(Author's Notes – Thank you, as always, to my reviewer(s)! Much appreciated! Please, read and review, I am quite desperate for feedback on this little skit!
So, here I am, on the 3rd chapter already! I have an outline of events and a rough draft of a few chapters ahead – I'm working! I don't know how long it will be, but I'm having fun writing it, so … Well, the third chapter: in which Laura begins to think about what she wants/deserves and meets the Authoress in defiance of the space-time continuum!
Oh, I almost forgot! The girl speaking to Brokenspar when Laura enters in one of my own, from a story over on … and the "nightgown" is an empire waist dress. I felt a strange urge to throw one of my other characters in. Well, now really, on to the story!)
James left without a word to Laura, who was left stunned, shattered, and otherwise near-heartbroken (though this was nearly always a perpetual state for her) in the grand, empty hall. It was hard to believe that he, her James, had walked from her side, newly heartbroken himself, at the single, smoldering "Come hither" glance under that Belle St. Croix's impossibly long eyelashes.
It was also hard for her not to feel wronged; indeed, for the first time in her life, she felt as though the world owed her something for many services rendered. Hadn't she looked after her sisters? Hadn't she been left with the care of her mother? Hadn't she been there for James as long as she could remember, never complaining when he took advantage of her quiet, kind ways, with nothing but a paltry smile in return for everything she had done? Laura loved him more dearly now than ever before – loved him despite knowing that he loved that Elizabeth Swann, though she had trampled on him and his heart. Just when he might have noticed her, some other woman had to come in and take him from her arms. Everything she had ever thought before – all the hours spent denying her worth were gone. She wanted one thing out of life, and had dedicated her own to being a worthy woman. And now, after twenty years, she realized something else:
"It's not fair!"
Laura crumpled to the cold stone floor, breaking into mildly childish sobs. Her maid, Janet, was there in an instant, and she, in a melodramatic voice, whispered, "You should see her."
"Who?"
"The Authoress. She can help you."
"How do I find her?
"Simple. Go to the attic and walk until you come the brick outer-wall, where you must knock on the protruding brick once. You will then find yourself in a wide, open field filled with doors of ever size and color imaginable. Locate the large white one with the Lion's fangs as a knocker, and enter to the island beach. Beware of the flesh-eating crabs as you look for the golden nautilus shell. When you do have it in your hand, you must shout 'Brokenspar' into it."
"Simple?"
Laura had become more and more intimidated as her maid rambled about finding the mysterious Authoress, but now she was just short of terrified.
"Well," Janet sighed, "You could get around all that and just say 'Brokenspar' right now; that's get you there."
"Brokenspar?"
Laura immediately found herself in a small blue room, with a dirty and worn carpet taken up almost entirely by books. On the bed in the corner, perched on the only paper-free space, was a girl in her late teens, dressed in the oddest, most masculine fashion Laura had ever seen a woman adopt, tapping at some sort of contraption and peering at a moving picture. She was in a deep conversation with another girl, slightly older than herself – the girl on the bed – who had a ghastly scar running down the side of her face, was playing with a dagger, and was wearing what amounted to a high-waisted nightgown (at least to Laura). As soon as they noticed her, the girl with the dagger rose and said calmly, "Blackthorne," and disappeared.
"Ah," smiled the girl on the bed without even looking up, "You must be Laura Bell. I can't say that I've been expecting you, but please, have a seat … if you can find one."
"Who are you? I came to see the Authoress."
Laura had been previously mildly frightened of the Authoress when she had not a face to the name, but now when she realized the authoress was in fact a girl, she had lost that sense of dread.
"I am the Authoress. Surprised?"
Laura nodded.
The blond girl laughed, managing to say in her mirth, "They always are."
The Authoress … Brokenspar, Laura assumed … folded down the moving picture over the mechanism and said cheerily, "Well, Laura Bell, what can I do for you?"
"Are you in charge of my life?"
"After a fashion. It's complicated. You are a denizen of my imagination, in putting you to paper, I created you and your story. Well, that's not completely true. You may be a denizen of my imagination, and your family, but the Port Royal you exist in, all the people, the officers, and the esteemed Commodore Norrington are not my creations. They belong to Disney – they're from a movie called Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Which, also, is not my idea. Do you honestly think that if I was writing the script I'd let Norrington off with such a rough ending? Furthermore, in love with that nasty little two-timing wench Elizabeth Swann? Please. You're my solution to the end of the movie, sort of."
"Wait," Laura pleaded, hand to her head, utterly confused, "What?"
