It hadn't all been thieving, of course. Their years in the hidden Elderglass burrow had been cooking and learning and arguing and laughing and everything else as well. They each carved out whatever bit of private space they could and created their own rituals and traditions for sharing their home with five other people who could sneak up on you while you slept (or beat you to a pulp, if your name was Locke Lamora).
So it had started as something the Sanzas sang while getting ready to go out drinking and cardsharping when they were teenagers. Once they realized how much it annoyed the rest of the Bastards, they started singing it while cooking, counting the day's haul, and for one interminable week, in Vadran while they practiced their accents.
It wasn't long before Calo and Galdo caught Jean, Locke, and even eventually Sabetha singing it to themselves while working on chores around the burrow. Father Chains came home one night to find the five of them gathered in the kitchen, drinking and cheating each other at cards and practically shouting the words across the table. He pitched his voice so his "For the love of the Thirteen!" would carry back to them before he shut himself in his room to a chorus of laughs.
The song- just some folk song the Sanzas had picked up at a Revel- became a part of their lives. Bits of it were used in codes, or whistled at night to identify themselves, or sung to each other, in turns to amuse and annoy the rest of the gang.
The song lost its luster for Locke and Jean after Chains died and Sabetha left, but the twins never stopped using it in signals for each other.
Locke and Jean hadn't heard it for years, not until the night they officially became pirates on the Poison Orchid. they still weren't speaking, but when a few of the Orchids started singing the familiar words, they locked eyes across the ship. Locke raised the bottle of wine he was nursing in Jean's direction. Jean followed suit, then poured some out on the deck. "A drink poured to air for lost friends," he whispered.
Locked poured some of his own wine out. "A drink poured to air for the Calo and Galdo Sanza. We will conquer them all," Locke whispered back.
for katilara, who wanted a song about the Sanzas and got a fic too.
thanks to ashley for being so easy to make sad and king charles for having such a wonderful song! (the video's on youtube. check it out!)