Characters owned by SM
Eyes Green and Laughing
Everyone knew the streets of London were unsafe for boys and men to be wandering on their own. Teams of marshalls preyed on the solitary, snatching them with accusations of theft, although many of them may not have stolen so much as a glance. They were invariably found guilty and were then packed on heaving, over-crowded vessels and shipped to the colonies, where they were put to work clearing forests and building towns in lands unimaginable and inhospitable.
That was bad enough, but there was worse that everyone didn't know. The governors of these land needed their workforces civilized, and the most effective civilizer of men is the presence of women. So it was that I, a seventeen year old girl, was abducted one afternoon, torn from home and family, and I found myself herded onto a creaking and groaning ship, bound for somewhere godless.
Too miserable to speak, I sat in the stink and filth, crushed close to the bodies around me of equally miserable women. All we had in common was our misfortune, and the fact that we were of child-bearing age, and off to attend our own weddings to unknown men.
The voyage stretched on, our ship rolled and lurched, and we subsisted on dry crusts with the only break in the deadly monotony being that once a day we were divided into groups and taken up to the deck for fresh air. The tang of the brine bit at me then, bringing relief from the acrid and permeating odor of fear and despair downstairs.
"Australia has giant spiders that can poison a woman, and paralyze and kill her," the whispers brokenly related.
"It is inhabited by wild dogs and wilder men."
The days were no different from one another, but one day there came a difference that defied belief.
Huddled below decks we became aware of shouting and thumping above as though an army of pirates had alighted above us to take over the ship.
The trapdoor between our hold and the outside opened as we all, two hundred women, shrank and sought to disappear.
Feet appeared on the steps and a voice followed them down, singing:
"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest,
yo ho ho and a bottle of - hello!"
He was a pirate to be sure - but what a pirate!
Silk trousers covered long, long thighs, a sash sat low about narrow hips, a billowing shirt revealed a glimpse of a smoothly muscled chest, there was a shadow of dark stubble shot through with auburn on a firm jaw, there were eyes green and laughing all beneath disheveled bronze colored hair that the wind had just made love to.
"Greetings my pretties - what a delightful cargo you are! We're not here to harm you - all come up on deck please, we're here to give you a choice. Come and listen, come and choose. Wishes three we offer, take one or another or the third, come and listen!"
Barely daring to hope that his assurance of no harm could be sincere, yet barely daring to doubt such a face, my fellow prisoners and I filed on deck and stood looking dazedly about us. There was indeed a pirate crew aboard, and standing to just off our bow was their vessel - but what a vessel!
She had a dragon's head for a prow, and wings for sails, she was shaped like a swan and glistened like a pearl, and her hull floated above the tops of the ocean swell, with clearance of a good two or three yards. Her crew held ours at swordpoint, and they were all as impossibly strong and handsome as the one who had spoken to us.
He leapt to the top of the captain's wheel, balancing there lightly and easily, and he smiled at us all.
"Wishes three my lovelies!" he cried. "As you may see we are not ordinary men sailing the seven seas on an ordinary ship. My dears, we are from a place far from here and strange, suspended in time and completely magical. We are from the Faery Realm! Hear our offer! We have come in search of brides, and we have found ourselves a shipful. Any of you who are willing may come with us back to our world where you will become faery. You must leave your own world behind and you will live forever and become magical, and take a husband from among us. Anyone who wishes to return to London town and their life of old shall be transported back to their homes there with a caution not to wander! Any of you who want to proceed to the new world, to secure a husband assured of employment and to be given land and a new home may continue on with this voyage - and we will make sure the rations are more plentiful and more palatable for the rest of the journey, and your ship will no doubt be less crowded. Take a few minutes to think on it, my beloveds, but time is short, and soon we must away."
Some of us were hushed, some whispered amongst themselves, but not I. His singing voice, his zest, the shine about him and his magic eyes drew me. It took me all of no minutes at all to realize my answer. London was grey and cold and damp, I knew that for certain. Sydney town was sunburnt, hot and dry, I knew that from hearsay. Everything about the faery men sparkled and bedazzled, and their leader in particular. There was a box near to my feet and I stepped up to it, throwing my hands in the air and calling clearly, "Take me!"
He sprang across the deck, their leader, across everyone to stand before me and he was so tall our faces were at the same level.
"Heart so sweet," he said, so quietly no-one else could have heard. "Your name?"
"Isabella Swan," I murmured back, my voice barely above a whisper.
"You already have a faery name," he smiled. "Come with us you shall."
"But who are you?" I asked him, my voice still quiet. It seemed a private moment, despite the many crowded about us.
"I am Edward," he said, and he was so wild and free I wanted to fly beside him and never fall back to the leaden earth.
To my surprise as the women sorted themselves into groups only a few only a few made the choice I did, the rest were evenly divided between old England and new Australia.
"Faeryland? I'd rather a human husband, even if he's a convict, than an elf," was the mutter from one side.
"Faeryland? The food is bound to be strange, I'd rather be back in Deptford with a nice plate of jellied eels and mushy peas," came from the other group.
"Not everyone has your courage, Isabella Swan," Edward's voice remarked beside me.
"Tell me, how long is the journey back to your world?" I asked him.
"A year and a day, dear one. That gives us all plenty of time to get acquainted," he said.
"And how does the husband and bride selection process work?" I asked.
"It's a matter of love," he answered.
"Oh, good," I said. "Because love is something no-one has mentioned in amongst all this brides for husbands business, and I was starting to think people didn't believe in it."
"Oh, I do," he said, with his gaze turned on me.
"And are you yet married?" I asked him.
"No," he replied.
"Are you spoken for?"
"No."
"A year and a day, you say?"
"Yes, Isabella Swan."
I had been given a choice that day, to decide my future, and I had made a swift decision: Edward. I looked at his eyes green and laughing and dared to think he had made a decision, too.
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.
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