Of Love and Pirates

Chapter 1: John and Daisy.

The dreams of the young are never so vivid as to come to fruition easily and quickly, like a painting materializing into a new world; that is what makes them so great.

This is not simply the story of a boy who sat on a beach until a ship sailed by and named him captain. The one time he did see a ship on his boyhood ventures to the golden shore, they did not take him in, or even come aground. The inhabitants of the passing ship gave no notice of his frantic waving but to fire a pistol, once, high into the skies.

This may have been a warning, but John Willoughby did not take it as such; instead he took it as a salutation, a brief hello, and went home that night boasting to his parents that a ship full of sailors spoke directly to him.

John's parents were farmers of the lush green countryside outside of North Rotferdshire, a small town a half hour by carriage outside Faraday, the busy capital of the Land of Three Corners. They had just enough money and just enough time to keep themselves as happy as three people could be, and John grew up strong, his broad shoulders visible like a waving banner from two farms away.

By himself he did the work of two and a quarter men, and he was the envy of all the neighboring farmers, who wished for themselves a son who could work so happily, and so quickly, and for no other purpose than duty and respect.

Eventually, though, John's passions got the better of him, and in the final weeks of his 17th year he began to bother his parents for the right to get a job in his own right, to earn his own paying wage. His parents, seeing in John an adventurous fire that they did not share, and did not necessarily envy, granted his wish on his 18th birthday, and with their permission John ventured into town to the local shipyard in search of a job on the open seas.

The local shipyard manager was a beady, unpleasant man by the name of Terrance Milskins, and the moment he saw John's height, strength, and uncanny friendliness, he knew John was a boy not to be trusted, a boy who would become too much of a man to be kept down on his luck.

At first he told John to go away, but after much pressuring, he agreed to this: He would give John a job, he said, working a small merchant ship that traveled up and down the country's coast, but first he must repair every board in the south pier, which had not been used in several years and had sunken into such rotten disuse that he was certain John could never do it.

But John simply asked Terrance where he could get the wood.

And so began two years of daily toil, in town in the mornings, and then in the shipyard at night. In town he worked for a local seamstress, a discursive old woman named Gerta. The shipyard did not pay, but Gerta did, a meager amount that John would occasionally refuse if he knew Gerta had struggled that week.

Gerta loved the boy, and would prattle on about her own children, some of whom had died, some of whom worked menial jobs in town, and one of whom, Herbert, had disappeared mysteriously years ago, leaving only a note that said "Goodbye." John would listen, and nod respectfully, and every afternoon he would hug her, thank her very much for the small amount of money she could spare, and leave.

Then it was off to the lumber mill, where he would buy as much wood as that day's wage could muster, and then to the shipyard, where he would replace planks and poles and nails until everything he bought was used up - which was not very much.

And then he would head home. He would come in late at night, long after his parents were asleep, but there would always be a small dinner waiting on the table for him; a piece of steak, maybe, or just a soup gone cold, but which he would scarf down eagerly before retiring to bed.