The farm Anno Simian was fostered at was among the most widely known in Arrendelle. It was probably the largest too, although since many grazing pastures and such were held in community by all the neighbors, no one knew for certain.
It had irregular conglomerations of buildings and vineyards that most definitely belonged to the distant relatives who had raised her, interspersed with grazing lands and rice fields that belonged to everyone. It was a piecemeal that meant no one knew where were public lands to cross and where was private property. So few, other than her 'uncle' (who was most definitely not her uncle), cared enough in the end to know which was which. And he, as one man, could do little to maintain the sanctity of his property lines alone.
It was said you could walk from the Imperial Prelate's compound on the city's edge to the Riverfolk freehold without ever leaving her uncle's land and you could make the same journey without ever touching it. Neither was true, but they were so nearly true that few had the education and understanding sufficient to care.
Though lands so widespread and important nearly made her uncle a gentleman, and he certainly never found time to do work dirtier than administration, the name of Farmer kept him from ascending out of his class and he was content.
A serious soul, he wanted all that was due him and nothing more. He felt that if God wanted him to have Imperial respect he would not be called Farmer. And he accepted his place readily.
Though it was only in his father's time that no land had a title greater than freehold and the Imperator was a nominal secular title given to the Voice of the Council, the highest authority permitted to reign. He accepted the authority of the Imperator not only civilly, but also as religious Patriarch. Not because he believed but because he was by nature a complacent man.
Not so his niece, who he knew his precise relationship to, but saw no reason to mention it when niece was easier.
Anno knew her uncle was not her uncle. She knew that he was a much respected member of the community and she was proud. Not so proud that it gave her any desire to be respected as he was, or even at all. Respect was neither fun nor exciting. As the rag man by the dump told her, when he taught her to play dice for gingerbread. 'If hell is gonna get you one time or the other, give me a good life now and let the afterlife worry for itself.'
Of course he wouldn't have said that if he'd known she was a girl. He might be a dirty ragman and a scoundrel. But he was an Imperial citizen and no one was fool enough to tell a girl living under Imperial rule that she could and should go out and grab the life she dreams of. It is dangerous to say something so antagonistic to the status quo. Not to mention being incredibly cruel to the poor girl who might then think she had options she most assuredly did not have.
So Anno braided her thick red hair back away from her face in finger thick sailor's braids. Which must be covered by her kerchief on those few occasions she had to wear girls clothes and use the name Anna Farmer.
A normal day found her coltishly long limbs and body covered in castoff boys clothes she'd pinched from the church's charity box. Her fair skin long since tanned nut brown in a manner her uncle found distasteful almost to the point of offense and often brought up when reprimanding her for any of her many infractions. Her skin was now lightly freckled with red-brown spots the color of the river clay it was so often coated with. A permenant change that her uncle said might as well be scars for how much it drove her bride price down. Anno laughed and said that was the idea, earning herself a sound thrashing.
Anno went out and made or took in pieces the life she desired. She found her way through the trees and over the roofs of possibly every building in town. Through many a basement and cupboard, when windows and cellar doors were left unlatched.
She was incorrigible and unchallengeable. Found at the head of every army or group of highwaymen. If a group of boys filled a tree, crowing, next to a seminary exam room. She could be found in the center. Her closest lieutenants knew her secret and didn't share it for the deep love and loyalty she inspired; added to the fear of a worse thrashing then they suffered after making any number of comments she might choose to take as mocking or condescending.
Her cleverness and need for secrecy inspired her to have skinny dipping in the river, a perennial favorite, declared babyish and stupid. Every boy who feared cruel mockery and having his clothes stolen and thrown down a well soon found swimming in his street clothes the fun and rebellious act she claimed it was.
She was not the only transformed girl among the village boys then. The others were never allowed so close as to take her down with them should they ever be discovered. But they did provide assistance when one or another of them was in danger of being unmasked. In a liberal town such as this, being discovered masquerading as a boy only carried the penalty of flogging to falling and being shipped to a convent for life.
If the girl was of age, and not unattractive, she might be raped into marriage on the road to the convent but it would never be tolerated in town limits.
This created a situation where if you were almost found out they banded together to save you, if you were undeniably unmasked no one knew you, and the other 'boys' were the loudest and most offensive in their denunciations.
The reason girls kept trying this same door to freedom was it was the only other choice to being a wife or a nun. And sometimes it even worked; the leader who had mentored Anno, had successfully enrolled in the Imperial Naval Academy two years prior. A feat Anno hoped to replicate later that year.
But until then she led her army, interspersed with farm girls and town girls alike, against their most hated and envied of enemies, Riverfolk, the Sail Weavers. In Arendelle, as well as most the lands of her world, they were nearly all Faoine, with their garnet red hair and milk white skin that never freckled, except with the few half breeds. Behind locked and guarded gates they labored in walled Freeholds.
There were those who said they had shut down commerce between the worlds for two months when the empire tried to assimilate them. Others said they were left alone because that was their price for actively collaborating with the Downfall of the People's Council and the rise of the Imperium and the Church of the Widower. Regardless, now they were treated practically as a different species then the people outside their walls. They alone could make the sails that billowed and filled with light rather than wind, the sails that made sailing between the worlds possible. Both on the ships that sailed The Void between worlds, and on the Lesser Ships both schooners and avian form that sailed or flew the skies.
They were universally feared and treated like human garbage even as far as two streets from their compounds. They had to travel in groups so they wouldn't be abused in broad daylight. The Imperium limited how many children they could have, on threat of just killing any over-births themselves. It was a life no sane person would choose as far as Anno and her friends would say.
