Out at sea, a haunting melody hung on the air. The melody itself was inaudible, something no mortal ear could hear, and yet all heard it, and knew it well. It rang clear and harsh, as two swords clashing, over the blood-stained tides. It hung upon the sorrowful moon, like a wail of mourning. And all who heard it were fallen to their knees in sadness. The melody played on.

            The tide was roiling when the song had been born.  It had roared in fury at every cannon fire, every scream of anguish, as another man perished. It had embraced the fallen into its depths, until Judgment Day and the four horsemen. It had felt the heat of life-blood on its back, as slick decks dripped with crimson. The Sea knew the song. He had heard it so many times before. The melody played on.

            The tune turned to the skies, now starry, but then a deep red, prophesizing the events which would transpire. In the sky, tears for the fallen, and for the lost. Tears for the betrayals and the mutinies. They vibrated the song with a woeful chord. Now covered in a mourning veil, sewed with pearls and diamonds, the Sky knew the song. She had heard it many times before.

            The sea was empty when a pair of storm grey eyes stared out across it. The ships that had burned, that had been tempest tossed, captured; all were but ghosts, now. But it had not always been. The watcher knew of days when the battles had rung across the vast waters, when raucous drinking songs had permeated the air.  The watcher knew of a time of adventure and daring. When the seas had belonged, not to the kings, but to the wild ones of the ocean; the corsairs.

            The watcher had been a pirate. Had been a captain, a cabin boy, a stowaway, a thief. Had been hunted to the ends of the Earth, and, somehow, had escaped. She had seen family and friends murdered, had seen lovers fall. Had some how outlasted them. All of them, to hold on to their memories, so they would not fade.

            She remembered the battles where she should have died, but some one else had forfeit their life, in her stead. And the times she should have been hanged, but for good fortune and well placed gold. And the times she had not been so lucky, and had come away, scarred. A brand on her forearm, a slash across her face, a pistol wound in her back. Somehow, Fate had decided, then, that she would not die. True, she would suffer. But she would live to see another day, another fight.

            The pirate knew the melody. Long ago, she had learned to embrace it. To take it into her soul, and to release it, with each turn of the tides. With each loss. She released it now, so that it might haunt the winds that wailed as loud as she, in grief for the fallen.

            Brought to her knees, the pirate screamed. She roared to rival the thunder, until her voice rebounded back to her, like cannon fire in the distance. Blinded by grief, by pain, by fury, the pirate did not see the ships draw near.

            “Capt’n, we need to go,” urged the voice of a worried crew member. Sand fell through the pirate’s hand, like the time she had survived to tell about. She knew the fear the meager crew felt. Knew that they would just as soon flee to their ship, and begin the game of spider and fly that she had won, up until now.

            “Captain?” insisted the voice. She turned. Gave her orders. She knew what must be done. Knew that this was the price of the life she had chosen.

     “Adieu,” she whispered, wiping salty tears from her eyes.

     “They are coming,” warned a voice in the darkness. It shivered with hope that she might withdraw her orders. Would let them prove her loyalty. But, proudly, she watched the broken, nearly beaten frigate limp into the darkness. Her hand tightened around the hilt of a stained sword. Oh, yes, they were coming. Coming to take all that she owned, the only home she had left. The last sanctuary she had found.

            “Let them come!”