So it's been about a week, and I'm updating again. I hope I can get the next chapter up in a similar amount of time. But no promises.

Pleas and Pirates

Will was sitting in his room beside the fire, staring into the flickering flames. He'd been in the same position since he returned home early in the afternoon. At first it had simply been because of his thoughts heading to Elizabeth, knowing that she'd fainted, and feeling her thinned body against his own.

But those thoughts had passed the moment one of the maids handed him a small parcel. Instantly he felt his blood run cold.

It was his father's writing.

He knew it instantly for it was the same hand that had scribbled the note his mother had found the morning after he had left.

Within the parcel Will found a gold chain, with what appeared to be a pirate medallion hanging from it.

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Dear William,

I know I can never earn your nor your mothers forgiveness for my desertion of you. I have long since accepted that, along with the notion that the life I thought I wanted is not the life I left you all to find.

You could say that that serves me right, leaving my family – you, your mother, Joseph and Anthony – and finding nothing to fill that gap. However not a day has gone by when I haven't thought of you all, how you and your brothers must have grown into men.

As I write this I feel as though it is Anthony who I should be writing too as he has never known me, but I cannot tear up these words and create new ones. Again, I do not deserve your forgiveness, and I'm almost certain you must be burning this letter, but if you have not yet, please hear my plea, even though I truly do not deserve it.

A number of months ago I was given this medallion. I shan't go into the particulars of why, but all I shall tell you is that it is the only item I own that is valuable. Please, I ask you to have it. I do not care if you give it to your mother or one of your brothers, but please ensure that it remains in our family.

Again, I may not deserve such a thing of you, but I can at least keep my hopes alive.

As always your father.
.

After reading the letter several times, Will couldn't help but stare at the medallion in his hands, at how the colour of the flames caused the gold to shimmer and dance. The image of the pirate skull, however, still sent a chill down Will's spine.

Eventually he dropped the medallion from his line of sight, and maintained his posture from that already mentioned.

He'd lost count of how long he'd been sitting in such a position, but was jerked out of it when he realized that the dull, but close thunder, was something much more sinister. Out his window he could just see a billowing mass of dirty cloud billowing from the fort.

The medallion forgotten as it landed with a hard, sharp thud on the floor boards, with Will's feet ahead of his brain, leading him out of the house, to the street, along to the smithy.

Another explosion erupted as Will came into view of the harbour. He felt something hard against the back of his head and collapsed in an unsightful heap against the cold rock and metal of the street.

Wincing and rubbing his head he realized the town was flooded with pirates. He couldn't believe how quickly they had entered the town, and without thinking he sat up, staring in the direction of the governors household.

All around him pirates were running and roaring with laughter as they ran amuck about the town, killing whoever crossed their paths and stood in their way; throwing rocks through windows, barging through the doors, all to the sound of women and childrens screams, and soldiers cries of agony as their life was speared from them.

As he was standing up he felt something cold against his palm and fingers. At first he thought it was a rock, but when he spotted the dark gold between his fingers, his mind flashed back to the parcel his father had sent him.

At first he thought that he hadn't dropped the medallion on his bedroom floorboards, but when he realized there was no chain attacted, he instinctively pocketed the haunting piece.

He knew how much Elizabeth loved pirates, and their legends, even though she knew what his father was. At the same time however, he knew that she may recognize it from one of her books, and made a point of keeping it on him until he next saw her.

He had just hidden the medallion inside his shirt, when another pang ripped across the back of his head. This time he didn't register hitting the ground, nor the pirates leaving Port Royal in a mess of blood, death and destruction.

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