Prologue:
He was undead.
She had seen many dead bodies in her time, claimed by the unforgiving and tremulous waves in the vast depths of the sea. It was what made sailing exciting and adventurous; it was what captivated the hearts of men and bound them forever to her: no matter if you were the strongest, hardest man on the earth, you were no match for the tempestuous, ever-changing sea. The fact that she was wild and untamed made her even more entrancing to them.
But he was not like the others. The others had escaped her wrath well enough, but eventually succumbed to death as she pressed whatever shred of hope they had left from them…
in the dark…
in the crushing depths…
at the bottom.
He had survived in her hell, yet he had died just the same.
She carried him to her shores, she passed over his limp, unmoving body and she pushed him gently to the sand. She waited. For a moment, she thought he had gone to join the others; he had boarded the ship to the Netherworld when she had not been looking. She was a little disappointed; she had hoped this one would be different. He looked different. He wasn't wearing the usual rag-tag clothes that seamen dressed themselves in- his were those worn by a highly-ranked officer or a lord of some sort. Oh, she had seen many fat merchants in their ornamental coats and young navy men in their red and white uniforms, and pirates in whatever they could pilfer. But here was a man highly decorated. Doubtlessly, of course, she had claimed men decorated more than this one, kings, even, but this one carried an air of power about him. She could feel it in the waters around him, as he was blown from his post into her waters and as he sank to her depths. He struggled for a few minutes to reach the surface, but stopped, with an empty, bitter smile upon his face, and embraced her. It was power… lost. When she pressed herself upon him, however, that was when she noticed he was different. He looked right at her, the traces of his bitter smile still on his lips, and then grew motionless. She was taken a bit off-guard by it. In all her years, only a handful had looked at her before dying- it was only natural to focus on lost loved ones or passing on when being crushed or drowned, so understandably no one really acknowledged her.
When the job was done, she lifted him to the surface, and carried him to safety, just to make sure he hadn't passed on. He laid face-down upon the sand for a long while without moving. She grew impatient, and was tempted to push him back into his grave, but stopped at a twitch of his finger. Then, a splutter, and a deep gasp for air. She stood before him as he weakly clutched at the sand and pulled himself up to his knees. Then he looked at her again, standing in the sunlight.
He had changed in the deep. Before, there was a dim light in his eyes as he struggled, and when he stopped, the light went out. Empty. But the dark had morphed him into something different, something even more sinister than he could have been before. His eyes were black, but not empty. They were filled with an unfathomable evil that radiated from his soul and enabled his body to live.
Black fire. These were the eyes of a dead man walking.
He prostrated himself before her, and offered himself. She would have taken his soul, but she feared there was no soul left to take. All the same, she asked him what he wanted in exchange for his troubles.
He gave her one word.
Sparrow.