the Dalaverse

Ummm...I started doing a commentary for Pressed In a Book (before it's even a day old). It got kind of out of hand. There is a lot of meta and semi-prose and no small amount of navel-gazing in it. I think it like triples the word count.

I wrote really in-depth commentary for Bookends too, now that I think about it. Multiple generations of Swanns seem to bring it out in me.



Pressed In a Book (with commentary)


She should never have started with Jack. He stroked his mustache thoughtfully, a gleam of storytelling fervor in his eyes, and began a tale of intrigue and romance at a sultan’s court in Madagascar. Lurid though it was – and well as she knew Jack – she actually believed the story until halfway through, when he was describing how his dashing father had lost a finger in the battle for the beautiful maiden’s affections. Elizabeth was preparing to point out that Teague was in possession of all ten fingers, but Jack was enjoying himself so much that she let him continue and tried to conceal her skepticism. Though her career amongst the pirates was still in its infancy, she had already gained copious experience in sitting through improbable sea yarns. It didn’t hurt that Jack was one of the more capable spinners.

Can you imagine how much patience it would require just to sit down at a table with these people? I mean, not even for the free-for-all that was the majority of the Brethren Council meeting, but just an hour, with Jack Sparrow - that is exhausting. It's why Will has varying degrees of bitchface 95% of their screentime together, but I think he's still able to deal with it better than Elizabeth, who tends to roll her eyes and argue with Jack whether he's telling nonsense or the truth. Just on general principle. But this is fairly soon after the events of AWE, and she's still feeling very comradely toward him. Practicing patience will be good for her, anyhow.

Also, I don't think I've ever written a full tale of Jack's. I usually cut in at the end, because that's the craziest part, and whatever many elements the reader can imagine in between is probably more entertaining than anything I can come up with. The only exception is the fairy tale version of CoBP he tells in 'Nothing New Under the Sun.'

Later she asked Teague if Jack had been born to a sultry-eyed sultan’s daughter, and he snorted.

“Jacky’s ma was a Creole fisherwoman on Hispaniola. She was a plump, pretty lass, not a sultana. The bit about callin’ me a no-account thieving rake is true, though it were the lass herself speaking rather than any rival suitor.” He must have seen the confusion on Elizabeth’s face, for he added in a quieter voice, “She died in a storm when Jack was three. ‘Twas her sisters what kept him until he was old enough to go to sea.”

Teague can quote bits of the tale without hearing more than her one sentence - it's always the same story, different versions. And he understands Jack's need to retell events where Elizabeth doesn't; she even considers it a bit disrespectful at first, to his real mother and by extension to herself.

“Oh,” said Elizabeth, subdued, thinking she preferred the first story. She wrote both versions down anyway

But now she understands. It's another way in which they are alike, although they choose different ways to deal with it. Jack's mother died when he was old enough to remember her, but it's a very scanty memory and gets mixed up with the other women who raised him. That's why he makes her a princess: the One Girl In All the World, the singular. It's his own way of showing her respect. But also, his way of coping with fear/anger/loss is to dance around it in circles so no one ever sees you stumble, talking all the while. Whereas Elizabeth tends to shut down anyway, but it's reinforced here by her being pregnant. Her mother died in childbirth; she doesn't dare think about that or talk about - which is why she leaves her own story for last. Even then, she can't quite bring herself to set the words down on paper. Her memories are created out of someone else's love for her mother, and this is part of the reason why she wants to know how those who do remember construct their knowledge.

Gibbs’ mother was a Bristol laundress. Bold as brass, he described her, with a laugh you couldn’t help but join. Though she’d been dead some twenty years, the scent of lye still reminded him of her work-roughened hands and the chanteys he’d learned at her knee.

Originally the first sentence read 'Gibbs' mother was a Bristol laundress with a sailor for a husband.' But it's the same problem Elizabeth encounters when she writes 'my father loved my mother' - it's a de-emphasis on the female role in favor of the male. Especially in the case of Gibbs; I chose Bristol as birthplace because it's almost shorthand for indicating that his father was a sailor, anyway.

