Elizabeth's backstory. Part.1. (My OFC from the pirate movie "The Bluff")
London had not noticed when her grandmother died.
The old woman had been everything:mother, teacher, shield...raising Elizabeth after her parents abandoned her when she was a little girl.
When the old woman passed, quietly in her sleep, the world didn't stop and the landlord came the next morning,the lock of the small house was mercilessly changed by nightfall...
Elizabeth was thirty years old, penniless, and invisible. She had no family,no friends...and was alone in this big,dark world,but had a will for survival and learned quickly how to survive the streets, how to move through crowds, how to keep her head down, how to last another day...but desperation also made her reckless and one night, as rain soaked her thin shawl, a hand clamped hard around her wrist, stopping her on her tracks.
"I can offer you something better: a job, a warm bed, and food every day." That man had lied, and she, despite knowing it sounded too good to be true, trusted him naively...and when she realized who that stranger was, it was too late...
He didnโt care that Elizabeth was English, or grown, or furious... Desperation was a commodity, and the docks were full of ships that asked no questions so, by dawn, Elizabeth was shackled among others whose eyes were already empty...
Londonโs docks stank of rot, salt, and desperate poverty.
She stood among the others with iron around her wrists as if they were cargo that might drift away...but,oh wait! that's because that was what those poor souls were...human cargo.
None of them said nothing,as silence had kept them alive this long.
That was how Captain Connor first saw her...
One hand resting on his sword hilt,the pirate captain approached slowly, boots striking wet stone. He had come to the docks for supplies, not people,but something about the womanโs defiant stillness caught his eye.
โHow much?โ he asked.
The trader grinned, yellow-toothed and eager. โFive pieces of eight.โ
Connor laughed once, sharp and humorless. โYouโre dreaming.โ
โSheโs young,โ the trader insisted, giving Elizabeth a shove forward. โStrong. Untouched. Brand new stock. You wonโt find better.โ
Connorโs gaze hardened. He looked her over,not with hunger, but calculation. Thirty years of life had carved resilience into her bones, not youth, and he saw it clearly.
โTwo pieces.โ Connor said.
The trader scoffed. โThree, then.โ
Connor turned as if to walk away. โTwo.โ he repeated.
The trader cursed under his breath, then spat into the gutter. โFine. Take her.โ
The coins changed hands. The chains were unlocked.
Elizabeth flinched as Connor stepped closer. He didn't touch her, but his presence was heavy, undeniable.
"Your name." He ordered to know.
"Elizabeth." She answered.
โRight, Elizabeth...You listen to me.โ he said quietly, so only she could hear. โYou belong to my ship now. That means you follow orders.โ
Her afraid yet defiant blue eyes met his, dark hazel ones,both gazes burning...
โIf you try to run,โ Connor continued, voice low and cold, โthere will be consequences. The world out there is worse than anything youโll find aboard my ship so donโt make me prove it.โ
She nodded once. Not in submission,but in understanding.
That night, as the "Dark Soul" slipped away from the dock and London faded into the fog, Elizabeth stood at the rail, shackles gone but freedom still distant. She didn't cry,she didn't beg...none of that would've worked anyway.
"What the hell just happened? This is just too much and...and now? Now what?" The woman thought to herself as she watched the city disappear,wondering which prison she had traded for another...
Meanwhile Connor watched her from the quarterdeck, expression unreadable.
He had bought her as property...
Neither of them yet knew how deeply that decision would bind them or how fiercely she would one day fight to become more than what the world had sold...
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