Umm. Have I really been gone that long? Ff.n looks a tad different... 0.o..

Anyways! Here go!

Chapter 10:

Patricia was lying down on her back. Aidan was quiet in his own bed and she was grateful for her son allowing her some peace. In her hand, she held the two medallions. She had studied them long after Elizabeth had let the room. For some reason, she couldn't take her mind off of Elizabeth's words.

You never thought that you father was a pirate?... The whole thing with how your father died.

Patricia closed her eyes remembering. She hadn't thought about her father's death in quite some time even though she thought about him in general almost everyday. It was an ugly death. She didn't like that particular memory but she decided to give that memory some energy as she was about to sleep.

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Philip Taylor was a sea merchant. A sailor, really, though his earnings reflected that he was more than just a mere dime a dozen sailor. He made connections, made important trips across the Caribbean and up and down the coast from Virginia. He would leave for months at a time leaving his wife, Andrea, with his daughter, Patricia but every time he returned, he would come back with as much love and affection a man could muster for a woman and a girl to make up for the time that he wasn't there. He was the one that told Patricia of stories of Sparrow, Blackbeard and Avery. She was told of their ways with women, rum and gold. Andrea would indignantly protest her husband's romanticizing of these dangerous characters but she always lost.

She was about ten when her father returned to Port Royal for good though he came back an entirely different man. Andrea had just succumbed to influenza. Patricia had been alone in the world for a few months before her father came back to rescue her from the corrupt men that were taking advantage of the girl to get at her father's riches. Patricia thought that it was only her mother's death that made her father different but there was something else that she couldn't entirely place...

Philip was shifty and became paranoid. He looked once, twice, three times behind him as he walked along the marketplace. For a year, there seemed to be no change until the governor and his daughter arrived in Port Royal. They brought with them a boy of Patricia's age. She never knew why but Philip took him in to his home in a heartbeat. Life was becoming well and good again. Will began to take care of Patricia almost as a debt to the girl's father for taking care of him. Their family was formed until that fateful night.

Philip was at a pub on Fisher's Row at the west end of the Port Royal peninsula. She was 14 and he was 15. Will had recently taken an apprenticeship at Brown's blacksmith shop and the trio was going to celebrate his year's anniversary there. Patricia and Will were nearing the pub when they saw her father standing outside with some men.

Patricia was about to call out to her father when Will pulled his hand over her mouth and pulled her into the shadows. They watched as the two other men talked to Philip Taylor and watched as he backed away fearfully. Suddenly, the men began to walk away, snickering to themselves as Philip Taylor wiped the sweat off his brow. Patricia was now fighting against Will to get to her father. She managed to free her jaw and she bit down on his hand. Will immediately let her go with a curse and Patricia began to run. Will called after her but Patricia didn't want to listen. She turned around to tell Will off for holding her back and just as she turned away from her father she heard a dull crack and the neigh of a horse.

Patricia would hear that crack every time someone stepped on a twig or when firewood popped in its burning. And every time she'd remember her father and that look of surprise that overtook his pleasant cherubic face. Black horses had snapped their leather leashes and had kicked the man down from behind. Patricia couldn't do anything but watch, frozen, as she saw the legs stamp their feet down.

Will came running to her side and shielded her from something he didn't want her to see just as he would a five years later on Malagua.

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Her fists held tightly against the sheets, remembering it all. Her memory had become her dreams as she was reminiscing. She had fallen into a restless sleep. In her dreams, instead of focusing on her father as she ran to him, her eyes went to the background of the picture. She saw the men that talked to her father. His skin was dark, his bottom lip protruding farther than his upper lip. His dreads draped down below his shoulders and his sneer was menacing. The moonlight was becoming tangible and as it hit the man's face, his skin deteriorated and skull looked back at her with a bloody grin.

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Koehler trudged across the Black Pearl and whipped the lower crew into a faster pace. They were near Port Royal and as with everyone cursed on the ship, they felt the distance between themselves and the two slips of engraved golden salvation was disappearing as quick as they sailed through the waters.

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