Disclaimer: Well, if I didn't own the majority of the characters in the first two, how could I possibly own them now? So, recognizable characters are regrettably not mine. All OC's and the plot, however, belong to me.
A/N: I had said that this would be a trilogy, just like the movies are supposedly going to be. I'm hard-pressed to find something interesting to write about. First of all I'm starting to wish I hadn't named Christina, well, Christina because I cringe whenever I read back previous chapters…I started this when I was 13 and now I'm 17. That's a big of an age difference, and things that sounded really good when I was 13 are horribly embarrassing now. I've said this before, but I need to say it again just to remind myself that I am no longer the 13 year old Orlando Bloom addict. Nostalgia's a tricky thing.
So I'm switching to third person format, mostly because I want to try something new and more difficult. I'm very tired of getting only one perspective, or else having to randomly switch throughout.
I'm considering editing HTSAH 1 and 2 (actually I've started editing, but very, very slowly because "editing" has become "rewriting" given the state HTSAH1 is in) but I may not do that. HTSAH 1 and 2 are cute, the way pictures of you when you were naked in the bathtub at age three are cute.
Or maybe its just me.
Anyway, thus commences the last installment of the "How To" series. Enjoy, I hope.
It was amazing just how much of a bloody ordeal married life was, even though Christina had been made an honest women nearly half a year ago. It seemed that everyone on Port Royal was dying to know the state of Christina's reproductive process. She wasn't sure if it was her colorful pre-marital exertions or the fact that she was the Governor's daughter, but she was certain of the fact that it was bloody annoying for everyone to eye her hawkishly each time she left the house.
The matrons of Port Royal exchanged knowing glances if Christina left the house with her laces a millimeter looser than they were normally. The younger, unmarried women eyed her jealously if she left the house to visit Will in the blacksmith shop - the shop that was, finally, his. Even the men had their eyes on her - certainly not because they desired her, but because all the intrigue was seeping into them as well, and men are not nearly as impervious to gossip as they like to think.
Will thought it was all a grand joke, naturally. Being the blunt man that he was, he made
no attempt to discourage any rumors that might make their way through Port Royal. He walked with her proudly to their cottage if she had spent that day at the shop with him, often with a smug grin on his face that made the men leer, the matrons exchange glances halfway between knowing and scandalized, and made the maidens blush to the roots of their hair, their eyes glittering with half-formed imaginings perhaps with the beau they had in mind.
All of the attention made Christina itchy, frankly. She didn't like to be looked at, did not appreciate all the speculative glances and the whispering of servant-women behind lines of starched white petticoats. So she spent a great deal of time at home rather than walking about town; she worked in the garden, attempted to learn how to cook, washed her own petticoats for the very first time and rubbed her hands raw in the process, despite years of fencing lessons that had already made her hands nearly as rough and thick-skinned as Will's .
Christina realized that the events she had lived through for the past two years were far from ordinary. Proper ladies rarely went off on ships and never with pirates. The fact that Christina sailed off as part of a pirate crew twice turned propriety on its head.
But Christina was not particularly concerned with propriety any longer. She had a job now, and it was one of wife. Wife, she mused, a small smile on her lips. She touched the navy mark on her shoulder from under a collar of plane gray cotton. She wasn't sure she quite liked the word. Oh, to be sure she loved being Mrs. William Turner; she loved her husband. What she didn't like was the mending and the cooking and the laundry, although the cooking wasn't half bad since Anita visited every day with little Yani.
Governor Swann apparently thought he was not only allowing Christina to take part in lessons in cooking, but also encouraging her to produce children by lending Anita to his daughter. He wasn't pleased that his daughter would have to be taking on household tasks, but she was quite adamant about it. Lord knew what she was supposed to do with her time now that she was married, but she didn't want to be an upper-class woman any longer. No, Christina was quite eager to be as common as the rest of Port Royal. She lived in a cottage that was little more than a hut, at least by the Governor's standards, and it wasn't something that he could quite understand. He had offered to have her a mansion built right next to his, but Christina had gone pale at the thought and Will wouldn't hear of it. So she was a blacksmith's wife now, wearing stout, common clothes much of the day and getting her hands dirty doing the washing and the cooking and the gardening. Well, she has always been an odd one, but far be it from Governor Swann to begrudge her any happiness. And she certainly seemed happy.