But they were allowed to keep the old ways, were rumored to be witches and the girls openly played with the boys. In every battle there were young girls, their skirts pulled up showing their knees and often above, quite shamelessly. Their skirts filled with hard heavy clods of river clay and functioning as ammo dumps for the children surrounding each girl. She would throw with one hand while the other held her skirt up like a basket, an amount no boy's pocket could match.
Even though they were hated, feared, and reviled; Anno envied them so bitterly she had to actively distract herself sometimes, so her bile would not creep up the back of her throat, in rage, envy, and bitter hate.
Not at the girls, who even as she punished them, she knew it was not their fault. But instead at the Imperium and the world she lived in. She had no possible clue who her grandmother was, but she knew beyond doubt that she was just as free as the river girls. After joining, if she managed it, she would fight the Imperial Aero Navy from within. Though she had no clue yet how she might do that.
Of course she was not completely ignorant of how to nibble away at the speed expected of a teenage girl versus an empire.
She once led her army into a vacant troop carrier parked near the river. And suddenly two dozen children were able to commit treason. Anno found the controls of an imperial avian troop transport were simplified to the point where they bore a strong resemblance to the land transports used to take her farms goods to market. The only difference an added up/down lever that she recognized by it being the one lever she'd not seen before and operated using the assumption that since it was grounded it must be fully in the down position and opposite must be up. She blessed providence for the Imperium thinking its troops so stupid.
She did not know why they were called avian transports as they looked nothing like birds. They looked like giant cigars with flat blocky rectangular wings. They were completely made out of sunsail cloth stretched tight over a light metal frame. But whatever name was given them to see the simple sticks she recognized as so similar to the wagon she was allowed to drive back home had filled her with terrified delight. She was going to do it.
Anno got it up on her own. Her troops never expected to find themselves airborne but they embraced it and crowed. Then chanting her name they poured over the transport looking for possible stealables. They knew that they only had a moment to have their thrill and make whatever small blow they might against the Imperium and get out before they were caught and punished beyond reason.
She eventually crashed it into the center of the Weaver Freehold, knowing the Imperium Guard could not enter to arrest them. They ran through the few streets behind the walls, shrieking and laughing, holding their small easily hideable pilfered souvenir treasures.
Except Anno who had found the captain's pistol, carelessly draped on his belt and left behind. A mistake that was likely to take his captaincy.
She ran half expecting to have to use it to get them out of the Freehold. But every adult she saw was laughing openly and waving them on. Finally they came to the bath house where an old man who looked too dark and leathery to be a Weaver. "Anno Simian, you get your ratboys in here." He called.
Knowing they were not safe yet and drunk on chaos she took the old man's advice and led her troops into the bath house.
When the door was closed the old man led them to a large steaming pool. "Very well now, you all get in the pool and I'll pull out the bung. Hold your breath and go down the drain one at a time. It is an eight foot drop into the sewers but they are deep enough to dive into this close to the river. After that last storm you'll find them as clean as you can hope for. Swim toward the light and you'll be in the river proper in maybe two cord. I suggest you get as many of your friends swimming in the river as fast as you can round them up. The more of you that are running around wet and dirty the better. In case they put together how you got out of here. They probably have just mustering at our walls and you will have a brief safety window while they are looking around for you to come out through a door or over the wall."
He went over to the winch that would break the tar seal on the enormous ceramic plug and hoist it out of the way. The troops all began to jump into the water. And Anno was down the drain and splashing around in the half dark of the sewer before she wondered who he was and how he knew her name.
Lady Elsa Coronet knew she was not presentable when she arrived at the receiving room of her father's charthouse. She knew he would be there as he was from dawn until long after dusk on the last day of every cycle, overseeing the statistics of all his holdings. Technical Administration Officer Black was at the desk. "Lady," He said before she could speak, "Your father not only said you were to be escorted into his office the moment I saw you, he also has been out half a dozen times to ask me if you had presented yourself yet. He is anxious and distressed. I'm sorry to have you presented in such a state, but there is no helping it." Officer Black was young enough to actually believe every woman was so concerned with appearances that in this situation it would be the most important aspect.
"Do not worry about it, Sir. Please just take me in and let my father know I am here." He saluted with a shallow bow and walked her back to her father's private office, leaving her there while he hurried off to fetch her father.
The Lord entered with Black a respectful distance behind him. "Daughter," He said.
"Father," She said kneeling and kissing his hand. "I await your sufferance father, I have news."
"I would certainly expect so, under the circumstances." He pointed to the door. "Dismissed, Black. Tell the others to take a meal break, I may be some time."
"Sir." Black acknowledged, bowed and saluted, then left them.
"Elsa, delivering medical and survival supplies to known loyalists? You aren't safe to even leave the family lands alone and you are commanding clandestine operations for the Council's government in exile."
"It was a humanitarian mission of mercy, father. Mercy does not recognize politics." She said, trying to sound strong and confident.
"See, my love, therein lies the problem. That excuse would work if the positions were reversed; if it was a strong council battling guerrilla Imperial forces. But in the eyes of his Imperial Majesty any assistance given to his enemies is treason. Pure and simple, no excuses. And you were caught doing it. The only thing we have going for us is you are not in custody. So possibly we can just try to hardline it. Just insist that it wasn't you. But this will damage the power and credibility of the Council. This is bad, Elsa and we don't know how bad yet, and won't know completely for a while. Lord Hans is coming day after tomorrow for dinner and I expect it will get worse after that." He hung his head as he finished and let her seat him in a chair.
"Hans, father?" She asked when she had seated herself near him.
"Lord Hans, and I doubt that's the worst of it." He said, sounding lost and scared and surprisingly old.