Chapter 3: An Engagement

Author's note and disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING, DAMMIT! Okay, glad to get that out of my system. Thank you reviewers, especially DLsam. I almost fell over when I read your review, thinking: "Someone liked MY story THAT much??? Surely not!!! But, after re-reading your review (and I didn't stop there, I kept re-reading... and re-reading... heck, I'm reading it again as I speak I loved it so much .) I realized that you meant it. Thank you, so much. Well, major plot-contructor... things, in this chapter. I know what your thinking : "Three freekin' chapters and no action??? Come ON! We wanna see some fights!" Mimes boxing punches>But I do assure you, that our favorite rum-addicted, gold-toothed, kick-ass pirate will be here soon! Yay! Read on!

I was ninteen, after seven years, seven long, sad, lonely years of living Jackless. I met Elizabeth, the governor's daughter, and she was my new best friend.

My life changed that one day, one year after what Elizabeth referred to as the "Pearl Incident", in the warmth of a Caribbean December, when another friend came calling.

My mother looked at the two figures approaching through the haze of mist and her face perked up. "Siren! Come down here this instant!" Hearing her, I rolled my eyes and closed the book I had been reading, Piracy: The Life and Times of the World's most Dangerous Pirates. Recognizing her tone of voice, I called for my maid to help me dress. Ten minutes later, I was walking down the Grand staircase of the estate, an insanely done up corset threatening to crush my ribs, with a flowing gold-and-blue gown that matched my eyes. I rounded the corner into the sitting room with practiced ease, the world's fakest smile painted onto my face. The room in front of me was all mahogany and marble, polished marble floors as smooth as glass, mahogany walls polished until you could see your own face in it, mahogany and green velvet chairs and couches, enormous wooden book cases lined till bursting point with books and maps.

Paintings, one portrait of my father, (the artist was amazing, he had even captured the sparkles of humor in my father's blue eyes) one of my mother, and one of me (the artist had trimmed me down a bit, and downsized my nose, which since then I'd grown into)hung on the walls, paintings I loved, family, landscapes, animals, and one of a giant dragon, coiled, with a trail of smoke snaking from one edge of his mouth, so real you expected him to pounce and incinerate you any moment. Then there was the one of my father and mother. My mother in the front in all her youth's loveliness (not that she wasn't beautiful then, she was, but age had added more of a majestic undertone to her sharp, disciplined beauty) starring up into my father's eyes, who was standing behind her, arms wrapped around her(this one was my favorite, not because of the sheer reality and that I knew both of the people in such a beautiful painting, but because it wasn't what mother would deem "appropriate". More than once she'd considered taking it down, I'd heard her, but all of those times she'd thrown it one glance, smiled, and reconsidered). This room was my sanctuary, my haven. I wasn't even allowed to decorate my own room as I wished, so this was it. My room-away-from-my-room, if you get what I'm saying, this beautiful room decorated like a forest, earthy tones and beautiful paintings...

I turned my head to look at my mother and her friends. Mother sat near my father, stiff, agitated, like she was nervous. I couldn't help but add a bit of reality to my smile, mother was never nervous. I could see nothing but the backs of the visitor's heads, mostly their hair , one, obviously a woman, was jet black, silky and a little bit in a bun at the back of her head, letting the rest fall down around the face I couldn't yet see. The other from far away may look like black hair, but closer you could tell was dark brown. "You called for me, mother?" I said, my voice coated with honey sweetness. Mother looked up and muttered: "Siren, dear, may I introduce Lady Miranda Beuford, of London, and her son, Harry?"

I smiled again as both figured rose. The boy, Harry, looked a bit older than me, early twenties. He was handsome, but had a white scar across one eyebrow, and an abnormally large nose. The woman, Lady Miranda... well, beautiful was an insult to her. Her glossy black hair played around a face so pale it was almost white. Her sharp, long, upward-slanted brown eyes where streaked with gold and filled with fun. High cheekbones and a thin-lipped, smiling mouth completed her exotically beautiful, mothered face.

"Well, your Siren, aren't you." The lady said, more of a statement than a question.

"Yes, my Lady." I mumbled with a wobbly curtsey (I told you, I'm anything but ladylike).

"I've heard so much about you." She said, taking my hand. "And there's no reason to be so formal with me, we're among friends."

"More like acquaintances." Mother muttered.

"What was that, dear." Lady Miranda said, throwing mother a dangerous look.

"Nothing."

I sat down next to mother, who held my hand as if to protect me from this woman. I didn't understand why, she seemed... kind. Amazingly kind. We sat around and told stories, mine of my adventures with Jack as a child, much to mother's protest that I had a male as a friend. Father told his and mother's story, one I had heard about a zillion times, but I never got tired of. I saw mother blushing as father told the fairy tale romance, altered over time, but still true enough. Father finished it all off, as he usually did when we had company, by picking her up, dipping her till her hair brushed the floor and kissing her romantically as Miranda, Harry and I laughed.

