This one's a bit longer, so have a seat.
A Very Sad Tale of How the Pirate Captain Became the Pirate Captain
I never knew my father. When I was young, my mother used to tell me tales of his bravery and valour. When he was alive, he owned a large mercantile with an intimidating fleet of ships that brought goods to surrounding areas and explored the Selenia Seas. He used to take his smallest, fastest ship in search of new lands he could add to his route and exotic things he could add to his inventory.
Mother said sometimes he would disappear for months at a time when they were courting. Her father would not allow them to marry until my father had saved enough to provide a house and all the comforts a woman deserved. So my father planned to save up enough money to buy my mother an enormous house on the tallest cliff, with a giant window that looked over the bay and all of the ships they would surely have. He promised he would make her at least a dozen babies, and hire a handmaid for each of them. She should never have to lift a finger to cook or clean, and should only have the best of things. So my father took to sea often in search of rare and beautiful things, and strike business relationships to improve his business.
Father told her of monsters and mermaids, pirates and pillagers, and all the triumphs and trials he encountered while away. She later relayed those same stories to me when I was a boy. I pictured myself as the son of a great sea captain, the most important and prominent man of business in all of Selenia Bay.
But before I was even thought of, they needed to be wed! Finally, my father was ready to hand over the reigns of the business, scale back his own labors, and settle in with a family. But he needed to make one last trip first. It would take him six months. His plan was to travel to Azmare to obtain the bluestone - the most precious stone in all of the Selenia Seas. He would take one as a gift for his wife, and barter in bulk for several more for the business. The resale value of these gems would put him in perfect position to take a full year off while he honeymooned with his sweetheart and worked on their first child.
When he left for this final trip, he said, “Wait for me, my dearest. For I will return. And when I do, we shall wed.”
He left his mercantile company in the charge of his reliable and loyal manager, Mister Charles Windham, and he gave his bride-to-be a little money to deposit on wedding preparations. Her father’s face was happy when he shook hands with his soon-to-be son-in-law, and he already called him “son.” So the deed was as good as done.
While my father was away on his bluestone trip, my mother frequented flower shops, examined veils and dresses, looked at combs and shoes, snuck into petticoat parlors, and scrutinized reception halls and village churches. She whispered to her friends about her plans, giggled about her “husband’s” adventures, and selected the type set and paper stock for her wedding announcements. Who should she invite? What food would they prepare? Was she being too elaborate? Should she marry her love in the first of Spring? This would give the couple six months to prepare upon his return in September.
Unfortunately, my father did not return as promised. He was away for over two and a half years, in which time my mother’s heart was crushed and her father grew temperamental.
During my father’s voyage, his ship had capsized in a terrible storm, and took nearly all of his supplies to the bottom of the sea. For two months, my father drifted on a shredded section of mast in the open sea, with nothing to subsist on but crackers and sweet tea, which he had managed to pull from the storage crate before it sank. He rationed tiny portions every 2 days, just to keep himself alive. He knew he was hundreds of miles away from anywhere known. The only thing that kept him from simply slipping into the deep blue were thoughts of his bride, beckoning him home. Images of her came to him in visions, dressed in white silks, like an angel. “Come back, my love. I am waiting for you," she would whisper in his ear.
He finally reached the shore of a small village, a few hundred miles south of the land of Azmare. Weak, wretched, and malnourished, it took him three months to regain his strength. There was no way to send for help or communicate his unlucky situation, as the boating and delivery systems there were all but primitive, and the nearest city was 300 miles away at best, with no decent map or mode of transportation to get him there. Risky. It was best to stay put, earn his keep, and navigate the sea he knew, once he was able to get upon it.
It took him six months to pay back the debts for his care, and another 12 before he was able to earn enough to purchase the items he needed to travel back home. And he still needed a boat on top of that. He was finally able to persuade a local merchant to lend him his small sailboat in exchange for a larger one from his own fleet, if he would only come back with him. And thus, after more than two years, my father was finally prepared to return home to his doting and darling sweetheart, and to his business.
But he could not leave without the very thing he came for. The bluestone. It was the most hypnotizing, beautiful gem he had ever laid eyes on. In its translucence, it captured the orb of the sun in such a way that it appeared to glow with its own light. It glistened as though the heavens themselves dwelled inside. He immediately thought of his love and knew he must bring it back to her.
He pictured himself placing the bright blue stone on a delicate chain and hanging it carefully around his bride’s neck. He would come from behind, pull her hair to the side, and kiss her neck as the stone slipped down between her breasts, both of which belonged to him now. Nothing possessed his thoughts more than placing this stone around her neck and taking her to him. Every minute of sorrow and loneliness he felt was replaced with the hope of devouring her when he returned.
But the stone had more than quadrupled in value in the last few years, as most of it had been pillaged during an invasion of Serpantine Soldiers a few years earlier. The supply was limited. My father could have come back for the stone later. He had already been gone for too long. But in his vanity, he decided to stay just a bit longer to work out a way to obtain the stone. And in order to obtain just one small gem, he would need to work for months. But what was a few more months? After all this time, he knew Katherine would wait as she had in the past.
