Lys Summers
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Freedom is a beautiful thing.
You didn't realize it, before - you never really had the chance. It's terribly hard to miss something that you've never had. For years in the city, within the walls, you knew nothing of its seductive call. Day in and day out, fetch and carry, work then sleep. Such was the monotony of life.
Work to try and fill that void within you. Strive towards perfection, to better yourself, to make you whole. You didn't know what freedom was, then. Couldn't identify the yearning in your heart. Eyes forward, chin up, and reach for the top - surely when you got there, you'd have the answers. Toil in the forge until you mastered your craft. Work at the sword until you would never loose. Lead a good, respectable life, have a fine job, and marry a fine woman - it was a goal any man could be proud to reach for. Surely, if you could win Miss Swann, that love would drive away the emptiness you felt. An admirable goal, enough to satisfy any man.
Or so you thought. You left Port Royal to rescue your dream, to find what it was you needed. Well, find it you did. But it was not exactly what you were expecting.
You found it in the expanse of sky, in a horizon with an unreachable end. It was in life's unpredictability you found its reason, and for once you weren't trying to meet anyone's expectations but your own. It was simply what you could do, and what you couldn't do - you've never been able to find other words that could explain it in a more accurate way. You had freedom, and it was an intoxication, a drug. You found what you were looking for.
You thought to yourself that the day Jack Sparrow came to Port Royal was the greatest in your life. He took you to rescue Elizabeth, and you finally knew who you were.
But somewhere along the way, you lost your happy ending.
Back in the walls, so close to your goal, the emptiness once again plagued your mind. You didn't understand. Life was better, you had reached the top - but somehow you felt more wretched than ever before.
If the day that Jack Sparrow came to Port Royal was the best of your life, then the day that he left you behind definitely constituted the worst. Perhaps, he hadn't really taken you to rescue your 'bonnie lass', nor fulfill some prideful dream. Perhaps he had been trying to rescue you. Well, whether he tried to or not is up for debate, but out on the seas, in the eye of the storm, he gave you what your pirate blood had been grasping at for years - intentionally or not.
Jack Sparrow gave you your freedom.
And when you could take it no more, when the confinement began to tear you apart and you thought you'd go mad within the walls, it was Jack Sparrow who you ran to once again. The remembrance of those words drew you back for more - it all comes down to what a man can do, and what a man can't do. And a man who's a pirate could never live his life bound in stone and rules and propriety. It was all the explanation you offered, and no more was ever asked. No more was needed. Such is the way with Jack, and so it is now with you.
You were drawn to this life like a moth to the flame. You've found where you belong, and whether it's between the law and Jack you're no longer quite so sure, but if he's by your side then it can't be too far off the map then, can it?
Jack Sparrow is freedom.
Freedom is a beautiful thing.
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End