Disclaimer- They aren't mine.
A/N- I wrote this in celebration of becoming an author on hidetherum. But I'm still not technically an author there, as I haven't been made one yet. I just put my request in. But if this is posted there by a pseudonym (And I literally mean a pseudonym, not someone under a different name. Well... I guess technically both are true, cuz it would be a pseudonym, just a pseudonym of a pseudonym. Wow, quite the train of thought there : D) Anyway, the point is, I am a pseudonym.
Normally I would have waited and posted this on hidetherum first, seeing as it written for that site... but I really liked it, so I wanted to post it right away. Even though that's usually not a good idea for me, cuz I always read stories the day after I wrote them (and then so foolishly posted them) and cringe. But today I'm loving this story. We'll see what I think tomorrow : )
I like stories about stories. So I'm going to tell the story about this story. If not for your sake, then for mine. (Okay, I really just like rambling about myself.) I was planning to make this story sort of cute and whimsical and fluffy. That's not how it came out. Now it is all heavy and "meaningful." Well, not so much the last one, but definitely the first. I think it's sort of the tragedy of my life to always be really serious and heavy. At least when it comes to writing. In real life, it's the complete opposite. But that's a different story. (The one behind my screen name Lauren The Oxymoron actually.) But the idea for this story (at least, the cute, fluffy whimsical one that I was imagining) came from work. Because what Liz is doing in the story was basically what I was doing all morning while selling drugs (prescriptions only, of course). Anyway, before this turns into an autobiography, I'm going to stop : )
Elizabeth sat in her satin daybed by the gilded window with only the small flutters of her unborn child for company. She felt bloated, lazy, stranded, and terribly lonely. Looking through the diamond panes of glass, Elizabeth watched the mutinously black waves breaking on the beach, turned silver by the rain.
She remembered that there had been a storm not so unlike the one currently raging over Port Royal when the town had just been settled. Everyone receded into their new homes. For the first time in the history of the town, all the shutters were shut tight, keeping both the rain and the never ending stream of gossip that flowed from one open window to the next out of the houses. It was both the loudest and quietest the town had ever been.
When the storm ended and the shutters and the mouths of the old women opened simultaneously, Elizabeth wandered down to the beach, where the waves were more of the synchronized smack and suck against the rocks that she was used to.
Halfway down the beach she saw the shadowy silhouette of something enormous that hadn't been there before the storm. Creeping over to it, her tomboyish character making an adventure out of it, Elizabeth became horrified and a little bit entranced at her discovery. Sleek black rolls of blubber heaved as the beached whale fought for breath. The storm had thrown the confused animal onto the beach, but it had also been what kept the whale alive for this long. Now the sun was coming out, and the rainwater that had sustained the majestic animal was evaporating. Elizabeth felt her own chest heaving as she tentatively touched the the smooth skin of the animal. How could such a beautiful creature die in such a merciless way? She ran her small hand, shrunken even more against the mass of the whale, across all of him she could reach. The smiling sun beat down on the scene as Elizabeth felt the bend of his front flipper; the white patch on his breast; the great crevasse of his mouth, that, although being large enough to swallow her whole, was parted in a heart-wrenching gesture of surrender; her hand glided up the cool black muzzle; and finally came to the one huge rolling eye, which looked up at Elizabeth hopelessly. If it were her tears he needed to live, he would have survived.
Looking down at the beach that had been witness to the tragedy, Elizabeth felt as if she were that whale. Her twelve year old self, although aware that some freak of nature was occurring, hadn't realized the importance of the scene. She had felt it, yes, she had felt it for a full week, and it was that more than anything that alerted her that she had witnessed something so terribly important, but she never knew what, exactly, that was. Now she knew. Now, too late, she knew that she was that whale. That was part of the tragedy. She would never have known until it was too late.
If she had known when she was twelve, then she wouldn't be dying on this beach. If she had known when she was twelve, she would have disregarded any and all the expectations that her father and the entire town imposed on her. If she had known when she was twelve, she wouldn't be in Port Royal with James Norrington's child bruising her womb right now. She would be at the stern of a pirate ship, a tricorne hat perched on her hair, which on the open sea was allowed to blow freely in the wind. She would be the figurehead to the rolling ship in search of adventure and freedom and love.
And sailing with her, sailing as her co-captain, would be her beautiful pirate husband. Not her often remiss and critical husband, but someone new and different. She would be his in a way that James couldn't hold claim to her. She would be his because she willed it so, not because he did. His dark curls and even darker, penetrating stare made him both beautiful and mysterious. He was rough around the edges, but around her he was sweet and attentive, and obviously bred for a higher life than that of a pirate. But Elizabeth knew, as she had since she was twelve, that they had everything they needed right there on the ship. Him, her, and the open sea.
If only she had known when she was twelve. If only she had known...
It would have been perfect.