He could not make a swap on lien. He needed to trade services immediately. No one was foolish enough to hand a stone like this over on promise alone, large mercantile owner or not. My father was able to offer his cartography expertise to his friend, the merchant, in exchange for just one small blue stone. It took him three months to chart the territory the merchant was asking for. The merchant accompanied him on his travels, and they became wonderful companions.
They finally set sail for home. The voyage would take nearly five months on a boat like this. They would need to make stops on the way for supplies. And the sailing would be slow.
By the time they had departed out to sea, almost two and a half years had already passed. And it would be another 5 months before he would arrive home again. It was at this point, my mother caved. She was finally persuaded by her own father to marry Mister Charles Windham (the manager of my father’s business). Mr. Windham was dutiful, loyal, generous and kind. He and my mother were good friends. The marriage made sense. He promised her all of the things my father had promised, (as it was the business that paid for it), including multiple children and a house in the hills.
However, once my father and his merchant companion were able to make harbor in some more modern towns and villages, my father made every attempt to send message to my mother and her family that he was finally on his way. But none of his messages reached my mother. Her father had burned them in an effort to protect her from his adventurous ways.
She still hoped desperately that my father was alive somewhere, and she would have given it all up for him had she only known he was alive. She mourned for him, but she could not wait any longer. Her family, her friends, and her leaders encouraged her to move on, to live her life. They expected her to marry Mr. Windham. She wanted a family. And a Home. And stability. And so, arrangements were made. Her father seemed impatient and in a hurry to speed things along. Katherine Kirtland and Charles Windham were married within four months. It was a quick engagement, and a large event. The whole town showed.
The Kirtlands and Windhams took my father’s business estate to probate arbitration. By a majority vote from the Elders, the Arbitrator granted them possession of the title and my father was considered officially dead. A death certificate was drawn up in his absence. He had no other family, and my mother and Charles had essentially run the business in his absence.
Not one month later, my father arrived to take my mother in his arms. He was so stricken with grief and rage with the news of her marriage, the neglect of his letters, and the betrayal of his own manager, he broke into my mother’s chambers when her husband was away, and he raped her, then tracked down Mr. Windham and killed him. He then rounded up a dozen of his most loyal employees, stole six of his fastest ships, filled them full of crates and expensive merchandise, and set sail in the night.
No one knew where he disappeared to, but rumor has it he took to the land of his closest companion, the merchant friend who had sold him the bluestone.
I was born 9 months later. My mother never remarried. The scandal was too great. She never heard from my father again, and her own parents would not allow her to stay in their home unless she gave up the bastard child to an orphanage. She offered to lie about the child - say it was Mr. Windham's. But her parents would not have deceit as the foundation of their family life.
And she refused to give me up. I was the son of her true love, the sea captain. Her father attempted to force her to have an abortion through a friend he knew, so she ran away and gave birth alone, to protect me, and to keep a piece of her one true love with her forever. We have lived in squalor ever since. My mother told me about my father to make me feel pride and dignity when I was younger. But I am not a small boy anymore. I know the truth now. We live near the bay. I have heard the talk from his old ship mates. He has brought upon us the greatest of misery a man could bring his family. We have never heard from him or seen a cent from him since he left. He is as good as dead. And he took everything with him.
My own mother has had to sell herself in order to pay for our subsistence. I have received all manner of abuse from strangers who have frequented our home. But I always steal their wallets and pocket watches, to get even, and to get by. I’ve gotten quite good and knowing where the rich men wander, and which ones will take my mother. We make quite a team, my mother and I.
She doesn’t know that I kill the bad ones -- the ones who get violent with me or with her. The ones who overstay their welcome and think they own us. The ones who come back and require my mother’s services for free. I place daggers into their hearts when they sleep, or if they are too large and I think they will fight back with success, I intoxicate them with chloroform in their sleep, and then finish the job with an overdose of the stuff while they’re knocked out. And my mother never knows. She’s too drunk and passed out to see me dragging their bodies off the bed into our wheelbarrow and wheeling them into the mire behind the textile factory down the street. I’ve gotten strong, even though I’m small. And death does not scare me at all.
If I could just get my hands on….the bluestone from my father, all would be well. It would pay for a small cottage and help my sweet mother get her textile business started. And she would be happy. If I could just get my hands on...my father, all would be well! He could live with us and take care of us. And we would all be happy.
If I could just get my hands on my father! I would stab a knife into his heart the way he did to my mother, and to my mother’s husband. I will take everything he owns and give it to my mother so she does not have to sell herself to protect me. My father is already dead. I have a certificate to prove it. So when I kill him, I will only be fulfilling the rule of the people.
His own vanity is what put us into this position, and we have not seen a cent from him in all this time. I will learn to sail the seas, to pillage and plunder. I will track him down, and I will kill him, take all he owns, and give it to its rightful owner, my dear sweet mother, Katy. Then we will be happy. I will learn the mercantile trade, and I will tear it down as I go. It all belongs to my mother.