"Ow!" Rose responded to the sharp pain in her scalp. "Is the pulling really necessary?"
"With this mop of hair? 'Necessary' doesn't begin to cover it," Giselle stated plaintively, continuing to rake at Rose's hair with a brush. "You want to look the part, don't ya?"
"Aye…"
"Then," she said, giving Rose's head a good thwack with the brush, causing her to recoil in pain. "Learn it now: beauty is pain!"
Scarlett suddenly reappeared from the back of the room, setting down various powders and paints for Rose's face. The fiery redhead took one look at the progress (or lack thereof) that Giselle had made with Rose and made a disgusted face.
"What, you think you can do better?" Giselle cried, insulted by Scarlett's expression. "Here! You try!"
"I think we're beyond trying…" Scarlett said with a grimace. "That hair won't cut it." Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. "Unless we cut it!"
"Absolutely not!" Rose said sternly. "No one is cutting my hair!" When neither Giselle nor Scarlett responded, Rose threw her arms down in despair. "Forget it! Jack or no, this disguise is never going to work. Thank you for your time ladies, but this was a mistake."
"We're not giving you your money back, you know," Scarlett reminded her. "Jack paid us to make you look like a convincing lady of the night, so you might as well take what service we can provide."
Giselle gave Scarlett a look. "But if we can't make her look like something even a blind fella would buy, what's the point? Let her leave and we'll make off with the money!"
Scarlett looked as though she was about to consider this offer, but Rose quickly interrupted that thought before they could act on it. "Fine! Continue. But make it quick. If we miss the Bride Auction then this was all for nothing. And no hair cutting!"
Suddenly, an idea occurred to Scarlett. "Wait a minute…a wig!" She rushed off to procure said wig from the back room. Giselle called after her, "I'll start on her face, but don't pick out anything too ig-greg-e-oose!"
Rose assumed the word that Giselle was attempting to pronounce was, "egregious," but soon put her mind to other topics. As she felt various brushes and powderpuffs tickle her cheeks, she closed her eyes and tried to think of the day ahead.
Rose's job that day was to serve as a distraction. They were on the island of Tortuga, where every so often, a Bride Auction would take place. These weren't so much legitimate marriages as much as they were a bidding war between lonely pirates for female accompaniment for a night. While the town were busy at the auction, Rose's half-brother, the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow, had planned to visit and/or threaten a former "friend" who supposedly held knowledge about the location of the chest of Davy Jones.
Rose had volunteered her services willingly. The plan was for two others of Jack's "friends" (although Rose used that term lightly, as they were more "jilted lovers" than "friends") would help make Rose into an irresistible beauty and enter her in the auction, therefore extending the length of time that the town would be preoccupied and giving Jack more time to complete his search. This wasn't Rose's problem to resolve, but she still felt a strong urge to help her sibling as best as she could.
Jack was eight years Rose's senior. They shared a father in the ever-elusive Captain Edward Teague. Teague was married to Jack's mother and had an affair with Rose's mother, a gypsy from France. Rose never knew her father, only meeting him briefly one time when Jack had accidentally ran into her aboard a slave ship. The only thing that had united them and proved of their relation was two pendants that were halves on their own, but whole together. Teague had given each side to Jack and Rose's mothers, who in turn had each passed the pendant on to their children. The pendant symbolized far more than their relationship; It became a promise that one day the two would sail the seas together. Jack left Rose behind on this very island thirteen years ago to procure the ship of his dreams, the Black Pearl. Little did Rose know at the time that Jack had made a deal with a man Rose had always assumed was mere legend, Davy Jones. After a devastating mutiny, Jack lost the Pearl to his traitorous crew and first mate Barbossa. Barbossa had also managed to convince Jack to leave Rose behind at the bayou-dwelling of a voodoo priestess named Tia Dalma, where Rose remained for the past ten years. Once she was finally free to go, Rose was reunited with a childhood friend and one of Jack's mutineers, Ben McHenry, who had escaped Barbossa's reign of terror across the seas. The mutineers had happened upon cursed Aztec gold, and as a result became skeletons in the moonlight. The curse was broken thanks to the help of a Governor's daughter, a blacksmith, and Jack Sparrow himself. Jack regained the Pearl and was finally reunited with Rose, but now had a looming debt to pay to Jones. If Jack could find Davy Jones's secret chest, the source of all his power, Jack would not only be able to keep the Pearl, but also live forever.
This was all Rose knew of the legend, and Jack seemed not to know much more. That was the purpose of today's mission—reconnaissance. But as if this were not enough, Jack and his crew were in the midst of being pursued by the Royal British Navy stationed out of Port Royal, who had captured Jack but had failed to complete his death sentence. The Navy was merciless towards pirate-kind, and keeping Jack away from their wrath would certainly prove to be a challenge.
With all of this stress looming over Rose's head, she had barely even considered her own struggles. Rose was born with night blindness, and could not see in low-light. It was important for the auction to take quite a long time to give Jack the most time to succeed in his mission, but then again, if it took too much time, Rose might have lost her sense of vision as soon as night fell. Additionally, Jack had failed to cover what to do if some scallawag succeeded in buying her!
Rose was pulled from her thoughts, however, when she felt a tug on the top of her head. "Got the wig!" Scarlett had announced.
Giselle sighed. "That thing? Ugh…did I expect any less from the likes of you? Red doesn't match her complexion!"
Rose wanted to open her eyes to examine her reflection in the looking glass, but was flicked on the nose by Giselle when she tried to do so. "I'm not done with yer eyes yet! Keep 'em closed!"
All without seeing, she stood carefully as Giselle finished with her makeup and Scarlett finished dressing her. Once she felt a hat being placed on her head as a finishing touch, she was permitted to look at her reflection.
Rose was taken aback by what she saw. No more thick, black gypsy hair, but a wild mane of about a thousand red curls. Her father's striking eyes that she shared with her brother were concealed by a thick layer of blue paint over her eyelids. Her cheek now donned a beauty mark. She has been stuffed into a painfully tight corset, but the resulting red dress that she could now fit into was worth it. Finally, an asymmetrical hat tied the whole look together. Giselle and Scarlett grinned at their handiwork.
"You'll be irresistible!" Scarlett exclaimed. "They'll want the redhead!"
