The girls relaxed on the ship's deck, watching the stars make their first ever appearance that night as the sun set. They had finished their chores, no complaints, questioning, or whining in sight. Ana had been given the chores of securing all the rigging, polishing Jack's sword, and cleaning up the galley. Rachel had been given the chores of swabbing the poop deck, tidying up all the bunk rooms in the lower level, and cleaning out the cannons. Jack had to admit that these girls were tougher than he had first thought them to be.
The girls ignored the footsteps of their father and captain as he neared them, both simply leaning against the main mast and watching the sky. As he took a seat next to Ana, however, they acknowledged him with a simple 'evening captain'. He smiled at them, then motioned them to get on with their story.
Ana patted her sister, signaling that she was too tired at the moment to say anything, so Rachel nodded and sighed. "Where would you like me to being, Captain?"
"How 'bout why ye moved from France to Scotland?" Rachel nodded, then closed her eyes for a brevity of ten seconds before delving into the story.
"Well, our mother was in a town, as I'm sure you know, that was known for its whores. She didn't want her children growing up in that type of environment, and she had apparently always wanted to go to Scotland. So she bardered a ride off of an elderly man, and all she had to do was care for his own sick children until they reached their destination.
"Until we were born, our mother worked different jobs in order to rent a room in a house, pay for her own meals, and buy some newer clothes. She worked as a bar maid, a cook in a pub, and a cleaning maid in an inn. Around February, she took off work for a bit since she was nearing her time of birth. On March 17th, she gave birth to her two girls. She named us Ana and Rachel, Ana being the older one by like, two minutes?" Ana hit her sister playfully as Rachel pretended to be confused by how much older Ana was than her.
"Anyways, she ended up raising us without schooling for a good deal, until we were around, eight I believe. We worked in barns, cleaning up for families and such for money. Mother went back to working her three jobs. Soon, however, she met Mr. John Cutler." She said the name with such disgust, that it took Jack by surprise. Ana merely sighed. "He didn't seem like a bad man, not really, at first. But the longer he stayed in my mother's company, the more she changed. It wasn't long before she was preaching to us about how such childish games we would play were not acceptable, and that we should care more about our appearance, and to stop wearing boy's clothing. Soon after her preaching began, she moved in with him.
"When we were ten, John sent us both to private tutors to catch us up on our missed schooling. It wasn't long before we were at an average sixteen year old's level, and we were able to take some time off of schooling. Amazingly it was our choice on if we wanted to do that or not, even though neither of the two were happy with our decision. But, all the same, Ana and I began to sneak out of the house and play with the children of the town, dressing like boys, whatever we could to regain the freedom we had when we were younger.
"But we didn't completely fit in because of the way we talked. We had proper english, like we do now, and we didn't know how to adapt their way of speaking. Thus, we were made fun of some. But that wasn't what we were bothered by. We were bothered by how material our mother had become. She became obsessed with the dresses we wore, and how cultural we were. So she hired a personal dress maker that she could boss around and hired me a piano teacher. Ana lucked out, she didn't have to take any lessons."
"Ah, not true," Ana said, interrupting you. She had held out a hand, one finger extended. "I had to take dance lessons for half a year. Those were annoying as any bloody hell you could ever imagine." Rachel smiled and smacked her sister jokingly to get her to shut up.
Rachel was about to begin again, when suddenly, a noise from behind them caught her attention. She jumped up at the sound of Mr. Fraye's voice conversing with someone. Her eyes met a sight she did not want to see, not right then, and she turned, her back pressed against the wooden side of the ship, to face her father and sister. "We have to leave. Now."
A/N: I know, took long to get this up, but hey, I'm slow. Well, I hope it suffices until I can come up with more, and don't worry, the rest of the story of the girls will be told eventually. I hope ya'll liked it!
--renee--