"Everyone, man the ship!" Sanja shouted as it pulled out from the dock. "We have a long ride to Montressor, and I don't want to be late!" Sanja pulled her headband tighter around her head, then fastening the belt that held her gun and her sword. "Stewart! Why aren't you manning the ropes?" she noticed a young hand quietly humming to herself, watching the dock fade into the distance, her short red hair blowing in her face, and her desperately trying to keep it back.
Jen Stewart hesitated and turned around. Her wide blue eyes couldn't possibly get much wider when she saw her captain coming toward her. She quickly gathered up herself and ran to the main mast, where the crew's life ropes were tied down.
"Captain!" She pulled her hair back again. "I didn't notice you coming. I was just…" she cut off when the captain finished her trek to Jen.
"Save it, Stewart. I saw you mingling over by the sides. What were you doing? Daydreaming?" Sanja put her hand on Jen's shoulder, and smiled.
Jen managed a small smile in return and her hair fell back and blurred her vision again. "Um…no. I was just, you know, wondering about the trip. I mean, where is Montressor, and what is it?" Jen was flooding Sanja with too many questions, and she took her free hand and held it up.
"No more." Sanja led Jen down to the cabins. "Come with me, I want to show you something." She sat Jen down on her hanging cot and her hand remained on her shoulder. With her left hand, Sanja pulled her headband off of her head, letting her own messy dark blonde, almost brown, hair fall to her shoulders. "I want you, Jen, to have this. I remember when I was just like you, which wasn't very long ago. Not even a year. How old are you?"
Jen didn't look at Sanja, but replied, "Thirteen, Captain." She took the headband from her captain and pulled her hair behind her ears. She adjusted the band just so that her hair remained behind her ears instead of falling in her eyes evey so often. "Thank you."
Sanja laughed and looked up from Jen. "Oh, thirteen. Good. You're in your prime, Jen. Make the most of life. That's what I did, at least. I don't know if being a pirate counts." She then became serious and focused her attention once more on Jen. "Do you know why I became a pirate? Or why I'm even a captain?"
Jen didn't answer. She shook her head but that was all.
Sanja didn't hesitate, but continued her story. "I didn't mean for my life to be this…exciting." She admitted finally. "I wanted a simple life on the Treasure Planet, which isn't really a planet, you know. I lived there for fifteen years of my life, and those years were spent in regret. I hated living with my parents. On my fifteenth birthday, they didn't even acknowledge it."
"That's hurtful. They must have hated you, too!" Jen gasped under her breath.
"I'm getting to the ignorance later." Sanja continued. "Anywho, that was the day my life took a monstrous turn."
"What happened? Did you hurt yourself? Did you meet someone? Find something?" Jen became curious now, her red hair bobbed with the movement of the ship. She almost lost balance when she stood up to go sit on Sanja's trunk. "I guess I'm not used to open space yet."
Sanja stood up next to Jen and did a few spins in her heavy black boots. "You get used to it after a while. So, I didn't find anything, that day, at least. I did meet someone who would change my life. And as you can tell, I didn't hurt myself." Sanja did a few more spins and knelt down in front of her trunk, punching in the code to make it open with ease. She reached inside, and removed a maroon colored sheet first, folding it carefully so it wouldn't fall in a heap. "Recently, I had a run-in with a notorious pirate that you've probably heard of."
Jen knelt beside Sanja. "Who?"
"John Silver. A devil he was. I met him. He took me from my home on Treasure Planet that day, the day of my birth. My life changed then. He sabotaged a ship, stole a map, and played double-agent to a close friend of mine, who I'll tell you about soon." Jen put her full interest into the story now. "It all started like this. When I woke up, I called for my parents. There was no answer. I received a note saying they had gone down to the docks. And on my birthday! So, I decided to run away. I was old enough to make my own decisions. When I stepped out of my house, Silver was waiting for me. He took me to his getaway ship, and then back to the Spaceport, which we just sailed from. Which reminds me…" Sanja stood up and called to the main deck, "What is our location, Nott?" she waited about fifteen seconds for a reply of: "Fifteen leagues east of Montressor, Captain." Sanja smiled and returned to her trunk. "So, where was I?"
Jen was taking a look inside the trunk, and had scavenged a picture of a boy, no older than Sanja herself, with short brown hair and a small pink blob in his palm. "Who…who is this?" she asked. Sanja took the picture from Jen, and examined it carefully. On the back, there was small, narrow print that took up almost three-quarters of the page. It was signed Jim. "A face I haven't seen in a long time. This is what we're headed for, Jen Stewart. This is what I've been searching for for many months and days. This is Jim Hawkins, one of the best pirates alive today." She took a moment to read the letter. Every once in a while, a small smile escaped from her mouth and she laughed lightly. "He always made me laugh. Now, where in my tale was I?"
Jen hissed. "Oh right. You were saying that John Silver had taken you?" she sat cross-legged on the floor, twirling her finger in various directions.
Sanja remembered her place. "Correct you are, Jen. As I was saying, he took me to the RLS Legacy, a ship captained by…well, Captain Amelia and her right-hand man, Mr. Arrow. I was taken to the galley with Silver and shoved into the pantry when Jim first appeared. He seemed very…to himself, you know? I listened through the door. Jim didn't say much, but got right to work. Then, he found me."
Jen gasped. "Then what? Then what?" she bounced up and down on the floor, almost piercing a hole through the boards. "I want to know!"
Sanja laughed. "Well, at first he thought I wasn't alone in the closet."
"Ew."
"And I told him I was alone. So then, he retreated to the top deck again, and I began washing the dishes he was supposed to do. I began to sing this little anthem I made about my home, and he came back down again. Jim said I had a wonderful voice, but I didn't think it was all that great. So he sits down next to me and begins drying my washed dishes! The nerve. But then…then…" Sanja faded into her silent memory.
Jen shook her elbow. "Then…?"
"Oh, right." Sanja escaped her private mind. "He asked me if I wanted to go solar surfing with him. Of course, I knew how, but not as well as he did. We had to share my board, since he didn't have one with him…I shan't forget that. Anywho, after the solar surfing, Jim and I remained friends."
"Is that it?" Jen asked.
"No, no. That was far from the end." Sanja pulled her hair from her face and reached into the open trunk. "I have something else I want to show you."
"What is it?" Jen asked again.
"It's something that I received on my birthday. It's very valuable to me, even though it hasn't much value." Sanja pulled out a small coin from a leather pouch and placed it in her palm. "A gold piece. No doubt a token from Silver, but also a sign of what was to come ahead, if I followed his orders." Sanja pulled her fist closed and held the gold piece close to her chest. "I didn't follow his orders. I was part of his mutiny."
"I heard about that." Jen put in.
"You have no idea," Sanja said. "It was worse than any other mutiny I've ever been part of, or at least, heard about."
Jen hastened her breath and continued. "How bad?"
"Bad enough," Sanja leaned in close, almost like a whisper. "That I risked mine and Jim's life in the process."