned away from the wall and walked to the bars of his cell, grabbing them with both hands and leaning forward to try and get a glimpse of the cell where the voice had come from.

"Roger?" he asked loudly. "Black Roger, is that you?"

"Aye," a voice replied, and Garin could see from where he was, the figure of an old friend sitting a few cells down and across from him.

Black Roger had the look of an old man but had the heart of a lion. Garin had seen him in several fights with impossible odds, but get out of it with barely a scratch. They had known each other for a while, and Garin had nearly forgotten how they'd met. He could see four strips of light shining onto Black Roger's face from where he was, and knew that he had to be sitting near a place where one could see the courtyard better than he could from where he was. His window faced the sea, but the window of the empty cell across from him could see only a mere corner of the yard.

"What are you doing here?" Garin asked.

"Them redcoats finally got me into a corner I couldn't get out of, so here I am, and will be until I get my short drop…" Roger replied from where he was. Garin's ears perked, clearly showing what Black Roger had said startled him.

"No… The noose?" he asked.

"Yup… Warden's orders…" came the mellow reply.

Garin let one hand slide off the bars, and leaned against them with one side. He looked at the floor, not sure what to say, but felt that he had to say something, so he looked back up.

"How long have you got?" he asked.

Black Roger looked up and off to one side facing the window, and Garin could see that the light revealed how aged he actually was, and the several scars, both visible and invisible that lay scattered on his features. Roger looked back at the wall he had been staring at.

"One hour," came his answer, which caused Garin to give another start and lay his second hand back on the bars.

"An hour?!" he exclaimed.

"That's what I said."

"But they can't!"

"Well, that's just the thing, mate… They can and they bloody will." Roger said, unable to keep from smirking. Garin growled, baring his teeth, and Roger looked back towards the window. "Besides… It don't matter anymore which way I die… gonna die soon anyhow…"

Garin's ears perked and he looked back down the hall at Roger, his head cocking slightly at the bland look on the old buccaneer's face.

"What do you mean?" he asked. Roger paused, then sighed and spoke.

"If I didn't get my neck stretched by the noose, I'd die soon enough…" Roger said, then looked down the hall and made eye contact with Garin. "I've been sick, lad… very sick. The doctor I saw gave me three months… and that was at least two months ago."

Garin felt his heart nearly stop as all time nearly stopped with it; his eyes wide and his grip on the bars nearly went limp. He looked at the ground, finally blinking after what seemed like ages, then looked back down the hall at Black Roger.

"…Cancer?" he asked.

"Aye…" Roger replied. Garin frowned and looked back at the floor.

"Oh Roger, I'm sorry…" he admitted. Roger just laughed lightly and shook his head.

"Don't be," he said. "We all gotta go some time. And if you think about it, dying today on the gallows is a lot better than livin' for another month." Garin looked at Roger, confused, and Roger just continued. "I've heard the stories about those who get sick from cancer. They rot away until they aren't the same person they were, and a lot of times they can be in serious pain. I look old enough, Garin, and I honestly don't have the spirit to look any older."

Garin couldn't help but chuckled quietly at his friend's remark, because he was right. There was no way that Black Roger could ever just sit around and die, even if his body wouldn't let him to otherwise, but how he could be so willing to die was beyond him.

"Look, Garin," Roger continued. "The point is… I am scared. I wish I didn't have this damn ol' bug, but I do. I wish I could live a bit longer, but I can't. There's just no changing things… and there ain't no point to anymore."

The loud clop of boots could be heard coming down the hall towards Black Roger's cell, and Garin felt his grip on the bars tighten and his teeth grit together. Four guards walked over to Roger's cell, unlocked it, and opened the door. One of them latched a pair of thick shackles onto his wrists, then Roger stood up to be marched out of the cell. Garin growled openly and shook the bars in his frustration as Roger was marched down the wall past his cell, and Roger stopped in front of his cell and looked at Garin. He laid one hand on Garin's giving it a tight squeeze that only a friend would.

"Garin, swear to me only one thing."

"Aye?"

"…Don't carry this with you, lad. Just remember me." Roger said, then stepped away from the cell to be marched away by the guards.