“They like t’ hear your voice,” he said with a smile. Elizabeth was suddenly afraid that he would burst into song for the benefit of her stomach, but he merely patted her arm.

While I personally think it's sweet for Gibbs to show kindness toward Elizabeth's unborn child, she does not want him - Joshamee Gibbs, loyal quartermaster and eternal level head - to treat her delicately, proprietarily, differently. She's probably not aware of her posture stiffening, her face tightening, but Gibbs sees it and pulls back.

Tai Huang had been born in a Canton brothel to one of its younger prostitutes. She’d had a rough time of it when he was a small boy; nonetheless, his happier memories came from that time and not after she’d married a local merchant. The man was not unkind, but he had never treated his wife’s illegitimate son as any kind of family. She still lived in a small house by the harbor and Tai Huang often picked out pretty trinkets from a raid to send to her.

Tai Huang is interesting, because he learns something new about Elizabeth in every scene they share, and continues to alter his opinion of her accordingly. First she is a foolish woman; then she is a dangerous woman; then she is a presumptuous and arrogant woman; I would imagine he encountered all of these types first in his brothel home and later in more respectable circles. Finally Elizabeth is a captain; but it takes an effort from her before she is his captain. Tai Huang might be something of a mercenary outside his primary loyalty, but to his credit he's willing to remove people from the boxes into which he first puts them.

It had became something of an obsession, a way to occupy her idle hours after she’d put the Empress into the harbor at Shipwreck Cove for the last few weeks. She wrote and rewrote the stories, long and involved like Jack’s or short and matter-of-fact like Anamaria’s. She tried to keep each voice authentic while making some necessary concessions to spelling and grammar. Though some of the parties she interviewed were curious about her project, most of them chalked it up to the peculiarities of a breeding woman. When she finally got the chance to ask Will for his contribution, one corner of his mouth lifted and his gaze was warm, if a trifle sad. She had known that he of all people would understand.

Collecting mother stories is, I think, Elizabeth's version of nesting. She worries about her own child and the person it will become, and her culpability in that; not knowing her own mother well enough to judge, she seeks out how mothers are perceived in her new society. She is reassuring herself that she will survive as a mother, and that the baby will be survive with herself as a mother - no matter that her circumstances have been complicated by forces beyond her control.

I did start to write Anamaria's story. But it brought to light all sorts of issues that were outside the focus of this particular fic. For our puposes, Anamaria's story is, 'I was born on a plantation, I don't want to talk about it, you can go away now.'

“I can tell you my story more completely, though you already know most of it,” he said, thumbing through the little leather volume. “But you haven’t written yours yet.”

As for Will's tale, if she's discussed this topic with anyone in the past, it would have been him. We know that Will's mother died shortly before he came to the Caribbean, so he would have been ten or twelve years old - it's still tragic and painful, but it didn't create a...sort of schizophrenic reaction like it did in Jack. They all three have broken threads in their childhoods. But Will was able to focus all his energy on searching for his father, and he's now made his peace with both of them. He isn't an orphan any longer, but he will always understand what it feels like. And he will always break my heart because of it.

“I’d forgotten,” Elizabeth admitted ruefully. She drew her dressing gown over her shoulders and eased out of bed, sitting down at the battered desk beneath the window. As she fiddled with the inkwell, the baby woke and began making fretful noises. Will lifted him with more confidence than he’d shown the day before, though still with much care. The knowledge that his duties would call him away shortly had a significant impact on his learning curve.

I'm imagining that this is maybe a week or so after James is born. In this universe, Will's ability to pop between the worlds is erratic and never conforms to a set schedule.

She tapped her pen on the paper, searching for the words. It wasn’t simply that she’d forgotten. The truth was that she knew very little of her mother to begin with. Even during this strange and new time in her life, she had rarely thought on that early loss.

Wouldn't allow herself to think on it. It's safer now, but her skills are rusty. I said earlier that describing how her mother died hits too close to home, but I also wanted to generally avoid setting up a theme of 'this is how my mother died.' It's the living that's important. Jack is the one exception, but we need the original version to make sense of the remix.

