Arrabella.
My name is Arrabella but everyone calls me Bella on account to the fact that it is extremely hard to say Arrabella when you are drunk. It tends to come out in a confusing slur which sounds a bit like Anamaria and that is even more confusing because that is the name of my mother and it is too much for a drunkard to have two women peer over he calls out one persons name. Plus there is the fact that I prefer Bella as Arrabella sounds too posh.
I look just like my mother but there is something that I cannot quite put my finger on, maybe its my nose or my mouth but something certainty doesn't look like my mother. She used to say that I looked just like my father or had his eyes at any rate. But I have never seen my father. He died when I was young, or so I am told. His name was Ben Windsman and he has always intrigued me. I used to question my mother about him all the time when I was younger but somehow she was always hazy on her replies and never told me much about him so I learnt to forget about my father.
There were far too many other things that occupied me. When I was very young my mother and I lived on the outskirts of Tortuga. She said that I was too young to be subject to the drunk groping men who wandered the streets attacking anything that moved but she wanted me to be aware of what these men were capable of doing so that when the time came I could deal with them. I lived my young life down on the beach swimming and playing in my rowboat while being protected by my mother's warm loving arms. When I was only four years old she introduced me to my first sword and began teaching me all she knew. Some people that passed our house would either shake their heads at such a young female trying to handle a sword and some of them would stop to laugh and jeer. But I wasn't put off. My mother had told me that it was everything to be able to protect yourself and that one day I would be a master at the sword. So I practiced everyday and by the time I was six I could manage a full battle against my mother.
Things began to change when I was seven. Mother was beginning to yearn for the open sea again. She would sit and tell me tales of her adventures out on the sea. How she had swung from the mast and thrust her sword deeply into one of the King's army men's side. These stories would keep my attention at the highest level for hours on end until the dying fire would burn out its last life. She would tell me how someday soon we would own our own ship and sail around the ocean visiting many countries while killing as many of the enemy as possible. Don't get me wrong; my mother wasn't all about death. She would sometimes sit and tell me legends of the sea and how to appreciate all life around me. I was to grow with a hatred for the enemy but a love for all things with the sea.
So we packed up our things and went to live in Tortuga for a few months. We were to buy a ship but first we had to earn the money. As much as she hated it my mother got a job in a tavern and even I had to pull my weight. It was all in the price for freedom, proper freedom on the sea where we both belonged. I would wash the dirty mugs from the bar but was upgraded to collecting them from the tables. If I weren't trained to deal with these things I would have been a complete wreck by the end of an hour. But luckily for me my mother was Anamaria and she had taught everything she knew. I was fully prepared for the sneers and laughter of the pirates. And it turned out to be an advantage because I was tipped well and I helped myself to a tip or two when the men's back was turned. Along with sword fighting my mother had also taught me to be a pirate.
By the end of the year we had scraped up just enough for a ship and a crew. So we set off into the grand open sea. The salt mist in my face, the smell of the breeze and the slow rocking of the boat made me feel as though I had lived on the sea my whole life. I was never happier in my whole life. We raided other ships and sometimes we would stop and board other fellow pirate ships to have some rum and sing merrily. Everyone was keen on the young eight year old and they taught me all the sword tricks they knew. Soon I was a better fighter than my mother, and then I was a better fighter than the whole crew! My mother was so proud of me, I was a natural born fighter.
But then it happened. I had just turned fourteen and had been hit by a terrible fever. I could not move for aching muscles and my face was pouring sweat. The whole crew was worried that death would catch me in its great wings and take me away from them. My mother sat by my hammock throughout the days and nights nursing me as best as she could. Then that dreadful night happened. I cannot remember much of it as I was at my worst. One of the King's army ships had finally caught up with us after chasing us for weeks. All I could hear was the clatter of swords and the faint ripping of human flesh. I could only hope that it was the flesh of the enemy and not of the crew. How I wish I could have moved, to be back in a healthy body and to have fought the enemy for I was the best swordsman or swordsgirl onboard. But it was no use.