Anita at least seemed to think so, and Anita was a bit of an extension of Governor Swann's eyes-and-ears into his daughter's new, married life. He perhaps wasn't the best father in the world to her, but one could not accuse him of not caring. Besides, perhaps the presence of Yani would get the two young lovebirds cracking - Governor Swann wasn't getting any younger, and it was far past both his daughters' prime. He wanted to see his grandchildren before he died.
Christina hummed to herself quietly as she sat in a rocking chair, attempting to embroider. She had not attempted such a feat since she was about twelve - she had abandoned embroidery for fencing by then, and had never turned back - and she was slowly beginning to remember why. Her neck was stiff, her fingers were frankly trembling under the stress of trying to make tiny stitches, and her eyes were sore. She thought of Will, though, and perhaps have the daughters she would bear. She'd had her fun, and now it was time to get down to business. She really wasn't a young chicken anymore, and as much as she missed Jack and the Pearl and the island women, she was a married woman of Port Royal now, and it was time to start acting like one.
The thought made her quite sad, but she pushed it away. It was time for Christina Swann - now Christina Turner - to grow up, consistently wear dresses, and behave like a proper young missus.
Christina's eyes drifted to Yani, who was quietly playing with her dolls on the floor, as she cracked her knuckles impatiently and then scolded herself for doing so - what a bad example she must be! Yani was adorable, there was no question of it - but the ulterior motive of the child's presence made Christina uneasy. Her mind drifted once again to her age. She was quickly approaching her twenty-second birthday, well into her peak and perhaps a bit past it - the childbearing had better commence. While she admitted that watching Anita and Yani have long, undeniably intriguing conversations about Rita the doll's daily activities pulled at Christina's heartstrings, it also sent a whole new batch of butterflies in her stomach to take wing.
In short, the young wife didn't quite know what to do with herself. Her sword was safely packed in a trunk underneath her bed, as well as her practical clothes: a loose-fitting white shirt, gloriously stained with salt water and sweat, sturdy boots and britches that could be tucked into the boots, a weather beaten hat. Since her formal wedding, Christina hadn't opened the trunk and recently she'd even stopped thinking about it. Sometimes it was hard to remember what the Pearl looked like, or what it felt like to be up in the bird's nest with nothing but what seemed like a few feet of air separating her from the moon and stars.
She would lay awake sometimes, long after Will had fallen asleep beside her, his bare arm over her bare shoulders, untidy hair curling haphazardly across his face. The window in their room would be open so slightly, letting in the air from the garden which teasingly reminded her of the island air which Naneth and Maurya must be breathing. She would sigh quietly to herself and press a kiss to Will's shoulder, glad to have him next to her - Will, at least, understood her need for him to be above all her friend even before their marriage vows. Will, Christina knew, would never suffocate her the way she thought wives must feel - wives whose husbands didn't teach them how to swordfight, who hadn't seen their wives corset-less and in britches.
Christina was grateful indeed, but marriage had taken some getting used to. It had settled upon her like a new frock, or a fresh pair of boots. She would shift her shoulders uncomfortably or wiggle her toes against the confines of a new pair of dress boots; they would be uncomfortable only until she got used to them. She wasn't worried, she knew her relative discomfort had faded quickly and was nearly gone. Will made it easier for her, he never asked to much or expected things of her. He did not demand, did not require. If she would cook, he would be grateful. If she cleaned, he would take care not to track mud into the house. He would talk to her of business even though she had no head for numbers, he would speak about customers roughly and honestly, as though Christina were a man, an equal. He knew she would have it no other way.
She turned to face him now; he stood in the doorway of their cottage looking tired but pleased from a hard day's work. Anita gathered Yani and quietly said her goodbyes, leaving by way of the garden. Christina smiled from where she sat, letting her hair down from the clips that she knew frustrated him. Her hair hung down to the middle of her back in soft waves of dark brown, making her dark skin seem lighter, her eyes seem brighter. Will's breath caught as it always did when her lips curved impishly from across the room.
Christina let her smile widen and inquired about his day. His own dark eyes never left hers as he made his way across the room, conversation quite possibly the farthest thing from his mind.
She had to admit - married life did have its perks.
A/N: Random start, I know. Reading too much like a fluffy romance novel, I know. I'm distracted by thoughts of anarchy and Guy Fawkes masks, what can I say? I really want to write a V for Vendetta fic, but I'm scared I'll absolutely ruin it so…pirates it is, my comfort blanket.