My father loved my mother, she wrote. It was true but seemed a poor start, so she scratched it out.

This is falling into her usual trap of privileging her father's love over her mother's. It's completely understandable, since doesn't remember her mother and because Weatherby was awesome (and it hasn't been very long since his death, either); but she recognizes that this could prove problematic when viewed in light of her own son's future.

Sighing, she rubbed the back of her neck and wondered if James wanted feeding. But he was quiet now, and she saw that he’d already fallen back to sleep. Will settled the infant on his lap, gazing down at the small face with fierce concentration. Elizabeth watched the tableau for a full minute, and she could swear he scarcely blinked. She began again.

Will is doing what Elizabeth is writing. In the truncated time he gets to spent with James, he loves him with all that he is and hopes that the boy will absorb it unconsciously - hopes that it will be a start in making up for the time he knows they won't have. Anything we can do to beat back the tide. He has to believe this, and so does Elizabeth, just as she has to believe that she herself took in enough of her own mother's love. When someone is gone, what happens to the love they gave us? Don't we keep it, even if we can't feel it or see it or touch it or remember it?

Even before we are of an age to remember, we take in so much of the world. My mother was Catherine Margaret Swann and she came from Dorset. In the miniature I have –

She created an unsightly inkblot in changing ‘have’ to ‘had,’ for the portrait had been among her father’s possessions in Port Royal and she could hardly claim it now.

- her hair is much like mine, though her eyes are grey. We also had a Bible that had been passed down through her family, with my name listed beneath hers.

I don't think Elizabeth obsessed over that portrait or the Bible. I think she was an child who was shielded from feeling the loss of one parent by the sheer tenacity of the remaining parent in occupying both roles. This is why she was spoiled and indulged, and also where she gets much of her confidence and strength of character. I love Weatherby for that. Elizabeth Swann didn't just spring from the waves like Aphrodite; Weatherby was everything to her, her whole world. (Until she pulled a boy out of the water and loved him. From that day on he knew he couldn't protect her, but he never stopped trying. He was protecting her in his last act on earth, and beyond.)

...Um, I didn't meant to go off on a tangent about Weatherby. My point is: Elizabeth never needed to miss her mother - but she needs to now. We really have no idea what sort of woman she would be if Catherine had lived. Softer? Harder? Bolder? Meeker? She can only be who she is now.

A bird cried harshly outside the window. James opened his mouth and both his parents tensed, but all that came out was a yawn. Will stroked the boy’s open palm, no broader than the two fingers over which James closed his fist.

Even a few days old, even asleep, he knows Will is here.

My father said she loved to ride, disliked cold weather and was terrible at embroidery. She sneezed twice whenever she walked from the shade into the sunshine. I think they were happy. I imagine I was a happy baby.

Weatherby told her more about her mother - not enough to fill a book because it was painful for him, but more than she is mentioning here. What Elizabeth grabs onto are the things she can see in herself. See also: Captain Jack Sparrow.

Elizabeth bit her lip, hearing the voices of old tutors criticize her prose and her penmanship. Though she kept the logbook for her ship, it was much like the French conjugations of old. She was unaccustomed to writing for herself alone and each word was an effort.

She doesn't usually have time for introspection. She never did. There are always trees to climb and stockings to rip and teas to suffer through and sails to reef and storms to weather and pirates to fight with, laugh with or make love with. We make do with what we have and the past is past. But she has grown enough to recognize when she can learn something from it.

My mother was beautiful. My mother was strong. I wish I’d had more time with her. I am glad to have known her at all. I hope that wherever she is, she might look on and be proud to call me daughter.

' I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.  They have clung to me all my life.' -Abraham Lincoln

Will was up, laying their son down in the cradle. She blotted the page quickly, suddenly reluctant to show him the brief, clumsy fruit of a quarter hour’s labor. He blinked when Elizabeth put the book aside and returned to bed.

“I thought you wanted to take mine down.”

She brought his hand to her lips and kissed the spark-scars between his knuckles. “Another time. Memories will keep.”

The love doesn't go anywhere. It stays with us, always.