Garin stared after them, unable to even try and hold back the tears of utter frustration that gathered in his eyes. He felt something tucked into his hand, something Roger had slipped there. Garin looked, and found that it was Black Roger's lucky ring, an old worn down silver German ring from back before Garin was even born. He had never seen Roger with it off, ever. Garin felt more tears well up in his eyes, and he stumbled backwards back to the bench in his cell, sitting down heavily as he stroked the ring with one finger. His head shot up to the window in the cell across from him as he heard the drum roll for the execution begin.

Garin sighed and hung his head, almost hearing clearly the clop of Black Roger's boots mounting the steps to the noose… the sentence being read out, and his heart began to race, feeling it almost race in time with Roger's… the sound of the rough rope being looped and tightened around the neck… the grip of the executioner's gloved hands tightening on the wooden lever…

The trap door fell open, the rope strained, and Garin doubled over and slapped his hands over his ears, finally unable to hold back his sobs. One of the things he feared the most was the noose, but now he had to witness a very close friend of his face a fate they shared a fear of. Garin could feel the ring in his hand leaving a stinging imprint in his skin, and he slowly loosed his grip from his ears. He sniffled and blinked away his tears, sound still muffled from his ears, as he didn't completely remove his hands.

"Oi, you! What's the matter with you?" he heard someone ask. He glanced up and he saw a guard in a red uniform standing in front of his cell, holding a musket at his side. Garin sniffled and groaned slightly.

"Go away, I feel sick…" he lied, slipping the ring into his pocket. The guard just scoffed, then leaned against the cell door.

"Sick with what? If you're too sick we may just hang you so you don't get the other prisoner's sick…" he said. Garin glanced up at him.

"I dunno I think I have a fever…" he grumbled, then stood up. "Here, do I feel hot?" he asked as he walked up to the bars slowly and sluggishly, looking as if he were going to pass out. The guard rolled his eyes and reached a hand in and touched Garin's forehead.

"You feel fine," he said.

Suddenly Garin reached through the bars with lighting quick movements and grabbed the guard around the throat with both hands, so as to keep him from screaming. The guard choked and grabbed at Garin's hands to pry him off and call for help, but Garin wasn't about to let go.

"You bloody bet I do." Garin growled, then brought the guard's head forward hard and fast, slamming him against the bars and knocking him senseless. Garin snatched the keys from the guard's belt and unlocked the door, stepping outside and picking up the musket, then taking off down the hallway, knowing he only had a few moments before someone found the unconscious guard.

He found his dagger sitting on a table where the guards would have lunch and reclaimed his weapon, sheathing it and continuing on into the yard. He still had one thing to do before he left this place…

Outside on the battlements, he found the warden, a pompous looking, and stout old man walking with a gold handled cane and talking to a guard as he walked. Garin could tell by the way the warden carried himself that he didn't so much as give a blinking care about anything but appearances.

Garin wrung his hands around the barrel of the musket, then waited until the guard and the warden passed under the small overhang he perched upon. Garin dropped down from his hiding place and swung the butt of the musket down upon the head of the guard and knocked him to the ground, out cold completely. The warden turned around with a frightened yell, and Garin raised the end of the musket again.

"Compliments of Black Roger!" he growled loudly, then swung the musket at the warden, whacking him in the jaw and breaking it with a loud 'crack'!

Garin then dropped the musket, ran across the battlements and jumped over the wall, hitting the ground below with a thud, then taking off down the steep hillside as shots were fired after him by the guards at the fort.

When Garin returned to the Black Pawkeet, he told the sad news to his crew, who had also regarded Black Roger as an ally and friend. There was little time to mourn however, as two naval ships started to approach from around the point. Garin and his crew took off through a set of dangerous shoals and escaped the ships, which were forced to go around.

That night, Garin sat alone on the small platform beneath the bowsprit of his ship, fiddling with Roger's lucky ring in his hands. He sighed quietly and held it up so that it was a ring around the full moon, glancing at it in a sort of slight sorrow… but then felt a smile return to his face, remembering what Roger had said to him back at his cell, and finally understanding what he meant.

Roger wanted to be remembered in a happy way, not in a sad way that would weigh Garin down with remorse. And though he would miss him… there would always be a little piece of Black Roger close by to him.

"Now you take care not to lose that ring, you hear me Garin?"

"Aye, I hear ya, Roger. I won't lose it, I promise. And I won't forget…"


The End