The daughter that can't be a bride

Disclaimer: I don't own POTC Or any characters associated with such.

It was her time. Iris's seven sisters had done it, and now it was her turn. Oh how she was nervous! She paced her room late into the night, thinking it was a terrible idea.

"Don't fret dear." Her mother told her gently. "Your just like your sisters. Your going to do wonderful."

"but I'm not like them mother!" Iris Du Beau argued. "They do what their told, they are poised, and everything I have to be. I'm not that mother! What if I mess up? What if something goes wrong?"

"Iris, calm down." Iris's mother was a countess. They lived in a big house, wearing only the finest silks, and doing their best to be all they were supposed to be, all that the world expected of them. Iris was the youngest of seven, her sisters had gone to the match-maker that Iris was to go to, and had all been matched up. That was it though, Iris wasn't like them. "You'll do fine. If you don't get any sleep you won't. Now sleep."

She rested her head against the pillow, gazing up at the canopy above her. She wasn't ready to go to a match-maker, she wasn't properly prepared. When she was supposed to be learning to be like her sisters, she was off at the beach.

"If you don't learn." The sister closest to her age, Lily protested. "You'll never be a bride."

"Perhaps I will wing it." Lily shook her head.

"No Iris. You must learn this, you can't let your husband receive a woman he did not want. Do you know what that would do to us? The family?" That was usually when Iris ran off. She knew what it would bring to her family: Shame.

Why did she have to get married? She was the youngest! She wouldn't ever have to take her mother's place, not unless all six of her sisters died. She needn't know any of what she was to have learned.


Morning came too soon. Of course Iris slept in. When her maid ran in screaming for her to wake up; Iris fell out of bed; grabbed a dress, quickly changed, and ran to get her horse. She had one horse inpoticular that she loved, a black one, with a white spot on it's side. She didn't even bother to saddle up, she just took off.

Running her horse through fields, getting straw stuck in her jet-black hair, she had gotten to the house where her mother waited. Her mother hired professionals to fix her up for the match-maker, but that didn't settle her nerves any.

"Come! We've got to hurry or you'll be late!" The head woman told her, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her behind a changing screen. Iris changed out of her clothes and was pushed into a tub of freezing, soapy water.

"Good god!" She shivered. Holding her arms over her body and shivering. "It's freezing!"

"Your the one who had to sleep in. If you'd been here on time, it'd have been warm." Her mother told her. The hair stylist scrubbed her hair hard, causing her to grab on the side of the tub and wished she wouldn't have to go through it.

The hair stylist grabbed two bottles of liquid that Iris didn't know what were, she poured them on her hair, and it made her hair sleeker, shinier, and softer. They quickly moved her from the tub and to the floor; where they were to fix her hair into a french bun. They pulled her hair trying to brush it; she was in such pain!

After her hair was finished, she was given to three more women, where they fitted her for a dress. A long silver-white gown. They pulled a ribbon around the back, and pulled it.

"Men like skinny girls." One of them told her. "Hour-glass figures." They pulled the ribbon around her so tightly that she could barely breath. They took her to a new room, a brand new one that had two brand new people. Eight people she's gone through to get ready. Eight!

They were make-up artists. They painted the lipstick on her face; swiftly glided eye liner on her eyes, and brushed on some eye shadow.

"There. Your ready."

She was a new girl. She was more poised, graceful, and beautiful. She didn't feel like herself though. Her sisters gathered around her as they walked to the match-maker's house. Her breath was caught in her throat as her stomach felt as if she was going to vomit. If she did not impress the match-maker, she would discrase her family.

They watched as she walked to the match-maker's doorstep; gulping, she pushed the door open and saw the elderly woman sitting at her table.

"Ah. It's Iris Du Beau. Come in child." Iris hastily walked in further, closing the door behind her.

The elderly woman sat the tea pot infrount of her, and gave her a cup.

"Pour the tea." She instructed. Iris was hesitant about it; but she did. She poured the tea carefully, as if she was afraid of it. The first test went well, which calmed her a bit. "Your too skinny." The match maker told her after she poured the tea.

Then came the reciting. She had to memorize a set of rules of which she was to live by if she was married, but she forgot them all. She began rambling, unsure, but hoping, what she was saying was right. She failed the second test.

Overall, Iris failed. She was chased out of the match-maker's house and strait into her mother's arms.

"You may look like a bride, You may have the body for a bride, but you will never be able to marry anyone worth anything!" But her mother didn't hug her, just pushed her away. Her sisters looked upon her in shame as they all marched back to the mansion. Iris trailing behind, starring at the ground.

She got home and instantly changed clothes. She threw her silk dress on the floor and grabbed her nightgown. She locked the door as if she expected any of them to want to see her again. She threw herself on her bed and cried until she felt like vomiting.


That night she sat up, starring at the full, round moon. What was she to do? she failed her mother, sisters, everyone. No one even tried to talk to her; they didn't try to make her feel any better. She rose from her bed and changed out of her night gown, and into the clothes that her father left her in his will. Her father..he would have been there to take care of her. He would have tried to talk to his wife and daughters into not hating her. But he was gone.

He was not a healthy man. He was very sick, and when he died, he left his prized possessions to his youngest daughter. The last daughter he would ever have.

She buttoned his coat over the white ruffled shirt; and finished up with pulling the boots over her legs. She didn't look like the refined girl she was only mere hours ago.She looked like a man.


It starts out like Mulan, but it gets funnier, and kewler. Just trust meh :D Pluse, it might not sound like something they'd do in POTC, but it's like...a family tradition of theirs! you know, how some families nowa days believe in that "Arranged Marriage" thing? It's kind of like that. Du Beau is pronounced : Do Bwah.