Miss Swann. That's what they all called me. What was the point of getting married by the notorious Captain Barbossa on the deck of The Black Pearl while it was fighting The Flying Dutchman in the middle of a maelstrom when you couldn't even tell anyone about it because if you did, everything you had been so kindly offered by an old friend of your murdered father's would be taken away, and you would be hanged for being the wife of a pirate? I never regretted marrying Will, don't get me wrong, but after about three months of living in Port Royale in my old manner of life, I got sick. Literally. I was puking everywhere. The doctor that my father's old friend had called in (I can't for the life of me ever remember that man's name) diagnosed it as a mild stomach flu, and it would probably go away in a few weeks. I myself had diagnosed it as just being sick. Sick of the way I was living. Sick of everyone who dared called me Miss Swann, even though they didn't know any better. Sick for glittering blue waters, sick for the sea breeze in my face, sick for the pirates of whom I was king. Most of all, I was sick for the man whom I loved, although that particular need would have to wait for a bit less than a decade.

I couldn't bear to satisfy any of this. Going out on the open seas would only increase my missing Will, and it would only bring up painful memories. I told myself this every day after our one day on that beach. After that one day on the beach that Will and I might never have again. As the decades passed, I would continue to age, while Will wouldn't. He would stay young and handsome forever, and at some point, I was positive that he wouldn't want me anymore.

I was reading a book on the porch of my house. Not a fantasy novel which I highly enjoyed during my youth, but a rather lengthy history of the first discovery of the Americas. Not that I found it extremely fascinating, but history was one of the only genres of books I could read that didn't arouse memories of the present. One of my servants walked up and dropped a note on the table beside me and said, "Mistress Ching sends her regards."

I didn't look up from my book, and the servant took that as a cue to leave. A few pages later, I sneaked a glance at the note. Across the front it read, "To Her Highness Elizabeth Turner." I looked back up for the servant who delivered it, but he was long gone. I really shouldn't be letting my guard down so much.

I set down my book and tried not to look too eager in my snatching up of the note and ripping it from its envelope.

To the King of the Brethren Court, Elizabeth Turner,

Time is fleeting, as is the tide. The Court has problems of its own, and it needs its King. Meet me at the docks when the tide is scheduled to next go out.

Lord of the Brethren Court,

Mistress Ching

I set the note down, picked up my book, and continued reading where I had left off.

"Where is she?" asked Donghai, who was Mistress Ching's first mate. "You said that she would be here."

"No," replied Mistress Ching. "I said I thought she might come. Apparently I thought wrong. Prepare to set sail. We leave in one hour."

About a week after I received that note from Mistress Ching, I decided I was being a baby and a spoiled brat. I was a grown woman, and I had entered into marriage knowing that we were going to face hard times (Although at the time I was more thinking about which opponent I was going to spar next). I was going to enjoy the rest of my life as King of the Brethren Court, and if I saw Will, I was going to suck it up and deal with it.

I dug my sword and men's clothes out of the bottom of the truck that stood at the end of my bed. I was sailing for Tortuga.