Pearl's Beginning

The Start Of The Chapter

As I returned back home from the market, the smell of the salty sea filled my nostrils. The sensation never got old, it was as if the sea was beckoning me to go to it, to explore far away lands. Unfortunately, the sea did not know of my present situation, I was stuck here, not able to get to it. Sure, there were many ships that came to the local dock everyday, but who would take on a woman?

I had tried many times to get onto a ship. The men had either sent me away, explaining that I was no use, or they had uses for me that I did not want to fulfill. My family was full of explorers, why wasn't I one? Had it skipped a generation, leaving the one person who wanted it the most? Was it because I was the first girl of our family tree? My father had traveled far until he met mother. That was something I wanted, no, needed, to avoid; love. If I was to have many great adventures off at sea, I had to forget about falling in love. Though that was no bother to me, it wasn't an important aspect to my life. However, that didn't settle well with mother nor father as it represented our family name badly.

This was another reason I wanted to escape. Society was so expecting of women and I suspected that other countries weren't so strict on this sort of thing. I had read that some tribes of wild natives respected their women as they were the most important part of the life cycle. To be honest, they were right.

Mother sat at the table, chopping up some vegetables for the dinner she was making. I greeted her as I entered our small house. We weren't poor nor were we rich. Father had earned quite a lot of money from his travels and because of his skills as a blacksmith he was the best in town, meaning that everyone went to him. Placing the meat on the table, I sat on the opposite side to my mother.

"Was it busy at the market?" Mother asked, peeling away the skin of the potatoes.

"Not really. Just the usuals of town." I sighed, realising how much more boring my life was."Where is father?"

Mother sighed."He is down at the tavern again, telling more stories." I smiled at the thought of that."Actually, you can go get him. He'll listen to you."

"Yes mother." I tried to not sound too excited.

The sun was almost gone when I went back outside. It made everything have an orange glow, creating a beautiful picture of the place. The tavern was just around the corner from us; my father was not a big drinker, his friends were though. Everyone knew that he had been across the many seas of the world and begged him to tell them of his adventures, whether they had already heard the story or not. Most nights were like this but the tavern owner did not mind as it brought him more customers.

No one noticed my arrival, as they were too focused on my father who was standing on top of a table. I walked towards the bar, smiling at the tavern owner, Mr Kiff, before listening in to what my father was saying.

"...we woke up on this god forsaken island, our ship torn to pieces! Not many of us had survived the terrible storm, we lost over half of our crew. But the island had a huge forest of some sort, vibrant with all the colours you could think of. So, we took our chances, gathered up as many weapons as we could, and set off on our long trek further into the island." He was silent for a few seconds before raising his voice again, many people jumped at this."However, we were met with ferocious savages! They wanted to skin us and eat us but of course, we were far more clever than that...."

Mr Kiff nudged me, grabbing my attention. He leaned closer to me so that I could hear him better.

He whispered."Your mother still disapproves then?"

My smile faded and I sighed."She thinks it is silly for him to come here almost every night and-"

"I'm not talking about your father, I meant you."