“You’re always doing paperwork” I said to the captain one day. The young girl looked up at me.

“And you’re always hazing Roderick, aiming your revolver at Ezra, shoving Marcus into the wall, -“

               “You make it sound like they don’t fight back,” I laughed, “What does that have to do with your paperwork though?” I asked her with a shrug, leaning against the wall. She smiled slightly and sighed.

              “I thought we were sharing,” She said warmly.…

   A while after my first few weeks at the Rejected Gear, I went to catch up with Leander’s younger brother, Aurelian.  I had told him I was a pirate a long time ago but I don’t think it ever really set in until this conversation.

“So you weren’t kidding. You’re seriously a pirate, Ara? You don’t work; you just steal other people’s hard work?” He asked me over a sip of ale. I expected his reaction to be a little less negatively judgmental but I had to remember that he wasn’t a little…

  I shifted my posture slightly in my seat as I felt the dark, almond shaped eyes of Virote’s first mate, MinhTu, staring me down from across the doorway. I kept my unsteady gaze attentive to the wooden floor planks of Captain Bennett’s study. The air in the room was thick with the awkward avoidance of eye contact and unsteady heartbeats of all those waiting for the captain to sign the paper in front of her.

“So these are your terms?”  I perked up when she spoke. Virote gave one slow…