A Pirate I Was Meant To Be?
Beta Read by VStarTraveler
Chapter One
Elaine jumped up as she heard the shatter of the dinner set she'd received from a merchant family who were interested in trading within the tri-island area. The family wanted to be guaranteed safe passage from the pirates of the area. She entered the room where she heard the clatter and found her husband sitting on the ground re-arranging the broken pieces. He seemed to be entranced.
"Guybrush, what are you doing?" Elaine enquired.
"This crest seems familiar," he replied, still rearranging the broken shards.
Guybrush had a fear of porcelain ever since Elaine had known him. He didn't know where his phobia came from and he'd been getting better at dealing with his fear in recent years. He found his phobia hard to fully overcome when he didn't know where the phobia had started in the first place.
"This crest, it's the Woodsbury family crest," Guybrush told her. He looked confused at how he knew this piece of information.
"Yes, it is. Elliot Woodsbury gave the dinner set to me. She is wanting to set up trade with our islands," Elaine replied.
"Sorry for breaking the dinner set," Guybrush apologized.
"It's fine, Guybrush. It probably would've stayed in storage taking up space. Come to bed; we'll clean this up in the evening."
The birds were chirping and the sun was just rising over the cliff face which the mansion was perched atop. Guybrush rearranged a few more pieces of broken porcelain before following his wife up the stairs.
- Monkey Island -
The young man looked out at the black clouds and the rough ocean before him and gulped nervously. This was the first time he'd ever been away from his mother and on his own. He was the youngest child in his family, with there being a large age difference between himself and his older brother and sister. He was always the younger annoying kid brother whom his older brother Charles picked on and the brother whom his older sister Elliot doted on. His father didn't treat him the same as his older brother and was happy for him to stay at home with his mother and learn how to knit, sew, cook, and do arts and crafts and other activities his brother Charles called girly. The tasks that would normally be taught to his sister, which she had no interested in. He enjoyed spending time with his mother and doing all those things. Nevertheless, he also wanted to spend time with his father and learn how to sword fight, shoot a rifle, go out to sea. Spending time with his brother, sister, and father with what they did best. He wanted to follow in his father's family name, and make a name for himself.
The ship lurched forward, and he almost fell overboard. He stumbled backwards away from the edge of the ship, making his way below the deck.
"That is a smart choice young master," said one of the men who worked for his as he went below deck.
He hated being young master. He wanted to be a somebody, but a different somebody: an adventurer who got to do exciting things and have interesting stories to come home and tell his mother while enjoying a cup of tea and sewing or doing a craft, or maybe a pirate hunter like his father and bring justice to the world around them. He dreamed of finding the perfect wife whom he could adventure with, instead of the sweet girl his parents wanted him to marry. Meredith was a nice girl, but he found her boring to talk with all the time. Plus Meredith didn't see him as a man, she saw him as one of the girls. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life with her. All the girls on the Island saw him as one of the girls, he wasn't a girl. He didn't want to be a girl, even if he did look good in dresses. His mother often used him as a model when making new clothes for his older sister Elliot when she wasn't home since they were both the same build. Even if she was home, Elliot wasn't one for dresses and rarely dressed up if she could avoid it.
He went down to the cargo bay and sat down, hoping that the lurching would stop soon. He'd been wishing for adventure, but not this. He was beginning to get scared as the lurching got worse instead of better. He could no longer hear the men and woman on the deck above the waves crashing into the ship and the rumbling of the storm. Despite his fear, he managed to fall asleep.
The young man sat up with a start when he was crushed by one of the boxes in the cargo bay. With the lurching of the ship, it had managed to come free. He tried to push himself free but found he was pinned. The ship lurched again, dragging him with the box he was underneath. He shouted out, but wasn't heard by the crew still on the deck above.
He held out his arms to protect his face as a crate full of tea sets, dinner sets and decorative vases and bowls fell on top of him. His mother wouldn't be happy; he, his mother and his grandmother had made them all by hand. They were to be traded on the other islands. He looked at the broken pieces of porcelain all around him. The ship lurched again and even more creates broke open. The once carefully wrapped breakables were breaking everywhere, flooding the cargo hold with shattered porcelain. He was unable to protect himself as another crate managed to fall on his head. His last vision was of the porcelain around him, and the cargo deck flooding with water.
- Monkey Island -
Elaine awoke to a cold bed. Getting up she wandered down the stairs and found her husband gluing the dinner set back together.
"Guybrush, you don't have to do that," Elaine told him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I can always get another one tomorrow."
"Did you know they are all crafted by hand," Guybrush told her, "to add a more personal touch to the whole process. Selecting the best raw materials to make the porcelain, crushing and cleaning is done with hand tools to form the mixture. They are pressed into molds by hand. Next, they are heated on a low temperature to reduce shrinking, then glazed and painted all with the most careful strokes before they are placed into a kiln. Everyone is then checked to make sure they are to the highest standard, all before being carefully packaged to be transported and traded to the other islands."
"How does someone who has a porcelain phobia know how to make porcelain?" Elaine asked.
"I think I used to make porcelain," Guybrush replied. "I had a dream last night, I was on a ship transporting crates of porcelain. There was a terrible storm; I almost fell overboard, so went below deck. The crates, they fell on top of me, breaking open, pinning me down. Then the ship started to sink, and I was drowning in sea water with broken pieces of porcelain all around me."
"And then?" Elaine prompted.
"And then I woke up. I think it was a memory, a memory of how I ended up on Melee Island," Guybrush told her, looking at Elaine with a haunted look. "Elaine, I don't want to remember. I was happy not knowing my past. Now I'm confused, I don't know who I am anymore. When I woke up on Melee Island, I was so certain of two things, my name and what I wanted to be. Both were wrong; I still cannot remember my name, but I am certain it is not Guybrush Threepwood. I like who I am now, I like being Guybrush Threepwood. My parents would be ashamed of me if they know that I am me, even though I still don't know who they are or even if they are still alive."
"Guybrush, everything is going to be alright, I'm here." Elaine soothed him. "Nothing about your past is going to change our relationship."
"Are you sure?" Guybrush asked.
"Yes," Elaine replied.
"Even if I told you my dream as a child was to be a pirate hunter, not a pirate?" Guybrush confirmed.
"Yes, Guybrush, I love you, everything about you. You really wanted to be a pirate hunter?" Elaine asked.
"In my dream, I wanted to be a pirate hunter like my father. The trip was my first time on my own."
Elaine held her husband close; he was shaking in her arm's visibly afraid of his dream, afraid of the past he could not remember, a past that had never concerned him before. For Guybrush, he'd never been concerned about not knowing his past, his age, his anything. It was just something he didn't have, and that was that. He was always looking to the future instead of lingering in the past, a future that they shared together.