My name is Arrabella but everyone calls me Bella on account to the fact that it is extremely hard to say Arrabella when you are drunk. It tends to come out in a confusing slur which sounds a bit like Anamaria and that is even more confusing because that is the name of my mother and it is too much for a drunkard to have two women peer over he calls out one persons name. Plus there is the fact that I prefer Bella as Arrabella sounds too posh.
I look just like my mother but there is something that I cannot quite put my finger on, maybe its my nose or my mouth but something certainty doesn't look like my mother. She used to say that I looked just like my father or had his eyes at any rate. But I have never seen my father. He died when I was young, or so I am told. His name was Ben Windsman and he has always intrigued me. I used to question my mother about him all the time when I was younger but somehow she was always hazy on her replies and never told me much about him so I learnt to forget about my father.
There were far too many other things that occupied me. When I was very young my mother and I lived on the outskirts of Tortuga. She said that I was too young to be subject to the drunk groping men who wandered the streets attacking anything that moved but she wanted me to be aware of what these men were capable of doing so that when the time came I could deal with them. I lived my young life down on the beach swimming and playing in my rowboat while being protected by my mother's warm loving arms. When I was only four years old she introduced me to my first sword and began teaching me all she knew. Some people that passed our house would either shake their heads at such a young female trying to handle a sword and some of them would stop to laugh and jeer. But I wasn't put off. My mother had told me that it was everything to be able to protect yourself and that one day I would be a master at the sword. So I practiced everyday and by the time I was six I could manage a full battle against my mother.
Things began to change when I was seven. Mother was beginning to yearn for the open sea again. She would sit and tell me tales of her adventures out on the sea. How she had swung from the mast and thrust her sword deeply into one of the King's army men's side. These stories would keep my attention at the highest level for hours on end until the dying fire would burn out its last life. She would tell me how someday soon we would own our own ship and sail around the ocean visiting many countries while killing as many of the enemy as possible. Don't get me wrong; my mother wasn't all about death. She would sometimes sit and tell me legends of the sea and how to appreciate all life around me. I was to grow with a hatred for the enemy but a love for all things with the sea.
So we packed up our things and went to live in Tortuga for a few months. We were to buy a ship but first we had to earn the money. As much as she hated it my mother got a job in a tavern and even I had to pull my weight. It was all in the price for freedom, proper freedom on the sea where we both belonged. I would wash the dirty mugs from the bar but was upgraded to collecting them from the tables. If I weren't trained to deal with these things I would have been a complete wreck by the end of an hour. But luckily for me my mother was Anamaria and she had taught everything she knew. I was fully prepared for the sneers and laughter of the pirates. And it turned out to be an advantage because I was tipped well and I helped myself to a tip or two when the men's back was turned. Along with sword fighting my mother had also taught me to be a pirate.
By the end of the year we had scraped up just enough for a ship and a crew. So we set off into the grand open sea. The salt mist in my face, the smell of the breeze and the slow rocking of the boat made me feel as though I had lived on the sea my whole life. I was never happier in my whole life. We raided other ships and sometimes we would stop and board other fellow pirate ships to have some rum and sing merrily. Everyone was keen on the young eight year old and they taught me all the sword tricks they knew. Soon I was a better fighter than my mother, and then I was a better fighter than the whole crew! My mother was so proud of me, I was a natural born fighter.
But then it happened. I had just turned fourteen and had been hit by a terrible fever. I could not move for aching muscles and my face was pouring sweat. The whole crew was worried that death would catch me in its great wings and take me away from them. My mother sat by my hammock throughout the days and nights nursing me as best as she could. Then that dreadful night happened. I cannot remember much of it as I was at my worst. One of the King's army ships had finally caught up with us after chasing us for weeks. All I could hear was the clatter of swords and the faint ripping of human flesh. I could only hope that it was the flesh of the enemy and not of the crew. How I wish I could have moved, to be back in a healthy body and to have fought the enemy for I was the best swordsman or swordsgirl onboard. But it was no use.