"Naaaaaaiiiiiisheeee!" A woman's shrill voice pierced the air and the rest of the children looked at the dark-skinned girl who sighed and tried to hide her face in her hands. Her mother always embarrassed her when she had managed to make new friends. Soon enough her mother was there, black hair flailing, her big golden bracelets jingling as the woman ignored the group of children , reached down and forced her daughter to her feet with two strong grips on either of the girl's arm.
"Mama!" The girl whined, "you are hurting me!"
The woman didn't answer as she started to pull the girl through the forest; not seeming to care that Naishe kept stumbling and falling, hitting her shins and scraping her knees on the rough vegetation on the ground.
"Stupid, selfish girl," the woman said as if the girl wasn't there, "running away to play while I'm stuck trying to find us a place to sleep for the night."
They finally got out of the forest and onto a path through a field that would lead them into town. The woman turned Naishe to her and started dusting the dirt of off the girl's clothes, sighing at the scrapes on her legs.
"I made friends, mama!" Naishe tried
"Why must you always be so troublesome?" The woman exclaimed and shook the girl disapprovingly, completely ignoring the way her iron-grip on the girl's arm might leave bruises.
"If you hadn't made me walk so fast," Naishe said defiantly, "I wouldn't have hurt myself!" Her mother answered her by slapping her hard on the cheek.
"You will not talk to your mother that way!" She said, "and stop with those tears, they will do you no good where we are going."
…
They were going to see a man of course. A rather charming one for once, even though Naishe was well used to her mother's more unsavoury choices. Julian was actually gentle, looked at her mother with kindness in his eyes and did not act like Naishe was in the way. As the evening progressed, however, Naishe noticed that he was eager for her to become tired, wanting to take her mother to bed. Naishe knew this, even as he sat with her, teaching her silly Antivan songs after dinner.
"This is stupid," Naishe said after a while, "why would the pirate be sea-sick? That's ridiculous!"
Her mother, who was still sitting by the dinner table, smoking a pipe and drinking the last of Julian's wine, twitched at her daughter's words.
"Naishe! Don't say that when Julian is so sweet and teaching you songs, you ungrateful girl."
"When I grow up," Naishe continued, suddenly smiling, "I'm going to be a pirate."
"Stupid girl," her mother said, "you will never be a pirate, you're not clever enough. And you're a girl. You are going to grow up and get married." Her words were cruel but her voice amused as only wine and tobacco could make her.
"Sasmita," Julian said, his Antivan accent making the woman smile, "let her be. It is nice to hear what little beauty has to say," he then turned back to Naishe, "sing it for me."
Naishe sighed and started singing.
The pirate Charles, scurge on the seas
yo ho, ho, ho, ho...
Later during the night, Naishe sang it again to herself, trying to drown out the noises of her mother's coupling. The next day they would be on the move again, going to another town, trying to find some other place for them to sleep. Not all days were good days, not all days meant singing, food, tobacco and wine. Most days were filled with stables, hay, empty stomachs and an angry mother.