Two Roads
A/N: This challenge number 44 for the POTC Theme Challenge posted by frenchhornfreak on her profile.
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost, 1874-1963
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In life, we always have a choice. Always.
No one should have to settle for what they do not want, when what they really want is right in front of them. Waiting for them. Waiting to be chosen.
In these times, propriety is something that everyone has to respect. Whether you are a low class blacksmith or a high class governor's daughter; you had to respect it. That was the way of the world – whether you liked or not.
But, I did not respect it. And I let that be known on that one particular summer's day – that particular day that I had to choose between William Turner and James Norrington.
William Turner was blacksmith – or rather, a blacksmith's apprentice. He was of lower class and it was thought lowly of someone of my social status to be acquainted with him. But, he was my friend; he had been my friend for as long as I could remember. And he loved me. He told me so before running to save Jack Sparrow from the noose. And, I realized, I loved him as well.
James Norrington was a Commodore in the British Royal Navy. He was of a higher class, just like me, and he was the man that my father almost desperately wanted me to marry. He was a good man, I knew that for certain, but he was not the man for me.
But, unlike most girls of my status; I had a choice. Well, those girls had a choice as well, but they chose not to act on it; they simply took what was given to them, due to propriety and the rules of high class society these days.
But, like I said; I had a choice.
I chose to take the road less traveled by; the road that the rules of society demanded that I never take – and that road took me straight to William Turner.
Hang propriety. Damn the rules of society to hell. I chose William Turner and, to me, that has made all the difference. And my life couldn't be sweeter.