But above all, I loved Miranda's stories the best. She told them as if they could have been real, and with such wonderful description that I felt as if I was there. Tales of worlds from which our eyes are only shielded by a slight layer of fog and magic as old as time. Stories of dragons and magic, mayhem and romance, all sorts of characters she swore she met herself. By nine, mother was drunk off of brandy and snoring loudly as father carried her to their room, father wasn't much better off, but still sober enough to climb up the staircase without falling over. Miranda seemed sober enough, and Harry had barely touched the brandy glass (I had always liked strong drinks, they gave me a feeling of strength and maturity, but whenever mother had company, she always swatted my hand away from the bottles. Humph.).

"Well, that was eventful." Miranda said. I laughed and Harry smiled.

"Why so cold, my lord?" I asked the boy, smiling, "You've barely spoken all night."

"Oh, its not you, dear." Miranda joked playfully. "My son simply loses all ability to speak whenever a female he's not directly related to walks into the room."

"So basically it's me." I said, smiling as Harry blushed a deep crimson.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's you." Miranda said, earning her a whap on the arm from her son.

"Lady Siren?" The boy asked, looking my way. I returned his stare, smiling inwardly as he fiddled nervously with his own hands. "Um ... may I interest you in a walk?" I smiled and got up, "Yes. Yes you can, my lord."

"Call me Harry."

"Only if you call me Siren."

"So I will, Siren."

"Your mother is an interesting woman." I said. We where walking down the same cobblestone walkway Jack had ran down six years ago. I knew with a sort of guilt/relief that if mother was awake, we'd be restricted to the family gardens. But I hadn't walked down this path in years, I missed it, if that makes any sense.

"Yes.." He said with a smile, "interesting... if that's what you'd call her. She's... really, quite lovely. She acts as though she was my age."

"I like her."

"I like you."

I looked up to se he was looking at me. And not as an object, like so many other men had. He looked at me not like I was a trophy, waiting to be won, but as a human being, as an equal. I blushed. Damn blushing, I get slightly embarrassed and my entire face goes red as a tomato.

"Ah... thank you..." I mumbled. We had reached the dock where I'd first met Jack. And your with another guy... my mind mumbled, Wait! What the heck am I saying! Siren, as hard as it is to accept it, Jack is dead. He's not coming back! Oh, God, don't start crying! He would have wanted you to move on. If he loved you like you loved him, he'd want you to move on!

"Thank you, Harry." I said again, blinking away tears.

"Siren... your crying." Harry mumbled, touching my arm and turning towards me.

"I-it's nothing... just an eyelash in my eye, or something."

"No it isn't." He touched my chin lightly, making me look up at him. "Is it me? I know that the whole suitor thing can be awkward, but I really like you..and..."

I laughed, looking up at him. "No, it's not you. I'm just missing someone, that's all." I smiled, feeling tingly like I've never felt for one of these men. "I like you too."

He looked at me like he had never been happier, like it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. And the rest passed in a sort of light-headded blur. In what seemed like a second, he was holding my face, then his lips where on mine. He smelt good. Call me odd, but that was what stuck the most. He smelt like pine and cinnamon. The kiss was... nice. I felt light-headed and giddy. The way he stroked my face with his hands left trails that tingled. My heart levitated in my chest and hovered, pressing against the bottom of my throat.

"Marry me?"

"Yeah...."

And that was that. We where engaged. I got a beautiful silver ring, one ruby inlayed at the middle. I liked the ring, because when the ruby caught the light is stuck out so much from the light silver. As usual, Elizabeth practically exploded. She had been absolutely obsessed with marriage ever since Will proposed to her.

Then we got married. We had a bunch of kids, and I grew to love him. The end. No, I'm totally kidding. Sometimes I think about that and laugh. If my life had ended up like that... that would have been so easy, so... so....

Boring.

The life I've chose has put me through pain, so what? This is the life I chose, and I would not change it for all the silver and gold in the world.

Anyway, so mother, being mother, decided to throw a party the day before the marriage. Elizabeth, Harry and I watched, eyebrows arched in wonder, as the entire household bustled around like maniacs, preparing food for the party as well as the wedding it's self, clearing out the ballroom, running up guest lists blahdi blahdi blah. Throughout the entire time, Elizabeth had a look to her. A bit of a giggle, like she knew something I didn't. It drove me nuts, what was she hiding? I knew by her look it was something I wouldn't like, and it was only the day before the party that I realized just how serious the situation was...

A/N: Okay, so I know that this may sound a little odd, but I do promice you that things aren't as they seem here. He will come, and he will be mine. Oh, yes, he will be mine...

Tee hee.