Brokenspar shook her head.
"Like I said, it's complicated. I created you, and since I like characters to stay in character, I don't really have too much control over where the rest of the story goes. If I get clever, I can exert more, but at the present I'm sort of lazy."
"Still … Movie … Pirates … Disney … Imagination?"
"Something like that."
"So Port Royal, the Swanns, Mr. Turner, Commodore Norrington and the Navy, Jack Sparrow – they're all not your characters, like me?"
"Correct."
"So, what about Belle St. Croix?"
"Huh?"
Brokenspar started a bit, thinking she misheard.
"Belle St. Croix. The lady who walked off with James after the music room incident."
"I didn't write in a lady named Belle St. Croix! What kind of name is that, anyway? She sounds like … "
Brokenspar trailed off and paled horribly, muttering something like, "No, no, it can't be true!"
"What?"
"Belle St. Croix sounds like … she must be a Mary Sue!"
"A Mary-Sue?"
Brokenspar shuddered, crossing herself superstitiously.
"A Mary-Sue is the most feared beast among all those known to the unwary fiction writer. She is thoughtless, mindless and causes destruction among canon wherever she goes. Nasty, vain, little one dimensional things; nearly impossible to eradicate."
"Still, what is she?"
"She is, supposedly the perfect woman, but only on the surface," Brokenspar muttered as she shook her head, "She is completely superficial. A Mary-Sue is unfailingly the prettiest woman a man has ever seen, has a distressing past where she was abused or her parents died, or both, which supposedly gives the hero something to love about her behind her looks – something besides a clearly very … physical … attraction. There is almost nothing else about her. She's a curse to fiction."
"This Belle St. Croix is a Mary-Sue."
Brokenspar nodded sadly.
"I'm afraid to say so. And the tragedy is, especially for such a character as yourself, her sole goal is to displace you in James's affections wholly – so much so that he will not even remember your name or how you saved his sister's life the day you met twenty years ago. And when James has forgotten about you, you shall be banished to Literary Limbo."
Laura didn't know what was worse – a life without James, or none at all. She supposed, rashly, that if James should forget her, than she should consider taking her own life, but it was a passing fancy. James could never, would never forget her.
"Can't you just write her out?"
"I could, and I wouldn't mind a painful death, like a shark attack. But your tale is infected now, Laura. Should I kill one, another will arise, and she will be angry. Tick off a Mary-Sue and she kills the canon-ish love interest. So … I'm afraid it's out of the question right now. If you manage to marry James happily, they'll have to go away, but until then … You aren't going to have a happy life."
"When," muttered Laura mutinously, "Has it not been?"
Brokenspar lifted an eyebrow, a skill she had practiced much.
"Do you want a rewrite as a mindless bar-wench?"
"No!"
"Much obliged, Laura. Now, what I can do for you," Brokenspar smiled, "I can rewrite the last chapter from where the infection came in … so, right about where you and dear James have that very Mansfield Park embrace."
"Mansfield Park?"
"Book written about a century after your time. Jane Austen. The heroine, Fanny, is in love with Edmund, who thinks of her only as a friend because his attentions are otherwise engaged by the alluring Mary. Edmund embraces Fanny when he finds one of his sisters has committed adultery and the other has eloped with a man of poor fortune – in a time of need of comfort – having, of course, no idea."
A confused look crossed Laura's face again. What was it that Brokenspar was rattling off about?
"Am I like Fanny?"
"Perhaps in situation, slightly similar, and a little in personality. I think you have more of a spine, though."
"A spine?"
"Spunk. Spirit. Determination."
"I see," Laura said, though she definitely had no idea.
"The point is – you love James."
Laura didn't even need to hesitate to think about her answer – long ago she had quit denying it.
"I do, deeply and painfully."
"James, to the best of your knowledge, loves Elizabeth, and now this Belle St. Croix."
"I do not want to think it so, but …"
"I want you and James to be happy. Ergo – the marriage of Laura Bell to James Norrington, RN."
"Was that your intention in creating me?"
Both paused a beat.
"Partly. But you were just too much fun to write."
"I think I get it now," Laura sighed sadly.
"No, no, you don't, because I don't. Now, as soon as you get sent back, you shall be just before the embrace. Do everything you can to secure his heart, within reason, and I shall search for a solution. With any luck, this incident shall blow over."
Brokenspar turned back to the moving picture.
"Ah … Brokenspar?"
"What?"
"How do I return?"
"Simple. Just say 'Bell'."
"Bell?"
